Category Archives: Economy

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

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

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

God bless us, everyone

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With political fireworks everywhere and wars in every direction, mariner thought he may need an update from his alter egos. He searched for Nosey Mole but he was nowhere to be found. Mariner hadn’t heard from Amos in quite a while so he called him.

“My readers have missed your skepticism, Amos. What’s happening?” Amos replied quietly that these are not times to agitate. “These are times to hold tight to what is dear, to what comforts, to what gives hope for the future.” Amos didn’t have much else to say. Clearly he was frightened by the American collapse of democracy, by the disappearing biosphere and the potential for a global war. He felt that resolution in the tiniest sense was nowhere to be found.

Mariner went to see Guru. “What’s your image, Guru? Where will this all end?”

“The end is far away.” Guru replied. He explained that the planet is rolling into a global warming that not only will have physical ramifications on economic stability but will promote global war – likely between US allies and the rest of the world. The underlying causes will be food shortage for an over populated planet – a profound shortage that challenges equality as a political virtue.

He mentioned that many countries, especially more liberal countries, will be hard pressed not to succumb to authoritative governments constrained by a strong plutocracy governed by giant corporations.

Mariner suggested that this may be a continuous process; how long will it take? Guru suggested that global warming will cause significant destruction by 2050 and that further, will put pressure on a capitalistic world – if survival is an objective.

The fact remains that this election, and its reconciliation, will determine how humans move forward in an unbalanced world.

As a famous fictional character once said: “God bless us, everyone.”

Ancient Mariner

 

The past and the present

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Before moving on to the topic, readers had questions about mariner’s Great Grandmother, Lucy.

It would take 175,000 ‘greats’ to link mariner to Lucy. Mariner has 8 billion grandparents, uncles, aunts, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th cousins and many ‘removed’, and not least his family of readers. What a large family get together that would be for Thanksgiving!

He must confess that Grandmother Lucy may not be as fierce as she looks, though she certainly was a scrappy woman. She was only 3 ½ feet tall and weighed in at 65 pounds. Her kind existed for 1 million years; Neanderthal existed for 800,000 years, Homo sapiens have been around for 300,000 years. How long will sapiens exist before it evolves into something else? Perhaps living flesh robots whose behavior is controlled by Google.

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Mariner recommended checking ProPublica.com for serious news that never makes it to television. Here’s an excellent example from their newsletter:

When companies like Aetna or UnitedHealthcare want to rein in costs, they turn to EviCore, whose business model depends on turning down payments for care recommended by doctors for their patients.
ProPublica’s Daily Digest <newsletters@lists.propublica.net>
Ancient Mariner

 

 

Marvelous magic of evolution

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Mariner reads several magazines and journals just for entertainment. For example, here’s an article everyone will want to read:

To achieve remarkable performances, quantum computing systems based on multiple qubits must attain high-fidelity entanglement between their underlying qubits.

( https://phys.org/news/2024-10-subtle-current-phase-potential-stable.html )

Recently mariner came upon an article about a fish named Sea Robin. It inherited the ‘robin’ word because it flies underwater with wings just like a bird. Sea Robin’s wings don’t look like fancy paddles or oars like other fish have, they look and behave just like robin wings. Isn’t it intriguing that somewhere along the long, long trail of evolution, Nature’s office of genetic distribution delivered wings to a fish!

Even more odd is that Sea Robin walks on the bottom of the ocean in a fashion similar to four legged animals on land. Even more intriguing, it hunts for and smells food with its feet. Mariner’s feet smell too, but he wouldn’t want to eat what they picked for supper. Even Sea Robin’s color scheme looks more like a bird than a fish.

Sea Robin is such an intriguing aberration in Nature’s normal but slow cell-by-cell inheritance. It isn’t that Sea Robin came along at the same time as other sea creatures who were evolving in a way that would lead them to walking on land or flying like a bird. Sea Robin has been around for 18 million years!

The Sea Robin catches one’s interest and opens the door to thinking about the larger systems of Nature – not just evolution but all the systems that are in play in all the sciences from astrophysics to the chemistry of fungi.  Sea Robin demonstrates, however, that sometimes an aberration takes evolution in a different direction.

For example, Homo sappians has been around only 300,000 years and they are wreaking havoc among all of Nature’s sciences. One can perceive that Nature is dealing with the same type of confrontation as the one that happened at the US Capitol on January 6. The sappians aren’t improving anything – they have launched Armageddon against Nature’s planet Earth.

Ancient Mariner

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chicken Little moved to hospice

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Afraid so. It is true that evolution is the dynamic element in all the universe – including galaxies, solar systems, life of every kind and certainly every conceivable element of existence – including the planet Earth itself – is subject to change over time. So, too, fantasy and whimsy move on as reality paves a new future.

What was important about Chicken Little’s presence was his belief that it was possible for things to behave as expected – it was just a matter of adjusting a bit to keep reality chugging along. Like the Chicken Little of children’s storybook fame, he often overreacted to what others felt was not so important as to warrant hysterical behavior.

The belief in adjusting has faded as all the world’s activity is in disarray. Human history has become a demolition derby where every conceivable idea is an effort to dismantle rational, logical behavior. Mariner, like Chicken Little, is acutely aware of the abrasion of industrial development against the evolutionary limitations not only of Homo sapiens but all of the planet’s life forms. Homo’s dangerous ability to imagine things that do not exist has been the fire that has set off an Armageddon. For casual readers who may not be familiar, mariner’s examples are any industrial development requiring chemical, environmental or any other destruction of the biosphere. For example, internal combustion engines, killing millions of species for greedy reasons, leveling quantum amounts of forest for commercial purposes, forcing every biological behavior of every species to compensate or die, etc. The result today is, of course, a destabilized, biospheric condition humans call ‘global warming’ which is most commonly observed as changes in the climate.

So mariner is interviewing several applicants to replace Chicken Little. An applicant that has caught mariner’s eye is the squirrel – especially urban squirrels. Squirrels already know that Homo sappians is a destructive creature, said and done. What concerns mariner is that the squirrel already has a bit of skepticism about it’s obsessive neighbors; Amos, another alter ego, already has more than enough skepticism.

Perhaps this is all a sign that mariner is growing old. He’s old enough to be receiving social security but young enough to see it disappear. His brain has been throwing out to trash memories that aren’t relevant anymore. Sadly, he cannot forget Lawrence Welk or Hyacinth Bucket on the British series, Keeping Up Appearances.

Suggestions for a new icon to replace Chicken Little are welcome – an icon that has come to accept Homo sappians as the failure it is but with an innocence that there is a looming Armageddon.

Ancient Mariner

Liberal Arts – the Military Academy of cultural mandates

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Mariner loves metaphors. One came to mind as he pondered the last post on college education: 40% of the nation’s young people went to college. Perhaps 95% of these students studied the same textbooks and learned the same interpretation of democracy, philosophy and history. The movie ‘Matrix’ couldn’t have done it better!

Let’s test this militaristic march to a common but separate culture for college students. Let’s try some passwords to validate membership: ‘William Faulkner’, ‘Plato’, ‘Pythagoras’, ‘Samuel Taylor Coleridge’, ‘Alan Turing’, ‘Joseph Campbell’, ‘Euclid’, ‘Adam Smith’, ‘Milton Friedman’, ‘David Halberstam’. . . The reader gets the point. 40% of US citizens have an identical, if exclusive, understanding of what the values are for the American culture.

Could it be helped that colleges created a national identity that was quite exclusive in its requirements for citizenship? Somewhere along the line ‘all men are created equal’ fell by the roadside and was replaced by ‘college students know what is right’. The opinion exists that colleges stopped providing a right to education, replacing it with a right to pay to join the club.

Is this militaristic approach to education why plutocrats have attacked both labor unions and liberal arts?

Do enough wealthy citizens exist to reinvent the mores of student life? John Adams would be proud.

Is this why colleges are dropping liberal arts and creating a new syllabus called STEM (Science, technology, engineering and mathematics)? – a strategy that can end up only  in partnership with corporations and government – socializing the citizenry be damned.

All this bouncing about, along with GPT and climate change, makes it hard for Guru to speculate the future.

Ancient Mariner

Bachelor’s degree

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One of the societal areas most affected by cultural bias and economics over the last forty years has been the prejudice associated with having a college bachelor’s degree. In a period when US inflation rose 283%, college tuition rose 1,213%. Of a personal note, mariner paid $1,000 tuition plus the cost of books for one year back in 1964; today, that year would cost him an average of $14,000 plus several fees. Further, it is a common sociological opinion that citizens without college degrees have been devalued in the value of their participation in US society. It is a common opinion among sociology professors that this devaluation is the cause for MAGA to evolve. Atlantic magazine had a recent article about this college-related phenomenon:

“Nearly 60 percent of adults ages 25 to 29 do not have a bachelor’s degree. If they have the skills to do a certain job, why should they be denied the chance solely because they lack a somewhat arbitrary paper credential?

And yet, despite its popularity, skills-based hiring (degree not needed) is a dead-end policy. If every employer in America formally stopped requiring a four-year college degree for every available position as of tomorrow, nothing much would change. Indeed, companies such as Walmart, Apple, and many others have proudly touted their removal of degree requirements in job postings, but the net effect on hiring has been very small. A recent Harvard Business School study found that when companies remove degree requirements, the share of hires with a bachelor’s degree declines by only two percentage points. Employers may not insist on a college degree, but they still prefer it.”

Mariner has chosen the term ‘white collar class’ to identify the prejudice that excludes non-degree citizens and discounts their social value. At the end of the Second World War, the Federal government saw to it that everyone had a chance to go to college; cost was heavily cut. The democratic party was the primary beneficiary to this social shift but, over the years as the advantages of and the cost needed for college-based income continued to rise, labor income did not. Today, the ‘labor’ party is infected with white collar disease (Woke) – just ask any misguided MAGA individual.

This could be an issue resolved on a level playing field except for the introduction of GPT – Generative (self-producing) Pre-trained (copycat) Transformer (can change input into a different self-determined output)¹ – A human-like ability to translate, interpret and create information without human intervention.

One can imagine the impact on an education system rooted in behavioral and textbook communication. The saying “Who needs a teacher when we have GPT?” already is a common euphemism on social media. It is a simple extension to say “Who needs departments of education?” Will ‘education’ be simple training programs used by employers targeted on corporate/government efficiency? Already, liberal arts education is disappearing as colleges are faced with the automation dilemma.

 

It is still rare but there are pre-school educators who use tabletop robots to help with behavioral education.

Mariner has no crystal with which to interpret the future of education. It is important at the least to understand how integrated and influenced education is by society. Citizens today should clearly understand the cause and effect of white collar and GPT as imbalances in cultural unity.

Ancient Mariner

PS – Mariner is having trouble with new post notices. Scroll down on the home page to see if the reader has missed any posts.

FOOTNOTE

¹GPT2 – GPT-2 was designed specifically to predict and generate the next sequence of text to follow a given sentence without human interference or knowledge of sources.

GPT3 – a sizable step up from its predecessor. It includes texts such as Wikipedia entries as well as the open-source data set Common Crawl. Notably, GPT-3 can generate computer code and improve performance in niche areas of content creation such as storytelling, aka inventing its own reality.

GPT4 – a large multimodal model (LMM), meaning it’s capable of parsing image inputs as well as text. This iteration is the most advanced GPT model, exhibiting human-level performance across a variety of benchmarks in the professional and academic realm. For comparison, GPT-3.5 scored in the bottom 10 percent of test-takers in a simulated bar exam. GPT-4 scored in the top 10 percent.

November 5 2024

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That is the date of the upcoming election between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. Trump has made it crystal clear that there will be an honest election only if he wins.  He promises chaos if he doesn’t win. Citizens of the US must take note – this isn’t just inflammatory banter. Citizen groups already are developing plans for combat if Trump loses.

Nevertheless, every citizen must exercise their right to vote.

* * * * *

Mariner has written 1,835 posts. Many topics were covered in every field of interest from nonsense to serious essays. With certainty he knows often he has been redundant, skeptical and overly critical on many political and societal occasions.

In recent posts he has expressed a fatalistic prognosis for the future of Homo sapiens and many fellow creatures. Even these comments have become redundant. He sat down with Guru to have a last effort at defining order in the humanly perceived universe and the cacophony of noise that clouds that order.

Guru made it clear that mariner must describe the structure of authority as it relates to the Homo universe:

Planet Earth is 4.5 Billion years old. It abides by the rules imposed upon it as a member of a vast, disciplined Universe. Accordingly, Earth has seasons, is accountable to the influence of a moon, and must accommodate the behavior of a close star, the Sun. Given these influences, the Earth is in charge of all that occurs on, in, and above its sphere. This includes non-living material and all, all living creatures.

Egocentric Homo thinks it has the ability to ignore Earth’s management of the planet’s existence. This is the largest source of cacophony since Hominidae Ardipithecus came on the scene 5.3 million years ago. A large amount of today’s noise would not have occurred if Homo had acknowledged Earth’s authority. Consequently, Homo finds itself in the following circumstances:

Stealing oil, forests, several chemicals and gases and a disregard for social disciplines required by evolution, Earth has been thrown off balance and has no choice but to adjust. The planet’s adjustment has paid for the thievery of Homo by sending tens of thousands of species to extinction and re-balancing the global ecosystem, AKA climate change.

Using various methods of chemistry and artificial environment, Homo has doubled the lifespan of a largely unchanged genome. The result is a much larger population of Homo than Earth had planned for. As the twenty-first century begins, natural resources are short which leads to an unsettled fear for the future which leads to stress in Homo economic practices.

Finally, Homo has discovered an artificial way to create life forms. Recently, computer applications have become capable of reproducing chromosomes, AKA remaking electrically controlled genomes. It is too early to predict the ramifications but the movie “Matrix” can’t be too far off.

What lies beneath the cacophony and conflict? The original Homo. For the time being (perhaps another 100+ years), the only safe ground is to behave like a normal Homo sapiens. Individuals must place social interaction and tribal sympathy foremost in their daily lives. Although it may be too late, Homo should pay retribution to Earth’s ways by showing respect and following nature’s rules.

Ancient Mariner