Easy Truth

Just to add to the above, my grandparents on my Dad's side who took me to church from toddler age until I made my own decision to stop going at about 9 or so where originally from Arkansas and were Southern Baptists who took me to Baptist churches, but right away at 4, 5, 6 years of age I immediately had what I now know were extreme moral issues with the idea of a being/God requiring sacrifices, first in animals and then of actual people (which even then I knew made zero sense whatsoever and was evil). Then there were all the contradictions such as a "trinity" that is one, magical stuff like people walking on water, being magically turned to salt, being swallowed by whales and living,  dying and magically coming back from the dead, etc. Things that are impossible and people just randomly believing it all without even thinking or demanding proof in any manner. Then there was the way people acted there that literally scared the crap out of me, made no sense,  or was boring to the point I'd just fall asleep.  Kids my age being rewarded for randomly citing the books of the Bible at like age 6 when the assignment was actually to cite a specific assigned verse in the children's class while acting like mindless zombies, being in the main service with my Grandparents and people randomly yelling out hallelujah like crazy lunatics, the list could go on and on. It was just a scary,  contradictory,  nonsensical experience at nearly all times. The singing and things like listening to stories that even then I knew were just myths was OK but overall I considered it an extremely negative experience and since the purpose of it all was to stop rational thought and encourage conformity in outlandish ideas that would get people sent properly to a psychiatrist for if they claimed them in the present I quickly realized that it was a form of child abuse to continue in any manner past about 8 or 9.

Both sides have engaged in indiscriminate killing. War will create some indiscriminate killing. Successful killing in war is to have more firepower than the other side. Hamas engaged in that in Israel and now Israel is engaging in that in Gaza. If we want to go based on per capita body count, then Israel is killing more right now. If we go by openly heinousness, then maybe Hamas wins that game.
But to claim that Israel is not engaging in indiscriminate killing is easily disproven. Or that Palestinians don't have any reason to be resentful is easily disproven. Currently, Israel cannot discriminate between their people, the hostages, and the enemy. The debate is now about the percentage of people killed as if the percentages determine if it is a killing, a murder, or a genocide.
Both sides don't understand that it's the indiscriminate hate that is the problem, it won't stop. One side will always find a weak point and attack it and this will go on forever. In other words, the hate cannot guide toward the ideal and the ideal is not the annihilation of the other side.

Both sides have engaged in indiscriminate killing. War will create some indiscriminate killing. Successful killing in war is to have more firepower than the other side. Hamas engaged in that in Israel and now Israel is engaging in that in Gaza. If we want to go based on per capita body count, then Israel is killing more right now. If we go by openly heinousness, then maybe Hamas wins that game.
But to claim that Israel is not engaging in indiscriminate killing is easily disproven. Or that Palestinians don't have any reason to be resentful is easily disproven. Currently, Israel cannot discriminate between their people, the hostages, and the enemy. The debate is now about the percentage of people killed as if the percentages determine if it is a killing, a murder, or a genocide.
Both sides don't understand that it's the indiscriminate hate that is the problem, it won't stop. One side will always find a weak point and attack it and this will go on forever. In other words, the hate cannot guide toward the ideal and the ideal is not the annihilation of the other side.

What is the point of helping a nation that does not require any help? 
Based on what you have said there is no reason for the US to help Israel. You've made a strong case for that.
Are you also going to make the case that Israel does not have a strong lobby in the US?

Go to war with Iran, while financing the war in Ukraine. Of course, we should also eradicate North Korea while we are at it. Get rid of all of the evil in the world. As if all of this is free and without any regretful consequence. 
The potential for World War Three is being ignored. 1400 innocent Israelis have been killed, but part of it is due to Israeli negligence which one could argue: is still going on. The future animosity being created is not to the advantage of Israel. Relations with Israel and Arab countries were being normalized. Not anymore with the kind of massive killing that is going on in Gaza.
We have fought the Taliban, trying to eradicate them with a giant coalition, Afghanistan is a far more backward country than Iran and now, after 20 years of fighting them and 2 trillion dollars spent, we are supporting the Taliban government's existence. Has the experience in Vietnam been already forgotten? That's an example of what the "eradication mindset" gets you. Hamas is staying in some form or another because they are the only Palestinian voice that Israel has heard and reacted to. It may or may not be dominant moving forward but it won't go away as long as they need to have a resistance movement. With all the revenge policy at work, the only solution is to better the lives of the Palestinians. It is a very bitter medicine but it is the only one that will work. Subjugation or ethnic cleansing won't work in this day and age.
Getting rid of Iran is not as simple as you seem to think or it would have been done by now.
Iran has 80 million people and most of the population can read and write because it is compulsory. Recall how they caused oil prices to spike with one cruise missile into Saudi Arabian oil fields. Their drone technology is advanced enough that they supply Russia with its war in Ukraine. Meanwhile, do you think that Russia and China will just watch their financial interests in Iran disappear without putting up some resistance?
 

Go to war with Iran, while financing the war in Ukraine. Of course, we should also eradicate North Korea while we are at it. Get rid of all of the evil in the world. As if all of this is free and without any regretful consequence. 
The potential for World War Three is being ignored. 1400 innocent Israelis have been killed, but part of it is due to Israeli negligence which one could argue: is still going on. The future animosity being created is not to the advantage of Israel. Relations with Israel and Arab countries were being normalized. Not anymore with the kind of massive killing that is going on in Gaza.
We have fought the Taliban, trying to eradicate them with a giant coalition, Afghanistan is a far more backward country than Iran and now, after 20 years of fighting them and 2 trillion dollars spent, we are supporting the Taliban government's existence. Has the experience in Vietnam been already forgotten? That's an example of what the "eradication mindset" gets you. Hamas is staying in some form or another because they are the only Palestinian voice that Israel has heard and reacted to. It may or may not be dominant moving forward but it won't go away as long as they need to have a resistance movement. With all the revenge policy at work, the only solution is to better the lives of the Palestinians. It is a very bitter medicine but it is the only one that will work. Subjugation or ethnic cleansing won't work in this day and age.
Getting rid of Iran is not as simple as you seem to think or it would have been done by now.
Iran has 80 million people and most of the population can read and write because it is compulsory. Recall how they caused oil prices to spike with one cruise missile into Saudi Arabian oil fields. Their drone technology is advanced enough that they supply Russia with its war in Ukraine. Meanwhile, do you think that Russia and China will just watch their financial interests in Iran disappear without putting up some resistance?
 

Yes, how evil of me to ask Israel to sacrifice "higher" values such as oppression, systemic murder, property and land theft, racism, and religious discrimination to "lower" values such as justice, equality, and peace.

There is the question of how should Dogland or Catland behave, but there is also the question of how your nation "observing" react.
It would be an interesting question regarding how an "Objectivist" leader of an "Objectivist" nation reacts. This could also be asked regarding a philosophy or religion (ideology). For instance, was 9/11 done by a group of terrorists that was not nation-sponsored? Did it justify attacks on Afghanistan where it did originate, and on Iraq where it did not? These are tiring questions that require stamina to discover their answer.
But with all the previous irrationality that has gone on between the Israelis and the Palestinians, ultimately it would rest with the issue of who initiated and who was negligent in preventing. One has to find who was responsible and how can it be prevented in the future. Was the nation with the lone terrorist negligent in preventing such an attack, or was there a pervasive philosophy that encouraged such an attack where a nation represents that philosophy? There is a battle between the zionist philosophy and the Islamic Philosophy in the case of Hamas (Palestinians are not all Islamic))
As a reaction, the nation attacked, like a human being will simply react violently. It seems that some on this thread are arguing that anything goes. If anything goes, the road to annihilation is wide open. So "anything" can't go. That does not mean choosing altruism/self-sacrifice, only that "limits" are to one's benefit.

Keep in mind the PLO wanted the destruction of Israel too, but the PLO was negotiated with. They were awful terrorists too. They changed. And of course, Israel was also created through terrorism against the British.
Assuming Hamas were a pathological organization that would attack civilians at random without any provocation, then it would be a simple choice. It has to be destroyed. But if the process to destroy them will create a permanent state of war, negotiation ought to happen. 
If the choice was as simple as "destroy Hamas or don't" it would be simple but the action by Israel right now will not destroy Hamas. Hamas has to be destroyed internally by the Palestinians themselves.
Hamas, as a resistance organization, is allowing for Palasteninans to be "heard" the only way possible, it is getting a reaction. If in the future, Palestinians are consistently ignored, this organization will live on as an option for Palestinians. In other words, the enemy has to be heard and a non-violent dialog created, otherwise, war is their only way of communicating.
Is the invasion of Gaza a temper tantrum of the Israeli community or a well-thought-out plan ahead? Is there a method to the madness? Will this invasion of Gaza destroy Hamas? Will this massive destruction and loss of life be remembered by Palestineans as a lesson to not be heinous again, or as a focal point of hate ingrained in their history?
If one can make the case that the current invasion will create harmonious communication, then the validity of the "eternal war" may have some legs. But Hamas is being Martyred, with many giving their lives for their people, so they will have more staying power. Israel in a sense has fallen into their trap. The choices are not simply to destroy Hamas or take no action.

If all Palestinians are criminals, then they should lose their rights based on being human. This assumes that the "initiator of force" is clear ... and that all Palestinians are criminals. We know that Hamas operatives did their heinous deeds. What Hamas did was horrible. Meanwhile, what Israel is doing is horrible too with a much higher body count. The heinousness of an act does not necessarily determine your "rights". If it was a retaliation then the horror would have some justification. If it was not, it was a meaningless savage attack.
First and foremost, the individual has to protect their rights. After that, it's the agency that they create, relinquishing that responsibility and giving it to the monopoly on force. This means that the way HAMAS was created is relevant.
Israel was complicit in creating this so-called government (HAMAS) to weaken the political power that the PLO provided. It also contributed to the living conditions, with 2.5 million people blockaded on 3 sides. It was a chess move Israel made that contributed to this catastrophe. Did the Palestinian people have a "right" to an un interfered with Political process? Did they have the right to the PLO representing them? Mind you, the PLO is corrupt, but it does accept Israel's right to exist.
Successive Israeli governments and settlers have harmed Palestinians too. This is assuming that Palestinians have rights. If Palestinians are human, then they have rights. After the Oslo Agreement (with the PLO), Palestinian claims have been ignored or sidelined.
Assuming that one side does not have rights simply based on their civilization would allow conclusions that all individuals in communist systems, feudal countries, countries with kings or Queens, or Socialist or Fascist systems don't deserve natural rights. After all, their "system" is not civilized i.e. they are not civilized.
Individuals are not programmed by their DNA to want to kill members of certain groups. We have free will. Each wants to flourish like any human. Palestinians will need to be considered human with associated rights to enable a mutually agreeable solution. One side being subhuman is succumbing to emotion.
 

If all Palestinians are criminals, then they should lose their rights based on being human. This assumes that the "initiator of force" is clear ... and that all Palestinians are criminals. We know that Hamas operatives did their heinous deeds. What Hamas did was horrible. Meanwhile, what Israel is doing is horrible too with a much higher body count. The heinousness of an act does not necessarily determine your "rights". If it was a retaliation then the horror would have some justification. If it was not, it was a meaningless savage attack.
First and foremost, the individual has to protect their rights. After that, it's the agency that they create, relinquishing that responsibility and giving it to the monopoly on force. This means that the way HAMAS was created is relevant.
Israel was complicit in creating this so-called government (HAMAS) to weaken the political power that the PLO provided. It also contributed to the living conditions, with 2.5 million people blockaded on 3 sides. It was a chess move Israel made that contributed to this catastrophe. Did the Palestinian people have a "right" to an un interfered with Political process? Did they have the right to the PLO representing them? Mind you, the PLO is corrupt, but it does accept Israel's right to exist.
Successive Israeli governments and settlers have harmed Palestinians too. This is assuming that Palestinians have rights. If Palestinians are human, then they have rights. After the Oslo Agreement (with the PLO), Palestinian claims have been ignored or sidelined.
Assuming that one side does not have rights simply based on their civilization would allow conclusions that all individuals in communist systems, feudal countries, countries with kings or Queens, or Socialist or Fascist systems don't deserve natural rights. After all, their "system" is not civilized i.e. they are not civilized.
Individuals are not programmed by their DNA to want to kill members of certain groups. We have free will. Each wants to flourish like any human. Palestinians will need to be considered human with associated rights to enable a mutually agreeable solution. One side being subhuman is succumbing to emotion.
 

Does that not include those who can read and write??? The demonization of more than 5 million people (Palestinians) is akin to how the Jews were seen as sewer rats.
That is nonsense. It's a contradiction. Following a philosophy without knowing the reason for it is valuing faith-based ethics.  If that's what you're selling then you're definitely posting in the wrong forum.

I wonder if the forum will embed tweets?  Anyway, I deny being an Iranian propagandist of a useful tool of Iranian propagandists.  All Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism) need to be put down forever.
https://x.com/samparkersenate/status/1724434234264183240?

Yes, it is existential. So why don't they make a lasting peace with their enemies which are gaining in population and technology?
Israel is evading that reality.
But my interest lies in not being dragged into a nonsensically initiated war. I would agree with Grames that Zionism cannot be a justification for anything. 

I read what you wrote and enjoyed it.
The umph, is you. What you are going through does not get addressed through ruminating (purely mentally) about your situation.
It's like an ice wall in your path that you need to melt.
The other side of the wall is what is beautiful, wonderful, pleasurable, and fantastic.
But the wall will not let you reach out and touch the magnificent, or be moved by it.
The umph is being moved by the beauty. But it requires that you allow it to move you. That is a great risk.
But the wonderful "what" can be taken away, and destroyed and you are left with the deep pain of loss, disappointment, humiliation, etc. Here one has to express emotions to melt the wall. The repressed painful emotions are the wall. Consistent writing helps, but art is the great melting tool for that ice wall in your way. Striving for what is beautiful is what creates the umph. But as you say, knowing it is not enough.
What you are doing, writing about the problem is effective if you keep at it. Discussing it is usually helpful as long as you are not told to shut up.
But knowing, feeling the dream beyond the wall is what melts the wall. The ice is protecting you against the evils of enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is sometimes, good and sometimes not good. There are instances of enthusiasm that you regret. So you can't simply count on enthusiasm. It's the passion for " the what" that counts.
But the inspiration, the initiation is you. You are the spark, the start, the initiator. The cause. You are cause.
Being reminded that I am "cause" immediately is the necessary jolt.

Roughly stated: Objectivist ethics concerns the goal to survive. Then Objectivism reasons that not getting murdered is a requirement to survive, therefore (with some other reasoning too) people have a right not to be murdered. The details are found in the Objectivist literature.
Or use a coherence theory of truth.
Yes, that problem has to be addressed. One solution is the potentiality argument. A different solution might be an argument that we regard humans as a special class, from birth to death, no matter what. That is, that we don't qualify each person individually - having to account for their different degrees of rationality - but rather that there is a one blanket principle for all people. 
But the issue you mention is not the same as the right not to be killed: There are two: (1) The right of the child not to be killed, (2) The parent's obligation to care for the child (and is there a right of the child to be cared for by the parents?).

Readers Digest, January 1944, pp. 88-90
The greatest threat to mankind and civilization is the spread of the totalitarian philosophy. Its best ally is not the devotion of its followers but the confusion of its enemies. To fight it, we must understand it.
Totalitarianism is collectivism. Collectivism means the subjugation of the individual to a group — whether to a race, class or state does not matter. Collectivism holds that man must be chained to collective action and collective thought for the sake of what is called ``the common good.´´
Throughout history, no tyrant ever rose to power except on the claim of representing ``the common good.´´ Napoleon ``served the common good´´ of France. Hitler is ``serving the common good´´ of Germany. Horrors which no man would dare consider for his own selfish sake are perpetrated with a clear conscience by ``altruists´´ who justify themselves by-the common good.
No tyrant has ever lasted long by force of arms alone. Men have been enslaved primarily by spiritual weapons. And the greatest of these is the collectivist doctrine that the supremacy of the state over the individual constitutes the common good. No dictator could rise if men held as a sacred faith the conviction that they have inalienable rights of which they cannot be deprived for any cause whatsoever, by any man whatsoever, neither by evildoer nor supposed benefactor.
This is the basic tenet of individualism, as opposed to collectivism. Individualism holds that man is an independent entity with an inalienable right to the pursuit of his own happiness in a society where men deal with one another as equals.
The American system is founded on individualism. If it is to survive, we must understand the principles of individualism and hold them as our standard in any public question, in every issue we face. We must have a positive credo, a clear consistent faith.
We must learn to reject as total evil the conception that the common good is served by the abolition of individual rights. General happiness cannot be created out of general suffering and self-immolation. The only happy society is one of happy individuals. One cannot have a healthy forest made up of rotten trees.
The power of society must always be limited by the basic, inalienable rights of the individual.
The right of liberty means man's right to individual action, individual choice, individual initiative and individual property. Without the right to private property no independent action is possible.
The right to the pursuit of happiness means man's right to live for himself, to choose what constitutes his own, private, personal happiness and to work for its achievement. Each individual is the sole and final judge in this choice. A man's happiness cannot be prescribed to him by another man or by any number of other men.
These rights are the unconditional, personal, private, individual possession of every man, granted to him by the fact of his birth and requiring no other sanction. Such was the conception of the founders of our country, who placed individual rights above any and all collective claims. Society can only be a traffic policeman in the intercourse of men with one another.
From the beginning of history, two antagonists have stood face to face, two opposite types of men: the Active and the Passive. The Active Man is the producer, the creator, the originator, the individualist. His basic need is independence — in order to think and work. He neither needs nor seeks power over other men — nor can he be made to work under any form of compulsion. Every type of good work — from laying bricks to writing a symphony — is done by the Active Man. Degrees of human ability vary, but the basic principle remains the same: the degree of a man's independence and initiative determines his talent as a worker and his worth as a man.
The Passive Man is found on every level of society, in mansions and in slums, and his identification mark is his dread of independence. He is a parasite who expects to be taken care of by others, who wishes to be given directives, to obey, to submit, to be regulated, to be told. He welcomes collectivism, which eliminates any chance that he might have to think or act on his own initiative.
When a society is based on the needs of the Passive Man it destroys the Active; but when the Active is destroyed, the Passive can no longer be cared for. When a society is based on the needs of the Active Man, he carries the Passive ones along on his energy and raises them as he rises, as the whole society rises. This has been the pattern of all human progress.
Some humanitarians demand a collective state because of their pity for the incompetent or Passive Man. For his sake they wish to harness the Active. But the Active Man cannot function in harness. And once he is destroyed, the destruction of the Passive Man follows automatically. So if pity is the humanitarians' first consideration, then in the name of pity, if nothing else, they should leave the Active Man free to function, in order to help the Passive. There is no other way to help him in the long run.
The history of mankind is the history of the struggle between the Active Man and the Passive, between the individual and the collective. The countries which have produced the happiest men, the highest standards of living and the greatest cultural advances have been the countries where the power of the collective — of the government, of the state — was limited and the individual was given freedom of independent action. As examples: The rise of Rome, with its conception of law based on a citizen's rights, over the collectivist barbarism of its time. The rise of England, with a system of government based on the Magna Carta, over collectivist, totalitarian Spain. The rise of the United States to a degree of achievement unequaled in history — by grace of the individual freedom and independence which our Constitution gave each citizen against the collective.
While men are still pondering upon the causes of the rise and fall of civilizations, every page of history cries to us that there is but one source of progress: Individual Man in independent action. Collectivism is the ancient principle of savagery. A savage's whole existence is ruled by the leaders of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.
We are now facing a choice: to go forward or to go back.
Collectivism is not the ``New Order of Tomorrow.´´ It is the order of a very dark yesterday. But there is a New Order of Tomorrow. It belongs to Individual Man — the only creator of any tomorrows humanity has ever been granted.

Libel protection will not necessarily protect a CEO. When a corporation loses a legal case, the shareholders suffer and they, in turn, react to the CEO.
Any legal protection that is given to a CEO is known. It is not sprung on us, it is not a fraud. A bank will not lend money to a corporation or LLC without collateral. You can choose to do or avoid doing business with any corporation. If you are forced to do business with a corporation, the "forcing" must be stopped. But more importantly, you have to make the case that you are being "forced" to do business with it. Are we being forced by corporations to do business with them?
When we do business with a corporation, a "country", or a partnership, the entire entity should be held responsible. The problem is "they" usually are a large group of people that can vote and that will finance voting which causes governmental collusion. Not the business entity concept itself.
The crony capitalism we have right now allows for harmful decisions because of illegitimate protection obtained by collusion with the government. It's not the idea of "government" or "corporation" that is at fault. Collusion or legal corruption or corporate welfare via the government is due to the morality of collectivism and utilitarianism that permeates the culture.

There has historically always been some partisan bias in the law but not to the point of creating a collapse in the long run. After all, the Constitution has not been followed for a very long time. Individual rights are trashed routinely. It's been dangerous for a long time.
The case Dershowitz would have to make is that it is extraordinarily different now. He can't say "Here is a completely innocent man being treated like a criminal". If he does, he's wrong.
Trump has done some things that a Republican or Democratic court could find him guilty of.
It does not seem more dangerous than other times, for instance, will this cause a civil war? It doesn't look like it.
Some will complain ... and then the Republicans will do the same thing to some Democrat ... and some will complain about that.

If you are stuck on the idea that it was not an insurrection, I can grant you that. But if you are arguing that in a country where there is still free speech (even if eroded), that violence is okay, then you're glamorizing chaos. There are protests and then there are violent protests. Once chaos starts, an orderly shift toward respect for rights does NOT happen. I have lived through a violent revolution, the very best people do not, in fact, rise to the top.

If you are stuck on the idea that it was not an insurrection, I can grant you that. But if you are arguing that in a country where there is still free speech (even if eroded), that violence is okay, then you're glamorizing chaos. There are protests and then there are violent protests. Once chaos starts, an orderly shift toward respect for rights does NOT happen. I have lived through a violent revolution, the very best people do not, in fact, rise to the top.

If you are stuck on the idea that it was not an insurrection, I can grant you that. But if you are arguing that in a country where there is still free speech (even if eroded), that violence is okay, then you're glamorizing chaos. There are protests and then there are violent protests. Once chaos starts, an orderly shift toward respect for rights does NOT happen. I have lived through a violent revolution, the very best people do not, in fact, rise to the top.

At the core of the ethics of thinking, it's about "how best to make choices".
The act  of thinking is in this particular context has to be spelled out completely.
For the caveman, it was "I better figure a better way or I'm dead".
That could be emotions and/or thought or some combination.
There is also the issue the automatic tendency to think. Like did the cave think "I will decide to think?" No, he thought. Perhaps a cat or dog does that too.
For a human, thinking is at the basis of wanting, desire, motivation. Thinking it to create an end that is wanted.
So the act or experience frequently ends up being: "I better determine the possibilities in my mind and pick the best one".
As an aside, there is also the issue of rumination that is not a good kind of thinking. As in, eternally going round and round figuring out "what is the sound of one hand clapping".
Thinking is an act of using one's mind in long term goal oriented way. It is unfair to accuse someone of not thinking simply because they missed a possibility that was available to be "thought of". Even a choice of question also has to be thought about. We have to strategize and omit some questions. You can't go around trying to answer every question that comes to mind. And sometimes you will be wrong. In general, I don't tell people to choose to think, I just ask them for answer to something.
The time that the case for reasoning is at it's highest relevance is at the time of "intense emotion". Like when there is intense anger, fear, disappointment or sexual desire. In most of those cases, you better think and in many cases, to do that, you have to back off, and let the emotional dust settle.
 

What does "machine" mean and imply? There is an error in philosophy Rand to referred to as the "mind-body dichotomy" which insisted consciousness and all things spiritual was immaterial and that the body was material and therefore mechanical.  "Machine" means and implies the "body" side of the mind-body dichotomy and so by definition cannot be conscious or ever volitional.  In addition to all the arguments against the mind-body dichotomy which Rand had made I have my own ontological insight which I owe to modernity and science.   
Philosophy is often said to start with Thales who tried to assert "everything was water".  Fast forwarding through thousands of years, we have Newton and others teaching that there is matter and energy.  Then Einstein taught that matter and energy are the same thing, in that one can be transformed into the other.  But the man the people forget is Claude Shannon who founded information theory as a field of study.  Fundamentally what exists is matter/energy and information.  All information exists in the form of some mass/energy and no mass/energy can exist without bearing information.   There can be no "pure mind" or "pure body", only ever a comingling of both.
All discrete systems from inert rocks to microbes to people can be graded on a spectrum as to how elaborate is their information processing capacity.  Somewhere on the higher end consciousness becomes possible and then beyond that volition.   This is why I conclude volition is possible in non-human and even non-organic forms.  

Human Intelligence in Liquid Form
Robert Tracinski 

I have a new piece up at Discourse taking on our recurring fascination with the prospect of a robot apocalypse, in which humans are replaced, superseded, and eventually eaten by artificial intelligence.