Robot F. Kennedy

Humans are animals—animals with rights. So what kinds of rights do non-human animals deserve? The right to liberty? The right to nurse their young? The right to socialize?

In this episode, we interview two animal rights experts and ask them about chimps, cats, and personhood. We discuss common law, Jurassic Park, Ancient Rome, Woolly mammoths, and the Animal Welfare Act of 1966. This is Robot F. Kennedy.

SHOW NOTES

This episode is Part 2 on the topic of animal rights law, and its future impact on the way our society handles artificial general intelligence. You can listen to the first part here: https://soundcloud.com/robotfkennedy/3-an-act-of-nature

Professor Sarah Schindler is currently a Fellow at the Program in Law and Public Affairs at Princeton University. She is an expert in the areas of land use law and urban policy, and teaches at the University of Maine School of Law.

Professor Sarah Schindler: https://lapa.princeton.edu/people/sarah-schindler
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SBschindler

Steven Wise is a legal scholar who specializes in animal protection issues, primatology, and animal intelligence. He has taught animal rights law at Harvard Law School, Vermont Law School, and Stanford University. He is a former president of the Animal Legal Defense Fund, and founder and president of the Nonhuman Rights Project. In 2016, he argued for the release of two chimpanzees before the New York Appellate Court, and the court is expected to issue its ruling in May of 2017.

Mr. Steven Wise: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_M._Wise
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Steven_M_Wise
The Non-Human Rights Project: http://www.nonhumanrights.org
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonhumanRights

Unlocking the Cage, documentary on HBO Go: https://www.unlockingthecagethefilm.com/

The Guardian: “Woolly mammoth on verge of resurrection, scientists reveal”
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/feb/16/woolly-mammoth-resurrection-scientists

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robotfkennedy.substack.com

Since the 1790s, the United States has had six different party systems, or voter coalitions. As the country heads into its seventh party system, what will the New Republican and New Democratic parties look like in 2050? Will the Democrats and Republicans be around at all?

In this episode, we cover the Whigs, Abraham Lincoln, Bernie Sanders, hip and healthy 120 year olds, a Hispanic plurality, the Apple Store in Shanghai, and the Seventh Party System. This is Robot F. Kennedy.

SHOW NOTES

John Adams’s letter to Jonathan Jackson (1780).
http://thefederalistpapers.org/founders/adams/john-adams-letter-to-jonathan-jackson-october-1780

// The Republican Party is dying. The Democratic Party is dying. Everybody’s dying.

Republicans control 32 state legislatures. List of U.S. State Legislatures: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_state_legislatures

The Day The Republican Party Died (The Atlantic, May 2016): https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/the-day-the-republican-party-died/481176/

FiveThirtyEight’s Politics Podcast, episode from April 3, 2017: “The Political Calculus Of A Filibuster”
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/politics-podcast-the-political-calculus-of-a-filibuster/

Washington’s Farewell Address (1796): http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp

// Ten years ago, neither Bernie Sanders nor Donald Trump belonged to their respective parties.

Bush Says Trump Was a Democrat Longer Than a Republican ‘in the Last Decade’: http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2015/aug/24/jeb-bush/bush-says-trump-was-democrat-longer-republican-las/

Is Bernie Sanders a Democrat?: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2016/feb/23/bernie-sanders-democrat/

The Party Systems in the United States: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_parties_in_the_United_States

According to Walter Dean Burnham, party systems last for 30-38 years. Critical Elections: And the Mainsprings of American Politics (Walter Dean Burnham, 1970): https://www.amazon.com/Critical-Elections-Mainsprings-American-Politics/dp/0393093972

// The Seventh Party System

U.S. Population Projections in 2050: http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2008/02/11/us-population-projections-2005-2050/

Hispanic or Latino? (NPR, August 2015) http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/08/27/434584260/hispanic-or-latino-a-guide-for-the-u-s-presidential-campaign

An estimated net 1.2 million Americans of the 35 million Americans identified in 2000 as of “Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin,” as the census form puts it, changed their race from “some other race” to “white” between the 2000 and 2010 censuses, according to ... Pew Research.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/05/05/millions-of-americans-changed-their-racial-or-ethnic-identity-from-one-census-to-the-next/

List of U.S. States by Hispanic Population: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_Hispanic_and_Latino_population

On Columbus Day, let’s remember that Italians weren’t always white in America (Fusion, October 2015): http://fusion.net/on-columbus-day-let-s-remember-that-italians-weren-t-a-1793851764

Armenians were legally defined as white in 1909, In Re Halladjian: https://chnm.gmu.edu/courses/ncc375/rp/index.html

Global Monoculture: https://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/162/27553.html

Party Identification Varies Widely Across the Age Spectrum (Gallup, July 2014): http://www.gallup.com/poll/172439/party-identification-varies-widely-across-age-spectrum.aspx

The History of Retirement, from Early Man to A.A.R.P. — Bismarck Invents Retirement (New York Times, March 1999): http://www.nytimes.com/1999/03/21/jobs/the-history-of-retirement-from-early-man-to-aarp.html

OTHER NOTES

Price of lab-grown burger falls from $325K to $11.36:
http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/answering-how-a-sausage-gets-made-will-be-more-complicated-in-2020

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robotfkennedy.substack.com

How did the original First Amendment in the Bill of Rights get lost to the sands of time? Don’t you want to know what the ONLY unratified amendment of the original TWELVE in the Bill of Rights was all about?

In this episode, we cover Congressional apportionment, Puerto Rico, Mitch McConnell’s game of Risk™, China’s National People's Congress, and nihilism. This is Robot F. Kennedy.

SHOW NOTES

Steve King’s horrible, racist tweet:
https://twitter.com/SteveKingIA/status/840980755236999169

Congressional Apportionment Amendment
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Apportionment_Amendment
The amendment was written by James Madison in 1789. Between 1791 and 1796, it was only one state short of ratification. As of 1992, it is the only one of the original twelve amendments that failed to gain the necessary 3/4ths ratification.

Congressional district with the most people: Montana At-large (994,416)
Congressional district with the fewest people: Rhode Island's 1st (526,283)

The Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929
http://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1901-1950/The-Permanent-Apportionment-Act-of-1929/
This law limits the size of the House of Representatives to 435. It was passed by a Republican Congress and signed by a Republican president to protect Republican majorities.

List of Legislatures by Number of Members
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_legislatures_by_number_of_members

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robotfkennedy.substack.com

Would it be wise for humanity to clarify its ethics regarding the treatment of animals before artificial general intelligence (AGI) knocks humanity off the top of the pyramid?

In this episode, we cover the intellectual property of monkeys, Ireland, the Book of Genesis, slavery, dolphins, 3D printed food, and robots who program pain for themselves.

Also, Nick and Eddie call BS on themselves at least once and plan on a sequel episode with interviews of experts in the field of Animal Rights law. This is Robot F. Kennedy.

SHOW NOTES:

• A monkey took a selfie, and the ownership of it was not...clear
• NPR: Monkey Can't Own Copyright To His Selfie, Federal Judge Says
• http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/01/07/462245189/federal-judge-says-monkey-cant-own-copyright-to-his-selfie

• Washington Post: “USDA abruptly purges animal welfare information from its website”
• https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2017/02/03/the-usda-abruptly-removes-animal-welfare-information-from-its-website/?utm_term=.ff83c1684a32

• The History of Animal Protection in the United States
• http://tah.oah.org/november-2015/the-history-of-animal-protection-in-the-united-states/

• Animal may qualify for increased legal rights
• The Soul of an Octopus: How One of Earth’s Most Alien Creatures Illuminates the Wonders of Consciousness
• https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/12/14/the-soul-of-an-octopus-sy-montgomery/
• New Jersey Says Releasing Dolphin's Autopsy Would Infringe Its Privacy
• https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/new-jersey-says-releasing-dead-dolphins-autopsy-would-infringe-its-privacy
• Chimpanzee Rights Get a Day in Court
• https://www.wired.com/2015/05/chimpanzee-rights-get-day-court/

• Yuval Harari scares Nick.
• Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari
• https://www.amazon.com/Homo-Deus-Brief-History-Tomorrow/dp/0062464310

• Freakonomics Radio: “Waiter, There’s a Physicist In My Soup”
• Part 1, January 27, 2011:
• http://freakonomics.com/podcast/freakonomics-radio-waiter-theres-a-physicist-in-my-soup-part-i/
• Part 2, February 3, 2011:
• http://freakonomics.com/podcast/freakonomics-radio-waiter-theres-a-physicist-in-my-soup-part-2-2/

• Northern spotted owl and arguing for biodiversity to conservatives.
• In 1994, the Clinton administration negotiated a truce between conservationists attempting to protect the northern spotted owl, and an Oregonian lumber company with logging rights in the bird species’ mating territory.
• http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/18/us/18owl.html

• The economic interest in exploiting animals will decrease over time.
• Beyond Meat, plant-based burgers apparently indistinguishable from ground beef
• http://beyondmeat.com/
• Memphis Meats, lab grown meat from stem cells. As of 2016, it costs $18,000 per pound, but of course that will fall over time.
• http://www.memphismeats.com/
• Engadget: Bloody, meatless Impossible Burger will soon be easier to find
• https://www.engadget.com/2017/03/23/impossible-burger-will-soon-be-easier-to-find/

• Humans are the cheapest supercomputers. We run on an average of an average power of 97.2 watts. You are less energy expensive than a 100 watt light bulb.
• http://sustainability.blogs.brynmawr.edu/2012/07/31/understanding-energy-part-1/

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robotfkennedy.substack.com

How do you measure the success or failure of a president? Maybe it’s the one practice from the business world that Donald Trump seems least likely to carry over.

In this episode, we look at KPIs, or Key Performance Indicators. We pick apart some of the KPIs that are commonly used to measure presidencies, and suggest some new and novel ones we might use.

Also featured in this episode: Martin O’Malley, obesity, aliens, the staggering decrease in worldwide combat deaths since WWII, Ronald Reagan, and sex. This is Robot F. Kennedy.

SHOW NOTES

Key Performance Indicator (KPI): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performance_indicator

Overweight and Obesity Statistics, National Institutes of Health (NIH): https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statistics/Pages/overweight-obesity-statistics.aspx

Nine Years of Apple's iOS SDK generated $60 billion, 1.4 million jobs:
http://appleinsider.com/articles/17/03/07/nine-years-of-apples-ios-sdk-generated-60-billion-14-million-jobs

The Washington Post, Our infant mortality rate is a national embarrassment: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/29/our-infant-mortality-rate-is-a-national-embarrassment/?utm_term=.90dd55afe414

Stock Market Performance by President, MacroTrends: http://www.macrotrends.net/2481/stock-market-performance-by-president

The United States Office of Personnel Management, Total Government Employment Since 1962: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/data-analysis-documentation/federal-employment-reports/historical-tables/total-government-employment-since-1962/

War Deaths Data: https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace/

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robotfkennedy.substack.com

Will automation destroy 3 million more jobs before the next presidential election in 2020? In this episode, we talk George Washington, AI, automated flour mills, Uber, autonomous semis, and the Teamsters. Inaugural episode (kind of). This is Robot F. Kennedy.

SHOW NOTES

Oliver Evans designed the first automated flour mill in Delaware in the 1780s. He secured the third U.S. Patent in 1790. Evans’s mills eliminated 80-100% of the required labor force. The “Evans system” was adopted at Mount Vernon in 1791.
* http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/theymadeamerica/whomade/evans_hi.html
* http://www.mountvernon.org/digital-encyclopedia/article/overview-of-the-gristmill/

Summers: Yes, the Robots Are Coming to Take Our Jobs: http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/03/summers-yes-robots-are-coming-take-our-jobs

In 1840, a Boston bootmaker (cordwainer) Jeremiah Horne broke ranks with the Boston Journeyman Bootmaker’s Society. He filed a complaint with the county attorney, and they arrested the union leaders on charges of criminal conspiracy. In 1842, the Massachusetts Supreme Court sided with the union, which effectively legalized labor unions.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_v._Hunt

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) had approximately 1.3 million members in 2013, according to the US Department of Labor, Office of Labor-Management Standards.

Bill Gates, calling for taxing robots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nccryZOcrUg

American Nations by Colin Woodard: https://www.amazon.com/American-Nations-History-Regional-Cultures/dp/0143122029

Mirai botnet: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/26/ddos-attack-dyn-mirai-botnet

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robotfkennedy.substack.com