Dogs and Cats?! Noooooo!

At least now we're getting some real, intellectually-stimulating, sensible and plausible results. The floor is now wide open for all of your best theories regarding what'll happen when Obama gets elected and it is revealed he is Moslem (in a mojo jojo moment or through super-intelligent sources)!

Though I dunno, maybe its more appropriate now to change the question back to "What's the BEST thing could happen?".

Hmm, I guess then all the surviving really are terrorists now. I think Osama's become a little too much of a bogeyman these days. They'd like to, but that's a tall order really.

Well, since these are really Arabic words I guess you can spell them as you like as long as its phonetically correct. But since Barack is how Obama spells his name, I guess we shouldn't be using more than one r, hehe.

I guess the fascists will always hold their own. However, he may just be able to reach out to others who are still holding sway. Secondly, if I were a straight-thinking loyal-to-the-land Moslem living in America, I think I’d be just a little (or a lot) more comfortable if someone evidently sympathetic to Islam is in office. And if he really was Moslem and could assert the fact and still win America’s votes – wow, that would truly be groundbreaking, and shut up a lot of Osama. But who can say?

Still, a reason to be optimistic

For a nation that advocates free speech so vehemently, its surprising that so many people think its in bad taste. I don’t find it offensive to Obama at all - in fact, it may even be supportive to his campaign telling people to lighten up, dammit.

What I could find offensive, without reference to the cartoonist who quite successfully portrayed exaggerated public sentiments, is that just because Obama may have been Moslem it apparently qualifies him as a could-be terrorist.

May I ask: What's the worst thing could happen if Barrack's really moslem?

I think the NY Times has got it covered, literally, as I found out from borme's debate. Personally I think it’s great that he’s so close to realities regarding Moslems – that should give him the much needed leverage in his international relations with the Moslem world if he doesn’t screw up.

Brilliant. Just what I've been thinking, or something close. The human mind, I believe, can in fact be powered [programmed] to fuse with the [Universal AC] through discipline that essentially becomes self-improving in nature to conquer [entropy]. In order for an AI system to become better than the human mind, its rate of self-correction would have to surpass that of human intelligence at its highest level to become a multivac higher than the [Universal AC] that already exists. By the time that it would achieve that level of sophistication, it would merge into the existing [Universal AC] that is perpetually in existence to begin with, along with all human consciousness. AI can thus be nothing more than a dream within a dream, or a primordial specimen insignificant enough to deliberate an answer as yet, but you – or Asimov – have indeed directed attention towards the query. But at this time, it seems, [there is insufficient data for a meaningful answer].

'Smart' cannot simply be information-rich. It necessarily implies a cognitive, mental ability. Technology can be an enabler – provided the subject is in a position to use the tools available. Despite having ‘more information than kings and priests in the past’, I guess a lot of us are just as daft as ever. So logically people in the past had to be smarter - more calculating, innovative, value additive etc. - by getting around with less information (or more effort required for the same richness of information) coupled with cleverness. And the ‘loss of skills’ you mention are probably the cognitive, mental skills that basically make you smart. Thus, this generation – mainstream society of today – is therefore less smart than previous generations due to the pervasiveness of technology and overly simplified binary-logic thinking (ironically, the very thought process I’ve just used in my argument). I guess there really is no difference.

‘Advances in technology such as the hybrid cars and alternative fuels’? Neither of these so-called ‘advancements’ make this generation ‘smarter’. Predecessors invented the automobile in the first place - these are only refinements that may not turn out to be much ‘smarter’ for planet earth going further anyway.

I agree. Our endeavor for technological and cultural progressiveness, in which it may be considered abnormal to dwell on anything for more than a little while, probably leaves too little time to actually appreciate the finer details of everything we have. Perhaps it wasn’t so before, when people were more likely to pause for thought instead of demanding continuous extrinsic stimulation, aware of the impermanence of life and its diversions.

How this relates to how ‘smart’ this generation is to previous generations is that there is not much difference in our cognitive abilities - however much is set aside as latent, which may not have been the case in the golden ages of philosophy, arts and literature in which the prowess of the mind was further explored. Technology may be actually a retardation of our mental abilities as we ‘outsource’ a great deal of our thinking to computer-generated output.

And while communication has contributed ‘collective intelligence’ across the globe with the internet and other media, I would still discount this as a modern variation of an age-old practice, albeit less selective than lecture halls and schools of thought, further limiting due to strong cultural influences from western ideals and an unapologetic ‘bandwagon of uncertainty’.

Not to say that I am not extremely thankful for the information so readily available that, like bingeing on vast quantities of somewhat-nourishing-mostly-junk-food, can even enlarge my rear.

Your argument is full of contradictions. ‘The majority of youths couldn't care less about having knowledge’ but ‘there are more people and most are going to colleges’. ‘Acceptance into colleges has become harder and harder’, yet apparently unqualified individuals are’ taking the spots of those that deserve to be in their [sic]’.

If you say colleges and universities seem to be having too many students while entry requirement are getting tougher, it would be inconsistent to say that ‘the majority of society couldn't care less about knowledge’.

You say that smart people today are much smarter than their predecessors, albeit fewer, but you have not provided any coherent argument or evidence regarding your opinion.