unixknight

Agreed here. I don't know how it works in general, but the U of M cops out of the College Park campus do have jurisdiction in some areas off-campus but immediately adjacent, which means you don't even have to be technically on campus property to be detained or arrested by them. With that being the case, then it's only natural that they'd be expected to meet the same standards as any other police entities in the same area. Is it the same with the BYU police? Just curious, not that it matters. I assume they'd still need to meet those standards even on campus property, since without such certification an arrest would be an unlawful detention. But that's just my non-expert understanding, I'm wide open to being enlightened here.

Along the lines of what @estradling75 said, I think it would depend. I know for a fact that the next lesser degree - disfellowshipment - doesn't automatically bar one from wearing it, but I don't know if that's always the case.

I begin to detect a pattern.

Of course those ideas should apply to living humans as well. The difference is we can control what A.I.s do, not so much humans. So you won't be answering my question, then. I'll take that as a "yes," you did misunderstand earlier and thought that I was pushing the idea that A.I. couldn't be used constructively. Hopefully now we're on the same page.

I was separating them out as a way of giving you the benefit of the doubt that you weren't actually questioning the quantitative intelligence of people who don't agree with your opinion on President Trump. Since, by this remark, it seems you genuinely are doing so, then I'd urge you to do a little introspection, because your words are pretty disparaging against those of us who don't agree with you. That said, your question here is a reasonable one so I'm happy to answer. Intelligence is the ability to determine that it's raining. Wisdom is the clarity of understanding that tells you to go inside. The former is the ability to see the facts, the latter is making a good decision based upon personal experience, insight and objectively weighing the facts. The former is a trait that affects perception, the latter is a trait that determines action. Exactly. Genuine bewilderment over the apparent lack of rational thought in someone else's words or actions is one thing, and can be useful as a starting point in gaining insight into why the other person believes the way they do. Just like you, I struggle to follow the rationale of a person who can claim to understand Church doctrine and yet promote SSM and elective abortion. I assume it makes sense to them on some level, and I'd be interested in seeing how. The kind of confusion I'm criticizing is the kind that's displayed as an argument in and of itself. "Your views confuse me, therebefore you're wrong." In the examples you provided, it would be like if we claimed that our views were more moral just because we find their views confusing.

Prettymuch this. I get annoyed when I see people discussing the garment like they're trying to figure out how to defeat the purpose of it without technically violating it in a way they'd have to answer for in a Temple Recommend interview.

I did so in my third post of this thread. https://thirdhour.org/forums/topic/67051-robotic-executioners/?do=findComment&comment=1015891 Still looking for a response to my question, because I think it's important to understand in the context of the discussion. Did you think my point was that A.I. couldn't be used constructively?

That isn't what you said, brother. Foolishness/wisdom is not measured by I.Q. Also, that statement is no less arrogant just because you've narrowed its focus.

My initial thought was George Washington... mainly because he was a guy who stood against the idea of partisan politics and specifically never joined any political party. That's the kind of thinking we really need right now. That being said, all the partisan thinking we have right now would probably just drown him out, so even my ideal pick would probably get nothing done.

Very interesting and good points. Thanks. Now, would you mind responding to my question?

You know, some people might scoff at the notion that Satan has anything whatsoever to do with diet challenges, but I gotta say the times I feel most in control of my appetite and compulsion to eat is when I'm in Church, in prayer or doing scripture study. Fast Sundays are easiest while I'm sitting in that pew. Chalk it up to the Spirit helping to resist the temptations of evil, gaining mastery over carnal urges (like food) through spiritual control, or some combination of the two. All I can say is food discipline can be every bit as much of a struggle against "the natural man" as chastity issues are.

I disagree, and my IQ is plenty high enough, thanks. Perhaps your statement is another version of "I just don't understand how..." virtue signaling. It says "Anyone who doesn't see things as I do must be stupid." That's... breathtakingly arrogant.

So for many years, my gaming club had what we called NerdFest… A 2 - 3 day New Year's celebration party where we would gather for gaming, movies, food and more gaming. We did LAN parties, Dungeons & Dragons, collectible card games, tabletop wargames, board games... name it. One year, the featured game was a Star Trek: Attack Wing scenario. Star Trek: Attack Wing is a game where you maneuver miniature starships around a table, with different game scenarios sometimes inspired by events from Trek TV episodes or movies. For this event, I had acquired a miniature of Deep Space 9, (The model is over a foot in diameter!) along with pre-published rules for a scenario in which the players each represent a fleet of starships trying to capture the station. My (at the time) 7-year-old daughter and I were on one team (playing the Federation) and 2 of my buddies were on the Klingon side. Now a quick word about one of those buddies. He's a great guy. One of the best people I know. He's one of those people I'd trust with my life - my family's lives even. He's a person you want in your corner if things get bad. In gaming, however, he's ruthless and very, very talented as a strategist. He's a tough opponent in any game, and he pulls no punches. I respect that, but on this day he wasn't pulling any punches against my daughter, either. Now, I generally feel that when playing against kids, you shouldn't just let them win, but you also shouldn't go max power against them. You have to throttle the challenge to keep them interested and developing their skills. So, seeing what was happening, I used my starship to take the brunt of the Klingon assault while my daughter moved her starship (a Galaxy class ship, as I recall) to Deep Space 9 and beamed an away team aboard to secure the station. At about this time, my starship exploded. I did take one of the Klingon ships with me, though. So here was my daughter, alone. She still had her starship but she'd beamed her best personnel onto DS9 which reduced the effectiveness of her ship. The Klingons quickly moved in and destroyed her starship, leaving her away team stranded on the station. At this point, my buddy beamed his own team of Klingons onto the station to eliminate the Starfleet crew and capture the station - winning the game. It was at this point that something unexpected happened. Inside the station, his Klingon boarding party engaged the Starfleet away team in combat, and lost. The look of stunned confusion on my friend's face was... satisfying, as I was mildly annoyed with him at how aggressively he'd gone after my daughter's ship even after it wasn't a threat. He asked to look at the rules, presumably because he either thought I was explaining the "Capturing the station" rules wrong, or perhaps he was looking for a rule that would allow him to turn the tide. I don't know. In either case, he'd lost the boarding action fair and square. After several minutes of studying the rules intensely, he had no choice but to concede that his mighty Klingon warriors had been beaten by a Starfleet team controlled by a little girl. I think what happened was that my daughter had used more of her resources in getting a good Starfleet crew for her ship, while my buddy had spent most of his on his ship and its equipment. Once it was my daughter's good personnel against the mediocre Klingon options on the station, she had the clear advantage. Yes, moving the good characters onto the station meant sacrificing her ship, but it was worth it to gain control of the station. She definitely made the right call and it won her the game because... On the next turn, the Starfleet away team successfully gained control over Deep Space 9's main systems. That included weapons control. The Klingon battlecruiser lasted precisely 1 more game round before being blasted to atoms by a merciless volley of phasers and photon torpedoes from the Deep Space 9 model. Got any favorite karma stories to share?

Not a great weekend in terms of eating, but did ok with exercise. Friday night we had pizza... because the new dishwasher was coming in and they were installing it right when dinner would normally be getting prepared. They were there until 8, at which point they left because the new dishwasher itself was defective. On Saturday I had to be at the doctor's at 9 AM to give blood for my regular checkup. Since it was fasting blood work, I hadn't eaten since before midnight the night before. Had a lunchmeat/cheese sammich for breakfast right after. Then, off to church to be a witness for 5 Baptisms. When we got back to the RS room for the post-Baptism talks, I found that my seat had been taken by someone else, and with the room being very crowded (again, 5 baptisms) I just stood. Through 4 talks. For me, that's a really long time. Didn't stay for refreshments and headed out to take the family to the exotic pet store where we got a bunch of fish to restock our aquarium and a new pet tarantula for me. During that visit, I walked over to another store in the mini mall to get some more paint for my hobby. That's a lot more walking than I'm used to and by the time we got back to the pet store my upper back and shoulders were aching. Paid for our stuff and went home, resisting the temptation to get fast food for lunch. Went home and ate a horribly unhealthy chicken dip/chips thing for a late lunch/early dinner. I will neither confirm nor deny having eaten any Hostess products later in the evening, or having an embarrassingly large amount of Pepsi. Sunday morning I had another sammich and some juice from the juicer for breakfast, and another sammich after church while I waited for my turn to see the Stake Prez. (Temple Recommend complete!) Dinner was chicken and rice, and I will neither conform nor deny eating an ice cream sammich last night. The problem wasn't an excess of bad food, but rather how many sugary things I ingested.

That's what gets your face on a postage stamp these days.

Brother, you don't have to sell me on the utility of A.I. One of the projects I've worked on involved a system to give cardiac researchers access to heuristic algorithms for EKG analysis. It's true that Governments do this, but warnings of possible problems isn't the sole purview of Government. It's also unclear to me why you'd assume that any effort to impose rules on A.I. somehow must be ties to Government corruption. Further, this is not the first time you've hinted at the idea that these concerns can o nly be based in ignorance. Is that your argument? Nobody has said it couldn't be used constructively. Have you thought that was my point all this time?

Well, some folks believe that. As you can see from the thread, his motivations have been a subject of debate. It isn't clear to me how that doesn't contradict LDS (or the wider Christian) doctrine. ...to the extent that this document is regarded as canon. As of this moment, it is not. If the text is proven fake, why is it relevant here? They aren't. It's an interesting hypothesis, but the trouble with it is that it contradicts not only the very foundation of modern Christian doctrine (including LDS) but it also conflicts with the message of that doctrine... which in part rests on the notion that only Jesus, as the Son of God, could redeem the world because He Himself was sinless. This hypothesis essentially creates a disparity between Jesus the Christ and the Son of Man, which is not consistent either with other, known, canonical Scripture nor with prior prophecy. I think even if this idea were to gain traction, there's still plenty for people to fight over. Common elements between those religious systems already exist and it doesn't seem to make much difference.

I doubt it would work. History shows us that all it does is strengthen the dictator. Why? Because invariably the dictator's forces intercept the supplies, then hand them out themselves - as rewards for loyalty to those who say the right things - or they give it out as a PR move and claim the credit. This type of behavior is the catalyst for the events depicted in the movie Black Hawk Down.

There's also an interpretation of the Borg as being what the Federation is, taken to its ultimate conclusion.

I would argue that it varies by who writes the particular story. In some episodes you hear about Starfleet personnel receiving a salary, and in other stories they talk about the Federation not using money at all, and that's all separate form the question of spending latinum. I think those contradictions are a result of the dichotomy between the idea of the Federation itself being in a post-scarcity time, but still needing to be able to do individual transactions with people outside of it. So the answer to the question "Do Federation citizens use money?" is "Depends on the story."

It's been said that pride is the greatest sin, and it's easy to see why in this kind of case.

Agreed. But (playing devil's advocate) I think a leftist like the guy I talked about in my example would respond to that by saying "Well of course, that's social progress! If you have to go back 50 years to find Trek that you can identify with politically, that's just proof of how backwater and stunted your views are!" And let's be honest, if left-wing issues really are the measure of societal progress (which I'm not conceding), he'd have a good point there. I think it feels that way because it's just more recent, and is closer to where we are today as a culture than the original Trek. Again, I'd theorize that the leftist view is that TNG represents greater social "progress" than original Trek. For me, the strength in Star Trek is that when the episodes are good, they're VERY good. Quality science-fiction is about holding up a mirror to our culture and seeing social issues from a perspective we may not have considered before. It doesn't take sides, it just gives us a new perspective. Consider the original series episode "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield." That's the one where the two aliens with the black/white split in their skin color were at each other's throats because of the difference in which side of their face was which color. The episode ends with the two aliens forcing the Enterprise to take them back to their homeworld, which has been completely depopulated by the war between the races. That episode didn't say which race was right and which was wrong. It didn't even condemn racism per se. What it did was to show the inevitable result of people battling each other over arbitrary, oversimplified, black and white (get it?) issues. The two aliens didn't have to be of different races. They could have been of different religions, or nations, or different preferences between Coke and Pepsi. It didn't matter. The point was that such divisions lead to eventual destruction. That's a lesson that resonates even today. Can it still be thought of as pandering, because there are people who embrace that kind of arbitrary hate? I suppose so, and in full honesty there is a little bit of moralizing, but there isn't a whole lot. The episode mostly shows, it doesn't just tell. They do, because there's plenty to point to that resonates with today's left wing views. What they don't get is that those aren't only left wing views. They think Conservatives don't like Uhura being on the bridge, or that Kirk kissed her in one of the original episodes. Heck, I first saw that episode as a kid in the '70s and I've never met anyone in my life who was bothered by that. Quick poll of the mostly Religious Right on this forum: Anybody bothered by the interracial kiss? Anybody? Didn't think so. And yet I have leftist friends who would be surprised to learn that.

Yeah... that's meth for you...

Are you trolling?

SAY IT! (Sorry for that. I had accidentally hit Save before I was done.)