Dark Times – Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3

Don’t Tune Out. Pay Attention

Watching the world whiz by

It usually begins with “I don’t follow politics” or “I’m nor political.” But the topic can be interchangeable. Tech, sports, etc… It’s a choice. Even not choosing is a choice. One can argue, (I frequently do) that when you tune out or become tired or uninterested in a topic, then you’ve essentially surrendered. Whatever the other side is, you’ve let them win by removing yourself from the board.

Zoe vandewater oMpoyoO01Tg unsplash. Life can be tiresome. Increasingly it feels more so. Certianly in the wake of so much merciilessly bad news that it’s difficult to see how giving your attention might have an impact, much less worth your time and energy. I’ll be the first to admit trying to keep up is enough to drive anyone to just walk away.

It’s also makes it appealing to just to focus on the many good things that you enjoy in life.

Call me crazy (most do) but that’s how the forces who do pay attention on their quest to achieve whatever their aims are want you to feel how they want you to act. Overwhelmed. Overwhelmed to the point of tuning out, turning away or rolling over.

If you’ve tuned out, gotten pissed off, or just become no longer curious, the game is still afoot, and you’re not playing. You might think you’re canceling someone. But the only one you’re canceling is you.

By the time big changes come around that actually have a direct impact on your life, the game has moved on. And if you’re trying to get on board at that point, you’re late to the party and only there to pick up the pieces.

I’ve lived through enough moments in life when those who paid attention could see the direction the path ahead was revealing, and just enough tuned out to give those forging the path all the runway they needed.

Look, no one can keep up with everything. That’s just a reality. If there’s one good thing that has come out of the age of social media is that we can at least remain peripherally aware of the debates and arguments in ways we couldn’t before social media.

Even a peripheral awareness is better than a self-imposed lack of awareness, whatever the reason for shutting down.

Pay attention. Stay in the game.

(Image from Zoe VandeWater on Unsplash)

Thanks for reading. You can subscribe to this blog if you care to. You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above. This site does not use affilate links.

Hope, Fears, Concerns

What’s ahead is as perilous as the road we’ve all been traversing

I have hope that enough people have seen more than they need to vote out congressional and other enablers of the Trump regime. I’m hoping whatever threats or evil magic spell he’s tossed into the ether have dissipated enough to bring out large numbers of voters in the right precincts and districts.

I have fears that while I anticipate all sorts of shenanigans, legal and otherwise, prior to and in the immediate aftermath of election day that we’ll have to endure another nightmare political circus. Frankly, I fear more what happens on January 3rd when the new Congress is supposed to be sworn in that there will be attempts to not seat democratically elected members.

I have concerns that should the vote deliver overwhelming majorities that none of the efforts to try and negate the results will matter that it will lead everyone to breathe a huge sigh of relief, thinking that we’ve moved out of the morass. Even if/when power shifts in Congress the next two years are going to be more challenging than the last two as long as Trump is still in office. Even if he disappeared tomorrow the work to fix what’s been broken will take maximum effort. That much needed sigh of relief can only be a momentary one before any real work begins.

Vote.

Sunday Morning Reading

It’s all complicated. Until it’s not.

In some weird way another Sunday has rolled around and pulled into the station that signals the end of another week. I say weird because it’s one of those weeks where you lose track of where you are day by day, and have to keep reminding yourself which day that ends in “y” you’ve landed on. It’s complicated. In a way to avoid my momentary confusion, here’s some Sunday Morning Reading to share. If I’m sharing it, it must be Sunday, right?

Matthieu marseille JzmM3xTu2Xw unsplash.

Artificial Intelligence continues to complicate the news with more and more problems predictably arising daily out of that tempestuous soup we called technology. Ian Duncan has a more than interesting essay on the matter titled Sex, AI, And The Apocalypse that’s worth your time. Whether you’re buying what anyone, including Duncan, is selling, it’s worth examining the merchandise.

Aurra Kawanzaruwa reminds that’s it’s not the lie that’s told that matters as much as the doubt it creates in The Liar’s Dividend. Who Benefits From Your Doubt.

Meanwhile, David Todd McCarty takes a look at An Uncomplicated Life. Easier said than done. Better done than not.

JA Westenberg says Outrage Is Our Last Campfire. Any piece that begins with examining a bit of Anton Chekov is worth your time in my view. I’m not sure if outrage is the last or not, but it sure is consuming us more than keeping us warm.

I miss good sports writing. Chicago is a crazy sports town, and at the moment, with both major league baseball teams in the playoffs and the NFL season underway emotions are running rampant. The stakes are high, but the odds are fading with the Chicago Bear’s star quarterback and thus that team’s hopes injured. Most of the hopes and baseball dreams will come to naught in my opinion, but it makes for an uncomplicated way to while away some time between commercial breaks for online betting. Matt Lombardo’s has a good piece of sports writing in The Official Quarterback Hell Travel Guide worth checking out if you’re into such things.

Sad to say, you can’t talk about sports today without talking about gambling. Alex Klavens, Walk Bogdanich and Jenny Vrentas investigate How Draftkings Uses A.I. To Target The Gamblers Likeliest To Lose. Bet you didn’t see that coming.

To close out, give a read to Timothy Snyder’s piece A Medidation On Train Stations. The things we know, and the things we just set aside to deal with so many other things are enough to complicate countless lifetimes.

(Image from Matthieu Marseille on Unsplash)

Thanks for reading. Feel free to subscribe if you want. It’s free. If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here. If you’d like more click on the Sunday Morning Reading link in the category column to check out what’s been shared on Sunday’s past. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. This site does not use affilate links.

Human Nature, Artificial Intelligence, and Hive Mindlessness

I always look at everyone when we’re on the street and think, ‘We’re like sheep or ants.’ – Lee Ryan

The stock we place in leaders to change the course of countries and companies is more times than not an illusion. The bigger the organization the greater the illusion. For the moment at least these organizations are still made up of humans, and in most cases to think humans march in lockstep you’ve got a hitch in your step.

Oktavianus mulyadi Ir0LXvMPnyc unsplash.

We watch presidents and dictators and CEOs and heads of this and that issue orders, decrees, mission statements, warnings, social media posts, and what have you, and it’s easy to put whatever statement they make to bed and move on whether it’s a problem solved, problem created, or a promise made. Yes, leaders set a tone and an agenda. But leaders don’t do the dirty work down under that make the trains run on time.

Often it’s underlings who think they’re doing what’s called for. They can sometimes twist and turn the agenda to their own purposes. Occasionally they turn their own zeal into a tempest that laps the original intent of whatever they’ve been ordered to accomplish.

And then there are those not in the mix that follow. Seize the agenda. Jump on the bandwagon and try to turn it into the permission slip they’ve always wanted to do now that they feel justified. Or perhaps just because it’s possible. They and the curious who sit on the sidelines can also upend any agenda.

Wealth certainly doesn’t trickle down, but bad motivations do. Strike that. The gravity occasionally runs the other way. Permission slips open up a plethora of permissive possibilities that even the strongest hand of the strongest boss can’t control. That’s human nature. Like Mother Nature, it’s a delusion we can control either.

Even so, we like to think there’s a world out there where we’re all pulling with the same purpose towards the same goals. That’s the illusion.

What prompted this little bit of an essay, beyond watching the always on/off political posing these days, was watching Meta’s new attempt to conquer the world, Muse, rocket up to the top of the app charts with surprising speed. Given all that we know about Zuckerberg’s machinations and maniuplations I don’t believe there was a public out there thirsting for this next move. But it’s being devoured and guzzled in gulps not seen since votes were secured with beer and a sandwich in Chicago taverns back in the day.

Humans are an evolved species that can reason. Perhaps that’s the illusion. Insects that revolve around queens like ants and bees don’t reason. The irony of the gender difference of bosses between the insect world and our technologically driven one is amusing, but the willingness of the drones that follow the leader is depressing.

(Image from oktavianus mulvadi on Unsplash)

Sunday Morning Reading

Yes, and…or No, But?

It’s a Sunday. Yes, and it’s raining. Yes, and it was darker than I prefer when I sat down to write this edition of Sunday Morning Reading. The content feels darker too. Sign of the times? Or just a look inside what’s caught my attention? You read. You try to figure it out. I don’t think I can. Neither can anyone else it seems. Game on.

Michal vrba AJlaheUF IA unsplash. Boys playing chess

AI safety is all over the news, which means it has become practically a dead horse of a topic. Is it scam or a real threat? No one knows. Funny. I think that’s how the scammers prefer it. Especially if there’s a there there. Juliette Kayyem says Destroying Humanity Is Against The Law. Is it?

Anand Giridharadas repeats the obvious in The System Is Rigged. The Cavalry Is Not Coming. We’re On Our Own. Obvious as it may be, it’s worth your time.

Phillips Payson O’Brien says The American Age Is Over. Duh.

David Todd McCarty takes on The Abject Failure Of American Media. McCarty also sprinkles some wisdom on the Ed Sheeran controversy in Ed Sheeran Learns The Hard Way That Neutrality Is Not A Safe Space. There are parallels about more than just safe spaces if you’re of a mind to see them.

Anyone who didn’t think The Kennedy Center was going to be just another in a long list of casualties that would take a miraculous act of resurrection after Trump spoiled all the parties was deluding themselves. Everyone knew the lies going in. Janay Kingsberry reveals the financial ones for the few who pay attention in What The Kennedy Center’s Tax Returns Reveal.

I’m sure you’ve heard of the improv technique “Yes, and…” Dennis Hogan asks “What was Improv?” in his piece No, But. If you know, you know. If you read, you’ll find out.

Justin Neuman says we are most human when we play freely, imaginatively, and pointlessly. There’s wisdom there. There’s also wisdom in what he offers about this era when everything is gamified in More Nothing Now.

Neil Steinberg brightens the morning by suggesting that sometimes all we need is a kitten in Farm Kitten.

(Image from Michal Vrba on Unsplash)

Sunday Morning Reading

Is reading, like writing, in danger?

Time for a little Sunday Morning Reading. But reader beware. Some think reading might be in danger. Read on. If you choose to.

Ben white 1MHU3zpTvro unsplash. A man sitting by a lake or river, reading a book.

Like a lot of folks who write I’ve been recently writing about writing in this AI age. But writing is only one side of the page writers want readers to turn. Readers don’t turn pages if they don’t like what they read. Bryan Cantrill thinks readers might be slowing their roll in his piece The Revolt of the Reader. I’d give it a read whether you write, or simply read the words of others.

Becky Ferreira takes a look at how The Remnants Of A Lost ‘Supercontinent’ Just Rewrote The History Of Life On Earth. Accepting that would require a global scale of editing and require quite a bit of new reading.

Roko’s Basilisk. Ever heard of it? Yes or no, you should check out Albert Buneko’s piece What If We Could Have A Future?

Perhaps you’ve heard that there’s a 10% chance AI will destroy humanity in the next decade? Over the weekend Anthropic’s Dario Amodei penned a large piece (or maybe he just had Claude generate it-who knows?) titled We Must Pace The Frontier. In the race he’s running he’s calling for things to slow down and governments to step in because there’s danger out there. It’s caused quite a stir. Fellow race participants, OpenAI’s Sam Altman and SpaceXAI’s Elon Musk, have quickly jumped in to agree. Either these guys are seeing the writing on the wall from folks who just aren’t buying their overhyped promises, or one of their AIs cracked into something we don’t know about yet. Or it could just be more hype. Or it could just be an attempt to push their agenda in upcoming talks the US is to have with China. Given that no one trusts anything they say, who knows? I’d say who cares, but there is that whole future thing that Albert Buneko was writing about.

Speaking of writing on the wall, apparently the gold rush for vibe coding apps isn’t what it looked like it might be. Paul Ford asks A.I. Was Supposed To Give Us Killer Apps. What Happened? The world only needs so many task management apps.

In the political realm folks are turning their attention to January 3, 2027 as a possible next January 6th coup. Michael Luttig lays it all out in The Final Battle For America’s Democracy. It’s a scary read. I think what he lays out is indeed possible. That said, if there is such a thing as a final battle, I think it was lost with the last presidential election.

With a hat tip to David Todd McCarty, I discovered Patrick Metzger’s piece What Canadians Won’t Admit About America. You should discover it as well.

And if you’re not going to be doing any reading this Sunday, perhaps go out and take a walk. Before you do, read David Todd McCarty’s Life On Goshen Landing Road.

Read well.

(Image from Ben White on Unsplash)

Sunday Morning Reading

Reading and thinking on a rainy late-summer morning.

I have a love/hate relationship with late August in Chicago. Hints of Autumn, my favorite season, become stronger. The sun rises later, which I’m not a fan of. That’s where we are on this rainy Sunday morning in Chicago, so it’s time for a little Sunday Morning Reading. And thinking.

Ronit shaked ENNtoNUxhU unsplash. Transparent umbrellas appear to float in the sky.

I like to think I keep an open mind. I also like to think that the life we’re living currently will one day be better. Bottom line, I like to think. Daryl Van Tongeren says that Everyone Wants To Think They’re Open-Minded. Here’s Why Most People Aren’t. My mind is increasingly closing to the possibility of things getting better in my lifetime.

Natasha MH explores egos and gatekeepers in The Structural Shift Beneath Our Feet. I’d argue the shift is in our minds.

David Todd McCarty says that Engagement Might Be The Problem, Not The Solution. To my way of thinking, it never was the solution. Unless you were running one of the engagement platforms.

Davi Ottenheimer sees a similarity between the tech bros and plantation owners. He’s not wrong. Check out “AI Own” And The Techbro Dream of Plantation Life.

Zoe Williams tells us How To Spot A Psychopath, saying ‘It’s like the difference between a domestic cat and a wild cat.” Given that most probably haven’t encountered the latter, perhaps it’s no surprise that the real deal is often so difficult to spot.

Neil Steinberg continues to delve into his archives, this time with a piece from 2015 called Face Fear. When you look and think beneath the surface, there’s no wonder what wonders you’ll discover.

I’ve attended a number of wakes, visitations, memorials, and celebrations of life recently. “Wake” is my favorite term of art for masking grief. It just feels more appropriate to my way of thinking. Timing is everything, so Natasha MH’s piece While The Dead Was Sleeping struck a chord this week.

Speaking of those departed, this week we lost one of the good ones, Dolly Parton. Lots of things written about her extraordinary life and legacy. I particularly enjoyed this piece from Heather Cox Richardson.

It’s a dreary day and some of the links above are also are a bit dreary. So, to close on a cheerier note, Mastodon friend Ian Robinson linked to this piece called How To Talk To Comedy Writer from Andy Reilly. If you’ve ever paid attention to comedy, I bet you’ll recognize some of what you’ve seen, if not why you laughed at it.

(Image from Ronit Shaked on Unsplash)

Sunday Morning Reading

“Cowardice is stronger than common sense.”

Another Sunday with yet another stab a sharing some Sunday Morning Reading. What caught my eye this week revolved around history, featuring fiddle players, photography, and a bit of Chekov among other topics. Rosin up the bow and enjoy.

Guillaume gryn_dvs kv5v3 Yh _M unsplash. Black-and-white close-up of an older man playing a violin, wearing a light fedora with a dark band and a patterned shirt, focused with an expressive, open-mouthed expression as he draws the bow across the strings.

Kicking things off are two great pieces from Robin Ince. He jump starts the first with a well worn quote from James Baldwin:

“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.”

I think we’ve all been gaslit a time or two in our lives. Even if you think you haven’t you should give both The Gaslight Years — Part One and To The End — Gaslighting Part Two a read. I think the fact that Baldwin wrote “hates” in the plural tells a tale.

“Agreement is cheap. Challenge is expensive.” So, says JA Westenberg in The Intellectual Circle Jerk And Why We Can’t Stop. Regardless of the hit to the pocketbook, both come with a cost.

We’ve always fought over history, even while we’re making it. Fine to fight over it, because history teaches us you can’t erase it, no matter how hard you try. Kelsey Ables takes a look at The New History Wars.

Speaking of history, Alan Palazon looks into The Forgotten Photographer Who Put A US President In The White House — And Pioneered Photographic Branding.

Harrison Smith tells the story of Violet Hensley. She Set Aside The Fiddle To Raise Children. At 99, She Made Her Opry Debut. Ms. Hensley recently passed away. Rest in peace.

I’m glad to see that Natasha MH keeps pursuing her art and her writing about it. Check out In The Canvas Grotto.

And to close, here’s a piece from 2018 that Neil Steinberg pulled out of his archives to highlight again this week. Glad he did. The title is a famous quote from Anton Chekov. Cowardice Is Stronger Than Common Sense. Maybe history does just rhyme after all.

(Image from Guillaume Gryn DVS on Unsplash)

MacStories: Trouble In Apple Pundit Land

Changing, challenging, and sad times.

There’s no question that many of us are facing challenging times these days. On so many fronts. Given how nothing that once seemed remotely stable feels anywhere close to that anymore, I find myself alternating between being angry, sad, and numb with an increasing frequency that tends toward the numb end of the scale.

However, there’s disconcerting news in Apple pundit land that leaves me more sad than numb or angry. MacStories, an Apple-centric blog I’ve followed and subscribed to for a long time is undergoing some changes that rub me the wrong way.

From what I’ve been able to gather from social media, and in a belated explanation post from the blog’s founder, Federico Viticci, several of the team’s members have quit over a recent decision by the organization to resurface the MacStories presence on Elon Musk’s X, which used to be Twitter, and remains nothing short of cesspool of depravity.

To give you an idea of the turmoil this is causing internally for the site that belated explanation post doesn’t appear on MacStories as of this writing, but on Viticci’s own blog. MacStories also didn’t put out its regular end of the week newsletter and several of its podcasts are on hiatus.

I’ll share some links from some of the employees leaving MacStories.

A blog post from Devon Dundee.

A Mastodon post from Jonathan Reed.

A Mastodon post from Niléane.

From the sound of things it sounds like the MacStories decision was made without consulting other team members. That’s never a fun time. I know. I’ve experienced it myself. From both sides of the table.

I can’t and don’t pretend to speak to any more than what I’ve shared above regarding the decision making and the internal machinations. I can say that one of the reasons I’m saddened is that it points to puzzling moment for website that also hosts and generates several podcasts in which its talent feels free to judge and criticize corporate and tech screwups, with at times gleeful abandon. To my mind, this feels like one of those screwups, but who knows?

If I wanted to I guess I could gather some AI generated transcripts from past podcasts and offer some pretty damning quotes about Elon Musk and other tech titans as examples, but I won’t.

I guess this decision proves just how difficult it is to learn from the oft-repeated mistakes of others. At least I hope that’s what it means. Otherwise it borders on hypocrisy.

Perhaps this turnabout shouldn’t come as that much of a surprise. In the early days of this AI boom, MacStories was at the forefront of calling out how the industry was built on the outright theft of intellectual property. Going so far as to writing a letter to U.S. Senators saying that AI needed to be regulated.

MacStories was also quite vocal when it chose to leave Twitter and later Meta. Those choices fit well with the ethos Viticci and his co-editor John Voorhees had established in their writings and podcasts on their way to becoming legitimate superstars in the Apple pundit community. I eagerly anticipated their annual reviews of Apple operating systems, adventures with Shortcuts, coverage of apps that I might find of interest, and their news coverage.

But since those early days of AI skepticism, MacStories has become increasingly known for a site where Viticci and Voorhees have immersed themselves deeply in AI. To say they’re pushing the cutting edge would be accurate, and the website, and some of their other content has increasingly become more about those adventures.

More power to them if that’s where they want to take their endeavors. It’s their website and business. I will say though that this shift for MacStories feels as abrupt and expedient as how the tech bro community switched horses from essentially supporting the Democrats in the U.S to kneeling to Trump before and after his second election.

That said, I’ll admit I do enjoy reading about and listening to their recent AI exploits, even though I’m not directly interested in participating in the way I did with some of their pre-AI days.

I mean, I hate to say it, but this AI-shit on is on us, whether we like it or not, and my interest in listening is that I’d rather understand what it is I don’t like about it than not.

But the sadness I feel about this moment (and I think it will come to be seen as a defining moment in Apple punditry), has to do more with a bigger picture than just a potential shift in Apple tech coverage.

These mid-2020’s going into the 2030’s are going to be defined by and large by the tech oligarch takeover. We can yell all we want to about how corrupt, evil, and incompetent our politicians are, but what I think we’re just coming to realize is that in the end the politicians don’t matter. These new age robber barons have bought all the government(s) they need to essentially do whatever they want. Elon Musk in my view is the worst of the worst. I don’t support anything that supports anything he touches.

I’ve been saddened by watching more than I thought possible migrate back to X-Twitter after the great migration away from it. I think I’ve been successful in unsubscribing from most publications that still use that platform to promote their material. I’m not going to spend my money for a subscription that will put more pennies into the pocket of a man who thinks allowing the creation of nonconsensual child and other pornography on his website is free speech and not a crime, much less one who revels in the power to destroy anything and everything his drug addled brain takes a fancy to.

I’ve made business decisions in my life I’m not proud of and lived to regret them. We all have choices to make and we’re defined by them. I’d like to say that I try not to judge a person or a business for making one they feel they need to even when those decisions disappoint me. That’s not always true. When a decision is made or being planned under what feels like the cover of darkness, it feels like all that’s being hidden might be their own sadness and guilt. At least I hope so.

So, I’m sad to dissociate myself with MacStories. I wish them well. I also wish good things in the future for those who obviously made the tough decisions to leave the publication in the midst of all of this. I wish more of us had that kind of courage.

All things must pass.

Sunday Morning Reading

Where does it begin? Where does it end?

Origin stories. Crazy stuff sometimes. Living in a world when we can make up, massage, or hallucinate just about anything, it’s no wonder that origin stories captivate and often capture us in our quest for meaning. Perhaps so we can have disagreements over them. I wonder what the origin of that is all about? This week’s Sunday Morning Reading touches on origin stories as well as some of the usual topics that I find of interest and worth sharing.

A typewriter with a page inserted with the sentence "In The Beginning" Getty images c O6QssKbtI unsplash.

Ross Anderson tells us The Human-Origin Story Is Being Radically Revised. Even if we discovered that this is all a simulation, I’m sure it would be debated, monetized, summarized, and bastardized into meaninglessness somehow.

No origin story is complete without some sort of religious or spiritual interpretation. Even Artificial Intelligence isn’t immune to that human phenomenon. Hayden Field explores How AI Bots Started A Religion — Humans Immediately Followed.

Everybody makes mistakes. Neil Steinberg suggests we might be getting too comfortable with that fact and a writer’s duty is to aim higher for accuracy, while admitting our flaws in To Write Is Too Err.

On a political front, everyone seems mired in a mud fight about how the Democrats might be unable to reconcile their progressive and moderate wings. Jay Caspian King takes a look at Subaru Socialists And The Great Disappointed, trying to figure out what’s behind some of the millennial thinking these days, as well as that of the generation that followed them, which he labels “The Great Disappointed.” Life is disappointment. Living is how you deal with it.

Meanwhile, David Todd McCarty asks What Does It Mean To Be A Moderate? I don’t have the answer to that. Frankly, given that everyone is so pissed off I don’t think it matters. That said, while how we insist on defining ourselves might help talk about political life, it sure isn’t helping cure what ails us.

Apparently the one thing that all flavors of the political spectrum can agree on is that data centers are not a good thing. Except those who make the policy and accept the bribes to allow data center construction in my backyard or yours. Molly Taft looks at How Data Centers Broke American Politics. I might argue that they revealed rather than broke. Because the bagmen got too clumsy.

I’ve been following the goings on at Google for most of the summer because the goings on are going to change things. In my view, not for the better. Like Donald Trump, Google hasn’t been shy about saying it’s going to screw things up. (My words, not theirs.) This week there was a shakeup among Google’s AI hierarchy that suggests the screws on the screw up are tightening down in what seems like a rush to productize too soon. Hayden Field gets into The Messy Politics Behind Google’s Big AI Shakeup.

Every origin story is one that also reaches an end. I commented on the passing of Om Malik several Sunday’s ago. Thanks to John Gruber for linking to Om’s final blog post, something I somehow missed. It’s about so much more than the headline suggests. But that’s what Om Malik was about. So much more. Check out The Myth, The Mythos and the Man. I’ll close with this quote from his post:

The sophist is selecting, sequencing, and presenting in ways that produce belief without requiring the audience to do the work. Mythos, for Plato, was the domain of poets and myth-makers. Useful for educating the young, dangerous when deployed as a substitute for rigorous argument among adults.

(Image licensed from Getty Images for Unsplash+)