2024 – the age of juggernauts

A good analogy for the definition of ‘juggernaut’ is a huge cargo ship running into a bridge, splintering the bridge apart as if it were made of matchsticks. The 2000s have been years for growing juggernauts culminating with an election in 2024 that may well splinter a nation.  The registry of juggernauts is awesome: Middle East oil, Middle East war, Middle East international conflict, Putin’s war, Sudan genocide, Pacific war over Taiwan; in the US, the recent pandemic, immigration, unbridled economy, cultural collapse, social isolation expressed with mass shootings, Federal and State governments and courts operating under antique theories about governance and further stressed by the presence of plutocracy, the age of super-automation and the stress from violating the rules of nature for centuries.

It makes one feel they are walking through an entanglement of giant rosebushes with significant danger from life-threatening thorns.

There are three relatively unnoticed juggernauts that will bring collapse to our nation – not the movie versions with high energy explosions and sudden destruction of the countryside. What will happen is similar to the ripening of an avocado – looks good on the surface but spoils more rapidly inside than expected and is inedible before one would suspect. The three juggernauts are:

֎ Health Industry. Even today the economics of health management are destructive. Too few physicians are graduating from medical school, nurses and other staff are overworked while working for wages that have not kept up with inflation. US governments/insurance agencies are over-managing medical science and the implied authorities of medical professionals. Private investment is turning medical service into a profit-only model of service, demanding more patients with less care per patient. There is a growing trend for physicians to disassociate from their medical institution and set up an independent, fee-based patient relationship (eliminating access for poorer patients). In mariner’s state of Iowa even standardized health care may be an more than an hour away.

There is promise from new technology that will ease an individual’s workload but this is only a mechanical solution to a national population that cannot survive to current age expectations without personalized healthcare. In 1900 the average life expectancy was 40 years.

֎ Retirement. This is a cousin juggernaut to healthcare. The population in the US has begun to slow because births have fallen below 2.1 per fertile woman; by the end of the century population will reflect an annual decrease. At the same time, an increasing percentage of the population is moving into retirement. Today, this population dilemma goes unnoticed. As more and more citizens retire, fewer and fewer citizens comprise the national workforce. Who will, or can, pay for retirement and healthcare? On this very day Social Security faces a huge political confrontation in 2025. The only solutions offered to date are sidewalk tents and tiny ‘homes’ for the homeless.

֎ Education. In the 1850s the idea of grading students was implemented. This has been the norm until the internet began to offer divers ways to gain an education. Today’s society is so divers that the letter ‘A’ or ‘C’ can have very different meanings across different education administrations. Colleges in particular suffer from the undermining idea that knowledge cannot be totally scored by a set of letters. The desire to tie education with a direct link to a job is more important than a letter.

It has been a blessing over the decades that the ‘white collar’ class maintained a steady, independent function for education. This is gone today as citizens attack libraries and otherwise intercede the authority of trained teachers – similar to interference by governments with a physician’s professional decisions.

Over the centuries with many cultures and religions, education was a matter of compliance with behavioral norms or religious mandates. Neither is an influence today because of the diversity of society and, in particular, because of confrontations with many juggernauts.

While there are many techniques for keeping one’s self sane and worthy, that does not dismiss one’s job to sustain survival as a nation.

The closing analogy is one of a polar bear trying to walk across melting slush in a warming world.

Ancient Mariner

Visit with Mariner’s alter-egos

It has been a month or two since mariner visited his alter-egos; their personal perspectives often reveal entirely different realities. So he’ll stop at each ego’s residence to see how they are doing.

Chicken Little is just down the hall because mariner is renting an apartment in his hen house until after the 2024 election. It is a good place to hide because broadcast news on TV is blocked to avoid undue stress. [mariner cheats by going onto the internet]

Mariner asked Chicken Little to give him a general perspective on the United States today.

“You know,” Chicken Little said, “Each day is not fun anymore. Used to be I could wake up in the morning, put on my comb, go out into the yard and just have an easy day with the flock. Now, you have to be careful what you say to a given chicken because the flock is really uptight about so many issues.”

“What bothers you the most?” mariner asked.

“The violence. Chickens don’t have many resources to defend themselves. And I don’t understand why issues like homosexuality and abortion are causing so much conflict. These issues aren’t really the fault of the victims.

“Maybe it’s because the dissenters can’t really address larger issues like the economy and dysfunctional government agencies,” mariner suggested.

“May be.” Chicken Little said. ” But what’s closer to home is gun violence, riots and destructive protests. Thank goodness we chickens have a nice home here but it could be gone in a day because of riots with torches, gunfire, police abuse, tornadoes, and changes in zoning. Most chickens don’t have the resources to start over again.”

Chicken Little was becoming upset so mariner wished him well, left and headed for Amos’s house – mariner’s skeptical alter-ego.

“Hello.” mariner said as he entered the office of Amos. (Amos was named after the prophet Amos in the Old Testament of the Holy Bible). “Hello.” Amos replied. Amos’s office was disheveled, having stacks of newspapers, magazines, books, a television, two phones and a computer. Obviously Amos was an information hound.

Mariner tossed out an obvious conversation starter: “How is the election coming along?” he asked.

“Jesus, mariner, you jump right in the middle, don’t you? I haven’t had the time I’ve wanted to follow the three-year-old and the ghost. I’m too busy trying to keep on top of an all out war in the Middle East, not to mention Taiwan!”

He paused a moment and continued, “And its like Congress doesn’t even know its the twenty-first century – and the courts are trying to recreate the eighteenth century.”

“What’s your biggest concern?” mariner asked.

“Hell, that’s like asking which piece in the garbage do I dislike the most.” He paused. “I think its that corporations and private equity have taken over the economy. Congress is so busy pissing on each other’s shoes that corporations can do whatever they want – and both are ignoring the growing impact of global warming. It is time to modernize tax structure and government spending for a new reality – and get out of paying for wars.”

Amos was becoming flushed. Mariner said goodbye and headed for the home of alter-ego Guru, the theorist member of the team.

Guru has a pleasant but simple home on a hillside in the country. He offered a Croatian red wine as we sat down to talk. “I’ve been visiting the other egos”, mariner said. “I would be interested in hearing your concerns about today’s world.”

“Hmmm, that’s a difficult question to prioritize. In all likelihood, there are four global forces that will require civilization to reconstruct the future of humanity in a way that does not exist at the moment: Not in any specific order, they are population, the relationship between humans and dwindling natural resources, a warming planet combined with solar phenomena from sunbursts to magnetic shifts, and certainly the impact of intensive automation that will affect the daily behavior of human society.”

It was mariner’s turn to pause. He asked, “Will any of the great difficulties facing the world today affect the four issues?”

“No. The end of the twentieth century coincided with deep changes in how society will move forward in the twenty-first century. The most subliminal may be the move toward a global or regional economy rather than a separate economy managed by each nation. Another subliminal shift will be a redefinition of human rights from a global perspective. Both these issues will be difficult to experience and will cause consternation.”

“is this the same as the confrontation between capitalism and socialism?” mariner asked.

Guru replied, ” That is a typical shortsighted question. Just as there was a rewriting of human values during the early Persians, just as there was a rewriting of human values during the Great Awakening, so to will humanity have to ‘rewrite the books’ as they say to provide structure for a global society.”

Mariner could sense that the conversation was getting a little too deep. He finished his Croatian wine and pleasantly said thanks and headed for the door.

It is always interesting to visit the alter-egos; they each have a view of reality at very different altitudes. Mariner appreciates this diversity since the alter-egos have a lot of influence in his posts.

Ancient Mariner

 

 

Yes, Virginia, Armageddon has begun

The post will deal with this issue but first be sure to read Marc Miller’s response under Recent Comments. His lifestyle is right on the mark!

Now, about Armageddon. According to the Book of Revelation in the New Testament of the Christian Bible, Armageddon is the prophesied location of a gathering of armies for a battle during the end times, which is variously interpreted as either a literal or a symbolic location. The term is also used in a generic sense to refer to any end-of-the-world scenario. In Islamic theology, Armageddon is also mentioned in Hadith as the Greatest Armageddon  (the great battle).

The Abrahamic religions maintain a linear cosmology, with end-time scenarios containing themes of transformation and redemption. In Judaism, the term “end of days” makes reference to the Messianic Age and includes an in-gathering of the exiled Jewish diaspora, the coming of the Messiah, the resurrection of the righteous, and the world to come. Christianity depicts the end time as a period of tribulation that precedes the second coming of Christ, who will face the rise of the Antichrist along with his power structure and false prophets, and usher in the Kingdom of God. [ mostly from Wikipedia]

Now that we have our Certificate of Understanding, One can define Armageddon as any extended, excessive change and upheaval of morals, economy, global upheaval and comprehensive, diminished value of humanity.

In the news today, Trump, along with a self-interested polity, economic disparity, global population issues, overdue war among Islamic nations, AI, and planet weather on the move, could be described as an Armageddon.

But in his musings, mariner feels that a big list of troublesome times is not what Armageddon is all about. Planetary Armageddons preceded life on Earth by billions of years. Focus on the term ‘end of times’. When an Armageddon occurs, what pre-existed no longer exists.  Pre-Armageddon isn’t upgraded or modified, it is gone. One crude example is the disappearance of nomadic life when money was invented, ways were found to manipulate planet resources for profit, and stationery life made survival more secure. Only one nomadic tribe still exists: in Africa and its days are numbered just like thousands of other creatures on the continent.

Bear with mariner as he focuses on circumstances that predict an ‘end of time’ for humanity.

By far and without question, the potential for an electronically based existence that will push human life into extinction, is the most potent shift that may cause a genuine ‘end of time’ for humanity. With a bit of tongue in cheek, mariner poses some phenomena.

Already, trucks and electric vehicles don’t need humans to run around streets like a loose dog. One can call a self-directed cab, get in and arrive at the appointed destination. Cab driver? Give this situation a broader context: why, eventually, would taxis need to exist if fewer and fewer people travel? By then, will vehicles still exist?

Technology exists today to make sex dolls self-dependent. They will be able to move out and sustain themselves without a ‘sponsor’. Provide them with an especially supportive bordello – who needs human prostitutes?

It is not just less and less need for humans. Does the reader enjoy the presence of their local state bank? Armageddon already is underway for independent banks. Already, large credit card companies have been absorbed by corporations like Amazon. Amazon can then control pricing from manufacturer to customer – including managing a customer’s checking and savings accounts. Then there’s crypto – no one knows what will happen when crypto leaks into the stock market; perhaps we won’t need the dozen or so humans who control stock markets.

To sustain a human’s life is much more complex than plugging into an electric socket. Did the reader know that if every little piece of vein and artery in their body were pieced together into a long string, it would wrap around the planet more than once.

Then there are all the ‘human communication’ robots. Everyone knows Apple’s Siri replaces everyone’s relatives. Then there’s the world of minions who replace secretaries when the reader calls for service. Mariner once got tangled up in a phone answering web that had three levels and about fifteen options – none of which led to a human.

The point is that electronic existence is so efficient when compared to the complex chemistry of humans that any post-Armageddon world will consist only of simplistic biological creatures driven, fed and taught by AI.

Storefront shopping disappeared long ago.

Ancient Mariner

Just for old timers

When mariner was in his sixties and had just retired, he thought, “Being old ain’t so bad.” He felt the new freedom of not having to work long days and forever flying off to some contract. Then he rolled into his seventies. During that time, he moved to his retirement home in a small Iowan town. He did notice that, socially, he had no role in this town. He dismissed this thought and traveled often to see friends and family, take a cruise, have the joy of crewing on the Stars and Stripes, (the America’s Cup winner in 1987), and sailing in the Caribbean.

As he neared his eighties, he experienced a few significant illnesses, began to have back problems, arthritis and palsy. He had adopted gardening as his new raison d’etre. In his eighties, however, the body disappeared. (See Tim Conway’s oldest man at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-QqmJimv_U ). Where once mariner could lift two concrete blocks and toss them into his pickup, yesterday he almost needed a hand truck to move one block five feet.

But the body is its own story bound by genetics, health history and life experience. There is a more important side to being old: mental health. The time comes when we must change who we think we are.

While work rules and government policy suggest when to retire from full employment in the sixties, it is the decisions we make in our seventies that set our future happiness. Perhaps now you have a parttime job in a grocery store or perhaps you belong to organizations like PEO, Masons or even a bowling league. The time has come to move on.

Do not make the mistake of just jumping out of your social role into a deep pit where a recliner-casket, a television and delivered groceries shape who you are. The subconscious brain (the real boss) needs to communicate with other humans no matter how old you are.

Instead of cutting strings and disappearing, develop a new plan for how you will fit into society. For example, set a specific pattern for visiting friends, having friends to your home, perhaps joining a volunteer organization or a hobby-based club like reading, arts and crafts, etc. If you are fortunate, perhaps its time to move to a retirement community – designed to fulfill your new but antiquated needs. Perhaps move closer to your family to retain that togetherness that families provide.

While one is alive, it is a mistake to retire to a closet. Just reshape the way one can still have a good time in a different way. Be with people!

Ancient Mariner

Logarithms

Yes, he knows, logarithms aren’t interesting. But the reader will have to put up with obtuse and irrelevant subjects while mariner spends time in Chicken Little’s henhouse.

Cruising through Netflix, mariner found a documentary about how everything in the Universe is connected with everything in the Universe in an orderly fashion. Humans, like every creature, measure reality in terms of meaningful increments – one candy, one day, one football game, 12 eggs, one automobile, $500 dollars, three children, etc.

But if a very large number of anything – people, number of days late to work in a lifetime, the distance from Earth to every star in the sky, the number of times each letter of the alphabet starts a word in The New York Times, etc., the numbers will relate to one another in a pattern called a logarithm. Even the pixels in a photograph are subject to the same pattern in this logarithm. What is fascinating is that the values in the logarithm are the same for every example!

Take the tax returns from every citizen in the US. Throw all the numbers in all the answer boxes together. The number ‘1’ will start 30 percent of the values in all the boxes. The same is true when measuring distances to the stars; whether one uses miles or kilometers or 2x4x8 lumber, 30 percent of the distances will start with ‘1’.

Mariner will not pursue deeper uses for logarithms. He suggests the reader go to Netflix and search for ‘Connected’. Or, if you are more scholarly, search for ‘Benford’s Law’.

When mariner took calculus in high school, the ethereal characteristics of logarithms was not taught. Consequently, as a tool it was a boring inversion of exponential values. He, remembers, though, that a different order of values was created that seemed to having nothing to do with the rest of the values in the equation.

So, what’s for supper?

Ancient Mariner

 

Spring is nigh

After several weeks of near-zero temperatures, a foot of snow, a large lake at the end of the yard, bitter winds and muck in the yard, there are signs. Mariner is hesitant to celebrate. He has no trust in Punxsutawney Phil and last February saw similar temperatures in the sixties which provoked premature growth that later was frozen in a series of frosts in late April.

Still, in these times, any sign of a positive event should be appreciated. Today, tulips in the front garden poked through just by an inch or less but there is life! Further, when mariner cleared last year’s dead tomato plants, he discovered four chard plants pushing through in spite of all the cover. This is well appreciated because that row of chard was covered by the huge tomato plants and bush beans. He considers the chard heroes and they will receive special care this year.

It was refreshing to return to the hardscape chores that will restructure the backyard gardens.

Since spring is nigh, he and his wife will attempt a celebration of family as they launch a visit to their family in California (if they haven’t been washed away).

So, readers, look around for similar good times with your family and newfound gumption. Be warned, however, not to look too far – it’s a tough world out there.

Ancient Mariner

Life is relative

Today, mariner was skimming through Associated Press news and came across an article about the discovery of a new flying dinosaur called Ceoptera:

It was unearthed on the Island of Skye in Scotland. It survived for 2 million years between 168 – 166 million years ago. The article caused mariner to think about time as a ruler with which to measure the biosphere. For example, today the Isle of Skye is nothing but jagged, treeless mountains and not the warmest place to be. What was it like 168 million years ago? In fact, Skye emerged in the Precambrian Age 538 million years ago and was a torrent of volcanoes; certainly no Ceoptera could have survived until 370 million years later!

The Earth stabilized into a planet 4.5 billion years ago. Is there a constant time called ‘Earth time’? Earth seems to have its own calendar of activities from totally dry to covered in oceans, to ice ages and even an occasional meteorite. After 300,000 years of stable weather, it seems the planet has decided to grow warmer. Ultimately, Earth abides by Sun time – a life span of about 15 billion years.

Mariner suspects there must be different clocks for different types of biosphere. 538 million years is a long, long time for Ceoptera to wait and then live only 2 million years.  The first primitive life form that can be called an animal emerged 550 million years ago. Trees have been around for 450 million years;

Moving forward, the first mammal emerged 225 million years ago; the first primate came along 65 million years ago; monkeys showed up 40 million years ago and primitive homo types split from chimpanzees 6 million years ago.

Australopithecus is a genus of hominin that evolved in eastern Africa approximately 4 million years ago and went extinct about 2 million years ago.  H. erectus appeared approximately 1.8 million years ago and we came aboard 260,000 years ago.

Readers may recall this paragraph from a recent post:

“Readers know that recently tech scientists were able to create a self-producing biological app by connecting an electronic sequence with the chemical sequence of a chromosome. Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein both said that if electronically-driven devices can reproduce themselves, the humans would become extinct because of the overhead of mammalian survival.”

Is sapiens already on notice? Every species in history survived only within a viable relationship with its environment. Today, there are headlines about overpopulation, inadequate food sources, and a disruption of the atmosphere that has urged Earth to move on from 300,000 years of stable weather, give or take a couple of ice ages.

Given these numerical references, perhaps there is a singular life time for planet Earth – tied to its parent Sun. The measuring tool is in units of 10 million years incremented by tenths. Time moves constantly toward that moment when a dying Sun will consume the planet – about 5 billion years from now.

On the other hand, evolution seems to accelerate across time. For example, Ceoptera hung around for 2 million years. We Homos have been around only for 260,000 years. Our successors already have arrived. How long will a robot-driven animal survive?

This leads mariner to surmise that evolutionary time is not a constant time. Measuring evolutionary time behaves more like the algorithm for falling through gravity:        distance = 1/2 gt

For each second one falls, they fall the square of the previous second. For example, one falls 1 foot in the first second, 4 feet the second, and so forth (see chart).

Similarly, changes in evolution happen faster and faster as time passes. There are few folks who think humans will be around 2 million years from now as ceoptera did.

Mariner will not dwell on examples of Armageddon. We shall experience existence as due course in the timeline of evolution.

Ancient Mariner

 

 

An etymology of religion

Well, not really an etymology but it is about the words associated with religion. If one were to step back a good distance from the words used in religion, they would discover that there aren’t any major differences between religions. For example, the motivators are: what is the ultimate, singular force that governs reality? What is the best way to survive in the environment? What is the best way to manage humanity? What is the best way to survive when the relationship with reality seems uncertain?

As an illustration, the first god to be documented in the western world was Cybele, originally a Phrygian [ancient nation in today’s Turkey] goddess. She was the goddess of Mother Earth. In Greek mythology she was Rhea, the mother of the gods. Her Roman equivalent was Magna Mater. She was associated with fertility and also controlled nature, symbolized originally by the lions that accompanied her. In Christianity, she is Mary, Mother of Jesus.

Cybele’s role shifted through the ages except for one element: the master of creation. Because of transitions in human knowledge, Mary did not need two lions at her side to assure the birth of Jesus.

An interesting thing to consider is the definition of God. God was male and except for a few instances, was quite anthropomorphic, managing reality through a human’s eye. Would the reader consider the word ‘singularity’ as the latest definition of God? In quantum physics, this is the definition:

In scientific terms, a gravitational singularity (or space-time singularity) is a location where the quantities that are used to measure the gravitational field become infinite in a way that does not depend on the coordinate system. In other words, it is a point in which all physical laws are indistinguishable from one another, where space and time are no longer interrelated realities, but merge indistinguishably and cease to have any independent meaning.

Another interesting example is comparing the Old Testament’s Ten Commandments [Exodus 20:2-17], Islam’s Sharia Law [see Post titled Sharia Law] and Christianity’s Sermon on the Mount [Matthew 5]. Reading the words suggests vastly different objectives but the subject is the same: What is the best way to manage humanity?

This post is Mariner’s way of introducing the reader to a new way of looking at religion. The traditional way has caused wars, social upheaval and ridiculous fragmentation as politics, culture and technology grind the virtues of life into a useless pile of crumbs.

However, AI is eager to help 21st century humans throw everything into a dishwasher and produce an amalgamated religion appropriate for our modern culture(s).

We need Cybele and her lions . . . .

Ancient Mariner

In 2023 what was learned that is new?

For those readers who have yet to subscribe to The Atlantic magazine, you should have by now. True, it requires reading – a forgotten skill today – but it is as honest a magazine as you can find and evaluates everything neutrally – even if the reader doesn’t like the opinion. The magazine is the most awarded of its class. What follows is a collection of observations from the journalists at the magazine. Some are funny, some odd, and some insightful but all are new. Enjoy all 81!

  1. Mars has seasons, and in the winter, it snows.
  2. Bats are arguably the healthiest mammals on Earth.
  3. Mammal milk changes depending on the time of day, a baby’s age and sex, the mom’s diet, and more.
  4. The genetic mutation behind “Asian glow” might help protect people against certain pathogens—including tuberculosis.
  5. The overwhelming majority of sweaters available on the American mass market are made at least partly of plastic.
  6. In 2003, a NASA Investigation Board blamed the disintegration of the space shuttle Columbia in part on PowerPoint. [a Microsoft presentation application]
  7. As much as 36 percent of the world’s annual carbon-dioxide emissions from fossil fuels are sequestered, at least temporarily, in fungi.
  8. Mice and rats can’t vomit.
  9. In the 1930s, the U.S. Army considered distributing daily rations of yerba mate to soldiers. [nutritional gourd]
  10. You have two noses, and you can control them separately via your armpits.
  11. It’s possible to lactate without ever having been pregnant.
  12. But if you are pregnant, your feet might grow roughly half a shoe size and lengthen by about 0.4 inches.
  13. Gender-neutral baby names are more popular in conservative states than in liberal ones.
  14. By 2051, North America may run out of three-digit area codes.
  15. Today’s average NBA athlete is 4 to 7 percent better than the average player from more than 10 years ago.
  16. Hawaii’s feral chickens are out of control.
  17. When you look at a tattoo, you’re seeing ink shining in the “belly” of an immune cell that has gobbled up the ink and failed to digest it.
  18. The technology behind the first rice cookers, sold in 1955, is still widely used today—because it’s perfect.
  19. Meanwhile, the corrugated pizza box used by basically every pizzeria has not changed since its invention in 1966, and it does a bad job of maintaining a take-out pizza.
  20. A database of nearly 200,000 pirated books is powering many generative-AI models.
  21. Americans are suffering from cockroach amnesia.
  22. The hippopotamuses released from Pablo Escobar’s personal zoo in Colombia are engineering the local ecosystem.
  23. plastic bag in dirt – Compostable plastic bags buried in soil for three years can still hold a full load of groceries.
  24. Allergy season really is getting worse.
  25. Last month, for two consecutive days, the Earth reached global temperatures of 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels for the first time.
  26. There are Lord of the Rings–style hobbit-house Airbnbs, an Airbnb in the shape of a spaceship, and an Airbnb inside a freestanding harbor crane.
  27. Cat owners in Cyprus are giving leftover COVID drugs to their pets, but not for COVID.
  28. The same molecule that makes cat urine smell like cat urine is, in lower concentrations, commonly used in air fresheners and household cleaners.
  29. The Sphere, in Las Vegas, can transform its 366-foot-tall exterior into a gargantuan emoji that astronauts can reportedly see from space.
  30. Within eight seconds of flushing, a toilet bowl can shoot a plume of aerosols nearly five feet into the air—and straight into your face.
  31. Until the 1800s, merchants, lawyers, and aristocrats each wrote in their own distinctive script.
  32. The English words flow, mother, fire, and ash come from Ice Age peoples.
  33. car seat with heat marks – By hacking a Tesla’s rear heated seats, German researchers inadvertently accessed private user data.
  34. Many eye creams are functionally identical to facial moisturizers but are far more expensive.
  35. A Dutch man and his family have a perplexing brain condition called “color agnosia”: They can see colors, but they cannot name them.
  36. Hurricane Otis confounded extreme-weather warning systems by gaining more than 100 miles per hour of wind speed in 24 hours.
  37. Foxes have committed mass murder against flamingos at least three times during the past 30 years.
  38. Despite nearly half a century of trying, we don’t have any medication that effectively treats anorexia.
  39. There are no established clinical guidelines for diagnosing and treating adult ADHD.
  40. Elephant seals sleep only two hours a day, for many months at a time, via a series of super-short naps, taken as they dive deep beneath the ocean’s surface.
  41. UPS handles so many packages every year that its workers put their hands on roughly 6 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.
  42. One of Saturn’s moons likely has a habitable ocean.
  43. AI avatars led a church service in Germany this summer.
  44. There’s a lifeguard shortage in America. It’s been going on for a century.
  45. A pill may be easier to swallow if you turn your head as it goes down.
  46. Kramer – During the original run of Seinfeld, the show’s costumers had a hard time sourcing the clothing for Kramer’s wardrobe because his quirky style had become so popular with the general public that they were buying up all of the vintage clothing that made up his look.
  47. AI models can analyze the brain scans of somebody listening to a story and then reproduce the gist of every sentence.
  48. A new idea to curb emissions takes inspiration from the Cold War: a fossil-fuel-nonproliferation treaty.
  49. During a 2018 war game in which the president had been cut off from his nuclear forces, many participants—including former heads of state, foreign ministers, and senior NATO officers—recommended leaving the decision of whether to enter a nuclear exchange to an AI.
  50. Decades of research suggest that hypnosis might be an effective treatment for irritable bowel syndrome, at least in the short term.
  51. Rest is not necessarily the best treatment for a concussion.
  52. People have been living on the Galápagos Islands since the early 1800s.
  53. Bird chicks aren’t innately able to recognize their mother’s calls—they learn to do so while in their eggs and can be manipulated to respond to another species’ voice.
  54. People are likely spending billions of dollars tipping creators on TikTok Live.
  55. Before Tesla and Meta, Palo Alto’s biggest tech giant was a farm that bred racehorses.
  56. Reports of pediatric melatonin overdoses have increased by 530 percent over the past decade.
  57. iPhone cameras can perform trillions of operations to optimize a single photo.
  58. Modern flip phones stink because they’re just made of recycled scraps from the smartphone-manufacturing process.
  59. If you think all phones are passé, you can buy a pair of screen eyes from Apple for $3,499 [adjusts colors for vision].
  60. Some people loop playlists in their sleep to help them game the Spotify algorithm and get more impressive Spotify Wrapped results.
  61. An index ranking the transparency of flagship AI models from 10 major companies gave every single one a resounding F.
  62. lemon lime character – Lemon-lime isn’t a flavor so much as a sensibility that defines soft drinks.
  63. The Italian government provides gluten-free-food vouchers for people with celiac disease.
  64. Some people taking Ozempic to lose weight are also effortlessly quitting smoking, drinking, and online shopping.
  65. Scantron tests, a defining feature of American education, are dying.
  66. Fifteen percent of daily Google searches have never been searched before, according to the company.
  67. American cars hit more than 1 million large animals and as many as 340 million birds every year.
  68. Animals at watering holes in South Africa’s Greater Kruger National Park were twice as likely to flee when they heard a human voice as when they heard lions.
  69. Hundreds of craters on the moon never receive direct sunlight.
  70. The total surface area of the Antarctic’s sea ice in July was more than four standard deviations smaller than the average for that time of year, shattering records.
  71. Oxygen might actually be bad for multicellular evolution.
  72. Last year, the Sunset Limited train from New Orleans to Los Angeles was on time for just 19 percent of trips, making it the tardiest train in the country.
  73. About a third of pregnancies in women 40 and older are unplanned.
  74. MSG stays on the tongue long after food is swallowed, resulting in a lingering savory sensation.
  75. Podiatrists have seen a spike in plantar-fasciitis cases since the coronavirus pandemic began, partly because so many people who work from home shuffle around barefoot on hard floors.
  76. OpenAI’s chief scientist commissioned a wooden effigy intended to represent an AI that does not meet a human’s objectives. He set it on fire at a leadership meeting this year, according to two people familiar with the event.
  77. A luxury trip to Antarctica can cost upwards of $65,000.
  78. Many football fans punch, shoot, run over, or otherwise destroy their TV when things don’t go well for their team.
  79. Checked-bag fees may feel like they’ve been a scourge since the birth of aviation, but they were only introduced in 2008.
  80. pair of talking dolphins – Dolphins have their own version of baby talk.
  81. Gravity-wise, the Earth doesn’t resemble a blue marble so much as a potato.

Past Forty-five

Mariner reports from an electric recliner in his henhouse apartment:

This post primarily is for anyone over forty-five. Name five activities the reader hasn’t done for the last five years. For example, walk every, every day, rearrange furniture, sit on the floor cross-legged to watch television while completing a jigsaw puzzle, clean roof gutters, change a ceiling light bulb, weed all the gardens on time, paint a room, help someone else with labor, not money, etc.

When is the last time the reader took on a project that took more than a week to accomplish? How long has it been since the reader read anything longer than ten pages (newspapers and entertainment magazines not acceptable). All these activities are examples of vitality and joy of life.

To be rude, everyone lets themselves die. Mariner acknowledges that evolution has no use for humans after forty-five and has arranged for strength and chemical composition to begin decomposing more rapidly. Eventually, it is inevitable that humans will pass on; everyone does. Medical science has let humans live longer but only artificially. Keeping the old body breathing with twenty-seven prescriptions and supplements is not an example of vitality and joy of life. Yet, prescriptions aside, humans can defy evolution because evolution made the mistake of making humans too smart for their own good.

On a daily basis mariner sees old timers walking briskly, bicycling, even jogging. He sees small groups of folks walking as a group all over town. He knows many hobbyists engaged in everything from making very nice greeting cards to repairing lawnmower and tractor breakdowns as a small business – and that man is OLD. Mariner knows of a group that still goes to storefront movie houses; the ‘group’ part is as important as the storefront culture.

It is important to have at least one group activity. Options are infinite: book club, card or poker club, writing club, church activities, volunteer organizations, community maintenance, and on and on. If one is fortunate, there is a restaurant nearby where a bunch of regulars gather for morning coffee.

Here’s the test:

  • How much real, memorable fun has the reader had in the last two years?
  • What has the reader created that is a new personal accomplishment in the last two years?
  • With how many people has the reader had face-to-face conversations today (telephone, text and Wi-Fi Facetalk don’t count)?.
  • How long has it been since the reader went swimming or hiking or just going somewhere new?
  • Has the reader stepped forward to help another’s need in the last two years?
  • Over the last two years, has the reader regularly performed physical exercises?

Mariner acknowledges that evolution will have its way but go out fighting – the reader  actually will live longer and have a good time as well.

Ancient Mariner