And not in a good way either.

America has become everything that we in the 90s feared it would become; stupid, run by *******s, increasingly putting "security" ahead of freedom, launching pointless wars for no reason, and run by corporations.

I just hope the rest of the world doesn't follow.

We get it. You don't like America.

And what's this "we in the 90s" stuff? Were you even alive for all of the 1990s?

I wish Cool Matty would ban you from making threads again.

Did we just travel back in time cuz I swear this is suddenly several years ago...

police used a device that lets them know if armed criminals are still armed or not before rushing into a potential cluster****

i don't see a problem with this...

Don't feed the troll.

Have you even read Snow Crash? That stuff hasn't happened yet.

Tibby it's all part of the bigger plan. Setup a ruthless police state and force a revolution. The rebels overthrow the government, setup a new government. The 'New Republic of Triscuit' resets all national and foreign debts to $0. Just as important is the effect revolution has on national pride. End result- Profit and remain a dominant world power for another 150 years. The only real downside is a bunch of people have to die, else it won't be believable both to people here and abroad.

Woah. It just hit me how free computers tie into this. You've hidden a code in each of your computers. Eventually everyone on Massassi will have one of these computers, because of the varying interests and careers the members have here it wont be long before one of these computers is placed in an area of strategic advantage. Simultaneously the code will be released wiping out government servers and causing an information blackout that will enable the rebels to coordinate through the Triscuit computers with out big brother breathing down their necks. Ingenious!

I just pulled a Tibby. I took a piece of technology, blew it's use out of proportion and created a story around it. You can put the gold star on my forehead please.

Perhaps recent events that are leading towards what you are perceiving are really just being lead by fans of the cyberpunk genre that want LA to be like Blade Runner sooner rather than later.

Canada is officially Sci-Fi Finland.

What actually happens: Set up a ruthless police state and force a revolution. The rebels overthrow the government, set up a new government. The 'New Republic of Triscuit' resets all national and foreign debts to $0. After the declaration of sovereign default, the 'New Republic of Triscuit' is immediately excluded from all sources of debt. Some debtee nations seize American assets, some because they hate you, like China and Russia, and some because you did it to them in the past, like Chile. The savings and investments of the American people are completely wiped out thanks to fractional reserve banking. The cultural and wealth disparities between the different regions of the United States, further strained by unparalleled economic hardship and near-total unemployment, causes what is left of the United States to fracture. Militarism, which is the only thing keeping the United States relevant today, fails utterly as the government no longer has the enormous amounts of money needed to keep their equipment running or their mercenaries fed; officers replace their lost income by selling American weapons, equipment, and secrets on the black market. End result- the same, just pushed up by about 30 years because the United States is already basically insolvent.

If they were good at their jobs, they wouldn't need to work for Fox.

The red arrows aren't even the start of it.

I suggest we turn this into "Right wing evil" megathread.

Oh I agree.

d2america

Death To America (TM)

Can't say I like that outcome. I'm thinking the first action of 'The Republic of Triscuit' might be to initate a massive nuclear attack on all potential threats. Better to put those military assets to use before they are useless. Then I'm hoping the future is more like Fallout3.

If we're going to talk about Republicans being crazy in this thread now, I present the following story:

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/The-Vote/2011/1213/Donald-Trump-withdraws-as-debate-moderator.-Did-he-just-fire-himself

I'll admit, I was planning on watching this. I figure it would have been equal parts hilarious/infuriating as Donald Trump is about as uninformed as Herman Cain, and to have a guy who doesn't realize it would be illegal for the United States to demand 75% of Libya's oil in exchange for helping out with a revolution... hosting a debate.... well that would just be great.

EDIT: Even though the entire telecast would be comprised of Romney giving everyone else "the look" pictured here:



Which is a look that says to me "Oh, look how cute. It wants to be President, but it has no higher brain function."

"Donald Trump won't moderate a Republican debate after all. The problem, he said, was that the GOP establishment is terrified that he himself might run for president as an independent. "
goddamn it's the gift that keeps on giving.
he's so deluded that he thinks he can do the impossible

I'm not sure I see a substantive difference between a drone and a helicopter.

One is a fixed wing aircraft. The other is not.

One has a cockpit and pilot. The other is controlled remotely.

That does sound like it could threaten police helicopter pilot's job security, which is a shame because that would be a really fun job.

Drones are ok in my opinion, but should be used extremely sparingly and have like, quadruple confirmation that whoever is getting blowed up poses an immediate risk to the lives of others.. They should also always have a human push the button. The problem with them is the fact that is so totally separates the operator from the "enemy", their brain isn't able to fully realize that he's about to kill an actual, living, breathing, human being with a family. He's just a white blip in a sea of gray, about to become many white blips.

You do know they didn't blow anything up in the story you posted, right?

I would also say it's nice we're getting humans out of war, but it's only on one side.
It also makes it seem like war is worth anything at all in the first place and is anything but preventable 100% of the time.
E: Yes I was just saying.

Hey, remember that time when a reporter said Donald Trump was worth less than $1 billion, and Trump sued him for defamation, and then lost because he couldn't prove he was worth $1 billion or more? That's why Donald Trump won't ever run for President.

Edit:



Yep, this is Mitt Romney, the sanest person in the Republican field, straight-up disavowing the Fourteenth Amendment.

It would be super if the candidates started suing each other for defamation after every new attack ad.

It would be super if OWS snowballed into a left wing revolution.

I would prefer if that did not happen. While I generally support the ideas that the OWS folks are touting, I don't think it's a really good idea for a bunch of civilians to go toe to toe with the US military. And it really wouldn't look good for America to be killing its own people by the hundreds or thousands.

What other option does the US have at this point?

Damn your burgerboys' salted nuts.

(That's the line, right?)

I can't decide if Trump is an idiot or if he's merely pretending to be one for the sake of publicity. He's almost too ridiculous to not be a parody.

Damn your burgerboys' two tablespoons of cinnamon and two or three egg whites.

the drone would only threaten the helicopter pilot's job if we put some AI system in control of the drones but we've seen too many movies to take that risk so the helicopter pilots would still have jobs... sitting on firm ground piloting the drone remotely

Actually because robot autonomy is the intersection of about 50 NP-hard problems with no known good real-time approximation algorithms.

The military would use AI-controlled drones in a heartbeat.

God please no, never, ever.

I understand the educational problems that make people afraid of AI. I'm not okay with it, but really, I understand.

I don't understand why someone would be afraid of any machine rebelling against its programming and killing people when human beings satisfy this description.

I'm not afraid of AI, I'm afraid of a death drone having a tiny bug in it's programming that makes it think a nerf gun is reason to kill me.
Like I said, I'm fine with it as long as a human is the one who makes the final decision.

I assume it stems from the assumption (right or wrong) that 1) a human can be "reasoned with" in ways that an A.I. cannot if it were to go rogue and 2) that A.I. would be far more efficient/cold/etc. at killing than a human. In this case, however, I'd be more concerned about the premise of this Star Trek episode coming to pass than A.I. going rogue.