Category Archives: Crap For Brains

People and especially governments do some incredibly stupid stuff. This is about those stupid actions.

Quote of the day—Scott Mann MP @scottmann4NC

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Every knife sold in the UK should have a gps tracker fitted in the handle. It’s time we had a national database like we do with guns. If you’re carrying it around you had better have a bloody good explanation, obvious exemptions for fishing etc.

Scott Mann MP @scottmann4NC
Tweeted on March 14, 2019
[There are so many great responses to this. My first response was an English version of:

Une chose qui m’humilie profondément est de voir que le génie humain a des limites, quand la bêtise humaine n’en a pas.

Alex. Dum.

In English:

One thing that humbles me deeply is to see that human genius has its limits while human stupidity does not.

But the best responses I have yet seen came from private Facebook posts*:

I demand you recognize the amazing act of courage he performs every morning when he peeks out from under the covers.

…

Imagine getting the vapors over humanity’s oldest & simplest manufactured tool.

The presence or absence of knives is how we tell where the apes stop and the people start in the earliest pages of our species’ family photo album.

This is not the deluded ranting of someone in a random psych ward. This is the deluded ranting of someone in a very specific psych ward called Parliament.

But, as it turns out, this is almost for certain British humor that didn’t translate that well into the U.S. where we think the U.K. handling of private gun ownership is just as absurd as this suggestion about knives—Joe]

* If given permission (they sometimes read this blog) I will post their name in an update.

Quote of the day—Dr. Jennifer Walker

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The fact that we’re seeing an emergence of modern rates of rise at all of these individual study sites as well by the mid 20th century just further demonstrates the really significant influence of global sea-level rise especially in the last century. By delving into individual sites the better understanding we have of regional and local processes impacting sea-level rise will continue to improve our understanding for future impacts.

Dr. Jennifer Walker
Rutgers University professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences
February 25, 2022
Burning coal has been driving sea level rise since the 19th century: study
[There are other things of interest in the article:

Utilizing a global database of geological sea level records from the past 2,000 years, the international team of researchers modeled global and site-specific sea level rise. They determined that in the United States, modern sea level rise can be discerned earliest in the Mid-Atlantic region somewhat later in the 19th century. By doing so, they hope to facilitate a better understanding of local processes driving variations in sea level changes.

This is not the first time I have seen stuff like this that I find bizarre. They appear to believe the ocean levels can change locally. Am I’m missing something? Or are they really that stupid?

How can you have local changes in the ocean level that do not become global within a day or less? There is a bulge of water than travels entirely around the globe in one day. It is due to gravity from the moon and sun. It is causes what are called tides, remember? Any local change in ocean level will spread out evenly around the entire earth, right? Why do these “scientists” claim there are local changes?—Joe]

Quote of the day—The Socialist Party @OfficialSPGB

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There have been no “failures”. To fail it must first exist. Which country’s population has managed to free themselves and create a class-free society where the PEOPLE collectively owned the natural resources, industries etc? Most people don’t know what socialism / communism is.

The Socialist Party @OfficialSPGB
Tweeted on January 21, 2022
[If it has never existed then all the millions of people who died in the failed attempts surely must be considered “a clue”. But that they persist tells us one, or both, of two things:

  1. They are totally without a clue.
  2. Killing tens or hundreds of millions of people is intentional.

Therefore, if they persist, we should just say, “No!” until we run out of ammo, then affix bayonets and continue with hand-to-hand.—Joe]

What are you thinking?

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I’ve been busy recently and haven’t posted some things I wanted to weeks ago. It has come to the point I’m irritated so much that I have to say it. I’m withholding names to protect the guilty. Please don’t take offense if you decide I’m talking about you. I could be, but just because I am does not mean that I am going to shun you or am deliberately shaming you. That’s not my intent.

I’m pretty open minded about a lot of things. Reality is hard. I know that. Can we still keep things friendly even though I think you might have a circuit or two crosswired in your brain?

God? Gods? Pro-Life? Pro-Choice? I can probably argue four or more different sides to each of those questions and be reasonably convincing to the average person even though I am pretty sure which is the correct answer. Believe what you want as long as you don’t insist everyone conform to your beliefs and as far as I’m concerned we’re all good.

There are things which are less certain. Some of the UFOs (currently called Unidentified Aerial Phenomena–UAPs) are alien craft? Global warming/cooling/climate-change? The 2021 presidential election was totally rigged? Bitcoin will replace the U.S. Dollar in the next ‘N’ years? Bitcoin is a great/terrible investment? I just don’t know. I suspect the general public does not have enough information to determine an answer with a high degree of certainty to any of these questions. Again, I can probably be convincing to the average person no matter which side I wanted to take.

There are other things which are more clear cut. Actual moon landing or faked? Flat earth or spherical? 9/11 was an inside job? Sorry. You don’t get any slack from me if you start trying to convince me we don’t actually have satellites in orbit or that because steel doesn’t melt at burning jet fuel temperatures the WTC collapses had explosive help.

Let’s think about the claim all test animals for the mRNA “vaccines”* died. I first heard this several months ago and went looking for the research papers. It turns out that, at least in the papers I saw, this was true! Damning evidence, right? No.The animals died because the researchers performed necropsies on all of them. The results, that I saw in the papers I read, were that everything looked normal.

It is as if someone was trolling the general population to see how many people would draw the incorrect conclusion from factual data. Good joke! I actually laughed at the cleverness. But why would anyone persist in believing that even if they didn’t find the research papers and read them? Think about it some!

Suppose all, or even 10% of the test animals, died from the mRNA vaccine. How many researchers are going to go before their human subject testing review board** (sample of what is involved here) and say, “All the test animals died. We are going to test it on humans next.”?

Sure, there are people that think people are a plague on the earth and all humans (except perhaps others like them who are sufficient “woke”) should be exterminated. They don’t convince tens of thousands of other people to work on their project, get billions of dollars to produce and deliver their product without someone getting cold feet about the prospects and delivering overwhelming evidence to the general public of the impending doom of half the human population. Even small religious cults have people leaving and telling the dark stories from the inside.

After giving this a little thought, if you actually believe the whole mRNA “vaccines” are “Going to kill 100s of thousands (or more)” and people knew this all along, I have to ask, “Really? What are you thinking? How do determine truth from falsity? What color is the sky in your universe?”

You want to talk about VAERS data? Okay. Let’s talk about it.

You might claim there is a huge increase in adverse reactions to mRNA “vaccines” compared to all other vaccines. Yup, it’s right there for everyone to see. But, there are some things to take into account before you reach valid conclusions. Unless you received a COVID-19 immunization you probably did not know people who received the “vaccine” were encouraged to sign up to receive and fill out a survey every day for a week, then once a week for several weeks, then another after a few months. They would send a text message to (IIRC) the CDC. Then they would receive text messages with links to the surveys. They would be asked how they were feeling. They were encouraged to report even very mild stuff, like a headache or muscle stiffness. Anything that might be considered an “adverse reaction”.

Suppose, they had a headache or some stiff muscles a month later; was it because they drank a little bit too much the previous evening or were hunched over the reloading bench all afternoon? Or was it because of the vaccine? They didn’t ask about those possibilities. The CDC just wanted the “adverse reaction”. I expect the noise was to be filtered out by looking for correlation with reports from other people at week ‘N’. To the best of my knowledge this has never been done with other vaccines. If you are looking at the raw data, without the noise filtering, you are going to see a lot of noise. And the number of reports are going to be much larger than with other vaccines because maybe 100x more people received the COVID-19 shots than your normal flu, MMR, and/or tetanus vaccinations. This combined with the encouragement and easy reporting of trivial “adverse reactions” results in the raw numbers being huge.

I’ve heard things to the effect of “Bill Gates is behind it and he is evil.” Gates was ruthless as a business man. I would have had serious moral qualms doing many of the things he did to competitors. He was good to his employees. When I worked at Microsoft I had numerous people who know him far better than I do say things to the effect that he would be more than fair to employees in situations where he had no obligation to be so. I’ve know people who talked to Melinda Gates about the work done by the Gates Foundation. I know people who worked on the Gates house and had long term personal contact with Bill and Melinda. I know one woman who went on a date with him. I know a woman who volunteered at the same charity has Bill’s mother and worked with her frequently. None of them even hinted at any dark side with him or his family. He was sometimes a little odd, but this was in a geeky rather than evil genius or creepy way.

Could Gates be bankrolling the deliberate extermination of millions? The odds are extremely low. He couldn’t hire enough guards or pay them enough money to keep the angry mobs at bay once it was discovered. He is not stupid. He is not suicidal. I believe the Gates Foundation really is intended to make the world a better place for humans. There is no intent to make the world a better place without humans. It is inconsistent with everything I know about him, his family, and the foundation. I think there is enough public information for anyone to arrive at a similar conclusion without many reservations.

Do I agree with all his politics and projects? No, but I think they are well intentioned even if they are misguided or flat out wrong.

On a different tangent maybe we can work out some answers on our own without relying on information from questionable sources like random podcasts, YouTube videos, word of month, memes, and worst of all, the CDC and other government sources.

Let’s run a little statistics experiment. In the comments or by sending me an email tell me how many people you have personally met*** which meet one or more the following criteria:

  1. Had a reaction to a mRNA “vaccine” which resulted in an ER visit and/or hospitalization.
  2. Had a reaction to a mRNA “vaccine” which resulted in long term (two or more months) adverse effects.
  3. Had a reaction to a mRNA “vaccine” which resulted in death.
  4. Had COVID-19 which which resulted in an ER visit and/or hospitalization.
  5. Had COVID-19 which resulted in long term (two or more months) adverse effects.
  6. Had COVID-19 which resulted in death.

Don’t double report anyone. For example, if the person died don’t also report them as having long term adverse effects.

Here are my answers:

  • One person for item 1.
  • One person for item 4. (Added on 1/25/2022 after I remembered someone else).
  • One person for item 5.
  • One person for item 6.

Please be honest. “Stuffing the ballot box” isn’t going to change anything beyond a tiny corner of Joe’s world. And, almost for certain, the statistics will point you out as being a liar.

Next weekend I’ll collect the data and make a short report. My guess is that this little experiment will be more “interesting” than most people think it would be.

* Quoted as a deliberate concession because I don’t think that point is particularly important one way or the other.

** I had to do this for one project I worked on. I was gathering anonymous data from computers about the movement of the mouse. I was not gathering any information about what applications they were using or even if they clicked the mouse. I only collected timestamps and the position of the mouse at that time. It took weeks and answering lots of questions to get approval.

*** This needs to be carefully defined to get valid results. Consider “personally met” as meaning you were, at least once, in the same room/location as them and there is a good chance they would remember you as well as you remembering them. My brother’s niece, on his wife side of the family, who I have never met, having serious complications from COVID-19 linger after a year doesn’t count.

Quote of the day—Rhona Redtail @Rhona_Redtail

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the DOT should charge Walmart trucks to use the interstates.

Rhona Redtail @Rhona_Redtail
Tweeted on January 4, 2022
[Truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense.*

If I were to make up ignorant and/or stupid stuff about people saying something like this you wouldn’t believe it.

It should be no surprise she is anti-gun too. Anti-gun attitudes are highly correlated with ignorance and stupidity.—Joe]

* There used to be a couple of morning DJs on KJR in Seattle that had a regular “thing” of telling stories about stupid/ignorant stuff and they used this as their tag line.

Quote of the day—Dan

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High-pressure weather systems in the winter bring lots of sun (at a low angle) and little or no wind, just when energy demands are at their highest. The clear skies also let the earth’s heat radiate off into space at night, so it gets real cold. In the summer that same system will also result in little or no wind, and the high angle of the sun and the clear skies will result in lots of heat, and airconditioning demands lots of electricity.

Politicians don’t consult meteorologists or engineers. They consult people like Greta.

Dan
January 2, 2022
Comment to We Don’t Need No Stinking Frozen Fans
[The critical component of the article being commented on:

Alberta’s entire fleet of 13 grid-connected solar facilities, rated at 736 megawatts, was contributing 58 megawatts to the grid. The 26 wind farms, with a combined rated capacity of 2,269 megawatts, was feeding the grid 18 megawatts.

Be cautious of the inclination to “let them freeze in the dark” to “learn their lesson”. That may not turn out the way you might hope. We need a better way to show them the light.—Joe]

Quote of the day—John Boch

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Clearly the First Amendment doesn’t restrict an Ivy League seat-warmer from dishing out inane dorm room “wisdom” about topics he clearly doesn’t understand. We hate to break it to you, David, but enumerated rights limit what the government can do, not citizens.

Oh, and no one has a “right” not to be shot. Unlike keeping and bearing arms, “not being shot” doesn’t make an appearance in the Bill of Rights. Or anywhere else in the Constitution for that matter.

You have no exemption from being perforated. Not by criminals. Not by the government. Not even by yourself, if you’re careless enough.

Americans with IQs above room temperature increasingly understand that nothing stops bad people with evil in their hearts like a good guy with a gun. That’s why, even in states with extremely restrictive gun control laws, firearm sales remain at or near record high rates.

John Boch
December 29, 2021
David Hogg is Confused: None of Our Rights Are Absolute
[This is in reference to this tweet by David Hogg. He says:

The second amendment is not an absolute right. None of our rights are.

We have a right to not be shot.

Boch is being too kind. Hogg has been thoroughly schooled many, many times on this and closely related topics. He choses to continue tweeting the falsehoods. That makes it lying, not confusion.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Chauncey DeVega

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Thomas Massie and Lauren Boebert, two of the most blatantly fascistic Republican members of Congress, are dreaming of a White Christmas — with the emphasis on “White.”

In the spirit of holiday cheer, Massie and Boebert recently shared family Christmas photos on social media — in which every family member is brandishing a gun. There’s nothing unique about them. Such a “tradition” is fairly common among a particular subculture of American gun fetishists and “ammosexuals.” This is but another symptom of America’s unhealthy infatuation with gun violence.

Chauncey DeVega
December 24, 2021
White supremacist Christmas: Those Boebert and Massie “gun photos” are a direct threat
[Reading the article was like reading about the trial in Darkness at Noon, propaganda from Nazi Germany, or the twisted reality described by the mentally ill. It is an elaborate tale constructed upon the flimsiest of scaffolding for evil purposes or from a delusional mind.

Even the pictures supplied were distorted.

These are the pictures supplied for the article:
BoebertMassie

The pictures supplied by Boebert and Massie:

boebert-guns-family-

Massie

It is my belief normal people are catching on to the disconnect from reality. The political left cannot bear to slow “progress” and push their delusions all the harder. Furthering the rife between reality and their “progress”.

This will not end well. Prepare appropriately.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Priya Mammen

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No matter where you fall on the right to bear arms, there can be no dispute that gun locks, safe storage, and regulated access to weapons are basic tenets that benefit all of us. It took a veto from Gov. Tom Wolf to strike down the concealed-carry bill, which had already passed through the Pennsylvania legislature.

Priya Mammen
December 9, 2021
We need to embrace a public health mantra: ‘none of us, unless all of us’ | Expert Opinion
[I always marvel at how someone can contract themselves in adjacent sentences. In the first sentence she says “there can be no dispute”. In the second sentence she points out the Pennsylvania legislature and governor had a dispute about the public benefit of permitless carry.

What is going on here? Was the first sentence a deliberate lie and she forgot the details of the lie by the time she wrote the next sentence? Or does she regard people who disagree with her on this topic to be sub humans unworthy of having an opinion worth considering?

In any case, it is absolutely amazing!

And in this case she is touted as an “Expert”. How can someone so careless, and transparently so, with the truth lay claim to being an expert?

Furthermore, the by line claims:

Priya E. Mammen is an emergency physician and public health specialist. She is a fellow of the Lindy Institute of Urban Innovation and trustee of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.

Would you want someone as your physician who lies so easily and/or is incapable of detecting irrational thought patterns in herself?—Joe]

Quote of the day—Rachel Sillcocks

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It’s not about the fact that we are anti-police. It is about the fact that we do not allow weapons in our restaurant. We were uncomfortable, and we asked them to leave. It has nothing to do that they were officers. It has everything to do that they were carrying guns.

Rachel Sillcocks
December 4, 2021
San Francisco restaurant owner explains why police officers denied service
[This is what happens when people have messed up wiring in their brain and think inanimate objects are more indicative of behavior than the people in control of the objects. This is what they think of gun ownership. You magically become good or evil based on the existence or absence of certain types of inanimate objects in your possession. This is undeniable prejudice.

I can understand the impulse for non-discrimination legislation to protect gun owners access to public accommodations. I can also understand the impulse for police officers to be slow to respond.

They have since said they made a mistake and apologized. I’m sure the 1.0 average Yelp score had nothing to do with it.—Joe]

The mind of an anti-gun advocate (@Pigdowndog)

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See also A process failure aka Peterson Syndrome and truth and falsity for more glimpses inside their minds.

From the comments to Quote of the day—Pigdowndog @Pigdowndog. Please be cautious in extrapolating these results to other people, especially if they come from a different country and/or demographic.

My quick look for more information on Pigdowndog resulted in moderate confidence he is in the range of 75 to 85 years old, lived a number of years in southern France, and I have high confidence he currently lives Southwest of London.

In my initial QOTD post, I said “Simple logic for simple minds.” I way over estimated his ability to think logically. Sorry about that. But he arrived on scene and didn’t take long to correct my error. Here is the evidence:

pkoning on October 18, 2021 at 6:42 am said:

You mean the UK, where a defenseless MP was murdered just days ago by a knife wielding religious fanatic?

Toastrider on October 18, 2021 at 6:50 am said:

And that’s with knife control in England.

Lulz.

Pigdowndog on October 23, 2021 at 3:09 am said:

There is no knife control in the UK apart from an age limit to buying them which is wholly sensible.

You’re right about the murder of an M.P. being tragic but that doesn’t mean that he should have been armed.

Even if he was do you think he would have had a chance to reach for the gun before the knife struck?

It’s real life, not Hollywood.

Thankfully those horrendous events are rare over here unlike over there.

Joe on October 23, 2021 at 10:01 am said:

I still would like to know what color the sky is in your universe. It’s very clear we do not live in the same reality. In my universe U.K. law states:

The maximum penalty for an adult carrying a knife is 4 years in prison and an unlimited fine. You’ll get a prison sentence if you’re convicted of carrying a knife more than once.

Basic laws on knives
It’s illegal to possess a banned knife or weapon. It’s also illegal to:

bring into the UK, sell, hire, lend or give someone a banned knife or weapon
carry any knife in public without good reason, unless it has a manual folding blade less than 3 inches long
sell a knife to anyone under the age of 18, unless it has a manual folding blade less than 3 inches long

The list of banned knives is long and includes batons and blowpipes.

Pigdowndog on October 24, 2021 at 2:44 am said:

You conveniently left out;
“carry any knife in public without good reason, unless it has a manual folding blade less than 3 inches long”
“use any knife in a threatening way”
“Lock knives are not classed as folding knives and are illegal to carry in public without good reason.”
All sensible sanctions as our knife crime is far too prevalent.
Your gun crime also is far too prevalent but your government just turns a blind eye to the consequences of allowing anyone to possess a killing machine.
I’m more than happy that we have protections in place that attempt to solve the problem rather than allow the carnage to carry on regardless of the outcome.

At first I was a bit perplexed. Is this someone suffering from Alzheimer’s and can’t remember what they said just the day before? It could be. But we’ve seen inability to follow logic or respond logically from Joan Peterson who I doubt was at the age where Alzheimer was a likely explanation.

After thinking about it some I am more inclined to believe they are not suffering from Alzheimer’s or other dementia. If that were the case I think the clues would show up in his twitter posts.

The weird inability to think logically and conform their claims to the hard reality is common in anti-gun people. Many of them simply do not accept reality. How else do you explain this?

Yesterday morning he claimed, “

There is no knife control in the UK apart from an age limit to buying them…

After I linked to and quote U.K. listing numerous knife regulations on the carry of knives and the bans of many common knives he came back less than 24 hours later and said I had “conveniently left out” further knife regulations. What? There is no knife control but when I don’t list all the knife laws he claims some sort victory by adding to the list of controls that supposedly don’t exist?

He then doubles down on the contradictions. Yesterday, referring to a stabbing, he said:

Thankfully those horrendous events are rare over here…

This morning he claims:

our knife crime is far too prevalent

There are other things I could point out but this should be more than sufficient to draw the appropriate conclusion.

These are symptoms of someone with mental problems. It may not be dementia but things between the ears are not in working order. It’s almost certainly Peterson Syndrome.

Quote of the day—John Yarmuth

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We are not broke as a nation. We are not bankrupt. We can’t go bankrupt. We absolutely cannot go bankrupt because we have the power to create as much money as we need to spend to serve the American people.

John Yarmuth
Chairman of the Budget Committee
U.S. Representative (D-KY)
September 9, 2021
Democrat Budget Committee Chairman: ‘We Have Power to Create as Much $$ as We Need to Spend’
[

This claim will not age well.

If this were true then why not create enough money for every person in the U.S. to have an “universal basic income” of $100K per year? Everyone, if they wanted, could just retire in comfort and live happily ever after. And why stop there? Why not create and distribute enough money for everyone on the planet to comfortably retire?

One has to conclude he is one or more of the following:

  • Incredibly Insane.
  • Incredibly stupid.
  • Incredibly evil.

Prepare appropriately.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Sumera Siddiqi

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Humanity needs to become a bigger priority in this state. This means that stricter gun control is necessary. Our government should listen to its people and make them feel safe, rather than allowing a law as dangerous as permitless carry.

Sumera Siddiqi
Liberal studies freshman at University of Houston
August 9, 2021
Permitless carry infringes on the right to safety
[Is it truth or is it a caricature? Sometimes it is so hard to tell.—Joe]

Quote of the day—President Joe Biden

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While there’s no one-size-fit-all approach, we know there are some things that work. And the first of those that work is stemming the flow of firearms.

President Joe Biden
July 12, 2021
Biden to Promote Plan to Reduce Gun Violence
[Citation needed.

Not only that, where and how do firearms “flow”? Do books and religion flow? Does he want to stem the flow of books and religion too?

How about saying something that makes sense? Then we can talk about information flow.

That he wants to stop or dam up the exercise of a specific enumerated right tells you all you need to know about his fitness for employment as a public servant.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Amanda Marcotte

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So there’s a great deal of talk now about what can be done to stem the rising tide of pro-terrorism sentiment in the country, from individuals trying to “deprogram” QAnon family members to the Department of Justice, under newly confirmed Attorney General Merrick Garland, prioritizing anti-terrorism initiatives. But this Atlanta shooting, which so far has all the hallmarks of a self-radicalized “lone wolf” attack, is a reminder that the single best way to combat domestic terrorism is with a policy that’s both mundane and yet politically loaded: gun control.

Amanda Marcotte
March 17, 2021
The best tool for fighting terrorism
[Uhh…. wow! It is almost difficult to comprehend the level of her cluelessness. Has she any sense of history? Or reality for that matter.

If she begins to show signs of being connected to reality I would like to suggest she start her study of history with gun control in Lexington and Concord in April of 1775.—Joe]

Quote of the day—1776 United

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With HR127 being brought forward in early February of 2021, somebody tipped me off to a very small page where the phrase of the Second Amendment was being censored.  So we tried to replicate what we saw with an experiment. On Monday the 15th of February, First I posted a screenshot of the censored post, and it was fact-checked and censored behind the fact-check wall. Then I took a screenshot of the actual Second Amendment on Google and the same thing happened.

They were trying to tie it back to some misquoting of George Washington. They were saying the Second Amendment was fact-checked as not true.

1776 United
February 18, 2021
1776 United: Censoring the Second Amendment
[Emphasis added.

Perhaps, in their reality, it doesn’t actually exist. I’m okay with that. But their friends and relatives really should see that they get the help they need rather than letting them let them cause others harm when they are experiencing such delusions.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Selmer Bringsjord et al.

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We propose to build directly upon our longstanding, prior r&d in AI/machine ethics in order to attempt to make real the bluesky idea of AI that can thwart mass shootings, by bringing to bear its ethical reasoning. The r&d in question is overtly and avowedly logicist in form, and since we are hardly the only ones who have established a firm foundation in the attempt to imbue AI’s with their own ethical sensibility, the pursuit of our proposal by those in different methodological camps should, we believe, be considered as well. We seek herein to make our vision at least somewhat concrete by anchoring our exposition to two simulations, one in which the AI saves the lives of innocents by locking out a malevolent human’s gun, and a second in which this malevolent agent is allowed by the AI to be neutralized by law enforcement. Along the way, some objections are anticipated, and rebutted.

Selmer Bringsjord
Naveen Sundar Govindarajulu
Michael Giancola
February 5, 2021
AI Can Stop Mass Shootings, and More
[See also this glowing review of the paper.

“…some objections are anticipated, and rebutted.” Uhhh… No.

Here are the objections they anticipated, paraphrasing:

  1. Why not legally correct AIs instead of ethically correct?
  2. What about “outlaw’ manufactures that make firearms without the AI?
  3. What about hackers bypassing the AI?

Their responses, paraphrasing in some cases:

  1. “There is no hard-and-fast breakage between legal obligations/prohibitions and moral ones; the underlying logic is seamless across the two spheres. Hence, any and all of our formalisms and technology can be used directly in a ‘law-only’ manner.”
  2. Even if the perpetrator(s) had “illegal firearms” in transit other AIs in a sensor rich environment “would have any number of actions available to it by which a violent future can be avoided in favor of life.”
  3. “This is an objection that we have long anticipated in our work devoted to installing ethical controls in such things as robots, and we see no reason why our approach there, which is to bring machine ethics down to an immutable hardware level cannot be pursued for weapons as well.”

The first objection and rebuttal doesn’t really require any response. It just doesn’t matter to me. Sure, whatever.

They dismiss the second objection with a presumption of unknowable knowledge. People smuggle massive quantities of drugs in vehicles even though the vehicles are searched by any number of sensors, dogs, and dedicated humans. What makes them think a single firearm can be possibly be detected by semi-passive or even active sensors?

More fundamentally they are avoiding the objection and providing their critics with the response of “If there are any other number of actions available” without an AI controlling access to the firearm then you don’t need the AI in the gun to begin with.

The third objection puts on full display their ignorance of firearms and perhaps mechanical devices in general. To demonstrate the absurdity of their claim imagine someone saying they were going to put an ethical AI, at an “immutable hardware level”, on a knife so it could not be used to harm innocent life.

Such people should, and would be, laughed off the stage into obscurity. It should also happen to those who seriously suggest it is possible to do this for firearms.—Joe]

Delusional rant from CSGV

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From the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSG). They claim to believe that the D.C. ban on open carry saved lives on Wednesday. They also claim to believe:

White supremacy and racism are inextricably linked with the gun movement and are used to stoke delusion and incite violence.

Wow!

That’s a real laugh. I would like to suggest people that suspect that might be true visit their local gun range or store. Have a chat with my son-in-law, or just look through some of my new shooter reports such as:

I believe it is about creating the justification for the “cleansing” they are planning.

Insurrection in America

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 8, 2021

MEDIA CONTACT:
Andrew Patrick
apatrick@csgv.org
(c) 828-712-7603

Insurrection is a Continuing Threat to Democracy; Urgent and Immediate Response is Needed Now
President Trump Dangerous, Unfit to Lead; Law Enforcement Must Be Held Accountable; and Guns Must be Outlawed from Statehouses and Polling Places

WASHINGTON — As the United States grapples with the many disturbing truths that have been exposed in the aftermath of a violent, armed mob of insurrectionists besieging the United States Capitol — the very center of our democracy — the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence is calling for emergency action.

This week’s events represent the disastrous culmination of decades of collusion between extremist and racist forces on the far-right and America’s gun lobby. Insurrectionism — the anti-democratic belief that armed violence is a patriotic and acceptable part of political discourse — has helped extremist elected officials, including President Trump, gain support by deluding their followers with paranoid conspiracy theories. The gun lobby was more than happy to contribute to sow the seeds of rebellion with outrageous theories that support more and more gun stockpiling. They are aided by a fringe, yet influential, far-right media ecosystem that profits from the misinformation and social media platforms that allow this treacherous ideology to spread unabated.

White supremacy and racism are inextricably linked with the gun movement and are used to stoke delusion and incite violence.

Finally, the disparities in policing tactics between the largely white mob at the Capitol and people of color legitimately and peacefully protesting police violence at the White House and other locations across America must be acknowledged as grossly inequitable and immediately rectified.

The attack on the U.S. Capitol provided stark evidence that citizens who for years have been told they needed to prepare to engage in overthrow of the government were not afraid to breach what should have been the most sacred barriers in order to use violence to affect an election. This week, the President and his private army showed us what happens when the insurrectionist idea becomes an insurrectionist reality — a physical and spiritual assault on American democracy.

As we move forward as a nation, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence is calling for the following immediate actions:

  • The immediate removal or resignation of President Donald Trump to ensure the safety and security of all people in this country. President Trump has continuously incited and encouraged the insurrectionist movement and its embrace of gun violence, which endangers lives and threatens our republic.
  • The protection of the essential functions of government by banning guns from state government buildings and polling places. Without universal prohibitions on open carry such as the strong gun laws in Washington, D.C., state capitals across the country face armed threats and must protect their lawmakers and citizens. We must allow people to exercise their constitutional rights and debate our policy in the people’s houses, free of intimidation or fear.
  • Effective and equitable protection by law enforcement. As the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives said this week, “In a time when the public should rightfully expect and receive the fair and consistent deployment and execution of duties from law enforcement professionals, disparate operating procedures for like scenarios are unacceptable…”

Washington, D.C.’s strong gun laws were part of the reason we did not see more death and violence this week. Though rioters were armed, the city’s law banning open carry saved lives and saved democracy. But because insufficient protections exist across the country, lawmakers and citizens in far too many state capitals are at-risk. The months leading up to the 2020 elections were rife with examples of insurrectionists storming statehouses and engaging in political intimidation. Without protections in place going forward, we cannot know the additional carnage that could still come.

Urgent action is needed now. The threat is not over. Already, the same insurrectionists who attempted the failed coup at the Capitol are organizing on social media in preparation for inauguration week and the opening of state legislatures. The sooner laws are in place across the country protecting the people, lawmakers and democracy, the safer we will be.

Quote of the day—Dennis McBride

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Guns have no place in shopping malls or other places in which crowds of people gather. Mayfair has a strict no-gun policy. If the shooter had complied with that policy, no one would have been hurt yesterday.

Dennis McBride
Mayor of Wauwatosa, Wisconsin
November 21, 2020
Wauwatosa Mayor: “Guns have no place in shopping malls”
[It’s as if he believes the gun caused the shooting while the human pulling the trigger was an unwilling participant.

Via Tom Greshm @Guntalk who had this to say:

New Leader in “Dumbest Statement By Elected Official” category. GFZ fail.

Yup. Incredibly dumb. At first I thought it had to be some live response to a question or something. I could see someone saying something like that while under some stress in a live situation. But no. This was a written statement released from the Mayor’s office.

The stupid, or perhaps chutzpah, really runs deep in these people.—Joe]