I want to hear more arguments ..Bonsai Humor Thread No. 2

[Paradox]

Getting back to bonsai things: Aluminum wire on conifers and guy wires are just fine!

 

[ShadyStump]

Getting back to bonsai things: Aluminum wire on conifers and guy wires are just fine!

Oh, thank God. I was starting to worry that my trees all sucked.

 

[leatherback]

ITs on by default when you install the OS. It stored config files for one of my programs in the cloud

I do not put my internet connection on the machine untill it is done installing. Guess new versions of windows (yes, I am still on windows 10, MS is now finally telling me my computer will crash and burn this summer if I do not update, even though my laptop cannot take windows 11..) will no longer allow?

 

[leatherback]

This. Incremental steps. Not to get political, but there are many things today that were previously unheard-of, and baby steps is how we got to the situation we find ourselves in today. Cultural, moral, societal, educational, etc. decay won't matter when we're all imprisoned in the matrix because we gradually, generationally slid down another slippery slope to our demise. (That's tongue-in-cheek, because it's probably not obvious in text format.)
Think about it. If we continue putting less and less value on art and creative trades while putting more value on sports (nothing wrong with sports), then eventually AI will be creating all of our art, including bonsai. Children will be taught more and more wrongly (partly because the teachers won't know they're teaching incorrect information) what to think instead of how to think, and innovation will nearly cease. "New" art won't happen anymore, we'll just have impressions of compilations of real, true, thought-provoking art.
note: this response has been entirely AI generated, but the dummy trying to plagiarize the AI generator just copied and pasted without reading the entire text

First signs are there that AI is getting dumber while it learns from AI generated content. Meanwhile, some goverments are producing so much false information, and are forbidding universities to independently generate new knowledge that it will be come VERY dificult to assess what is true in the very near future.

The one skill all new kids should learn is critical thinking and reasoning skills. Unfrotauntely, in many places even that is under attack.

 

[SailDesign]

First signs are there that AI is getting dumber while it learns from AI generated content. Meanwhile, some goverments are producing so much false information, and are forbidding universities to independently generate new knowledge that it will be come VERY dificult to assess what is true in the very near future.

The one skill all new kids should learn is critical thinking and reasoning skills. Unfrotauntely, in many places even that is under attack.

I read pone article that mentioned a teacher who had asked her students to use ChatGPT to write their papers, then manually review the work and write a report on how badly the AI had done. Apparently none of them used it again, after that.

 

[Desert O'Piñon]

First signs are there that AI is getting dumber while it learns from AI generated content.

Maybe this is how we outsmart AI? We teach it fake information so it gets dumber! Hmmmm. Seems familiar...

Meanwhile, some goverments are producing so much false information, and are forbidding universities to independently generate new knowledge that it will be come VERY dificult to assess what is true in the very near future.

The one skill all new kids should learn is critical thinking and reasoning skills. Unfrotauntely, in many places even that is under attack.

You get it. Not picking on your current home, but one of the ways its people fell for the propaganda that caused WWII is through miseducation and misinformation. Similarly did the Italians. And I can't speak for the rest of the world, but here in the States, we're seeing pretty much the same tactics a few generations later. If we don't teach history, we don't learn history. If we don't learn history, we're going to repeat it.
Critical thinking is exactly what I'm talking about. Here, students are being taught more  what to think than  how to think. American public education is more accurately defined as government brainwashing or indoctrination.

 

[leatherback]

Here, students are being taught more  what to think than  how to think.

Sadly it is a global trend.
I am part of a team revising the curriculum of one of our MSc programmes. One of the courses I have set the main outline for is exactly about critical thinking in Science, where students need to tear apart scientific papers in order to remain critical, look at what is written, how it was tested. Do not blanket trust the source.

 

[blackadam]

Maybe this is how we outsmart AI?

Tay (chatbot) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

American public education is more accurately defined as government brainwashing or indoctrination.

Not only american..

 

[shohin_branches]

Maybe this is how we outsmart AI? We teach it fake information so it gets dumber! Hmmmm. Seems familiar...

You get it. Not picking on your current home, but one of the ways its people fell for the propaganda that caused WWII is through miseducation and misinformation. Similarly did the Italians. And I can't speak for the rest of the world, but here in the States, we're seeing pretty much the same tactics a few generations later. If we don't teach history, we don't learn history. If we don't learn history, we're going to repeat it.
Critical thinking is exactly what I'm talking about. Here, students are being taught more  what to think than  how to think. American public education is more accurately defined as government brainwashing or indoctrination.

In the US I learned about what happened during WWII in school and from my family members. I didn't learn about how Hitler and the Nazi party rose to power until I went to college. I found that education very important and that should have been taught to everyone. So then when the pattern was clear everyone else said I was overreacting. A large portion of the population in the US has been convinced that college is liberal brainwashing, but the people telling them to think that all send their kids to Harvard and Princeton.

Same way the people telling others the covid vaccine was experimental were the ones pulling strings to be the first to get it.

Media literacy is a skill everyone should have. Who is giving me this information? Why are they giving me this information? Do they believe this themselves or are they trying to control me through half-truths or outright lies?

 

[leatherback]

how Hitler and the Nazi party rose to power until I went to college

Guess a benefit to growing up in europe. I think I was in third grade when we covered recent events in Europe. But still.. EU is making the same errors. It is not just not knowing. It is also that people want to believe easy answers and scapegoat-ideas

convinced that college is liberal brainwashing

I really do not understand. What happened on the other side of the big pond?
Since when is the USA against liberal ideas? Is that not the whole fundament upon which the US American dream is founded? Democracy, individual rights, liberty, opportunity, and equality?

Media literacy is a skill everyone should have. Who is giving me this information? Why are they giving me this information?

Nah, fake news.

 

[Desert O'Piñon]

I really do not understand. What happened on the other side of the big pond?
Since when is the USA against liberal ideas? Is that not the whole fundament upon which the US American dream is founded? Democracy, individual rights, liberty, opportunity, and equality?


Nah, fake news.

Yes. Those are our foundational ideals. Except the democracy part. USA is a constitutional republic, not a democracy. Unfortunately, those are not really liberal values that you listed. At least not American liberal ideas.
I am not well-traveled, and I'm rather ignorant of how things work in the rest of the world. I'm not afraid or ashamed to admit the things I don't know. It makes me uneducated in whatever subject, not unintelligent. And if I am up front about it, I don't look like a fool trying to pretend I understand the conversation. And that includes bonsai as well.

 

[shohin_branches]

I really do not understand. What happened on the other side of the big pond?
Since when is the USA against liberal ideas? Is that not the whole fundament upon which the US American dream is founded? Democracy, individual rights, liberty, opportunity, and equality?

We are just North Korea with more luxury goods at this point. Many people listen to one news source and don't even try to get news from outside the US even though they have access to it. Our news companies are quickly capitulating to a president that sues them for reporting on some of the horrible things he's done. Things are not good.

The average age of first time home buyers is 37 years old because the ultra-rich buy all the homes and rent them back to poor and middle-class Americans for a profit. We have no paid leave laws for new parents. We have no federal minimum paid time off. Most Americans are one medical emergency from bankruptcy. Our health insurance is just paying someone to profit off us being sick, but not too sick because then they won't approve your insurance payment and you have the choice of paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for a procedure or dying. Our weather events are getting more and more severe but federal funding that supports weather predictions has been cut and federal funding for natural disaster recovery has been cut.

Thousands of people have been snatched off the streets by masked government agents and put into a concentration camp in Florida. A large portion of the citizens celebrate it because their political team is the one committing the atrocities and they think they are safe from being thrown in that same cell by the shade of their skin or the location of their birth. They don't listen to news that shows the president talking about going after "home growns" next. That part is omitted.

The country has already been slowly destroyed by corruption over decades last two generations and now we're straight up ignoring our constitution. We're just expected to carry on and keep going to work.

Oh but you can't change jobs because 90% of the job postings are scams to collect your personal data and sell it.

 

[SailDesign]

We are just North Korea with more luxury goods at this point. Many people listen to one news source and don't even try to get news from outside the US even though they have access to it. Our news companies are quickly capitulating to a president that sues them for reporting on some of the horrible things he's done. Things are not good.

The average age of first time home buyers is 37 years old because the ultra-rich buy all the homes and rent them back to poor and middle-class Americans for a profit. We have no paid leave laws for new parents. We have no federal minimum paid time off. Most Americans are one medical emergency from bankruptcy. Our health insurance is just paying someone to profit off us being sick, but not too sick because then they won't approve your insurance payment and you have the choice of paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for a procedure or dying. Our weather events are getting more and more severe but federal funding that supports weather predictions has been cut and federal funding for natural disaster recovery has been cut.

Thousands of people have been snatched off the streets by masked government agents and put into a concentration camp in Florida. A large portion of the citizens celebrate it because their political team is the one committing the atrocities and they think they are safe from being thrown in that same cell by the shade of their skin or the location of their birth. They don't listen to news that shows the president talking about going after "home growns" next. That part is omitted.

The country has already been slowly destroyed by corruption over decades last two generations and now we're straight up ignoring our constitution. We're just expected to carry on and keep going to work.

Oh but you can't change jobs because 90% of the job postings are scams to collect your personal data and sell it.

Yup. All of that.


I could go on....

 

[blackadam]

sounds like preparation for a civil war
we also have polarized community and some issues
like in old chinese curse "May you live in interesting times"

 

[shohin_branches]

Don't come at me @leatherback asked

 

[Attmos]

People tell you to pick a tree endemic to your area, then say... "well, it's not the greatest species to work with, try.....".

 

[Paradox]

I do not put my internet connection on the machine untill it is done installing. Guess new versions of windows (yes, I am still on windows 10, MS is now finally telling me my computer will crash and burn this summer if I do not update, even though my laptop cannot take windows 11..) will no longer allow?

yea most now you dont get a disk to install, you get a code and even so it will need to update via download anyway

 

[Paradox]

The one skill all new kids should learn is critical thinking and reasoning skills. Unfrotauntely, in many places even that is under attack.

100% agree with this and its definitely becoming a rarer and rarer skill it seems

 

[Paradox]

We are just North Korea with more luxury goods at this point. Many people listen to one news source and don't even try to get news from outside the US even though they have access to it. Our news companies are quickly capitulating to a president that sues them for reporting on some of the horrible things he's done. Things are not good.

The average age of first time home buyers is 37 years old because the ultra-rich buy all the homes and rent them back to poor and middle-class Americans for a profit. We have no paid leave laws for new parents. We have no federal minimum paid time off. Most Americans are one medical emergency from bankruptcy. Our health insurance is just paying someone to profit off us being sick, but not too sick because then they won't approve your insurance payment and you have the choice of paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for a procedure or dying. Our weather events are getting more and more severe but federal funding that supports weather predictions has been cut and federal funding for natural disaster recovery has been cut.

Thousands of people have been snatched off the streets by masked government agents and put into a concentration camp in Florida. A large portion of the citizens celebrate it because their political team is the one committing the atrocities and they think they are safe from being thrown in that same cell by the shade of their skin or the location of their birth. They don't listen to news that shows the president talking about going after "home growns" next. That part is omitted.

The country has already been slowly destroyed by corruption over decades last two generations and now we're straight up ignoring our constitution. We're just expected to carry on and keep going to work.

Oh but you can't change jobs because 90% of the job postings are scams to collect your personal data and sell it.

This is pretty much my observation as well except Florida isn't the only concentration camp.
I've also heard them say that they are coming after the people (citizens) that didn't vote for them after they get done with the current round of undesirables.

There are also people trying to steal personal information with cheap cheap rents and lots of other scams besides the fake job postings.

Also, Ill add that the separate sections (for lack of a better term) of our government that were set up by our founding fathers to be checks and balances of each other are capitulating and allowing their power to be usurped by one of them so that we will no longer have separate institutions of government keeping the others honest and it is all being consolidated under one in the control of one person. This is happening mainly because they are being threatened if they don't tow the line, either by personal threats or not being favored in the next election or both

 

[BaKiBonsai]

And when you think about it, a flower is built from fleshy material (carbohydrates) and easily degraded carbon structures. Magnesium, calcium, water and nitrogen are required to build those.

Isn't a flower just a specialized leaf?

I believe some plants only flower after stress.