[ExI] ai is the easy road

Fri Oct 16 00:15:31 UTC 2026

From: Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> 
Sent: Thursday, 15 October, 2026 4:13 PM
To: spike at rainier66.com
Cc: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] ai is the easy road

On Wed, Oct 14, 2026 at 10:29 PM <spike at rainier66.com <mailto:spike at rainier66.com> > wrote:

snip 

I visited some of the poorest areas of the country, if measured in dollars.  

>…You *really* do not groik EP.

>…The trip in our psychological traits depends on *relative* changes. Absolute poverty does not trip social unrest. Declining income or even the prospect of it does….

OK that is another triumph for EP.  The areas I visited are seeing very little change over time, but the future looks pretty good.  As I understand it, demand for coal is expected to rise.  I didn’t detect a trace of pessimism in the places I visited.  

But even in their poverty, they have a lot of room.  A lot of their food is homegrown, and they produce more than they consume.  So if food prices go up, so does the value of their crops.  Their quality of life is better than their urban counterparts who make twice as much money.  

>…I was not aware that WV grew a lot of crops…

They don’t grow a lot.  Their land is chopped up, so the emphasis is on higher yield crops that don’t take up much land, such as apples, strawberries, marijuana.  But the population is sparse, so in general they are not living beyond

>…Where do they ship them?

My impression is that they trade them more than sell or ship them.  My 90 yr old cousin had some corn, not a lot, beans, especially tomatoes.  

>…  We need to make triple the amount of electric power as we do now. 

>…That's not obvious. The AI hunger for power may dry up as fast as it came about. Musk moved really fast with low efficiency used aircraft turbines and may make his money back. For the rest, it is not so certain. One wild card is the Chinese giving away AI for free….

Always a risk, agreed.  If the Chinese give AI away free, what’s in it for them?  Why wouldn’t they charge as much as the cappies will pay?  I predict they will charge whatever the market will bear, regardless of who gets it first.

Around 2010, the federal government was busy making rules that shut down coal mines.  When asked what the unemployed miners should do, they were told to learn to code.  Now AI is shutting down a lot of what coders used to do, but fortunately they can now learn to mine coal.

>…More likely program coal mining machines….

No doubt about that.

>…The push is on to get humans out of underground mining….

As I understand it, that has already happened.  It was very controversial back in the 1990s because coal miners were always given as many pain killers as they requested.  They sold them to supplement to their paltry pay.  In the 1990s, coal mining went from what they had been doing to not that different from any other office job: they were on the surface operating machines underground.

>…Have you ever worked at a job similar to coal mining? Have you ever been down in a mine?

Never have.  Most modern coal miners haven’t either.

>…Hard, dangerous work….

Until it became safe.

https://www.minesafetycenter.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/100-yrs.png

>…Would your typical programmer last a day? I doubt it.

I don’t see why not.  It would be similar to operating a video game I suppose.

>>>…Mob lynching are out iof favor _at the moment_.

>>…Ja.  Modern day lynchings require the victim to hire the mob.

>…This is not understandable, can you explain?

The movie actor Jussie Smollett was the victim of a modern day lynching, according to prominent politicians.  The comedians such as Dave Cheppelle had a field day with it.  Turns out he hired a coupla goons to beat him up so he could claim to be the victim.

>…Ask the AI of your choice about this. MAGA and the other "conservative" organizations are quite specific about the people they want to get rid of. Ever heard of White Christian nationalism?

I have.  What I don’t see are concentration camps, mass murder, sweeping takeover of Canada, Mexico and everything to the south.  None of that happened.  

We struggle too hard to explain why an unpopular guy 

>…He is now, but he was popular enough to get elected….

Sure, and I am making the case that he was not particularly popular when he was first elected.  He was elected the first time because the mainstream candidate was even more unlikeable and distrusted.

>…There are still people (should I include you?) who consider him the greatest president ever…

You should not include me.  I consider him about middle of the pack, ranked around low 20s.  It could be 1 being the best or 1 being the worst, it doesn’t matter which way you number them in this case.  I don’t think there are many who consider him the greatest president ever.  There might be I suppose, but how would we know?  Have you ever met anyone who thought that?  Neither have I.  I notice the approval ratings confirm: about middle of the pack.  

The second time (2024) was about an opposition party deeply divided.  In our lifetimes we saw third party candidates arise twice: once in 1968 with George Wallace in 1992 with Ross Perot the third guy on the debate stage.  I liked Perot, voted for him twice (clarification: in two different elections.)

>>…won two of the last three elections by equating him with Hitler, when an easier explanation suffices: his opposition is divided against itself.  This is having a bigger impact than the opposition party wishes to admit.  But it is a coalition of increasingly incompatible elements.  EP works fine.  

>…And I make the case that you do not understand it.  Keith

I will grant I am not an expert on it.  However, to continue to argue the current POTUS won twice because he is popular is being used as an excuse for his opposition party to avoid facing a hard truth: they are their own enemy.  We heard things we never thought we would hear: 

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5YxSjohE45I

And when one has lost Bill Maher…

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7oFrfCKK6WI

I think Maher is right on.  Invest the two minutes to listen to a very astute observer, or at least that comment at about 1.42.  Did you eeeeever think?

Keith, it isn’t about EP this time.  It is all about a deeply divided opposition.  The democrats will be OK in 26.  I predict they will take both houses of congress.  But if they don’t repudiate the socialists, they will get spanked in 28, with a good republic candidate this time, clearly a smart, talented guy.  For that matter, the second-runner Rubio is a much stronger opponent than the democrat party has faced the last three cycles.

spike

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