First thing I noticed when I started my walk this morning is the number of squirrels out and about. Temps are going above normal today, and they seem gleeful.
I have started the final segment, which is Maine, of the Appalachian Trail in the Walk The Distance app. I started walking the distance of the Appalachian Trail on July 24, 2022 and since then I have walked 1,770 miles. I have 254.2 miles left.
Finished reading: Strange Rites by Tara Isabella Burton 📚
I think the biggest consequence to what Om predicts is a potential shift in how we direct young people toward professions that provide for a good life. (aka “the American dream”). When I grew up, and I think it is still the case, it was implied that the best professions, in most cases defined as the ones for which there is a greatest income potential, are white collar, which are the type of jobs at risk. The attack on unions starting in the 1980’s to just recently implied such “blue collar/union” jobs are “less than” non-union, white collar jobs. The huge wealth gap in the United States is a consequence of this direction, which has also transformed the U.S. economy from manufacturing to services. It appears that AI has the potential to force a re-calibration of what we consider good jobs, ironically through the same automation that eliminated so many blue collar jobs during the last thirty years.
Om Malik’s blog post about AI has an interesting chart from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Outlook Handbook that predicts the fastest growing jobs over the next eight years. It is sorted by percentage difference, but you need to look at the actual number of jobs created, which are in thousands. Wind turbine service technicians is second on the list but that amounts to only about 5,000 jobs. The list also includes athletes (7th) and umpires/referees (10th).
After the American Revolution was over and time came to decide how we were to govern ourselves, some might have wished to make George Washington a king. If you know U.S. History or have seen Hamilton you should appreciate the irony of the possibility of replacing one King George with another. And yet, many people, particularly conservatives, in the U.S. today view the President as their benevolent dictator. Tom Nichols, writing for The Atlantic, rightly points out how we view the Presidency, particularly I think since the Reagan years, has lead us to our current state in which the founding principle of liberty for all is not really a factor. Current Republican conservatives no longer appear to put traditional American values above everything. I fear we will get the government that we ask for/deserve.
In 2005 in McCreary County v. ACLU, Sandra Day O’Connor tendered the decisive vote to hold unconstitutional a Kentucky courthouse’s Ten Commandments display, she asks: “Those who would renegotiate the boundaries between church and state must therefore answer a difficult question: Why would we trade a system that has served us so well for one that has served others so poorly?��� She introduced the “endorsement test,” which reinforced the establishment clause principle that the government may not support a particular religious viewpoint and, instead, must endeavor to be neutral toward religion. Source: scotusblog.com
Finished reading: Romans for Normal People by J. R. Daniel Kirk 📚
“Whatever you trust to validate you and secure you is your real god, and the Gospel is saying, “Will the real God please stand up?””
— Preparing for Christmas: Daily Meditations for Advent by Richard Rohr a.co/cTaY4f0
It’s 60 degrees outside!
Every day that the sun is shining during winter is a good weather day.
“When people say piously, “Thy kingdom come” out of one side of their mouth, they need also to say, “My kingdom go!” out of the other side. The kingdom of God supersedes and far surpasses all kingdoms of self and society or personal reward.”
— Preparing for Christmas: Daily Meditations for Advent by Richard Rohr a.co/3baQRCo
Google dropped the December Feature update for their Pixel products that includes new watch faces that are already available in the Watch app on my phone. I’ve added the Adventure face to my watch. I also took a look at the tiles and found new Spotify tiles including one for their DJ that I am trying out. One surprise is that the Spotify Wear OS app does not know about my Google Nest products but it does now my Amazon Echos.
Seems to me that the 2023 college football “playoff” decision that picked Texas and Alabama over undefeated Florida State is strong evidence for lawsuits filed against the NCAA that claim athletes should be treated as employees. The selection was made for the sake of producing the best “made for TV event” rather than on competitive results, in other words, it was a business decision. Call it what it is, figure skating style judgement decisions, not a playoff, and stop calling the ultimate winner a national champion when you limit the competitors to a subset of the overall field.
I think most people intuitively know the corruptible nature of wealth, and that is why they don’t trust any of our institutions. We see any report from a media outlet as simply a vehicle for making money. We believe doctors prescribe drugs that they get paid to push. We believe lawmakers only exist to pass laws for companies from which they have already been paid via lobbyists. Yet, we buy the idea that a corruptible private entity is better than a public one and so we want a government that does nothing in favor of corporations doing everything and consequently we don’t favor publicly funded research. In my opinion the what we saw play out this past month with OpenAI is trying to graft the idea of a public good on to a capitalistic entity and that is incompatible because profits will drive every decision.
When Feeling Better Trumps Being Better
I am reading Jonathan Haidt’s article in The Atlantic, The Coddling of the American Mind, and I am wondering whether the hypersensitivity to emotional wellbeing Haidt describes can be somewhat attributed to our associating gun violence to mental illness over the last several decades. Mental illnesses are real but I think are diminished when we start tossing out the term as being the cause to all our ills. Perhaps it would not be an issue if we actually did something about mental illness, but I think we mostly talk about it. Our unwillingness to actually address problems and instead simply focus on symptoms is teaching generations of people that symptoms are actually the problems when they are not.
What Haidt does not address in the article is how hypercapitalism, which is the practice in the United States of prioritizing wealth over everything, contributes to the problem. We have many religions in the United States, but I think capitalism is the one that rules them all. The religion of capitalism preaches that there are to be no restraints on one’s ability to be wealthy and thus it teaches that the ends justify the means.
Manipulating emotions may be the number one tool of generating wealth in the United States. Marketing and advertising is emotional manipulation for the purpose of selling products, the buying of which produces wealth. Advertising is all about coveting that which another has and thus has existed ever since humans became aware of their surroundings. Technology continually optimizes advertising and today’s targeted and viral ads are extremely effective at making us covet.
No popular church nor religion in the United States truly teaches the dangers of wealth. Who preaches and teaches enough is better than more? Heck, the “ministers” of many of the most well known churches in the United States are themselves extremely wealthy. Yet, Christianity claims association to Jesus who plainly taught of these dangers. The consequence is that we live in a society that actually encourages the practice of one profiting off the suffering of another.
Children are immersed practically from the moment of birth in emotions, and our religions teach them how to feel better. The pursuit of happiness is a treadmill for the more and the idea that there is enough for all to be happy is considered un-American. We are frogs floating in warm pot of water and the temperature is increasing toward death.
Seems to me there ought to be one simple message broadcast large, wide, and far, and that is to not trust anything on X, the site formally known as Twitter. Nor trust Facebook, Instagram, or any other social network. If you read something that is making you angry, consider for a moment that is intentional to extract money and may nor not be based on fact. Either way, the best action to take is no reaction.
The epitome of a gray day.
Notice that the version of Feedland Dave is built to be hosted by Wordpress is at feedland.com.
Article recently published lists the metro Detroit intersections with the most crashes during 2022. I live near, and thus frequently drive through, numbers six and nine on the top ten list. Both of these intersections are rounds, which I like but note that nearly everyone drives through the rounds too quickly. If they really wanted to decrease the crashes at these points they would install cameras with automatic ticketing.