DEATH

I do not wish to die.  Perhaps in the future that will change but right now I have no desire to be dead.  

I'm probably underselling it.  I have a huge desire to continue to enjoy being alive.  There are plenty of changes I would like to see but if nothing changes significantly I still don't wish to be dead.

All of that is to establish that I have no secret desires or intentions that mental health professionals might want to talk to me about.

As a culture, we seem to be really confused about death.  We know academically that the overwhelming majority of everything that has ever been alive (on this planet) has experienced death and we can extrapolate that eventually, everything that is currently alive will experience death.  That includes humans.  Me, you, them - we will all experience death.

So this is the part that makes no sense.  Would you hand a thief a plate of food to punish them?   Healthcare professionals are not, to the best of my knowledge, known to only provide breathing assistance to the truly evil.  What about a glass of water, would you give one to a person that assaulted you?  Everybody has to eat and drink and breathe so yea, giving food and water as punishment seems illogical and ineffective.  

Everybody dies.  Sooner, later, painfully, peacefully, comfortably or anguished or however but, history strongly suggests that die we will.  

Sooooooooo, death penalty, amirite?  Hypothetically, a guy rapes, tortures and kills a few folks.  I would not be shocked by any number of family members of the unlucky few demanding that the perp be punished by being put to death.  Why not sentence them to consuming a peppermint-tuna-garlic-vinegar milkshake?  Everybody eats and (in theory) no one likes that dish.  Everybody dies and most of us don't want to.  Peppermint tunafish milkshakes all round.

Or is it all about the timing?  Do we just fear/abhor/get-wierded out by death that comes at a time other than what we consider to be appropriate?  Okay, I suppose we could give our murderous rapist his peppermint tunafish milkshake in the middle of the night.

I'm at the age where I can expect news of the passing of someone I know to come fast and frequently. As noted by a good friend who is no longer with us, the Universe is clumpy.  Things happen where and when things happen.  Lately that clumpiness seems to have manifested as a spate of deaths that were unexpected by me.  There is a whole lot of lamentation going on.  The death that happens to the young or the healthy or the good really gets our attention and the majority of the deaths that are inspiring this piece fell into one or more of those categories - delineations that I readily admit are relative and subjective.  So I am thinking about death.

Is it a punishment?  Is it?!?!?!?  I participate in some groups on social media that are dedicated to the Singularity and to Transhumanism.  Y'all look them up if you need to but suffice to say that folks that are opposed to death and in favor of social media will eventually find their way there.  Death is anathema to a lot of us - the living.  It could be our ignorance of what, if anything, is on the "other side" that vexes us so.  (Or there could be others like me that have procrastinated sufficiently to justify an additional thousand years of life - so far.)

I was raised a Methodist.  Heaven, Hell, virgin birth, etc etc.  Dad was an AME minister.  Because of that and my propensity for talking to most anyone most anytime, I have been to a lot of funerals.   I have never been to a funeral where the loved ones left behind were happy about the demise of the focus of the homegoing.  Why?  Don't we want our loved ones in Heaven?  Will a few days or months or years make a difference to those facing an eternity in Hell?  Of all of the people I have known or been around is there no one that just enjoys the time they had with the deceased and celebrate their release?  Even if we are a bit raw for that, shouldn't we be able to not see that death as a punishment?   Why do we act as though we think a process all living things for untold eons have gone through and which all living things will go through is a punishment?

Unfortunately, I have only questions.  I know that there are cultures that take a different approach to death but it is still more of a matter of degree.  Babies are still being born.  We could fill the place up pretty damn quick if death stopped but births continued so, we understand the need for physical death.  So we know it is going to happen.  We know it needs to happen.  We know it is not just humans but everything that lives that will experience death.  Yet, death remains a last resort, a punishment for the truly evil, a reason for sadness and sorrow,. 

Ironically enough, simply dying is unlikely to be enough to give me the answers to my questions.  It's a funny world, doncha think?

A calm and quiet drifting off to a permanent sleep hardly seems a sufficient penalty for mass murderers and worse.  I'm certainly not suggesting that they should be allowed to walk among us.  I am though, suggesting that we need to call things what they are.  Putting Ted Bundy to death did not actually bring any of his victims back to life.  His publicized demise did not dry the tears or assuage the guilt of any parent or loved one.  What it did do was ensure that no future innocents would be subjected to Bundy's particular style of terror.  So my suggestion is simply that we call it what it is.  We could still sentence those who deserve it to "death ensurance".  It won't make anyone cry less.  It won't reduce anyone's guilt.  All it could do it is to stop the citizenry at large from belief in the fiction that we have done anything but prevent future insults from that particular individual.  That's all.

Every tear I have seen shed due to death has been shed by the living.  If the so-called “death penalty” truly is punishment, think about who is being punished.  To the best of my awareness, none of those given the penalty have had anything negative to say about it.

Unequivocal

 RUSSIA CANNOT PREVAIL IN ITS WAR AGAINST UKRAINE!!

Not Russia should not, not Russia may not.  They cannot win.

Unfortunately, they do have the ability to prolong the war.  They have the ability to terrorize the Ukrainian civilian population.  They have the ability to increase suffering around the world by denying the truth and continuing the atrocities.

Throughout history nations that are fighting for their land and freedoms against an allegedly superior authoritarian force have prevailed.  That is the history of the USA but it is not exclusive to us.  Plenty of authoritarians have been denied. The attacking forces know that a victory will not substantially change their lives.  The defenders OTOH, absolutely understand that their lives will be degraded if not ended should the attackers win.  The defenders have the motivational advantage.

Logistics almost always favors those fighting closest to home.  The greater the distance supplies have to travel to get to the fighters, the more opportunity for attacks or bad luck to interfere with the delivery.  Russia well knows that the problem is exacerbated by inclement weather.

Ukraine has developed weapon systems that are of significant interest to many others including developed nations.  They are acknowledged by the EU to be a critical buffer between them and the psychotic asswipe that Felon47 worships.  As such, Ukraine has the physical and emotional support of the overwhelming majority of the EU.  

Ukraine has limited its targeting to legitimate military targets.  You should understand that is a choice. It is a choice that can be unmade.  If the expressed wishes of the unholy alliance of Felon47 and his owner were to come to fruition and Zelensky was replaced, it seems quite unlikely that the next leader would show similar restraint.  It is very easy for me to imagine a less moral leader having no difficulty convincing the Ukrainian military to do to Russia what Russia routinely does to Ukraine.  Felon47 and his Vladdy Daddy are among the few that would complain about something like that.

Ukraine will win the war.  Russia has the power to make that victory excessively expensive but the simply do not have the ability to overcome the advantages Ukraine has or the problems Russia has.  “We” have openly chosen the immoral and losing side in a war started by said losing side.  “We have done so to our inescapable detriment.  It will not take years to fix what Felon47 is doing to our nation’s reputation.  It cannot be fixed anymore than Russia can win the war.  The world will have a new reality and historians will spend years and millions of words explaining what went wrong.  It should not take that many words.  Two words should do nicely.  The fault for whatever negative repercussions the USA experiences can be explained with just two words.  Trump.  MAGA.

So let me state this again with no equivocation.  Russia will lose the war and will drag the reputation and standing of the USA down with it.  That degradation can be laid fully at the feet of the feckless and spineless members of Congress who traitorously enable Felon47’s licking of Putin’s boots.  

Is that clear enough for you?

The Evolution (or Creation) Of Bad Science

 As a child I had a fascination with science fiction.  That fascination lasted well into adulthood.  I loved the stories of space travel and the colonization of other planets and star systems.  I watched Star Trek and loved it like I was being paid to.  Lo these many years (decades) later, real science and careful thought made me aware of something the stories I was reading/watching largely ignored.

There is an irony that I feel obligated to acknowledge.  One of the most well known stories - one that was certainly known to me - had that ignored issue as a central component.  Basically, we were warned.  We ignored it.

Certain well known and very wealthy (monetarily) individuals have talked about expanding humanity’s presence across the solar system and beyond.  Superficially, it is a desirable goal.  Superficially, we are but a few significant scientific advances from being able to accomplish that goal.  Hollywood is even producing movies that an uncritical analysis would lead one to reasonably believe that expansion is fairly near. I have some doubts.

According to science, humans did not always exist on this planet.  The planet itself existed as a distributed cloud of gas, dust and the detritus from the deaths of stars that preexisted our Sun.  If one accepts the truth of evolution - change over time - one should acknowledge that evolution on this planet did not start with the biological.  The distributed cloud evolved into a planet and the evolution continued.  When biology evolved, it continued to do so.  Eventually humans appeared.

Evolution as I understand it has multiple possible modes.  Small changes randomly take place as cells are dividing and multiplying.  Those changes can either be survival positive, survival negative or survival neutral.  The impact on survival can be immediate or effective on a much longer timeline.  It would not be unreasonable to suggest that some evolutionary changes are an effort of nature to address a specific problem.  I have no idea what problem or problems there might have been to instigate the evolution of humanity but, at some point, the planet evolved us to deal with something.  Nature can be a touch lazy.  She refused to do work that has already been done.  As such, humans have DNA sequences and biological traits in common with other living things on this planet, flora, fauna and fungi.

Of course, I will acknowledge that there are those who reject the evidence of evolution.  Some of them insist that the entirety of the Universe was intentionally constructed by a Divine entity generally referred to in Western culture as “God”.  Their understanding says God put us here and put other stuff here for us to use.  In reference to such things as I allege in this essay, it makes no fundamental difference whether we accept the scientific or the religious understanding.

According to your wilful understanding, humans were either evolved by this specific planet or a Divine entity intentionally placed humans on a planet that had been prepared specifically for humans.  Either way, the only reasonable conclusion is that the planet, Earth as it is known, is beyond integral to the existence of humanity as we know it.  

We know that water is necessary for human life. We can see water, we can feel humidity.  But adding water to the lunar regolith will not turn it into soil.  That requires a lot more in the way of physical and chemical processes that simply do not occur on the Moon.  Millions of years of those physical and chemical processes were necessary on Earth prior to the evolution of any sort of life and billions of years of those processes preceded humanity.  Soil has evolved, or was created, to enable the uptake of nutrients into plants and fungi that can then be used by internal human processes.  Things that we generally consider to be pests turn out to be integral to human life in any of an actual myriad of ways.

In “War Of The Worlds” by H.G. Wells, (circa 1896) the invading force is killed by microbial pathogens that evolved on Earth and as such, the alien invaders had no biological defenses against those pathogens.  The aliens were killed by the presence of those microbes.  Humans would be killed just as effectively by the absence of all of those microbes. 

Think of it like your car.  Picture the seats, windshield, steering wheel, brakes, paint, the road  and more.  Your car will start and run without those things but you cannot safely operate the vehicle without them and its continued existence gets less likely with each of those you delete.  Delete them all and your car is effectively useless.

For billions of years, microbes, plants, insects, arachnids, fungi, reptiles, fish, mammals and stuff that is extinct have been consuming and processing each other and creating the environment that allows us to flourish.  Perhaps we could terraform the Moon or Mars in a shorter time than Ma Nature took here on Earth but, I am absolutely sure we can’t do it in a human lifetime and possibly not in humanity’s lifetime.

Regardless of what Hollywood presents, we honestly need our magnetic field which helps protect us from cosmic radiation.  We honestly need our atmosphere, thin though it may appear, for the many things it does for us.  We honestly need the things that feast on dead and decaying biological mass.  We honestly need for all those things to have existed for millions of years before we show up.  

I do not know of one single scientist, engineer or reasonably serious person who espouses a belief that we can exist longterm anywhere without those things.  If we are particularly unlucky, we would get to a place that had microbes already.  We would die as Ma Nature (or God if you prefer) is unlikely to have given us immunity to microbes we were unlikely to encounter.  Either we need thousands to millions of years of terraforming or we are dead on arrival.  Those are pretty much the options.

Different Things

From the early days of AI being discussed by relatively "normal" people, I have suggested that it was misnamed.  

I have had a layman's understanding of the various permutations of AI for quite some time.  There was AGI which was Artificiial General Intelligence.  It was generally understood to be when a machine was as smart or capable of learning as most any human.  Then there was ASI which was Artificial Super Intelligence.  That one was understood as when a machine was as smart as all of humanity.

My issue with the naming early on was that if it was an actual intelligence, calling it "artificial" was not particularly informative.  I suggested that a better name/description would be Manufactured Intelligence. I still think my name is more accurate.  More importantly, my suggestion and Trump's idiocy are totally different things.

Artificial Intelligence, as we now know it, will not be changed by merely calling it Super Intelligence.  No clarity will be gained by observers or users.  The actual machine entities will not be made more powerfiul or smarter or easier to use or more intuitive or a better investment by playing stupid name games at the governmental level.  

I suppose there might well be those who are not paying close attention that could be convinced that Felon47 and his band of incompetents were actually doing something.  They aren't. What is being done is analogous to a non-swimmer flailing in deep water.  They are seriously trying to obscure the fact that they have no desire and no ability to understand anything at all about the probable longterm effects of a Machine Intelligence.  The goal is to protect themselves while they leave you playing the role of the canary in the coal mine.

Why are you alright with that??

The Steel Girder That Broke The Camel's Back

 I have seen bunches of posts on Bluesky suggesting that the other journalists in attendance should act in support of their cohorts that are verbally and unjustly attacked by POTUS or his disgusting band of incompetent suckups.

Today he has said - though as we all know, Felon47 is simply not a reliable source of information or even intent - that he is banning representatives of CNN, MS NOW and POLITICO from the WH.  Now, you should definitely NOT assume that I have any significant respect for the mealy-mouthed, weak-willed parrots that masquerade as journalists from those outlets but, one must work with what one has rather than what one wishes they had.  That said, it should be clear to anyone that serving him weak sauce serves no purpose other than to encourage his worst instincts.

Now would be a really good time for all of the journalists to band together for a cause.  Actually, they should band together for several causes.  Access. honesty, civility, respect, should all be the minimum a journalist gets.  They should walk out all together and refuse to return unless and until the Orange Scourge and his handlers publicly state their intention to change their ways and then back it up with action.  

We do NOT live in a monarchy.  Respect is not owed or guaranteed to anyone simply because they are sucking up tax dollars.  This behavior on Felon47's part should absolutely change things.  This ought to produce an audible crack in the camel's vertebrae.

Is It Really What It Is?

 As a general rule, we all like to pretend (or pretend to believe) that the Supreme Court justices are above and beyond politics.  We know that is a lie and we know that everyone else knows it is a lie but we do like pretending.

Normally, we like to assign the absence of politics to the specific rulings that they make.  I wonder though, if recently we have not seen another aspect of politicization of the Supremes.  Inside Congress, sometimes a representative that is in a seat that could be vulnerable in an upcoming election will wait to see if their vote will actually change anything before casting it.  They might even vote against the stated desire of their party once they know for sure their vote is meaningless.  In that way, they get to claim they did not support a position that is unpopular with their constituency.  

I hate that that is a thing.  I hate that the polity continues to fall for it.  It is an ongoing source of irritation for me.  I wonder if it isn't about to get worse.

Specifically, I wonder if Alito and Thomas were not simply polishing Felon47's knob once they were sure nothing would come of it.  I have not read the dissent(s) (or the decision for that matter) but, I am aware of the Felon's predilection for revenge against those who politically oppose him.  I wonder if they were just playing politics as the court continues to move away from the original intent (as I understand it).

In truth, the fact that it might be a reasonable suspicion is almost as bad for the court as would be proof that is what happened.  I doubt we will ever know for sure but, I have not observed a reason to believe it could not have happened that way.

Chains Of Command

 I am a citizen of the USA.  I was born in the USA as were my parents, grandparents and most, if not all, of my great-grandparents (I could look but I don’t want to).  I am a veteran of the USN but I did not stay long enough to earn a military retirement.  I am retired but I am not retired from anything that might be considered a government job.

As a private citizen of the USA, I am a subject of The Constitution.  I am not a subject of ANY elected official, especially POTUS. Let me make this more clear for all of you who might be reading this.  I AM NOT REQUIRED TO FOLLOW “ORDERS” HANDED DOWN FROM POTUS.

Executive orders are NOT law and I will not pretend that they are. I do not currently have what might be seen as a “Chain Of Command”.  I am NOT being paid by the military.  I am NOT employed by corporate America.  I will not be referring to the Gulf of Mexico as anything other than the Gulf of Mexico.  I will not be referring to Lake Ontario as anything other than Lake Ontario.  I could not possibly care less what the preferences of Felon47 are.  I am quite comfortable with Felon47 dealing with the consequences of his own idiocy even if that ends up with him embarrassed to the point of physical distress.

I am not going to harp on the irony of alleged “fiscal conservatives” acting as though there was no potential negative fiscal element to making the changes he has demanded.  As though maps and websites and manuals and textbooks all would update themselves with no input from us.  I am not going to harp on the irony of those who go on and on about “freedom” being willing to submit to the whims of an overweight, largely uneducated, failure of a businessman. I refuse to participate in that level of hypocrisy.  I refuse to even act as though I might have any respect for any of his ill-considered opinions.

I am not required by law or tradition to take orders from any ersatz king.  And frankly, I am more than a little embarrassed for those toadies who do consider his mental/verbal diarrhea to be orders worthy of acquiescence.  His commands hold no chains for me.