Tuesday morning links

Read this recently:

"Here's a little thought experiment. Let's take three radically disruptive technologies and mash them up together. Bitcoin. Uber. Self-driving cars. What happens when you mash them up together? Self-owning cars. A car that pays for its Toyota lease, its insurance, and its gas, by giving people rides. A car that is not owned by a corporation, a car that IS a corporation. A car that is a shareholder and owner of its own corporation. A car that exists as an autonomous financial entity with no human ownership. This has never happened before, and that's just the beginning.

I read this. Scratched my head, and thought "well, it's certainly going to be interesting the next few years."

Apple was right. Think different.

#1 Bulldog on 2018-01-02 09:11 (Reply)

Interesting thought but even if you apply a family model there has to be some human agency involved, i.e. Toyota has to decide to build the car. Toyota could certainly chose to emancipate it but would it be legally required to do so?

#1.1 Christopher B on 2018-01-02 14:02 (Reply)

Next, citizenship. So it can vote for the Democrats.

#1.2 jma on 2018-01-02 17:05 (Reply)

Britain has finally realized that they are in trouble because of Muslim immigrants! What took them so long? The problem now is that they have passed a tipping point. It is literally impossible for them to stop this from taking over their country because they allowed the immigration to reach a critical mass of anti-British "citizens". Now the only choices the British have is civil war at great human cost or a prolonged "white flight" abandoning their country to the invaders. There will be those who continue to believe that they can make "diversity" work but they will simply become grist for the Islamofascist jihadists to practice their hobby of raping, torturing and beheading infidels. But even as their grim future comes into focus I don't think that the British have the guts to do what they must to survive so they will not.

#2 GoneWithTheWind on 2018-01-02 09:23 (Reply)

I go about my business all week and never meet a muslim and everybody I associate with family,business friends all dislike the religion.....England has quite a way to go yet, more chance of the USA becoming Mexican first.

#2.1 thud (Link) on 2018-01-02 15:16 (Reply)

I won't disagree with your observations. The problem is that as illustrated in other countries this Muslim vs non-Muslim issue becomes a problem when the percentage of Muslims exceeds a rough 10-20%. So what happens is that, like you, everyone seems to think things are just fine, sure there are few more killings/beheadings/acid attacks and the occasional rape of 1400 school girls but there has always been crime, right! Then it happens to someone you know and you go "hmmm, that's odd". And then it happens again to someone you know and you start to look into the problem and discover it actually has been happening a lot but the MSM has collaborated to cover it up and just asking about the problem gets you called names like racist or Islamophobe so few people even ask. Until it just seems to be happening in your own little circle. It is a perfect trap don'tcha see. It sneeks up on you until their numbers are great enough that they feel confident in enforcing Sharia law so you don't really see the problem and can we all just get along and stuff like that. And the government and media hides it because it only upsets the red necks and hoi polloi and diversity is our strength don'tcha know. But once the immigration, the diversity, has reached that point of no return and you couldn't pass a law to stop it and if you did the judges would rule against you and your own government would put you in jail for being such a bigot, once the diversity bomb has reached that point it is on auto-pilot. Each Muslim immigrant is eagerly completing the official paperwork to bring in another 50 or so of his closest relatives and former jihadis and as each of them come into the country they too fill out the paperwork to bring in their relatives etc. and suddenly you discover it was all a Trojan Horse and now they are the enemy within and YOU are the target.

I know many Muslims and have known them for 50 years or more. I knew some Iranians who came here to go to school 50 years ago who bragged about how modern Iran was and never imagined what Iran would become. Many that I know are nice people, polite, educated, successful. But statistically they believe that we should follow Sharia law and that anyone who says anything bad about Islam should be punished/killed. But they aren't stupid enough to push that when they are only 2% or 4% of the population. But what happens when they are 10% or 15% of the population and the really committed among them take to the streets from time to time to make sure any women who don't dress right are attacked? What happenes when they are elected to office, local and national, and pass laws that restrict you or allow them to enforce Sharia? What then? That is the point!! What then? You cannot reverse the immigration, they aren't going home/back willingly. You cannot legislate against them because they are legislators and judges too. You cannot stop immigration in some vain hope of closing that barn door and somehow they will assimilate because they will not stand for ending immigration that benefits them. So what do you do once you figure out your government, your politicians and you screwed up???

#2.1.1 GoneWithTheWind on 2018-01-02 18:01 (Reply)

Well said, GWTW. One suburb in my area has gone from having a few Christian, English-speaking Arabs to building one of the biggest mosques in the U.S. with a Muslim population to match. They have no intention of integrating into the non-Muslim community and largely speak only Arabic.

My collegue grew up in Dearborn, MI, which is totally Muslim now and all the neighbors who were part of her past memories have moved as their new neighbors don't speak English. The churches are now converted to mosques and all the businesses cater to the Muslim community, so buying American-style women's wear is impossible.

The change happened one family at a time until...the deluge.

#2.1.1.1 jma on 2018-01-02 18:36 (Reply)

Unfortunately many politicians on the left seem hell-bent on bring them in by the thousands for us to care for while they multiply. If they have their way we will be gone. Look at Europe to see what they have in store for The United States.

#2.1.1.1.1 JC on 2018-01-02 19:27 (Reply)

Check this out:
https://www.weaselzippers.us/369656-german-police-file-charges-against-lawmaker-for-criticizing-muslim-rape-gangs/

#2.1.2 GoneWithTheWind on 2018-01-02 18:28 (Reply)

Bret Stevens is a Never Trumper because it's in his contract with the NYT, the biggest Never Trumper of them all.

#3 Sam L. on 2018-01-02 10:13 (Reply)

Bret Stephens: Why I’m Still A NeverTrumper

Gee, an article written by ONE NeverTrumper (Patterico, a hard-core, practicing Asst. DA in CA and a huge phony) about someone who is an East Coast lib/prog NeverTrumper, who is also a big phony!

Multiple ECHO CHAMBERS anyone???

Neither man actually knows Trump, so they both repeat the FAKENEWS lies about him , rather than actually investigate their claims of Trump's wholly alleged (and mostly made-up) "immorality" and show us evidence of same.

Evidence? [b[We don't got to show you NO evidence![/b] say these two peas in a pod!

The trade mark, in my opinion, of witless prosecutorial and persecutorial bullies everywhere!

#3.1 B48 on 2018-01-02 11:09 (Reply)

Like Vox's analysis of Trump.

Vox. That noted bastion of even-handed political reporting... lol.

#3.1.1 JLawson on 2018-01-02 13:15 (Reply)

Iran protesters.
Howabout the US bringing an emergency UN resolutiont to protect protesters from being killed?

and to prevent internet blackouts there as a violation of the UN human rights ?

go Nikki Haley !!!

#4 jaybird on 2018-01-02 10:14 (Reply)

French fries are meant to be warm. But kudos for the effort at innovation.

#5 DrTorch on 2018-01-02 10:59 (Reply)

Precisely. My sentiments exactly.

#5.1 feeblemind on 2018-01-02 12:01 (Reply)

Aren't cold french fries potato chips?

#5.2 Christopher B on 2018-01-02 12:26 (Reply)

Oh, goody. More salty, starchy crap from TJ's, the great purveyor of off-brand TV dinners for hipsters. You have nothing to lose but your waistlines!

#5.3 Mike Anderson (Link) on 2018-01-02 16:11 (Reply)

dossier scandal looms

A crooked G-man named Ohr
And wife had a fake dossier chore
To fund Russian spies
And the Dems’ fusion guys
To violate the Hatch Act for sure

#6 jaybird on 2018-01-02 11:56 (Reply)

"D ata: Trump Admin Reduces Refugee Admissions by 70 Percent in First Year"

In a complimentary action, the Trump admin released the hounds and now ISIL/ISIS no longer controls 95% of the territory it once did.

#7 JK Brown on 2018-01-02 13:08 (Reply)

"How the Trump era is changing the federal bureaucracy"

Charles Murray warned of this when he shilled to get "conservatives" to vote for Hillary.

QUOTE:

Conservatives who plan to vote for Donald Trump say that Hillary Clinton is so awful that anybody, even Trump, is preferable. Without getting into the comparative defects of Clinton and Trump (disclosure: I’m #NeverTrump), I think it’s useful to remind everyone of the ways in which having a Republican president hasn’t made all that much difference for the last fifty years, with Ronald Reagan as the one exception.

#8 JK Brown on 2018-01-02 13:14 (Reply)

Very interesting article. I've often wondered why liberals hate Nixon so much, he gave them the very tools they need for massive federal power grabs, which is why I detest him.

What ever Trumps personality flaws may be, they are a drop of water in a bucket compared to Hillary's. I am so happy that Hillary will never be President!

#8.1 B. Hammer on 2018-01-02 16:56 (Reply)

"German Jewish Leader Warns That Jews May Require Police Protection As Anti-Semitism Escalates"

This "Leader" apparently knows nothing of German or European history.

#9 JK Brown on 2018-01-02 13:17 (Reply)

My worry on self-driving cars is not that the government will forbid them, but that insurers will price the act of driving out of the reach of many, or even most of us. I suppose it might become a luxury.

If The Forbidding happens, however, some countries are going to make themselves attractive vacation destinations by continuing to allow it. Ooh, except they will have to keep maintaining expensive roads.

#10 Assistant Village Idiot (Link) on 2018-01-02 14:03 (Reply)

"My worry on self-driving cars is not that the government will forbid them, but that insurers will price the act of driving out of the reach of many, or even most of us. I suppose it might become a luxury."

Insurers usually don't price themselves out of business though: if not enough people buy insurance, you don't have a solid base of premium-payers to create any sort of contingency fund. So you can't insure anyone.

Insurance works because a thousand people pay premiums and only a couple of them usually make a claim.

It does lead to an interesting hypothesis though: what if insurance companies decided the indemnity risks associated with self-driving cars are too great to provide coverage and just got out of the business?

#10.1 JJM on 2018-01-02 14:55 (Reply)

I don't see insurance companies caring much whether the cars involved in an accident are self-driving or not. Actual damages, medical costs, etc aren't going to be any different. While there could be liability claims regarding the self-driving AI I could see something of a detente being reached between insurance companies to not litigate based on theories of AI malfunction. Assuming it's the cause of the accident, is an AI malfunction really that much different than human driver error from an insurance standpoint?

I suppose eventually the situation might reverse and humans operating automobiles could be required to have additional insurance, and then your scenario could be a reality.

#10.1.1 Christopher B on 2018-01-02 16:19 (Reply)

Good points.

I suppose the reality is that we won't know (i.e, have a statistical basis to compare accident rates) until there are self-driving vehicles in widespread use!

#10.1.1.1 JJM on 2018-01-02 16:44 (Reply)

Re: Slavery in Libya
That this occurs, and is not more widely known and talked-about is evidence for an observation I am compelled to make often. Liberals do not actually care about world events and the downtrodden. Those are merely tools to be used in the service of acquiring power in Washington DC. Despite their claims of concern, there is only the Outrage of the Week, trotted out to manipulate the kind-hearted.

The best of them are kind-hearted about what they can see or see pictures of, but it fades quickly. Distant caring based on emotion is like that. It quickly sours and in their helplessness to fix things, turns to anger against political opponents who don't seem to care enough. That is easier to sustain.

#11 Assistant Village Idiot (Link) on 2018-01-02 15:25 (Reply)

The chattering classes who whine that something must be done about the situation in Country X are almost inevitably the same culprits who will whine should any intervention actually occur.

#11.1 JJM on 2018-01-02 16:41 (Reply)

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Tuesday, January 2. 2018

Tuesday morning links