Category Archives: Politics

Beyond the Glory of America

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Officially, mariner has returned home from Chicken Little’s hen house. He did watch the democratic convention. News is show biz. The actual participants in the convention, however, really put on a professional Broadway show. So the race is about to start: 74 days to election day. One’s vote is just like buying a lottery ticket or a ticket to a Taylor Swift show.

Less acute as an issue but a great deal more impactful is recent news from environmental scientists. They have begun to provide comparatively more accurate timelines about global warming. Speaking very generally, the planet will be a different planet by the end of the century.

One factor is melting polar ice. He just read that they are melting faster each year. If they melt at their present increasing rate, scientists predict a rise of as much as 50 feet in ocean level by 2100. As the years pass, anyone living near the Tropical Zone (between Tropic of Cancer in the north  (23°26′ N) and the Tropic of Capricorn in the south ( 23°26′ S.) will experience a significant increase in temperatures and storms. In terms of the U.S, Phoenix is just 486 miles above the Tropical Zone at 32º18′, Brownsville Texas just 162 miles above at 26º10′ and Florida just 54 miles at 24º49′.

Global warming is an economic issue. Already the United States has had to spend an extra 11 billion on this phenomenon. Add to that overhead the same circumstances in other nations around the world – from Haiti to China.

Whether Donald or Kamala, they will be forced to address this issue in addition to all the economic political arguments we expect to hear.

Ancient Mariner

Forget search engines

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Mariner recently read an account of the next phase in AI: Merging corporate data with personal data taken from one’s own computer or smartphone. It is an attempt to “read the interests of the user” in order to provide an instant integration between user interest and what’s related in the cloud. Today’s search engines won’t be needed. The intent is that the cloud and the user are one unified operation. Microsoft will keep its own copy of all files, websites, everything executed on a person’s private computer.

It is fascinating to read arguments from both sides of this objective. AI folks see this progress as a great service to the user; privacy advocates see this progress as not only an invasion of privacy but more broadly see a future where society is managed to the extent that an individual’s ability to reason unique personal solutions for a ‘real’ world doesn’t exist.

When humans aren’t allowed to see genuine reality, their control of reality disappears. Historically, this is the complaint about dictatorships because the dictator determines what matters. Mariner’s oft-cited movies, 1984 and Matrix, are about the loss of individuality because AI dictators say what is real.

Already a person’s budget, housing and other accessories are limited to what is seen on a screen ad page. Could there be other options? Even the banking industry is offering to manage your cash for you – don’t need checkbook records anymore; it is possible to be in debt and not know it.

Mariner knows he is peeing in the ocean. There is no government, no culture, no enterprise that can avoid the move toward replacing one’s individuality with the pseudo compassion of Amazon as to what’s the best deal. In fact, medical science has already made artificial brain parts. Be wary if someone suggests installing a receptacle in your neck; your brain will know only what’s on your smartphone.

Armageddon progresses.

Ancient Mariner

 

Where will you move?

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Mariner feels compelled to address the immigration issue. Amid all the other pressures in a rapidly changing society and a rapidly changing planet, immigration serves as the most dependable barometer of progress or failure. How Homo handles immigration will tell the world whether humans are up to the task of surviving in the new biosphere.

Humans are accustomed to tracking history by the occurrence of wars. It took over 300 years of savage fighting for the Vikings and British to settle their differences; it signaled a transition from tribal government to monarchy. It brings to mind the current war between Islamic theocracies in the middle East and Jesus-oriented nations. It took about 1,000 years and innumerable wars to move from Roman theocracy to a separation of church and state. It took four wars in the 1850’s and two world wars in the 1900’s to move from economic colonialism to independent national economies.

Measuring history and the future by wars is more like taking taking one’s temperature at the moment rather than measuring progress over time. Immigration management is not a war as such but rather a timeline depicting how humans adapt to the pressures of a changing world.

Migration is an intrinsic behavior, not a war. It’s been around since Homo habilis left Africa more than 60,000 years ago. While on the subject, when was the last time the reader moved, AKA migrated? There is a distinct difference between an act to dominate and an act to survive.

So do not succumb to the current belligerent attitude about immigration; society will be measured by it’s methods of accommodation, not how high the fence is.  Immigration is just beginning to rise at unusually high rates. To some degree, one can fault incompetent dictatorships – how does one build a high fence around a dictator?

More significantly, the changing climate will cause many nations to fail because of economic and habitable failure – yes, even Florida.

Beneath it all is a slow, painful transition from capitalist society to socialist society. Not that capitalism will disappear, just that saving as many people as possible from inhabitable lives will require more distributive philosophies of government.

Ancient Mariner

 

Adding to the smoke

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It is 94 degrees with humidity at maximum levels thanks to Iowa corn which sweats as much as humans do. Dare not go outside. What to do … what to do …  Alright, mariner will write a post.

It is too bad that the planet is in such disarray in these times. Smoke rises from rampant fires around the world, 20 violent wars ongoing and the political smoke of a human race facing unknown confrontations. Mariner will offer another source for smoke – language.

Language used to be quite parochial. No doubt Neanderthals had little to discuss when, 50,000 years ago, they met one another roaming across Europe and the West Siberian Plain. Slowly over the centuries, humans around the world discovered stuff they had to name like family, weapons, food groups, territories and fellow animals. (If anyone knows the word for ‘donkey’ in Itsekiri, let mariner know.)

Then the age of economics emerged. Language needed to remember abstract stuff. Words were needed for nuance and situation. And so it went until there were so many words in a given language (typically nation-based) that dictionaries were needed to keep track of them all.

So these tomes have done until a new flood of words is emerging on the Internet. Social Media users are not bound by region, generation or linguistic discipline. The traditional dictionaries must be holding their probosces as they add multi-lingual words like RIZZ, PADAWAN, CROMULENT, SMISHING and an endless expansion of acronyms. e.g., LOL. The French are notorious for garbled words; new ones are être en PLS, bader and gayolle. Don’t forget the new linguist – Regenerative AI, capable of generating new content in response to a submitted query by using a large reference database of examples – many contributed by social media or invented by AI as a logarithmic average.

Language is smoking.

Ancient Mariner

Task List for Armageddon Fighters

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1 – Go 100 percent Vegan. Cows and sheep are exceedingly wasteful in terms of Armageddon (or the Sixth Extinction, they are the same thing). Too much land, too much processing and not the best regimen for general health. Our fellow creatures will appreciate it, too. Further, go true vegan and don’t eat seafood; only 20 percent of ocean edibles remain.

2 – Switch to Solar Power. This actually is a good budget move. If you can afford the batteries, go off the grid.

3 – Prefer non-plastic wrappings and containers for food and retail products. Glass and waxed cardboard or paper are better.

4 – If you are young enough and have a lawn in the back yard, convert it to home grown vegetables. Even a youngster like mariner remembers living off a basement of home-canned stews and soups.

5 – Those folks lucky to have stable income probably have three times the clothing they really need. There are other folks nearer than one may think who desperately need clothing.

6 – Refuse to vote for anyone over fifty-five or a totalitarian or a money-maker from industry; vote known locals, not PAC advertising.

7 – Vote for a tax overhaul that strengthens government’s role in health care, retirement, social services and wage support.

8 – Vote for government control over free-ranging corporations; they are as expensive as cattle.

9 – Among your many charities, adopt a destitute political region – local, county, state or nation.

10 – Don’t plan for children you can’t afford – yes, this involves women’s services including abortion – and castration.

Readers with conservative views may call this list bald-faced socialism, even communism. It is true that Planet Earth’s core economic system is capitalist in nature. But capitalism only works as long as there are enough resources for everyone. This characteristic is what drives evolution. When there is a shortage in the biosphere, it is time to make changes to restore the balance. When the biosphere, including global shifts in weather or massive domination by one species, is dysfunctional, dramatic change approaches the biosphere. Many, many scientists see a probable chance for a Sixth Extinction.

As to political conservatives, even crows know to share food with another crow that has no food. Armageddon is not about profit. It’s about survival. There’s always the nuclear war option. That would satisfy Mother Nature to be a genuine Sixth Extinction.

Ancient Mariner

 

Goodbye for awhile

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Greetings Readers –

As you may know, mariner has been staying in Chicken Little’s henhouse for several months. Not watching television news has been a blessing but getting his news from equitable online newscasters has offered no relief.

From time to time, he gets feedback from readers that he would have more readers if he wrote more positive and friendly posts. More readers was never his objective – discharging alarm because of a flagellistic desire to fail as a human race was the primary purpose.

In the last post mariner defined the five flavors of Armageddon that are in play and progressing. He realized that he very much was against the common grain of society, especially those deliberately encouraging Armageddon.

Noting the fate of Prophet Amos in the Old Testament, mariner is retreating to his little home in Iowa.

Ancient Mariner

Define Armageddon . . .

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Oh my! Mariner has been challenged to define his vague threat of Armageddon. That would be like describing life in Hell – not fun, not positive, not provable. A short list of variations is provided without comment. He adds an Apocalypse at the end. The difference between Armageddon and Apocalypse is that Armageddon is a violent end with no survivors whereas an Apocalypse has survivors.

֎ Most imminent would be nuclear war, given the activities of Russia, North Korea and Iran, not to mention the backers of war, China and the US.

֎ Government would yield to oligarchical economies reminiscent of the early Persian Empire or the frequent beheading by the Mayan culture. Several African nations already deal with this issue.

֎ Worldwide collapse of economics due to global warming – both the restorative cost and the great reduction of natural resources. This Armageddon already has begun and will be much more expensive as weather and sinking cities trash government budgets and natural resources drop to unsustainable levels.

֎ Most distant would be the usurpation of the human species by electronic intelligence.

֎ An Apocalypse would be the aforementioned economic collapse and associated violence of nation-based economies but a resurrection to a global economy that assured participation in cooperative supply chains that bind countries to a common economy. Nationalism would be minimized.

One must not forget that the planet is the biggest player. At the end, one wonders how many humans will be around.

Ancient Mariner

 

Population update

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Mariner’s apologies for a rough-to-read post yesterday. Just to make things simple, economic models, like we’ve had since 1800, are an invention of human creativity while population – of any creature – is subject to environmental conditions managed by the planet.

When one considers the extensive space and resources required to support human populations, one can imagine that, subtly, humans are overextending space and resources. Statistics bear this out as humans have pushed close to 20,000 creatures into extinction. Think of the huge solar farms, regular farms and greenhouse farms necessary to continue human sustenance. Humans are running out of several chemicals.

The bottom line is, economists can’t force population growth to fit an economic model – it’s the other way around: an economic model must accommodate the density of population and the resources available!

Ancient Mariner

Relationship between population and economy

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This is an unplanned post motivated by the conflict mentioned in the post title which was covered by the latest issue of The Week magazine (June 21 2024). Journalists have begun to report on a liaison between profit-motivated AI corporations and conservatives leaning toward AI as a means to continue national/international profitability as it has worked since Reagan. A new player is the Protestant Evangelicals joining several conservative fund-raising organizations to pressure government to leave AI alone when government tries to pass legislation to prevent monopolies and control disrespect for citizen rights.

The big concern is worldwide decreasing population. In the article, it is linked to economic perceptions that suggest continuing to have less babies will mean not enough workers, shrinking markets and too much of a fiscal load as more and more workers reach retirement age – having to be supported by fewer and fewer workers. It is believed that that AI could emulate the future work force with less workers but still would require markets (people) to sustain profitability.

The economists have the view that the answer is having more babies to restore a population balance at 2.1 children per fertile woman. No civilized nation meets the 2.1 requirement, South Korea being the lowest at .72.

As regular readers know, mariner has taken the view proven in mouse and rat population studies that there is a relationship between population and available space. The study suggests changes in the environment are subtle but dynamically affect behavior.

What was blatantly understated were the comments by a couple of scientists who suggested we may not be able to do anything about it, citing several failed attempts by governments to force a change in societal priorities.

Humans live on a finite planet. Scientists studying population suggest there may be natural limits to the number of humans; the projected maximum has dropped from 11 billion in 2100 to a cap of 9.5 billion in 2065. Global population stands at 8 billion today.

Is there an end to big brother capitalism? Are cities too large? Will natural resources disappear? Have economic transactions in banks and corporations become too abstract and disassociated with how humans manage resources? No one has a clear answer to these questions but perhaps population will influence the nature of an Armageddon that is approaching.

Ancient Mariner

The fluid state of Education

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Mariner mentioned in a recent post that several institutions in the United States are in worse shape than they may seem. One was education. Just very briefly and broadly, education has shifted as social change has shifted: In the pre-industrial age, education was all about local training and learning financial and writing skills commensurate with local need. General primary education was sparsely represented and was charged with basic reading and writing skills; in rural areas, average dropout by students was the fourth grade.

The second half of the 1800s had a burst of industrial, chemical and electrical discoveries that called for higher language and communication skills – each requiring more ability via writing and speaking; in the middle of this period, student grading was introduced to public education and became the norm – some history and social science were added.

By the early 1900s, large urbanization and competitive businesses were setting knowledge standards for employment – more education with better grades became a workforce standard for getting ahead and earning more. Colleges began to be an option for the general population, no longer limited to the elite and one-off intellectuals.

By the end of WWII (1944), the government had become strongly democratic and sponsored educational activity at all levels. Public schooling grew rapidly; a notable shift in extended education arose as military service offered free college. This broad financial boost to college education, available to virtually anyone, was the beginning of the ‘white collar’ social class. All education, from first grade to college graduate, was well funded and easily attainable – expected for anyone not in labor or service careers.

Until the political parties switched many of their social commitments in the 1960s when Lyndon Johnson pushed through civil rights legislation and Dixie went red, education was under the blessing of the democratic (AKA white collar) party and remained stable.

But a rough economic era since the 1970s (chart) and three destructive recessions in 1973, 1983 and 2007 have disrupted discretionary funding, including health and tax fairness as well.

A definite beneficiary of the government’s financial support was the colleges themselves, who raised tuition. In 1980, the price to attend a four-year college full-time was $10,231 annually – including tuition, fees, room and board, and adjusted for inflation – according to the National Center for Education Statistics. By 2019-20, the total price increased to $28,775. That’s a 180% increase.

National politics are shifting back to lower income social classes. There are many reasons for education to be wary: weaponized political parties, weaponized religious denominations, and huge, life changing historical college debt, social media, ChatGTP, all of which leave education in a collapsed state. Public schools are dominated by closed-minded school boards; college applicants are demanding low tuition and guaranteed jobs at graduation – a demand that has allowed corporations to begin funding education.

Perhaps the shifts in education are a clear example of what’s happening everywhere in these disruptive times. The education dilemma also shows the complex, interwoven influences across life’s processes in government, industry and society. We cannot solve education independently – many frontiers must be solved at the same time.

Ancient Mariner