What’s that, and why should it be destroyed?

More like a terabyte.

In addition, we haven’t even come up with a definition of intelligence.

Well, we’re still at least one breakthrough away from AGI, and we don’t even know how it will go from there. Could be that humans are already near the maximum of what is possible intelligence wise. As in, the smartest being possible is not that much smarter than the average human. In which case, AGI taking over the world would not be a given.

Essentially, talking about the threat posed by ASI is like talking about the threat posed by Cthulhu.

AI companies are buying up all of the RAM in a futile bit to reach AGI.

Same way you short anything else, you borrow it, sell it, and then buy it back once the price has dropped, and return it.

Investors could be bailed out. As in you invested 10e11$, so now the government gives you that money back.

Market cap is just share price times the number of shares. Can potentially be completely divorced from how well your company is actually doing. Conversely, a drop or rise in market cap doesn’t have to mean your company is doing better or worse. If you’re selling shovels, you still have the money when the music stops.

In a gold rush, the real money is in selling shovels. But you have to take cash upfront.

The two party system is baked into the system, without reform, it will persist through all challenges.

Just launch a ton of ball bearings into orbit, and end space flight for ever. Or at least for the forseeable future.

Edit: Bearing balls, actually. Ball bearings is where the bearing balls are. But we want them in orbit.

A shutdown means that the government is insolvent, though. At some point, the funds will run dry without borrowing more. A default would likely send the US and world economy into a recession. Though could be that Trump will just bypass congress to borrow more money anyway.

They’re the ones selling shovels in this gold rush, though.

Well, I hope he enjoys burning 🔥 in hell.

What if we’re not smart enough to build something like that?

Problem with Starlink is that the satellites need to be replaced every 5 years or so.

Yeah, but my point was that our current economic system can’t deal with, not that we can’t deal with it in general. Migrating away from the current system would require the powerful to give up their power, which they won’t do willingly, even as the walls are closing in. (In fact, when it comes to global warming, the walls are closing in).

So, why are declining birth rates not a problem?

It’s not shrinking yet, the birth rate is declining, and the world population is projected to start declining 2050.

Maybe. Could also be that humans never invent anything that comes close to a biological brain. Either because we simply aren’t smart enough, or because civilization regresses before we get there. And there’s several trends going on currently which could cause civilization to regress. For example, climate change and declining birth rates (While we could set up an economic system that can deal with a shrinking and aging population, our current one cannot).