Censor 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Three U.S. senators are pushing social media to aggressively censor "misinformation" on their platforms. They worry that Twitter, Google, and Meta won't censor enough during the coming election campaign because all of them have cut staff.

But how will social media know which posts are misinformation and must be cancelled? Easy, the government will tell them. Any fact or opinion that challenges the government's narrative must be stomped on. Because--what if people believe their opponents and so they vote the wrong way?! 

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Do social media companies actually make a difference? Do they deliver votes to a specific party? 

Yes, they do: "Google is shifting votes on a massive scale."

(cont'd on Monday)

Censor 1

Socialist Benito Mussolini became the dictator of Italy about a hundred years ago. He later founded "fascism" (and allied with Adolf Hitler in World War II). As an authority on the subject, he explained it like this:

"The Fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist . . . [it] interprets, develops, and potentiates the whole life of a people." The government controls all values, interprets everything, and dominates "the whole life of a people."

In today's America, the government works with corporations to define truth and limit what  the people see, think, and feel. It's not a secret. Social media takes direction from government to censor "misinformation"--by the government's definition, for its political benefit.

At least one motive for Elon Musk to purchase Twitter was his interest in freer, less controlled and less censored speech ("Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy"). After reducing staff in big numbers, he said (video below):

"If you're not trying to run some sort of glorified activist organization and you don't care that much about censorship, then you can really let go of a lot of people, turns out."

Here's that famous recent interview that Elon gave:

(cont'd tomorrow)

EV charging 4

Charging electric vehicles is important to our current U.S. government. Money is being directed to a national system of charging stations - a way to put a finger on the scales, as it were, because this administration likes EV's and wants to favor them over conventional gas-powered vehicles.  

But there are different technologies among builders of the stations as well as among car manufacturers. Which will the government choose as the standard for the country?

Tesla has the largest private network (over 40,000) and the best charging technology. But a feud exists between the President's administration and Elon Musk on various issues. So . . the government picked an inferior system to be the national standard.

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Never one to stand down from a fight, it looks like Elon won this battle: 

A deal was just announced that both General Motors and Ford are going to make electric vehicles using Tesla's charging technology, as opposed to all others. Together, these three manufacture 70% of American EV's. Rivian followed with the same choice. Hyundai and Toyota are considering it.

Musk said Tesla “is not going to do anything to prefer Tesla [cars charging]” as more rival brands access [Tesla's] Supercharger network. “It will be an even playing field … The most important thing is we advance the electric vehicle revolution.”

Decisions & AI

Some say that artificial intelligence will get more intelligent than humans and then take over, that AI will spontaneously evolve consciousness and free will on its own. This idea is at home in the materialist view that there's no supernatural reality (matter only).

Some say that AI can never achieve human intelligence, but will continue to grow only in computing power. Human persons have a mind and soul that go beyond computation to consciousness and creativity. This idea is at home in the Christian view that we are created in the image of God, that we are more than our physical body and brain. 

This author thinks that people might stop thinking creatively and let AI make their decisions for them, like these pampered and docile humans seem to have done in the movie Wall-E:

Don't do that. Retain your God-given dignity, make your own decisions, think things through, and embrace your humanness with all its challenges.

from Discovery Institute

Wait, no WFH?

(cont'd from last Wednesday's post)

A source for last Wednesday's post claimed that commuters would never return to their city offices in pre-covid numbers, as if it's an obvious truth. But the opposite analysis, originally in the Washington Post, popped up in my feed: the golden age of WFH may already be over.

“Companies that put up with [remote work] for a long time are finally getting sick and tired of [it] . . . Working from outside the office “simply isn't as productive as office work . . . Too much evidence has piled up to credibly deny this any longer.”

Why? According to Marc Benioff, founder and CEO of Salesforce, new hires and junior staff "do better if they're in the office, meeting people, being onboarded, being trained." Makes sense.

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A recent survey found that, "80% of new hires will quit a job if they had a poor onboarding experience—which is much more likely to be the case if they’re welcomed aboard from a distance." And when it comes to promotions, in-person employees have an advantage.

So the jury's still out when it comes to the future of WFH.

from Yahoo

Irish farmers 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

By 2050, the European Union wants to be the first continent to achieve net-zero greenhouses gases. It's a legally binding goal, so member nations have to comply.

Up til recently, dairy farmers were urged to produce more for the common good. Many of them did that, like Donald Scully, who increased his herd by 5x. He loves the lifestyle, though it's long days of hard work. "The work is 24/7, Scully says. “You have to love it otherwise you wouldn’t do it.” 

He hopes his teenage son will become the fourth generation Scully to raise cows. But that's less likely when some in the government talk about reducing the number of cattle in the country by a million.

According to the head of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association, the widespread mood is frustration. Many farms could go into bankruptcy.

from The Guardian

Irish farmers 1

Like the farmers in The Netherlands, Irish farmers feel threatened by their government, and for the same reason - climate change. Ireland's government is talking about eliminating 200,000 cows over three years.

“Our #1 priority is to make cattle farmers profitable by helping them consistently produce the best tasting and most eco-friendly meat and dairy products on the market,” says the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation.

Farmers feel the pressure to be "eco-friendly" because Ireland is trying hard to reduce carbon emissions per the goal set by the European Union, and cows do belch methane. A month ago the Irish minister of agriculture announced that the government would increase their investment in "climate-smart" food systems by a huge 60% from 2021-2025.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Commuters left

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

"Commuters left" refers not to all commuters leaving big cities, but rather a significant percentage of commuters. Lockdowns are long gone. Most workers have gone back to their offices in the cities - but still work remotely from home.

New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles now have only about half of the commuters they had before the pandemic. That's a lot of people who don't come downtown every day anymore. They used to go to shops and restaurants - many are closed. 

Big office buildings are partly empty now. Owners can't regain their rent income, so they default on their loan (mortgage). They stop making payments, hand the keys over to their bank/lender, and now the building is their lender's problem. The lender won't recover the full loan they made to the property owner.

Real estate companies and lenders are taking a hit, and cities take in lower tax revenue.

Beautiful, iconic Union Station in Washington D.C. has an uncertain future. Its owner defaulted on $430 million in loans in 2020. That steady stream of commuters which supported it . . may never come back.

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from Forbes, June/July 2023, pp. 92-100

Work from home

One of my neighbors works from home 100%. Her husband works from home two days per week. During the covid lockdowns, any employee who could do their job at home - did. After covid, it seemed like that would continue. 

But then CEO's pushed back with mandates to come into the office. Workers pushed back because they like WFH, claiming (with evidence) that they're still productive.

Managers and CEO's do have a point. According to one of them, WFH can be temporarily successful - but only if the business is already a healthy one.

Another says that there's less energy with remote work because there's less connection and collaboration between employees. In-person work seems to produce an energetic creativity that isn't duplicated over remote screens.

The debate goes on. But cities have a serious situation on their hands. They think that a lot of workers are gone from the downtowns . . for good. 

Commuters have left and they're not coming back - an urban catastrophe, according to a Forbes writer.

from Fortune

(cont'd tomorrow)

Bee algorithm 3

(cont'd from last Friday's post) 

If you are open to the idea that God exists, the obvious appearance of design in the natural world -- in honey bee hives and the intricate dance directing other bees to flowers -- makes sense. If you start with a commitment to believing God does not exist, you have to think up something to explain away the design of the natural world. 

Even the famous crusader for atheism, Richard Dawkins, concedes that living animals appear to have been designed and wisely assembled. He definitely would not agree that the Creator placed an algorithm in the bee's brain to direct its behavior.

Committed atheistic scientists have to mentally fight the ubiquitous appearance of design in living systems. Francis Crick advises them: "Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved." 

If they don't fight hard against their own common sense, they'll conclude that a Creator designed it.

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Bee algorithm 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Boston Research Journal was quoted in yesterday's post saying, "The use of hexagonal honeycombs by bees is not a coincidence." They think they know where this "ingenious" design came from. Not from intelligence or a plan, of course; not from an algorithm in their design; but from natural selection working on random genetic variations (evolution):

"Hexagonal honeycombs built by bees showcase nature’s ingenuity and efficiency. Through their meticulous construction, bees optimize space, create sturdy structures, conserve resources, and regulate temperature within the hive. The hexagonal shape has evolved as a result of millions of years of evolutionary fine-tuning, allowing bees to build remarkable architectural marvels that support their survival and collective success."

Isn't a bit of a stretch to assume that evolution made it all happen: optimizing space, regulating temperature, meticulous construction, etc., without any direction or intelligence?

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These publishers along with most of the scientific world assume that bee behavior--like the "waggle dance" to communicate location of flowers and the building of the ingenious hive--came about solely by chance through evolution, no plan or design or intelligence necessary. 

Like office buildings . . which pop up randomly all the time!

No, you have to abandon common sense to believe that.

(cont'd next week)

Bee algorithm 1

You could describe an office building as a complex, functional system designed to enable people to carry out their jobs and accomplish their company's purpose. Well-educated people designed and constructed all the sub-systems (like electrical) that make it work.

A honey bee hive is a complex, functional system constructed by bees in the wild or in human-made devices. Individual bees carry out their jobs in this home which provides for their needs while they accomplish the mission to produce honey.

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Intelligent, these bees. They start working at their jobs when they're three weeks old. The ones who build the hive don't go to hive-building college, since they're born knowing exactly what to do. How, exactly, do they know that?

Glands in their bodies create construction material: "Wax is an expensive commodity and so comb construction can be quite costly for a honey bee colony. Honeycomb is constructed in such a way to minimize wax consumption." Like a responsible human engineering firm.

Its hexagonal pattern gives optimal strength and stability to its material (wax), while it optimizes space and thermal efficiency for its purpose. "The use of hexagonal honeycombs by bees is not a coincidence" (Boston Research Journal published this week).

from Evolution News

(cont'd tomorrow)

"I in AI?" #4

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

It's widely understood today that chatbots are not reliably accurate. But if they ever achieve more factual accuracy, they will be widely trusted for advice and counsel. It will be up to you and me to use sound judgment when we want to know what's true. 

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This writer has some advice for Christian school teachers: don't avoid using AI-based information retrieval with your students. Google searching will soon be replaced by AI-powered systems and the next generation really must develop skills to use it well.

Questions like these will need to be answered:

• What are the best practices for fact-checking auto-generated content?
• Do chatbots reflect the secular worldview of their human programmers? If so, how can we engage with auto-generated content without being naïve or unnecessarily dismissive?

We'll learn to use it right.

from Salvo

"I" in AI? #3

Follow-up to these posts here and here

Despite warnings about ChatGPT and other AI like it, many users may think "Are you sure AI is not as intelligent as a person? Because it really looks like it is."😕

Yes, it sure does seem like it's a person speaking to you. It was designed to be people-friendly like that. 

But all it does is to gather the most “probabilistic” order of words on the internet, around the project or subject or question that you give to it. It is just as fair or unfair as the content it finds. It does no evaluation of that content (except that it will favor its programmer's views).

“Think of ChatGPT as a blurry jpeg of all the text on the Web." It can't create excellent  writing:

"ChatGPT can never rise above median writing quality, because finding the median in writing quality is what it does."

from a professional writer at American Mind

(cont'd tomorrow)

Chick-Fil-A DEI

Fast-food giant Chick-Fil-A got a new VP of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion. Of course, they did that to force their employees to start treating their abused customers with respect and kindness.

Wait . .  No, they are already famous for doing exactly that, for treating people with respect and kindness. It's a big part of their established brand and reputation.

Some think there's a different reason for bringing in a new vice president of DEI.

Fidelity 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

It may seem like these Americans-who-don't-believe-in-American-values suddenly popped up out of nowhere. Example: our own government shockingly turned against parents who hold their kids' schools accountable. Example: statues of our founders were defaced or destroyed.

But undermining has been going on for decades . . decades . . and many just slept through it. Our values eroded gradually. 

Communist Russia worked intentionally and effectively to corrode what Americans believed in. I'm posting the interview of the Russian defector who told us this again, in case you didn't watch it last week:

Robby George calls us to be faithful, in spite of hostility, to what we know is true. In addition to whatever else it's called, June is now Fidelity Month: "“a month dedicated to the importance of fidelity to God, spouses and families, our country, and our communities.”

Fidelity month

This month is National Camping Month, National Country Cooking Month, and of course Pride Month. Now Robert P. George issues a new call to Americans to "Fidelity Month." The word fidelity comes from the Latin word which describes a person who is faithful, loyal, and worthy of being trusted by others.

A survey released in March by Wall Street Journal showed that many Americans have abandoned the values that described us in the past, even the recent past. We were united by those values, though we often disagreed on how to implement them. 

Now much of our society rejects the values of faith in God, respect for our laws and our country, the inherent value of every human being. You, my reader, are well aware of it.

But many of us (maybe still a majority?) believe in these things. He calls us to be faithful to them - in spite of opposition - with his statement posted on Facebook:

"At the foundation of America’s greatness are the virtues of her people. It is those virtues that sustain the principles and practices of our nation's constitutional order--our "experiment" (as our Founders described it) in republican government and ordered liberty."

(cont'd tomorrow)

Fear of AI 6

Follow-up to this post

Even though artificial intelligence does good things for us, there's cause for reasonable fear of what bad actors can do with it. None of us wants to be deceived or manipulated, and we wonder if virtual "relationships" are safe and healthy. 

AI is going to do exactly what it's programmed to do. Researchers try to restrain its function (according to their own values and opinions, which could very well be different from yours), but maybe there's a way for a bad actor to get around those ethical restraints.

A television journalist tried out ChatGPT to see what it could do and we can watch his reactions here:

He asks it what it would say to certain commands if it were not restricted by ethical restraints. And it did give him most of the unethical answers (but did not reveal his true DL number, to the reporter's relief).

So, yes, it seems like there's an easy way for bad actors to get around any restraints built in for ethics. There's no doubt whatsoever that bad actors will find ways to get AI to do what they want.

AI girlfriend

A popular 23-year-old on social media wanted to be more available to her millions of followers. So she launched a virtual, artificially intelligent version of herself to interact with them. They pay a dollar per minute. Now her mostly-male fanbase can talk to "her" for hours.

Her virtual self is a chatbot built by Forever Voices and based on the sort of technology used in ChatGPT. As with other AI products, it will seem like they're having a conversation with the real human person Caryn, who made $71,000 the first week it was up. 

Creepy, at all?

from Mind Matters

Memorial 2023

 Memorial Day is the day set apart in the United States to honor those who "gave the last full measure of devotion." Here is Hillsdale College's tribute to the fallen.

Before she was killed in Iraq, Marine Corps Maj. Megan McClung was prepared for the risk. She said, "I am more scared of being nothing than I am of being hurt."

Can we know? 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Confused about truth - is that really so bad? A lot of people suspect (or are certain) that they've been told misinformation, disinformation, propaganda -- but they don't know which is which. 

It's frustrating, and it gets worse. At first, they may try to research a question but that leads to more uncertainty. They give up trying to find out what's true because it takes a lot of time and it's really hard.

People become cynical and discouraged. A republic like America, where citizens are in charge of electing good officials, can't function when the people can't figure out who is right. In fact, enemies of this country tried to do this for decades.

Here is a former KGB man of the old Soviet Union explaining their strategy of "psychological subversion." Born in 1939, he defected to America in 1970. It was surprisingly easy, he says, to persuade Americans to give up their values. There's little hope for America in his opinion.

Can we know? 1

Enthusiasm is running high over ChatGPT (and other bots) in the fields of education, business, health care, everywhere. It can generate text on any subject you instruct it to and it will seem like a human being wrote it. 

For example: if you want to persuade your city council to implement a certain program, you could tell ChatGPT to summarize the good results that were attained when this program was used in certain cities. You could give council members the summary and save yourself a lot of work.

But it's widely understood that the AI program may give false information, while at the same time sounding just like a person, maybe a friend, who is trying to give you true information. So you're inclined to trust it. That could be a serious mistake.

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Clearly, it's a perfect tool for someone who wants to mislead or misinform. We're going to have to learn how to discern true information from false. A lot of people are ready to believe whatever the generated text (ex: Khan's AI counsellor/tutor) tells them. 

Chatbots are not your friend.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Offer me money

Misinformation, disinformation, fake news, lying politicians, viewpoint discrimination - so hard to know who to believe these days. There are posts about truth and its modern confusion on this blog.

That sense of confusion could be one reason why people are drawn to Elon Musk, because he seems to be frank and fearless in what he says. Can he be bought? According to a recent interview, No, he won't be bought for money or for power. He says what he believes to be true.

See this clip from "The Princess Bride" :

Elon's recent statement from an interview: 

Kindling 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Before the New Zealand teenager, Ayla, put her "kindling cracker" into production and started selling it, she applied for a patent from her government.

Her idea and invention is her "intellectual property" (IP), and a patent gives her the rights to the idea for a certain length of time. It ensures that, for that time period, she is entitled to receive the rewards of bringing it to market. Legally, no one can steal it from her and claim that the idea is their own.

Besides the idea and product itself, she has a patent on the brand name that identifies it. As her company produces and sells it to customers, her brand will earn a reputation. Her company is entitled to that reputation because it has come to mean something.

from WIPO, the World Intellectual Property Organization

Kindling

Ayla Hutchinson saw her mother get injured while chopping wood. As a 13-year-old, she imagined that there should be a safer way to do the job. She got an idea, built a prototype, and submitted it as her science fair entry.

Her invention, simple in concept and easy to use, filled a need. "The splitter consisted of a one-piece, cast iron “safety” cage with a built-in axe blade. The shape of the safety cage allows the firewood to be hit against the blade with a blunt object, such as a hammer, ensuring that only the piece of wood will be cut."

It got enough attention that her engineer/inventor dad got another idea: it should be commercially available to the public.

from Wipo

(cont'd tomorrow)

Seine swimming

Paris, France, began its long history before the birth of Christ when a Gallic tribe settled on an island in the Seine River about 250 B.C.E. That settlement grew on both sides of the river into one of the world's premiere cities. Notre Dame Cathedral was consecrated on that island in 1189.

The Seine River has been flowing through the city, used or abused, for hundreds of years. Nobody swims in it because it's very seriously polluted. But it's being cleaned up, a huge job at a price of about $1.5 billion. Waste water from 23,000 upstream homes was going right into the river.

People will be able to swim in it. That's a must because Paris is the site of next summer's Olympic games. Aquatic events will take place in the river. 

Parisians will be happy about that. "It's a dream," says an official.

from Bloomberg

Clean votes

Cleaner elections should be everybody's concern in a republic like ours, where the people vote on who they want to put in the government. Names of people who are gone or dead or don't exist should not be on the list of legally registered voters. Ballots that can be mailed in, taking the place of a voter marking the ballot in person, offer lots of potential for inaccuracy or  manipulation. 

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Los Angeles County finally took one million two hundred thousand ineligible voters off their voter roll. They were forced to do so by a federal lawsuit filed on behalf of four eligible voters and Judicial Watch. At that time (2017) "voter registration for the county was 112 percent of its adult citizen population."

There's less risk of fraud now.

from The Federalist

Fusion hope

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

"Cheap, clean and plentiful" -- that's the power derived from nuclear fusion, the benefits that will make this new and hoped-for technology worth all the hard work that it's taking to get the business model into production.

It works differently from our current nuclear power plant model. Today's nuclear fission plants split an atom of uranium (U-235) to create power. "Fusion" nuclear power plants will fuse two hydrogen nuclei to create power. That's what the stars do.

image

It's clean because carbon emissions are near-zero, with no radioactive waste to dispose of. It's plentiful because its fuel is hydrogen, common in the universe and common on earth.

But can Helion deliver on that purchase agreement with Microsoft by 2028? Some doubt it can be done by then because of the problems yet to be solved. 

In the words of a University of Chicago theoretical physicist: “I would say it’s the most audacious thing I’ve ever heard . . . But it would be astonishing if they succeed.”

from Eng8

Helion 2028

Are you one of the people who follow the development of fusion power and hope it will work some day? Then there's good news for you. One of the companies trying to make that happen is Helion, and they actually have an agreement to provide fusion-powered electricity for Microsoft by 2028. That's fairly concrete, showing some confidence that success is ahead.

After decades of research and development, we actually can create power using nuclear fusion. The problem being worked on is that the process to do it uses more power than it can produce.

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All the time and money and effort to develop sustainable fusion-based power is worth it. It will be transformative. 

From Helion's website: 

"It's an energy source so cheap and clean and plentiful that it would create an inflection point in human history, an energy singularity that would leave no industry untouched. Fusion would mean the end of fossil fuels."

from Tech Crunch

(cont'd tomorrow)

Free speech 6

Follow-up to these posts

A candidate now running for the office of President of the United States is actually the nephew of a former U.S. president. He would like to remind us of his familial connection to the former president by tweeting this photo of himself as a child with his famous uncle:

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Back in the days when his uncle was the president (1961-1963), there was no serious challenge to the rights protected by the first amendment to the Constitution. The right to speak freely of what you believe to be true was considered foundational to America - by just about everyone. Regrettably, that's no longer obvious to many of our people. They like freedom of speech for themselves, but cancel people they don't agree with.

That former president, however, did believe in free speech: "We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people."