Finished reading: Before Religion by Brent Nongbri 📚
Stay Awake
The intended effects of social networks for the sake of wealth ought to be the lens through which we look at AI. At their beginning we were told of all the good things social networks provide, and they did do that for a while, but then the wealth generation went in to hyper drive. We have no reason to believe the motivations towards more and more AI is not the same wealth generation. And since there can only be one most wealthiest person on earth, that leads to not caring about the negative impacts on the rest of the world.
A potentially helpful question to ponder when thinking about where all this AI “stuff” is going. Think of the songs that you have heard in your life, do those songs stand out because they sound good and are entertaining or do they stand out because you connect to the lyrics and relate what they convey? Perhaps that connection has also leads to feeling like you know the song writer, or better yet that the song writer knows you.
Bob Nystrom’s blog post, The Value of Things, inspired the question. Perhaps a way to combat the nihilism of AI is consciousness. Most times we are unconscious, which is like hearing music and simply enjoying the sound, while times we are conscious enough to hear and relate to the words. The risk of AI is the decrease in the amount of time that we are conscious, so perhaps working on our own consciousness is a method to combating the affects of AI.
Dave says, We Are All Good Germans Now, and I get his point but while he is using metaphor, there is an actual act made by the United States for which we all Americans should feel is our birthright shame. The United States is the only nation on earth to drop a nuclear weapon on another nation, and this reality, which is our shame, is how most of the world sees us. Consider the reason why you never hear U.S. politicians suggest attacking North Korea.
Ever since World War II U.S. citizens have been told to fear the possibility of other countries dropping nuclear weapons on us, while the rest of the world knows the U.S. has and thus is willing to drop nuclear weapons on them.
I agree with this representative in pushing back against those who want to make light of the recent threats the President made. The consequences of not taking a mad man seriously is that the mad man being emboldened to keeping and someday following through. Fear does not lead to greatness.
I wonder, is this how everyone felt during the Cuban misile crisis? I think not enough people are paying attention to what is going on and what might happen in the next 24 hours. We don’t want to face the reality is that the script has flipped and the United States, we, us, are the bad guys. I know it’s hard for my generation to admit this given how much post World War II programming we all received, but understand all that you were told to fear about the USSR, that is now how the children of the world today are now being told about the US. And they would be right.
Seeking Purity Denies The Cross
Today, on Holy Saturday, Christians are in the between times of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, and for those so inclined a time such as this can be a good time to wonder, just what is this all about and where is it that we are going.
As a life long Christian I can’t help but feel a sense of deja vu, here we are once again at Easter and then days and months will pass and the liturgical calendar will start all over again. And I wonder some times, what is the point? Is humanity evolving in any way through this repetition?
This beautiful spring day was also the home opener for the Detroit Tigers.
Very cool dashboard for the Artemis II mission around the moon. There is so much more technology now than when we last traveled to the moon 50 years ago, including our ability to check in on the voyage via the Internet. I wasn’t home to watch the launch on TV but I got a notification on my phone about it and was able to watch the launch on my phone sitting in a strip mall parking lot.
Welcome the first daffodils of the season.
When you know what one has done in the past you cannot be surprised when he does it again. Politics as usual will prevent us from conducting the self assessment of how Trump was reelected in the first place because that says more about ourselves than were might be willing to face. Meanwhile we have to survive the next three years and that is not assured.