I was talking to 
She wasn't a huge fan.
But knowing that I didn't have much to work with, she did say that it would be great with ham in it, and maybe pineapple - The famous Hawaiian frittata.
I am happy to eat pineapple on pizza.
While we were eating we were talking about her ethics class (since she doesn't attend religion class - which is still taught in public schools here) and today's topic of "ethical decision-making", which she said centred on environmental factors. We expanded it a little and then she asked me whether there are really people who don't believe in dinosaurs. A little left field, but since we were talking about animal testing and then hunting and eating endangered animals, I guess it came to mind.
We picked the conversation up again when I was putting her to sleep and it was really interesting as we talked about religion and scientific discovery, persecution of theory and rock sediments. We really packed a lot into a half hour conversation before lights out, so hopefully she has some good dreams.
Normally we read but we finished the books we have and I am waiting on LOTR to arrive.
What we spent the time on toward the end though was the validity of rules and how what is accepted at one point of time as correct, can be proven very flawed at a later point - A bit like Galileo being found guilty of heresy, for defending the work of Copernicus, which the church had put on the banned list of books.
Common acceptance doesn't equal correctness.
Smallsteps is a rule follower when it comes to pretty much everything she does, and I am trying to break her out of the habit. Not so she will break all the rules, but so she doesn't follow them blindly. Because the rules of today Are going to change at some point, no matter what they are. It is like how only a few years ago in the US people were imprisoned for smoking weed, and now there is a dispensary on every corner. Or how a few decades ago and still in some countries it was illegal to be gay.
Rules change.
Not universal rules, although our understanding of them can develop, but all these man-made rules that are imposed to control us. And yes, in some respects we need rules to function as a society, but we have had social rules far longer than we have had a legal system. Now, the rules that are meant to keep us functioning are being used against us for profit. The rules we were told to follow to keep us safe, are now becoming a liability.
For example, for decades people were told to do the right thing and prepare for their retirement by putting money into funds. However now, bit by bit, as the governments need money and they aren't willing to tax the multinational corporations appropriately, they are finding ways to take the value away from those who have earned it - the people who did the "right thing" as far as the rules were concerned, only to be punished for it later.
The game is always changing.
And we are entering quickly into a period of time where the rules are going to be changing rapidly and possibly with quite a lot of confusion and corruption. The volatility is going to set up power-grab attempts and the various changes are going to be largely hail Mary attempts to create stability, with a lot of unintended consequences creating even more confusion, volatility, and likely violence - because humans are not made to live like this, let alone what is to come.
The problem is that the rules that are made are never made for the betterment of humanity, but rather the agenda of a group who believe that they are entitled to special treatment of some kind. Every group, no matter how seemingly harmless, wants more for themselves and once rule-makers, will go about changing the rules to benefit their group, themselves.
I wonder how long it will take for "authorities" to acknowledge the folly of their ways and change the rules toward betterment of humanity?
How long did it take the church to acknowledge we revolve around the sun?
It took the Catholic Church 359 years to officially clear Galileo Galilei’s name and formally acknowledge that the Earth revolves around the sun.
Geez.
It took decades after the death of Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis who was ridiculed, and sent insane before his theory on germs and why doctors should wash their hands before delivering babies was accepted.
We aren't very smart.
The rules we have are invalid for what is to come, because they have been created for a different time that can no longer return and will only catalyse the problems faster. There is no solution in what we have done in recent times, only expanding and deepening hardship. We need to change the rules drastically, pivoting away from profit at any price, and toward wellbeing no matter the effort.
For over a decade I have been talking about the impact of AI on jobs and society and all the tech people have said I am crazy. But it seems, they are starting to change their minds, now that those same smart people working in the most valuable companies in the world, are getting laid off in double digit percentages regularly, because they aren't as efficient or effective as an algorithm. They thought following the rules made them safe.
Security is an illusion.
But that is what the rules have come to offer. A false sense of security. And because they looked to the speed of the past to predict the future as we have been conditioned to do, they didn't expect all the changes to happen as fast as they have. They didn't predict that the AI would advance in capability as quickly, or that energy for data centres will take precedence over energy for townsfolk.
All that energy, so little wellbeing.
Is it a question of ethics?
Taraz
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