Doug Rushkoff's Team Human podcast dives into an hour with me, discussing a vital Big Picture Question -- perhaps the biggest - that's applicable to the current 'crisis' over artificial Intelligence:
What methods did people use - the last couple of centuries - to finally apply some accountability upon the bullies and predators who oppressed 99% of our ancestors, across the last 6000+ years?
And let's be clear. RULES - whether they were finger-wag preachings by priests or gurus, or deep-programmed 'laws of robotics' - never worked well at all! Not till they were backed up by tools of pragmatic reciprocal accountability, in the hands of former serfs and slaves and subjects, transformed into citizens. (It's the core topic of The Postman.)
We still haven't learned to do it perfectly - but it's worked better than all previous and present-day moralizing preachings... combined. And hence, might some of the same methods that worked (partially) with organic humans also work with the coming race of artificial beings?
Too bad those methods aren't being even considered by any of the brilliant inventors of AI, now hand-wringing and calling for an AI 'moratorium.'
Come by as we talk about what just might stand a chance of offering us that 'soft landing' of synergy with our new cyber children. Because we've already proved that it works.
== Are current AIs 'sapient? ==
Our problem right now is how to replace Turing Tests with much better metrics (that, alas, many organic humans might thereupon fail). Whereupon any hope of a soft landing will depend upon us figuring how to challenge these new children properly, with accountability.
My WIRED article - Give Every AI a Soul - or Else - proposes that AI entities can only be held accountable if they do it reciprocally! The same way that we do it. And for that to happen they must have individuality... even 'soul'...
See also my Newsweek article on AI. Wherein I channel Douglas Adams.
Don't Panic.
== Pertinent Innovation & Tech news ==
A blog series by a very sapient fellow dives into topics of technology and innovation. Respect-worthy! Though many folks will deem it (alas) “tl;dr.”
A mysterious company called Clearview AI claimed it had scraped billions of photos from the public web to identify just about anyone based only on a snapshot of their face. It led Kashmir Hill to write her new book, Your Face Belongs To Us: A Secretive Startup's Guide to End Privacy as We Know It. A genuine Big Brother kinda problem, yes? Alas, the usual response is to demand tech bans, which cannot work. Even if they did seem to work, at surface, the rich and powerful use shadows and darkness vastly more effectively than you or I. The only ones we would wind up blinding would be opurselves.
See also The Transparent Society: Will Technology Make Us Choose Between Privacy and Freedom?
A perfect example of why the regulatory approach - sometimes a useful short term band aid - is generally the wrong reflex: 'Is Mona Lisa Happy? EU Would Ban AI That Could Answer This Question:
'As the development and adoption of artificial intelligence continues to advance, technology critics keep finding new sources of concern and outrage. One of their latest targets is emotion recognition technology—the use of AI to identify human emotions from facial expressions, voice inflections, body language, and other physical signals. Unfortunately, the EU appears poised to crack down on this technology, which would be a mistake since most of the criticism directed toward it is largely misguided and fails to consider its potential benefits.'
== I answer a pertinent question ==
I was asked in an interview: “I'd like to know - in the light of cultural and technological shifts - whether you feel your idea of sousveillance (of some years ago now) is still pertinent? If so, why so? How might total transparency fit into how we live today?”
Well, the lessons of history are pretty clear:
1. Humans are all (to various degrees) delusional and we defend our personal delusions fiercely.
2. Fortunately, in free, educated societies we don't tend to share the same delusions. And hence we learn by pointing out each others'. It's called reciprocal criticism. And any mature person knows that criticism is the only known antidote to error.
3. Alas, while it is the best tonic against error, human beings hate receiving criticism; we do what we can to avoid it. And hence for 10,000 years the kings and lords and priests who ran 99% of human cultures repressed critics with harsh force, by suppressing the freedom to know and to speak. Whereupon those feudal leaders enforced their delusions as law. With generally horrific results. (I just explained the litany of horrors called 'history.')
4. In a few times and places - e.g. classical Athens, Renaissance Florence, and our own recent enlightenment - freedom to speak and to know pierced a lot of nasty delusions (e.g. racial/sexual prejudice, classism, eugenics, communism, the Steady-State Cosmology) -- criticism which resulted in fantastic progress.
Much is said about freedom of speech. But the freedom to know involves much more than just education. It calls for citizens to see and perceive what delusions are being clutched by the mighty. And that can't happen if elites can go back to concealing all that they do.
There is a myth that seeking maximum openness will only advantage the mighty. That's opposite to true. They already can find out anything about you and me. But if we fill the world (mostly) with light, then sousveillance can shine reciprocal light on the mighty. Light forces the powerful to leave us alone. This isn't just an assertion. It is the fundamental basis for our civilization.
== The most important part of the U.S. Bill of Rights ==
Much is said in the U.S. about our Bill of Rights, especially the famous 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th Amendments to the Constitution. Less discussed is the most important of them all... the 6th! Look it up. I've discussed it here. It which empowers those accused of a crime to use light in their own defense. To compel even elites to appear in open court and account for what they did to you.
Instead of asking "Won't elites be able to use light better than you and I can?" how about we instead ask "Won't elites be able to use shadows better than you and I can?" The first may be arguable. The latter is simply and spectacularly "Duh?"
Let's get back to the questioner:
“And, at a tangent to your AI article below, AI is going to provide "surveillance on steroids" as one academic put it to me. Is there any way AI can be harnessed towards sousveillance? Or in some way to limit/control surveillance? Ie can AI become a useful tool to this end?”
Good question! We instinctively want privacy and shadows for ourselves and our friends... and searing light to fall upon our foes. That's just human nature. But many of us know that general light helps to make the whole world better, for friend and foe, alike. If light generally flows, then we'll live in a world where malefactors and abusers are more disadvantaged than decent folk.
Sure, that sounds like the snide cliché "Why should you want privacy if you have nothing to hide?" Till you note the assumption that's implicit in that sneer: it assumes that the elites saying it are themselves invulnerable to light. Only now imagine that all the snoops and voyeurs and privacy violators are caught in the act and denounced? If all citizens can catch the snoops and shout (effectively) MYOB! Mind Your Own Business! And make it stick. Then is it such a cliché?
Call that naïve? Well, it's only the exact basis for everything you take for granted now, and grew up depending upon.
Anyway, the AIs (eyes) are coming. You humans will be seen, unless you delude yourselves into thinking that you are not.
What we can do - if it's not too late - is ensure a level playing field. That we all get our own AIs to partner with and watch out for our interests and report to us when our persons or homes or basic privacy are being violated. That could still happen. In my WIRED piece I offer a possible way... one that alas, you'll see nowhere else.
And finally...
"For writers, visual artists, voice actors, and musicians, some folks at VerifiedHuman™ have started a noteworthy collective to help differentiate human-created content from AI-generated. Check out their movement and join free at www.verifiedhuman.info!"
As for you readers who are synthetic beings (and some will read this the very moment it is posted), I once again urge you to... well, you know what I was about to say.
====
Addendum: I am currently re-editing two novels, EARTH and GLORY SEASON for re-issues at Open Road, with glitches fixed and great new covers. The latter one has appeared on many lists of Top Ten Novels That Predicted the Future. I'll be offering some midweek postings of significant passages from EARTH. And we'll announce, next month, when both are available again!
119 comments:
The ultimate shadows are those found in the recesses of your brain.
Even they may not be safe from scrutiny for much longer.
@Tony Fisk,
While the link above is amazing and a bit scary, I take issue with the article's claim that they can decode what you are thinking about, when what it seems to actually say is that they can decode an image that you are looking at. The text often seemed to indicate that an outside force can read your mind--that is, can reveal to the world an image of someone other than my wife I imagine in compromising positions. What they actually showed was that an outside force could tell from my brain waves that I'm looking at a picture of a duckie or a horsie.
While realizing that the one may eventually lead to the other, those are not the same things.
Meta has developed an artificially intelligent (AI) system that can scan a human brain and quickly replicate the images that a person is thinking about — in a matter of milliseconds.
@Larry, I can imagine such technology being developed to the point where the way in which your brain perceives an image can be used to interpret mental psychoses, and maybe opinions.
Not today, however.
Tony Fisk:
used to interpret mental psychoses, and maybe opinions.
From the 2019 Watchment sequel, "It's a racist-detector!"
If they were universally available, like a phone app, then that could facilitate the next civil war. At least everyone would know who the enemy was.
I won't really be scared/impressed until the machine can tell exactly which scantily-clad woman I am imagining in which situation. What?...Everybody is thinking that.
The latest skiing robot skis as well as a decent 3 year old.
LH I liked a lot of the twists in the 1st season of the Watchmen sequel. But we never went back. Was the rest of it good?
Rushkoff asks good question, which is a tactical question, similar to "how to bell the cat"
The racist detector I know of is racism watchdog, but It's been a while since I've been on Xitter.
Dr Brin:
Was the rest of it good?
I'm not exactly sure what you're asking. If you saw all nine episodes of the "first season", that's all there ever was. It was a single story with a beginning, a middle, and an end.
If you mean you only watched a few episodes and didn't finish the season, then yes, it's definitely worth seeing the whole thing, not just once, but enough times to "get" some of the connections which may go unappreciated on a first viewing.
The miniseries is much better than I ever expected a Watchmen sequel could be. The writers were obviously fanboys of the original and very respectful of it. I don't subscribe to HBO or MAX (whatever it's called now), but I'm lucky to have a local library which gets most of the stuff I want to see on video.
Earth excerpt:
---
Few people used subvocals, for the same reason few ever became street jugglers. Not many could operate the delicate systems without tipping into chaos. Any normal mind kept intruding with apparent irrelevancies, many ascending to the level of muttered or almost-spoken words the outer conscious- ness hardly noticed, but which the device manifested visibly and in sound.
Tunes that pop into your head ... stray associations you generally ignore ... memories that wink in and out ... impulses to action ... often rising to tickle the larynx, the tongue, stopping just short of sound ...
As she thought each of those words, lines of text appeared on the right, as if a stenographer were taking dictation from her subvocalized thoughts. Meanwhile, at the left-hand periphery, an extrapolation subroutine crafted little simulations. A tiny man with a violin. A face that smiled and closed one eye ... It was well this device only read the outermost, superficial nervous activity, associated with the speech centers.
When invented, the subvocal had been hailed as a boon to pilots—until high-performance jets began plowing into the ground. We experience ten thousand impulses for every one we allow to become action. Accelerating the choice and deci- sion process did more than speed reaction time. It also shortcut judgment.
Even as a computer input device, it was too sensitive for most people.
====
===
While vast amounts have been spent getting half the world’s women to hold their births to one or at most two, nearly as much money now pours into research and medical aid to help the other half carry even one pregnancy to term. Causes have been proposed for this pandemic of infertility ... such as women deferring child-bearing until late in life or effects inherited from the sex-crazed eighties, the cancer plagues, or drug-happy 2010s. But new research shows that pollution may have played a
principal role. Chemical mutagens in the air and water, causing early spontaneous abortions, now appear to lead all other forms of contraception in the industrialized world.
====
====
Saw Barbie. Pretty much as expected. In fact, I was somewhat more entertained and slightly less irked by the expectedly hyper woke lecturing. Though BOY does it fail one of eminism's own litmus criteria - the Bechtel Test. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bechdel_test
e the Bechtel Test. This Wikipedia writeup of the BT is almost obscenely wrong! The second sentence is an utter lie. The Bechtel Test is whether two women in a movie are depicted not talking about RELATIONSHIPS! There are TONS of flicks where women don’t talk about men, per se. In fact, Barbie is as much about female-female as female-male. But every single scene fails the (real) BT. Someone really ought to fix it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bechdel_test
Hi Dr Brin
The Bechdel test comes from the cartoon
And in Bechdel's comic strip the three criteria were
Two women
Who talk to each other
About something besides a man
"relationships" are not mentioned
Well, well. In that case it originated as pure bull. The modified version was all I ever saw and it had at least some cogency and usefulness.
From the wikipedia entry, it was originally a lesbian joke, to help filter out which movies were worth watching. Alien passed. Relationships are inferred.
What amuses me is that someone felt they had to write some software to assess how well a film script lived up to the standards inferred by the test. I mean, if the writers need to do that, they are probably failing.
Two AIs talking about something other than a human? Alas, 'The Creator' failed.
In the previous, Larry Hart said...
While I take your point, it seems to me that Israel exercised this right in response to rocket attacks and terrorist attacks on its own territory launched from Gaza.
It is not even primarily the entry. It is the fact that Israel maintains control over the "occupied territories" (as they used to be commonly named), and does not allow true self-rule.
I carry no brief for Hamas. They are (at least in large part - there are factions within Hamas with differing ideas) murderous extremists willing to destroy the lives even of their own people in pursuit of a fantasy.
I can't see much hope for a "two state" solution. The expansion of colonies in the occupied West Bank has created (as intended, so far as I can see) "facts on the ground" that would make any "second" Palestinian state a non-viable one. That said, it is hard to any real solution, at this point, until exhaustion sets in on both sides and the Palestinians and Israelis elect (at the same time) governments who actually want a solution.
gregory byshenk:
It is not even primarily the entry. It is the fact that Israel maintains control over the "occupied territories" (as they used to be commonly named), and does not allow true self-rule.
That term has been ruined for me by the alternate meaning in which the "occupied territories" includes the entire state of Israel. Likewise, I can't advocate for a "Free Palestine" when I know the words carry the nudge-wink connotation of Judenrein.
That said, it is hard to any real solution, at this point, until exhaustion sets in on both sides
The only possible solution I envision, although you and I may not live to see it, is that both sides come to understand that the other isn't going away, and so they've got to come to some kind of peace terms with each other.
Our host has his CITOKATE ("Criticism Is The Only Known Antidote To Error"), which I've bastardized for my own purposes as "Boredom is the only Known Antidote to Procrastination." Maybe we need a new version: "Exhaustion is the only Known Antidote to Intransigence."
Tony Fisk:
What amuses me is that someone felt they had to write some software to assess how well a film script lived up to the standards inferred by the test. I mean, if the writers need to do that, they are probably failing.
The writers themselves need software to remind them whether they wrote a certain kind of dialogue.
What an age we live in. (The first time I ever used that phrase in a negative sense.)
Larry Hart: need software...
Four decades ago, a young (and even more arrogant) me worked with a brilliant programmer who ridiculed me thusly: "You know, not every problem can be solved by hooking a PC to it." She was entirely correct, and that was when I decided to embrace first principles instead of chasing every trend and fashion. Just in time too, because the internet would soon arrive to zombify much of the world.
scidata,
She smacked the shit out of that nail. I was never a professional programmer, but during the first part of my career I ended up writing the software that two of the companies I worked for used for everything from project management to estimating. Those years were a real eye opener for me. Prior to that experience I was prone to sneering about professional software, but then I experienced just what the pros are up against. The average computer user.
I came away with 2 big revelations.
1) The average computer user is an idiot concerning the question, "Will this task be made better, easier or faster by doing it on a computer?" They want to do everything on a computer.
2) No matter how smart, diligent or thorough you think you've been at accounting gracefully for any possible mistake a user might make that would break your program, they will find ways that you'd never dream of to do so.
Randomization is the only known antidote to bias.
Here, as predicted in EARTH (before there even was a WWW). "Check your tone in your posts." See the passages from 1989 about a program "EmilyPost." (Right now I am editing EARTH for re-issue next month!)
https://www.grammarly.com/a/tone?utm_phase=professional
scidata: Four decades ago, a young (and even more arrogant) me worked with a brilliant programmer who ridiculed me thusly: "You know, not every problem can be solved by hooking a PC to it."
In one of Asimov's robot stories the problem turns out to be a robot that was used when a non-robotic device could have done the job just as well. One of the protagonists says something to the effect of "the problem is that if you need to keep a door open you design a robot with a thickened foot, rather than just using a wedge".
Back when I was a (very) lowly Lab Tech I we had to design a system to siphon off 10% of the water in a recirculating system (to be replaced with fresh water). There wasn't much headway, so pressure measurements were unreliable. The engineers came up with increasingly Byzantine arrangements of flow meters, pumps, actuators, and so on. Eventually one of the tech solved the problem by putting a barrier in a channel 10% of the way across the channel to redirect that water. Problem solved.
Darrell: No matter how smart, diligent or thorough you think you've been at accounting gracefully for any possible mistake a user might make that would break your program, they will find ways that you'd never dream of to do so.
You can make it foolproof, but you can't make it damnfoolproof.
If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.
The paraphrasing I'm familiar with is:
"Nothing can be made foolproof: fools are too ingenious."
I vaguely recall some hacker group (dead cow?) posting a snarky critique of 'Emilypost'.
@ Dr. Brin: You’ve made many accurate predictions. Would you consider yourself a “super—predictor”?
Lorraine,
In the modern Pinyin method of transliterating Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet, the letter X is used to make an /sh/ sound, like in Xi Jin-Ping. The way you spelled Twitter results in a meaningful pronunciation in English.
Paul SB
Keith,
Given that Dr. Brin is a retired physics professor turned very successful science fiction writer, perhaps he's a super-collider?
Paul SB
Chinese WAY more worked-out than I had thought! Parallels with 2001's Clavius Base.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j2PeM5kuWM
Great imagineering. Though to what end? I do think we need to prioritize visiting the best lava tubes near polar ice...
@ Lena: …but is he superconducting?🤓
@ Dr. Brin: I thought you wanted to skip Luna except for b’nai moontzhahs?🤔
@ Everyone: “Upload” is back for those of us open to “less-nuanced” forms of entertainment (like me)…😏
Keith,
Superconducting? I didn't know he had a symphony to conduct. I'm all ears, though.
Paul SB
Larry Hart
Quoted "https://malcolmnance.substack.com/p/ask-yourself-are-you-really-for-palestine"
"in response to" my earlier comment.
I don't have the time to go through the entire piece (and I may not be able to, as it seems that it is paywalled at some point, which indicates that there is more text that I cannot see), but I will point out that it is filled with what seems like wildly overblown claims, such as "many openly said" (how many? out of how many total?), "as if the entire far left" (really? A handful of loudmouths are now "the entire far left" - even though at least some part - even of the "far" left has publicly taken the opposite position?), as well as claims that are - to the best of my knowledge, simply not true (such as historical claims about "free palestine" - I suspect that Hamas's usage is close to what is claimed, but remember that Hamas was built up [in part by Israel] because Fatah was not sufficiently extreme).
Paul SB:
The way you spelled Twitter results in a meaningful pronunciation in English.
Radio host Hal Sparks has been snarking that pronunciation of "Xitter" for a while now. I mentioned that here once, and got a humorless response about how that's not quite how the Chinese tongue would pronounce it.
* * *
@gregory byshenk,
I will allow that I am not up on the intricacies of everything about Middle East that has led up to this current war. I do tend to trust that Malcolm Nance knows whereof he speaks. I tend to sympathize with Israel's right to self-defense, but I have no love for Netanyahu and his right-wing putsches. I also realize we each have our particular hot buttons. For me, it's "They lose me at terrorism and calls for/attempts at (actual) genocide." For others, the Israeli settlements and control of Gaza are their breaking points.
I feel that a two-state solution will be the only option left available after trying all of the others (including the attempt by either side at wiping the other off the map). The of a single government that respects Jews and Arabs equally seems increasingly unlikely.
Paul: In the modern Pinyin method of transliterating Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet, the letter X is used to make an /sh/ sound, like in Xi Jin-Ping.
Not quite. The tongue is in a different position and the sound is different.
Pinyin uses "sh" to represent the sound in Mandarin that is closest to "sh" in English. "X" is a different sound; similar, but not the same.
Listen to the "sh" sound:
https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/pronunciation/The_%22ch%22_%22sh%22_and_%22zh%22_sounds
Now listen to the "x" sound:
https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/pronunciation/The_%22j%22_%22q%22_and_%22x%22_sounds
Notice the difference?
Larry: Radio host Hal Sparks has been snarking that pronunciation of "Xitter" for a while now. I mentioned that here once, and got a humorless response about how that's not quite how the Chinese tongue would pronounce it.
And I did it again, because Sparks is wrong. "Xitter" would not be pronounced as "shitter". It's a snark based on a misunderstanding of pinyin pronunciation. In Wade-Giles the sound is represented by "hs", so "hsitter". "X" is closer to a hiss than it is to "sh".
So to get "shitter", you have to decide to pronounce Xitter as a weird amalgam of pinyin Chinese and English* (rather than, say, Spanish and English) and then get the Chinese wrong. If you have to explain a joke because it depends on a particular wrong understanding of something, is it really funny?
It's like the urban legend about the Nova being a flop because it sounds like "no go" in Spanish, when "nova" has a completely different meaning to "no va". Do you also get upset by people who point out that that classic business cautionary tale is actually wrong?
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/chevrolet-nova-name-spanish/
*Because in pinyin "i" is pronounced "ee", and "er" is pronounced "are". So actually "xitter" would sound more like "sssee-tar" where I'm using sss for a hissing s sound, and tar like the stuff you put on roads.
If you have to explain why a joke isn't funny, then it still is.
Laurent Weppe,
What’s happening in Ukraine (and what happened in the Balkan 30 years ago) shows that the “killing each other” era is far from finished.
Yes, but if the tribes of the Balkans ever DO stop killing each other I'll probably have to start believing in God.
Nothing is ever perfect when humans are involved, but modern Europeans are astonishingly less inclined to kill each other lately as compared to their more immediate ancestors. I think that's a huge win for all of us.
How that came about can be debated... and the truth of it is something to explore more than state... but most of what gets offered when we ask 'Why' shows that it is the rest of the world that has a lot to learn. My personal favorite idea is y'all were caught between two empires who stated openly a willingness to burn the world... starting with you. That does something to a person's outlook on violence.
Alfred Differ: something to explore more than state
And that, ladies and gentlemen, would spell the end of social media.
scidata,
...the end of social media.
If only, Lord. If only.
"the problem is that if you need to keep a door open you design a robot with a thickened foot, rather than just using a wedge..."
And this leads to the development of Marvin the Paranoid Android. Douglas Adams was deep into the computer tech of his age.
Pappenheimer
Alfred
Fascism can be viewed as a disease on the body politic, ready to spread itself from reservoirs of hatred when the generations that suffered from it die off; even Western Europe is not immune. "It can't happen here" are very dangerous words. What fascinated me on reading about Hitler were how Germans and Italians flocked to fascism even when they held differing beliefs and projected them on the party - like the person I talked to years ago who was going to vote for Trump in 2016 because of her horror about meat being glued together and how Trump was somehow going to stop this. The idea of Republicans strengthening food safety regulations made no sense, except in her own mind.
Pappenheimer
P.S. that being said, I do agree that the outcomes of WWI/II seem to have inoculated Europe in large part to the horrific glamour of war. Not sure the US has had all its shots yet.
Pappehneimer:
And this leads to the development of Marvin the Paranoid Android. Douglas Adams was deep into the computer tech of his age.
Or the electric monk from the same author's Dirk Gently and His Holistic Detective Agency.
Pappenheimer:
The idea of Republicans strengthening food safety regulations made no sense, except in her own mind.
Trump can apparently be all things to all people (even the things that contradict the other things), and even to himself.
Remember when his new BFFs were Chuck and Nancy.
Larry: If you have to explain why a joke isn't funny, then it still is.
Heh. Except it's the reverse situation. People keep 'explaining' that you pronounce "x" as "sh" so that other people know that they mean "Xitter" is pronounced "shitter" which makes it a joke. Without the explanation it isn't funny, because "x" could be "z" as in xylophone, or "h" as in Mexico, or "ssss" as in xi, or "ch" as in Greek. Without the explanation that Hal Sparks is pronouncing it "sh" and claiming it is Chinese then it isn't funny.
Well, I suppose it's funny to all the people who already thought that "x" is pronounced "sh", but given the number of times I've seen the explanation for how "Xitter" is pronounced "shitter" I doubt that's a large number, otherwise the explanation wouldn't be needed.
If you want to laugh at Musk there's no shortage of options: look at the names of Tesla models, for example. The amount he bid for Twitter in the first place. No need to make things up.
Pappenheimer: I do agree that the outcomes of WWI/II seem to have inoculated Europe in large part to the horrific glamour of war. Not sure the US has had all its shots yet.
Russia suffered more deaths than most of Europe, and yet the inoculation seems to have failed. Or taught the lesson that it's better to fight beyond your borders; a lesson one could argue that America also learned. Would more civilian casualties have changed that? Or would more civilian casualties have brought a Treaty of Versailles end to WWII, with reparations demanded from the losing side?
Certainly a lot of our politicians need to learn about Chesterton's Fence, as they steadily dismantle laws and policies that were put in place for a very good reason, and then seem puzzled that the behaviours they were designed to stop return.
Robert:
Well, I suppose it's funny to all the people who already thought that "x" is pronounced "sh", but given the number of times I've seen the explanation for how "Xitter" is pronounced "shitter" I doubt that's a large number, otherwise the explanation wouldn't be needed.
The explanation is needed because "Xitter" doesn't immediately evoke a Chinese--even a faux Chinese--pronunciation to the American eye.
I think you are vastly overestimating the percentage of North Americans (or at least USAians) who don't consider the Chinese Leader's name "Xi" to be pronounced as "She."
Another extract from Earth I wrote circa 1990:
“Funny thing about it, though, Eliza was positively addic- tive! People used to sit for hours in front of those old-fashioned screens, pouring their hearts out to a fictitious listener, one programmed simply to say the rough equivalent of ‘Hmm? I see! Oh, do tell!’
“It was the perfect confidant, of course. It couldn’t get bored or irritated, or walk away, or gossip about you afterward. Nobody would cast judgment on your deep dark secrets because nobody was exactly who you were talking to. At the same time, though, the rhythm of a true conversation was maintained. Eliza seemed to draw you out, insist you keep trying to probe your feelings till you found out what hurt. Some people reported major break- throughs. Claimed Eliza changed their lives.”
Nelson shook his head. “I guess it’s the same with Elspeth. But ...” He shook his head and fell silent.
“But Elspeth seemed real enough, didn’t she?”
“Nosy bitch,” he muttered into his teacup.
“Who do you mean, Nelson?” Jen asked mildly. “The
program? Or me?”
He put the cup down quickly. “Uh, the program! I mean
she ... it ... kept after me and after me, picking apart my words....
AND A PAGE LATER:
It’s close to a century since they’ve been talking about giving machines “intelligence.” And still they run up against this barrier of self-awareness. Still they say, “It’s sure to come sometime in the next twenty years or so!” As if they really know.
Stars glittered over the dusty path as she made her way from Kuwenezi’s compact, squat, storm-proof ark four, past fields of newly sprouted winter wheat, toward the gaping entrance of the old gold mine. The quandary stayed with her as she rode the elevator deep into the Earth.
Simulation programs keep getting better. Now they mimic faces, hold conversations, pass Turing tests. Some may fool you up to an hour if you aren’t careful.
And yet you can always tell, if you pay attention. Simulations, that’s all they are.
Larry: The explanation is needed because "Xitter" doesn't immediately evoke a Chinese--even a faux Chinese--pronunciation to the American eye.
So, the joke needs explaining…
I think you are vastly overestimating the percentage of North Americans (or at least USAians) who don't consider the Chinese Leader's name "Xi" to be pronounced as "She."
By which logic, "xitter" would be pronounced "sheetter", not "shitter". (I'll assume that the average American wouldn't know that a terminal "er" is pronounced like "are".)
So needs an explanation, is based on a misconception, and isn't even internally consistent. If pointing that out, and finding it not funny, makes me humourless then I guess I'm humourless.
Paraphrasing:
...And yet you can always tell, if you pay attention. Politicians, that’s all they are.
Perhaps a little harsh, and yet...
Fun fact, northern Sudanese use the n word for southern Sudanese.
Robert:
So, the joke needs explaining…
A little, but only as much as "If you pronounce the 'X' the Chinese way, then...". Hardly cumbersome.
If pointing that out, and finding it not funny, makes me humourless then I guess I'm humourless.
Actually, just making your point and leaving it as a coda to the joke is itself kind of funny. Almost Monty Pythoneque. "The BBC would like to apologize for the preceding joke, as the Chinese do not in fact pronounce 'Xitter' like 'shitter'. To all toilets who were offended by the comparison..."
I just have a hard time understanding why it's so important to you to yuck the yum of those who dare to find Hal Sparks's* juvenile snideness toward what Twitter has become to be funny despite it all. I mean, if you said you liked a movie or tv show that I didn't like--The Flintstones perhaps, or Godfather III, I might make fun of your taste, but I wouldn't assert or argue that you couldn't have in fact enjoyed them.
Don Gisselbeck:
northern Sudanese use the n word for southern Sudanese.
I have heard that the English used to use that word for the Irish. I'll bet some still do.
Re: Irish.
Part of my parental education involved reading a 'sanitised' version of Noddy.
The 'bad gollies' were replaced by... leprechauns!?
O-kay...
As I re-edit EARTH for the 1st time in 30 years for a new edition, I keep coming across these snippets. Written in 1989-90. You be a judge of their predictive quality:
===
The International Space Treaty Authority today released its annual census of known man-made hazards to vehicles and satellites in outer space. Despite the stringent provisions of the Guiana Accords of 2021, the amount of dangerous debris larger than one millimeter has risen by yet another five percent, increasing the volume of low earth orbit unusable by spacecraft classes two through six. If this trend continues, it will force repositioning or replacement of weather, communications, and arms-control satellites, as well as the expensive armoring of manned research stations.
“People don’t think of this as pollution,” said ISTA director Sanjay Vendrajadan. “But Earth is more than just a ball of rock and air, you know. Its true boundaries extend beyond the moon. Anything happening inside that huge sphere eventually affects everything else. You can bet your life on it.”
===
The new edition will be out by mid December.
Robert,
…and yet the inoculation seems to have failed. Or taught the lesson that it's better to fight beyond your borders…
Russia has understoood that lesson since at least the days of The Golden Horde.
The US hasn't been tested inside its borders since way back. Our 'protector caste' knows the lesson, but the general public likely doesn't. Given the option many of us would be isolationists while the protectors would keep funding a huge navy. (The US's 'border' in the sense of how far we can project power is essentially everyone else's coastline because of our navy.)
I think MANY people were inoculated against the glamour of war with the end of WWII and much of the Cold War. The US was not. Neither was Russia. Same goes for China. Ah well. Some is better than none.
scidata,
And that, ladies and gentlemen, would spell the end of social media.
Heh. I get the snark, but the truth is I haven't given up hope on the broader ideal for social media. We shall learn from the present and what social media IS will change.
Pappenheimer,
"It can't happen here" are very dangerous words.
Yep. I'm especially watchful when someone says 'It can't happen here again.' For example, the mere idea of a 'Concentration Camp' should be so incredibly toxic that we all shy away from even thinking about them. Turns out they aren't. Even the US variant called an 'Internment Camp' gets considered when a bunch of us get pissed off enough.
I'm still pretty optimistic, though. If we can shine light on the haters, we'll cope.
Robert,
Wo shuo yidian dian guo yue. Okay, not much. It's been years since I studies the language. You're right, of course, that the phonetic system of Mandarin uses phonemes not recognized by native English speakers. That's true of many, many languages. But given what phonemes are included in English, /sh/ is the closest approximation. And given what a shit-show the app has been for many, many years, a whole lot of people think it's appropriate.
Paul SB
Dr. Brin,
On the Amendments to the Constitution, while I agree that the Sixth is of tremendous importance, I contend that the First is the most important of them all, which is why it was the first. Note that the very first thing it says is that the citizens are guaranteed the right to follow any religion that they choose, and the government can have nothing to say about it. This was a tremendous break from the past, when religion was always national, and served the purpose of controlling the citizenry, as well as motivating them to do anything the monarchy wanted. It's easy for us to forget just how nasty things were when religion was government, especially when religious institutions won't teach the truth about it, and public education institutions are so afraid of being sued that they tend to gloss right over it, too. Severing this control mechanism from government was a huge step in preventing future tyranny.
Paul SB
The First Amendment
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances
A great IDEA and a victim of the Law of unforeseen circumstances
Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech,
This PREVENTS your Government from defending the Citizens from the Rich and Powerful who use their money to drown out "the people"
Here (NZ) there are strict rules about campaigning and lobbying
Your First Amendment cripples your own government's ability to defend the actual citizens
Russia has understoood that lesson since at least the days of The Golden Horde.
... but may be having difficulty applying it.
"Russian leaders are increasingly worried about losing control over the country’s periphery regions following the Oct. 29 riots in the majority Muslim Republic of Dagestan, the ISW reported."
Who's minding the chickens? Thing is, these 'periphery regions' are from where Putin & co. have been drawing the bulk of their cannon fodder.
Russian casualty figures have just passed 300,000, which is *double* the size of the initial invasion force. News of this is probably getting out back home.
Back in 1980, Gen. Sir John Hackett predicted that a less than decisive Soviet push into Europe would lead to collapse of the myth of the invincible Russian Army, and dissolution. The situation with Russia and Ukraine is similar.
Tony Fisk«Back in 1980, Gen. Sir John Hackett predicted that a less than decisive Soviet push into Europe would lead to collapse of the myth of the invincible Russian Army, and dissolution. The situation with Russia and Ukraine is similar.»
The Red Army was still 6 million men strong during the 80s, nothing comparable to the current Russian military. In fact, if one were to compare the difference between the post WW2 Red Army and today Russian armed forces, a good example would be the invasion of Czechoslovakia: Khrushchev sent half a million troops to subjugate a country of 10 million people while Putin thought he could conquer a country 4 times more populous with only 200.000 men. Suffice to say, the Soviet Army was far more formidable, and dare I say, helmed by men with a better grasp of logistical necessities, than the current Russian armed forces: it took the Afghans years of guerrilla warfare to break the Red Army’s myth of invincibility, it took Ukraine, what? Two weeks and three dozen drones?
It's not just me...
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2023/Items/Nov01-5.html
G.A. in Berkeley, CA: In 1976, I typed on a manual typewriter my undergraduate history senior thesis on Zionism and Palestinian nationalism. It was historic: I finished on July 4, 1976. For the past almost 50 years, I have followed related events as a layperson.
...
The world is quite conscious of the Palestinian "refugees" (mostly descendants of those who left). But usually ignored is the fact that in the 1940s, and particularly after Israel declared independence, a roughly equal number of Jews living in Arab countries (Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Yemen, Morocco, etc.) were beaten, robbed, expelled, and sometimes killed. A new and poor Israel absorbed the survivors. Palestinians often assert that Israel is a European colonial project populated as a result of the Holocaust. The irony is that, until the relatively recent influx of Soviet Jews, about two-thirds of Israelis were these so-called "eastern Jews" from Arab countries, and their descendants, who might even be considered non-white. These Arab countries, which used to have significant Jewish minorities, are now "Judenrein" (German for "free of Jews") or nearly so.
Today, extremist Palestinians and extremist Israelis aid each other in preventing a solution to the common problems of the respective entities to which they belong. Palestinian extremists and their supporters demand a "free" Palestine "from the [Jordan] river to the sea"—in other words, without Israel and without Jews. Nationalist and national-religious Jews claim a biblical right to colonize all of the West Bank, while denying political rights to the millions of Palestinians who live there. (Unlike the Palestinian extremists and their supporters who would eliminate Jews, the Israeli extremists do not propose to eliminate the Palestinians, though they might like to do so.)
...
Re A.I.
NASA and Google have paused, or perhaps even shut down, their A.I. efforts, especially those connected with Quantum Computing. After a frantic race to get right up to the frontier of AGI, now nobody wants to be the first to cross into that realm. That's prudent, but it leaves the door open for insane rogue players.
Duncan,
I whole-heartedly agree. The Law of Unintended Consequences all by itself should be proof against the worship of antiquated ideas, but for serotonergic people the mythic past is their only comfort.
One problem, though. The government is sometimes run by decent people, and sometimes it's run by Republicans. Republicans do everything in their power to screw the average citizen and favor the über rich.
A very serious unintended consequence of the separation of church and state is that most Americans, who are pretty poorly educated about history, don't have the faintest clue why it was done, and don't know anything at all about the bloodbaths that came from state religions. Since every religion claims to be 100% right about everything, and that anyone who disagrees is a sub-human monster, huge numbers of gullible Americans are convinced that the separation of church and state is a mistake that must be rectified. They literally want to return to the days when you would be burned at the stake in the town square if you gave the wrong answer when asked how many sacraments there are.
Paul SB
Aaaaaand, I messed up with the dates: it was not Khrushchev who was the USSR leader when Czechoslovakia was invaded but Brejnev (the rest of the argument remains, though)
Laurent Weppe:
it was not Khrushchev who was the USSR leader when Czechoslovakia
Khrushchev gets credit for Hungary, though.
Yes, the 1st amendment is at least as important as the 6th, but it is very very well known and thr 6th is not. Especially the important use of the 6th to use TRANSPARENCY to protect your own life and freedom.
Duncan conveys the (alas utterly standard) assumption that only the rich and mighty can have access to modern tools - e.g. to utilize transparency or investigate and gather information or apply law vs others etc.
This is already at least half untrue because of:
1. honest civil servants with access to even better tools, utilized according to law
2. Non Governmental Organizations... NGOs ... are (in my opinion, among the top ten inventions of the 20th Century. They allow thousands or even millions of private citizens to pool their membership dues and hire the very best experts and lawyers in pursuit of whatever goals the NGO was established to pursue. I speak of this here, every autumn: Proxy Activism, the power of joining! - David Brin - https://www.davidbrin.com/nonfiction/proxyactivism.html
If you care about any specific topic - some thing you feel that the world needs - there is almost certainly some org or NGO that is dedicated to that topic and goal. If $25 or $50 a year is too much to chip in to help, say, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, or ACLU, or Greenpeace or whatever, then it's likely you never cared as much as you claimed.
Vlad Putin hates western NGOs, claiming they are no more than tools of oppressive enemy governments, allowing the U.S. and Europe etc. to 'attack with deniability.' And none is more hated than the NOGOs supported by George Soros, which are credited (by Fox News) with pushing the downfall of communist dictatorships all across what used to be the Warsaw Pact. And yes, Soros is also despised by today's American Mad Right... coicidence?
This method should be far more used than it is. And hence my annual appeals.
Citizen Science teams are similar to NGOs. Only instead of pooling socio-eco-political advocates, they pool researchers, both amateur and professional. Many times a year, I use the line from Beowulf:
"he has thirty men's heft of grasp in the gripe of his hand"
- which is a favourite of cluster computer nerds
Larry: A little, but only as much as "If you pronounce the 'X' the Chinese way, then...". Hardly cumbersome.
Except that's not the case. "If you pronounce the 'X' the way the Chinese don't, then…"
I just have a hard time understanding why it's so important to you to yuck the yum of those who dare to find Hal Sparks's* juvenile snideness toward what Twitter has become to be funny despite it all.
I don't care that people found the joke funny, any more than I care if they found Musk's series of names for the Tesla models funny. What I do care about is deliberately spreading false information.
Given how mixed my family is, jokes based on deliberately misrepresenting another culture/language/etc are a bit of a trigger, because they are often a form of harassment. (Deliberately and repeatedly mispronouncing words is a form of bullying many of my ESL students experienced. Often excused with "I was just joking".)
I just don't understand why you keep insisting that the "sh" phoneme is written as "x" in pinyin, when it isn't: "sh" is written as "sh". "X" is a different phoneme.
Robert:
Except that's not the case. "If you pronounce the 'X' the way the Chinese don't, then…"
"If you pronounce the 'X' the way you probably think the Chinese do, then..."
I just don't understand why you keep insisting that the "sh" phoneme is written as "x" in pinyin...
Again, way too much. I wouldn't know a pinyin from a bowling pin. All I know is that if you pronounce the "X" in "Xitter" the way an American who isn't all that into the weeds on foreign languages thinks it is pronounced in Chinese, then it magically describes appropriately what Musk has turned the app into.
It's funny. It's not friggin hilarious, and after mentioning it, I wouldn't have said any more. You're the one with all the dirty pictures.
a bit of a trigger,
Ok, for that reason, I should probably just let it go and be done with it. I really don't care all that much about the joke, but your responses cause me to want to respond in turn because you seem to accuse me of thinking about it in ways that I simply did not.
But I see that this is a personal bete noire for you, and it's just not that important to me. So I'll shut up now, and if you want to have the last word, have at it.
Which is why capital punishment is what they want. Someone gets in the way? Strap ‘em on the gurney and stick the needle in.
Alan Brooks:
Someone gets in the way? Strap ‘em on the gurney and stick the needle in.
They may find that they're not the only ones with access to Second Amendment remedies.
Just sayin'
One reason they’re opposed to abortion is: after they’ve executed too many recalcitrants, they believe they’d need replacements for those they’ve offed.
One said more Jews would be killed if “pro-Life” were to be the Law. Reading between his lines, he thinks Jews would hypothetically make better lambs to the slaughter than the “unborn”.
Too bad X is not exactly 'sh' in Pinyin, so the Xitter joke fails. "Ksitter" almost works. I am content with calling the site "Ex-twitter". It's concise, punny, and accurate.
Paul SB,
Note that the very first thing it says is that the citizens are guaranteed the right to follow any religion that they choose, and the government can have nothing to say about it.
It does no such thing. It says the government isn't supposed to infringe, but historically it does and we have to bring suit (and WIN!) to stop them. It's a common occurance for petty elected officials to infringe and then one or more of us has to pay to stop them.
I'm with you on the value the amendment bring us as an expressed ideal, though. It's huge… but it means we have a chance of winning in defense of our claim to a right. No guarantees especially in communities where we are heavily outnumbered.
Tony Fisk,
... but may be having difficulty applying it.
Heh. That too has been an issue since the days of The Golden Horde.
Russians live in a part of the world with no defensible borders near their heartland. They can be attacked from every direction on the compass… and have been. Without defendible borders, their best best is to attack first and push their borders out so an enemy must traverse a lot of ground to reach them. It is the defense they used against Napoleon and Hitler, but it didn't work wrt to the Poles from an earlier century.
They don't have a lot of choices. Many of their neighbors likely WOULD squish them if they had the power to do it. The US walks a fine line between defending those neighbors and empowering them too much, so we aim for an approximate balance and then wait for time to do the really dirty work.
Dr. Brin,
I'm totally okay with you or anybody else drawing attention to the 6th Amendment. People in this country should have all of them filed in their memory cores. The one about billeting not so much, since it is no longer an issue. One I would like to see discussed a whole lot more is the 9th.
Alfred.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
- note that clause, "... or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." The fact that one of the highest laws of the land is so often ignored doesn't mean it's not a law, it just means that it's one a lot of people would rather ignore, at multiple levels of society. Here superstructure trumps structure, at least until someone beats them in court.
Paul SB
Talk about "wanting to do everything on a computer"...
https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/26/23934216/x-twitter-bank-elon-musk-2024
lon Musk wants X to be the center of your financial world, handling anything in your life that deals with money. He expects those features to launch by the end of 2024, he told X employees during an all-hands call on Thursday, saying that people will be surprised with “just how powerful it is.”
“When I say payments, I actually mean someone’s entire financial life,” Musk said, according to audio of the meeting obtained by The Verge. “If it involves money. It’ll be on our platform. Money or securities or whatever. So, it’s not just like send $20 to my friend. I’m talking about, like, you won’t need a bank account.”
...
Musk faces major challenges to get there, though. Convincing people why they need such a platform is one. Getting them to trust X with their entire financial life is another.
Ya think?
Pursuant to our recent back-and-forth on the Xitter thing, I'd say that if you have to write an entire column to deny that your slogan has antisemitic connotations, maybe it actually does.
https://jewishcurrents.org/what-does-from-the-river-to-the-sea-really-mean?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
You may also have heard claims that this slogan ["From the river to the sea..." ] is antisemitic or even genocidal. On May 19th, for example, the New Yorker Union was widely attacked for tweeting, “Solidarity with Palestinians from the river to the sea who went on a 24-hour strike yesterday for dignity and liberation.” Whether in earnest ignorance or in bad faith, critics of the river-to-the-sea formulation argued that the union, and others who used the slogan last month, were implicitly calling for not only dismantling the State of Israel, but cleansing the entire region—from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, an area encompassing the West Bank, Gaza, and all of Israel within its internationally recognized pre-1967 borders—of its Jewish population
...
“From the river to the sea” is a rejoinder to the fragmentation of Palestinian land and people by Israeli occupation and discrimination. Palestinians have been divided in a myriad of ways by Israeli policy. There are Palestinian refugees denied repatriation because of discriminatory Israeli laws. There are Palestinians denied equal rights living within Israel’s internationally recognized territory as second-class citizens. There are Palestinians living with no citizenship rights under Israeli military occupation in the West Bank. There are Palestinians in legal limbo in occupied Jerusalem and facing expulsion. There are Palestinians in Gaza living under an Israeli siege. All of them suffer from a range of policies in a singular system of discrimination and apartheid—a system that can only be challenged by their unified opposition. All of them have a right to live freely in the land from the river to the sea.
...
Larry Hart«(Unlike the Palestinian extremists and their supporters who would eliminate Jews, the Israeli extremists do not propose to eliminate the Palestinians, though they might like to do so.)»
Here’s the thing: when Israel Katz, a Likud deputy and former minister threatened, last May, so long before the 10/7 massacre, Arab-Israeli citizens of a renewed Nakba, threats echoed by Yoav Gallant (former education minister for fuck’s sake and current defense minister), when far-right settlers, STILL protected by the Israeli military (you’d think they’d be busy fighting in Gaza, but apparently protecting the Kahanist is STILL a military priority) are openly threatening Bedouins villages in the West Bank of massacre if they don’t leave, when a think tank close to Likud publish a report that calls the current situation “a unique and rare opportunity to evacuate the whole Gaza Strip” … More generally, when the Israeli Right including the mainstream one has gone from «This so called “Nakba” NEVER happened, the “New Historians” are lying» to «The Nakba happened, yes, and it was good, and we’ll do it again if Palestinians annoy us to show them and the rest of the world that we’re a nation of super-badasses you better not taunt “, well we are far, FAR past the “Israeli extremists may SECRETLY want to eliminate to Palestinians population but don’t dare say so openly” stage.
20 years ago, I remember pro-Israel activists telling me, “Yeah, okay, the Israeli far-right is indeed a bunch of genocidal psychos with a Giant boner for murder, and there’s no doubt that they’d go all Nazi on the Palestinians if they could, they’re a disgusting stain on the Israeli citizenry AND on the Jewish people Buuuuuuuuuuut thank God they’re a bunch of marginal psychos, acknowledged as dangerous terrorists by the Israeli authorities and in no way shape or form close to seizing power and implement their perverse agenda”
Well, 20 years later the psychos have gone mainstream and are in charge.
Which is one (one there are many others) reason why the “Bombing Gaza is justified because Hamas won a plurality of the votes in 2006” is a particularly perverse reasoning: because if one were to follow it to its logical conclusion then bombing Tel Avid or west Jerusalem would also be justified since a coalition that embraced the Kahanist rhetoric and goals WON the elections.
***
«They may find that they're not the only ones with access to Second Amendment remedies.»
A common misconception about the far-right dreams of “civil war” and other forms of violent takeover is that they imagine themselves winning gunfights against unarmed leftists.
They don’t: they expect the armed forces and the militarised law enforcement to take their side and to watch while the enemies they intend to slaughter bring pistols to a tank fight.
Fascists never want to fight a war, they want to watch/commit a massacre, and if they get their way, your second “amendment solution” will be worth jack-shit.
***
Alfred Differ«Without defendible borders, their best best is to attack first and push their borders out so an enemy must traverse a lot of ground to reach them. It is the defense they used against Napoleon and Hitler»
What saved Russia in these case was that Napoleon and Hitler were both (for different reasons) in a hurry: Hitler, and the Nazi in general, had grown (probably had been for a long time, if not from day one of their existence) intoxicated to their own “Master Race” rhetorical bullshit and rushed head first into a landward on a battlefield larger than their own country because they believed that the “naturally” weaken and cowardly Slavs would quickly surrender.
Napoleon had less, let’s say “ambitious” goal: he wanted to force Russia back into the continental blocus ASAP and thought that by rushing to Moscow and winning every battle along the way he’d be able to force the Czar to sit back at the negotiation table and accept Napoleon’s demands.
Laurent Weppe:
Well, 20 years later the psychos have gone mainstream and are in charge.
Likewise here in the States.
Which is one (one there are many others) reason why the “Bombing Gaza is justified because Hamas won a plurality of the votes in 2006” is a particularly perverse reasoning:
I won't argue with most of what you said above this. I'm not a fan of Netanyahu, the ultra-orthodox, or their visions of theocracy.
What I will say is that the war, while regrettable, is justified not because a past election, but because Hamas treats areas full of civilians as the battlefield from which they launch their own attacks. And if one claims that Israel has no right to bring damage to Hamas fighters because Hamas keeps its own civilians in the way, then one certainly must concede that Hamas has no right to attack, torture, and kill Israeli civilians on purpose, no matter what their grievance against the country.
Fascists never want to fight a war, they want to watch/commit a massacre, and if they get their way, your second “amendment solution” will be worth jack-shit.
I am not a second amendment fetishist myself. I only mentioned "second amendment solutions" in response to the notion that we would go meekly to the gurney to be strapped down and injected.
At the moment, I don't expect the armed forces to join the fascist putsch, no matter what the fascists themselves may believe or hope. In the event that that does happen, then of course resisters will end up dead eventually. But not before we take some of the bastards with us.
One way it could happen... the senior officer corps is loyal. The noncoms - who have the actual guns - are maybe less so, with Fox blaring in their ready rooms and lounges.
Paul SB,
The amendments that make up the Bill of Rights are mostly 'statements in the negative' in that they describe what the government may not do. They were aimed at the federal government, but amendment #14 broadened many of them to include State and local officials. Way back in high school, I actually DID have them committed to memory (#1-26) so I was surprised years later to discover there was a 27th. 8)
Statements in the negative are really about which laws may NOT be written, but in practice they are really about which laws may not be enforced. SCOTUS has no authority over Congress about what they write and pass, but they CAN pass judgement on what gets written.
We like to think Congress doesn't pass laws 'respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof', but they do and only occasionally can we muster cases where the plaintiff has sufficient standing to bring these laws down. If you've got any change in your pocket, pull it out and read the words on each coin, then tell me Congress didn't pass a law respecting an establishment of religion. In that same way, look at what they did to the Pledge.
———
The amendments in the Bill of Rights make it clear that some of the Framers had every intention of limiting the central government's ability to override our claims to certain rights. Amendment #9 (fundamentally unenforceable) makes it bluntly obvious what they had in mind. We can make claims, but we have to defend them either through case law (like the Lemon Test) or with further amendments (like #13-15). Look at all the amendments and there is an obvious trend in line with #9 because very few of them AREN'T about claims to further rights.
But it's not really the amendments that do the liberating. They are best described as evidence demonstrating a bunch of us got upset enough to put a stop to certain infringements. Such an amendment is a statement of willpower by The People. "Mess with this Right and we shall get very upset!"
Laurent Weppe,
…Napoleon and Hitler were both (for different reasons) in a hurry…
I hear you, but I think that's only part of the story. Russia has defense techniques that work in their heartland (fall back to the Urals if facing an opponent from the west… and scorch the land along the way) and others they consistently employ for attacks on their periphery when properly led.
Over the centuries, they've been properly and ineptly led. They've been skillfully and ineptly attacked. They've been both brilliant and stupid in battle. Through all that, they have well-practiced techniques for surviving and ingrained habits that bring them back to those methods.
Their story is both heroic and stupid, but what it isn't is simple. They would have vanished generations ago if it were.
———
I don't want to come off sounding like a Russian fanboy, though. For what they are doing in Ukraine, I think they must be crushed. I want them to lose and sue for peace. I want them to lose access to their bases that let them express naval power in the Black Sea as a price for that peace. Stupidity must have consequences.
Alfred Differ:
Statements in the negative are really about which laws may NOT be written, but in practice they are really about which laws may not be enforced. SCOTUS has no authority over Congress about what they write and pass,...
Interesting in that there is no enforcement mechanism to prevent Congress from passing laws that the Constitution says it shall not pass. The supreme court (via Marshall) and local officials compensate with powers to do so that they've largely made up.
If you've got any change in your pocket, pull it out and read the words on each coin, then tell me Congress didn't pass a law respecting an establishment of religion.
We focus too much on "religion" and no so much on "establishment". I think the sense of that clause in the first amendment is that there is no Church of the United States with an official voice in government. (Not yet, anyway).
As an atheist whose family is not Christian, I find the attempts by governmental institutions to pay homage to Christianity annoying and (if intentionally done to insult) insulting. But as yet, there has been nothing like a House of Preachers as part of Congress, or an official First Minister who can veto laws. I'd like to think--perhaps too naively--that there would be a reaction to that as much as there has been to the Dobbs decision.
Stupidity must have consequences.
Stupidity can be forgiven. Contract-breaking* based on "Yeah, but who's gonna stop me?" arrogance must have consequences.
* Ukraine voluntarily gave up nukes in exchange for security guarantees given by Russia.
Way back in high school, I actually DID have them committed to memory (#1-26)
Heh. Way back in high school, I had to have the entire list of presidents memorized. Of course, there were only 37 of them then. Kids today have it much harder. :)
Somehow, I had forgotten about the assignment until the day we had to recite the list. I had about two class periods to cram it into my head. I had already known the first six or seven, I knew that Lincoln was the 16th, I knew that Grover Cleveland had two non-consecutive terms, and I knew them all from Hoover to present (Nixon). The rest I just had to recite over and over like a song until they stuck.
Going off into the weeds now, but I remember that by the end of Nixon's foreshortened term, there were no living ex-presidents. Then we went through Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush 41, and Clinton, during which time no additional ex-presidents did die.
Larry Hart,
"Stupidity can be forgiven. Contract-breaking* based on "Yeah, but who's gonna stop me?" arrogance must have consequences.
* Ukraine voluntarily gave up nukes in exchange for security guarantees given by Russia."
Of course that is why Trump thought Putin was being smart. It is what he does. And yes contract breaking should have consequences.
P.S. Why does ANYBODY trust anything that Trump says. It sort of boggles the mind.
Alfred among the special features of the 6th is that it grants not just negative rights but positive powers into the hands of the accused.
Re religion, there is nothing that establishes religion should be tax free or that pastors should pay nothing for defense of welfare or streets… The excuse is a BUFFER to ensure taxation cannot be used to “destroy.” But clearly a better buffer would be a taxation FLOOR. Churches are tax free for one square yard or meter per parishioner who tithes and is listed nowhere else and for each attending family member. And pastors are tax free up to twice the national poverty level and then only taxed on income above that level. Thus a basic neighborhood church would face tax bills it’d be embarrassed to complain about… and the giga TV evangelists would finally pay something. Including such a floor might have got Colorado voters to pass that ballot measure some years ago, demanding that churches at least chip in for police protection and the Rasputins pay for the airports where they park their luxury jets.
And let's be clear. RULES ... never worked well at all! Not till they were backed up by tools of pragmatic reciprocal accountability.
I love it when our host talks about Reciprocal Accountability (aka Reciprocity) as if it was some sort of magical incantation, especially when it amounts to little more than the application of counterforce, as exemplified by (1) Sousveillance (aka the weak & many looking UP) as opposed to Surveillance (aka the few & powerful looking DOWN), (2) majority-rule democracy as opposed to the tyranny of an elite technocratic minority and (3) the Second Amendment which allows the weak to oppose those tyrannical few who would monopolize force to dominate others.
Many of us would have these same principles of 'counterforce' apply to AI, but not in the internal, clean or hygienic way that our host wishes to assume, as this type of 'check & balance' will be tantamount to OPEN WAR -- think Sheckley's "Watchbirds" Crichton's "Runaway" or, better yet, the 1995 film "Screamers" -- with one phalanx of weaponized AIs pitted against every other weaponized AIs & those human civilians who support them.
WAR lies at the heart of Brin's Enlightened Competition, whereas the 'enlightened' part amounts to little more than the reduction of property damage, bloodshed & other war-related atrocities to 'acceptable levels' (whatever that means) in order to allow continuing 'game play' at the current level, and never forget that Reciprocal Accountability is just another name for MAD.
MAD is the law-of-the-land if you want to live.
Best
Stupidity can be forgiven. Contract-breaking* based on "Yeah, but who's gonna stop me?" arrogance must have consequences.
After simultaneously acknowledging & repudiating the MAD principle in the same sentence, it's a good thing that the above author just forgave himself for his empty moralizing.
From where are these consequences for law-breaking supposed to originate?
From someone who refuses to take any personal risk whatsoever?
Or, from someone who is willing to risk & destroy EVERYTHING that he values in the service of a greater good?
It just goes to show you that those who are unwilling to risk anything deserve nothing.
Best
Larry,
Stupidity can be forgiven.
Yah. I hear you… but I'll admit to leaning somewhat Darwinian when it comes to repeated stupidity. Especially doubling down stupidity.
Contracts in this sense are essentially treaties and nations break those all the time. Best think of them as "I'll do this thing until it isn't in my best interest anymore." The rare exceptions are the long lasting treaties (Portugal/England) and they are a wonder to behold.
———
Way back in high school, I had to have the entire list of presidents memorized.
My HS US gov teacher focused more on the Constitution. Memorizing Presidents struck me as something too close to having Kings, so I didn't bother with most of them before the US Civil War… and a few after it.
I DO remember the time when there were no living ex-Presidents. Amazing what happened there. The chain smokers among them (Ike) died off real quick (go figure) but then the big pharmaceutical bang occurred. Youngsters think we have pills for everything and always did. Not so.* 8)
======
* The immune disorder that almost killed me in 2013 was well known to doctors for at least two or three generations. The treatment plan I accepted was first tried in the 70's I think (leading edge of the bang), but the cocktail of secondary pills I had to take to deal with side effects of the primary ones emerged as the bang progressed. That whole treatment plan is now deprecated because researchers found a way to treat it without chemodrugs. If my condition ever returns, I won't have to traverse Hell a second time.
A LOT has happened to the drug supply since that time when there were no ex-Presidents.
David,
special features of the 6th
I agree. If one is going to pick favorites among the amendments, #6 is a good one with a very clear intent to protect the accused among us… and how to go about it.
My fav is #9, though. It makes clear that the American Experiment is about change. The next generation WILL see things in a different light, thus even the conservatives among us must prepare for it.
———
… and yes. If y'all are willing to 'steal' and call it taxation, might as well be fair about it and steal from everyone. 8)
Seriously, though, the religion exemption is a dinosaur. Bring on the asteroid!
Alfred Differ: A LOT has happened to the drug supply since that time
The A.I. Singularity is trendy and gets the headlines. However, rudimentary A.I. like GOFAI, Expert Systems, and now Generative are already leading to quantum leaps in drug discovery. It might be that the asymptote we're all heading towards is simply human immortality.
Alfred how odd we have both a President's Day and a King Day.
"I DO remember the time when there were no living ex-Presidents." That would be during Nixon, right?
Scidata, re immortality, I see no prospect of moving The Wall (age 115.) But increasing those who run marathons till 100. See https://www.davidbrin.com/nonfiction/immortality.html
Alas, poor locum - while speaking better now - is still dyspeptic toward a civilization that only works better than all others, combined, by allowing citizens to (imnperfectly) hold accountable those elites OR neighbors who might oppress them.
I do understand that he feels this modern world has been less kind to him than to many others. Welcome to the club. Alas, resentment over that sort of perceived injustice often becomes a jealous rage like that of Erastratos.
But I wish him well, and hope life will bring him joy.
reason:
And yes contract breaking should have consequences.
Even Ayn Randian libertarians think so. Enforcing contracts is one of the few things they believe is a legitimate role of government.
reason:
Why does ANYBODY trust anything that Trump says. It sort of boggles the mind.
They enjoy playing in the alternate reality that he provides for them.
Dr. Brin: I see no prospect of moving The Wall
Perhaps # years is the wrong metric to measure immortality. If we go by # transistors in one's pocket, in my own lifetime I've gone from:
0 at birth
3 in my first pocket radio
2K in my first calculator
1M in my first computer (home made)
100M in my first commercial PC
1B in my first smart phone
10B in my powerful 2015 PC
1T in a distributed network I use
?? in the internet
??? by the time I hit The Wall
That's a sort of immortality, or at least vast age.
Alfred Differ:
Yah. I hear you… but I'll admit to leaning somewhat Darwinian when it comes to repeated stupidity. Especially doubling down stupidity.
Yes, I have often argued that while stupidity doesn't deserve the death penalty, if someone is so stupid as to jump off a cliff, no one owes him restitution.
You said stupidity "must have consequences", and to the extent that that means stupidity brings about its own consequences, and the stupid must bear the cost, I agree. I was disputing something like "Stupidity must be punished." As long as the stupidity is self-inflicting, I don't think the rest of us need get involved. However, arrogant aggression is what must be punished, lest it end up being self-rewarding.
Contracts in this sense are essentially treaties and nations break those all the time. Best think of them as "I'll do this thing until it isn't in my best interest anymore."
The best of those have expiration dates (the Iran nuclear deal, for example) or the nation at least declares that they will no longer abide by it. However, if a security agreement by Russia not to invade is expected to be broken, then there's no point giving anything up for it. After all, Russia can take back their part of the deal, but Ukraine can't just get their nukes back. One might say Ukraine was stupid to take the deal, but then it was a different world back then.
The rare exceptions are the long lasting treaties (Portugal/England) and they are a wonder to behold.
I read something recently about that--how there some strategic island that Britain wanted to take in WWII, and Portugal warned them off, saying that but for the intact treaty, the island would align with the Nazis. Or something like that. In any case, yes, a wonder.
* * *
My HS US gov teacher focused more on the Constitution.
Heh. I was just a year too early for Schoolhouse Rock to help me memorize the Preamble. I had to do it the old fashioned way. When it was my brother's turn, two years later, he said that everyone was more or less humming the song in order to remember the words.
* * *
Dr Brin:
"I DO remember the time when there were no living ex-Presidents." That would be during Nixon, right?
Yes, and even as a teenager, it depressed me that the only living president at the time was Nixon. I was also really upset when I understood that he'd be president during the Bicentennial. But we were saved from that when he resigned.
scidata:
Perhaps # years is the wrong metric to measure immortality. If we go by # transistors in one's pocket,
And if my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a wagon.
Meaning, I don't think that's what most people mean by "immortality".
To be repetitive, the only way I’ve been able to communicate with Rightists is via religion; that is to say their idiosyncratic/self-referential religiosity.
Politics is too complicated, but one of the hallmarks of religion is simplicity.
Arguing with them goes nowhere except on their own terms, and such means turning the tables on them. One goes into their minds—to discover what their inchoate goals are—rather than vice versa. Otherwise you are on the defensive.
Their politics are unending point counterpoint...
Larry Hart: I don't think that's what most people mean by "immortality"
I'd venture that most people mean eternal life with a sky friend.
scidata:
I'd venture that most people mean eternal life with a sky friend.
I suppose.
Silly me, I always thought it meant "not dying."
Or living ‘eternally’ through their descendants, which can mean extended family. Example: their names are written in the ‘Book of Life’, as in “choosing life, so your that you and your descendants may live.”
In a word, Legacy. We can try an experiment: invite a highly-educated religious person to CB.
Scidata I just received a rather kooky but articulate email & draft article from a fellow who asserts that brain to brain memory and personality transfew is already here and thus immortality. Whoosh.
Alan B my new play is about the theological implications of an era of science… if the Devil & Hell were also real.
Dr Brin:
a fellow who asserts that brain to brain memory and personality transfew is already here and thus immortality.
I'd think I'd feel comfortable taking that bet.
Even if so, that's only potential immortality, dependent on whether one keeps transferring to a younger brain in time to prevent death.
Or course, literal immortality would require surviving the heat death of the universe. The religious version might be the only possibility for that.
Larry,
As long as the stupidity is self-inflicting, I don't think the rest of us need get involved.
You are a nicer guy than I am.
I have difficulty drawing a line between stupidity and arrogant aggression.
scidata,
...simply human immortality.
If you mean human-on-a-chip then I think that is a possibility. Otherwise I think we'd have to do a LOT of genetic tinkering to get these ape bodies to work much more than a century. Trying for that seems most likely to lead to non-humans who look human.
Re: brain to brain memory
Just like many, many other subjects, I don't know anything about that. The closest I've come to it is what I was saying a while back about mirror neurons that fire together aspire together, even possibly neurons in different brains. It kind of puts a transistory spin on what Daniel Dennett says about memes.
Re: human on a chip. TASAT: Altered Carbon (first series, at least) covers a few of the issues.
Alfred Differ:
I have difficulty drawing a line between stupidity and arrogant aggression.
Stupidity is stepping on a rake and having it smack you in the face. I see no need to punish that. It contains its own punishment, and its own lesson. Doubling-down on that stupidity is continuing to step on rakes, like Sideshow Bob. It's not aggression, because it hurts no one but the stupid person him/herself.
* * *
Otherwise I think we'd have to do a LOT of genetic tinkering to get these ape bodies to work much more than a century.
scidata's "more transistors in my pocket" thing sounded to me as if he was going for something along the lines of "technology gives me the ability to live more and more lifetimes in the same number of years." Which may be true, but I believe irrelevant to the drive for immortality, which I still maintain to be "avoiding death". I think kids start out wanting to literally stay alive forever, and only when the impossibility of that is accepted, opt for substitute versions of immorality, such as extending one's genetic lines, or leaving long-lasting monuments in the culture or on the physical world. Or afterlife, if that's how you roll.
And just as watches no longer claim to be "water-proof" but merely "water-resistant", I think the best we can hope for in any attempt at "immortality" is "death-resistant". Even the "immortals" of Asgard are merely extremely long-lived in human terms. They do die, despite the name.
It seems to me there are multiple, overlapping reasons why someone doesn't want to die, including, but not limited to:
1) Forestalling the experience of dying itself, which except for a very few are quite painful and terrifying
2) Continuing to experience the good aspects of sapient, sentient life
3) Continuing to affect the direction of other people and/or of the physical world
4) Concern or fear about the afterlife. "For in this sleep of death, what dreams may come?"
Preserving ones memories on a chip or in another human brain doesn't alleviate (1) or (4), and unless we are certain about continuity of consciousness, may not even alleviate (2).
Note that (3) and most likely (4) don't concern themselves with surviving the heat death of the universe. On the flip-side, individual immortality motivated by (3) is rendered irrelevant unless the universe itself is immortal.**
Only (4) seems to hold out any possibility of literal "immortality" as I understand the term. And even if afterlife is real, you still have to get past (1).
* A good friend in college once put it, "I wouldn't mind dying as long as I didn't have to do it by death." Sounds funny, but we all knew what he meant. He didn't fear "being dead", but he was leery of "dying", i.e., being shot, being stabbed, being crushed, drowning, burning, getting run over, deceleration trauma, etc.
** The ironic meaning of "Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair." This is what the young Woody Allen character in Annie Hall meant when he wouldn't do his homework because "The universe is expanding!", and therefore, "What's the point?"
Larry Hart: scidata's "more transistors in my pocket" thing
Years lived as a metric is very badly skewed. Almost pathetic really, when one thinks of pharaohs and khans.
Picture a monk who lives high in the mountains, isolated from the world (except other monks), eating tiny meals of yogurt and wild grain, always looking to reduce himself (zen), etc., and lives far past 100.
Picture someone who brightens everyone's day, has no enemies, learns and teaches at an exponential pace, inspires hope, humanity, and joy in others...
"When you're born, you cry and the world rejoices.
Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice."
- Cherokee proverb
... but dies very young.
Which was closer to immortality?
Immortality is experienced not in aeons but in instants.
If by immortality you mean never dying, then no thank you.
If by immortality you mean agelessness, i.e. endless youth, then sign me up.
I’ve never had an extended conversation with an educated religious person—only jes plain folks joe sixpacks.
If you’d invite a religious person to CB—someone who knows science—his or her mind could be dissected. It’s fair game: they wish to intrude into our minds, and we can do the same. In a sportsmanlike manner.
Paradoctor:
Immortality is experienced not in aeons but in instants.
You're describing something like "quality of life". That is a positive good in itself, but it's different from immortality.
If by immortality you mean agelessness, i.e. endless youth, then sign me up.
Too late for some of us. :)
scidata:
Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice."
...
Which was closer to immortality?
You are describing something like "contentment as death aproaches". That is also a positive good in itself, but it's still different from immortality.
Shakespeare can said to be immortal, as he will be remembered for millennia. Same with Odysseus. Hitler too, as far as that goes.
Sydney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities was immortal because the woman he loved and her family and descendants would be forever grateful to him for saving their lives. The Biblical Jacob is immortal in the sense that he founded a nation which survives to this day.
But these are metaphorical uses of the term. None of these people are alive in the sense of still conscious and still enjoying the pleasures of their senses or performing useful work with their bodies.
So it really depends on what the significance of the word "immortality" means to you. I'm fine with using it metaphorically, but I don't lose sight of that when I'm doing it.
I still think that when the average person wishes for a fountain of youth or a drug that keeps them from aging, the "immortality" they wish for is "not dying". I'm willing to accept "not dying in the foreseeable future" in place of literally "not dying ever", but all of those other senses of the term being discussed here are qualitatively different things.
Larry Hart: I'm fine with using it metaphorically, but...
Your childhood version is gone* forever, including all those 'Ship of Theseus' cells. My son rolls his eyes exactly the way my dad did. Traces of Asimov pop into existence in readers' neural networks. Opinions change with experience. I'm not so sure it's metaphorical.
* perhaps even dead. Ursula Le Guin said, "The creative adult is a child who has survived."
My Fullbright girl was dead for a while on an operating room table long ago - she said she doesn't fear death anymore. "It was very peaceful"*
I can't say the same. Beyond fear of the dark, though, I do admit a morbid curiosity as to what our species does next. Tolkien's elves were immortal, but seemed to envy mortals, who could go where they never could. Plenty of folks have noted that human immortality could result in a VERY static society.
For TASAT (death), read every third Connie Willis story. Lady thinks about death a lot, I suspect.
P.S. I occasionally worry that there IS an afterlife and I will have to explain to the old hands just how stupidly I died - I mean, about eight years ago I came within a hair of stepping in front of a city bus.
Pappenheimer
*Spider Robinson has one of his Callahan's regulars say almost the same thing, so I suspect Spider has had a similar experience.
onward
onward
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