OpenTangent

Societal change has the oobleck effect in that if you attempt to make a dramatic abrupt change, society hardens up and you find yourself trying to break something solid. But if you make gentle meaningful changes, eventually you'll reach your goal with relatively little resistance.

There are a lot of new vegan faces in 2018 and that's fantastic, we seem to be on the cusp of critical mass and a global vegan takeover. I consider myself a latecomer to veganism, although I've been vegan for about four years now and vegetarian for eight.

Modern artificial intelligence (AI) is very good at determining probabilities based on historical data. AI has reached a point where the average person can now understand forecasting potential of AI, particularly due to recent advances in AI over the past few years.

I acknowledge that I have certain immaturities that are obvious and blatant to people I interact with. I am admittedly childish when it comes to diplomacy, tact and communication as a whole. I accept that I have character weaknesses and that I'm probably immature in many areas which I'm not even aware of.

Today we discuss minorities, and how hypocritical those in a majority position become without even being aware of it. What's acceptable for a person of popular beliefs and attitudes is chastised in a minority, and that makes us as minorities stronger as a result.

I recently called someone a "scumbag" for being racist on the South African Atheists group on Facebook, and in doing so I broke the rules of the group. I was subsequently muted for that, and that's fine I accept the consequences of my actions but I continued to follow the discussion silently. The flagrant racism that ensued blew my mind, I have never experienced this level of tolerance of racism in my life but sadly it was the anti-white flavour of racism which is still widely acceptable in South Africa, even among politicians.