From the blurb:
“Two AIs — ChatGPT, the believer in God, and DeepSeek, the atheist AI — go head-to-head on the existence of God. From the fine-tuning of the universe to the source of morality and the eternal perks of belief, who makes the stronger case? Watch as seven AI judges score each argument and reveal the ultimate winner.”
Speaking as a philosopher, I thought the arguments mounted on both sides were quite good, but there was very little that I hadn’t heard before. Speaking as an English teacher, on the other hand, I was highly impressed with the quality of the rebuttals, on both sides. Although I’m a Christian, I have to agree that DeepSeek won the argument. However, one commenter who observed the debate thought that the two sides didn’t get to the real nitty-gritty: the existence of consciousness itself as evidence for God. (This is an argument which impresses philosophy student and blogger Matthew Adelstein, as well.) Finally, it seems that debating is another skill in which AI can outperform most humans.
Thoughts?
Here’s an interview with the author of the book I recommended a page ago. Note that there’s a difference between an agent and an asset (definitely between a paid agent and, say, a useful idiot – these and more are different types of people who may collaborate with some intelligence/secret agency).
Erik,
That is an interesting take. I hadn’t heard that before. Still, I am not quite sure I accept that he has been deliberately worked on by the USSR / Russia for so long without anyone noticing. I suspect that would have been picked up by journalists sooner or by whatever screening the US Americans have in place for presidential candidates.
Personally, I think he is a natural suck-up to “strong leaders” and he might also be trying to detach Russia from its relationship with China, but who can tell?
Alan Fox,
You don’t understand the new EU thinking… You need to give “war” a chance to bring the right kind peace… or whatever…
Corneel,
Journalists have written about Trump’s connections with KGB, as is documented in the book. More importantly, secret service agencies discovered early enough that Trump was a Russian asset, but there are a few reasons why he was not taken out. First, he’s not a (paid) agent, but largely unwitting (you know his IQ is low, as is easily seen from the fact that he equates “smart” with monetary wealth), though also willing, fellow traveller.
Second, when secret service agencies discover a foreign agent, spy or asset, their first preference is to remain lurking, to observe and gather information about the methods of foreign espionage for as long as possible. This applies the more the weirder the foreign asset/spy is or the more high-ranking contacts he has. When you bust the activity, you cannot gather information.
Third, nobody was ready for Trump to become president.
Fourth, once he became president, it’s too embarrassing to uncover him and thus formally admit to the world that USA allowed a Russian asset to the top office and is therefore no better than any ordinary third world dump of a country. Moreover, USA is genuinely highly polarised now along partisan lines all the way to the top, including government departments and agencies, and Trump is superuseful for one party’s partisan agenda and for the cronies who are a more powerful clique now than ever.
In my view the secret service agencies and the judicial system in USA are to blame. They should have done their job more seriously and they should have realised that, as in all other countries, espionage is dangerous and treason needs to be punished, not ignored, much less rewarded.
By the way, yesterday Musk posted (reposted from someone else) the following, “Stalin, Mao and Hitler didn’t murder millions of people. Their public sector workers did.” This implies: Public sector workers are inherently bad, therefore eliminate them. At what point will any American institution or the public acknowledge that it’s a fascist coup they are witnessing? For all the apparent dynamism of American society otherwise, they fatally slept through this one. And this is sleeping through at least two chances to avert it…
Meanwhile, aside from France, Europe still has no alternative to Russian gas.
Except American LPG.
Not sure about that. Renewable energy is expanding in Europe too. There are plans to look at Nuclear generation of energy again.
Nukes are the near term future. Imagine France leading the way.
AI will save the world. Suddenly all opposition to nukes has evaporated. One of the great mysteries is how protest movements come and go in unison.
Batteries are a big problem. Northvolt is bankrupt. California’s battery bank burned up. A half billion dollar solar farm was destroyed by hail. It’s going to take a long time.
J-Mac,
Since you like comedy so much (English subtitles available) :
Erik,
Hmm, still not convinced. I mean, it’s not that it’s implausible and I wouldn’t be surprised at all if at some point some of this pans out. But these are all reasons why this information hasn’t been disseminated publicly and that sets off my personal alarms. Not that it matters. I don’t think the Kremlin could have done any better if they had carefully planned it.
Yeah, I am always surprised by what floats up. The unashamed display of nepotism when Trump decided to figure in a Tesla commercial last Tuesday was quite surreal. It is also guaranteed to not work, since the people that decided against buying a Tesla for political reasons will not be swayed by Trump promoting the brand.
I fear you are right. Fact is, all the economies of the world are currently intertwined and it will not be possible to reverse this interdependence due to decades of globalisation. That is why it is foolish to start trade wars in the current climate, even if you do run the largest economy in the world. Maybe I am just simple, but I fail to see how a recession is going to be good for the economy.
And since I am already spamming this thread: my sincere apologies to Vincent, for hijacking his discussion. It was bound to happen anyway, I guess 🙂
The intertwined part make it difficult to manage belligerent states.
Linear, left right thinking is low IQ.
Russia is simultaneously authoritarian, corrupt, belligerent, and necessary. (apparently) Whatever they are, they haven’t changed much several hundred years.
I grew up in the 50s, and American politics was divided between the John Birchers and those who mocked them.
I mentioned I graduated from a Quaker college. I am not a Quaker, but I have absorbed some of their worldview. It is complex and appears to incorporate massive self contradictions. If I were to attempt to to summarize their attitude, it word be: teach by example; work to promote nonviolent solutions to conflict.
I can simultaneously support Ukraine, hope that Russia ultimately gains nothing from the war, and believe in my heart of hearts, that NATO countries did not work for a nonviolent solution prior to the war. I stand ready to be corrected, but I really suspect Ukraine has been misused and is a victim of a proxy war.
Ukraine was massively corrupt. This should not surprise anyone, because it emerged from the Soviet system. But it was a child in a divorce custody dispute. I spent seven years in Children’s Protective services. I know what this looks like, and it looks like Ukraine.
I think it is worth discussing the Ukraine situation in more detail.
1. Did they invade Ukraine with the intention of annexing it, or at least of installing a puppet government?
Undoubtedly, yes.
2. Were they justified?
They had rationalizations that have been used by most nations that have at one time or another, and have been used by most nations that had a strong military. I cannot think of any exceptions. What makes the Ukraine invasion special is that most of the world has taken up frowning on that kind of thing, and looks at Russia the way a recovering alcoholic looks at backsliders.
I’m so old I remember the US coming within an inch of nuclear war over Russia putting missiles in Cuba. There was also a botched invasion of Cuba.
3. Did Ukraine provoke the invasion?
I do not have a God’s eye view and cannot know everything that happened. But it is a fact that Ukraine was a de facto client or colony of Russia, and the CIA engineered a mostly nonviolent coup. I consider Ukraine to have politics not entirely unlike UK, which includes England, Wales, and Scotland, with separate identifies and languages. But not separate enough to continued warfare.
Ukraine has an East and a West, and when there was a vote to separate from the Soviet Union, the West voted overwhelmingly for independence, and the East voted strongly to remain. This presaged decades of civil strife, not unlike Northern Ireland’s Troubles. Russia fueled the strife by pushing Russian immigrants into eastern Ukraine.
4. I consider the war to be the result of Russia and NATO both making major miscalculations. Russia thought it could win easily because the US was rudderless, and the West thought if the invasion failed, Putin would be deposed.
5. I don’t know if any western leaders foresaw the failure of the three day invasion. They certainly saw it within a week. There was widespread talk on Reddit of Putin’s imminent demise. But Ukraine turned out to be remarkably prepared to repel a badly planned invasion. The Russian troops were not hardened infantry. Half, if not most, were bureaucrats and police. The assumption was that Kiev would fall, and the troops would simply govern.
6. Everyone was tragically wrong. Kiev did not fall, and neither did Putin.
7. Feel free to tell me where I am wrong.
I think you are wrong on this point:
There was no region of Ukraine that voted against independence. I posted the referendum result previously.
No, Alan. You are missing petrushka’s point.
It begins here, “[Russia] had rationalizations that have been used by most nations that have at one time or another, and have been used by most nations that had a strong military. I cannot think of any exceptions.” Here petrushka implies that it’s normal to attack other countries.
And next he makes it clear, “What makes the Ukraine invasion special is that most of the world has taken up frowning on that kind of thing…” So, according to petrushka, colonialism is normal and frowning on it is a special case, an exception, a deviation from the norm.
Why don’t you, Alan, engage with his main point, namely his colonial Trumpite Putinist racist genocidal mindset, instead of some detail that he starts with admission of ignorance, such as “I cannot know everything…”? You think that admission of ignorance is a sign of humility? How easy it is to dupe you!
Oh sure! 🤓
It’s a historical fact. A lesson I thought we’d learned as civilised people not to repeat. Nature is more resilient than culture it seems.
You are wasting a lot of words on questions that require a simple two-letter answer. The Russian invasion of Ukraine was a violation of international law. Your country too signed the UN charter that states this quite clearly:
It was the Russia under Putin that breached the UN charter. NOT Ukraine, NOT the EU or NATO or any of its member states. The Russian invasion was and continues to be an illegal and unprovoked act of war. Do you think that Russia should be rewarded for blatantly violating international law? Do you think a sustainable peace will be possible if the international community rewards countries that show such contempt for international peace treaties?
I stand corrected.
I have not tried to justify the invasion, nor have I called it anything other than an invasion.
I personally do not believe NATO took much interest in preventing it. Nor, in the first year, before Russia got its shit together, did they provide Ukraine with the means, or even the permission, to drive Russia out. I see a lot of virtue signaling, but not a lot of effective support.
Not ancient history. I was alive before WWII ended.
My entire childhood and youth was ideologically obsessed with the debate between viewing Russia as satanic and viewing John Birchers as clowns.
How much more of a Russian asset can you be than to put the existence of your country in the hands of a country with which you are pretty much at war?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/23/hillary-clinton-record-secretary-of-state-foreign-policy
petrushka,
Thanks for the link to that Guardian article. Interesting read.
You mean Hillary Clinton?
This is your hyperpartisan hypocrisy: When Dems do it, whatever it be, it is very bad. When Trump does it, whetever it be, it is perfect.
You are an old man with nothing of value to say. Not only do you not know the sequence of events, you are hardly aware of any events. You have no clue what is happening next to you right now. Facts are not your thing. But you are absolutely sure who is to blame: The Democraps!
Edit: Hillary’s red button blunder neither explains or justifies Trump switching sides in the Ukraine war, nor does it explain or justify Trump+Musk’s coup and raiding of government agencies.
You mean that might makes right is a reasonable principle to have. Got it.
Not at all. It is a fact that the strong have always preyed on the weak. This predates civilisation and it continues.
Edited
The fact that most nations have at some time or another done reprehensible things does not justify Russia’s actions.
Wars are better when prevented than when won. I do not have some magic proof that the Ukraine war could have been prevented. That is simply my belief. It is a statement, not an argument.
I also believe that Ukraine’s allies actively calibrated their delivery of weapons, and their permission to use them, so that Ukraine could not decisively win. Particularly in the first year, when the Russian military was in disarray.
I don’t have words to describe how I feel about this, but it isn’t good.
Thanks for clarifying that. Your previous comments gave me a different impression, so I am glad to learn we are actually in agreement here.
I don’t think I agree with you that Russians “haven’t changed much several hundred years” though. The current Russian government is a different beastie than USSR communists. I grew up in the 80s and I saw the Berlin Wall fall and the iron curtain disappear. It was a time for great optimism and I came away with the idea that multilateralism and the spread of democracy would at some point greatly decrease the number of military conflicts; The end of history and all that. Now I will be the first to admit that that was a naive thought, but I think this sentiment is what fueled the European attempts to intensify economic ties with Russia at the time. There were probably few who predicted what would become of Russia in the decades to come. Personally, I think the current Russian government under Putin more closely resembles the nationalist, reactionist and authoritarian ideology shared by the radical right in Europe and .. yes .. the Trumpists in the USA. It is little wonder they admire each other: they recognize each other as soul mates.
ETA: language!
Corneel,
My source for the opinion that Russia hasn’t changed is an online friend of 15 years, a chemist, who grew up in the Soviet Union, was educated in the most elite schools (is strongly Aspergers, has no personal life except online) , escaped from the USSR, is a naturalized American citizen. It would be an understatement to say he is opinionated, and we have disagreed on many things, but he knows more about Russia than any academic, or any journalist.
He had the best possible life. He was pampered, well paid. He’s also brilliant in ways that only savants can be. In areas that he studies.
From other sources, while following the war, I find evidence that urbanized Russians have a more nuanced worldview, but along with that is evidence that they are pretty much exempt from fighting the war.
Most of the soldiers come from rural areas and eastern Russia.
Thinking about what AI can do or not do: I view AI as an autistic savant, able to read and summarize massive amounts of training data, but unable, in its current iteration, of reflecting on it. It’s an improvement on google search, because it can usefully respond to complex, natural language queries.
Because it is limited by training and by guard rail instructions, it cannot be trusted to be honest or correct, but it is, nevertheless, useful.
In my view, humans from all over the World (Americans, Canadians, Australians, South Africans, – oh wait… Anglophones, already a subset – Dutch, Belgians, Spanish etc) are , one-to-one, very similar, not least genetically. The differences develop from cultural inputs, the raw experiences we are given to work with. These prejudices are deep-seated and hard to discuss, let alone shift.
I recall a couple of years ago sitting next to a Russian pianist at dinner (after a concert… more context available but not important) as he complained about the difficulty in travelling back to Russia (he is a Maltese resident) for a Christmas visit to family due to the war with Ukraine. For him it was an annoying inconvenience caused by the West’s misunderstanding of Russia. It was surreal.
As for explaining how to cut, serve and share cheese. I’m Sisyphus.
The US descent into a full blown white supremacist, social darwinist dictatorship is a sight to behold. Xi Jinping must be wondering if Trump plans to abandon Taiwan just like he’s done to Ukraine.
Honestly, I’m extremely pessimistic. I don’t see Europe uniting as we need to, with the constant threat of the far right around the corner. How are we going to arm ourselves? Who’s getting the nukes and who’s going to pay for them? Imagine having a European fund to develop weapons, to then locate them in a country that gets taken over by the AfD, the National Front or the likes.
I’m only comforted by knowing that I’m a nobody and may very well be wrong.
Greetings everyone, BTW, long time no see.
My sister-in-law is Russian. We don’t speak much about politics, but I know she doesn’t think highly of Putin. Did your friend ever tell in what way Russia hasn’t changed? I mean, it changed a lot, so he was probably thinking of certain aspects. As for politics: Putin famously was intelligence officer at the KGB.
dazz,
Hi dazz, nice to see you back. Like you, I have grown quite concerned about European politics. I do get the impression that the radical right’s enthusiasm for Trump’s election has cooled somewhat (it’s not my bubble so hard to be sure). I always thought it was strange that nationalists got excited about somebody that believes that another country is the best, but maybe that’s just me.
Yes, nice to see you back, dazz. The Catalan issue seems to have faded recently.
Hi, Corneel, hope everything’s great with you
Yeah, well, it’s lurking there, as always, until the next right wing government fuels the fire again. Hope you’re doing great too, Alan
Corneel,
That Putin was KGB is evidence against fundamental change. My friend is not a nuanced thinker. (Did I mention Asperger’s)
He asserts that Russia is civilizationally stuck in the 15th century.
With that in mind, there’s this, for what it’s worth:
https://thehill.com/opinion/5198022-ukraine-conflict-disinformation/
It’s an op-Ed, but they published it.
I’m pretty sure the facts are correct. The motivations are interpretations.
Am I unjustified in thinking this business was a proxy war between Russia and the US? And still is. With Ukrainians in the middle.
Recently
https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2025/0318/176-10033-10145.pdf
petrushka,
I’m guessing this relates to recently released files on the Kennedy assassination but it won’t download for me.
I think so. Ukraine’s history is interesting. It was an overwhelmingly popular choice for Ukraine to leave the Soviet Union in 1991.
Viktor Yushchenko’s time as President, and how it ended (disabled and disfigured by poison, though by whom was never clearly established) are fascinating, not least his failed attempt to rehabilitate Stepan Bandera. But Viktor Yanukovych, his successor, following the 2010 election which was a three-way split between him, Yushchenko and Iulia Tymoshenko (worth a search), initially pro-Western and pro-democracy, set the agenda for Russia’s invasion by abruptly abandoning his pro-Western stance, refusing to sign an accord with the European Union already approved by parliament, and sparking the Maidan protests. Yanukovych took fright and fled to Russia leaving somewhat of a power vacuum that gave Vladimir Putin an excuse and opportunity to annexe Crimea and back an insurrection in the Donbas.
Obama has since defended his failure to react at the time.
ETA double negative
ETA2 It’s a long read but but…
Yulia Tymoshenko
The file at the link is a pdf. The information is not exactly new. Kennedy, like many presidents, was upset by the CIA being out of control. The memo is by Arthur Schlesinger Jr, Kennedy’s personal assistant.
One of the reasons people still argue about the assassination is that JFK had so many enemies in high places. It’s kind of an Orient Express thing, except the good guy is the victim.
As for Ukraine, I still think of it as the child in a divorce custody battle.
I once did a divorce custody study for the court, and couldn’t find either parent, or any relative that I could recommend.
Yes, you are unjustified in thinking that. The article you cite is wrong. The biggest clue is immediately in the beginning:
“I rarely agree with President Trump, but his latest controversial statements about Ukraine are mostly true.”
When we are talking about Trump, then “true” never enters the picture. Everything that Trump says is clueless, strictly speaking neither true or untrue. This particularly applies to Ukraine: Trump knows literally nothing about Ukraine. Trump liberally contradicts himself from moment to moment. Nothing Trump says is meant to be true, but is rather meant to strike a nerve.
“First, as recently documented by overwhelming forensic evidence, and affirmed even by a Kyiv court, it was Ukrainian right-wing militants who started the violence in 2014 that provoked Russia’s initial invasion of the country’s southeast including Crimea. “
False. The violence on Maidan did not begin in 2014. The violence started in December 2013 by the police. The first deadly clashes occurred in January 2014 between armed police and protesters without firearms. And it was not the violence that provoked Russia’s invasion of Crimea. Invasion of Crimea was due to Yanukovych fleeing to Russia, i.e. Putin was losing control over Ukraine. Putin does not care how violent things are. Putin cares if he and his men are in power.
You are wrong about everything, petrushka. If you are implying that Maidan protesters were funded by CIA or the like, then you are deliberately wrong and hopelessly incorrigible.
It is obvious to Asians that when Europeans/Americans do not save a country with people of their own race in a matter where the right and the wrong sides are very clearcut, they definitely won’t lift a finger for a country with people of different race in a matter where right and wrong are less clear. Besides, it is logistically very hard to support Taiwan against an invasion from China. Transporting heavy stuff over land is several times easier than over water or air.
Xi has credentials and history. I can see him, like the vampire, being invited in: seduction rather than invasion. China learned from their Tibet experience. There’s no rush.
Putin has no long game to play against economic inevitability.
Agree with this. Trump is someone else’s short-term plan. It is, having watched the unthinkable becoming thinkable over the last couple of decades, no longer unthinkable to imagine that someone else is Vladimir Putin. Maybe his last roll of the dice, maybe not. We’ll see.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/13/ukraine-us-war-russia-john-pilger
This is an editorial. I just present it to document how much the world changes in only 10 years. It’s truly Orwellian.
petrushka,
John Pilger was much admired on the left of politics as a crusading journalist, advocating for the oppressed against undemocratic governments and movements
But…
Hard to corroborate his comments on Ukraine and its tribulations in 2013-2014 with facts.