803: Greetings, People Of Earth
Update: 2024-08-0424
Description
Humans encounter non-human intelligences of various kinds and try to make sense of them.
- Prologue: Ira has some thoughts about our country’s long history of alien invasion movies. (2 minutes)
- Act One: We’ve witnessed a revolution in A.I. since the public rollout of ChatGPT. Our Senior Editor David Kestenbaum thinks that even though there’s been a ton of coverage, there’s one thing people haven’t talked much about: have these machines gotten to the point that they’re starting to have something like human intelligence? Where they actually understand language and concepts, and can reason? He talks with scientists at Microsoft who’ve been trying to figure that out. (30 minutes)
- Act Two: A short piece of fiction from the perspective of aliens who’ve been scouting Earth, from writer Terry Bisson. It’s called “They're Made Out of Meat.” It’s performed by actors Maeve Higgins and H Jon Benjamin. (5 minutes)
- Act Three: A species of massive, mysterious, highly intelligent beings have recently been making contact with humanity. Or our boats, anyway. Many people seem convinced they are seeking revenge for past injustices. Producer Chris Benderev wondered if that was true. (7 minutes)
- Act Four: Many of us, especially when we’re young, feel like we’re the alien, trying to understand and fit in with the humans on this planet. Producer Diane Wu spent some time recently with a teenage humanoid who feels that way. (15 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
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In Channel
In Arizona last night, Kamala Harris said that her campaign was there to "protect our democracy'. Just a reminder that she has never received a single vote in a Democrat primary for president. She is the most anti-democratic candidate in presidential history. What's more, when she was running against Joe Biden in the Democrat primary calling him a rapist and a racist, she never got even 1% of the vote.
June 9th, 2024: President Trump tells America he will end the Biden/Harris aggressive taxation of service workers tips, aka "no tax on tips". August 11, 2024: Kackala announces a no tax on tips policy, which she will never adhere to, as if she came up with it first. Folks, you can't make this stuff up.
The weirdest thing about Kamala fans & this entire campaign are all these "day 1" promises. Y'all realize she's currently the Vice President. She's going on day 1,400 & it ain't good..
Remember when Pres. Trump almost had his head blown off 25 days ago, and then we learned basically nothing about the shooter, and then the Secret Service and FBI lied about it, and then the media stopped talking about it, and then Big Tech suppressed its results in search? Now THAT'S "weird".
Is it me or does Tim Wolz remind anyone else of a dude who hangs out at rest stop mens bathrooms waiting to hook up with runaway twinks?
President Trump = cash. Kackala = crash. Facts.
BREAKING: Days after Kackala saying President Trump is afraid to debate her, she declines debating President Trump on September 4th. Her plan is to shut her mouth and let the PR people handle her campaign.
Speaking of "weird", did anyone else think it was weird when Kamala husband cheated on his first wife with the nanny and knocked her up?
BREAKING: Kamala has outright refused to debate President Trump at the highly anticipated September 4th match, opting rather to run to her leftist media shills. When asked why she would do such a thing, President Trump said "because she's really dumb".
can't handle hearing Bob as anyone other than Bob's burger. lol
Happy birthday, America! And thanks again to President Trump for his assistance in defeating racism, Marxism, and protecting the 1st amendment.
Racism: struck down. Free speech: upheld. What a wonderful birthday gift the Supreme Court gave America! Thank you, President Trump, and God bless America!
Hello, please speak slowly. I use these episodes to learn English, please put the text in writing
Thank you Fox News. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kSyXYAgihsw Or Google Fox News Tonight interview with Trump. When Trump realized that it wasn't a softball interview like the one from obedient Tucker or soft boy Hannity...that he'd actually be asked real questions...😆 Then he tried to just talk over Bret Baier, but Baier actually had the facts about the election fraud lies, and even quoted the 60 failed cases from the Trump campaign to overturn the election...that were in front of republican Trump appointed judges....🏆 Not to mention..."The people that you hired..." 😖🤣🤣🤣 Thank you. Apparently firing Cuck boy Tucker for his election lies really brought Fox back to some semblance, at least on one issue, to journalistic integrity Love it. Trump lost the entire Fox News audience.