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So... where's Joe Biden?
I will state for the record that these sort of questions come up fairly regularly. Almost always, the VIP emerges soon enough, seemingly no worse for wear. Kim Jong-un was MIA for a couple weeks, and I think Putin may have disappeared too at one point.
So normalcy bias being what it is, I expect Joe to turn up soon and give some sort of speech.
But, isn't it a bit strange that Biden made his announcement via Twitter of all places and hasn't been seen in public since? We have no idea whether he wrote that statement, or even signed it. The only evidence of him "stepping aside" is a JPEG on Twitter. Personally, I think there is a real chance that he is seriously ill. The stress of the two weeks cannot have been good for his health.
On a more meta level, this seems to pattern match a behavior we've seen from the Democrats a lot. Instead of proactively using openness to refute conspiracy theorists, they seem to double down on secrecy. Why let the rumors swirl? Why not have Joe pop out to say hello?
Whatever happens, I expects some great books and movies to come out about this two week period. To be a fly on the wall in the White House!
Update: 12:20am Tuesday. There are some crazy rumors swirling on Twitter with one source claiming that Biden is in hospice care and might die soon. It's a very low status source, but they correctly called the Sunday resignation. (Humorously they are squabbling with another low status source and have a ban bet going). Back in normiestan, Biden's physician claims that he is nearly recovered from Covid and is performing all Presidential duties (odd statement, that). More facts: Biden was supposed to meet with Netanyahu today but it's been moved to Thursday. Polymarket currently has Biden with a 50% chance of finishing his term - with no movement in the last 24 hours.
He just called in via phone during Kamala's first speech in Wilmington. Ironically, sounds the best he has since the SOTU.
How sure are you that the voice you heard wasn’t AI synthesized?
I assume you're joking, but I have to imagine we're not far away from Deep Fakes being used by state actors to manipulate the public. The technology is getting better and better.
I wonder how far we are from forging a voice being as difficult as forging a signature. Hopefully that's paired with widespread doubt about it as a method of authentication, but you still hear (occasional) stories about forged signatures being used for fraud in the age of photocopiers.
OpenAI were recommending phasing out voice auth back in March, passably mimicking voices is now extremely accessible. Current TTS can't replicate more subtle mannerisms and tics, but human mimicry and speech-to-speech gets you most of the way there.
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