The good life

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Living here in a small town is very pleasant. The local folks are engaged in the practice of survival, that is, participating in community activities in various holiday celebrations, neighborly exchanges of small gifts and visitations, and multi-generational family gatherings. There is a positive air covering the town!

Nevertheless, only because few residents want to talk about it or still watch broadcast news and have ignored social media’s tendency to fawn upon itself, it is almost possible to separate community from national and world catastrophe. One forgets how pleasant normal life can be.

It’s amazing how many hobbies surface during the holidays. A service organization is building a tiny house for a veteran; the quilting club is turning out quilts for sale; several folks make their own holiday greeting cards – some quite exquisite; many choirs perform musical events around the county; there are Santa events in most public service agencies. Even Nosey Mole was seen wearing a Santa hat.

Appropriately, if not conveniently, the weather outside is frightful but the fire is so delightful, and since we’ve no place to go let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

There is no doubt that a human’s emotional survival skills have evolved with significant intensity and purpose. Let us pray that increased disorder will not test them further.

Ancient Mariner

Sticks

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Seasoned readers may remember that, on occasion, mariner yields a post to the creative works of his wife. She is a nonprofit, unpublished professional poet. Her collection on 8 1/2 x 11 paper is close to three inches deep. He has urged her to get published to improve the family income. Here is her poem:

A Short Sermon

If you go for a walk in the woods
You need a walking stick:

Something to support you
When the footing is dangerous,
Something to defend you
When the cougar stalks.
You don’t need aluminum
Trekking poles with hand grips
And carbon steel tips-
Any stick will do.

You only have to look around
To see that the woods provides
Sticks in abundance.

The woods which is full of treacherous footing
And cougars
Is also full of sticks.
It is, after all,
What the woods is made of: sticks.

Isn’t it a miracle
That what we most need
Is provided in abundance?
And by sticks I mean
Courage, hope, faith, love.
And by woods I mean
The world

MKM 11/20/13

Forget Trump – watch Google

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The identity of the evil dictator in the Matrix movie is now revealed: Google. Modern, top-of-the-line scientists have agreed that Homo sapiens will eventually vanish because science has discovered a way for AI to determine when to be pregnant and with what genome – without human intervention [perhaps these new creatures are the ones that will travel the universe as aliens]. But until then, it is Google’s intention to make humans no more in control of their lives than garden flowers can decide whose garden they will be planted in. The Axios article below gives the details:

“Google Gemini 2.0 — a major upgrade to the core workings of Google’s AI that the company launched today — is designed to help generative AI move from answering users’ questions to taking action on its own, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis tells Axios.

  • “We were always working towards agent-based systems,” Hassabis said. “From the beginning, they were able to plan and then carry out actions and achieve objectives.”
  • Hassabis said AI systems that can act as semi-autonomous agents also represent an important intermediate step on the path toward artificial general intelligence (AGI) — AI that can match or surpass human capabilities.
  • “If we think about the path to AGI, then obviously you need a system that can reason, break down problems and carry out actions in the world,” he said.”

Up to one-third of today’s stock market trades are run by computers without human intervention. But mariner wonders how a national or global economy would operate when the decisions are made by AGI (Artificial General Intelligence). This direction is so unfathomable that no one can predict human interactivity in the future – but it is inevitable.

It is as if we were a neanderthal person swooped up in a time bubble and dropped on today’s Times Square . . . .

Armageddon proceeds.

Ancient Mariner

A new kind of war

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On occasion, mariner has opined that bullet wars are passé. The term ‘bullet wars’ means using explosives and physical destruction even to the point of genocide. In today’s headline news (https://www.politico.com/newsletters/digital-future-daily/2024/12/03/romania-tiktok-and-the-future-of-democracy-00192427 ), a very clear example of a ‘modern’ war is occurring in Romania where the voting population has been swamped by political misinformation via TikTok. The result is that an anti European Union, anti NATO candidate likely will receive a winning vote in the upcoming election. That candidate is virtually unknown Călin Georgescu who, by the way, is a friend of Vladimir Putin. He may win the election despite the protests both of liberal and conservative parties in Romania. The weapon: social media – not bullets and not even much campaign cash.

The ramifications if Georgescu wins are troublesome. The map of the European Union below tells the story:

Note that Ukraine is sandwiched between Russia and Romania. Further, the EU and its military arm NATO are growing old and disruptions to that union could swing the general western world into a difficult situation.

In the United States, while Constitutional processes barely survived, there is no question that it was social media that undercut the liberal block of voters. What is different about the US is that this nation is much richer than Romania so big money had to play a role.

1. War is hell     2. Democracy starts in the local community, not on the smartphone.

Armageddon proceeds.

Ancient Mariner

Between gears

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Thanksgiving has come and gone. Usually there is a sensation of rolling with gravity into the big holiday season with lights, parties, trips, going downtown to shop for gifts, and continuing on into the new year with sports, lesser holidays and finally crashing into one’s recliner to recover throughout Lent before the next life begins with Spring and taxes.

All this will indeed occur this winter but there seems to be a negative tone to it all. Maybe it’s an unpleasant odor in the air, or perhaps there seems to be a stumbleness throughout each day that takes its toll on “rolling with gravity”. In any case, there seems to be an overhead attached to rolling into 2025.

It must be that the liberating “fun and fantasy’ (mariner would say ‘gay’) experience has been dampened by the looming clouds of elections, wars and deprivation around the world.

Forget it. Treat this season like the prisoner facing the electric chair who can have any meal they want. Go big!! Féte is in our hands!

Ancient Mariner

It all started with small business

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Mariner has noticed that a number of magazines, newspapers and other opinion-based sources are unifying behind articles about whose fault it is that led us into our social/political dilemma. Some in mariner’s family blame it all on Norman Rockwell whose art taught everyone how to live a Victorian life in modern times, that is, instead of using each homeowner’s yard for purposeful needs (everything from growing food to utilities for children and others who may need space) instead keeping precision lawns and trimmed shrubbery so they could pretend they are rich just like the Victorian oligarchs.

Others blame the Ivy League social structure which was a very clubby way to help the wealthier families possess the best colleges, get the power-linked jobs and live in the best neighborhoods (The Villages in Florida or huge estates in Hawaii) just like the Victorians.

Mariner’s regular readers know he blames the economic structure of the Federal and state Governments who squashed the ability for middle and lower classes to make a fair living amid all the plutocracy.

But things wouldn’t change without a growing imbalance, would they? Back in the earliest times, change was provoked when one army beat another army – killing and destroying along the way. Just as too many guns kill children in schools, too many guns around the world still provoke ‘bullet style’ wars in many countries when there are many other ways to disrupt a nation even more effectively (destroy computer networks, power grids, even influence elections, etc.)

History teaches that there is a finite link between change and consternation. The North American Indian blamed white people; Mayans and most of South America blame Spaniards; Biblical Jews blame the Greeks, Romans and Iranians; Formosans blame the Japanese and Chinese; South Korea could, if it chose, blame the United States.

But it all began when a few nomadic travelers left Africa to grow more wheat than they needed and traded or sold the extra so they could stay where they were, own property, and did not have to migrate from place to place to find supper. Now there were two classes: business and migrant.

Today there are many variations of each but they all started with small business around the Mediterranean.

Ancient Mariner

The experiment comes to an end

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Mariner has spent the last ten days living alone. His wife went to California to help with our newest granddaughter. His wife returns tomorrow. Recent posts reflect what mariner observed during his own ‘shut in’ experience. Below are some firsthand observations.

• It was a good time to update mariner’s alter ego, Chicken Little. Contemporary history has eliminated innocence in daily life. No one is surprised at anything that happens today. But neither is there is any relief in looking forward. There seems to be no way back to cultural or governmental stability. The new alter ego is Nosey Mole – a survivalist. It is a time when one draws closer to the safe, close by values – neighborhood, family and helping to keep everyone alive.

• When Trump won the election, it was like tearing the scab off a large wound too soon. Mariner had a good idea what would transpire over the next 18 months. Challenges, abuse of public trust, plutocratic spasms and the dismissal of any moral obligation to a national democracy. He stopped listening to the news from every source. To this moment, the affairs of the world are unknown to him.

• Left only with non-news broadcasting, it became obvious that, in reality, there wasn’t anything worth watching. Mariner turned off the television except for select gardening shows and a few British mysteries. In a rare moment, he may find a worthy documentary. These educational documentaries are lost among the mishmash of entertainment from the last century and new broadcasts one has to pay to watch, as if the viewer were going to a sporting event.

• It was not hard to abandon the television. Entwined with social media and deep fake technology, there is no interest by broadcasters to support the moral good of the viewer. So what to do with his time? Fortunately, he virtually is a full time gardener. Given a full day’s length of time, the garden provided some distraction. Still, he became aware of the blank space in which one has only empty time. Having too much of this non-dimensional space is like taking opiates – there is no reality. It’s as if a ship lost its rudder but keeps sailing.

• Being alone on a continuous basis also distorts meals, sleeping patterns and daily chores. Breakfast is a slice of spam; a nap may last most of the day; daily chores are put off. (Mariner must admit that he knew his wife would return shortly so he kept up his daily chores for fear of negative judgment).

• There were a few opportunities to visit other people. Neighbors and relatives fed him and checked to see if he was okay. Fortunately, he has the Blog to exercise emotional perspective and to express his opinions. His final observation, however, is that for the moment, Nosey is right in staying close to what is personally important: survival.

Ancient Mariner

Interview with Nosey Mole

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Among the headers of his posts at the top of the post page, mariner had a description of who he was, the reason for writing and an explanation of how three alter egos would influence his posts.  This description has been deleted several times so mariner stopped repairing it.

Nevertheless, the philosophical futurist Guru remains with us as does the skeptical Amos. The oft-frightened Chicken Little has passed away and is replaced by Nosey Mole, a reclusive alter ego who lives underground but pops up now and then to see what is happening. Mariner visited Nosey to get an understanding of his view versus that of Chicken Little:

“Welcome to the blog, Nosey. Have you settled in?”

“Yes, I have a fine set of tunnels under the root stems of your iris bed and under the Pecan tree” Nosey replied. “There are lots of grubs and the clay soil holds up well for the tunnels”.

Mariner asked what the difference was between Chicken Little and Nosey. “The main difference,” Nosey replied, “is that Chicken Little was an alarmist. Say ‘Boo’ and he would race back to his hen house. I, on the other hand, am a survivalist. For example, if I lived in the Northwest, I would be baked by the wildfires; in the South, my tunnels would become sewer lines; God forbid I should live in the Middle East or Ukraine – bombs aren’t good for tunnels. So I took this job in Iowa where nothing extreme happens.”

“What current issues do you worry about most?” mariner asked. Nosey said he ignores all the brouhaha about Trump and the democrats and further that the social issues will not be resolved under any circumstances. “What I worry about is me. What’s going to happen to discretionary funding (Social Security, Obama Care, Medicaid, support for retirees, Childcare, etc.)?”

Nosey continued, “I keep a close eye on my savings and budget, stay out of debt and make sure my insurance policies are in good shape. “Further,” he continued, “I’m not confident about the US economy because no one controls it. I want to see more tax constraints on corporations and venture capitalists.”

“How do you feel about the working class issues?” mariner asked. Nosey replied, “Right now, the government has the largest deficit in history and there aren’t enough natural resources to go around so the government won’t help – those folks better learn how to make tunnels.”¹

Mariner thanked Nosey for his honesty. Nosey quickly dropped back into his tunnel.

Indeed, Nosey is a survivalist. Like Chicken Little, he has a constant fear for which there seems to be no solution. His solution is ‘every person is on their own’. No doubt this alter ego occasionally may color mariner’s posts.

¹Note mariner’s recent theme of participating in community, family and supporting both with one’s own contribution. As Nosey suggests, this model may be the only way out.

Ancient Mariner

 

A new pet word

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Seasoned readers know that mariner has a world class linguist as a friend. One of our pastimes is collecting words that catch our fancy. Most of them are American slurs like ‘jeetjet?’, or the word may be a ridiculously long and convoluted word like ‘hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia which happens to mean fear of long words. Mariner has a new one: peer. As an adverb, it is someone going to the bathroom; as a verb, it is someone looking with timidity; as a noun, it is someone who is equal to others; as a proper noun, it is the name of Gynt’s fancy hotel room. In British usage, being a peer suggests one belongs to an upper class rank like Duke or Lord; in the United States, it means that a person is accepted and equal in a group of others with similar circumstances – as in the democratic phrase ‘All men are created equal’ which, of course, has never been true.

Mariner came upon ‘peer’ nestled in psychological essays. The essays suggested that the desire to be a peer is a strong need to sustain the ego and is a core survival skill. One quickly can identify with this urge especially in school rooms; if classmates are not openly friendly, an individual may have doubts about their own worth in this peer group. A nuanced suggestion is that ‘peer pressure’ is at the foundation of human behavior in that it is a desire to have others accept the individual as a social member and to be part of the tribe’s protection against harm. So while the ego is sensitive to group acceptance, it also is the motivation for achievement AKA defender of the tribe.

Throw the word ‘peer’ into the political mixing bowl and one can see what drives social conflict. It has become common knowledge that MAGA emerged from a labor class that for half a century has been underpaid, lost guaranteed benefits and ultimately was not considered as successful as college graduates. Talk about peer pressure – from the white collar world!

To survive, the ego must be satisfied. it finds others who share the person’s disgruntlement and together launch counter attacks against those who deny their equality.

It turns out not all humans are peers and, will a computer ever be a peer to a human?

Armageddon proceeds.

Ancient Mariner

Where have all the humans gone, long time passing . . .

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Evolution constructed a species that took 300,000 years to evolve into a super smart, super perceptive and superbly protective creature. With these sensitivities, humans were able to unite their efforts to develop civilizations far beyond the imagination of their ancestors. In this new century, however, where have all the humans gone? What has taken their place are argumentative Capuchin monkeys and threats of species diminution by computers. Is it time to begin another evolution cycle?

In the midst of today’s confusion, destruction and kleptomania, the future cannot be discerned. But there may be ways to apply a healing salve. Will our inherent sensitivities be heard?

The tools are at hand – literally. The future is in the hands of our hands. Suppose two families with intensely different political views, or two socially prejudiced views live next door to one another. One morning one family brings the neighbor’s trash collection can from the curb back to the neighbor’s house without coming into contact with that family. What does this gesture using the hands imply? Is it a salve? Will it promote a different tone between the families?

Suppose one neighbor learns that another neighbor has had expensive medical bills or has become incapacitated in some way. What happens if the hands make a gift dinner or cut the lawn? Is that a salve? Even if it is, will it reduce confrontation?

Suppose you have a sweet corn field. You harvest the ears, clean them, then drive around town giving them all away free to neighbors. Is this a salve? Will salves work?

An excellent example of hand-produced salve is the reputation the Amish have for building barns. The entire community gets together to help one farmer build his barn. That is a handful of hands! But just as good an example is Habitat for Humanity. It has been proven that both these building efforts, using many freewill hands, calms the waters of life for both sides – those assisting and those receiving.

Mariner is a personal witness to all the above examples.

Instead of focusing on differences, try using the hands. It’s magic! Instead of yielding to fomenting headlines, look for simple hand gestures that apply a salve to those around you. Become sensitive to fellow humans who will appreciate a helping hand. Let’s not regress to being Capuchin monkeys.

Ancient Mariner.