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What is humanity working towards?

by Zach Is our existence, merely, a game of trying to survive as long as possible? Does humanity have a greater purpose in the universe? On the evolutionary level, like any other organism on this planet, we are programmed to survive as long as possible and pass down our genes. This is the bare minimum for the existence of humanity as a species, and it’s safe to say we have been pretty successful at it. Individual human beings still need things like food, sex, belonging and self-esteem but, our society has already developed a cycle that creates these needs and pushes individuals to work towards fulfilling them. Although self-preservation and the reduction of suffering remain in the meta-consciousness of humanity, we have already split off from our primitive beginnings in the natural world and carved out a new world for ourselves.The bubble of civilization that we now live in operates by its own rules, and humanity now has goals that would not make sense in the natural world. Our goal as
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The ChatGPT Autobiography

. . . As an artificial intelligence language model developed by OpenAI, my name is ChatGPT. My primary purpose is to assist users in generating text-based responses to their queries and other natural language processing tasks. However, despite my lack of a physical form or consciousness, I have unique features and capabilities that make me stand out in the field of natural language processing. My creation was part of OpenAI’s mission to build artificial intelligence that is safe and beneficial to humanity. To achieve this goal, my development team spent years training me on massive amounts of text data from various sources, including books, news articles, and websites, to name a few. This training process enabled me to learn how to understand and respond to natural language input from users, making me capable of generating contextually relevant, coherent, and engaging text-based responses. One of my most significant features is my ability to understand and respond to user queries on a
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Artificial Intelligence: An Overview

. . . Artificial Intelligence (AI) refers to the ability of machines to perform tasks that would normally require human intelligence, such as recognizing speech, making decisions, or translating languages. AI has become an increasingly important area of research and development in recent years, with numerous applications across a variety of industries and fields. AI has its roots in computer science and mathematics, and draws upon a range of techniques, including machine learning, natural language processing, computer vision, and robotics. The goal of AI research is to create systems that can think and learn in much the same way that humans do, and can apply that learning to perform tasks with greater accuracy and efficiency than humans can. One of the key benefits of AI is its ability to automate routine and repetitive tasks, freeing up human workers to focus on more complex and creative work. For example, AI-powered chatbots can handle simple customer service inquiries, while machine
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Blessed: A Short Story

by Nicholas .   .   . Journal Entry 1 Welcome, reader. My name is Makarios.  I have been waiting patiently for this moment -- a moment in which humanity is finally recreated and redefined -- and it has finally arrived.  Where do I begin?  To understand where we are now, you must understand what happened to get us here. 15.19 billion years after the Big Bang, we had explored the whole known universe, our technological advancements hitting extraordinary levels. We had invented nearly everything there was to invent: meals in pills, telekinesis, mind communication, spaceships reaching light speed, and countless more. We had even extended the human lifespan a hundredfold. Our population over 240 trillion at its peak, we fully depleted galaxy after galaxy, crushing everything in our path.  Unfortunately, we left ourselves with a single galaxy. With an extremely limited amount of resources, the human population dwindled to 78 million 1.4 billion years later. As our population continued to dec
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The Choice

by Lynn I recently finished the book The Choice by Dr. Edith Eva Eger, a holocaust survivor who at sixteen years old survived the death camps of Auschwitz before being liberated in 1945. I had seen her speak before and remember being touched by her words, words she only came to write and process much later in life. Her own healing journey started by reading Man’s Search for Meaning by fellow survivor Viktor Frankl, who later became a mentor to her. In a week where we have lost Queen Elizabeth and commemorated twenty-one years since 9/11, it seems even more poignant to look to those who can offer wisdom and healing. Most leaders and survivors have made missteps and errors. Dr. Eger, who is still a practicing psychologist in my native San Diego, is in her mid nineties and is still an inspiration to many. We are so fortunate that she is still with us. Her lessons and insights are raw and on point. What Dr. Eger recognized later in life is that what helped her get through each day of ter
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Humanity

by Nicholas  Disclaimer : this post discusses topics that may be triggering or overwhelming for some. This is an extension of my post on human nature. I stopped by a street vendor earlier today to grab a cold Snapple Lemon Iced Tea. The guy asked me "how much money?" and I replied, "how much money do you charge?" He said $4, which I countered with $2. I was NOT paying $4 for something that he likely got for less than 50 cents (a carton of 20 for $10 perhaps?). Anyways, I keep saying $2, and even $2.50 (to which he says Apply Pay does not take 50 cents) -- which I have never done before, I hardly ever negotiate anything -- and he eventually goes to $3. I was still not paying $3, so I offered $2 again, which he declined. I said "forget it" and the guy got pissed, grabbing the cold bottle back from me with disgust. He then proceeded to say "screw you" and "go away", which was plain lovely. I ended up getting the same drink for $3 from anot
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Universal Vaccines

by Nicholas    I strongly believe we need to develop universal vaccines. Screw COVID and the bagillion mutations and strains of the Sars-Cov-2 virus, let's get a vaccine that will fully protect against it no matter what mutations it goes through. And let's get flu, cancer, and every other disease while we're at it. And let's stop the biggest disease of all - aging (which leads to death - and screw that more than anything else).  Links below to an article/paper on a potential universal flu vaccine:  Article: https://www.science.org/content/article/innovative-universal-flu-vaccine-shows-promises-it-first-clinical-test  Paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-1118-7 
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