I interact with people who seem about as smart as me fairly often- my college professors for example. And, I certainly have been in many situations where my domain knowledge was vastly less than some other person with real expertise. But I have a hard time thinking of a time when I thought someone else was significantly smarter than me. Probably, that's an example of exactly what the article is talking about- maybe I've met those people but failed to recognize them. They certainly must be out there (unless i am the smartest person in the world, in which case we're all in serious trouble).

Similar to your observation - I can think of at least one person who is definetly a lot smarter than than me, and yeah, I’m not sure I could tell you why exactly.

Part of it looks like focus, I think I have a broader skill set than they do. But I don’t know that I could like rank a set of people smarter than me.

A few signs: they know what your about to say and give you refutations to your argument before you voice them. Or you find they tend to block your argumentation and you don't quite know how to respond. Could be domain expertise though.

Or if it's a collaborative situation, they might propose an idea you are already kind of thinking about, but they do it faster and clearer.

Well, I mean, tone deaf people cannot accurately judge musical talent.

Having proof on video of trump sexually assaulting a minor would still be significant, I think. Such footage probably exists and would make great leverage.

The Epstein files identify a pretty horrific incident involving Trump and a 14 year old girl, but it doesn't seem to have changed much so far. I suppose a video would be more compelling, but of course there'd be denials saying it was AI, etc.

I think that's their go to for damage control. I specifically remember in 2019 when Epstein was arrested, the MSM was running parallel stories talking about the rise of deep fakes. They were already setting the stage in case the kompromat was released. A few months ago with "Obama getting arrested" posted on Trump's account, I think this is a strategic reference to deep fakes. They'll say "that's not trump blowing Clinton, it's a deep fake like I posted of Obama, silly!"

And who was the person or group who made correct predictions in advance of the announcement? Why not just say who it was?

It's funny that in movies like the matrix they imagine that humanity would fight back against the machines. In reality the first thing ai will do, which it has already done, is capture our governments through the application of money, and then the humans would first have to defeat their own institutions before they can even begin to fight the machines. Neoliberalism is profoundly unable to deal with threats if the threats produce short term profits. That goes for housing shortages, global warming, health care costs, falling birth rates, across the board if it produces short term profits that can be used to bribe politicians its impossible to address. AI is no different.

Yeah at my last job at a larger organization they would occasionally get us all in the big auditorium and start showering us with this sort of language. I would excuse myself to use the restroom then go back to my desk and get some work done. Peace and quiet! Never got called out on it, they don't need me sitting there rolling my eyes and grimacing through the whole thing anyway.

Personally I very much doubt that any civilization would build Dyson spheres in their naive spherical shell form, because the gravitational field inside a hollow shell is zero and therefore nothing would stick to the inner surface and would instead drift towards the host star. (Proved by sir Issac newton)

But more than that- the concept of the sphere is making a ton of hidden assumptions about the desirability of always wanting more and more space and energy which are probably a side effect of the kind of authoritarian power structures that rule most humans currently. But that may not be common.

Cool work though- good to know what to look for

Well the reason people buy bitcoin at 100k is because they think it will someday be worth a million. If it's never going to be worth a million, then it's not worth 100k either.

Unlike other goods with some real worth (like a tulip), you can apply your correct observation all the way to a cent if you exclude illicit uses of Bitcoin.

Have we looked at nutrition? Economic crises lead to sharp spikes in poor nutrition especially when social safety nets have been stripped back. A generation whose growth is stunted by malnutrition is a plausible outcome of "tough love" welfare reform. A lot of people either lost their jobs or had to quit to take care of their children during the crisis. And there was a much degraded safety net to catch them.

My male ancestors died of cancer in their 70's and 80's but my great grandmothers lived to 93, 103, 99, and died in childbirth. I actually remember meeting my great great grandmother when I was 8 or 9 and she was 102.