Author: J.C. Cross

“Elon Musk” update

I’ve had to put down the Musk biography because of the new job. But I did have some opinions of what I have read so far.

There’s obviously some venom toward him. Some people think he’s brought chaos to the world; others, a new freedom for discourse. Both are true. I  certainly wouldn’t want to work for him. Yes, it’s true that he is an inspiration, especially for those on the spectrum–and I thought that for the first 500 pages of Isaacson’s book. But when the stories become repetitive, you get the idea of what it’s like in that brain of his.

He has “surges,” where he pushes his employees to outperform. Many times, his demands are successful–other times, not. He sleeps on the factory floor or in a conference room and has a preternatural ability to sleeplessly work through technological problems until they are solved.

My biking buddy Lennie said a friend who worked for Musk told him of his holding one-on-ones with employees where he doesn’t look up while you are sitting there and asks difficult questions. He’s certainly a genius in engineering and asks those Google-level interview questions.

But there may be a trail of beat-up workers: the ones that have managed to survive his firings. (He asked who wanted to remain at Twitter/X when he took over, but then fired some of the same people who decided to stay.)

So, interpersonally, he sounds like an intimidating man. But he certainly has made a dent.

Work in general

I forgot about the need for free time when you work full-time. I miss my mornings reading. But I am doing some really cool stuff for work.

In the news, some alarming items about the middle east. It’s easy to get into apocalyptic thinking.

Still thankful for fam and friends, people who prayed for me.

Been taking Jax to a new park when possible, but he gets overheated.

Letter to the American Church?

As I mentioned last November, Eric Metaxas wrote Letter to the American Church, asking believers to exercise their faith in the ballot box and in action. Metaxas juxtaposes the American church with the German church up to and during the Third Reich. I have a friend who thinks Metaxas is offbase.

Isn’t what Metaxas is saying just hyperbole? If not, then is the call upon the church loud enough?

The debate on what the church should do is a perennial one. We’re called to exercise our faith and we should put our faith into action. What is too far?

Lewis on politics and faith

So politics and faith:

“The earliest converts were converted by a single historical fact (the Resurrection) and a single theological doctrine (the Redemption) operating on a sense of sin which they already had — and sin, not against some new fancy-dress law produced as a novelty by a ‘great man,’ but against the old, platitudinous, universal moral law which they had been taught by their nurses and mothers. The ‘Gospels’ come later and were written not to make Christians but to edify Christians already made…

“Certainly we do not want men to allow their Christianity flow over into their political life, for the establishment of anything like a really just society would be a major disaster…

“The thing to do is to get a man at first to value social justice as a thing which the Enemy demands, and work him on to the stage at which he values Christianity because it may produce social justice.”

– The Screwtape Letters, 23

China unleashed

The CCP has been sending its young men to “invade” the U.S. southern border. A strange thing since we don’t know the benefit to the Party. These are men in their 20s, which would suggest they may not be married and are therefore free of reliance on the family and on the Chinese government. I don’t know if the Right is correct here. It may not be a military action.

But one thing is for sure: Chinese culture is pulling ahead. While our youth (Gen Z) are drawn into the use of China’s TikTok and other social media, their youth are studying to be engineers. It’s really shameful. Seeing some man on the street videos recently, I am disheartened that we can’t get it together. Gen Z know a lot about what they should speak, but not how.

Other events, like the Chinese selling fentanyl and the spy balloon crossing the continent, point toward the Biden administration either not giving a crap, being careless, or worst of all, doing these things purposefully. I don’t want to say that last one is true, but these actions are evil (fentanyl) or provocative (balloon). One asks why the Chinese are proliferating a drug that is deadly. Wouldn’t it be better to keep your junkies coming back instead of killing them?

It just goes to show that the friendly Chinese are not that.

Musk on wokeness

Still reading Isaacson’s Elon Musk:

“Wokeness wants to make comedy illegal, which is not cool. Trying to shut down Dave Chappelle, come on, man, that’s crazy. Do we want a humorless society that is simply rife with condemnation and hate and no forgiveness? At its heart wokeness is divisive, exclusionary, and hateful. It gives mean people a shield to be mean and cruel, armed with false virtue.”

I would add that it is stifling; can’t breathe.

China EV threat

I am continually flummoxed about the U.S.’s uncommitted actions against the Chinese Communist Party’s intentions here, namely its in-roads to the U.S. technology markets. Now we may have taken notice about the auto industry?

As to data, even though the White House announced a new executive order that aims to prevent “countries of concern,” including China, North Korea, and Russia, from purchasing sensitive data about Americans, I am not optimistic.

We know that China is using slave labor to manufacture various technologies and products. We know that they are propping up their sagging markets through government action. We know that they are not a friendly competitor.

We have to look on them as an authoritarian foe. We have to take action to curb their intrusions. The West as a whole needs to.

More China trouble

China has its tentacles into our
infrastructure. While the nation is diverted with other important issues. Also been watching the border situation get worse. When mainstream media outlets report on the issue then you know it’s not fake news.
“Last year, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported 37,000 Chinese citizens were apprehended as they illegally crossed the border; that’s 50 times more than two years earlier.”

Chaos reigns.

Christian nationalism without the nationalism

Just watched the PBS Newshour segment on Brad Onishi, who is a former evangelical minister who once identified as a “Christian nationalist.” The term is just too broad. During the segment he assumes that white evangelicals are the source of pro-Trump activism. He now hosts a (supposedly-popular) podcast “Straight White American Jesus” and wrote “Preparing for War: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism and What Comes Next.” Let’s just say that not many people are going to buy something the mainstream media gives them for free every day.

His failure to differentiate a small minority of people who actually say they are “Christian nationalists” from other right-wing and mainstream evangelicals is just an attempt to promote himself. The segment interviewed no subjects who would consider themselves Christian nationalists.

Poor segment, poor analysis.

Can AI ever know these senses?

In addition to the well-known five senses (sight, sound, taste, hearing, feeling), proprioception tells you where your body is in space. Your balance and the tilt of your head are not something you really perceive. Certain neurons sense your movement and detect stretching in muscles and tendons. This helps you keep track of your limbs.

I also know that people will “feel like” a person is in their airspace.

Other physical receptors detect oxygen levels in some of the arteries of your bloodstream.

A strange one is that people with synesthesia see sounds as colors or associate some sights with smells.

Will AI ever be able to create these sort of senses? There’s entirely too little appreciation for the human mind and body. AI has amazed us, but the human brain is capable of so much more than generative AI. I encountered a certain businessman at a friend’s party who, when I said AI is not AGI yet, was was wowed by the technology of ChatGPT and couldn’t believe that it was not yet human-level.

Whether you call it AGI yet, there is so much more to the human being and I don’t see AI robots having these senses.

AI specist

Just reading more of AI in Isaacson’s Elon Musk.
“The danger comes when artificial intelligence is decoupled from human will.”
We have to maintain control of AI. It should remain aligned with human goals. AI bots should be an extension of the will of individuals not systems that could follow their own goals and intentions.
This goes all the way back to the human development of tools. That’s what AI should be. But the question of consciousness has not really been answered.

Market Basics pt. 3

The decision rule says we do something as long as its added benefit is greater than the added cost. Profit is the reward for innovation, and is intrinsic to freedom.

Our rights to property hinge on three things:

– Private ownership under the right rules. Life, liberty and the acquiring and possessing of property. The king gave property to whom he wished, but the Americans wanted equality of opportunity.
– Market freedom.
– Reliable money. Government is for everyone, thought the Founders, so the purpose of government was to safeguard others’ rights to property.

In the end, the right to acquire is a public good, and bureaucratic rules that are unpublished and complicated stand against freedom.