Month: June 2023

Power Summer

I hear a few rumors about an approaching Summer power problem. Can the grid handle it?

I don’t like Gavin Newsom’s electric car action (all electric by 2035). It’s highly irresponsible until we get nuclear (fusion?). There may be rolling blackouts now with the current power grid. Until we get better electricity flow, the Teslas may be grounded in the approaching hot times.

That sort of “virtue executive action” is what is wrong with high ideals that end in letting the next administration own it. The governor won’t be here then.

In his interview with Sean Hannity, Newsom doesn’t want to own the homeless problem, the crime problem, the businesses closing down and fleeing the state. (One doesn’t have to search too far to see these headlines.)

I’m pretty much a Californian (most of my years), but I don’t think being a proud one is that easy anymore.

Far from the Island Crowd

Every year in July, specifically on the 4th, this island becomes a madhouse. There’s no parking and nearly nude people are walking the blocks. We had to scuttle today as a group in a rented golf cart almost crashed into us. One time, during Covid, we had to run from a car racing toward us, the occupants rolling their windows down and telling us to put on our masks. No one likes that kind of stuff, but the sun and possibly alcohol and pot mix together for an upset stomach.

It’s not that I am against visitors; I just wish people would share the island instead of racing around it. Granted there is some insularity here, but the residents tend to be friendly. Despite the racers, it’s also fairly safe here. Whenever I look at Nextdoor, or other apps, I rarely see crimes here. The police do a thorough and pleasant job, too.

So today I just put my sunglasses on, waved to a neighbor as Jax and I passed by and just did a little people-watching. The young will be young. Don’t call me old.

Recording memories

Daniel Miessler wrote recently about backing up self to a machine. For the most accurate recording he suggested we could do/add the following:

– Write Extraordinarily Deep Descriptions of You

– It’ll Import from Everything You’ve Done Online

– Journals, Texts, and Other Private Data

– Extensive Interviews and Scenario Exercises

– Interviews With Loved Ones, Friends, Coworkers, and Associates

– Your full Genome

If you performed all these steps/methods, is what results a human-type consciousness? (Forgive me, Daniel.) Continue reading “Recording memories”

The rich get…

During my life, I have seen various financial crises that seemed to resolve into the “rich getting richer”:
When I was young, the savings and loan crisis.
During college, the first real estate boom during my life and resultant crash.
During grad school, the dotcom crash.
During 08-09, the second real estate crash.
Since 2020, the slowing recession.

I can be cynical that this will happen every generation, but I have seen all these and not benefited in the least–though my ex and I were strapped during the dotcom and 08. One could become disillusioned as well as cynical.

But the billionaires seem to get more billions. Musk has the money to say what he wants, lose money, and yet prosper. (I am not one to laud him for his free speech successes as he is not out for the right.)

I had an inside view of the dotcom and 08 crash. I saw the foolishness that was Christianity.com and saw the hubris partly responsible there. I worked at the SDUT during the 08 crash and the demise of newspapers. Now, I have written cyber blogs and seen the increase in scams, but also this period where government-colluding social media rule.

I cannot become an anti-capitalist. There’s nowhere else to go.

Evolution and the Spirit

Lewis wrote in passing, in a few places, about evolution. He didn’t seem to see it as a problem when viewed against the biblical narrative.

In my nondenominational upbringing, being “spirit-filled” is a statement that one has experienced supernatural gifts in one’s life. We also believe the Bible to be inerrant and infallible.

So taken together, does the “spirit” require a 7-day / 7000-year creation?

I’m interested in the feeling or perception that the bible is literal in that way. Can you oppose the “spirit” and be wrong? Clearly, emotion can be misleading. There are various other questions that arise from this conundrum. Can we judge other churches that are not “in the spirit”? Can mere guidance in life be possible? Can we get guidance on things such as a certain political contest? Continue reading “Evolution and the Spirit”

The Self-important Journalist

On the BBC’s The Press the ruthless editor-in-chief says we write outrageous stories to change things. That is activist journalism and the activist imagines himself important. I think neither left nor right should be activists.

I initially wanted to be a foreign correspondent. The expatriate similarly imagines themselves important as a representative of his supporting community with the responsibility to illuminate his purview for poor ignorant folk.

Climbing

“Creating a new theory is not like destroying an old barn and erecting a skyscraper in its place. It is rather like climbing a mountain, gaining new and wider views, discovering unexpected connections between our starting point and its rich environment. But the point from which we started out still exists and can be seen, although it appears smaller and forms a tiny part of our broad view gained by the mastery of the obstacles on our adventurous way up.”

– Albert Einstein and Leopold Infeld

Reason with process?

Since Artificial General Intelligence is not here yet, I do have some questions about AI. Isn’t it true that AI has safeguards against misuse that are easily bypassed? You can tell AI who it is and then to respond as that “person.” AI appears to have no self than what you tell it. This, of course, is very dangerous. That’s the hubbub.

But if AI has flimsy directions (here, morals) and fluid personhood, then doesn’t that mean it has no real self? You can’t reason with a non-person and putting that in charge, rather than as a tool or assistant, would seem a suicidal endeavor.

These are just thoughts. Respond if you will.

Insight and adulthood

My grandmother told me a funny anecdote. One day I pointed to her belly and said “Grandma, you’re fat.” She then made an effort to lose weight.

As you know, children can have peculiar insight and speak the truth they know. They are both perceptive and imaginative. We see in part and a child’s view can be illuminating. But children ask questions we may forget to ask. It’s not epiphany, but something residing inside the young that pierces the fog of adulthood with freshness and undeterred vision.

However, childhood also used to be the road to adulthood. Today’s childhood is a created state. It’s not a recent one, but instead of poetry and classics, we have created the other worlds of Star Wars, Harry Potter, Star Trek, Disney, all the way back to the fairy tales. That Disney was brilliant is just a statement of his realization that childhood was ripe for his creations and seizing that opportunity. However, these worlds do attempt to have moral teachings.

Things like child workers in the West were things best left behind and we are best left trying to train them up through better fiction. I don’t think we can fully return to the denser stories of yesterday, i.e. Milton’s Paradise Lost is too dense for children’s minds. Maybe the quality of school curriculum is too far gone.

I’m not pessimistic, but toy stores don’t give the appearance of teaching children valuable stories, i.e. only an unsettled identity. Archetypes should teach knowing the good and not just “knowing yourself,” which today means escapism focused on dissolution of self.

Shouldn’t the old moral be in fiction now imparted to our children?

Developing…

Authority > Territory

I’ve been thinking about gravitas. Your voice is developed and the more confronted your flaws and faults, the more authority starts to develop.

If you decide that big words makes one look more intelligent, you present yourself as striving to be relevant. Plain writing will let your readers know you are genuine. You don’t have to prove yourself if you are just honest.

There’s a comedian that appeared unsure of himself back in the 90s. Now he has decided to reference obscure subjects and be unpredictable in that manner. You can’t “figure him out.”

I like to think my authority more developed since I was in undergrad. It doesn’t mean I’m an “authority,” but just that I know myself more now.

Authority developed means territory staked out. I’ve just started.