English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

CowperKettle

5:22 PM

Gloves made 3345 years ago.

Robusto

@CowperKettle And somebody still lost them ...

CowperKettle

No, they were laid in his death chamber

King Tut's chamber

Robusto

Joke.

CowperKettle

designated KV62 in Egyptology

I regularly see kids' glove or mitten hang on a branch of a tree. It's a tradition to pick up lost mittens and place them on trees for easier finding.

Robusto

Just high enough so the kids can't reach them?

So King Tut just might have been murdered.

Cerberus

5:26 PM

@CowperKettle It is the same here.

By the way, didn't we find Ötzi's gloves?

Robusto

We found his boots, I think.

CowperKettle

Tutankhamun's meteoric iron dagger

Tutankhamun's meteoric iron dagger, also known as Tutankhamun's iron dagger and King Tut's dagger, is an iron-bladed dagger discovered during 1925 in the ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamun's 14th century BC King's Valley tomb by archaeologist Howard Carter. As the blade composition and homogeneity closely correlate with meteorite composition and homogeneity, the material for the blade is determined to have originated by way of a meteoritic landing. The dagger is currently displayed at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. == Analysis == Since the 1960s, the high nickel content in the blade has been...

An iron dagger, an extremely rare thing in a Bronze age.

Cerberus

The article about Ötzi says nothing about gloves nor mittens.

> iron during this age was more valuable or precious than gold

> Around 95 of the 118 elements in the periodic table are metals (or are likely to be such).

Robusto

Interestingly, Tutankhamun is shown wearing only the Hedjet crown of Upper Egypt, not the double crown (Pschent) of Upper and Lower Egypt;

Pschent

The pschent (; Greek ψχέντ) was the double crown worn by rulers in ancient Egypt. The ancient Egyptians generally referred to it as sekhemty (sḫm.ty), the Two Powerful Ones. It combined the White Hedjet Crown of Upper Egypt and the Red Deshret Crown of Lower Egypt. The Pschent represented the pharaoh's power over all of unified Egypt. It bore two animal emblems: an Egyptian cobra, known as the uraeus, ready to strike, which symbolized the Lower Egyptian goddess Wadjet; and an Egyptian vulture representing the Upper Egyptian tutelary goddess Nekhbet. These were fastened to the front of the Pschent...

Ah, my phone is getting Android 12 now.

CowperKettle

5:42 PM

@Cerberus Yes, a mere 3500 years ago an iron knife was a thing that only an emperor could have.

> From "Catastrophe 1914: Europe Goes to War" by Max Hastings, 2013

Cerberus

I think perhaps not only.

@CowperKettle All too true.

CowperKettle

Yes, a good historical anecdote from a nice book

Cerberus

Luckily, current rulers are a bit more sensible than Hitler or Wilhelm II.

Robusto

@Cerberus Are they, @Cerb? Are they?

If history has shown us anything, it is that human stupidity is never in short supply.

Cerberus

@Robusto Enough not to want a world war.

A great war.

Robusto

5:53 PM

The next great war will be the last one.

Cerberus

Nobody wants to invade Russia, America, China, India, or Western Europe.

@Robusto Now you underestimate humanity's capacity of repeating evils!

Napoleon had invaded Russia and conquered Moscow.

Robusto

@Cerberus Invasion isn't the object anymore. It's annihilation.

Cerberus

Not at all!

Nobody wants to annihilate those places.

Hitler invaded Russia and tried to exterminate Slavs in various regions.

Robusto

@Cerberus Nobody? Not even Kim Jong Un?

Cerberus

I think not even he.

But he is admittedly amongst the world's least rational leaders.

Even so, I think he has no desire to conquer any place, possibly except South Korea.

He doesn't want to invade China nor America.

Nor yet Russia.

Robusto

5:57 PM

Putin has recently threatened to put hypersonic nukes 5 minutes away from Washington, D.C.

Cerberus

Yes, but as part of MAD.

Standard Cold War stuff, isn't it?

Robusto

I don't know. This seems to go beyond that.

Cerberus

He doesn't want to invade America any more than American wants to invade Russia.

They fight over Eastern Europe.

Robusto

Making the response window as short as 5 minutes means retaliatory launches have to be similarly shortened, which means a nuclear conflagration is even more likely than it was in the bad old days of the Cold War.

@Cerberus Again, it's not about invasion. It doesn't have to be.

Cerberus

@Robusto Hmm why?

Why can't you retaliate the next day?

Robusto

6:01 PM

That's not how it works.

It's a "use it or lose it" mentality.

Cerberus

@Robusto I think said government aren't planning invasions neither nuclear attacks on cities.

@Robusto How/why would you lose it?

Robusto

Because part of a first strike would be intended to cripple retaliatory capability.

Cerberus

But how could you ever cripple retaliatory capability?

American atomics aren't positioned in a heap on Washington town square.

Robusto

When you light that fuse, you light that fuse.

Cerberus

I don't know what you mean.

Robusto

6:03 PM

Anyway, this is a pretty good video on the subject:

The REAL Truth About Nuclear War

►

Cerberus

If you destroy all American cities, she can still launch a hundred nuclear missiles at Russia.

Robusto

@Cerberus You are assuming people will behave rationally.

Cerberus

And vice versa.

@Robusto I am talking about this.

Robusto

Look, I didn't make up the MAD predicates. I don't think they actually exist.

We're in a room filled with gasoline in buckets, and we're playing with matches.

Anyway, I have to go now. TBC.

Cerberus

@Robusto I agree that nuclear weapons are always a problem and a threat.

Although some argue that they have served to prevent WWIII because of MAD.

But I do not think any nuclear power wishes to use them now.

So I think there is no immediate threat of that.

Robusto

7:11 PM

@Cerberus The top comment in that video:

> As a former nuclear launch officer and instructor in two nuclear weapon system my recommendation is for everyone to get rid of them. Deterence has worked but it only takes one mistake, one machine malfunction or a bad decision for it all to go wrong.

We've already narrowly dodged nuclear Armageddon. If you doubt that, read Command and Control by Eric Schlosser

Cerberus

@Robusto Yeah, but can we get rid of them?

I think no government wants to give them up...

Robusto

Good question.

Cerberus

Especially considering that you never know when another government will have some secret ones left over somewhere, or created anew...

Robusto

> “Our ability to organize does not match the inherent hazards of some of our organized activities.” What appeared to be the rare exception, an anomaly, a one-in-a-million accident, was actually to be expected. It was normal.

That was from Charles B. Perrow, an expert on the subject.

And once this whole Fail-Safe process gets assigned to AI, it's going to be Katie-bar-the-door. Cf. Skynet.

Skynet (Terminator)

Skynet is a fictional artificial neural network-based conscious group mind and artificial general superintelligence system that serves as the antagonistic force of the Terminator franchise. In the first film, it is stated that Skynet was created by Cyberdyne Systems for SAC-NORAD. When Skynet gained self-awareness, humans tried to deactivate it, prompting it to retaliate with a nuclear attack, an event which humankind in (or from) the future refers to as Judgment Day. John Connor forms a human resistance against Skynet's machines in the future, which include Terminators, and ultimately leads the...

Cerberus

@Robusto Will it?

Robusto

7:21 PM

We'd be foolish not to allow for that possibility.

Cerberus

I think artificial intelligence is perhaps the real threat.

Robusto

We're making the whole MAD thing more and more complicated, and complexity militates against safety.

Although insanely difficult, getting ride of nukes is the only "simpler" option.

Cerberus

The one good thing about current hackers is that they prepare us, to some degree, for what an AI enemy could do.

Robusto

7:32 PM

Command and Control (book)

Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety is a 2013 nonfiction book by Eric Schlosser about the history of nuclear weapons systems and accidents involving nuclear weapons in the United States. Incidents Schlosser discusses in the book include the 1980 Damascus Titan missile explosion, the 1966 Palomares B-52 crash, and the 1961 Goldsboro B-52 crash. It was a finalist for the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for History. A documentary film based on the book aired as an episode of American Experience on PBS in early 2017. == Critical reception == A review in The New...

@MattE.Эллен: Do the various constituent colleges of Oxford University have their own specialties, or do they all teach similar curricula?

Robusto

7:51 PM

@Cerberus: Apparently Julius Caesar spoke mainly Greek, not Latin.

68

A: What language did Gaius Julius Caesar speak with Cleopatra?

Most likely Greek. This is the only language which we know they definitely had in common, and both were highly proficient in it. High-born Romans learnt Greek and Julius Caesar was no exception: According to the 1st century C.E. Roman historian Suetonius, Julius Caesar spoke mainly Greek and not...

Cerberus

@Robusto Well, with Cleopatra, sure.

Educated Romans spoke Greek well enough.

Robusto

Apparently most of the time, too.

If you can believe Suetonius.

Cerberus

Greek was the Roman French!

They might even speak it when all present were Romans, on occasion.

Robusto

The Lingua Achaea?

Cerberus

His last words more likely to have been kai su, teknon, rather than et tu, fili.

@Robusto Indeed!

The Greek colonies around the Mediterranean, including Italy, and the conquests of Alexander, firmly established Greek.

Robusto

8:00 PM

Well, yeah. modern-day Naples used to be Neapolis, ne?

SmokeDetector

8:11 PM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Title starts and ends with a forward slash (86): /ʊ/, /oʊ/, and /ʌ/ merged before /l/‭ by glarder‭ on english.SE

Cerberus

@Robusto Indeed.

And Marseille Massilia.

Mitch

9:27 PM

@Cerberus There's a lot more that's way more dangerous sooner than anything that AI will be able to do.

Regular engineering is complicated enough, so many more things to go wrong -or- to be misused intentionally.

jlliagre

@Cerberus Yes, Marseille inhabitants are still sometimes named phocéens (Phocaeans).

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Repeating characters in answer (79): Roboticist v.s. Robotician‭ by gabroke‭ on english.SE

Cerberus

@Mitch More dangerous sooner than atomics?

@Mitch Yes, which is why I feel that important things should NOT be conexed to the Internet at all.

@jlliagre Ah, cool. That nickname was probably reinvented during the 19th century?

Mitch

@Cerberus I'm saying that AI is not the worry, some acorporeal intelligence choosing to kill us all on purpose (say, using nukes or polluting our water).

Cerberus

@Mitch Ah, well, I'm not sure.

I don't think anything but atomics could kill most of us at the moment.

Mitch

9:33 PM

The worry is computer viruses (intentionally released by government -or- uncontrolled actors) -or- just complex system failure (like what used to cause country wide blackouts but we just don't realize ahead of time that it would be a problem)

Or coronal mass ejections from the sun that fry all our electronics

@Cerberus I'm separating the tool that kills us all (or a large majority) from the decision process that leads to its use.

Cerberus

@Mitch This doesn't sound like something that could kill us all.

Mitch

AI is a decision procedure, nukes are the tool

Cerberus

@Mitch This I'm not sure about, but why do you feel it should happen sooner than dangerous AI?

@Mitch Maybe; however, perhaps AI can kill us with small tools.

Mitch

@Cerberus nukes are probably the only thing that could kill us all, but really there's other things that aren't so great like famine or sickness or local terrorist killings or having all the self-driving vehicles drive off cliffs which would only kill a few people

@Cerberus If by AI you mean some miscalibrated/misengineered algoithm that erroneouslymultiplies by 100 the xray dosage.

It won't be some AI deciding on it's own to contact all the XRay machines and do it purposely.

@Cerberus The way you are invoking 'AI' sounds mostly like science fiction. Plain old non-AI engineering can be manipulated much easier to do harm.

jlliagre

10:18 PM

@Cerberus While Phocéen was linked to the city of Marseille since ages (Cité fondée par les Phocéens), its first use as a demonym is attributed to Alexandre Dumas Père, around 1840. However, a quick search shows it was already used in 1777 and likely earlier so the nickname gradually emerged from literature to mainstream.

Robusto

And the word Carthage was Phoenician, I think, and meant the same thing as Neapolis.

jlliagre

10:51 PM

@Robusto Yes, Newton.

Cerberus

11:01 PM

@Mitch Yeah, we could deal with those things, unless perhaps some AI mastermind unleashed everything at us all at once.

@Mitch No, I mean a really omniscient intelligence that can do anything it wants via the Internet.

@Mitch Yes, it is science fiction now.

But it may very well happen.

@jlliagre Ah OK, I suppose the 18th century already had some Romanticism and nationalism!

And, who knows, someone might even have thought of it during the Renaissance.

But what I wanted to establish was whether or not it was something that had remained in use since Antiquity, which I didn't expect to be the case.

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