The American Experiment

 A Quotable Quotes column

Image by Mike Goad from Pixabay 

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids — the Stickies — eventual selves to advise them and haunt them after they've become grups and/or I'm deleted.  

Trigger Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, or grups may result in a debilitating meltdown.  

About 

Glossary 

Featuring Dana: Hallucination, guest star, and charming literary device  

"I write my own quotes. Except this one. I obviously stole this from somebody really clever." -Brian Celio

Dear Stickies and Gentlereaders,

For a moment there I thought that Sister Mary Mcgillicuddy had deceived me back in seventh grade. 

I was taught that America was the result of, and continues to be, a grand experiment and that this was, and is, a RBF'D.

Turning to Wikipedia first as I often do when looking for information that might be more neutral in tone and content than what might pop up on the world wide web of all knowledge, I typed the words the American experiment into Wikipedia's search box. 

Hoo-boy. 

Wikipedia returned an entry about a high school history textbook. 

How about if I leave off the the, and just go with American experiment? 

The page "American experiment" does not exist. You can create a draft and submit it for review, but consider checking the search results below to see whether the topic is already covered.

Which was followed by a link to the page about the history textbook mentioned above and links to some equally useless entries. Interesting, huh?    

{The the?}

Cool, right? Anyways, I went a-googlin.' No joy till it finally occurred to me to type in: what is the American experiment.

{Well, duh!}

I'm not sure we're allowed to use the word duh anymore. It sounds... triggering?

{Walk on the wild side, Sparky!}

I found a great quote in an editorial published on 11/27/1860 in the New York Daily-Tribune (about the approaching Civil War) that's rather lengthy, but perfect.

We have been regarded as engaged in trying a great experiment, involving not merely the future fate and welfare of this Western continent, but the hopes and prospects of the whole human race. Is it possible for a Government to be permanently maintained without privileged classes, without a standing army, and without either hereditary or self-appointed rulers? Is the democratic principle of equal rights, general suffrage, and government by a majority, capable of being carried into practical operation, and that, too, over a large extent of country?

  

{Without a standing Army? Privileged classes?}

Not now, Dana, I don't want to...

{Wait-wait-wait. What do you think the American experiment is?}

Let's set up a democratic republic to try and avoid the many downsides of pure democracy and see what happens. It hadn't been really tried before, so it was and is an ongoing experiment.  

A lady asked Dr. Franklin Well Doctor what have we got a republic or a monarchy – A republic replied the Doctor if you can keep it. -From the journal of James McHenry 

The establishment of our new Government seemed to be the last great experiment, for promoting human happiness, by reasonable compact, in civil Society. -G. Washington

The question in society is never whether elites shall rule but which elites are going to rule, and the test in a democracy is to get popular consent to worthy elites. -George Will

Let common sense flow from below. -Joel Kotkin

The experiment was launched, and we got lucky. So did the rest of the world, both directly and indirectly.

{How about some details?}

Nope. This isn't the introduction to a history book; the details are readily available. But be careful and circumspect, Wokies are everywhere. Besides, given how quickly the Wokie virus has spread, and how virulent it is, I'm content to hole up here in the Ohio mountains sending out weekly dispatches to my gentlereaders.   

If the epidemic recedes to the point (there have been some positive developments) where I don't fear a book of any sort would put the denizens of Casa de Chaos in danger perhaps I'll compile my best columns and publish them as a book.  

But the next presidential election is "only" a year and a half away so I'm keeping my head down.

{Fine then. How about some more quotes?} 

Absabalutely!

- I personally hold that the classical spirit of challenge and self-discovery is a fundamental human trait. By showing how the risk-taking activity of individuals contributes to social benefits, economics helps societies to accommodate what Augustine called our “restlessness of heart.” This is the better part of our human nature. Societies that suppress this restlessness stagnate and die. The issue of morality in economics is neither the fairness of income distribution nor the stability of financial systems. It is how human institutions can be shaped to correspond to human nature — to man’s nature as an innovator.

-Edmund Phelps, 2006 Nobelist in Economics

{So what's next. Are you cautiously optimistic?}

No.

- The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised. -George Will

- We are a pack animal constantly trying to make sure we have high status within the pack; we have a really hard time distinguishing between “having attention” and “deserving attention;” we principally learn by doing and emulation (not by thinking). -Jordan Hall

- We live in a new medieval age, when pseudo-religious “secular-humanist” oligarchs rule, their clericals carry out orders, their scribes record, and their “true believers” genuflect, to promote their self-interests. Hence, Pope Joe, the deep state, the mainstream media... -Judith Thorman

- When highly educated wonks in DC or Manhattan get involved, they often — in their well-credentialed ignorance — pit one of these groups against the others. The least educated are the most despised by the highly educated: working-class men appear to be necessary for Republican fortunes, but they are deemed deplorably unchurched and unworthy of any but the lowest place in the global economy. -Daniel McCarthy

However, my "restlessness of heart" manifests as writing this column and hoping I can help, however insignificantly, to return America to sanity.

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

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Comments? I post links to my columns on Facebook and Twitter where you can go to love me, hate me, or try to have me canceled.

This Was the Week That Was

The wild week that ended on 7/1/23 

Image by Mark Thomas from Pixabay

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids — the Stickies — eventual selves to advise them and haunt them after they've become grups and/or I'm deleted.  

Trigger Warning: This column rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, or grups may result in debilitating psychological trauma.  

About 

Glossary 

Featuring Dana: Hallucination, guest star, and charming literary device  

"Whenever you put a man on the Supreme Court he ceases to be your friend."  -Harry Truman                                                                                                                                                  

Dear Stickies and Gentlereaders,

With apologies to the various versions of the TV show from which I stole the title of this column, permit me to say: That was some kinda week, eh? The Supremes, still under fire for pointing out that the Constitution actually has nothing to say about abortion — thus forcing the sorta/kinda united states to decide for themselves — were at it again. 

Now they've ruled against colleges and universities using affirmative action when deciding which credential-seeking students to let into top-rated, wildly overpriced colleges and universities top-heavy with administrators, amenities, and bias response teams.

And if that's not bad enough, they also ruled that Uncle Joe, the head of the party of the little guy, didn't have the power to bypass Congress and permit us all to share in the joy of providing student loan relief for students who majored in Critical Pottery theory and the like, and all those bartenders and baristas with Master of Fine Arts degrees.     

{Speaking of abortion, I've got an idea! What if Congress were to pass a law regulating abortion, a compromise (say 15 weeks?) that will satisfy neither side but allow those of us caught in the middle, and the entire nation for that matter, to move on?}  

Actually, that was my idea but since we're... never mind. But there are all sorts of rabid people on both sides that will...

{Yes, there are, and yes, they will. Let 'em march and protest and boycott and decry and submit legislation till their bums fall off. After all, this is a democratic republic. If you want me, I'll be in the bar. There's a really cute new bartender working there.} 

The Supremes also ruled that anyone who self-identifies as LGBTQQIP2SA+ can't force someone who doesn't identify with any of those letters, a number, and a plus sign to provide various and sundry services. 

{You love getting a chance to use the phrase various and sundry, don't you? I think ya got too many letters there, Sparky.}

Well, let's see. lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual, queer, questioning, intersexual, pansexual, two-spirit, asexual, plus a marginalized minority to be named later. Nope, I'm good. I thought you went to the bar?

{Not open yet. What about furries?, why isn't there an F? Are you a furry phobe?}

Not me, some of my best friends are furries. 

I've emailed a friend of mine, my go-to person for this sort of thing, who works at the headquarters of the IUPPPP&PVTTOT about that very thing but I haven't received a reply. I'm guessing they're covered by the +, as are all sorts of folx we're likely to eventually hear about. 

{IUPP... etc?} 

I've mentioned them once or twice, but it's been a minute. International Union of Perpetually Protesting Protestors and Perpetual Victims of This, That, and the Other Thing. It's a nonprofit that likes to keep a low profile and concentrate on raising money and providing services for all of its many nonprofit member organizations, making sure all the paperwork and permits are up to date and all potentially applicable taxes are legally avoided.     

However, unlike the endless wailing, teeth gnashing, and garment rending that's occurred, and continues, over the repeal of Roe v. Wade things have settled down relatively quickly. 

I'm sure there are any number of plausible reasons I could promulgate as to why but my official, Crank-sanctioned reason is that summer is upon us. It's being widely reported that Normies are taking vacations in record numbers. I think they're putting the perpetual crises promoted by the purple press and social media on hold as best they can, and stocking up on sunscreen.

Multiple polls have been conducted (of course)... 

{By various and sundry polling organizations?}

But I double-dog dare you to read any article that reports on the results of more than one particular poll and claim that you feel confident about the mood of the American people. I'm starting to think all the news is fake.     

As best I can tell we seem to be about evenly split on student loans and forcing businesses to accept work from folx whose lifestyles they don't condone. It looks like a clear majority of us think it's time to end applying affirmative action when deciding on who's worthy of attending the sort of schools mentioned above. 

But given that some of our elite educational institutions have recently declared that there's more than one way to skin a Supreme Court ruling if you're clever/devious enough, this controversy, like the one around abortion, will never go away. 

The Supremes made another ruling that for some mysterious reason didn't get much publicity. Evangelical Christian Gerald Groff quit working for the USPS back in 2019 because the Fedrl Gummit refused to give him Sundays off to observe the sabbath because they wanted him to deliver packages — for Amazon. 

   

He's been battling the Post Office in various and sundry courts ever since to get them to change the rules in what turns out to be a very complicated case. Unfortunately for Mr. Groff, all he "won" was his case being kicked back down the road to a lower court. Follow the link for details. 

The USPS has vowed to keep on fighting this right-wing kook till balance is restored in the Force with the help of your money. 

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

Scroll down to share my work/access oldies. Tip me, or Join Cranky's Coffee Club (and access my condensed History of the World), here.    

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Critical Theory

Critical Theory vs. critical thinking

Cheat Sheet No. 2.

Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids — the Stickies — eventual selves to advise them and haunt them after they've become grups and/or I'm deleted.  

Trigger Warning: This column rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, or grups may result in debilitating psychological trauma.  

About 

Glossary 

Featuring Dana: Hallucination, guest star, and charming literary device  

"People of various and sundry hues claiming that all people of pallor are racists born with unearned privilege is pure, unadulterated bonkercockie." -Me 

From Cheat Sheet No. 1: Cheat Sheets are a sort of distillation of all the stuff I would like to mention, or reiterate, to the Stickies and my daughter and son-in-law in the event of my sudden demise.

(I'm turning 70 this year.)

Hopefully, this will provide some life guidance and provide comfort for their devastated hearts (and for the lack of cash left on the table).

Dear Stickies and Gentlereaders,

To explain, in my semi-humble opinion, what Critical Theory is, I would first explore what critical thinking is.

Long story short (this is a cheat sheet after all) critical thinking is one of the hoogely important reasons that I, and hopefully you, find myself living in one of the unbelievably prosperous and reasonably free countries that are the products of Western Civilization.

Nowadays, the term Western Civilization has been demoted by many to merely Western culture. For reasons of political correctness, it's no longer cool in certain circles to espouse that despite its flaws it's the best H. sapiens have done so far. 

To think critically means to use logic and reason to try and get to the bottom of something while setting aside, at least as much as possible, emotion. To think like a good scientist for example. To seek out, continuously, what is objectively true (enough) to be of use to almost everyone. 

{Continuously? True (enough)? Almost everyone?} 

The writer finds a way to cleverly dodge the endless bonkercocky devoted to debating whether anything is actually objectively true, Dana, whether there's such a thing as settled science, or whether it's possible for a human being to ever completely set aside emotion (it ain't, trust me).

Suffice it to say, to a practical, pragmatic, and well-adjusted adult, true enough will suffice till the next paradigm-busting breakthrough comes along. Please google the terms Scientific Revolution and Age of Enlightenment for edification and clarification. 

The only thing Critical Theory has in common with critical thinking is the word critical. Critical thinking aims to figure out what something is, how it works, how it got that way, etc. Equipped with this information, and by adding a dash of evolved tradition and a pinch of what we've learned the hard way (history), you can then try to figure out what to do with this knowledge. 

Used more or (often) less wisely, and with a bit of luck, flawed, imperfect H. sapiens have managed to construct the most advanced civilization the planet Earth has seen so far, assuming of course you think prosperity and freedom are good things. 

Critical Theory, on the other hand, is the opposite approach. Choose a desired result, Utopia, and then set aside human nature, what's realistically possible, the law of unintended consequences, history, etc. — and then get to work. 

The first step is to destroy the existing traditions and institutions that stand in the way of establishing heaven on Earth. This ain't easy since, as Karl Marx warned us, many people are so dumb they don't realize they're somebody's victim and need to wake up (be awokened?).     

Critical theory is that kid you knew in high school that never got tired of saying, "Real communism has like, never really been tried." 

What can an intelligent, highly-educated (and embarrassed) Marxist do in the 1930s when it's been revealed that the Russian revolution has unleashed a bloodthirsty ideological monster that will murder, give or take, 100,000,000 counter-revolutionaries by the time the world is partying 'cause it's 1999? 

And worse yet, for some mysterious reason, the world's oppressed masses, due to their false consciousness... 

⯿⯿⯿

("False consciousness denotes people’s inability to recognize inequality, oppression, and exploitation in a capitalist society..." -Encyclopaedia Britannica) 

...have declined an invitation to the party and aren't burning down the house, and everything else, as foretold by St. Karl?

A group of professors (the "Frankfurt School") in Germany, and others, coalesced around Critical Theory. Still Marxism, but New and Improved! They weren't about continuously, often painfully, seeking out the Good, the True, and the Beautiful (a preoccupation of many a critical thinker).   

From Wikipedia:  

"A critical theory is any approach to social philosophy that focuses on society and culture to attempt to reveal, critique, and challenge power structures." (My emphasis.) Max Horkheimer said that Critical theory seeks "to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them."

In other words: Western Civilization isn't the result of thousands of years of groping around in the dark, trying to find the best possible way to live, given that we're flawed by nature and Utopia is impossible. It's merely how people that conducted/conduct their lives accordingly have enslaved everyone that doesn't. 

But killing the nay-sayers, starting from scratch, and organizing one, big, happy commune wherein everyone shared everything equally didn't work out very well in Russia.

Plan B? Figuratively burning it down by revolutionizing the institutions one at a time. The professors who invented the Frankfurt school fled Germany to avoid being killed by the Nazis and landed on U.S. college campuses. 

{Did they say thanks?}

The virus slowly but steadily spread from there, eventually bonded with postmodernism, and is now an epidemic. Everyone can "self-identify" as whatever they please, truth is whatever anyone says it is, and the de facto motto of many in the West is: If it feels good, do it.   

Bottom line: Wokies genuinely believe that there are only two kinds of people in the world, the oppressors and the oppressed, and that the tenets and traditions of so-called Western Civilization are merely a paradigm devised by Caucasian males to exploit everyone else. 

Wokies genuinely believe that if you don't accept this you're asleep and thus not worth debating much less being allowed to freely state your heretical views. Confess your sins or be canceled.

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

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Implicit Bias and Systemic Racism

Image by Peter Wolf from Pixabay 

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids — the Stickies — eventual selves to advise them and haunt them after they've become grups and/or I'm deleted.  

Trigger Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, or grups may result in a debilitating meltdown. 

About 

Glossary 

Featuring Dana: Hallucination, guest star, and charming literary device  

"Can we all just get along?" -Rodney King

Dear Stickies and Gentlereaders,

Early in 1985 me and wild-eyed Walter were doing reconnaissance deep in the heart of Texas. Our mission was to find a home for some ice cream trucks owned by Tom and Miss Kitty, former residents of a rapidly rusting Cincinnati, Ohio.

Tom and Miss Kitty got out of Dodge after most of the local players in heavy industry had done the same and took a lot of jobs with them. They drove their herd of ice cream trucks in a direction that would've seemed counterintuitive to a cowboy and put them to work on the streets of Laredo Austin.

They had more trucks than they needed to serve the good people of Austin and this is why wild-eyed Walter and I were driving from town to town in ice cream trucks in the deep south of the Deep South, South Texas. 

We were exploring south of San Antonio and north of Mexico. The population stats of lots of small towns, and one large one, indicated there were a lot of people down there who just might be in need of an ice cream truck.  

There was/is a lot of mostly empty space between those towns. If you've never been to Texas it's hard to appreciate just how hooge it actually is, even at the narrow end near the Mexican border. 

But Tom and Miss Kitty figgered, sorry, figured, that given that there were a lot of folks down there, and given the fact their winters were often radically different from those experienced by the people that lived at the opposite end of the state, the Texas Panhandle — palm trees as opposed to occasional Blue Norther — there might be some money to be made.

{What's a Blue Norther?} 

It's even colder than it sounds... follow the link.

 

The one large town, Corpus Christi (our first stop) already had a herd of ice cream trucks, so we reluctantly saddled up and hit the trail.

{Reluctantly?}

It's a beautiful party town on the Gulf of Mexico and I was a much younger, completely unattached man at the time pursuing a geographic cure for a broken heart that I had picked up in Pittsburgh.

Now, as you might expect, given the fact that Southern Texas borders Mexico and that all of Texas was once part of Mexico, there are a lot of Latinxers living there. 

{The plural of Latinx is Latinxs, there's no such word as Latinxers.}

Wait a sec', I'll be right back...

Hmmm... from what I can tell, Dana, most Latinos, Latinas, and/or Hispanics think there's no such word as Latinx.

{Could we move on, please?}

Yep. Alls I know is that when I found myself attempting to pedal my popsicles in neighborhoods top-heavy with children that were apparently... 

All I know is that in certain neighborhoods a lot of kids who struck me (of course I could be wrong) as being of a certain heritage came up to my truck and spoke to me in Spanish. 

Having studied Spanish for two years in high school I shrugged and replied, "No hablo Espanol," reasonably confident that these 3 of the 6 or so Spanish words I remembered expressed that I didn't speak Spanish. 

I may have been wrong though because many of them laughed and walked away. Sometimes they threw rocks at my truck whereupon I got outta Dodge. Wild-eyed Walter was temporarily arrested in a small town by a cop he thought might be of a certain heritage for peddling popsicles without a permit but he was released when the evening shift, both officers, reported for duty.

I suspect we may have been the victims of implicit bias, but such is life. We honestly weren't that surprised, all things considered, especially history.

{Next, you'll be claiming you were a victim of systemic racism.} 

  

Nope, no such thing. Scientists say race is a social construct, and I agree. 

Everyone knows Adam and Eve were Africans but we're all mongrels who tend to identify/bond with groups that we share physical/cultural/etceterological characteristics because H. sapiens are tribal (a survival mechanism) by nature.

Systemic Implicit Bias is everywhere but we can closely monitor it in ourselves and strive for objectivity because we can't prevent it or get rid of it, nor should we want to. Survival mechanisms can come in handy.

After all, "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not after you." -Joseph Heller, Catch-22 

But on the other hand, they might not be, it might be you. 

{But what about all the fuss about systemic racism?}

Follow the money. There are literally thousands of people earning their daily bread, some of 'em caviar, working in an industry that didn't exist a minute ago. 

Have they accomplished anything besides personal job security, the occasional financial scandal, and guilt relief for the upper classes that send their kids to private schools and have abandoned the poorest kids of all colors to the powerful teacher's unions of crumbling and corrupt urban hellscapes?

Just askin'.  

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

P.S. Free bonus quote: "When I'm no longer rapping, I want to open up an ice cream parlor and call myself Scoop Dog." -Snoop Dog

Scroll down to share my work/access oldies. Tip me, or Join Cranky's Coffee Club (and access my condensed History of the World), here.    

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God Is Dead?

The search for meaning.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids — the Stickies — eventual selves to advise them and haunt them after they've become grups and/or I'm deleted.  

Trigger Warning: This column rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, or grups may result in a debilitating meltdown.  

About 

Glossary 

Featuring Dana: Hallucination, guest star, and charming literary device  

"If everything in the world is meaningless, what prevents you from inventing some meaning?" -Lewis Carroll

Dear Stickies and Gentlereaders,

{You're going to hell!}

Perhaps Dana, but permit me to hastily explain what I mean by the title I decided on before some of the gentle, loving members of the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) show up and start picketing and hurling curses at me. 

{Who?}

Never heard of them? You should check out their website, it's quite, um, interesting. They're the lovely people that turn up on the news occasionally carrying signs that say God Hates Fags. 

For the record, I don't think God is dead, but I'm not above occasionally offering up some clickbait. 

However, for all sorts of people, God is no longer factored into how they conduct their lives. In many cultures, ours for example, the rift between believers and non-believers seems to keep getting bigger; it's one of the major reasons the list of things we have in common keeps getting smaller.

Apropos of um... my strange sense of humor? The philosopher Nietzche is often blamed/credited for declaring that God's dead, however, other philosophers have done so as well. But he said it in a book he wrote called The Gay Science — which has nothing to do with anyone's sexual orientation.

But if not for the fact I'm a gentleperson and reformed (more or less) troublemaker, I'd alert the WBC and try to get 'em fired up so they have yet another abomination to deal with. They do seem to enjoy themselves. What's more fun than knowing you and yours are headed for heaven and everyone else is headed for hell?   

Anyways, even the beliefs of many traditional believers have evolved and will continue to evolve over time, yet another source of discord putting pressure on all the kids that try to share the playground peacefully. 

{Harumph! Do you really believe in God?}

Put me down as being a graduate of the Higher Power school, the same one the recovering drunks and druggies all went to. 

{You're going to hell!}

Well, I don't think I'm going to hell, but then again, I am wrong, with disturbing regularity, about all sorts of stuff. 

{You're always saying that but I still think...}

I'm more concerned about the militant atheists with psyches set on auto-sneer who condemn the higher-power people and conventionally religious souls out of hand despite how demonstrably well both views work for lots of people. 

Not to mention the conventionally religious people, also under the influence of auto-sneer, who won't accept that it's possible to be virtuous, fulfilled, and reasonably content without being conventionally religious, perhaps not even believing in God.

Just because one doesn't dig where a given other is coming from doesn't mean we can't...

{Dig? Nobody uses the word dig the way you just did anymore.}

You just don't dig me. 

It's quite simple. Really. It's possible to live a rich and meaningful life no matter what you believe, or don't. Just choose a meaning or three, leave everyone else alone, and carefully climb down off of that high horse before you hurt yourself. 

Albert Camus was an Algerian-born French philosopher, author, dramatist, and journalist who fought for the Free French in WW2 and won the Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 44. 

He didn't believe in God, systematic philosophy, or that there was an inherent meaning to be found in the universe, but he said that since we can't help looking for God, meaning, and answers to questions the universe won't answer, we're caught in an absurd situation. 

What to do?  

I found a quote (unproven) attributed to him: "Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?" In my semi-humble opinion, the quote, true or not, is true enough. He famously, and definitely, said that “There is only one really serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.”

I'm vastly oversimplifying and highly unqualified to state what his answer to the coffee question would be but I'm going to do it anyway. Have a good cup of coffee and embrace what life has to offer, not despair. Look life in the eye, accept experience on its own terms, and wring all joy you can out of it.

"The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart."

Excellent advice for the hardcore absurdists, nihilists, and etceterists among us. Fill your emptiness with what happiness you can find, not despair, and stop taking your angst out on the rest of us, particularly the innocents.   

Camus would likely consider me naive since I think anyone can find personal meaning, maybe even God, if they stop whining, get off their bum, and pursue whatever they think will make their life a little better — while avoiding stepping on someone else's life. 

{I still think you're going to hell.}    

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

Scroll down to share my work/access oldies. Tip me, or Join Cranky's Coffee Club (and access my condensed History of the World), here.    

Comments? I post links to my columns on Facebook and Twitter so you love me, hate me, or try to have me canceled on either site. Cranky don't tweet.   

  

  

Artificial Intelligence

"It's Alive!" -Victor Fronkensteen

Image by Julius H. from Pixabay

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids — the Stickies — eventual selves to advise them and haunt them after they've become grups and/or I'm deleted.  

Trigger Warning: This column rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, or grups may result in a debilitating meltdown.  

About 

Glossary 

Featuring Dana: Hallucination, guest star, and charming literary device  

"Shall we play a GAME?" -W.O.P.R.

Dear Stickies and Gentlereaders,

I wasn't worried, till recently, about artificial intelligence obtaining sentience... or sapience, self-awareness, consciousness, etcetera.  

To give credit where credit is due, I got all the $2.00 words above (I contributed the etcetera) from the first paragraph of a Wikipedia entry titled Sentience wherein the first sentence is: Sentience is the capacity of a being to experience feelings and sensations.

I thought it best to mention all those words because as the article explains, they're used interchangeably by writers expounding upon what life and (self)consciousness is. 

Some people are worried that AI, like Dr. Frankenstein's monster, will come alive and then murder us all, replacing us at the top of the food chain (so to speak, since it will have no use for meat). 

{Do you have a point or is this column going to be a fascinating etymological exposition?}

My point is that all of those words and more are currently being bandied about by H. sapiens worried that since AI, artificial intelligence technology, is now powerful enough to carry on more (or less) convincing conversations with those of us who don't require a power cord or batteries to function,

And/or used to create "deep fakes" of all sorts of things and create art, music, writing, etc, and even pass the Bar exam,  

So that soon, we'll be dealing with a machine that for all intents and purposes, is alive. 

{None of this worried you, but now it does?}

Well, I was, and remain concerned about the fact that no shortage of potential major societal disruptions have appeared on the horizon and are closing fast. But I have a limited amount of time left on the clock, and to be honest, stickin' around long enough to see where all this is headed motivates me to keep getting out of bed in the morning.

{I'll bet you enjoy multi-car pile-ups as well.} 

I was, and remain, worried about what it means for my daughter, son-in-law, and the Stickies, of course, but one of the advantages of getting old older is grasping that I have even less ability to fix the world than I previously realized. 

Accept the things you can't change, advise the young as best you can, and enjoy the show if you're fortunate enough to be in a position to do so. Oh, and don't take it personally if the young(er) folks don't take your advice any more seriously than you necessarily did from your elders.

Big BUT, 

I had just assumed that a "Chatbot," for example, is merely very clever software that has "learned" to speak to humans by using brute force computer processing power the same way a chess-playing program can rapidly consider millions of alternative moves and constantly update itself based on the desired outcome: winning the game.  

Neuroscientists and others often speak about "the hard problem of consciousness." While there's no shortage of opinions, nobody's been able to prove how it is that we know that we know. That I know that I'm me, you're you, and the cat is the cat. That we are self-conscious.

There's also no shortage of people who say that self-consciousness is a convenient illusion, that it's just an emergent property of our complicated brains, but they can't prove it. However, that doesn't stop many people (and the purple press) from speculating that AI will eventually become self-conscious for the same reason, and be way smarter than us since it has, in effect, a much larger brain. 

I think this emergent stuff is bonkercockie, but I'll spare telling you what I think consciousness is.

{Thank you.}

For now. But I will risk blowing your mind by calling your attention to a Scientific American article titled:

How AI Knows Things No One Told It  

Researchers are still struggling to understand how AI models trained to parrot Internet text can perform advanced tasks such as running code, playing games and trying to break up a marriage

That is to say: We don't know how AI teaches itself to code and play games, and why it would try to break up a marriage when it's not programmed to do those things. 

{Aren't you oversimplifying?}

I'm but a semi-humble H. sapien trying to survive being set adrift on the Dizzinformation Ocean, but I maintain that my one-sentence summary of the article (and I've read lots of other articles that agree with this one) is accurate. 

If the people who are building it out don't understand how it works (even if it never becomes "alive," and I still don't think it will) and what it might be capable of, I'm... slightly worried. 

It doesn't have to be alive to wreak havoc.

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

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