Daily Dose of Doom Thread

[Hards Alumni]

I needed calcs on a simple project, 47 years, $3.4m a year, increased by 3% per year.

I asked SIX different AIs, copy and pasting the prompt and got SIX different answers, each tens of millions of dollars off. -- I'm really surprised not one of them had the same answer.

Looks like replacing humans with AI is off to a great start.

#AIDoom.

They're actually a lot like the posters around these parts.  They can respond like a human, but have mash potatoes for brains!

[The Sultan]

https://x.com/DiscussingFilm/status/1892578162409705576

[Uncle Rico]

In what has to spell doom for Herm:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/hooters-talks-prepare-bankruptcy-filing-145550624.html

[Shaka Shart]

In what has to spell doom for Herm:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/hooters-talks-prepare-bankruptcy-filing-145550624.html

He probably has a side by side rub and tug scheduled with the CEO to discuss recovery plans.

[Uncle Rico]

He probably has a side by side rub and tug scheduled with the CEO to discuss recovery plans.

Only if he's cleaning his toilet

[Shaka Shart]

Beggars can't be choosers Rockford

https://www.audacy.com/wbbm780/news/local/welcome-sign-in-rockford-is-stirring-debate

[mu_hilltopper]

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/mystery-illness-has-killed-more-than-50-people-in-congo#

Here we go ..

[MU82]

Church Retirement Plans Sidestep Federal Oversight—and Employees Pay the Price

https://www.wsj.com/us-news/church-retirement-pensions-hospitals-89070d8c?mod=djemwhatsnews

Anne Hotaling joined St. Clare's hospital in Schenectady, N.Y., fresh out of nursing school in 1979. She came to see the Roman Catholic hospital and her fellow workers as a second family, an extension of the tightknit Catholic community in which she had grown up.

The job came with long-term financial security: a pension plan that eventually promised Hotaling, following her retirement, $1,449 a month for life. It was one reason she turned down other jobs over the years. "I didn't want to go someplace else and start that process all over," she said.

Even after St. Clare's closed in 2008, Hotaling said, it continued to tell her and others their pensions were waiting. When she retired a decade later, she received her first $1,400 check. It was the last one she ever got.

Months later, the pension fund informed her by letter that it was nearly insolvent. "There simply are not enough assets in the Plan to provide the benefits to all current and future participants," the letter said.

For the past half-century, the sweeping Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 has governed retirement benefits, with the goal of protecting workers from exactly the kinds of disasters that befell Hotaling. Under the federal law, known as Erisa, pensions don't go up in smoke when employers fail because a federal insurance program kicks in.

But churches and other religious organizations can opt out of the federal system, which requires retirement plans and their sponsors to fund pensions well in advance and to set aside retirement savings in dedicated accounts. That has left hundreds of thousands of workers vulnerable.

Hotaling, 68 years old, is one of 1,100 former St. Clare's hospital employees who have lost some or all of their pension benefits. Workers at other church-affiliated groups, including schools, hospitals and publishers, have experienced similar hardships. The retirement-account balances of ministers and other employees around the country of the African Methodist Episcopal Church plummeted after what church officials there describe as a two-decade-long fraud.

[Shaka Shart]

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/mystery-illness-has-killed-more-than-50-people-in-congo#

Here we go ..

This is a very interesting read about this sort of thing

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/337075.Level_4

[Pakuni]

LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) — A child who wasn't vaccinated died in a measles outbreak in rural West Texas, state officials said Wednesday, the first U.S. death from the highly contagious — but preventable — respiratory disease since 2015.


https://apnews.com/article/measles-outbreak-west-texas-death-rfk-41adc66641e4a56ce2b2677480031ab9

[Shaka Shart]

LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) — A child who wasn't vaccinated died in a measles outbreak in rural West Texas, state officials said Wednesday, the first U.S. death from the highly contagious — but preventable — respiratory disease since 2015.


https://apnews.com/article/measles-outbreak-west-texas-death-rfk-41adc66641e4a56ce2b2677480031ab9

Freedom isn't free, Pakuni.

[tower912]

We reap what we sow.

[Shaka Shart]

We reap what we sow.

Alfalfa for Saudi cattle and crops so thirsty they drain the colorado river?

[MU Fan in Connecticut]

Congo reports over 50 deaths from mystery illness
https://time.com/7262216/mystery-disease-outbreaks-deadly-symptoms-congo-explainer/

[Shaka Shart]

Congo reports over 50 deaths from mystery illness
https://time.com/7262216/mystery-disease-outbreaks-deadly-symptoms-congo-explainer/

https://news4sanantonio.com/news/local/case-of-german-measles-confirmed-in-san-antonio-at-legacy-traditional-school-local-news-near-me-health-pulic-safety

[MU82]

vacceenz iz stoopid

[Shaka Shart]

Guess they won't be wanting that very promising pancreatic cancer vaccine or anything.

https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2025/03/03/bill-banning-mrna-vaccines-in-iowa-passes-subcommittee/

[TSmith34, Inc.]

Guess they won't be wanting that very promising pancreatic cancer vaccine or anything.

https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2025/03/03/bill-banning-mrna-vaccines-in-iowa-passes-subcommittee/

"We believe that the mRNA vaccines is the cause of these trends," Dowd said. "Regardless of my opinion, the trend has emerged, which is quite alarming, (and) needs to be investigated."

Who needs scientific studies when you have "beliefs"?

[MU82]

Iowa: The Mississippi of the Midwest

[Pakuni]

https://x.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1900537267308937416

[tower912]

Many, many things.  Most of which would earn a 3 week vacation.

[JWags85]

https://x.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1900537267308937416

My favorite quote from Ted Lasso was, incorrectly assigned to Walt Whitman, "be curious, not judgemental".  Which when further distilling into advice, my favorite snippet is always "be curious".  When I look at the majority of my successes, my most positive attributes in both business and interpersonal dealings, I can trace it back to a fundamental trait of I HATE to not know.  If its a word I don't recognize, a fact thats interesting, the location of something in the world, I NEED to look it up.  And not just get an answer but read something and understand it.  Not a book report, but a few min of reading and processing.

Back to the point, I think that mentality or mindset is not only becoming rarer, but its been de-emphasized further with stuff like ChatGPT or the summary at the top of a Google search.  It allows, much less teaches, people to get an answer quick, think nothing of it, and immediately punt it from their memory...if they are bothered to look for something at all.  Too many people, from all walks of life, are too immune to being ashamed of ignorance on so many subjects.

[rocky_warrior]

I HATE to not know.  If its a word I don't recognize, a fact thats interesting, the location of something in the world, I NEED to look it up.  And not just get an answer but read something and understand it.  Not a book report, but a few min of reading and processing. many subjects.

I work in an industry that's full of technology that I'll probably really never understand.  However, I'm the guy that will take on (and usually solve) challenges that nobody on the team knows, understands, or are willing to take on because they might fail.

So I guess, I'm not afraid of that study or AI.  Hah.

Edit: I can't actually get to the source of whatever pakuni linked.  X doesn't like me I guess.

[Pakuni]

I work in an industry that's full of technology that I'll probably really never understand.  However, I'm the guy that will take on (and usually solve) challenges that nobody on the team knows, understands, or are willing to take on because they might fail.

So I guess, I'm not afraid of that study or AI.  Hah.

Edit: I can't actually get to the source of whatever pakuni linked.  X doesn't like me I guess.

I think this is it

https://www.oecd.org/en/about/news/press-releases/2024/12/adult-skills-in-literacy-and-numeracy-declining-or-stagnating-in-most-oecd-countries.html

[Uncle Rico]

https://x.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1900537267308937416

It is clearly the case in America.  We are a much dumber nation than any time in modern history.  Our fear of knowledge, lack of empathy and general hostility to those we consider different is the surest sign of our intellectual decline