And he has watched in disbelief as a succession of seemingly serious thinkers have declared there is no reason why a race of intelligent computers should not take over the world, possibly rather soon.
Shakespearean tragedy is easily tipped into comedy - although with seemingly serious consequences, when a duel between Gnomeo and Tybalt results in Tybalt shattering.
Taking questions from the amused critics about Mariah's World, an eight-part series that premieres Dec. 4, Carey glided from seemingly serious responses about her children or reality television to one-liners channeled from Miss Piggy.
Yet Mr. Cheney's own candidacy was moving along a track so secret that some of the other politicians on the list of seemingly serious prospects had no idea that Mr. Bush was settling on him until they learned it from newspaper and television reports about 72 hours before Mr. Bush formally announced his decision.
"I like to think of it as minimal/sparse," Mr. Svenson says, seemingly serious.
OK, this novel is about seemingly serious business: the social order, the sexual revolution, the "M" word (morals), societal change with a big "C".
At last seemingly serious about economic reform, the French government insisted that this was not the time to close off its fiscal space.
But his seemingly serious idea has sent shock-waves, some of horror, some of amused delight, across Germany.Never, cry the proposal's outraged opponents.
The geographical accident of Germany has denied Germans the fun we have with language, and it seemed to me that their sense of humour was built on blunt, seemingly serious statements, which became funny simply because of their context.
As word of Spilchenko's seemingly serious consideration of this idea got out, ridicule poured in, especially on the social media sharing Web site Reddit, where Spilchenko spurred comments such as, "Jim Crowyenko," "What is this, the 1960s?" and "Perhaps Uefa could avoid racism by separating Kiev from European football".
