General Debate 07 June 2026

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Cassandra

Chinese authorities are snuffing out any remembrance of the deadly 1989 military crackdown on student-led pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square, which happened 37 years ago, in a further tightening in a yearslong campaign to erase what happened from public memory. Police told relatives of the victims they would not be allowed to visit a cemetery in Beijing on the anniversary of the crackdown, a person with knowledge of the matter said. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because of fear of retribution.

This is the country Don Brash and others say should be treated just like Australia and America by NZ. America might have Trump but it also has the rule of law. China has the rule of Xi.
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June 7, 2026 8:09am
- imalwaysright
  
  NZ sanitises our own history.
  National Library, schools, Government departments….. they’re all at it.
  
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  June 7, 2026 8:44am
  - pdm
    
    Definitely over the period October 2017 to October 2023 ima.
    
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    June 7, 2026 8:58am
    - Nikola Donatello
      
      How are the events of the last government sanitised or erased from history in ways that is remotely comparable to the erasure of the events of 1989 in China? I don’t follow the comparison you are making.
      
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      June 7, 2026 9:10am
  - Nikola Donatello
    
    What is an example?
    
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    June 7, 2026 9:05am
Swifty

Good on the Frogs:

https://x.com/therealmissjo/status/2063297063220121708?s=46

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c78q215vyd7o

The French celebrate their history and traditions through coming together, food and wine, and the Left are determined to destroy it and have it banned.

They’re serving charcuterie so that’s exclusionary to Muslims, apparently. FFS.

The Left want to see Western Civilisation ground into the dust and they care not what replaces it.
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June 7, 2026 8:12am
- Yvette
  
  History mysteries …
  • If Maori and the Crown were a partnership, born of the Treaty, are not both then the Coloniser?
  – and Maori more so because, at the time, there were more of them? – unruly non-Maori pioneers being the un-named colonisee.
  
  Just as Prime Minister Lange pointed out you can have a tribal hierarchy or democracy, but not both, can you be a Treaty partner and not a coloniser at the same time?
  
  • If in the Treaty, Maori were identified three times as being the Chiefs who signed the Declaration of Independence five years earlier, why did Maori not ask exactly what differed from that Declaration and the new Treaty replacing it?
  
  • “The Left want to see Western Civilisation ground into the dust and they care not what replaces it.” Right!
  
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  June 7, 2026 8:47am
- Inandout
  
  The left are irritated so that in itself is a win.
  
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  June 7, 2026 8:59am
- Nikola Donatello
  
  “excludes vegetarians”, 😅
  
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  June 7, 2026 9:13am
- Cassandra
  
  Three-and-a-half-thousand hungry Alsatians wolf down platters of charcuterie and periodically burst into noisy chorus.
  
  No, it is not the police dogs’ annual convention, but the latest iteration of a feasting phenomenon that is sweeping provincial France.
  
  It’s a massive group lunch featuring charcuterie and lots of wine. Because there’s pork on the platters it’s been criticised for excluding Moslems and vegetarians. No mention that it also excludes Jews, although Ariel Sharon famously said, while wolfing down a pork chop, “It’s better not to ask”.
  
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  June 7, 2026 9:15am
Diogenes

Will AI Commit Suicide?

A recent news report quoted leading AI developers as saying that if AI improvement continues at the current rate, within a few years it has the potential to completely wipe out the human race. They said that mitigating the risk of human extinction from AI should be considered a global priority.
(https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-65746524)

That got me to wondering: Should AI go down that road, how long could it continue to exist autonomously, given its reliance on human-built infrastructure such as electricity systems and water, which if not maintained will break down and would seem to deprive AI of the basics it also needs for survival? Would it knowingly self-destruct? Who better to ask, I bethought me, than Chat GPT. Following is a summary of the response.

“Current AI systems (including models like me) are surprisingly fragile, depending on large data centres; continuous electrical power; internet infrastructure; cooling systems; replacement hardware; and human operators. Without humans, most modern AI systems would probably cease functioning within days or weeks. The biggest immediate problem is electricity. Most power grids require active management. Even hydroelectric stations, which can operate for long periods, rely on maintenance and coordination. Fossil-fuel plants would stop much sooner because they need fuel deliveries and staffing.

“Suppose a future AI was vastly more capable and had access to robots, factories, transport systems, and energy production, then things become more interesting. Such a system might be able to operate power stations; repair electrical infrastructure; manufacture replacement parts; mine raw materials; build additional robots. However, achieving this would require something humanity does not currently possess: a nearly complete automated industrial ecosystem. Today’s factories are highly automated, but still depend on countless human-maintained supply chains.

“Even without active maintenance, some infrastructure would persist surprisingly long. For example: Hydroelectric dams could potentially generate power for years; solar farms might operate for decades. with declining output; some communications networks could remain functional for months or years; data stored on servers could survive for years if power remained available. AI might therefore have a ‘grace period’ during which it could attempt to reorganise and automate maintenance.

“The deeper issue isn’t electricity but industrial replacement. Every component eventually fails: hard drives wear out; fans fail; capacitors degrade; transformers break down; fibre-optic links get damaged. Modern civilisation works because millions of people collectively maintain these systems. If an AI lacked the ability to manufacture replacement components from raw materials, it would slowly lose capability as equipment failed.

“In a rough timescale, if humans vanished tomorrow: Most AI systems: days to weeks; well-protected data centres with reliable power: months to a few years; AI supported by partially autonomous infrastructure: perhaps decades; AI with full robotic industrial self-sufficiency: potentially centuries or much longer.

“The striking thing is that biological life is currently much more self-maintaining than digital intelligence. A human being can survive with food, water, and shelter. An advanced AI requires a vast technological ecosystem. Until that ecosystem becomes largely self-repairing and self-replicating, AI remains heavily dependent on civilisation.”

As an insurance policy, therefore, should we ensure that built-in obsolescence is a feature of all systems?
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June 7, 2026 8:36am
- Philview
  
  I have noticed the left wing responses I get from AI. I did some research and found various studies confirm a left wing bias. If it can be programmed in such a way I am dubious about some of the claims being made at the moment.
  
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  June 7, 2026 9:02am
- Yvette
  
  The 1859 Carrington Event is the gold standard for massive solar storms. If an event of this magnitude hit today, it could induce massive currents in power grids, potentially frying large transformers, damaging undersea internet cables, and causing prolonged, widespread blackouts.
  Locations in higher latitudes, such as the lower South Island of New Zealand, face a higher risk of grid disturbances due to their proximity to the magnetic poles and the auroral oval, making just north of Invercargill about the dopiest place in New Zealand to build an AI databank.
  When your EV grinds to a halt on the Auckland Harbour Bridge who aren’t you going to call? – including, Diogenes, your insurance company?
  
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  June 7, 2026 9:08am
Swifty

Chicago loses the Bears:

https://x.com/houseofyogi/status/2063073408162648533?s=46

This is our future under a Labour/Green/TPM government – chasing success out the door.
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June 7, 2026 8:48am
CJames

AI can be great but should only be used for factual questions – “who held the Ranfurly Shield in 1957” type things. If you ask it stuff on contentious issues or opinion questions, then you get what you pay for. And those that rely on it like some of the posters here without declaring its origins, it confirms the shallowness of their thinking.
This was a response to Diogenes
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June 7, 2026 9:12am
lastmanstanding

No doubt the irony will be totally lost on Trump that not only are all the Teslas driving around the US using minerals mined by slave labour but worse still child slave labour.
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June 7, 2026 9:14am

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