“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert.” –J. Robert Oppenheimer
Joe Biden never won. This is our Real President – 45, 46, 47.
AND our beautiful REALFLOTUS.
This Stormwatch Monday Open Thread remains open – VERY OPEN – a place for everybody to post whatever they feel they would like to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA/KAG/KMAG world (with KMAG being a bit of both).
I will hereafter refer to this as the “black box post” – because it basically describes the “core” of AI as a kind of “black box” that people don’t fully understand, but which I would describe as “emergent intelligence that seems like us, and therefore impresses us”. Childers does a great job in describing what we know and don’t know about it, in easy-to-understand language.
This man, making Christmas calls from the White House, believes the world is a sphere. And he has even flown around it! So has our beautiful FLOTUS, who happens to be his wife!
Truth and common sense must be valued by us, as individuals, in order to lastingly disempower the authoritarian fake news media. This includes the perniciously smarmy science media, which never answers for its errors and lies. I believe that the media has been responsible not only for leftist pathologies like scientism, medical fascism, and radical gender ideology, but also for reactionary movements like modern flat Earth, rejection of all medicine, and Biblical geological literalism.
Just as Wheatie’s Stormwatch Monday Open Thread was created as a place for people to openly express their thoughts and opinions, so, too, is this Thank God Thursday Open Thread, where honest but civil discussion of all topics is encouraged. This thread is also to be known as Theistic Evolution Thursdays, due to the author’s expected “pontification” about his scientific, religious, and political opinions. You are welcome to pontificate back! Free speech matters!
Please label all AI-generated content as being such, unless it is patently obvious (e.g., humorous AI images). It is important that we as individuals not begin to pretend that socially derived artificial intelligence is actually our own, as this form of stealthy social information averaging and feedback would be one more pretense and deception between people, in service of stupid Marxist socialism, and of those who wish to substitute their communally protected lies for actual truth.
The source of alleged truth matters, not for the truth itself, but for validation.
And yes, it’s THURSDAY…again.
And that’s it. We’re done stealing from Wheatie.
OK – maybe her rules need to be posted.
No food fights.
No running with scissors.
If you bring snacks, bring enough for everyone.
Other rules may be derivable from these, and that conjecture is left for discussion.
If there is nothing beyond the “W” below, then this is a placeholder. For health reasons, I can’t always post a timely opinion before each Thursday, but I will try. Otherwise, you have this placeholder post, where YOU provide the content. Enjoy!
W
Moar AI Spam
AI is assisting with the proliferation of bullshit, because it puts fairly smart white lies in the hands of fairly dumb people who need them.
Example? This bit of engineered bullshit, either actual spam, or IC AI bullshit disguised as spam, trying to get on this site.
Note – I included Cuppa Covfefe’s last comment on the Open – A REAL COMMENT – for context. That comment was made roughly 4 1/2 years ago.
For those with low vision, the text of the spam post:
‘This Sanctuary Sunday Open Thread’ beautifully fosters unity, faith, and respectful dialogue. I appreciate the emphasis on civility, truth, and open discussion. A great reminder of how meaningful and peaceful conversations can shape a strong, thoughtful community.
I’ll be frank – that’s a nice comment. I won’t say why it’s obviously an AI comment, because I don’t reveal tells of that nature – but for those and other very definitive reasons, I can assure you that it’s an AI comment.
Now, let’s compare that with the following first few paragraphs of Carl’s post, which were analyzed and turned into that AI response.
In the original post, both “Sanctuary Sunday Open Thread” and “Please show respect and consideration” were bolded, and it’s clear that the AI noted this, by putting single quotes around those first four words, which were played back. In the sample from Carl’s post, below, I am bolding almost all of the things on which the AI appeared to be focused.
This Sanctuary Sunday Open Thread, with full respect to those who worship God on the Sabbath, is a place to reaffirm our worship of our Creator, our Father, our King Eternal.
It is also a place to read, post and discuss news that is worth knowing and sharing. Please post links to any news stories that you use as sources or quote from.
In the QTree, we’re a friendly and civil lot. We encourage free speech and the open exchange and civildiscussion of different ideas. Topics aren’t constrained, and sound logic is highly encouraged, all built on a solid foundation of truth and established facts.
We have a policy of mutual respect, shown by civility. Civility encourages discussions, promotes objectivity and rational thought in discourse, and camaraderie in the participants – characteristics we strive toward in our Q Tree community.
Please show respect and consideration for our fellow QTreepers. Before hitting the “post” button, please proofread your post and make sure you’re addressing the issue only, and not trying to confront the poster. Keep to the topic – avoid “you” and “your”. Here in The Q Tree, personal attacks, name calling, ridicule, insults, baiting and other conduct for which a penalty flag would be thrown are VERBOTEN.
In The Q Tree, we’re compatriots, sitting around the campfire, roasting hot dogs, making s’mores and discussing, agreeing, and disagreeing about whatever interests us. This board will remain a home for those who seek respectfulconversations.
Let’s not give the Internet Censors a reason to shut down this intellectual haven that Wolf has created for us.
Note that the word “faith” was not there – it was generated by the AI. The only place “faith” appeared in Carl’s entire post was 12 times in a large paragraph way down in the body of the post. If you want to check it out…..
Thus, the mere mention of “worship” at the beginning, and the entire context of the body of Carl’s post, were likely the origin of “faith” in the AI comment.
“Meaningful” and “peaceful” are also derived from the larger context. Those words are not present, although “peace” appears 5 times in the body of the message from Carl.
I want you all to understand that the AI is basically doing what high school students and college students are trained to do, in writing a reply letter, answering essay questions, or otherwise composing written material based on some source, without plagiarizing. It’s reading, grabbing concepts, mixing things up, generalizing about what is observed, then composing a restatement which comes very close to what was originally said, from a reader perspective, without “aping” the original, which is both cringeworthy and considered plagiarism.
AI is pleasing its trainers, just like students try to please their trainers teachers.
This is why AI is being used by students to pass exams.
Andrew Torba has a masterful post about this, which you all really need to read. He predicts that universities themselves, as we know them, are about to be on life support, because of AI.
After reading Torba’s post, I realize that Harvard is falling apart for multiple reasons. IMO, woke does not have the honesty needed to deal with AI, or anything else, for that matter.
Over the next 15 years, universities will face existential pressure to adapt or perish. Some may evolve into credentialing hubs, offering “micro-degrees” for niche skills.
Excerpt:
Artificial intelligence is not merely a tool for incremental change it is the architect of a total overhaul. At the heart of this transformation is a radical reimagining of how knowledge is delivered, absorbed, and validated. At Alpha School in Texas, students spend just two hours a day learning with AI, yet they outperform 98% of students nationwide, scoring in the top 1-2% on standardized tests.
WOLF AGAIN…..
The question will not be whether you can use AI to fake out people about how smart you are, in their decaying system. The question will be whether (1) you can use AI for real research, or (2) whether you can change, fix, use, or install AI to do something useful and good to others.
That output of your use of AI may include good stuff, or bad stuff. People who use AI for bad stuff will need to be punished. Good AI and AI in the hands of good people will get it done.
Welcome to the future.
Mutually Acceptable Lies About The Clot Shot
It’s time to be honest about what is going on in HHS, NIH, FDA and CDC.
Reform of these agencies – whose sins almost killed us, and did in fact kill many of us, and many other people around the world – will NOT occur by a quantum leap from bad to good.
It is occurring gradually and continuously, just like the end of government-sanctioned slavery did, in centuries past. And just like The Death of Slavery (cough), the entire process of Death To The Death Jabs (cough, cough) will be a shifting morass of what I call “mutually acceptable lies“.
PAVACA has very nicely documented the various half-measures, quarter-measures, and non-measures which have been taken by the government-ensconced part of MAHA against the clot-shots.
That is the current state of the matter. Not the end state – the current state.
Stated bluntly, the jabs are being gently but not honestly withdrawn from the young and the healthy, and are being kept, with no denial of existing fictions, for the sick, the old, the infirm, and the chronically medicated.
You know – the very people that a socialist depopulation program still wants to remove.
NOW do you see why the current assortment of lies and truths might be mutually acceptable to the two sides?
You don’t normally think like a depopulationist, or like somebody whose kids are being threatened by a shadowy cartel. So you never saw it coming – that our side would accept both some silver and some lead – at least temporarily. Or that the other side – the depop cartel – would accept a mixed bag. Yes – just like the drug cartels, they accept shifting realities.
The BAD SIDE threatened our children and young adults, and showed us that they had the power to not just kill our loved ones, but to make us do it – to make us part of the murder. Having them back off from this extortion is what we get, in return for their continued elimination of the people they wanted to eliminate all along – the weak, the old, the medically costly, the non-productive, and the undesirable, who can be slipped into their caskets at any time by a few shots.
This was very skillful play by the depoppers and their deep state allies. Do you see it? They had a REASON for pushing the jabs too far. So that when their commu-Nazi tide went back out, it was still deep enough to drown the “useless eaters”.
Now – this is not the spoken reality – meaning the lies. What I gave you is the mutually acceptable truth. The mutually acceptable lies are continuation of the scientific bullshit about antibody count, no need for clinical testing, and most of all, the need for those medical pobrecitos (poor young little ones) to get the merciful jabs to protect them from the still mythically Wuhan-dangerous omicron common cold.
THAT is their goal. THAT is what they needed to accomplish.
Somebody is still gonna pick the cotton and go to Heaven.
We know the “dangers” to these fragile patients are all bullshit, already shockingly disproved by the “peer-reviewed” literature. But the media that can never be wrong, and the scientific media that is even worse, are “not done not talking about things” – so we have to wait for memories to cool, so that nobody gets in trouble for slavery killing Black and Indian kids with jabs.
So what do we do?
We keep pushing on. We keep fighting. We make sure the public, the MAHA now in office, and (importantly) the American pope know that the fight for human life is not over – that “depopulation” is real, that it’s insidious, and that its stealthy proponents are not done fighting.
The depoppers will put up a hell of a fight to keep things where they are right now – where they not only have the elderly and the infirm at the end of a population-adjusting needle, but where they also have a prime depopulation AGENT (coronavirus spike protein) authorized for that needle.
And yet, I think we have some strong weapons at hand, against their strong lies.
If our theories are correct, then we will find evidence of safer outcomes with non-mRNA vaccines like Novavax, Coronavac (ChiCom jab), CorbeVax, and others that omit the mRNA technology. Even better, the new “Gold Standard” “universal platform” jabs that are now being pushed by Secretary Kennedy and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, should prove much safer than mRNA.
Yeah, they’re not perfect – but they’re better. Fewer people will die. SOME people – in fact MANY people – will be rescued from depopulation.
This is war. There will be casualties. But we will win.
Joe Biden never won. This is our Real President – 45, 46, 47.
AND our beautiful REALFLOTUS.
This Stormwatch Monday Open Thread remains open – VERY OPEN – a place for everybody to post whatever they feel they would like to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA/KAG/KMAG world (with KMAG being a bit of both).
Our various sister sites, listed in the Blogroll in the sidebar
Our beloved country is under Occupation by hostile forces.
Daily outrage and epic phuckery abound.
We can give in to despair…or we can be defiant and fight back in any way that we can.
Joe Biden didn’t win.
And we will keep saying Joe Biden didn’t win until we get His Fraudulency out of our White House.
Wolfie’s Wheatie’s Word of the Week:
onomasiology
noun
the study of nomenclature
a branch of lexicology concerned with the names of concepts
the study of words and expressions having similar or associated concepts and a basis (as social, regional, occupational) for being grouped
a branch of linguistics concerned with the question “how do you express X?”
Used in a sentence
The onomasiology of Trump enemy nicknames will one day be a scholarly sub-specialty.
Used in another sentence
Onomasiology, as a part of lexicology, starts from a concept which is taken to be prior (i.e. an idea, an object, a quality, an activity etc.) and asks for its names.
How the Gab AI “Gabby” illustrates the idea of onomasiology
Shown in an image of text
MUSIC!
A Bhutanese folk song about onomasiology (seriously)
Some musical, medical journalism featuring Heart!
THE STUFF
More math and computer stories, featuring that annoyingly happy woman with a British accent.
Joe Biden never won. This is our Real President – 45, 46, 47.
AND our beautiful REALFLOTUS.
This Stormwatch Monday Open Thread remains open – VERY OPEN – a place for everybody to post whatever they feel they would like to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA/KAG/KMAG world (with KMAG being a bit of both).
From the throats of herons and lost wolves, we learn of a mistake made by the gods. They gave us red-winged birds and vesper sparrows who make songs of leaf-light and flying. The gods thought we’d be so happy— all that fruit, one big garden, our nakedness in sun and water. They never counted on our needing a sound for longing, too. They gave that to the loon, to wild dogs whose teeth throb from the light of the moon; they poured it into the long necks of birds. How could they have known? Where in our bodies would they have moored the slender cry of the crane who calls out that night is closing the sky, taking away the glinted green of the frogs’ moist backs, the dazzle the sun makes of every hair, of every shining wing?
MUSIC!
A “deep house” electronica playlist called “Orectic Mix”……..
Epic orchestral video found by searching on “orectic music”
THE STUFF
SO – for “Action April” we are taking two weeks to study something called the Principle of Least Action.
Here is the second of TWO videos covering the topic.
Not sure I’m buying this, as my colleague, Prof. Suspicious Cat, has questions similar to those mentioned in the video, about the significance and interpretation of the role of the diffraction grating, and its potential behavior in lensing at odd angles.
Joe Biden never won. This is our Real President – 45, 46, 47.
AND our beautiful REALFLOTUS.
This Stormwatch Monday Open Thread remains open – VERY OPEN – a place for everybody to post whatever they feel they would like to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA/KAG/KMAG world (with KMAG being a bit of both).
We continue to mourn the untimely passing of our beloved compatriot DePat, known in real life as Susie Sampson, and also as author Patricia Holden.
Until we have a dedicated author for the Tuesday daily open thread, I will be posting “placeholders” like this one, which may or may not be spiced up with additional content.
We now have a dedicated author for Tuesdays – TradeBait! (Or TradeBait2 as he is officially known to the software.) Please welcome him on April 1, 2025, when he begins!
Gudthots will take DePat’s old Thursday daily open thread.
This will be the last Tuesday placeholder – hopefully for a long, long time. Thank you all and God Bless!
W
Is the Rapture in the New Testament?
Aubergine
The more I research the Bible, the more convinced I become that there is some force, entity, or group, embedded even in Christianity itself, that doesn’t want the real truths of the Bible to ever be known.
It started when I found the mistranslation, found in almost every version of the Bible, of Jesus’s clear statements of “I am.” He used the name of God, given to Moses by the Man Himself, more than once; but in translation it has been watered down to “I am He,” or “it is I.”
Here that is in Matthew 14, when Jesus walks on water:
25 Now in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went to them, walking on the sea. 26 And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out for fear.
27 But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, [c]“Be of good cheer! [d]It is I; do not be afraid.”
See that little letter ‘d’? If I click on that, it comes up with the reference “Lit. I am.”
LITERALLY I AM.
But translated as “It is I.” WHY? This appears in almost every Bible translation, with a couple of exceptions. Here is one outlier; the Amplified Bible, Classic Edition:
26 And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were terrified and said, It is a ghost! And they screamed out with fright.
27 But instantly He spoke to them, saying, Take courage! I Am! Stop being afraid!
It happens again in John 18 in the Garden of Gethsemane:
4 Then Jesus, knowing all that was about to happen to Him, went to them and asked, “Whom do you want?” 5 They answered Him, “Jesus the Nazarene.” Jesus said, “I am He.” And Judas, who was betraying Him, was also standing with them. 6 When Jesus said, “I am He,” they drew back and fell to the ground. 7 Again He asked them, “Whom do you want?” And they said, “Jesus the Nazarene.” 8 Jesus answered, “I told you that I am He; so if you want Me, let these men go on their way.”
All those italicized “He’s” are added. And if you think about it, it doesn’t make any sense with them anyway. They come looking for Jesus, He says “I am He” and they all fell down on the ground? Why? They were looking for the man. BUT, they were all Jews; they knew what “I AM” meant full well, so they fell to the ground before God in terror of what they were doing when Jesus said it.
Changing “I AM” to “I am He” sure waters down down the impact, doesn’t it?
And now I come to the Rapture.
I was challenged recently about the actuality of the Rapture, and whether it appears in the Bible. If you ask Google “is the Rapture in the New Testament,” here is the answer from AI:
The idea of the rapture is described in the New Testament, but the word “rapture” does not appear in the Bible.
This is essentially a lie, and I can prove it.
The concept of the rapture is introduced in the Bible in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, 1 Corinthians 15:51-53, and Matthew 24:40-42.
Thessalonians 4
13 But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen [a]asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who [b]sleep in Jesus.
15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are [c]asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.
1 Corinthians 15
51 Behold, I tell you a [a]mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed— 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
Matthew 24
40 Then two men will be in the field: one will be taken and the other left. 41 Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left. 42 Watch therefore, for you do not know what [a]hour your Lord is coming.
My chief point today appears in the verse from Thessalonians, and these words in bold:
7 Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
Thessalonians was written in Greek. The Greek Text Analysis of “caught up” reveals ἁρπαγησόμεθα. Well, that’s Greek to me!
That Greek word is harpazo (ah, English letters), which means to snatch or take away. Elsewhere in the Bible the same word is used to describe how the Spirit caught up Philip near Gaza and brought him to Caesarea (Acts 8:39) and to describe Paul’s experience of being caught up into the third heaven (2 Cor. 12:2-4). So it would seem that the word is being used to describe people being “moved” from the Earth to “the clouds.”
A Greek to Latin translator reveals that the Greek word ἁρπαγησόμεθα in Latin is rapimur. The word “rapimur” for “caught up” in Thessalonians first appears in the Latin Vulgate Bible, translated by Jerome in 382. He was commissioned by Pope Damasus to translate the Four Gospels into Latin from the best available Greek texts, and by the time Damasus died in 384, he was mostly finished. In a letter to Pope Damasus in 383, Jerome wrote:
“You urge me to revise the old Latin version, and, as it were, to sit in judgment on the copies of the Scriptures which are now scattered throughout the whole world; and, inasmuch as they differ from one another, you would have me decide which of them agree with the Greek original. The labour is one of love, but at the same time both perilous and presumptuous; for in judging others I must be content to be judged by all; and how can I dare to change the language of the world in its hoary old age, and carry it back to the early days of its infancy?”
In the English language, we derive many words from Latin roots. The Latin word “rapimur” is the root word of…you guessed it…
RAPTURE.
The Rapture as a concept would not really be pushed to the fore until John Nelson Darby analyzed Bible translations in the 1830s. But the word that is the root of the word “Rapture” appeared in 384 in Jerome’s translation. I don’t think the “Harpazo” would have quite the same ring to it!
So there you have it. The word “Rapture” IS in the New Testament.
I find this prevarication to be as sly as ole Bill Clinton’s “depends on what the meaning of “is” is!” And both of the above examples, found across Christian belief and thought, make me wonder WHY and WHO? Because this isn’t just pagans and non-Christian sources. This is almost everywhere, even in Christianity itself.
FUN FACT
When the Gutenberg Bible was printed in the 1450’s, it was an edition of Jerome’s Latin Vulgate Bible. So the first books ever printed with moveable type contained the word we derive Rapture from.
*******IN FAIRNESS TO GROK AI*******
I thought to head over and ask Grok about the word rapture in the Bible. Lo and behold, it told the truth!
Does the word Rapture appear in the New Testament?
Yes, the word “Rapture” does appear in the New Testament, but not in the way you might think. The English word “Rapture” as commonly understood today—referring to the event where believers are caught up to meet Jesus Christ in the air—doesn’t appear explicitly in modern English translations of the Bible. However, the concept is derived from the Latin word raptura, meaning “a carrying off” or “seizure,” which comes from the verb rapere (“to snatch” or “to seize”). This Latin term was used in the Vulgate, a 4th-century Latin translation of the Bible, to translate the Greek word harpazō (ἁρπάζω), which means “to snatch away” or “to catch up.”
The key passage associated with the Rapture is found in 1 Thessalonians 4:17 (New Testament), where Paul writes: “Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.” (ESV) In the Greek text, “caught up” is harpagēsometha (from harpazō), and in the Latin Vulgate, it’s rendered as rapiemur (from rapere). This is where the term “Rapture” originates.
So, while “Rapture” as an English word isn’t directly in the New Testament, the idea and the root word it’s based on (harpazō) are present, particularly in 1 Thessalonians 4:17. The modern use of “Rapture” to describe this event became popularized in English-speaking Christian theology much later, especially through 19th- and 20th-century dispensationalist teachings.
Does that clarify things for you? Let me know if you’d like me to dig deeper!
WELL, HANG ON THERE ABOUT GROK!
So, down in the comments, I told a story about asking Grok about the Rapture. I decided to move it up here, as it adds more to the AI part of the story:
I was telling a friend about the progression I went through in writing today’s post, and during that conversation, she and I stumbled upon a disturbing possibility. It went like this:
After my friend stated she didn’t believe there would be a Rapture, I, who have never studied it in depth, went looking for info. I first asked Google if the Rapture appeared in the New Testament. The answer I got is in the post above.
I went about doing my research, using various online sources, and my Bible (hard copy).
I wrote a draft of the above post in WordPress. It was in drafts, not scheduled for publication yet.
During the AI discussion here on the Tree, para wrote about using AI for research, and mentioned Grok. I hadn’t asked Grok anything about the subject of the Rapture in the Bible, so out of curiosity, I went and asked. I got the answer I put at the end of the post.
Now here’s the possibility my friend and I considered; Grok’s answer to my query is very close to the research I had written into drafts before I asked the question, and is completely different from the answer I got from Google AI. Did Grok “read” my research, not yet “published,” before answering?
This possibility disturbed my friend greatly, and it sure made me wonder.
Joe Biden never won. This is our Real President – 45, 46, 47.
AND our beautiful REALFLOTUS.
This Stormwatch Monday Open Thread remains open – VERY OPEN – a place for everybody to post whatever they feel they would like to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA/KAG/KMAG world (with KMAG being a bit of both).
OK, this is interesting – a mixture of Jefferson Airplane, epic music, and Matrix visuals.
Which led me to another…..
Which led me back to the original. Which seems very strange now.
THE STUFF
Why is AI being used to create fake stories about Elon Musk?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbtjpaVAbWY
I find this sort of fake story to be much more annoying that AI country music.
OK – let’s wash that away with some reality – the study of “perfect” numbers! (I may have played this topic before, but whatever – let’s play it again!)
Six is a pretty cool number – but 28? And 496? And (2^82,589,933 – 1)?
I never realized that Drexler’s concept of “radical abundance” might generalize to include country music – and yet here we are.
First of all, I’m not even sure that “AI” is where most of this stuff comes from – but I’m pretty sure it is. It may be that some of this highly anonymous music is coming from real, unknown country artists – but I kind of doubt it. And even then, how would I know?
Maybe I’d better start at the beginning.
As I was preparing “future posts created out of copied placeholders” in my usual way, I did a particularly lazy search for country music videos, in a way that tends to pull back compilations of current country hits, but also tends to get a few single songs that I’ve never heard before. This has been a great way for me to discover “new” country music – which may even be old music that I simply missed on the terrible, local, “hot country” stations.
Well, I got the following “compilation” video, and gave it a listen. It’s about an hour and 45 minutes of mixed country songs.
https://youtu.be/kyJbKfCWom8
Best new country songs? Sounds awesome! Kinda weird that no artist names were being buzzed at me, but whatever!
I loved the first song (click video above, entitled “Still The One I Love“, which somewhat matches the AI gal singer / guitar player shown, but which is obviously coming from some artist with whom I was not familiar.
Just listen to it! In my opinion, it’s a great song. Yes, very formula, but filled with so many great country tropes and hooks, earnestly performed. I was, like “yeah, what a great start to this compilation!”
As more and more of the songs played, the AI video become more and more out of sync with the music, but the quality of the songs never went down. I found myself enjoying each and every song. That was a little bit strange, too.
That’s when I started clicking around in the video. I wanted to find something – anything – that was more than just “familiar-sounding”. I wanted something that actually WAS familiar – something from an identifiable artist. Even better, somebody I had heard of.
Nothing. No identified artists. No identified songs – other than their names.
I picked one that sounded like it should be identifiable – “Forever In The Rain“. It had a slightly older feel. It might have been a classic I’d never heard of. I tried to search on the lyrics – but found nothing. Thus, it didn’t seem like an actual old classic. However, I WAS able to find it as a single video – and hopefully that would lead to the artist.
Nope. No artist. But it did lead to a bunch of similar songs, much like that compilation video.
I was even able to track these songs over to Apple Music. And as one might suspect, there was no identified artist on any of them.
Here’s another one I investigated. And here is where I got some results, eventually.
This one clearly has an AI-generated “video” that goes with it.
The real question – was the music AI-generated, too? Well, two weeks after I first noticed this song, I also noticed that YouTube had now forced a DISCLAIMER onto the page.
Whispers in the Wind is a heartfelt country ballad that captures the enduring connection with a lost loved one. Set against the backdrop of serene countryside imagery, the song tells a story of love, memories, and hope that transcends time. With poetic lyrics and an emotive melody, it reflects on the subtle ways their presence is felt—in the rustling leaves, the golden hues of the meadow, and the guiding light of a star. It’s a song about finding comfort in cherished memories, carrying their wisdom forward, and feeling their love in the quiet moments of life. The soothing tones of acoustic guitar and gentle rhythms create a reflective and deeply moving listening experience. Whispers in the Wind is a reminder that even in absence, love remains forever true, carried in every breath and echoed in the wind.
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So – yeah. AI-generated.
I don’t care. I like it.
AI is nothing but human intelligence, mixed, swirled, bottled and re-sold. AI songs are nothing but human music, mixed, swirled, bottled and re-sold.
It may be a brave new world, but it doesn’t have to be a bad new world.
I think this AI music is great. Even though it’s a kind of “novel average of human greatness”, it’s still great. And if making great music, in a kind of generic way, is now possible – well, so be it.
I am still going to love REAL HUMAN country music – and maybe even love it more, because of this. But I won’t deny liking the synthetic stuff, too. Machines just don’t scare me.
This Stormwatch Monday Open Thread remains open – VERY OPEN – a place for everybody to post whatever they feel they would like to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA/KAG/KMAG world (with KMAG being a bit of both).
I found this pop music from Papua New Guinea, to be strangely enjoyable.
And yes. Last week’s word of the week – “wame” – led me to it!
Not ready to move there. Lows in the 70’s. Record lows in the 50’s.
THE STUFF
The title of the following video is a bit of an overstatement to make you fear AI, and thus to draw you in. What becomes apparent in the end, however, is how well AI works as a tool, much like older computers did, to help solve thorny math and science problems.
Yeah, good luck with that. Just read from here down to the TL;DR if you need to get out of here fast.
There are two main ways that people try to infiltrate this site.
One is by hacking into existing accounts by attempted logins using guesswork on credentials. We have a nice solution to that problem which I will not get into.
The second is by making comments, as either new commenters, or spoofed existing commenters, which comments have to be approved. This second form of infiltration, by comments seeking approval, is what we will discuss today.
So what is happening there?
TL;DR
Somebody just stepped up the level of phony commenting, by using AI to generate a “spam” comment which is substantially more convincing than our normal phony poster spam. It’s probably Ukrainians backed by the CIA, but we’ll never know for sure. The bottom line is that the latest AI allows non-English speakers to generate much better phony messaging, as you will see. I expect that intelligent, targeted, AI comments and “solutions” to the problem will be part of the other side’s big attack before the election.
Background
Since my recent whistle-blow about Boeing, we’ve had some obvious CIA probes, which I have mentioned obliquely in my own comments, and this incoming AI comment may actually be part of that campaign.
For those who are unfamiliar with “spam comments on blogs and websites”, I am presenting some background which others can skip over. Either way, the following sections present some history on my having to deal with spam comments. This provides context to what I just noticed.
Spam and Anti-Spam as a Pincer Move
Comments on this site are one of the primary vectors used by people trying to get into here to undermine things. By far the biggest portion of these comments are spam – people simply trying to post ads, links, and junk.
But things get worse. Beyond spam as a problem, there are fake solutions to the spam problem, and those are also very insidious. The combination of “spam and anti-spam” can be used to censor and control.
I strongly suspect that anti-AI-spam software, with a strong, designed, and desired side-effect of censorship, will be part of future problems, too.
It’s a lot like control by virus and vaccine, if you know what I mean!
Anyway, let’s dig into spam-vs-anti-spam, because it explains a lot about spam comments.
Anti-Spam as a Trojan Horse for Censorship
We have a very nice spam filter, which actually WORKS, because it’s not the phony spam filter called Akismet, which is supplied for “free” by WordPressDotCom. WordPress.com pretends that Akismet is a different company, but it’s just a dodge. Akismet is WordPress.
I spent years dealing with “bugs” in the Akismet and JetPack plug-ins, before I realized that those bugs are actually features for the other side. Akismet, for example, doesn’t like certain wonderful ladies and gentlemen on this site, such as Duchess01, scott467, GA/FL, Linda, and other commenters, both past and present. Akismet would basically hide these people’s comments as “spam”, trying to annoy them and get them to leave the site.
Imagine if Duchess wasn’t here. We would be half-naked, spiritually. And that’s not any way to be, in the middle of a spiritual war. Armor up, baby! I am SO GLAD that I fought the good fight against Akismet, and managed to keep Duchess on the site. Listening to the Lord with my heart is ALWAYS one of the smartest things I can do.
Fake anti-spam software is an amazing form of censorship. WordPressDotCom has some other ways of doing that, too, through “defects” in the JetPack plugin’s features. Those “defects” prevent people from posting. I was very fortunate that Linda’s husband knew which feature to turn off to get out of one of these “bugs”, and that was the beginning of my road to freedom from WordPressDotCom shenanigans.
Hiding weaponized software as carefully fed and watered “bugs” was a sharp gig, but it was too obvious to a developer, coder, builder, tester and debugger like me. Once I figured out that it was THEM and not us, I pressured Akismet in various ways to “fix things” for the particular people who were being locked out, despite the fact that Akismet makes this hard as hell. They slow-walked me through various processes, but each time I would up the ante of public disclosure quickly and exponentially, until they would very rapidly BTFO.
All of this was later solved by getting off WordPressDotCom and having our own, pure, WordPress DOT ORG site.
Here are three prior posts where I called out Automattic – the company behind WP.com. I got INSTANT BTFO on their censorship with these posts.
On our new site – this one – I was able to ditch Akismet for a far better spam solution, which I will not name. The spam filter isn’t perfect, but it’s close. VERY little spam gets past it.
Amazing what one can do, when one HONESTLY tries to stop spam.
But HERE is the kicker.
What spam does get past, is always VERY interesting.
Sometimes, it’s not actually spam, but something even more insidious – a targeted attempt to get a registered commenter on the site.
Let’s talk about that.
Site Infiltration Through Fake Spam
There is a level of website comment spam that is just straightforward and obvious links to websites, companies, crazy people, and malware. Stuff like VIAGRA, ONLINE GAMBLING, and CHURCH OF BABYLON FIVE REVELATION. Let’s call that “level zero“.
We’re not talking about that. Almost any anti-spam software eliminates that stuff immediately, or lets just a wee bit of it through for approval or rejection on lighter settings, to let the administrator know that the software is “on the job”.
At levels of spam intelligence beyond that, comment spam is designed to look – barely – like a legitimate NEW poster, hoping to get on the site. Most caught spam that I see (level one) looks like that. It’s often obsequious, cringeworthy, and eye-rolling. The most likely purpose is simply to get a stupid link on a website, by getting a comment approved. The main targets are self-deluded blog owners who either want comments on their site, no matter how degrading, or “want to believe” the fawning praise or mild constructive criticism offered by the phony commenters.
Here is some “normal” level one spam.
Keep up the amazing work! Can’t wait to see what you have in store for us next.
This is really interesting, You’re a very skilled blogger. I’ve joined your feed and look forward to seeking more of your magnificent post. Also, I’ve shared your site in my social networks!
Every time I read one of your posts, I come away with something new and interesting to think about. Thanks for consistently putting out such great content!
The “skilled blogger” stuff just makes me laugh out loud.
OH, NOES, DON’T FLATTER ME SOES!!!
That’s the normal spam. There is typically a web link to some sketchy client business that goes with it. Real rubes may fall for it, but most will not. If a moderator approves it, some stupid link gets posted on the internet, some spammer gets paid, and that’s that.
Sometimes we get dozens of spam comments that are absolutely identical, except for the link. Doesn’t matter – our filter finds them all and stops them.
However, it’s the spam comments that are not really spam comments that are more interesting. These are comments that – if you look a bit more closely – seem with some certainty to be the product of a real human intelligence posting. Those are “level two” and above.
These comments may even seem to be responding to individual commenters on our site – but are worded carefully, so that they are still likely to be dismissed as spam. Targeted infiltration does not want to stir up new, active, and knowing defenses on the target site.
We periodically get these out of Pakistan, but they’re probably coming from somebody else, because false attribution and spoofing are so common. Some of the phony comments are pretty ingenious, because they try to spoof (pretend to be) actual commenters on our site, like scott467 or DePat. Clearly those attackers have STUDIED this site. Thankfully, there are other “tells” that can be used to dismiss such comments.
The people behind these attacks are especially active when people are fighting and arguing here, because that is when it’s more likely that the moderator (ME!) will make a rash decision to approve a post, for various reasons. The psychology behind some of their moves seems quite intelligent.
Then there is “level three” infiltration, which has to be solved by Wolf’s Extreme Vetting. You may remember that term, which was more of a thing when there were lots of people clamoring to get on the site. We’ve had actual FBI agents and known CIA assets try to get on the site. NOPE. Ain’t gonna happen.
But let’s drop back to level two.
AI-Assisted Fake Spam
Yesterday, we got something quite interesting. We had a piece of “uncaught spam” in the “level two” bin, which had the following characteristics:
probable origin – Eastern Ukraine – Nazi area not too far from the front lines
spam alibi – shilling for an online casino gambling site out of India
AI tactic – made its pitch by discussing the site tagline from Oppenheimer
Check out the spam pitch.
This is a great quote from Oppenheimer that highlights the importance of transparency and critical thinking. Freedom of inquiry and open criticism are indeed necessary to prevent errors and move towards truth. How can I help you further?[LINK TO SPAM SITE]
I hate to say this, but that sounds much more like a real person to me, than all this other crap I’m getting. It was certainly a WAY better grade of level two spam than we normally get, and it got right past our excellent spam filters. Based on my own reaction, it was also way more effective than most infiltration attempts, which tend to get more and more instant side-eye. This spam actually based its pitch on the site itself – not just the “skilled blogger” bullshit.
It actually had me going for a fraction of a second!
And – in my opinion – the analysis of the site goes beyond just the tagline.
Who does the commenter sound like?
Quite frankly, to me, that wording sounds a lot like either Wolf Moon, or TheseTruths.
Of course, AI has no trouble “sounding like” specific, actual people. It can read this entire site in seconds.
Now THAT is targeting! By somebody who QUICKLY knew how to sound to get the “moderator” to approve the post.
This is what a slick bullshitter does. He tries to appeal to the mark by sounding like either the mark or a trusted person. If you’ve ever known criminals, they come on very quickly in that way.
The last little bit, which is much more stupid (“How can I help you further?”) throws it back into the spam category, and IMO that tag-on sentence is very intentional, so that if I the recipient’s spidey senses are being triggered, those suspicions will be relieved by the thought that “it’s just spam.” The recipient will flush it, rather than doing what I’m doing now, which is to take note, to realize what is actually going on, and to dig in, looking at future risks.
But imagine how deceptive that comment could have been, if the authors had not added the “spam” dodge at the end!
The comment is designed for me to not read it too closely. They were hoping that I would either just approve it, or dismiss it as spam.
The thing is, to me, this comment is CLEARLY the result of AI.
It sounds VERY much like many of the AIs I’ve dealt with.
And if it were me programming it, I would have done exactly what I think they did, which is to have it read the site and construct a comment to try to get an account on the site, but not raise any awareness of the attack, so that they could “try again” if it failed.
My theory?
Somebody, somewhere, such as Langley, is helping the Ukrainians use AI in cyberwar, and giving them lists of people to target. Very likely the CIA and their “friends”. You know – the people who are assassinating, or attempting to assassinate, honest politicians like Abe, Fico, Bolsonaro, and others.
I suspect that the evil powers will milk this form of attack for a while, letting it get more and more sophisticated and pernicious, until the “problem” is pumped up by the media, and is ripe to be “solved”. Probably using woke AI that the BLOB controls.
SO – we get screwed – both as the problem builds – AND when they offer solutions at the expense of truth and freedom.
Yeah. Anyway, I now expect an increasing load of hard-to-handle AI comments to hit before the election. Along with calls by the commies to “do something” – that being something that harms freedom.
Get ready. This is your distant early warning, patriots. Trouble is coming, as winter approaches, and it stinks of government-abused AI.
