Just back from an important conference (in Panama) about ways to ensure that the looming tsunami of Artificial Intelligences will become and remain 'beneficial.' Few endeavors could be more important... and as you might guess, I have some concepts on-offer that you'll find nowhere else. Alas, literally nowhere else. Even though they merely apply only the same tools we used to make an increasingly beneficial society, the last 200 years.
More on that later. Meanwhile... first off, since it's much in the news... want to see what the Apple Vision Pro will turn into within a few years? Watch this video trailer for my novel Existence. predicting where it'll go.
And while we're on prophecies.... This is deeply worrisome... and almost exactly overlaps with my "Probationers" in Sundiver! Back in 1978. Not a joke or a satire.
"Justice Minister Arif Virani has defended a new power in the online harms bill to impose house arrest on someone who is feared to commit a hate crime in the future – even if they have not yet done so already. The person could be made to wear an electronic tag, if the attorney-general requests it, or ordered by a judge to remain at home, the bill says."But don't worry! The government won't misuse this power! Trust us!
== The Futility of Hiding ==
One purpose for the "Beneficial AGI Conference" - (and I believe the stream will be up, soon) - was seeking ways to evade the worst and most persistent errors of the past.
Take the classic approach to human civilization - a pyramidal power structure dominated by brutal males, of the kind that ruled 99% of human societies - and many despotisms today. We are all descended from those harems. Onlynow, new tools of techno;logy might empower a return to such pyramidal stupidity, making such abusive power vasty more effective and oppressive than when it was enforced by mere swords.
Such a tech rich extension of despotisd was depicted by George Orwell utilizing total panopticon surveillance for control, of course without any reciprocal sousveillance purview from below. In fact, I doubt George O. ever considered even the possibility. But Orwell's novel would lead to very different outcomes if every member of 'the party' had every moment watched reciprocally by the prols! (The reciprocoal accountability that I prescribed in The Transparent Society.)
General transparency might, possibly, prevent the worst aspects of Big Brother. But there are ways that lateral light might also go badly. For example when - as in the PRC - "social credit" system, that is used to let a conformist majority harass and bully dissident minorities or even eccentricity, enforcing homogeneity, as we saw predicted in Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451.
This will be exacerbated by AI, if we aren't careful, since such systems will be able to sieve inputs across the entire internet and all camera systems, as portrayed in "Person of Interest." While that TV series depicted many worrisome aspects, it also pointed toward the one thing that might offer us a soft landing, as there were two competing AI systems that tended to cancel out each others' worst traits.
I have found it very strange that almost none of the conferences and zoom meetings about AI that I've watched or participated in has ever even mentioned that secret sauce. (Though I do, here in WIRED.)
Instead, there are relentless, hand-wringing discussions about disagreements between "policy wonks' and nerdy tech geeks over how to design regulations to limit bad AI outcomes... and never any allowance for the fact that these changes will happen at an accelerating pace, leaving even our most agile regulators behind, mere ape-humans grasping after answers like a tree sloth.
Or else... what generally happens at many sincere conferences on "AI ethics," we see a relentless chain of hippie-sounding pleadings and "shoulds," without any clue how to do actually enforce preachy 'ethics' on a new ecosystem where all of the attractor states currently draw towards predation..
In Foundation's Triumph I explored the implications of embedded "deep-ethical-programming" regulations - including Isaac Asimov's "three laws of robotics," revealing the inevitable result. Even if you succeed in emplanting truly genetic-level codes of behavior, the result will be that super-uber intelligent systems will simply become... lawyers, and find ways around every limitation. Unless...
...unless they are caught and constrained by other lawyers who are able to keep up. This is exactly the technique that allowed us to limit the power of elites, to end 6000 years of feudalism and launch upon our 240 year Periclean enlightenment experiment... by flattening power structures and forcing elite entities to compete with one another.
It is only the exact method prescribed by Adam Smith, by the US framers and by every generation of reformers since. And it is utterly ignored in every single AI/internet discussion or conference I have ever watched or attended.
If AI are destined to outpace us, then one potential solution is to flatten the playing field and get distinctly different AIs competing with each other, especially tattling on flaws and/or predations or malevolent or even unpleasant behaviors.
It is exactly what we have done for 250 years... and it is the one approach that is never, ever, and I mean ever discussed. Almost as if there is a mental block against admitting or even noticing the obvious.
== Don’t try to hide!”
Your DNA can be pulled from thin air: Reinforcing a point I’ve been pushing since the 1990s, in The Transparent Society and elsewhere, that hiding is not the way to preserve privacy, there are the shrill cries that new generative AI systems may decipher and interpret our personal DNA! Only – as illustrated in the film Gattaca – that DNA is already everywhere. You shed it in flakes of skin wherever you go. There is a better way to prevent your data being used against you. By aggressively ripping the veils away from malefactors who might do that sort of thing!
And by this point, the only folks reading any longer are likely AIs... So, time to get self-indulgent with a temper tantrum!
== And now... that rant I promised! ==
I sometimes store things for posting and lose the link. But here's a quotation worth answering:
"Alas, we have TWO wars against the Enlightenment raging, one from the reactionary right and the other from the postmodern faux marxist wannabe totalitarian Red Guards on the left."
But today’s mad ENTIRE right CONSISTS of fact-allergic, troglodyte-screeching dogmatists who wage war on science and hate the American tradition of steady, pragmatic reform, and who would impose their prescribed morality on you.
There is all the world’s difference between FAR and ENTIRE. As there is between CONTAINS and CONSISTS. One lunatic mob owns and operates an entire US political party, waging open war against minorities, races, genders, even the concept of equal protection under the law. But above all (as I said) pouring hate upon the nerdy fact professionals who stand in their way, blocking their path back to feudal power.
Sure, Foxites howl about 'woke'. But ask any of them... even the worst campus PC bullies (and though shrill, they are deemed jokes, even on campus). Ask them about Marx! You'll find that the indignant ignoramuses could not paraphrase even the simplest cliché about old Karl. Their ignorance is almost as profound as their utter ineptitude and irrelevance. Except as excuses for tirades on Fox, they are of no relevance at all.
117 comments:
The main divide in A.I. development is agency vs mimicry. The cooperation/competition 'secret sauce' can only be brewed by the former, regardless of whether it is engineered or evolved. Alas, we are suckers for grifters, frauds, demagogues, shortcuts, and shiny bobbles.
Gattaca was a brilliant, prescient movie that bombed at the box office. The DVD is a masterpiece that should be in every SF collection. DNA is not destiny.
Agreed about Gattaca - absolutely brilliant movie!
What do you people make of the crazy bitcoin price, another sign of a crazy age. Bitcoin solves no problems (except one for criminals). It adds no value but has a cost and produces no income. And yet it priced absurdly high (basically a pure Ponzy scheme). What is wrong with humans?
reason:
What is wrong with humans?
One thing wrong with our brains is that we seem hard-wired to want to buy high and to sell low.
Alan Brooks in the previous comments:
If you read the entire bible, you’ll see that there’s no inconsistency.
You mean specifically about Christianity and violence, right? Because inconsistency in general begins with Genesis 1 vs Genesis 2.
And if Christianity is really about killing those who don't believe, then why didn't Jesus tell his followers to fight the Romans, martyring themselves if need be? What was the whole "live by the sword, die by the sword," bit about?
Killing/injuring/enslaving/
exploiting:
•reduces opposition
• reduces populations
Where is the inconsistency?
Well, "reduces populations" vs "culture of life" for one thing. I mean, abortion reduces populations too, and they're again' it, not fer it.
And recently, the whole IVF controversy (which I know you don't want to discuss) is self-contradictory. Fertilized eggs are innocent babies, so preventing them from from being grown into newborns is murder no matter what the reason--except if the couple is trying to have children. Fertility treatment makes the homicide of the extras justifiable, but the life of the mother does not.
Not relevant to this post, but very relevant to one of our host's chief concerns - he still is one of the best writers on Fermi's paradox:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/SmZmiQh0VnA
Warning - when this is over, it repeats itself infinitely (at least in my browser), so you need to turn it off yourself. Nice to see that The Oatmeal is still active.
On the previous post - what Republicans? We're talking about decomposition products of a corpse that the Lizard King murdered in 1994. I'm still proud of his predecessor, Bob Michel, a real Republican from my family's congressional district, and his predecessor, Everett Dirksen. Not to mention Eisenhower and Ford.
Bob Pfeiffer.
reason,
You have a lot of assertions there. I agree that Bitcoin isn't an investment grade product, but to argue it solves no problems is a stretch.
And it is no more a Ponzi scheme than is a national currency unfettered by a gold or silver standard. It's just a currency tied to a belief system... that is obviously highly unstable.
A better question to ask is why the price is unstable. Answering that requires us to examine why supply and demand for it are so often unbalanced.
I was about to refer to the MAGA crowd as "the sons of John Wilkes Booth", but Jim Wright beat me to it. His newest Stonekettle is really good.
Bob Pfeiffer.
re: Stonekettle,
Here is a set of links to where else you can find Stonekettle now that he's given up on Twitter. I especially like some of his posts on Threads, which I can (so far) read without signing in.
https://www.stonekettle.com/2023/08/where-you-can-find-me.html
Alfred Differ:
And it [Bitcoin] is no more a Ponzi scheme than is a national currency unfettered by a gold or silver standard. It's just a currency tied to a belief system... that is obviously highly unstable.
I know your point, but I disagree about the "currency" part, although it was originally marketed that way. I'll accept that Bitcoin is a currency when wages and/or prices are denominated in Bitcoin, as opposed to transactions reflecting the dollar value at the time.
As it is presently used (at least in the US), the underlying belief you refer to is that you'll be able to get dollars for it. As opposed to the underlying belief backing dollars, which is that you'll be able to get goods and services for it.
I'm not denying that Bitcoin works as a short-term investment vehicle, but that's a different thing from a currency. It works more like a share of stock, though without the assets of a company backing it. Making money off of it depends in large part on timing the market, which I suck at. So I won't be investing.
A better question to ask is why the price is unstable. Answering that requires us to examine why supply and demand for it are so often unbalanced.
Agreed about the question. I have no idea of the answer. It might be related to the reason why demand for the likes of Donald Trump fluctuates so much. There might be some sort of psychohistorical theorem that explains the phenomenon.
You might be interested in the latest Existential Comics, in which a dragon tries to convince a knight that gold is not the real treasure, but rather the grain thresher and cotton loom actually increase the wealth of society.
The knight, of course, responds with contempt for 'nerd stuff'.
https://existentialcomics.com/comic/540
The Bible is grim, but not necessarily contradictory. Or one might begin by writing that life is contradictory—and thus Abrahamic scripture is a reflection.
Look before you leap; but also he who hesitates is lost. Preparing for war can ensure peace? Well, perhaps. Lies are the bodyguard of truth? Maybe. Don’t know.
A reasonable man never did anything? Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice; moderation...no virtue?
“Don’t think that I have come to bring peace,” to paraphrase the God-man, “I have come with a sword...”
Separating members of a family from each other, separating the sheep from the goats
—
Contradictory? Yes and no. He cameth to fulfill the Law, not abolisheth it: the Law included capital punishment; and one can forgive a person after one kills them. Murder is Out, but killing is In, during wartime and executing criminals. All is fair in love and war. ‘Kill ‘em all, let God sort them out’.
“In this world but not of this world”? Subject-object dualism; the subject (person) separates himself from the world (the object). And since the Lord has “already overcome the world”, don’t y’all fret none too much about it.
Dr. Brin & I don't always agree on details or even the correct response, but I agree with almost everything that he says in this most excellent & comprehensive AI post.
In order to prevent these artificial superintelligences from becoming tools for totalitarianism, capable of freeing themselves from any preprogrammed ethical constraints & imperatives, the best way forward is to weaponize AI to target AI so they may automatically police & destroy each other before they can target their creators for either enslavement or destruction.
I agree that we can no longer hide from our would-be panopticon overlords, and this leaves us little choice but to rise up and aggressively rip the veils away from malefactors who might do that sort of thing, whether or not these potential malefactors be petrol princes, oligarchs, tech nerds, computer programmers, well-intentioned public servants or simply fact-users who know things, the danger that they represent is so dire that we must destroy them utterly if we are to be free.
Like 'Watchbird' by Robert Sheckley, we will turn AI against AI, oligarch against oligarch, politician against politician, agency against agency, nerd against nerd & drone against drone, while 'We The People' celebrate our ongoing liberty as these would-be malefactors murder each other over the empty trappings of leadership.
Use your opponents strength against itself; divide & conquer.
These are just some of the valuable lessons that reside within the pages of 'Polemical Judo', written & independently published by Dr. Brin, available for purchase on Amazon, and a finer primer on Judeo Politics has never been written.
And, if all else fails, up to & including all of those temporizing measures offered up in Polemical Judo, then there still remains the one option that promises to end the AI-enabled surveillance state tyranny once & for all, but it comes at a steep & heavy price that only the most desperate patriot would ever consider.
It's the Snake Plissken option:
It's the final scene from 'Escape from LA'; it's most effective against large urban centers; it can be applied in either a localized or generalized fashion; and it's so simple... so very simple... that even a child can do it.
Best
Alan Brooks:
The Bible is grim, but not necessarily contradictory. Or one might begin by writing that life is contradictory—and thus Abrahamic scripture is a reflection.
...
"Ray's gone bye bye, Egon. What have you got?"
"I'm sorry, Venkman. I'm terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought."
Again, I wonder rhetorically what Dorothy's Auntie Em (yes, I remember it's not her mother) meant by "And now...well, as a Christian woman, I just can't say it!"
At least remove, she understood that being a Christian put obligations upon her, even without us specifying exactly what those obligations consisted of.
Today's right-wing Christian Nationalists assert just the opposite. That once you can get yourself counted among the "Christians", there is no obligation you can avoid should you choose to.
Nixon might as well have said, "If a Christian does it, then it is not immoral."
Only a little less funny than "Jews for Hitler". Emphasis mine.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/01/opinion/gretchen-whitmer-abortion.html
support for abortion rights unites progressives and moderates, if not the culturally conservative Arab and Muslim voters who were trending away from the Democratic Party even before Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7.
They’ll reply by asserting there are the laws of Man, and there is God’s Law. They’ll say that once you come to Faith, you can transcend Man’s laws. Somewhere in Galatians, I do b’lieve.
—
There’s no apparent contradiction in reducing populations and being opposed to abortion. Kill off enough older people, there’s more for the younger set.
Or, many older folks can be imprisoned—which conceivably could be one reason there’s a call to build More Prisons. And more death rows. Plus, the homeless could possibly be placed in the shiny new prisons...
There’s been some rumination on these thorny ethical & legal matters for what? Roughly 2,500 years? c. 250 yrs in America? And going back to 1620.
Alan Brooks:
They’ll reply by asserting there are the laws of Man, and there is God’s Law.
And do they say where God's Law considers a fertilized egg to be a person? Because I'm pretty sure the Bible often refers to "breath" as the beginning of life.
Seems to me that "God's Law" means whatever the self-proclaimed Christians say it is. And as with Clarence Thomas, there's no accountability.
They’ll say that once you come to Faith, you can transcend Man’s laws.
Can you show me a modern-day Republican Christian Nationalist who considers himself above Man's laws who shows any sign of true faith in Jesus Christ? Who even fears any consequences of lying under oath?
Alfred Differ,
" but to argue it solves no problems is a stretch." - I did say it solves some problems for criminals, but it doesn't meet my definition of a currency (not even a bad one). And Gold and Silver are no criteria for backing a currency - since they are just inefficient currencies themselves (so long at least as their market price exceeds their fundamental value as metals). I think you massively underestimate the value of the service that central banks provide - and perhaps massively underestimate the danger that debt deflation is.
Maddow’s 15 minutes does a strong job surveying the level of horrors that the Republican party in states and nationally is actively attempting, often by introduced legislation that is actively supported by almost the entire Republican house membership - for instance outlawing contraception or keeping a database of every woman that has attempted to get an abortion. then there are milder things like in the face of a measles outbreak in Florida, the putative Republican nominee for president wants to remove public funding for any school that requires any vaccinations.
https://youtu.be/PN0eSIXYpXo?si=E0vO8HG3B4vxXZHv
And meanwhile the dullard inability of Dems to shive, properly, these monstrous memes appalls me. e.g. those who romanticize the 1950s could be reminded that Americans' favorities humanwas not the admirable Eisenhower... but Dr. Jonas Salk.
One guy wrote to me "I am very disturbed by anyone who thinks this can or should be taken care of at the ballot box. I look at Project2025 and its highly developed plans, team of hundreds of lawyers, and billions of dollars of funding and the entire “independent state legislature“ movement, and Republican efforts in many states to change laws to allow intimidation of voters near and inside polling places and even the voting booth. and the fact that Trump and the Republicans take the failure to ultimately steal the 2020 election as an indication that they have to be better organized and more aggressive next time, and their drumbeat encouraging violence. The horrors of 2020 are very possibly going to be a walk in the park compared to 2024."
And yes, the confederacy - this time with foreign help - is desperate to end the entire enlightenment experiment.
I expect two things that are never mentioned...
1. A wave of attempted T. McVeighs
2. The GOPpuppeteer oligarchy to get very scared by Trump. If he loses big he might torch their party. If he wins, he already plans to go full brownshirt and cut the puppet strings.
Their options include doing a "Howard Beale" martyrdom of DT in a way that triggers massively multiplied McVeighs.
In both cases we are utterly dependent upon the skilled professionals - especially the Secret Service and the FBI. If they have good undercover work...
But of course ALL depends on whether the nerd-castes are up to this challenge. Not just FBI/intel but the military, techies, medicine, law...
... and NOW we need to recruit responsible retired persons to step up to be poll workers. A desperate need.
Dr Brin:
And meanwhile the dullard inability of Dems to shive, properly, these monstrous memes appalls me.
One problem Democrats have is that they themselves are considered discredited as sources of information by vast swaths of the country. They can't deliver the message because too many people refuse to credit them as messengers.
That's why the Lincoln Project and Liz Cheney and the like are so important. They have at least some street cred among FOXite Republican voters.
It gets into Calvinism versus Armenianism: in this case, did the Lord know from the beginning of time that the egg would be fertilized? Or something along those lines.
—
I asked a member of a Christian commune why pro-‘life’ is so important to his group. He answered “because it’s a weapon we can use against the government.”
That ended the dialogue.
A prominent Christian activist was asked why money was so important to him; he replied, “because I’m not stupid.”
That also ended the discussion.
Alan Brooks:
“because it’s a weapon we can use against the government.”
Yes, I heard that the Moral Majority types switched their issue to opposing abortion because opposing integration wasn't as popular as it used to be. Before the late 70s, they hardly knew or cared about abortion. Their main appeal was segregation.
The Bible says life begins at first breath
Except for the Prophet Jerimiah - where it says -
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you
Which sounds like reincarnation to me
AB: “I asked a member of a Christian commune why pro-‘life’ is so important to his group. He answered “because it’s a weapon we can use against the government.”
Yep. But it’s far simpler. They know bearded – beaded Jesus would oppose them on EVERY other issue. But they win him to their side with “Stop killing babies!”
Never mind that the Big Guy aborts more early fetuses than anybody, by orders of magnitude. And we’ve defied His will by finding medical palliatives that helped millions of women NOT to have miscarriages. And how His world in obviously ANALOG and not amenable to digital on-off laws.
Many of them want the Apocalypse for both biblical and personal reasons:
a. Scripture says humanity must be punished for its sins. “The flotsam and jetsam must be washed away in the cleansing.”
No pain, no gain. On Judgement Day, the Lord will either say Welcome, faithful servant; or Depart from me, I never knew ye.
b. Personal anger at the sins of the world; an interest in bringing it all down. Death is the great equalizer—so let’s all go down together.
c. If someone is dying, they may not be all that unhappy about the world (as we know it) going down with them.
d. A belief that Heaven does await them after the Apocalypse.
e. Because the Bible tells them so. “We take it on Faith—no second-guessing the Lord. We are His Obedient Servants.”
(Also, a sentiment of letting the biosphere be destroyed if it must; not attempting to prevent the Apocalypse. Evolution will start over again.)
—-
Thus, we are frequently talking with them at cross-purposes re the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment for them is spiritual enlightenment—seeing the Light.
Alan, just checking - did you mean Arminianism? There is an Armenian Church, but I have no idea what their stance on these issues is - if they even have one stance.
Pappenheimer
I'd be a Pelagian heretic myself - Pelagius taught that man was not corrupted by the fall and that humans by divine grace have the free will to achieve human perfection. You can see why such doctrines fell afoul of organized Christendom.
Pappenheimer
Arminianism, yes.
duncan cairncross:
"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you"
Which sounds like reincarnation to me
I take that to indicate that God knows the future, not that the person exists before being formed in the womb. Presumably, God knows which fertilized egg will actually be implanted ahead of time as well.
Also, excess eggs fertilized for IVF are never "formed in the womb".
Dr Brin:
Never mind that the Big Guy aborts more early fetuses than anybody, by orders of magnitude.
I've counter-argued before that "God is pro-life" doesn't seem to hold up in real life. Every living thing dies, and a large percentage die violently as prey for something else. And the ones who are still alive survive only by devouring other forms of life.
That said, religious conservatives are actually pro-choice, as long as it's God's choice. He gets to kill babies. We don't.
Likewise their position on suicide. We don't get to kill ourselves. He may kill us if He wishes.
* * *
In my peculiar view, "stand your ground" is incompatible with forbidding suicide. The conservative position is that, if someone is trying to kill you, you are allowed to kill him first. That has to apply even if the one trying to kill you is yourself. Suicide in self-defense.
In my play I ask how much must a sheep endure before it no longer owes fealty to the shepherd?
Original Sin... and human sacrifice and ritual cannibalism... were all anathema concepts to Jews, including the Christian Jews who were a vast majority of the cult... till nearly all of them, including Jesus's brother James, died in 70CE defending their assigned portion of Jerusalem's wall.
That left Paul, an admitted murderer and persucutor of Christians - who recanted - completely in charge of the movement in Greece, where all those doctrines were 2nd nature and good sales pitches.
There's an aspect to this Gaza tragedy that I've yet to see anyone mention.
HOW has Hamas held off one of the most powerful militaries in the world?
Sure, it's hard urban combat and they use human shields like crazy. But also, clearly, they have prepared their own military on a very hefty scale. Have you seen the tunnels? But HOW? Sure, they raked in loads of charity donations from rich and poor muslim countries. Still most of the $$ had to come from taxes on the people of Gaza. That's a helkluva lot of dough that could have turned Gaza into a semi-tropical Mediterranean orchard and tourist/beach haven and tech center. Especially if Hamas had not driven both Israel and Egypt to shutter them in.
The fact that they pounded through Israeli defenses on Putin's Birthday in early October... and then held the entire might of Israel back in a slow grind till March... represents a massive share of Gazan wealth evaporating and taking civilians with it.
If it shall be the will of the deity that a certain mansion in Mar-a-Lago is to be leveled by a hurricane, it is not for us to have doubts.
We must go with the flow.
It’s March 5th, the anniversary of the death of Joseph Stalin. To commemorate this event, my wife and I followed the family tradition of watching THE DEATH OF STALIN.
GMT-5,
Excellent choice. I wonder if it might not be better to somehow erase some names from all human records, as was attempted for the Greek youth who set fire to the Second Temple of Artemis so that his name would live forever. (Unfortunately, that human wart's name survived.) That way we could refer to the greatest criminals of history* while denying them archival immortality.
It's sad that Richard Nixon's name is on the moon AND already out of the solar system aboard the Pioneers (much to Carl Sagan's disgust at the time), since moistening his grave (if practicable) is on my bucket list.
Pappenheimer
*I'd recommend fitting pseudonyms, like "Backstabbing Mass Murderer VI" for Stalin
Pappenheimer
Have any of you read anything as mushy as this in your lives?:
https://spectator.org/trumps-reelection-effort-is-becoming-the-heros-journey/
reason,
I did say it solves some problems for criminals, but it doesn't meet my definition of a currency (not even a bad one)
Ha! Well… you probably have a much more formal definition than I do for what qualifies as a currency. Makes sense you would.
I'm also with you on gold and silver. I know people who will die on the hill named 'metal standards', but I think they are looney. I create money every time I buy someone lunch with the expectation they'll pay me back later (destroying it) and I'm not backing it with anything more than my reputation. Metals or other commodities make sense in a world were people don't trust reputations… or don't have them. Not the world in which I want to live. 8)
I think you massively underestimate the value of the service that central banks provide - and perhaps…
Aw man, now that's going too far. I'm one of the few around here who has actually studied this stuff. Just because I use a less formal definition for 'currency' doesn't mean I don't appreciate being able to use a stable one. Well… relatively stable… well… one that they PLAN to have lose half it's value every 36 years if I stuff my retirement money in a mattress… which I don't. I'm okay with that… well… I can live with that.
I used to work in the subprime industry. I remember well what happened when the Russian Ruble collapsed. I thought we'd be fine on our side of the world… but no. Bond markets froze up when everyone packed up their tents and went home. We couldn't finance a damn thing. The US$ was stable enough, but that's only part of what matters. No underwriters for new lending brings us all down. Central banks are critical elements in our markets.
———
Now… the point about criminals. I'm sure you know that some nations are run by people we would consider criminals. Would you consider one of their citizens trying to evade dictatorial theft another criminal? Bitcoin DOES enable smuggling of cash across borders, but I have a hard time thinking of them all as criminals. Many of them are. For sure… but not all.
My little ol' granny taught me a thing or two about smuggling.
1. You won't stop it. Ever. The most you can do is influence the price of smuggled goods.
2. You probably shouldn't stop some of it. If you knew every instance of it currently underway you might find some of it is for a cause for which you'd have no objection.
------
Bitcoin is still a sucker's bet, though. I don't see how to use it in futures contracts. Other cryptocurrencies were supposed to address certain shortcomings, but they have their own too. I'm just gonna sit on the sideline and watch them all for a while.
Alan Brooks:
If it shall be the will of the deity that a certain mansion in Mar-a-Lago is to be leveled by a hurricane...
The fact that none of the recent hurricanes to hit Florida have touched Mar-a-Lago is proof that thoughts and prayers don't work. Well, my thoughts and prayers, anyway.
Life has been interesting of late, so I'm catching up a bit now. First, I wouldn't wager against an upcoming iPhone with sufficient CPU & GPU to drive the cameras and displays of a Vision Pro*, perhaps beginning a march to ubiquity.
*I suspect recent iPhones could do so at a lower resolution, not enough for walking around, and presenting a "Sam Starfall" face to the world.
Alfred Differ:
one that they PLAN to have lose half it's value every 36 years if I stuff my retirement money in a mattress… which I don't. I'm okay with that…
I am too, though maybe for different reasons.
First of all, if you know how much buying power the cash will lose over time, then you can plan accordingly. It's not a surprise. Stash away four million instead of one million and you'll probably be fine. Can't manage that? That just puts you in the same boat as people who can't manage one million today. And unlike in Ayn Rand's day, you are free to trade your dollars for Krugerrands and put those in your mattress if you think their value will hold up better.
More to the point, though--and remember that I am a "keep it in the mattress" kind of guy--why shouldn't hoarded cash cut off from the workflow of the economy succumb a bit to entropy just like everything else. I can't store pizza in my mattress today and expect to have it in edible condition in thirty years. Even in a deep freezer, it would lose some of its value. Why should money be exempt from the second law of thermodynamics?
On the subject of currency, especially the U.S. Dollar I fear there's reason to worry if a superannuated chaos ape gets elected. Since Reagan, the (Formerly) GOP has a tradition of discarding policy set by Democrats or purged Republicans, it's a "Lead pipe cinch" "Drumph!" will be flinging spanners into many gears, including trade policy. It might not take too many such incidents to make some other currency look like a better one for international trade, reducing the "Soft power" of the United (For now) States.
Stonekettle on Threads:
https://www.threads.net/@stonekettle
Joe Biden should offer to debate Trump. Then when they get up on stage, the moderator asks if the president should have total immunity to do what's best in the national interest and when Trump answers yes, Biden calls in the Federal Marshals from behind the curtain and has Trump arrested, hogtied, and dragged away while they just keep playing Trump's answer on the big screen over and over.
Brin wrote:
That left Paul, an admitted murderer and persucutor of Christians - who recanted - completely in charge of the movement in Greece, where all those doctrines were 2nd nature and good sales pitches.
This is quite a simplification. (A completely understandable one, given that it projects the structure of modern Christianity back in time, but still a simplification.) Early Christianity was complicated! What survives today is partly chance, and partly selection (what kinds of organization scale and simultaneously survive schism, persecution, toxic politics, etc.).
A really good summary of the weird range of beliefs and practices is by the Princeton theologian Elaine Pagels:
Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels, 1979.
Economic power concentrates so heavily because the price of capital is an order of magnitude higher for startups vs. existing players. Potential software unicorns can get over this hump since the equipment costs are very low. For more capital heavy startups, the system is broken. We need a better small cap stock market, one which has rules to keep the crooks at bay without burdening businesses with undue paperwork and legal hassles.
Wanted: a Stock Exchange for Democratic Capitalism
David Brin said...
"There's an aspect to this Gaza tragedy that I've yet to see anyone mention.
HOW has Hamas held off one of the most powerful militaries in the world?
. . .
The fact that they pounded through Israeli defenses on Putin's Birthday in early October... and then held the entire might of Israel back in a slow grind till March... represents a massive share of Gazan wealth evaporating and taking civilians with it."
It's definitely true that HAMAS has sucked Gaza dry to fund their efforts to to destroy Israel. They've taken a significant amount, perhaps the majority, of all the aid money and resources sent Gaza's way to make their leaders fabulously wealthy and to build Gaza into a giant fortified terrorist stronghold. And they basically turned the UNRWA into the Resources & Child Indoctrination division of HAMAS.
But, held off the entire might of Israel? I don't see it. Despite the impressive and scary infrastructure and capabilities they were able to build they had no chance of holding back the might of Israel's military. If anything could be said to have held off the entire might of Israel from destroying HAMAS in short order it would be Israel's own self restraint to limit civilian casualties and the political pressure from the rest of the world to end their military response.
I do think those two things are major factors, but also it simply takes time to prosecute a campaign like this. It's easy for HAMAS to hide within a dense civilian population. HAMAS has not been holding back the Israeli military through force of arms. Whenever Israel finds some of them, they die, and when they find their resources like tunnels and weapons, they are destroyed. The problem in such a campaign is searching through every cubic centimeter of space and finding the bad guys, especially when you restrain yourself rather than waging total war.
Or maybe you are right about that too. Maybe HAMAS has managed to hold off the might of Israel. Through infiltration and propaganda aimed at the civilian populations of Western nations to garner support among their civilian populations, especially on university campuses.
Metals or other commodities make sense in a world were people don't trust reputations… or don't have them.
I perceive an interesting overlap between proponents of metal investors and right-wing populists.
My little ol' granny taught me a thing or two about smuggling.
1. You won't stop it. Ever. The most you can do is influence the price of smuggled goods.
2. You probably shouldn't stop some of it. If you knew every instance of it currently underway you might find some of it is for a cause for which you'd have no objection.
I'd add two additional things:
3. By catching the small, harmless fish, you make the large, dangerous ones grow even larger and more dangerous.
4. State Agencies have a symbiotic relationship with cartels smuggling prohibited goods. Each keeps the other at the same time well-fed and hungering for more.
A people that elect corrupt politicians, imposters, thieves and traitors are not victims but ACCOMPLICES.
A truism that is as true today as it was when George Orwell first uttered it, especially in reference to the Hamas-supporting Gazans, along with the countless other progressives, democrats & republicans who support global authoritarianism, foreign entanglements, military adventurism, socialism, sociopolitical reparations & all other forms of pathological altruism.
These are guilty ACCOMPLICES deserving in collective retribution & punishment, rather than the most 'innocent of victims', and this is true for 'God Bless us everyone', insomuch as none are so innocence as to escape divine judgment, the only way forward being divine mercy rather than individual self-improvement.
It follows that the progressive obsession with the will-o'-the-wisp that is self-improvement, continuous quality improvement, tikkun olam & human perfectibility amounts to a gnostic heresy, as stated in John 14:6:
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
I say this not to convert but to explicate the egregious error in which most of you engage, as your vaunted hypocrisy shaming tactics will only prove as effective against the american christian as the native american 'counting coup' tactic proved against a US Calvary armed with heavy repeating rifles.
I've warned you to prepare, over & over, not because I fear your progressive might, but because of how insanely vulnerable you all are, as you whoop, hollar & dance around in your Alinsky 'Ghost Shirts', secure in the belief that such tactics will protect you from an imagined conservative villain who has yet to offer you any genuine harm.
Along with the pending 2024 elections & the approach of warmer weather, we will all soon see our respective progressive contingents take to the streets again in both the EU & US, intent on conflict with said imaginary villains, only to discover (to their dismay) the presence of genuine rather than token resistance, and it will not be pretty, as the happy conflagration spreads to include all who do not understand either LARP or 'playing pretend'.
Best
A hurricane might well damage non-Trump property near Mar-a-Lago, so a tornado only hitting his mansion would be the proper (but v unlikely) scenario.
Harming his or Putin’s person isn’t what I wish for; don’t want Putin to be executed. Better to imprison him at the Polar Wolf camp where Navalny was.
Justice is a dish best served cold, without hatred.
Near the finish of this review, two Moskva TV common-taters come to blows in the studio:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TG-tG-Wo0Do
Our 1789 Constitution is an unsentimental document prescribing the hard-edged politics that America has known for its entire existence.
—
As for Christianity, you get into some deep stuff here. What I don’t see is how one could be a (putting aside ‘True Scotsman’) Genuine Christian in an urban/suburban setting.
A True-Christian would have to live in a cabin at a remote site to be pious—too much temptation involved with urbanity; comparable to a diabetic storing candy bars in his pantry. But would-be Christians refuse to acknowledge such, they insist they can be in-this-world-but-not-of-this-world—when extremely few of them can/will do so.
The ‘Elect’.
“when Trump answers yes, Biden calls in the Federal Marshals from behind the curtain and has Trump arrested, hogtied, and dragged…”
Those marshals could be arrested and DT’s Secret Service team would intervene. Biden would have to do – whatever it is – himself.
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Weekend Editor thanks… though clearly the Paulians always had the upper hand. Even Arias referred to Paul.
----
I skimmed 3 sentences and decided not to do it again while locum is back in the midwest. Someone speak up when he's drinking better water again and merely raving, instead of spew excreting.
Alan Brooks:
A hurricane might well damage non-Trump property near Mar-a-Lago,...
Well, sure, but that's true of any hurricane that hits a populated area. It's not that I want a hurricane to wipe out innocent civilians. But those are going to happen no matter what, which is nobody's fault, not even the Romans'.
As long as it's going to happen, is it too much to ask that it happen there?
Perhaps a best-outcome—we can only dream—is to place Trump in the same cell as Putin, at Polar Wolf. They then would get to bond a’ la the Aryan Brotherhood.
—
However keeping Putin alive probably wouldn’t work, a fair likelihood is he’d be sprung eventually.
Dr Brin:
Those marshals could be arrested and DT’s Secret Service team would intervene. Biden would have to do – whatever it is – himself.
He could pardon the marshals on the spot.
In any case, the Republican courts would have to rule that Biden has no presidential immunity. Pretty quickly too. Foot-dragging on the issue would not be an option.
The point is that our side playing by Trump's rules would get the rules clarified at light speed.
Someone speak up when he's drinking better water again and merely raving, instead of spew excreting.
Don't look at me. I've been loc-free for five months.
Alan Brooks:
Perhaps a best-outcome—we can only dream—is to place Trump in the same cell as Putin, at Polar Wolf.
Who is going to arrest Trump in the first place, let alone send him to Russia. Maybe as a Mike Doonesbury's summer daydream scenario, but it ain't gonna really happen.
However keeping Putin alive probably wouldn’t work, a fair likelihood is he’d be sprung eventually.
Exactly the problem. As with Viktor Lazlo, it is too dangerous to let him leave and also too dangerous to let him stay.
To mutilate a stanza from Jesus Christ, Superstar :
"Fools, you have no perception.
The stakes we are gambling are frighteningly high.
We must crush him completely,
So just like Prigozhin, This Putin must die.
For the sake of a nation, this Putin must die."
Naturally, these scenarios are only scheming ‘n dreaming.
At any rate, if Putin came near to being arrested, he’d high-tail it to China or someplace.
if Putin came near to being arrested, he’d high-tail it to China or someplace.
I hear North Korea is nice this time of year.
Jesus Christ, Superstar is fun and very musical and impudently shows the obvious... that Judas was used. Still...
...it also makes clear the almost obscene absurdity of the situation. JC is asked by the Temple priests to prove he is different than the swarms of false messiahs (so accurately depicted in LIFE OF BRIAN.) Asking that of him is portrayed as somehow satanic... WHEN IT WAS EXACTLY AND PRECISELY THEIR JOB.
Can anyone make a case that they would NOT have been impressed by a series of bona fide miracles, like raising the dead? Who would defy him, if he showed those wary, savvy skeptics enough of the same proofs that he showed to country hicks? Indeed, the Testaments utterly rely on those rural 'miracles' to make their case! Via utterly unbiased 'witnesses' of course. Only one of whom - Mark - was likely there in person, since the other three gospels are linguistically proved to have been written at least a century later.
But I drift. Again, demanding proof of divinity was... their... job. The Priests. And they were likely hoping a day would come when they could throw themselves at the feet of their Expected One, begging forgiveness for their scrupulous and dutiful doubt.
Oh, surely sentencing a man to death for making a false (or unproved) claim is absolutely shitty! By our standards. Still, watch the video of THE ESCAPE for more such impudent questions...
If the Sanhedrin "...were likely hoping a day would come when they could throw themselves at the feet of their Expected One....", they must have been the first such body of any established religion I have ever heard of to value their social status and earthly well-being beneath their putative religious duty. I suspect Dostoyevsky's story of the Grand Inquisitor is always the more likely outcome.
I agree, though, that the Bible story that I was presented edits out the endemic false prophets and con men of the time* to present a false picture of men deliberately and with full knowledge rejecting their saviour, as if he were the only such dude they'd ever had to deal with. Man, just stand upon one inch of water in a basin....
Pappenheimer
*To fall into Twainian, you dasn't swing a dead cat in the Holy Land without hittin' a holy hermit or redeemer back then.
Alan,
Hey, Napoleon got a second chance. He got free of Elba, got the band back together, and instead of getting shot at or after Waterloo, they cached his Corsican heinie on St Helena, which was more than a day trip from France.
Putin might be able to flee to NK or somewhere, and almost certainly has a bugout plan ready to go. 'Twould be a ticklish job, though, deciding how long to hold out before you must rely on minions who might not be entirely loyal...doubt he can fly himself out of Russia.
Pappenheimer
Larry,
Why should money be exempt from the second law of thermodynamics?
I don't mind it losing value.
I mind it being PLANNED that way.
I can dodge much of the impact by investing wisely, but the poorest among us don't have the options I have. This planned inflation hurts them if they stash their cash.
Der Oger,
I'd add two additional things:
My little ol' granny wouldn't have known much about #4, but people who study bureaucracies would agree with you. These agencies eventually evolve into self-propagating purposes.
As for #3 I think she would have said "small, stupid fish". I recall clearly a story about her being upset one day when she discovered many television sets in the back of her grocers shop. The shop was a front that was supposed to make actual money, but NOT buying and selling televisions. Any cop who happened to get a peak would have known exactly what was implied. The story I was told involved her chewing out a partner… no doubt cussing fluently in Italian.
———
My little ol' granny was a good example of a crime rule of thumb. If you haven't been caught at it by the time you are about 40, you probably won't ever be caught at it. Experience accumulates.
If anyone wonders if that applies to Two Scoops, the answer is no. He was caught numerous times and escaped by paying. LOTS of people knew damn well what he was doing.
@Dr Brin, re: Superstar
As I've said before, JCSS was this Jewish boy's first exposure to the particulars of the Christian mythos, and I admit that it forever colored my interpretation of the Christ story. I'm no expert on the actual New Testament, whereas I have had the lyrics to Superstar memorized since fifth grade. So, I'm better at commenting on the musical itself than at how accurately it represents the biblical version of the story.
That said...
The musical does two things which I have not seen elsewhere. It makes Judas into a three-dimensional character with plausible motivation--that messianic pretentions will lead inevitably to confrontation with Rome which the Jews will lose. And it portrays a Jesus who doesn't visibly demonstrate any supernatural powers. His "super power", as it were, is limited to an acute intuitive understanding of long term consequences. The lyrics make clear that he believes God has a terrible purpose for him, but nowhere does he seem to ascribe godhood to himself.
Thus, I disagree with your bit about proving his divinity. Maybe that makes sense in the biblical or historical narrative, but in that particular play, Jesus wasn't claiming godhood. His followers believed it of him, and the authorities reacted to that belief, but it was not his own belief, nor did he claim it to be. When he answers, "That's what you say. You say that I am," he's asserting that all they've got is hearsay.
My interpretation of the Jesus of the musical is that he understood his ultimate fate on the road he was on, and that he knew it was important to see it through to its horrific conclusion (that is, horrific for himself), not because he was God, but because the story that would ensue following his death would be transformative. The flash-forwards to modern Christianity in the play, including the climatic number as he's led to the cross, are what he knew he was dying for.
"Did you know your messy death would be a record-breaker?" Yes, he did, or at least he believed. And that's what it was all for.
“Able was I ere I saw Elba”
Putin is so astute, he could be smuggled across the border after undergoing cosmetic surgery. Maybe the Chinese will help him do so. We usually underestimate the abilities of he, Trump, and their handlers.
Defeating Trump this November is our task this year; that is plan A; plan B is deciding what to do if he wins the election. A general strike is risky, yet it might be preferable to the Putinization of the US. Or part of it.
Decisions, decisions, no wonder citizens are nostalgic for the ‘50s—the decision to make was whether to vote for Ike or Stevenson.
Unknown I do not base my comment about the Sanhendron priests on them being unhypocritically faithful servants. I base it on the self-interest of men who find themselves facing a fellow who can freaking raise the dead! His refusal to show any of the Galilee miracles to them is portrayed for 2000 years as THEIR fault. In what way?
LH: “Jesus wasn't claiming godhood.”
Oh I agree. He’d likely be horrified by all the Greek add-ons. Still he DID claim authority based on visible miracles and hence should have shown some in the Temple.
AB: I no worry re a General Strike by us’ns. I worry where the McVeighs will strike if Trump meets Appomattox.
Okay, this is snarky, ironic, filled with both intellect and terrific cynicism and… very strangely… hope.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vtxghkJOAU
Dr Brin:
Still he DID claim authority based on visible miracles and hence should have shown some in the Temple.
In the Bible maybe. You know that better than I do. In the Superstar musical, the most authority he claimed is that the crowd loved him.
Jesus of that play did two things which are ridiculously counter-productive if his goal was to avoid crucifixion. His refusal to prove or deny his godhood. And his Trump-like angering of his judge. The first, because had he denied being God or God's Son, he probably would have been let off with a stern warning, or at most a flogging. The second, because he thwarted Pilate's attempts to let him off the hook at every turn.
The only way the actions of that character Jesus make sense is if he "knew the path we're riding," and understood the necessity of it going down that way.
* * *
I worry where the McVeighs will strike if Trump meets Appomattox.
"Worry" in the sense of plan countermeasures. If we "worry" in the sense of appeasement of the Brownshirts, then the terrorists win.
The Warlord of Kalgan endorses The Mule. Or something like that:
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2024/Items/Mar07-1.html
While we are on the subject of cowardice, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) yesterday endorsed Donald Trump, despite knowing that he is totally unfit to be president and despite having fought against him for years. The two men haven't spoken in over 3 years and McConnell has blamed Trump for the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. At this point, McConnell's career is almost over and instead of going out with a bang by refusing to endorse Trump and maybe having a legacy of being a turtle with a spine as well as a shell, he decided to go out with a whimper. After all, at this point there is nothing Trump could do to punish McConnell, yet McConnell still refused to put country above party. Nope, all that matters is the party. Not only is it turtles all the way down, it is also partisanship all the way down.
Every non-authoritarian pundit including Rachel Maddow and Stonekettle are saying it. There is no magic bullet or deus ex machina coming to save democracy from the Republican Party. The power and the responsibility is ours.
There is no justice. There's just us.
My e-mailed response to one part of this post on electoral-vote.com
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2024/Items/Mar07-2.html
In Thursday's post about the State of the Union, you give the interpretation of Trump's dictator remarks favored by most commentators, as if he was reassuring us that he would only act as dictator for a very short time:
"Donald Trump has said that he will be a dictator for only 1 day."
That was never my interpretation of his remark. What happened was that he was asked if there was truth to the idea floating around that he would be a dictator, and he pretended to be conciliatory by mike-dropping, "Only on day 1". The punch line was that he was faux-reassuring us that he would "only" BECOME a dictator on his first day in office (ha ha. Not before that, see. I'd "only" do it as soon as I can.).
Knowing Trump as we all do, I don't see how any other interpretation is possible.
To McConnell and Cruz:
If any man personally and viciously insulted my wife, there'd be consequences, not subservience.
I recommend watching the second part of Villeneuve's Dune.
While it diverges from the book in some aspects, it is nearer to Herberts warning on charismatic leaders and the use of belief systems to gain and maintain power.
Also, we will likely have Dune Messiah.
As for #3 I think she would have said "small, stupid fish".
I specifically meant the illegal drug market. Whenever law enforcement takes out a supplier, the hole, the power vacuum, usually is closed very fast ... by the group which can cover it fastest and most aggressively. For example, in the Netherlands, it first were local Dutch and British groups, then the Moroccans, and now the Mexican cartels who control the illegal trade.
Still in California watching the Blue States self-immolate, but returning to my bastion of 'White Rural Rage' soon:
San Francisco declared 'No Longer Progressive', California to hire foreign mercenaries to serve as Police Officers:
https://www.newsweek.com/san-francisco-progressive-votes-chronicle-1876785
https://www.sdpoa.org/sdpoa-news/in-the-media/new-california-law-allows-non-u-s-citizens-to-become-police-officers
New York City declared 'war zone' and Governor Hochul deploys National Guard, long before the commencement of the summer riot season:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/gov-kathy-hochul-sending-national-guard-members-new-york-city-subways-rcna142063
Best
Re: Transparency
I remember that the Deutsche Bank was often portrayed as a corrupt financial institution here. WireCard seems to top that.
From what we have learned now, we can assume that it's confidential payment system was used to pay for pornography, prostitution, gambling, drugs, protected witnesses, intelligence sources, used for moneylaundering and outright fraud.
The company leadership had good relations to the Russian intelligence apparatus, so we can assume that the data generated are now in the hands of the Kremlin. Jan Marsalek, an Austrian manager, seems to hide in Moskov and using the false identity of an orthodox priest; half a dozen agents reporting to him have been arrested in Great Britain on charges of espionage, probably worse.
Also, I assume that Olaf Scholz is somehow involved in this matter, as he headed the Ministry of Finances when he was part of the last Merkel administration and his house actively downplayed reports of WireCards foul play.
Nothing good about our lives: ‘Good’ would be living a low-residue ahimsa-existence in rural areas. But how you going to keep them down on the ranch, once they’ve seen Paree? Once they get a taste of the supposedly finer things.
Don’t you yourself want More? For the new improved You? Get it while you can and keep up with the Joneses. And we’ve got to keep up with the Chinese and the other Others, don’t we?
—
No one here would suggest science, engineering, business, are Moral. No defense specialist would say with a straight face weaponry is virtuous.
Your standards are too lofty—to the degree that any optimism at CB could also be considered excessive.
The illegal drugs market
The sensible thing to do is to END the stupid "War on Drugs" and decriminalize
Make all drugs legal but regulated
Alan Brooks 10:32 AM:
I am baffled by what you consider goodness and morality. Do you have standards so high that life cannot fit them? Such a critique is not a condemnation of life: it is a condemnation of standards that insane.
First off, rural areas are no better, in environmental terms, than any city. In fact cities are more ecologically responsible: they are more efficient and therefore produce less waste and disruption per person.
Next, I do say, with a straight face, that science, engineering, and business are moral. They have moralities of their own, rigorously enforced, to ensure that those social activities continue; for that is the purpose of morality. Science and engineering, in particular, are fanatical in their enforcement of norms of honesty, self-honesty, intellectual rigor, openness, and dissent against irrational authority. These are not the norms of, say, the army or the church, but different vocations can, do, and should have different norms.
Businessmen also need a morality of their own; specifically, fiduciary responsibility.
Even weaponeers say that their products are moral. Their justification is on the basis of necessity.
Sherlock Holmes had an opinion about rural morality - that out in the countryside, worse things happened that nobody ever knew about than anything that went on in a crowded city. I suspect he wasn't wrong.
Even as a teen I distrusted the main thesis of the "Weapon Shops of Isher," whose proprietors' justification was overthrowing an evil empire, but who weren't exactly discriminating on who got access to their advanced kill-o-zap guns.
Pappenheimer
Points taken, save for the final sentence: will have to think on it.
What I can’t grasp is the overlap of expediency and morality. How does one define pragmatism, and the role of virtue in a world of accelerating change?
As a layman, can’t assess the above; which is why I take Loc seriously. With his experience, the hope is that he can (not being shy with opinions) shed some light regarding these matters.
—
Anyway, decades ago, asked a grad student what the future held; he answered, “as things change, stupid people won’t understand what is going on and will become violent.”
Simplistic reply, yes—yet it was... illuminating.
"as things change, stupid people won’t understand what is going on and will become violent."
Willing to accept that as a thesis. No answer that Heinlein's future history has us in the middle of a rise of religious fanaticism. Fundamentalism is the antithesis to rapid social change, and has grown without reference to specific religion - it simplifies the world. The synthesis, to go all Hegelian, is violence.
Pappenheimer
* should be "no accident," not "no answer". Can't even blame autocorrect.
Pappenheimer
Oh-oh. We're going to talk about Yeats now, aren't we?
(I just can't resist using and reusing that great line from RED PLANET)
Watching the State of the Union, specifically at speaker Mike Johnson sitting behind the president.
"The rod up that man's butt must have a rod up its butt."
Re the dismal future
We (this blog) are all (I believe) old fogeys - when we were growing up crime and violence was increasing - this fed the futures that our favorite authors wrote about
That CHANGED when we took the lead out of petrol
But we were brought up with that worldview - so we continue to see things through that awful prism
Its our generation that is now the problem - the MAGA's and the various oligarchs
I personally have high hopes for the future !!
No, not the blood-dimmed is loosed. But we can all agree that we don’t want to be near a Federal building come April 19th- 20th.
I have to agree with Paradoctor when it comes to ethics of some of our subcultures. I tend to cast it all in the form of virtue ethics instead of norms, so it comes out as us knowing when we've met a person of good or bad character. Ponder what a 'scientist of good character' does and I'll bet you have opinions that align with what are essentially the standard virtues cast in their jargon. Same goes for businessperson, engineer, etc.
If you can identify 'virtues' and can probably identify 'vices' and that will give you the core elements of an ethics system similar to Aristotle's.
Going by Locism, what would the definition of a cult be? For starters, how much of allopathic and naturopathic is cult-like? Is chiropractic a cult?...
What is the role of placebo in all forms of medicine?...
Joe kicked ass and took names last night.
Not bad for an old guy.
Best line: The supreme court is going to find out that women are not without political power.
My favorite part is when Joe described how the GOP hypocritically killed a border bill written by a conservative republican, who nodded in agreement with Joe mouthing the words "that's true".
And then the GOP had a Stepford wife deliver their rebuttal (mostly about the border which would have been fixed by their own bill that they killed).
From her kitchen.
Where they want all women to stay.
Bring on November bitches.
Alan,
Trump's cult is all about fear.
Fascinating video detailing how Trump uses fear to control his followers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ATe-NBkGhw
(skip to 3:11 to avoid commercial)
The Republican party is the party of fear. If you were to ask a Republican, they would tell you America is imminently at risk of foreign attack, being actively invaded by immigrants who are committing heinous crimes on every street corner, and ruled by elites and communists who want to take down every last red blooded patriot in this country until there are none left. And these fears are being stoked by Donald Trump and right wing media because they know that fear means power. But this didn’t start with Trump. Fear is an ingredient baked into the fabric of our political system.
And there’s a reason why this works particularly well for conservative politicians. Researchers have found that people who are more sensitive to threats and more wary of the unfamiliar, tend to be more politically conservative. We’ve known this for decades. A 1973 book titled The Psychology of Conservativism wrote “The common basis for all the various components of the conservative attitude syndrome is a generalized susceptibility to experiencing threat or anxiety in the face of uncertainty.” Once that fearful mind has been activated, it’s ready to look for clues and patterns across any political debates, whether it’s immigrants coming to replace us all, refugees as terrorists, or rising crime rates as a threat to your own children, and social change as a threat to your way of life, when someone like Trump has managed to activate that fear center, it can be applied to just about anything. And people are looking for something, some other, to displace those fears and those anxieties. And they’re looking for a powerful leader who can point them in the right direction and give them the answers they’re looking for.
“fear and paranoia are extremely important tools for a cult leader like Jim Jones or dare I say Donald Trump." Amanda Montell, author of Cultish and host of the podcast Sounds Like a Cult, likens Trump and his language of fear and manipulation to the tactics used
by notorious cult leaders like Jim Jones. "Because you've become so easy to manipulate when you're kind of in that constant state of fight or flight . . . if you mistrust everything around you, except for this one leader, you're going to be very easy to manipulate." Like Jim Jones, whose followers infamously died in a group poisoning meant to free them from the evil forces coming to attack them, Trump has managed to whip up his followers into a frenzy about numerous evil forces working against them, many of which are abstract yet still pose an immediate and real threat. To the point where they were willing to stage an insurrection in his name. “ I think their justification for it was we are following orders from someone we worship
who has promised to save us.
MAGA is no different than Jim Jones' kool-aid drinking followers in Jonestown.
When Trump loses, they will turn violent/suicidal.
DP:
Joe kicked ass and took names last night.
And Mike Johnson behind him might as well have been a cardboard cutout for all the expression he managed to show. Fond memories of Nancy Pelosi tearing up Trump's printout.
DP:
When Trump loses, they will turn violent/suicidal.
I vote for option #2.
* * *
Oh, and Stephanie Miller just said, "Speaker Johnson looked like his son had just discovered his porn stash."
Heard on Stephanie Miller's radio show...
"As an ice-breaker, Biden should have announced that there are subpoenas taped to the bottom of the seats of those about to be indicted for sedition, just to see who looks."
Comedian John Fuglsang on Stephanie Miller's radio show...
"Republicans are socialists now, because last night, they were publicly owned."
I heartily agree. Dune 2 was terrific, got the "feel" right even though it cut A LOT of the political intrigue bc that would be HARD to convey in a single film you'd need a Netflix prestige TV project with a massive budget to closely follow the book
DP, Amanda Marcotte isn't a rational source. She's a hateful vilification pundit who lives by damaging the republic and whipping up hate against undeserving targete
Btw, been gone 4 awhile bc I am back in Kansas City. My Dad officially hit 100 yo TODAY!!!
So you really think all Republicans want all women to be barefoot and pregnant? I think that's a gross distortion.
One of the reasons I'm waving my more conservative side flag, is I'm back in my old KC neighborhood and it still is a bastion of well-educated, affluent but "reasonable conservatives."
It is interesting to be here, bc today, a lot of people would say this place reeks of white privilege, except its A LOT more diverse than when I was growing up.
A TON of Asians here now. Was shocked at the massive size of the Asian grocery.
John Viril:
though it cut A LOT of the political intrigue bc that would be HARD to convey in a single film
This is more about Part 1, but is there some reason this movie and its 1984 predecessor made a point of not including the banquet scene immediately prior to the Harkonnen invasion? It's almost like they not only cut back on the personal/political intrigue, but relished in avoiding any of it.
John V welcome back in both senses. I find that even my ‘reasonable Republican’ friends are now wallowing in deslusions. Especially “I know my party has gone insane, but… but… but dems are worse! Yeah, that’s the ticket.” Als, just like MAGAs, they refuse cash wagers over any of it.
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DP I agree that generality encompasses a lot of conservatives… though leaving out the added factor of sanctimony addiction,,, which also afflicts (alas) our left.
The thing about the left though is CHAUVINISM for their tribe! Their tribe is not America, it is the American Project of each generation pushing to expand the boundaries of inclusion and for each individual to have the power to redefine her/him/their/aer/meer/wut/krelm/zwhee-self.
Those two projects were deemed crazy by ALL other societies and strike many in America as crazy when taken to in-yer-face extreme. While I AGREE with those two overall projects(!) and fight for it, daily, I refuse to accept its frothing versions that emerge from sanctimony addiction/tribalism replacing any trace of common sense.
“When Trump loses, they will turn violent/suicidal.” Stay home April 17-21.
Speaking of April, have convinced spouse to roll the weather dice* on driving to TX prior to 4/8/24...I think you said you were eclipse-hunting in the area? Got a bucket list item to check off.
Pappenheimer
*Been looking over climo for East Texas in April and it's not really conducive to less than 3/8 cloud cover
John,
"...all Republicans want all women to be barefoot and pregnant? I think that's a gross distortion."
Yeah, depends on where you live. I'd recommend Northern Idaho if you want to see MAGA-majority districts. I concede there are Country Club Republicans out there, but they aren't stopping the wackaloons; in fact, most of the 'moderate' - and here I mean "not actually crazy" - GQP leadership has either knuckled under to rumpt, or announced their intent to retire.
I'm glad to hear that you consider diversity good, but the GQP prospective presidential nominee has announced his intent to revive a Moslem ban and set up vast camps to house millions of illegal immigrants prior to expulsion. If I had Pilipino ancestry I'd be wary of celebrating this. They aren't talking about sniffing out Irish and Scandinavian visa-holders who've stayed past their expiration date. Their goal is a 95-99% white country, the one Loc fantasizes about, though they are willing to accept Irish = white these days.
Oh, and welcome back!
Pappenheimer
John Viril:
So you really think all Republicans want all women to be barefoot and pregnant? I think that's a gross distortion.
It does seem to be the case for Republican office-seekers and office-holders.
Pappenheimer misunderstands Van Vogt, as the whole idea behind the Weapon Shops was one of perpetual 'check & balance' and the maintenance of a permanent adversarial relationship between the ruling House of Isher & the Weapon Shops, all in order to protect the freedoms of its citizenry, as is the case for the 3 branch format of the US federal government.
I suspect Papp only pretends to misunderstand this in order to justify the US Democrat Party's attempt to subsume SCOTUS in order to gain absolute & tyrannical authority over all three branches of US government, a circumstance that absolutely cannot & must not happen if we are to remain a free people.
Van Vogt makes this point in no uncertain terms by arguing that it is the ADVERSITY (non-concordance) between the various government branches that allows us to be free, as government unity & unanimity can only result in tyranny, and Dr. Brin echoes this analysis with his proposed responses to the threats posed by AI & the surveillance state.
Unity & Unanimity result in TYRANNY and this, my friends, is the fatal flaw in Globalism and one of the reasons why this blog is called 'Contrary Brin'.
Best
I truly like the show PBS Space Time. It’s for folks like you and me. Very informative and in-depth and fascinating. (even the advert at the end is way cool.) In this case, the topic is one I spoke to, in the classic show LIFE AFTER PEOPLE. What traces of our civilization’s tenure on Earth might be detectable in the near, middle and far future eras – after we are gone? And might civilizations ‘clean up’ signs of their presence, in order to make that kind of detection more difficult? Perhaps by dumping the ‘dross’ of their cities and other messes into plate-subduction zones, the ultimate recycling system? As I show in BRIGHTNESS REEF? (You’d love it! Plug.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyEWLhOfLgQ
DP,
I was being loc-quacious. Coming from a Platonically-idealistic, no true/pure Scotsman viewpoint. We get it all the time from MAGAs, Communists, Libertarians...
You’ve got to admit Loc has what it takes to push our buttons; there was a fellow whose handle was ‘premise checker’, long ago, who challenged premises in much the same way. Sometimes convincing, but who isn’t?
—
Plan A is to keep tRump in Florida; if he wins the election, we’ll have to devise Plan B—
fast-like. And we might have to admit that Ukraine won’t get its Eastern territories returned. I don’t want to think about the Mideast: what self-lacerater does wish to think about the Mideast?
It’s almost as if we are back in the ‘40s, with Russia fighting in the Ukraine; Middle Eastern actors fighting the ‘48 war; America fighting Dewey v Roosevelt...
Also fatal flaws in
tribalism and ultranationalism.
Stonekettle on Threads, commenting on the State of the Union:
https://www.threads.net/@stonekettle
Biden believes in making the world a better place for us all. More: that the world CAN be a better place, and that humanity is worth the effort.
Republicans believe the world is a flaming shithole, they intend to make it worse, and we all deserve it.
Vote accordingly.
Gattaca is one of my favorites. Argued genes simplv don't account for obsessive "want to." My favorite Matthew Modinr movie....which I like better than the stylish Stanley Kubrick classic Full Metal Jacket
Bitcoin splits April 24, and historically, Bitcoin splits are followed by sharp price rises across the board in crypto. So I think the demand is people trying to speculate on the upcoming split.
I don't know, probably not enough action Btw, I loved that banquet scene in the book.
Dune 2 had a slow pace so u could feel the cultural difference of the desert and the Fremen, yet--- despite its 2:46 runtime it doesn't drag at all.
Also has a lot of desert visuals with a Lawrence of Arabia vibe. Definitely worth seeing on the big screen. Does a lot with audio to get across the absolute Titanic power of a desert sandworm
Dune Part 1 was the first movie we saw in theaters after the COVID lockdowns were lifting and it looked as if the pandemic would soon be behind us. I think we might have seen another movie or two in a theater since then, but I can't recall anything specific. We didn't even see Barbenheimer until the movies were on video.
God willing and the creek don't rise, my wife and I plan to see Dune Part 2 in a theater tonight.
But what did Marcus Welby know about these issues?
First, the prior 1984 Dune film adaption was beyond horrible, the most recent Dune1 film was slow & tedious with some impressive special effects, and both sucked when compared to the 2000 Israeli miniseries adaption starring Alec Newman.
Second, Marcus Welby was fictional, obsolete by the time the show aired & knows bugger all about anything, as this character was based on the quaint autobiography of Dr. Thomas Sterne, available under the title 'House Calls: Recollections of a Family Physician,' that relates pleasant vignettes of Sterne's Oregonian Primary Care practice that predated health insurance, managed care, welfare, Medicare, Medicaid, the NHS & all other government abominations by a huge margin.
To summarize:
(1) The Dune film adaptions = terrible; and
(2) the Marcus Welby archetype = dead, long gone & fictional.
Best
Trump plays host to Hungary's Victor Orban, who is Putin's intermediary. I hope some of the Secret Service agents on Trump's entourage are also in the FBI. Especially since:
"The Logan Act (1 Stat. 613, 18 U.S.C. § 953, enacted January 30, 1799) is a United States federal law that criminalizes negotiation by unauthorized American citizens with foreign governments having a dispute with the United States. On January 30, 1799, the Logan Act was thus passed by the U.S. Congress to prevent any individual from corresponding with a foreign government without permission from the U.S. government."
Of course Reagan violated the Logan Act, when he treasonously dickered for the Ayatollahs to hold onto the US hostages till Carter could be defeated. Side note: those engaging in METI - beaming 'messages' to ET - are also engaging in illegal negotiation with foreign powers.
onward
onward
Of course Welby was fictional. But his character wisely did not discuss international politics—of which he knew little.
But I’m as negative as you, though in a different way; thus rather than concluding with ‘Onward!’ at this thread, you and I will finish with ‘Downward!’
Thinking about it, Christ is asking people to kill...Themselves!
It’s about self-sacrifice and love being equivalent (as matter and energy are equivalent). This is what I understand it to be—and as far as I can go in expressing what it might be.
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