The smart questions thread

Not really, power output is negligible, there’s hideously strict regulations about how much energy you can pump into the environment. And, clearly, if they’re making it a country-wide thing, they’ve deemed it safe. Nobody’s ever been killed by RF signals and they haven’t grown extra arms or started melting. I think all the panic is coming from a patchy understanding of communications systems which are stupidly complex (I’ve gotten a small taster and want nothing to do with them).

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I still have major concerns about it. Also check this out:

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Humans die when they get near electricity pylons. Jokes aside though, bee kiling isn’t exclusive to 5G, it’s all RF signals, they scramble their internal compasses if you will. It’s been happening ever since widespread use of mobiles and other RF devices started.

A 30 sec search and dig through Google yielded these three papers. It’s not a new thing.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/246044829_The_Effect_of_Cell_Phone_Radiations_on_the_Life_Cycle_of_Honeybees

The point I’m trying to make is that singling out 5G as the sole killer of bees is idiotic to say the least. If you’re going to roll with the ‘save the bees’ argument, then spreading your hate to all forms of RF comms and ceasing all usage of such devices is the next step to take.

If anything, 5G is better for the bees since it’s very short range.

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Is it better to use streaming platforms for entertainment consumption or is it better to have physical or digital copies for yourself?

Whichever’s cheaper. I’m not fussed. But if it’s music, I prefer a physical copy because I can do what I want with it.

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I personally prefer to have physical/digital copies for myself mostly because I don’t want to pay a monthly fee to use the stream services and I like to be able to listen/watch what ever while not on wifi and not kill my data. The world is definitely turning towards streaming for entertainment though. Everyone I know watches all their television and movies on Netflix and listens to their music on Spotify.

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Spotify is my music purgatory, it’s only there for music I don’t own yet. I don’t even need to say how much I actually despise it.

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I like to have the CD.
Even when I never put it on, just load it on the pc, phone and stick for the car. But I watch for used ones to have it cheaper.
I can watch Netflix, but it’s not my account.
And trade DVDs a lot.
Spotify I just reinstalled. I like listening to the music recommendations here, but I have no wlan were I am right know. YouTube works on the phone. But I can’t listen to it and have another side open. :thinking::woman_shrugging:

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I stream it. I don’t have access to buy.

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I agree with what most of you have mentioned already. I like physical or digital copies better than streaming because then you actually own the stuff. If streaming platforms or your internet connection go down you suddenly have nothing.
Unless streaming is the only option of course, like in @Honey8 case.

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@rickvanmeijel I felt it is better to have the conversation here. The issue with not being able to measure it is that how can we be sure then that everyone feels consciousness? And how can we guarantee that I feel it the same way you do? If we believe what a person says about their consciousness it could be largely subjective. How can we define consciousness? And on a broader area as well, it goes into human rights, animal rights and some people argue even the future of artificial intelligence rights.

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:flushed::exploding_head:
That last part was intriguing
Wouldn’t ai not have rights? You give it rights and it becomes the matrix in a few years :grimacing: jk but seriously, is that really a consideration??

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Yes that actually is a consideration. As weird as it sounds. The reason being is that if consciousness is biological, then technically it could be replicated. The neural network of the brain could be a computer programme. In one of the academic journal articles I read for that course the anecdote was the story of a wheelbarrow. So, it goes like, how do we know if someone is in pain? They tell us. And more proof is if there is something physically wrong with them. In the case of a wheelbarrow, if it makes a squeaky sound in the wheel, then technically it is in pain, because it too has a problem and it technically is voicing it’s ‘concern’ (lacks oil or whatever the issue may be). It’s simple but I think you can kind of get the point (don’t worry I thimk it’s absurd to, but that’s just one of the views) And at what point does AI start having consciousness if we cannot measure it? If consciousness is actually an illusion that is a side effect of the complexity of our brain, can AI be conscious? And things ‘die’ and ‘get sick’ (stop working or have issues) as well. So why shouldn’t they have rights? (I know, absurd, but what can I say?) Again, I too am biased with my response because I personally don’t agree with it. It’s better to get the point of view from someone who does and let them make their argument for this case

The issue is with defining and measuring consciousness. If we can get those two sorted, it would be easier.

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Good idea, better thread.

Well… because we’re all humans and we’re all alive… right? :smile: We’re all aware of our personal existence, as well as our fellow human beings’ existence.

Me neither. I don’t think consciousness is purely chemical processes going on in our brains,that it’s purely physical or 100% matter. Therefore I don’t think we can create new consciousness with technology.

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Just for the sake of discussion, so does that mean that bacteria, viruses and single celled organisms also have consciousness? What about trees? Bugs? Animals? Where do we draw the line? And if only we know we are conscious, how do we know that others aren’t? They could be aware of their consciousness, but we aren’t!

How do we even quantify if we are aware of our own existence? Like how do we test for it? And what makes us sure that others aren’t

It’s a very interesting and messy topic :joy:

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Page 946, section 3.2 Ethics:

More about robot ethics. It’s just a paragraph but it’s from an academic journal article

I’d say yes, yes and yes. Basically every living thing has some capacity of consciousness. We’re just the lucky ones to have an advanced version (or unlucky ones).

Hahaha so true!

But how do we know that we have an advanced version? Then shouldn’t bacteria and stuff have rights too? We take medication to kill them off, is that fair? Also those organisms are single celled, thus they have no brain. So what differentiates them from a robot that can be created to do the same thing? Btw there is no right or wrong answer, as you know. Researchers still know near to nothing about consciousness. We need to understand it better to draw the line

You’re proposing many good questions and like you say, it’s a complicated topic. But, I think we actually are able to draw a couple lines here.

Because we are the only species on earth that have the capacity to determine right from wrong. We can choose our behaviour based on morality, whereas animals don’t have this capacity. They just act on instincts and their consciousness is purely based on survival and reproduction.

It’s fair, because in this case, you’re protecting your body against the organisms that are causing illness. You’re basically getting rid of the intruders. And you have every right to protect your body from any danger or disease, because your body is your property.

They might not have a brain, but they’re still alive in some way right? Which means a very basic form of consciousness I guess? A robot is created by humans and has no natural life, it only does the things that it’s programmed to do.

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Thoughts?

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