Am I important?

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This post is about the issue of self worth. But first, mariner’s comment on trends in automation as presented by Wiley’s desk calendar:

Perhaps the Egyptians had it right all along – hieroglyphics.

 

֎ Having read the USA Today article about how mail was delivered by boat to Lake Geneva residents and how important that was to their sense of community, Mariner came to realize how the shifts in many social confrontations from mail delivery to Social Security, senior citizen support, family security and future job security can challenge a person’s sense of security within themselves. The smartphone, too, exposes the ego to damaging information, conversations and distorts behavioral relations. Even conversations between friends and family, split by defensive opinions, confronts an individual’s self-evaluation.

Humans, despite their self-declared independence from all natural processes, are an anatomical creature that first evolved 300,000 years ago – the first ‘Homo’. Homo is a herding creature – just like cows and sheep and horses and monkeys and fish, etc . Homo is embedded with conscious, subconscious and learned behavior that will, whether desired or not, identify their place in the herd. ‘Herd’ is a desire to associate with others and can be a family, neighborhood, community, region, nation or global population.

Using our peripheral vision, one has a thought that perhaps there are too many people in the United States which causes imbalances in the herd; perhaps one senses that, with all the industrial, technical and agricultural advances since the 16th century, none has provided enough loaves of bread for everyone at the same time. Imbalances in role, privilege and opportunity emerge within the herd that will affect one’s sense of value and place as a member of the herd.

Two tropes are an independent force on the members of the herd: “Survival of the fittest” and “Power corrupts”. These are eccentric behaviors that go beyond their intended role in herd wellbeing and occur when the herd is distressed.

How does one measure their acceptance and satisfaction within the herd?

⇒ Do you have a positive feeling about your role in your family? Do you feel members respect and care about you? Do you feel responsible for their well being? Do you feel that you can respond to their needs?

⇒ Do the people in your daily life, especially your neighbors, show companionship and acceptance? Does your presence (home, dress, community participation) seem to be in accord with the neighborhood?

⇒ Does your income meet your expenses? Do you feel your financial future is sustainable? Be clear about this – is insecurity the result of your behavior or is it the behavior of others? Every herd member owes allegiance to the herd but does the herd treat you accordingly?

⇒ Are you confident about who you are in this world? While the herd is supposed to be a source of survival in difficult times, do you feel you can survive by changing your association with the herd?

⇒ Do you have a satisfactory personal life that has companionship, entertainment through hobbies and group activities?

֎ All these comparisons are built from conscious and subconscious feelings as well as social and financial circumstances. Feel free to engage friends and family to clarify relationships that seem improper. It is important, as well, to take a long look at the herd. Things may be askew for peripheral reasons. Knowing about them may help shape your own survival skills.

The MAGA surge is the result of herd disrespect and abuse over the last forty years. Obviously they feel the herd has not respected their contribution.

Ancient Mariner

 

 

 

 

It’s about identity

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Mariner may be considered a romantic when it comes to honoring the unique identity of individuals, families, communities, etc. Often, even more than often, he has attacked modern cultural trends because all of them, especially the internet, are erasing self identity and personal worth – replacing it with non-human industry and technology and enforcing standardized, minion-like identities.

A daily tradition for him is checking the morning news. This morning he found a USA Today article on AOL’s news strip the subject of which was the plight of the US Postal Service. In great clarity, it speaks to mariner’s concern about individual worth and identity, indeed the whole concept of individuality. He strongly urges the reader to read it at

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/03/30/postal-service-changes-doge-musk/82696231007/

It is a colorful example of “Who am I” versus “Who does the corporate world think I am”.

Thanks for reading the article. Check it out today – it is a daily news item and may be gone tomorrow.

Ancient Mariner

 

Peripheral vision is important

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The Atlantic magazine had a piece about what’s behind Trump irritating Greenland. The bigger perspective is what is important rather than Trump’s shenanigans about “buying” Greenland at any cost. From the magazine:

“As polar ice melts away, superpowers are vying for newly open shipping routes in the Arctic Ocean and largely unexplored mineral and fossil-fuel reserves. Arctic warming could pose a direct threat to America’s security interests too: Alaska could have new vulnerabilities to both China and Russia; changes in ocean salinity and temperature might interfere with submarine detection systems; the extremes of climate change, including permafrost thaw in Russia, could drive economic instability, social unrest, and territorial claims.

During the Biden administration, the U.S. military and NATO had both started to treat global warming in the Arctic as a matter of real military concern. Whether that will continue under Trump is an open question. Even as the president has tried to erase U.S.-government action on climate change, when he talks about Greenland, he’s tacitly acknowledging that rising temperatures are rapidly changing that part of the world—and U.S. interests there.”

This is an example of peripheral vision because it encompasses four large issues: global warming and international economics as the world economy suffers under the changes brought by AI and the changes brought by natural resource shortages. One could spend days talking about each issue independently but in this case, the four together add clarity to every issue.

Another example is the increasing frequency of earthquakes and volcanoes, two terrible human experiences that can wipe out small nations. The two peripheral issues are global warming and the Earth’s behavior as a planet in the Solar System. On the one hand, global warming is having a chemical effect on the planet. Subterranean gases like Methane have begun to escape into the atmosphere or explode underground and can be the fuse to begin an eruption; warm oceans affect temperatures of the floor under them. This is caused largely by global warming. Geologists have mentioned that the largest volcano in the world, located in Antarctica, is rumbling.

On the other hand, the Earth’s rotation is becoming an issue because the molten core is spinning faster than the surface. Mariner has written earlier about this circumstance which will increase earthquakes and volcanoes and in the future will cause a compass reversal at the poles – something that already can be evidenced in the Baltic Sea and the South Atlantic where reports of compass irregularities have been reported.

Many issues in life that are not in the news may be dealt with more efficiently if one looks peripherally at the issue. Odds are more than one condition may make an issue perplexing. Further, using peripheral vision also exercises one’s comprehension of life in general.

Ancient Mariner

New things

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This is very personal information about your body. Your body has 800,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 cells. If the reader doesn’t know how to say 26 zeroes, it is eight hundred million billion billion. Interestingly, the vast majority of these cells are self directed and do not need independent information from outside the cell.

This post is about changes in the world of science. It also is because mariner doesn’t watch television much except for science documentaries and has more time to spend searching the internet to find answers to useless questions like ‘how many cells are in the human body?’

All the fields of science are changing procedures to leverage AI except mathematics itself which already is procedural except for the old theoretical issues. For example, the Rieman theory about prime numbers which was first asked in the middle 1800s.

Astrophysicists have become troubled about basic theories of the universe. For example, the gravitational role of black matter doesn’t seem to be correct given new AI technology.

In economics, the moneyed class is all agog about cryptocurrency as an investment because it is identical to dollar bills which are owned by the Federal Government, thereby reducing the risk of investment. In principal, cryptocurrency is an electronic paper dollar. At this point, although they are popular, corporate organizations like Bitcoin are not proven for safety. A bit of interesting information from a February 2020 post: … “the citizens of Kenya in 2007 became the first country to launch ‘mobile money’ transfer service through a cell phone provider that plays the role of a money exchange. Swapped phone to phone, no bank is necessary.”

Mariner already has commented on the use of minions to counsel small children and the return of in-home doctor visits (not really, the doctor is a Meta deepfake connected to a Google database).

In a lengthy diatribe he has predicted the end of democracy because AI is all about singular authority over broad expanses of human life from economics to interpersonal skills.

In the field of chemistry mariner watched a PBS documentary about how scientists already have mastered methods to manufacture RNA (RiboNucleic Acid) for any specific purpose – picking a future child’s hair color, height and nose type for example. Farmers already use an especially made RNA that duplicates the sexual perfume of a female butterfly. It is sprayed over an entire field of corn so that the male butterfly cannot determine the proximity of a female butterfly. If the reader ever eats an ear of corn and feels the urge to have sex with a butterfly, this is why.

The smartphone is the RNA of AI. Its functions are creeping into everything from automobiles to watches to whom one should marry, what to wear today and which cookie to buy – all of which are based on which sponsor is supporting the website. The other side of this behavior is what the reader doesn’t hear about, like other brands of cookies and dating partners who have been screened out because they don’t match the types of partners the database thinks the reader should like.

Donald who? Mariner has other things to think about: how long will it be before humans are warmblooded minions?

Is Harris’ first name really Pamela?

Ancient Mariner

 

First sign of positive movement

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Recent news sources covered some new political action that may be the first positive sign of a transition out of the conflagration everyone experiences today. The new action is a sudden boldness by middle-liberal democrats to launch campaigns against incumbent democrats. If we were gardeners waiting for signs of Spring, this would be like noticing that first tiny leaf poking through. There still may be a frost – but the leaf is a good omen.

Our intuitions tell us that the current democratic party has been headless since Barrack Obama. Not that Joe Biden was a failure but everyone assumed he would restore leadership in his one term then let the new leadership run in the next election. Kamala Harris wasn’t a substitute.

Everyone has watched a few progressives try to fight the republican conservatism; examples are Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez but the current news is about a group of democrats forming a unified effort to remove older, less aggressive democrats. The common complaint is that the elected officials are not standing up to the Trump challenge. An example is the challenge to Chuck Shumer for backing the budget bill.

When one waits to change their underwear until after they are on the bus, it will be a blatant fiasco. The US government is trying to change underwear that needed changing forty years ago. As evil and self-centered as Trump is, he is a causative force that says change the underwear NOW! The trick is to not wear Trump’s choice of underwear.

Today’s news is not enough to change anything but at least there is hope that Spring may come.

Ancient Mariner

 

Another perspective

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Regular readers know mariner is blessed to be married to the best poet ever to not be published. A few posts ago the focus was on the reintroduction of the Woolly Mammoth as a hairy mouse. It reminded him of a poem his wife wrote reflecting a different philosophy about living:

Leavings

I sweep up the leavings of sunflower seeds

left behind by a mouse

whose fate was snapped like its neck

in a trap that I had set.

I am glad that he had the thrill of satiety

when he found the bag of sunflower seeds

He was a millionaire among mice

in that moment of his big find.

I am glad that he did not know

his life would be cut short because of it.

Surely in that last moment there was no time for fear

And that snap too quick for pain.

He had perhaps the best that life can offer

in a little life–the warmth of a basement in winter

an endless pile of food, a quick and merciful death.

Or do I deceive myself?

His was not a little life, no smaller than my own.

Like me, he wanted more than comfort, warmth and food

He sought those things because they brought him more life

And more life was what I deprived him of.

MKM

1-19-19

 

Social Security

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Mariner hasn’t commented on the Trump tornado, choosing to stay with Nosey Mole in his underground abode. But Social Security is an issue that must be openly talked about  by everyone. Time is short, perhaps so short that the current Trump-infested government must resolve the collapse of Social Security during his tenure. A recent post metaphor suggested that if change isn’t done on time, it will be more difficult to change. This is the case with Social Security. The Federal Government (and likely the electorate) have the attitude, “SS funds may come up short in 2033? Oh, well we have some time to deal with it later.” In fact, if Congress were capable of thought, they would have taken note of the population shifts that have been common knowledge for decades. Because the US is so late in managing Social Security, it is made more difficult as the economy enters the AI age where many professions are at risk (any white collared staff job) and many functions will become automated (truck driving for one).

THIS IS AN ISSUE THAT NEEDS THE ENERGY OF EVERYONE TALKING ABOUT IT FULL TIME AT WORK, IN PUBS, AT CHURCH, ON TELEVISION AND REQUIRES EACH OF US TO WRITE A LETTER TO ALL OUR REPRESENTATIVES AT COUNTY, CITY, STATE AND FEDERAL LEVELS.

67 million citizens receive Social Security. If 67 million citizens wrote these letters, Trump’s opinion would only mean something to himself.

If the reader doesn’t know how Social Security works, there is a good article on the process published by Motley Crew (financial magazine) at:

https://www.fool.com/retirement/2025/03/22/president-trumps-biggest-social-security-proposal/

WRITE YOUR LETTERS AND TALK ABOUT IT – A LOT.

Ancient Mariner

It’s not just albums

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Mariner’s family and friends have experienced some shuffling in the last few years. A close family member passed away as did a few friends. Other friends have moved. The children and grandchildren live in far away places, leaving a lot of possessions in the wrong house. Family deaths have required a search through ancient mementos and meaningful collections.

But finding family photo albums isn’t enough. Today, recent photographs, correspondence and historical documentation are found on primitive computers, cassettes, CD Discs, old camera filmstrips, extracted memory cards, and old memory towers. Plus, thousands of important documents and family information still on our own computers have been lost for years. After his grandmother died, he remembers finding a small box that had dozens of handwritten correspondence between his grandmother and a broad range of family members.

Mariner’s wife recently super-cleaned the attic and found about a half dozen cassettes. We had no choice but to purchase a cassette reader and discovered a golden collection of family events recorded for posterity. This motivated mariner to go through his dusty-in-a-box CD collection. There were hundreds of forgotten jewels of family history, trips and meaningful moments. He had to buy a CD player in the process.

So his advice to readers is don’t be satisfied because you have a shelf full of photograph albums. Unlike old collections which may be lost in the attic, photographs taken by a smartphone are as safe as the smartphone is dependable. Today, smartphones capture 92.5% of all pictures; the typical smartphone user stores 2,795 photos in their camera. Further, few paper copies of important documents exist – they may be on our computers somewhere – maybe.

In today’s electronic world, written historical accounts are extremely rare – though mariner must acknowledge that his wife hand writes an account every year in a special binder. If any of us are famous, someone may write an account of our lives. Otherwise, don’t stop with albums; you may find a treasure in an old Crown Royal sack.

Ancient Mariner

How the brain would prefer to read written text

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This topic is one of those ‘Where did this come from?’ out-of-the-blue subjects no one ever thinks about but, as is his wont, mariner became interested in the process.

As this post is read, is the reader reciting most of the words in their head? If you must recite each and every word in your head – called subvocalizing – you are a slow reader, about 200 words per minute. The average novel has about 100,000 words so it would take the reader just over 8½ hours without stopping, to read an average-sized novel.

Many people who read regularly, whether at work or for pleasure, subvocalize only key words in a sentence, often overlooking tense, adverbs or secondary phrases. Those who read in this style can raise their speed to about 850 words per minute cutting the novel to about 1¾ hours to be read.

Decades ago mariner took a class called “Evelyn Woods Speed Reading Class”. The objective was to learn how to read without any subvocalization at all – which is difficult to acquire. He was able to reach 1,500 words per minute which means he could read that novel in just under an hour. Amazingly, the best students reached around 8,000 words per minute. They could read that novel in 10 minutes. The trouble is that avoiding subvocalization is difficult and the average reader like mariner soon lost his speed down to about 1,000 words per minute.

These numbers sound fictitious but they are true. What brought this speed reading class back from memory is that he realized that if the brain could only use the eye part of the senses and forego all the mental imprints the ear and mouth have endured to learn to read, write and speak, it would be a lot more efficient. As mentioned in a recent post, the reasoning part of the brain is in a different section from the sense-support part of the brain.

This led mariner to marvel at how fast creatures who don’t use organized language must process reality only with the eyes. It is similar to dogs in a way because a dog’s eyesight isn’t that good but the dog’s reality is interpreted through its smell which is 1,000 times more sensitive than a human. [For this reason mariner always sneaks a bite of supper to the dog who is well aware of all the odors of the meal.]

But the real phenomenon is how fast the brain is. AI is a slowpoke. Whatever the creature, using only the eyes to garner information about reality and to resolve circumstances real time is magical. He suspects even the eyes are modified to see a broader visual reality.

Ancient Mariner

Are food prices really going up?

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There was an informative chart from NPR. The chart pointed out that a frequent pattern was the reduction in package size as a means of not raising prices. Mariner’s local supermarket also reduced options among items by taking more expensive brands off the shelf. Interestingly, the manufacturing sector distributed their goods to fewer but larger retailers. For example, mariner can no longer find Lipton decaffeinated instant tea in his county but it is still available online at Walmart.

Now he can no longer find Planters Honey Roasted mixed nuts. Mariner often has expressed concern about the future of storefront economy. He described in his home town the disappearance of a dozen stores, some were large corporations,  – thereby reducing town domestic product to virtually nothing. Grocery stores are gone, pharmacies are gone, 5&10 store is gone, numerous restaurants are gone, hardware store is gone, car dealerships are gone. One is lucky to have a job less than 20 miles away.

Converts will say, “Poo!” It’s easier to call Walmart or Amazon with our smartphone. Thinking of smartphones, how many old timers realized the precedent that was set when a simple telephone allowed a person to speak to an artificial human being instead of having an interpersonal experience that sustained community society? “Well, it’s easier than harnessing the horse!” Today, that “human voice” can’t be guaranteed to be real – even if you see them on a screen.

Tribes, extended families, individual skills, community-based cultures soon will no longer exist unless they match Google’s data bank of common values – which is an oxymoron.

Perhaps mariner is old fashioned.

Armageddon progresses.

Ancient Mariner