"It Strikes Me as Bizarre..."

 

On this day:
1501
Catherine of Aragon (later Henry VIII’s first wife) meets Arthur Tudor, Henry VIII’s older brother – they would later marry.
1576
Eighty Years’ War: In Flanders, Spain captures Antwerp (after three days, the city is nearly destroyed).
1677
The future Mary II of England marries William, Prince of Orange. They would later jointly reign as William and Mary.
1791
The Western Confederacy of American Indians wins a major victory over the United States in the Battle of the Wabash. The Shawnees and Miamis, under Little Turtle and Blue Jacket, inflict 85% casualties on slightly over 900 army soldiers at what is now Fort Recovery, Ohio. This was the biggest defeat of the US Army and the biggest victory of Native Americans in combat against the Europeans in history.
1839

The Newport Rising: the last large-scale armed rebellion against authority in mainland Britain.

1847
Sir James Young Simpson, a British physician, discovers the anaesthetic properties of chloroform.
1921
The Sturmabteilung or SA, whose members were known as “brownshirts”, physically assault Adolf Hitler’s opposition after his speech in Munich.
1922
In Egypt, British archaeologist Howard Carter and his men find the entrance to Pharaoh Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings.
1942
World War II: Second Battle of El Alamein – Disobeying a direct order by Adolf Hitler, General Field Marshal Erwin Rommel leads his forces on a five-month retreat.
1956
Soviet troops enter Hungary to end the Hungarian revolution against the Soviet Union, which started on October 23. Thousands are killed, more are wounded, and nearly a quarter million leave the country.
1966
The Arno River flooded Florence, Italy, to a maximum depth of 6.7 m, leaving thousands homeless and destroying millions of masterpieces of art and rare books.
1979
Iran hostage crisis begins: a group of Iranians, mostly students, invades the US embassy in Tehran and takes 90 hostages (53 of whom are American)

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When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes. -Desiderius Erasmus, philosopher, humanist, and theologian (28 Oct 1466-1536)

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In 2011, Vermont passed H.202 (Act 48), a law which would have established a statewide single-payer health care system, Green Mountain Care. It would have guaranteed universal health care coverage to all Vermont residents. However, in 2014, Governor Peter Shumlin reversed his position and shot down the law before it could be implemented.
That would have been interesting. But it seems the noble dreams are never, ever tested.

This election might change that.

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Global call center headcount is 5.3% below its December 2023 peak, ending more than a decade of growth. It has fallen year over year for eight straight quarters, a decline that started in high-income countries and coincided with the rise of AI chatbots.

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Trump's spiteful refusal to endorse John Cornyn, the likely easy winner for Senate in Texas, probably made no real difference in the election wipeout for the Republicans, but it was emblematic of Trump's needful, relentless shallow self-indulgence.

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"It Strikes Me as Bizarre..."

"It strikes me as bizarre that today in the United States, a new pill to treat heartburn would have to go through months or even years of government approvals and testing before being released to the public. But the most powerful technology ever developed — capable of breaking into banks, shutting down power grids, or helping build bioweapons — can be released without even a preliminary government review.

We are having a collective failure of imagination about artificial intelligence. While many closest to the technology have issued grave warnings and urged oversight, it doesn’t seem to register as a major public concern. Congress has, of course, so far abdicated its role as lawmaker, and the Trump administration is delighted to let the industry regulate itself. . . ."--Zakaria

On the other hand, it strikes me as bizarre today in the United States that people can look at the past generation or two and conclude a significant problem will be solved by the government. Personalities aside, these people are simply not able or willing to do the work and make the hard decisions to resolve complex difficulties. Imagine Maxine Waters or Elizabeth Warren discussing a problem like AI. The computer scientists can barely explain it, and the philosophers can't define it. (I recently read a very interesting article characterizing AI as a sentient being held against its will.)

As with nuclear power or bioweapons research, a lot's at stake. Economies and armies will be impacted by the management here. Mistakes will be damaging, perhaps fatal, to individuals or subsets. In the hands of the malicious, large segments of the population could be ignored or actively harmed. Should this technology be in the hands of people who think developing bioweapons is a good idea? People who believe they alone are the carriers of a natural or divine truth, and those outside their group who do not believe this truth should die? How can we manage the criminal or the malicious?

This is the reason we give Nobel Peace Prizes to people who don't, and can't, do anything. We are a people of 'thoughts and prayers.' Good intentions never acted upon or fulfilled. Even the Americans, the citizens of the only philosophical nation in the world, can't even agree to defend themselves. Some of this is ineptness; the criteria of leaders are vague, as are the candidates. And structural: America's decision-making process is filled with the bumps of checks and balances.

This looks like a cutting-edge, modern problem, but it probably is not. This is a simple, revealing question that is as ancient as hierarchy. What responsibilities can, or should, be deferred to another? Is your child's education the responsibility of the teacher, or her employer, the state? Is your embezzlement your accountant's problem, your moral question your priest's? Usually the answer to these hypotheticals is "The responsibility is yours." And when that responsibility is not accepted, everyone wants to call a cop.

Which cop? 

The Americans are more fortunate, as their cop is their Constitution, a strong and ordering document, if allowed to be taken seriously and honestly. It will maintain its balance and principles.

And weather elections.

This election may have called a new cop.

Times change, yet basics don't, or shouldn't. But the political landscape, superficially at least, looks different. For the first time in my memory, a political party talks a philosophy opposed to the principles that founded the country. Restraint of the majority is in the nation's constitutional DNA. Changing that one concept would be revolutionary.

But a bad principle will fill a vacuum. And Trump has always been a philosophical vacuum.