Category Archives: Uncategorized

Reading Professor Richardson’s description of political social influencers sparked a thought in me:

Right-wing influencers want views and shares, which translate to more money and power, Darcy wrote. So they spread “increasingly outlandish, attention-grabbing junk,” and more established outlets tag along out of fear they will lose their audience. But those influencers and media hosts don’t have to govern, and the anger they generate in the base makes it hard for anyone else to, either.

Too often, millions of readers and watchers, audience members, are patronizing someone like me: neither trained, credentialed, nor exhibiting any particularly good track record^[1] in political punditry. Some, like the infamous Alex Jones of Infowars, have been so absolutely awful at it that they’ve been sued and fined millions of dollars.

Which, sadly enough, they can actually afford to pay, despite their pathetic grasping after victimhood.

You guessed right. This is a depiction of a political social influencer working over an audience member. Please note the audience member’s juices are untouched, but their wallet is becoming empty.

So, rather than according them a learned role name that sounds respectable such as political social influencer, I suggest a new role name should be selected. It should reflect the fact that all they really bring to the table is an imagination, a mouth that will say anything, some strong opinions, and a few dollars and odds and ends.

Never forget the impact that a strongly expressed opinion will have on some folks who are too befuddled by the subject matter, or the process of nuanced thinking, which is a hard process to learn and use, to formulate an opinion of their own.

So, for those who favor neologisms, I suggest tongue-waggers. It has a natural visual sufficiently repellent to be applicable to its new usage, and should induce the proper skepticism in those who learn to use it.

And, for those of a more old-fashioned bent, I think you’ll find town gossips to be of sufficient age, meaning, and negative connotation to warm the cockles of your heart. Town gossips, for those unfamiliar with the term, specialized in salacious news, unverified rumors, and all the other information that was better ignored or unknown, as applied to the common weal of a town.

¹ I actually hope to not quite satisfy that third criterion.

Well, this morning we thought we were making the final trip to the vet with Mayhem. We woke to find he’d gone blind in his right eye, and was already blind in his left. Add to that having gone deaf a few months ago, advanced decrepitude, and excessive vocalizations. It didn’t look good.

The vet even walked into the room with the fatal syringe, or so Deb reported.

But the vet looked into his right eye, pronounced that, unlike the blindness in his left eye, which is mysterious, his right eye clearly has a detached retina, which she said often happens in response to hypertension aka high blood pressure. I didn’t know that.

And she had noticed, from two or three weeks ago when we brought him, that the attempt to take his blood pressure yielded a reading on the borderline of hypertension. OK, then. Treatment? I asked.

Amlodopine, she replied, naming a human hypertension treatment drug. I took it, briefly.

And … lowering hypertension in cats frequently results in the retina re-attaching itself.

That was new to me, too.

So he came back home, took his first dose of Amlodopine, is also on gabapentin for possible joint pain, and is nosing his way energetically around the house, learning how to avoid falling down stairs, and nesting on his relocated (off the bed) heating pad.

And still vocalizing. Supposedly that’ll stop in a couple of days.

So I guess that was the feline Grim Reaper, just some fella with the same suit.

I was struck by the magnitude of anti-Americanism exhibited by Fox News personality Jeanine Pirro:

Staring directly into the camera on Monday, Fox News host Jeanine Pirro had a message for [singer/songwriter Taylor] Swift: “Don’t get involved in politics; we don’t want to see you there.” [WaPo]

As if the United States was not founded on the principle, among others, that we all get to participate in the governance of our nation, and all the activities that go along with that^[1], regardless of skin color, religion, and a few other unjust reasons for exclusion^[2]. Sorry, Mz. Pirro, but Taylor Swift’s American citizenship makes her far more qualified to comment on and influence American elections than, say, Russian President Vladimir Putin. Naturally, we can say this is just part of the rough and tumble of American politics, but it puts Pirro in an unfortunate light.

But this bit speaks to the paranoia and methods of the managers of the conservative movement:

¹ Subject to what are often portrayed as common-sense constraints, but are argued over and meddled with endlessly, which is itself part of politics.

² But age is not one of them. Age is used as a constraint for the office of President. It’s important to note that age is inevitably changing, unlike, say, skin color and religion, both of which can change, but are unlikely to do so. 30+ years ago some Minnesota legislative member advocated for giving the vote to kids, which I thought was just nutty.

As I’ve been suspecting, the Republicans might be better off selecting former Governor and UN Ambassador Nikki Haley (R-SC) as their Presidential nominee:

As signs point to the 2024 presidential election being a repeat of the 2020 race between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, Biden holds a lead over Trump 50 – 44 percent among registered voters in a hypothetical general election matchup, according to a Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pea-ack) University national poll of registered voters released today.

In Quinnipiac University’s December 20, 2023 poll, the same hypothetical 2024 general election matchup was ‘too close to call’ as President Biden received 47 percent support and former President Trump received 46 percent support. [Quinnipiac University Poll]

Yes, yes, get on with it.

In a hypothetical 2024 general election matchup between President Biden and Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley, a former United Nations Ambassador and South Carolina Governor, 47 percent of voters support Haley and 42 percent support Biden.

There’s still a ways to go, and, technically, both parties need to officially select their candidates.

Importantly, the Democratic National Convention is scheduled for August 19 to 22, 2024, while the Republican National Convention is scheduled for July 15 to 18. This means that if the unofficial selection of a GOP candidate is delayed past July 15, then President Biden will be forced to make a decision based on incomplete data.

And he’s already stated that he may not accept a nomination if Mr. Trump is not the Republican nominee.

Haley has a number of qualities not possessed by Mr. Trump nor President Biden, such as dynamism, being female, and connecting with voters outside their respective political bases, which are quite old. If Haley is selected, the Democrats may want to look at someone else, such as Harris, Klobuchar, or one or two other younger political powers. President Katie Porter (D-CA), anyone? (No, I don’t think Michelle Obama will be the shocking surprise candidate, and even Erick Erickson disputes the thought in an article on conservative grifters. Charisma is not the same as leadership.) It could make for some serious drama.

But that’s speculation. While I think Governor Haley has a chance, a good chance, of defeating Mr. Trump, it’s still less than 50% in my book. The Quinnipiac Poll, a respected polling service, has provided some good information.

I think the Missouri State Senate’s leader has had enough of extremism:

“The beginning of the 2024 legislative session in the Senate has been nothing short of an embarrassment,” Senate President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden, R-Columbia, said Tuesday, flanked by 14 fellow Republican senators. “A chamber designed to be occupied with civil, principled statesmen and women has been overtaken by a small group of swamp creatures, who all too often remind me more of my children than my colleagues.” [St. Louis Public Radio]

Calling your colleagues children, especially those purporting to be of your own party, suggests just how far the Missouri Republican Party has fallen from the realm of acceptability, and just how far the responsible voters have to go before they are sending acceptable Republicans to the State Legislature.

Erik Hoel remarks on the unsettling findings of educational research … or research on education, if you detest ambiguity. After discarding a lot of traditional approaches to excellence in education, he gets to the meat of the matter:

Many have taken this null effect of schools to be a sign of genetic determinism, wherein some innate ability, like IQ, is all that matters, and education is, at best, just the delivery of a repository of facts.

I don’t think this is the case. For paradoxically there exists an agreed-upon and specific answer to the single best way to educate children, a way that has clear, obvious, and strong effects. The problem is that this answer is unacceptable. The superior method of education is deeply unfair and privileges those at the very top of the socioeconomic ladder. It’s an answer that was well-known historically, and is also observed by education researchers today: tutoring.

Fascinating stuff, although the definition of a literary leading light is either unmemorable or utterly dispensed with. And while I think I see some acknowledgments of context changes, they’re not explored in any detail. On the other hand, this is part of a series, so perhaps he better accounts for context changes, and even what it means to be a ‘genius’, in the parts I have not read.

This is useful as a collection of links to studies of how useful various approaches to learning augmentation appear to be, and to triggering your own thoughts on the subject.

Neuston:

Neuston, also called pleuston, are organisms that live at the surface of a body of water, such as an ocean, estuary, lake, river, or pond. Neuston can live on top of the water surface or may be attached to the underside of the water surface. They may also exist in the surface microlayer that forms between the top side and the underside. Neuston have been defined as “organisms living at the air/water interface of freshwater, estuarine, and marine habitats or referring to the biota on or directly below the water’s surface layer.” [Wikipedia]

Noted in “Is cleaning up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch worth the effort?” Andrew Kersley, NewScientist (13 January 2024, paywall):

In 2022, researchers including Rebecca Helm, then at the University of North Carolina, Asheville, studied samples gathered by [swimmer and conservation activist Benoît Lecomte] during one of his epic swims. They found that the patch is teeming with aquatic life – mostly tiny floating “neustons”, surface-dwelling aquatic organisms ranging from snails to jellyfish. “One of the tragedies of naming the North Pacific Gyre [NPG] the garbage patch is that it erases the reality that it is, and always has been, an ecosystem,” says Helm, now at Georgetown University in Washington DC.

But is it wise to keep the NPG around as it artificially endangers so many other creatures? The article doesn’t really address the issue in any depth. It’s one thing to discuss allocation of scarce resources in addressing this issue, it’s quite another to make a claim that the NPG is actually a positive development for non-human life forms.

Nikki Haley telling Republicans how it is:

GET THEIR ASSES pic.twitter.com/k6i38JumkH

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 25, 2024

If Ronna McDaniel wants to be helpful she can organize a debate in South Carolina, unless she’s also worried that Trump can’t handle being on the stage for 90 minutes with Nikki Haley. – Haley Campaign

To come down from the mountain top is, of course, anathema for Mr. Trump, as it makes him interact, like any mere mortal, with his rival.

Never mind that it may expose any mental weakness he may have.

But it’s a real zinger.

I wonder. Try this on for size:

I think this is reflective of the division of opinions within SCOTUS and the Federal Judiciary on certain questions:

Autophage engines:

Rockets that eat themselves may be on the way. To reach orbit, a rocket must hoist its own mass and the mass of its propellant as well as whatever payload it is trying to carry into space. But if a rocket could burn its own parts as fuel, it could free up capacity for transporting more important science projects and supplies. A team of engineers has built a prototype of one of these “autophage engines” for the first time. [“Prototype rocket engine burns itself up for fuel as it flies,” Leah Crane, NewScientist (20 January 2024, paywall)]

Rather puts a kink in the whole reusability argument, doesn’t it?

Erick Erickson is having a panic attack over the imagined incompetence of President Biden, which he has humbly entitled, “The Biggest Story Happening Right Now“:

If what happened on January 6, 2021, was an insurrection, what is happening at the southern border is absolutely an invasion. In fact, outside of the Peace of Westphalia, a mass wave of foreigners entering another country would, even without arms, be considered an invasion.

What is happening is an invasion of illegal aliens, some engaged in human trafficking and drug running. They are overwhelming border towns in Texas and taxing the resources of numerous states. The problem exists for only one reason — the President of the United States is derelict in his duties.

President Biden could, in fact, order the military to secure the border through non-violent means. Instead, he has chosen to leave it open. This has placed a massive burden on the State of Texas — a formerly sovereign nation that would have undoubtedly never entered into union with the United States had it known the American President would not protect Texas’s border.

My bold. And regardless of whether this is a major problem or a minor blip on the screen, it’s worth understanding that such activities as Erickson would like to see, they cost money. Lots of money.

And the Executive, which is to say the President, has highly limited powers when it comes to the financial side of things. Sure, he has the authority to shift around funds to some minor extent, but he has no authority to lay taxes or to go into debt, with the arguable exception that he can veto legislation – and his vetoes can be overridden.

Financial matters must, by Constitutional constraint, originate in the House, even if the Republicans have been known to fudge that a bit. Erickson’s solemn proclamation is, ummm, misleading at best. A case could be made for it being an example of mendacity.

And then there’s this report:

NEWS from me & @bresreports in @PunchbowlNews PM:

MCCONNELL told a closed meeting of Senate Republicans Wed that the politics of the border has flipped for Rs and cast doubt on linking Ukraine and border.

“When we started this, the border united us and Ukraine divided us.”…

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) January 24, 2024

Mr. Trump wants to run his campaign on immigration, so he’s using his influence to deprive President Biden of the resources required to work on the problem.

The border problem boils down to an exercise in partisan politics, not in incompetent governance.

Now, as I’ve done before, I could go on to point out Erickson’s rant is really an exercise in keeping the herd together, a herd that, I suspect, is shrinking as moderate Republicans and independents find both Trump and Haley too repugnant for their vote. Best to keep their minds off the sliding popularity of Mr. Trump.

But it’s obvious, isn’t it?

No, what bothers me the most about Erickson’s rant is that it is congruent with what I expect we’ll be seeing as overpopulation and climate change sharpen. And while these phenomena won’t be responsive to Erickson’s pronouncements, they will have impacts on our Roman Senate-like (see Professor Turchin) leadership as they fight, tooth and claw, over every scrap of power and prestige. Rather than ask what can be done, they ask what can be done with it.

It’s like teenagers in a badly run high school, rather than adults. With the 200 ft tsunami getting ready to drown all, good, bad, and middlin’. And Erickson’s right down in the muck, scrappin’ away.

I don’t care about Erickson, but I worry about the real crises driving our neighbors to the South to leave their homes and come here.

Steve Benen seems a little anxious about the behavior of Mr. Trump after his big victory in the New Hampshire GOP Primary:

NBC News noted one of the more ridiculous lines from the Republican’s remarks:

“We won New Hampshire three times now, three. We win it every time, we win the primary, we win the generals,” Trump claimed in his victory speech tonight. Trump has won three Republican primaries in New Hampshire, but he has yet to win a general election there: He lost to Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020.

The former president has fared well in New Hampshire primaries, and that ought to be enough for him. But it’s clearly not: Trump still wants his followers to believe that he secretly won the state in the 2016 and 2020 general elections — actual vote tallies be damned — based on evidence that exists only in his imagination.

Leading to …

In other words, as the general election phase of the 2024 race begins in earnest, the presumptive GOP nominee is clinging to absurd conspiracy theories about Iowa, New Hampshire, and the 2020 general election. Trump has been warned repeatedly that his election denialism isn’t a winning tactic, especially with national audiences, but the former president apparently can’t quite help himself.

It’s going to be a long year.

Here’s where Benen may have it wrong:

This is not a big victory for Mr. Trump.

Just prior to the New Hampshire primary, WaPo reported

The [Washington Post-Monmouth University] poll finds 52 percent of potential primary voters supporting Trump, while 34 percent are backing Haley.

Which translates to an 18 point projected victory. Other polls show smaller or larger margins.

But, for Mr. Trump and his ego, his 30 point victory in the Iowa primary was not repeated in New Hampshire; in fact, it’s only an 11 point victory. Mr. Trump has had it forced upon him that he is not universally loved by the Republicans and, worse yet, the independents.

And so he’s spinning as only a politico with no respect for truth can spin. He’s accused Governor Sununu (R-NH) of allowing Democrats to vote in the Republican primary, which is untrue; he still claims to have won steadfastly Democratic New Hampshire in the general elections of 2016 and 2020, and New Hampshire’s four electoral votes ended up in his opponent’s column only because of cheating; and etc.

But this may be more than the ego of a mildly demented politico on display. There may be electoral significance, because Haley’s loss, despite the solemn proclamations of disaster by the paid punditry, is less than projected.

The problem is that the pundits are, by and large, making the intellectual error of holding the context static, and it’s anything but static. Mr. Trump’s potential liabilities are far greater than Mz. Haley’s, who, in fact, will have to manufacture her liabilities, as she did with her omission of slavery from her list of reasons for the American Civil War. Mr. Trump has already manufactured his liabilities, and is now waiting to discover if his narcissism, mendacity, and arrogance will result in convictions, fines, and even prison time. By the time Trump reaches Super Tuesday, his reputation, outside of the fanatical base, may be in tatters.

For the independents who live in states with open primaries, the numbers do not have to speak of an overwhelming victory for Mr. Trump, but rather an unexpectedly close race in which Mr. Trump’s persistent errors, small crowds, and unending mendacity may persuade them to consider Mz. Haley. Mr. Trump expressed amazement and fury that Haley didn’t drop out after Tuesday’s result, that she gave what sounded like a victory speech. Mr. Trump, I think, understands better than the pundits the importance of Mr. Trump not showing weakness. Remember such names as Gingrich, Lott, Ryan, Boehner, Cantor, Sessions, “The Hammer”, McCarthy? All Republican politicians who showed weakness. None are still in elective office. They may argue that they left under their own power, but, truth be told, once the cracks appeared in their judgment or their popularity, the RINO hunters came and rubbed them out, metaphorically speaking.

Mr. Trump is well aware that the Republicans, if blood gets in the water, will stop voting for Mr. Trump in preference for a more promising candidate, leaving him to the prosecutors, the MAGA base, and the cruel pens of a punditry that was tricked. His ego and devotion to wealth, power, and prestige will drive him forward, and I think it’s likely that his disposition for wilder and wilder tales will take center stage.

Mr. Trump may cruise to the nomination. But the writers who are trying to finish off Haley for their employers’ bottom lines, because a repeat of 2020’s contest should rivet readers’ attention, have become irritating in their failure to see a real possibility here.

Or we can talk about Rep Phillips’ (D-MN) challenge to President Biden. Biden wins by 46 points in New Hampshire, 66 to 20 in very round numbers, and Biden wasn’t even on the ballot. He won on write-ins, which is not entirely unheard of, as Senator Murkowski (R-Alaska) will testify – but not by 46 points. The only story here is that Phillips is still in the race. He’s made himself into a national joke while screaming that he’s never seen such horrible corruption and, well, evil. All this while the Democrats do exactly what the party of a highly successful, incumbent President usually does – clear the way for a proven quantity.

Phillips is a joke, and should be treated that way.

The latest nominee for the blind loyalty award, named for Rep Earl Landgrebe (R-IN), is …

State Sen. Ileana Garcia, a Miami[, Florida] Republican who endorsed Trump’s reelection, has filed a bill for this year’s legislative session that could allow the state to hand out up to $5 million to the embattled Republican front-runner for president. The legislation has already won the endorsement from Jimmy Patronis, the state’s Republican chief financial officer, who for months has been publicly calling for taxpayers to pay to defend Trump from criminal charges. [Politico]

And it’s a two-fer!

Sadly for her, Governor DeSantis (R-FL) has rebuffed the brown-nosing State Senator’s attempt to fill Mr. Trump’s coffers with yet more wealth. Maybe she can find some other way to attract her idol’s attention.

WaPo’s Dana Milbank on a recent New Hampshire rally held by Mr. Trump:

There were but 4,500 souls in [a Concord, NH] arena, which has a maximum capacity of 12,000, but Trump told them they “set every record” for attendance.

And

Turnout in the Iowa Republican caucus was only 15 percent, the lowest in years, but one lawmaker Trump called onstage announced that Iowa just voted “record numbers.”

These numbers must trouble Mr. Trump’s strategists, if he has any professional strategists. And then there’s Mr. Trump’s victory in New Hampshire tonight in which he only polled 54.4%, while the contender at his heels, Nikki Haley, polled 43.6% If he were as popular, inside and out of the Republican Party, as he claims, I’d expect better numbers, even if independents, but not registered Democrats, are allowed to vote in the primary of their choice in New Hampshire, but not both.

True, this is better than Mr. Trump in 2016, but, as usual, context is all important. Mr. Trump is now supposedly the all-powerful leader, yet eternal victim, supported by “unnamed validators” from both parties, and general possessor of mystical powers. If, with all that, he can only manage roughly 54% of the primary vote, and cannot fill an arena for a rally, it suggests his base has shrunk considerably.

Biden has his own set of problems, as it appears he’s winning by only 47 points. But Biden’s message, which he needs to polish, should center around economics, Ukraine, and the madness infecting the Republican Party. Just pointing out how the Republicans chronically mismanage the Republic through increased debt and opposing raising taxes should be enough.

I suspect a lot of pundits will predict or call for Trump opponent Haley to drop out. However, Trump has a lot of hurdles ahead of him having to do with legal cases brought on by his unbridled greed, from corporate fraud to sexual assault to disqualification from ballots. In the latter case, the only thing saving Trump is shameful allegiance from state Republican leaders.

So, while I think Haley will drop, I think she’d be wiser to continue her Presidential quest. If Trump’s campaign were to collapse, she’d be perfectly positioned to replace him. None of the other candidates, including Mr. Trump, has her charisma, pitiful as it is. And she has her share of blunders, including her misstatement of the cause of the Civil War and the anchor around her neck of her anti-abortion position.

But if she, and her supporters, want to give her a chance, she’ll have to stay in. Otherwise, it’ll be another Republican governor getting the nod when Trump becomes non-viable.

Rep Jasmine Crockett (R-TX) lays into her Republican colleagues on the Oversight Committee via C-SPAN. This is not YouTube, so you’ll have to follow the link.

The speed of computers and the audacity of human greed may be multipliers, eh? I just barely saw it coming and now it may be blowing right by me:

On Amazon, you can buy a product called, “I’m sorry as an AI language model I cannot complete this task without the initial input. Please provide me with the necessary information to assist you further.” [WaPo]

Etc, on other platforms such as X (Twitter), Amazon, and various blogs, followed by:

Across the internet, such error messages have emerged as a telltale sign that the writer behind a given piece of content is not human. Generated by AI tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT when they get a request that goes against their policies, they are a comical yet ominous harbinger of an online world that is increasingly the product of AI-authored spam.

“It’s good that people have a laugh about it, because it is an educational experience about what’s going on,” said Mike Caulfield, who researches misinformation and digital literacy at the University of Washington. The latest AI language tools, he said, are powering a new generation of spammy, low-quality content that threatens to overwhelm the internet unless online platforms and regulators find ways to rein it in.

Spammy? Low-quality?

Heavens to betsy, our AI overlords are out to get us with … incompetence.

Here’s the thing: the only restraints on using AI are commercial. Governments can’t do much about this, and, worse, the AI overlords CEOs have enough money to throw the type of cash around that inhibits and even bans regulation, even by the Federal government.

In fact, Silicon Valley has already spawned political action groups in this election cycle, such as the anti-Biden Democratic PAC We Deserve Better^[1], which I rather suspect wants Rep Phillips (D-MN) in the White House because he’s a businessman and seen as easily manipulable. Biden is a big ol’ vat of experience and suspicion of business.

So don’t depend on government to make the Web magically wonderful via AI.

Instead, everybody who thinks money is more important than authenticity and quality will be trying to employ AI to do their work for them, even when it’s not sensible. But ChatGPT and many of its competitors are just party tricks, dependent on the Web to generate answers.

There is a reminiscent flavor to all this, but not one the hipsters will relish.

Remember the mad cow crisis? It was quite a while back, so I’ll summarize. Beef tainted with dangerous prions suddenly came on the market, prompting fears and a crash of the beef market. The source of the dangerous prions? The feed of the cows had begun to include … cows. Cows now inadvertent cannibals, the dangeous prions were concentrated and then flooded the cow population, and consequently the beef markets. People caught the illness and became dangerously ill. Some died, others became comatose.

This is a notable analog. The AIs party trick computer tools will generate text that will be posted to … the … Web, which will then be harvested by the party trick computer tools again for posting … to … the … Web …

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Goodness. I am all a-lather to see the nature of the Web in five years. If it even exists. Or if there’ll be required classes in how to discern good information from bad information. For more on this topic, see here on why you’re just not that smart.

Meantime, on a personal note, I’ve been trying to cleanup my writing, condensing by using better words, stay away from dangling participles, all that rot. Seeing these notes on people frantic to avoid actually writing their own copy is alternately distressing and deeply amusing. Do they really want reputations as ding-bats?

I use that last word as a tribute to the hipsters, of course. Of course.

¹ Yes, the name is ludicrous.

Slow cinema:

Slow cinema is a genre of art cinema characterised by a style that is minimalist, observational, and with little or no narrative, and which typically emphasizes long takes. It is sometimes called “contemplative cinema”. [Wikipedia]

Noted in “‘The End We Start From’: Slow cinema’s version of the apocalypse,” Michael O’Sullivan, WaPo:

You could also call [The End We Start From] — directed with a slack sense of urgency by Mahalia Belo, making her theatrical feature debut, and written by Alice Birch (“Lady Macbeth”), based on Megan Hunter’s 2017 book — slow cinema’s version of a post-apocalyptic thriller. Paradoxically, not juicing up the stakes with expensive effects and emotional baloney has the effect of making the situation seem at times more, not less, dire. Comer is especially good at conveying a sense of genuine, if weirdly relaxed, panic.

Bitcoin continues to take it on the nose, as NewScientist’s Matthew Sparkes (13 January 2024) reports:

The amount of electricity used to mine and trade bitcoin climbed to 121 terawatt-hours in 2023, 27 per cent more than the previous year. While other cryptocurrencies in the same position have made bold changes to cut their impact, bitcoin’s decentralised community of developers, miners and investors are showing little interest in changing course. If bitcoin cannot clean up its own house, should governments step in to shut it down?

It is the role of government to ensure society has an environment in which to function safely^[1],  even if that means that some activities are limited or banned. You’d expect that it would give a warning or guidelines, but this appears to be impractical because of the distributed nature of Bitcoin^[2]: No one is in charge^[3]. As it’s Internet-based, it’s difficult for, say, the American government to force it to change and stop consuming so much power.

There is little in the organic experience of Bitcoin to indicate its profligate energy and water usage, and, enhanced by its reputation as the first of the cryptocurrencies, this will blunt or eliminate any concerns by the ordinary user with regard to resource usage that is becoming more and more worrisome.

But artist/activist vonwong is aiming to change that with a found-object sculpture called the Skull of Satoshi, where the subject is a psuedonym for the person or persons who developed the original code of Bitcoin. vonwong has developed a video documenting how he and his team created this sculpture, which also painlessly disseminates information concerning the hidden costs of Bitcoin. Here’s the video:

All that said, and back to Sparkes’ article:

In 2022, another cryptocurrency, Ethereum, ditched this wasteful “proof-of-work” system altogether and replaced it with one where those who own currency control the network, rather than those who own and operate computing power. This slashed the network’s energy consumption overnight by more than 99.99 per cent. More than a year on, the experiment has proved successful, and Ethereum remains secure.

[Alex de Vries at VU Amsterdam] says the bitcoin community – a loose collection of miners, investors and companies – refuses to take the same step and remains wedded to proof of work despite its environmental impact.

I’m sympathetic to both sides. Bitcoin appears to be an unnecessary consumer of immense amounts of natural resources, BUT if it’s going to be around, the phrase where those who own currency control the network throws up red flags, at least to me. It’s a classic corruption scenario: how honest are the controllers? How can they be boosted out if they turn out to be corrupt?

Obviously, I’ve never used cryptocurrencies, and my studies are strictly casual. But, as an obsolete software engineer who has had to deal with the social aspects of computing projects before I even graduated college, these are the sort of things that catch my attention.

Having viewed vonwong’s video, which includes a description of the laser eyes phenomenon, I can’t help but wonder if paranoid conspiracy theories roam the Bitcoin user community, or if they’re blissfully unaware of how a government shutdown plays right into the creation mythos of Bitcoin.

Oh, now I’m wondering if there are any academic papers on the Creation Mythos of Bitcoin. Time to shut down this post.

¹ In all the meanings that can be imputed to that sentence.

² Yes, I’m aware that it should be bitcoin. It’s too damn cute for a computer project of dubious worth and serious resource usage.

³ Because Bitcoin was developed to be administratively distributed, at least in part and as a reaction to the high inflation rates possible through unrestrained production of fiat currency (paper money), as seen in pre-World War II Germany and various African companies saddled with excess debt, the description that no one is in charge makes sense.

The special election thread continues with an election in reddish Florida that resulted in a nasty shock for the Reds Republicans:

Florida Democrat Tom Keen flipped District 35 in the state house on Tuesday, beating Republican rival Erika Booth by 11,390 votes to 10,800. …

The victory is a major boost for Florida Democrats who suffered a dramatic blow during the November 2022 midterm elections, which left Republicans with a supermajority in both the state house and senate. Heather Williams, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, branded the win an “earthquake,” noting the GOP had won the seat in 2022. [Newsweek]

The article doesn’t provide an analysis, but Ben Wikler on Daily Kos suggests this:

The race had two central issues: property insurance (a big deal in Florida)… and abortion.

And that this explains a 13 point swing since 2022. I have no idea if Mr. Wikler is an authority on the electoral politics of Florida, however.

Combine this with improving consumer sentiment, a complete lack of interest in Biden’s intra-party rival Rep Dean Phillips (D-MN) from fellow Democrats, and likely Republican nominee Mr. Trump’s many legal troubles, and, despite the media’s insistence that Biden is in trouble, he may have only to improve his messaging concerning his high competence in most governmental matters to turn Trump’s frantic antics into the Dance of Futility.

From WaPo:

Donald Trump urged the Supreme Court on Thursday to ensure his name can appear on election ballots nationwide, warning of “chaos and bedlam” if the justices do not reverse Colorado’s top court, which disqualified the former president because of his actions on and leading up to Jan. 6, 2021.

This is one of those head feint arguments, unworthy of the lawyers filing it. While domestic tranquility is certainly a responsibility of government, including the judiciary, it is necessary to ask whether it is wise to be persuaded by such a claim, a claim that has no limit on the number of times it may be used, nor by whom^[1]. For example, the Democrats may claim bedlam will attend the next culture war decision^[2] by SCOTUS if the decision is unfavorable to the Democrats. Is this desirable? Does SCOTUS have to evaluate every decision with regards to how much violence it may provoke? Is this the purpose of the police, to become targets of those unhappy with SCOTUS decisions?

Second, it is a speculative claim. Implicitly, it threatens to bring the violence of the January 6th Insurrection to SCOTUS; yet, Mr. Trump has implored his followers to appear at judicial and other events to show their support, but his followers have made pitiful showings at those events. This weakens, quite severely, the argument that bedlam will occur. It may be what Mr. Trump wishes would occur, but his wishes translate poorly to reality, as those who followed his Administration’s actions are aware.

Another defense argument looks superficially persuasive, but, to this non-lawyer eye, ends up not:

The efforts to disqualify the leading Republican primary contender in the 2024 election, his lawyer Jonathan Mitchell wrote, “threaten to disenfranchise tens of millions of Americans” and “promise to unleash chaos and bedlam if other state courts and state officials follow Colorado’s lead.”

Consider this: If I had a 15 year old supergenius prodigy nephew or niece, I could not vote for them, either. Am I unjustifiably disenfranchised because the Constitution specifies a lower age limit on those who would serve as President?

No.

The Constitution is, to a large degree, the defining document of our democracy. We’ve put as much wisdom as we can into it, acknowledging our limitations at the same time through the Amendment process. If someone is too young to have acquired the wisdom that comes, to some, with age, then they are disallowed. Under the same rubric, banning people who’ve betrayed a sworn public office is a permissible disenfranchisement because those who wrote that Amendment to the Constitution foresaw such would-be office-holders not as well-meaning citizens who would do their best, but as those who would, again, and in all probability, betray their office in pursuit of their self-interest, which is a violation of the public servant’s remit.

This, then, and in some conflict with Mr. Trump’s claim #2, above, with regard to bringing January 6th violence to SCOTUS, leaves the Court with the problem of deciding if the Colorado Supreme Court is correct in seeing Mr. Trump as guilty of insurrection for trying to overturn the decision of the people, especially through force.

¹ With the trivial exception of pacifists, of course.

² Culture war decisions include such topics as abortion, funding of religious schools, charter schools, various gender rights and restrictions, etc.

On Wednesday I was listening to NPR on the way home from work, and they broadcast a report, less than ten minutes long, regarding the state of the Web.

I regret to say I’ve been unable to find it, because it actually had an impact on me.

To summarize, they claimed that, unlike ten or fifteen years ago, the state of the offerings of the big institutions of the Web, such as Google, and perhaps the digital news organizations, have declined. In Google’s case, for example, they said the searches one might enter no longer return current entries, but more likely those that are obviously commercial and of marginal relevance, or even dead links.

OK, so we know that without numbers it’s difficult to be sure this report is meaningful. Maybe the reporter(s) had some constipation that day, or the Google search engine was hiccuping, or whatever.

But, later, it did occur to me that this is congruent with a view of the Web as a Commons. Commons is a political economics term:

The commons is the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, including natural materials such as air, water, and a habitable Earth. These resources are held in common even when owned privately or publicly. Commons can also be understood as natural resources that groups of people (communities, user groups) manage for individual and collective benefit. Characteristically, this involves a variety of informal norms and values (social practice) employed for a governance mechanism. Commons can also be defined as a social practice of governing a resource not by state or market but by a community of users that self-governs the resource through institutions that it creates.

Related to commons is the term tragedy of the commons, which is basically the plundering of a resource which lacks natural, enforceable restraints on its use while remaining valuable. This happens with many resources, from our atmosphere to fisheries to potable water.

And, I think, we can add the Web to that list. We’ve made access to the Web, as both consumers and creators, virtually cost-free; for example, this web-site costs me a couple of hundred dollars a year, if memory serves, which means I can author, to a potentially huge audience, for a pittance. We treat it like an unlimited resource. This combination makes the Web a commons. Another couple of hundred for basic access, i.e., consumption, and the investment is very cheap for what I get in return.

Except … if we believe the NPR report, it’s not as high as it was in the past. Services such as the Google search engine made the overwhelming problem of organizing our searches tractable – raise your hand if you remember Alta Vista, and how Google prompted cries of glee. But if our searches are beginning to return irrelevancies, is the Web still useful?

If news organizations are spewing more and more “sponsored content,” which is often commercials masquerading as news reports, are they as valuable as we like to think? Indeed, throw in the loss of traditional news organizations such as hometown newspapers, and now we have to ask: have we lost our most valuable public intangible resource, our news organizations, as we discover the digital news media is not nearly as useful?

My mind is flooding with metaphors, I fear. Along with the tragedy of the commons, I have to wonder if our thunderous rush for “free news” has been the equivalent of subsisting on pure high fructose corn syrup – oh so good for our taste buds, but oh so damaging to our health.

Back to my speculation focus. The Web has become a focus for damage: malware for our computers, attacks on our infrastructure, disinformation campaigns from Russia and other entities, development of certain AI techniques dependent on huge amounts of training data and ongoing energy consumption, cryptocurrency and its associated scams and energy consumption, deepfake videos, the violence endemic with online communities of violent personalities, and so many more that slip my mind.

My goodness.

I have to wonder: Who will walk away from the Web as it continues to degrade? Addicts to social media are faced with quite a mountain, and some commit suicide, but non-addictive personalities may begin to stream, if they haven’t already, away from the Web. There’s a lot more to life than sitting in front of a computer talking to maybe-people maybe-chatbots-from-Russia for hours/days/weeks/months on end.

Says the guy who’s been in social media for forty years.

I suspect the Web will turn into a resource where some places, like Wikipedia, will remain up and valuable, even when attacked, commercial entities will fight to entice the unwary into their webs, the dark Web will continue but not be a place for the naive.

And a lot of people will not otherwise use it. Some, like the hipsters, may even look to resurrect the institutions of a more stable societal time.

I look forward to see how this works out. Heavens knows the ice fishing hobby remains so popular that the ice fishers ignore the warnings and end up being rescued around here when the ice breaks up.

But rebuilding society around ice fishing during climate change might be a bit foolish.

For the independent voter uncertain of their preference in the upcoming Presidential election, many will be fundamentally uninterested, but uneasily aware that, to be a good citizen of the United States, they should vote in the election. But, of course, for whom?

To this voter, I offer an easily understood metric by which to measure Mr. Trump. The metric? What do the best people who have associated with him think of him?

Well, we can ask his hometown of Manhattan. How did Mr. Trump do in Manhattan in the Presidential election of 2016?

A seventy point loss speaks volumes, doesn’t it? In 2020, Trump made up ground, but still lost by 30 points or so.

OK, so how about the folks who has worked for him? His Chief of Staff & General John F. Kelly (US Marines-retired) would certainly seem close to him:

“A person who is not truthful regarding his position on the protection of unborn life, on women, on minorities, on evangelical Christians, on Jews, on working men and women,” Kelly continued. “A person that has no idea what America stands for and has no idea what America is all about. A person who cavalierly suggests that a selfless warrior who has served his country for 40 years in peacetime and war should lose his life for treason – in expectation that someone will take action. A person who admires autocrats and murderous dictators. A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law. [CNN/Politics]

Kelly doesn’t much care for him, both personally and professionally.

How about Cassidy Hutchinson, assistant to Mr. Trump’s final Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows?

“I think that Donald Trump is the most grave threat we will face to our democracy in our lifetime, and potentially in American history,” Hutchinson told CNN’s Jake Tapper in an interview Tuesday. [CNN/Politics]

That from a dedicated conservative.

In order to cover most of his other White House officials who had close contact:

No other presidential candidate in history has had so many detractors from his inner circle. His former secretary of defense, Mark Esper, told CNN in November 2022, “I think he’s unfit for office. … He puts himself before country. His actions are all about him and not about the country. And then, of course, I believe he has integrity and character issues as well.” [CNN/Politics]

There’s another group that has close contact with Mr. Trump, and that’s his lawyers. What do they think of him?

Donald Trump lost three of his lawyers in one day when attorney Joe Tacopina filed a declaration requesting the withdrawal of his firm’s representation of the former president in multiple lawsuits. [Newsweek]

This is not an isolated incident; it is, in fact, part of a long line, and inadvertent standing joke, of lawyers who worked for Mr. Trump, quit eventually, and regret the association. Whether it’s due to not being paid, or for not obeying their recommendations, or some other reason, they leave. En masse, sometimes. Other names include Ty Cobb and Jenna Ellis.

And, finally, what of his own family? His niece, Mary Trump, has condemned him on multiple occasions. His daughter is not participating in the campaign, nor his son in law, so far as I know. Nor is his wife. Only his adult sons, Eric and Donald, Jr., carry on as his proxies.

And how about those who do not condemn him? Well, sad to say, they tend to be characters who have, independent of their association with Trump, developed awful reputations. Their names include Roger “ratfucker” Stone, father of dirty tricks; Stephen Miller, arrogant anti-migrant fanatic and Trump advisor; Steve Bannon, Internet dirty trickster; Ryan Zinke (R-MT), at the center of many corruption scandals during his time as Secretary of the Interior; etc. There are more, of that I know because I know I’ve forgotten them.

In essence, to my doubtful reader I say this: Those who know Mr. Trump, and understand that an ethical Administration is essential to the efficient running and survival of the American state, speak very, very ill of him. So why should you vote for him?

Parasitosis:

A parasitic disease, also known as parasitosis, is an infectious disease caused by parasites. Parasites are organisms which derive sustenance from its host while causing it harm. The study of parasites and parasitic diseases is known as parasitology. Medical parasitology is concerned with three major groups of parasites: parasitic protozoa, helminths, and parasitic arthropods. Parasitic diseases are thus considered those diseases that are caused by pathogens belonging taxonomically to either the animal kingdom, or the protozoan kingdom. [Wikipedia]

As expected. Noted in “What Happened to Chemtrails?” Mick West, Skeptical Inquirer (January/February 2024, paywall):

Morgellons was a self-diagnosis that a few worried people sought out when their regular doctors were unable to cure their symptoms. It involved small fibers that were thought to emerge from the skin as part of the “disease.” In reality, the fibers people were finding were ordinary misidentified things such as hair, cotton, or paper fibers. But the visual confirmation of their suspicions seemed to be something people latched onto.

The Morgellons community was very diverse. While most had genuine symptoms of unknown cause, their fixation on the “fibers” as being related made their condition indistinguishable from delusions of parasitosis. It was a very eccentric community.