Miss Peeper, master fundraiser
As we picked tomatoes in the alley this morning, Peeper became despondent over our absence, came to the other side of the fence, and began fulfilling her name – peeping. She runs it up and down the upper scales, this despondent, I’ve been abandoned, tone to her voice that breaks your heart.
Deb observed that she’d be a perfect fund-raiser on the phone.
Morning fruits, night delights?
And here are some of the fruits of our morning’s labors.
I was peripherally aware of the goofiness in the Philippines, but somehow never commented on it for this thread. But let’s set the stage first: The Philippines is a nation consisting of roughly 7,641 islands in the Pacific Ocean, a population of 101 million, and a dominant religion of Roman Catholicism. With roughly 116,000 square miles available, density runs to 870 people / mile2 – assuming all the area is livable. For comparison, world wide density is 35 / mile2.
And their government? Formally, Constitutional Republic. Informal? Scary as hell.
Current President is Rodrigo Duterte, former mayor of Davao City. During his campaign for the Presidency, he pledged to fight crime, as noted by DW in an interview with Jasmine Lorch:
DW: Rodrigo Duterte promised a “bloody war” against criminals during his election campaign. Now that he has been elected, what concerns might human rights groups have with his promise to bring about justice?
Lorch: Duterte has not put forward a concrete plan to reduce poverty in the Philippines
Jasmin Lorch: National and international human rights groups have criticized Duterte’s approach to security and human rights since his time as mayor of Davao City. During Duterte’s tenure there as mayor, the city became home to notorious “dead squads” that indiscriminately targeted criminals, street children and critical activists.
During his presidential campaign, Duterte even boasted that he had personally killed criminals. Activist groups have rightly stressed that if human rights and due judicial process are ignored in the fight against crime, the justice system – and ultimately the Philippine’s democratic system – could be undermined.
And how is he implementing this? WaPo reports:
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte on Friday compared his campaign to kill criminals to the Holocaust, saying he would like to “slaughter” millions of addicts just like Adolf Hitler “massacred” millions of Jewish people.
“Hitler massacred three million Jews. Now, there are 3 million drug addicts. … I’d be happy to slaughter them,” he told reporters early Friday, according to GMA News.
“You know my victims, I would like to be, all criminals, to finish the problem of my country and save the next generation from perdition,” he said.
The comment was a response to critics who have likened him to Hitler. (Anestimated 6 million Jewish people were killed in the Holocaust.)
Since Duterte swept to power in July, more than 3,300 Filipinos have been killed, either gunned down by police in late-night drug operations or felled by assassins, often after being named by police.
Victims of the extra-judicial killing spree are drug suspects — or those misidentified as drug suspects —named on police lists and targeted before they are charged or given the chance to stand trial. Often their bodies are dumped by the roadside with signs that read “pusher.”
And I suppose his supporters love him for it, but it’s the art of the brute who knows no better. And what will his supporters do when he finds reason to apply the same methods to some group of them? Then they find reason to regret their support. But, as with Trump and others, it seems people are looking for their “strong leader” with little thought as to methods being applied to themselves.
One of the options often used to wisely consume water is recycling: collecting water that has been used once, often by residents for excretion, clean it, and send it back for more use. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Not always, as Anthony King reports in NewScientist (17 September 2016, paywall):
Excreted and flushed through our sewage works and waterways, drug molecules are all around us. A recent analysis of streams in the US detected an entire pharmacy: diabetic meds, muscle relaxants, opioids, antibiotics, antidepressants and more. Drugs have even been found in crops irrigated by treated waste water.
The amounts that end up in your glass are minuscule, and won’t lay you low tomorrow. However, someone prescribed multiple drugs is more likely to experience side effects, and risks rise exponentially with each drug taken by a person over 65. So could tiny doses of dozens of drugs have an impact on your health?
“We don’t know what it means if you have a lifelong uptake of drugs at very low concentrations,” says Klaus Kümmerer at the University of Lüneburg, Germany.
Even what we might consider fresh water isn’t so fresh:
Paul Bradley of the US Geological Survey and his team checked streams in the eastern US for 108 chemicals, a drop in the bucket of the 3000 drug compounds in use. One river alone had 45. And even though two-thirds of the streams weren’t fed by treated waste water, 95 per cent of them had the anti-diabetic drug metformin, probably from street run-off or leaky sewage pipes (Environmental Science & Technology, doi.org/bqdb).
Back in 2013, Scientific American reprinted a report from Environmental Health News on the efficacy of water treatment facilities:
Only about half of the prescription drugs and other newly emerging contaminants in sewage are removed by treatment plants.
That’s the finding of a new report by the International Joint Commission, a consortium of officials from the United States and Canada who study the Great Lakes.
The impact of most of these “chemicals of emerging concern” on the health of people and aquatic life remains unclear. Nevertheless, the commission report concludes that better water treatment is needed.
“The compounds show up in low levels – parts per billion or parts per trillion – but aquatic life and humans aren’t exposed to just one at a time, but a whole mix,” said Antonette Arvai, physical scientist at the International Joint Commission and the lead author of the study. “We need to find which of these chemicals might hurt us.”
The NewScientist report explored the possibility of less stable drugs (i.e., shelf-life), which might make pharmaceuticals more resource intensive (in my view), so I wonder if an alternative would be to require the pharmaceutical companies to also do the research to discover how to remove the remnants of their drugs from the water supply – or to guarantee the human body completely absorbs it. Extra points if they can report that common treatment options already remove the drug remains.
From the 60 Seconds column of NewScientist (14 September 2016):
A newly identified parasitic worm has been named in honour of US president Barack Obama. The thread-like blood fluke, called Baracktrema obamai, infects freshwater turtles. Its discoverers say they admire Obama, and that, to the people that study them, parasites are beautiful (Journal of Parasitology, doi.org/bqfk).
Oy.
I hate it when I become vertiginous in my chair.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=f1BgzIZRfT8%3Ffeature%3Dplayer_embedded
Discover Magazine’s D-brief blog covers a 3-in-1 fossil:
An image from the study showing the juvenile snake that ate a lizard that ate an insect. The arrow points to tip of the lizard’s snout. (Credit: Krister T. Smith)
It’s not often that paleontologists uncover a fossil that reveals what its dinner ate for dinner.
Working in Germany’s Messel Pit, a prehistoric volcanic lake, researchers found an insect inside of a lizard inside of a snake (a snalizect?), all preserved for posterity in ancient sediment. It’s essentially a prehistoric turducken, although not one you’re likely to serve up at Thanksgiving dinner.
This particular example of fossil-ception let researchers peer into a 48-million year old food chain, and bolsters theories about the dining habits of this particular species of snake, likely belonging to the genus Paleopython.
For those who love dense, academic prose, this is from the original article by Krister T. Smith and Agustin Scanferia on Springer Link, aka Palaeobiodiversity and Palaeoenvironments.
The distorted skull is seen in left dorsolateral view (Fig. 2c), but CT reconstructions allow the observation of most of the ventral side of preserved bones (Fig. 2b). The edentulous premaxilla exhibits long transverse processes as in most boines. The frontals bear a conspicuous thin supraorbital shelf, which confers a quadrangular shape in dorsal view. This configuration can be observed in Palaeopython fischeri, as well as in juvenile and adult boines.
I’ve not heard of this phenomenon, but Spaceweather.com supplies information, both current and what they plan to research:
Researchers have long known that one of the van Allen Radiation Belts dips down toward Earth over South America, creating a zone of high radiation called “The South Atlantic Anomaly” (SAA). Since its discovery in 1958, the SAA has been shape-shifting, growing larger and intensifying. A map published just last week in the American Geophysical Union’s journal Space Weather Quarterly outlines the anomaly with new precision:
When a spacecraft in low-Earth orbit passes through the anomaly, “the radiation causes faults in spacecraft electronics and can induce false instrument readings,” explains Bob Schaefer of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, lead author of the paper reporting the results. “We actually used these spurious signals to map out the radiation environment at an altitude of 850 km.” …
According to orthodox thinking, the SAA reaches down from space to within about 200 km of Earth’s surface. Below that altitude, its effects should be mitigated by the shielding of Earth’s atmosphere and geomagnetic field. To test this idea, Spaceweather.com and Earth to Sky Calculus have undertaken a program to map the SAA from below using weather balloons equipped with radiation sensors. Next week we will share the results of our first flight from a launch site in Chile. Stay tuned!
For those wondering about a correlation with Earth’s gravitational anomalies, here’s a recent map from the European Space Agency:
ESA Gravitational Map (from UniverseToday)
Doesn’t look strong from this visual inspection.
Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964, American title Godzilla vs. the Thing, and included extra footage – this may be the version I saw) contains the elements of a good film, mixed together with a potato masher, and laid out for all to see. A giant egg has floated into the fishing village’s harbor as part of a destructive typhoon. The village mayor claims it and then sells it to a notorious entrepreneur and his shadowy backer, forcing the scientist and journalists who come to examine it to leave. The egg is placed in a huge hot house where it’ll be exhibited for crass commercial purposes.
Two tiny people appear to claim the egg, but their supplications for its return fall on the deaf, greedy ears of the owners, and they reluctantly leave; as they go, the journalists get a glimpse of the Thing, a gigantic butterfly whose egg it is.
As the ground is cleared for a project of some sort (I forgot what), from the muck and mud appears GODZILLA, who proceeds to do what GODZILLA does – stomp the village flat. The Japanese defense forces rally to cast Godzilla forth, but fail. The US Navy is called in, but, in an incoherent sequence, they fail as well (although, unlike the home-town Japanese, they suffer no casualties – a lost opportunity for the film makers, who could have had Godzilla clutching plastic model ships to his breast – throw in another typhoon at the same time and the visuals would have been stunning).
Goya’s Colossus
It’s worth taking a break from the summation to note that some fairly awful special effects produced a sharply focused city-scape in the foreground, with a mobile, fuzzy, faded-out Godzilla in the background, resulting in a surprisingly effective & creepy sequence of Godzilla moving through a city proper. In some bizarre manner, it reminds me of the great Spanish artist Goya’s painting Colossus1, a mundane village in the foreground, a monstrous, sketchily seen creature passing in the night … although Godzilla wasn’t exactly passing peacefully.
In any case, as towns and villages fall to the monster, a deputation is sent to the island of the two tiny people who claimed the egg, asking for assistance in killing Godzilla. After a brief squabble or two, the Thing agrees to help, as its final act. At this juncture we see a gesture to the nature of Evil, as the entrepreneur, suddenly destitute, beats his shadowy backer up and then steals the money from the backer’s floor safe. With money-lust in his eyes and Godzilla literally looming in the distance, as seen (quite effectively) through a window, he turns his back on the backer, who pulls a gun and shoots him dead. Then the backer grabs the money, but Godzilla, who apparently really zips along, smashes the building, ending the life of the backer. Thus does evil always destroy itself in its unbridled lusts. Godzilla is often a morality play.
Godzilla menaces the egg, but the Thing arrives just in time to distract Godzilla (I hesitate to guess Godzilla’s gender, if I may be so irrelevant), engendering an epic battle (the Thing generates tremendous blasts of wind, confusing Godzilla …) which sees Godzilla distracted, and the Thing dead. Somehow, Godzilla knows that an island just off the coast has a collection of teachers and children Who Must Be Destroyed, and so he abandons his mission to destroy the egg to swim to the island in search of his prey. This gives the little people time to sing to the egg, causing it to burst and give forth …
Mothra larvae (from MothraKingdom)
TWO MOTHRAS! (Larvae?)
Yep, that’s your plot twist of the day. They plunge into the sea in pursuit of Godzilla, catch up to him on the beach, ensnare him in what appears to be spiderweb; Godzilla rolls off a cliff (wait, they’re on the beach, right?) and falls into the sea.
But is he dead? Have they failed in their mission?
The movie suffers from continuity problems, dialog problems, stereotype problems, special-effect problems (it was particularly deflating to see Godzilla’s breath literally melting the scenery as well as the military’s tanks), problems, problems, problems. But there’s a tangible plot, with some real cause and effect results, and if Godzilla’s appearance is less traceable to events and more to metaphorical requirements, well, take your complaints to the Customer Service desk.
You know who will be manning it.
1Colossus may have been painted by an apprentice of Goya.
The only thing that has changed for Benjamin Wittes on Lawfare with respect to the upcoming election is his anxiety level:
What’s more, many of Trump’s voters are going to vote for him because of national security, not despite it. They are going to vote for him believing that Trump is the “tough” candidate. They are going to vote for him believing in his conflation of terrorists and the victims of terrorism. They are going vote for him believing that “a wall” to keep out migrants has something meaningful to do with national security. They are going to vote for him having accepted at some level his apocalyptic account of confrontation with the Islamic world and his insistence that all we need is greater willpower and more firepower for victory to be ours.
The radical disparity between elite policy views of Trump in the national security arena and the apparent resilience of his support certainly has parallels in other areas. But the national security side is different both in the degree of alarm and in the degree of unanimity. This is the area, after all, where the president has the most latitude, and it’s an area where non-partisan expertise is still valued and attitudes tend to be least partisan.
What has happened here? How have we come to a place where at least partly in the name of national security, a huge swath of the electorate is about to vote for a man when a wide community of practitioners and scholars considers it obvious that his views, actions, words, and very psyche threaten national security?
Maybe it’s time to sue Roger Ailes, former CEO of Fox News, for the deliberate deprivation of the American electorate. Doubt that? Here’s Bruce Bartlett, prominent conservative, taking Fox News apart. Not subjectively, but objectively. This should worry every person who thinks they’re a conservative and suckles at the Fox News teat.
Steve Benen on MaddowBlog notes that one of the salient features of Mr. Trump’s campaign is its complete lack of policies and plans if it should win the Presidency:
“I think the American people, the American voter, will be bored to tears if that is in fact the way [i.e., detailed plans and policies] this thing goes,” [top Trump campaign advisor Sam Clovis] said.
It’s a valuable insight, if for no other reason because Clovis’ comments make clear that Team Trump is deliberately avoiding a substantive campaign debate over the issues. For the Republican candidate and his team, it’s a feature, not a bug.
In May, Politico quoted a campaign insider saying Trump didn’t want to “waste time on policy.” The Trump source added at the time, “It won’t be until after he is elected … that he will figure out exactly what he is going to do.”
A month later, the candidate himself added that “the public doesn’t care” about public policy.
Which leaves me with the odd vision of two candidates of this type slugging out, differentiating on … just exactly what? Who can make the biggest promise? Who can shout out bizarre promises the loudest?
Sounds like Extreme Populism, a position that the GOP would have disdained just years ago.
Wait, that’s sort of what happened during the GOP primary. And Trump won that, mostly through crude, even ludicrous promises, and by promising all over the map – from increasing the military while cutting taxes to building the biggest wall ever seen. He overwhelmed the media and his opponents by being outlandish.
Here’s the thing. I remember watching that field of candidates grow to 17, and hoping SOMEONE acceptable would show up. What did I see? Failed corporate executives, a Dominionist, a governor under investigation for corruption, another who left office after destroying all of his office computers (and then he tried to ride the Kim Davis spectacle to victory), a wet-behind the ears Senator with no, Z E R O accomplishments … ok, I admit to a brief moment of hope when Dr. Carson joined the fun, but he swiftly proved that, no matter how bright his medical accomplishments glinted, they did not translate to political wisdom – just another fringe-right flake.
But – they were all appealing to a conservative base that has not been trained to think rationally. Those who can have been chased from the party. This lead to the acquisition of the nomination by someone who best appealed to a base who feels, rather than thinks.
And that characterization does not apply to the rest of America. While some of us are even flakier than the GOP, most of us think. And Clinton has come forward with policy specifics that can be considered, evaluated, and judged. From that, we can deduce she was not lying when she said she was prepared to be President.
That willingness to act like a mature political candidate, aware of the tough job ahead of her, should be enough to get the votes of not only those who think Clinton really is the best, but from those who were disappointed that Bernie didn’t win, from the ex-Republicans tossed from their party, even from those considering Gary Johnson as an alternative – because Governor Johnson has been flubbing his big chance to shine.
American’s perception of crime rates may be completely off, but according to the Pew Research Center, support for the death penalty has dropped:
Even as support for the death penalty has declined across nearly all groups, demographic differences remain: Men are more likely to back the use of the death penalty than women, white Americans are more supportive than blacks and Hispanics, and attitudes on the issue also differ by age, education and along religious lines.
More than half of men (55%) say they are in favor of the death penalty and 38% are opposed. Women’s views are more divided: 43% favor the death penalty, 45% oppose it.
A 57% majority of whites favor the death penalty for those convicted of murder (down from 63% last year). But blacks and Hispanics support it at much lower rates: Just 29% of blacks and 36% of Hispanics favor capital punishment.
Which is interesting in how to explain it. Is it an advance in moral thinking by a significant number of Americans? Or – due to the misperception of skyrocketing crime – have many Americans concluded that harsh punishment actually doesn’t work? And the racial gap is interesting, if explainable – if you don’t trust law enforcement to arrest the proper person for a crime, then why ask for harsh punishments for the probable innocents?
Or perhaps the existence and publicity surrounding The Innocence Project, and those who’ve been proven innocent by them, has served to remind folks that enforcing a death penalty against those who may be innocent is risking the greatest injustice of all.
Limnology:
… is the study of inland waters. It is often regarded as a division of ecology orenvironmental science. It covers the biological, chemical, physical, geological, and other attributes of all inland waters (running and standing waters, both fresh and saline, natural or man-made). This includes the study of lakes and ponds, rivers, springs, streams and wetlands.[1] A more recent sub-discipline of limnology, termed landscape limnology, studies, manages, and conserves these aquatic ecosystems using a landscape perspective.
We saw this sign on the north side of Duluth, Minnesota.
Wondering where the candidates stand with regard to science? SciienceDebate.org stands ready with some collected answers. An example:
3. Climate Change
The Earth’s climate is changing and political discussion has become divided over both the science and the best response. What are your views on climate change, and how would your administration act on those views?
…
[Gary Johnson (L)] We accept that climate change is occurring, and that human activity is contributing to it, including through greenhouse gases like methane, nitrous oxide, and carbon dioxide.
Unfortunately for policymakers – the very activities that appear to contribute to climate change also contribute to mankind’s health and prosperity, so we view with a skeptical eye any attempts to curtail economic activity. We believe that a motivated and informed market will demand efficiency and reduced greenhouse gases, mitigating at least some of mankind’s effects. It is a virtual certainty that consumer demands and the marketplace will produce tangible benefits. It is not, however, certain that unilateral regulatory approaches by the U.S. will, in fact, produce benefits that are proportionate to costs. Nor is it certain that international treaties will produce benefits as developing nations have the most at stake to continue industrialization.
As other countries industrialize, as they have the right to do, we recognize that environmental trade-offs are inevitable.. As extreme poverty wanes in places like India and China, the poor will stop burning excrement or wood. And that will reduce certain types of pollution, while certain greenhouse gases may temporarily increase. But as countries become more developed, industrialized and automated, we believe the marketplace will facilitate the free exchange of new, efficient, carbon-friendly processes and technologies. And a Johnson-Weld administration will facilitate as much knowledge sharing as possible to speed and spread sustainable, cleaner technology as nations develop.
Unfortunately for Mr. Johnson, demonstrably those very activities are contributing to events detrimental to our society. Even more unfortunately, it’s the externalities that cause the problems – and the markets are not structured to even acknowledge them. And the industries concerned are more likely to fight the assignment of externality responsibility than try to use free markets to deal with them. See, for example, the greenhouse gases litigation with the EPA.
There’s much more, worth taking a read if you’re wondering whether your favorite candidate is smart – or not.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu appears to be caught in a bind with regard to the current American Presidential contest, according to AL Monitor columnist Ben Caspit. Israel does not want a UN Security Council Resolution, or anything like it, in which external forces would try to force a resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Obama still has time to introduce such a maneuver if he wishes. But what about his successor? If it’s Clinton ….
In his meeting with Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in New York Sept. 25, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu managed to get out of her what he failed to extract from the serving president, Barack Obama. He got her to promise that she would oppose any attempt by “external forces” to force a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, including any resolution by the United Nations Security Council.
And Trump is considered a good friend of Israel. But Ben sees Netanyahu as now being in a bind:
Netanyahu is caught in an amusing conflict of interests.
On one hand, it is obvious that he would prefer to see Trump win the election. The meeting he had with Trump at his home in New York lasted almost twice as long as his meeting with Clinton (close to 1½ hours with the Republican candidate, compared to just 50 minutes with the Democratic candidate). The two men were more intimate; they both remember well the video clip in support of Netanyahu that Trump released before the 2013 Israeli election.
Right now, Netanyahu would love to release a similar clip in support of the Republican candidate, but he can’t. He would love to release it even though no one has any idea what a Trump presidency would be like in terms of Israel.
On the other hand, Netanyahu knows that a Trump victory would only push Obama closer to a UN Security Council resolution and a diplomatic catastrophe for his own policy.
If he did show support for Trump, Obama might unleash just such a maneuver on Israel as retaliation; if Clinton wins, he’s actually off the hook. But his detestation for her is reportedly such that … well, I wonder how he sleeps at night.
Or how much longer he’ll be Prime Minister.
In connection with the debate, a reader writes:
Just watching Cavauto–Andrew Stein (D) is supporting Trump and he’s giving reason why. I have no idea who he is or where he’s from.
Breitbart.com – possibly looking for that silver lining after the sky fell in on them – has an article on the news that …
New York Dem Andrew Stein Endorses Trump
During the Sunday broadcast of New York AM 970 radio’s “The Cats Roundtable,” former New York City Democratic Mayoral Candidate Andrew Stein endorsed Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, reasoning he was going to “shake things up in Washington.”
“I think the country’s in trouble. Our economic growth is too slow. Our military is being decimated by Obama’s cuts,” Stein told host John Catsimatidis. “Our support for Israel has not been strong. Donald Trump understands all of this. I think he’ll be a strong leader. He understands that America has to be great again. He’ll cut taxes like JFK and Reagan did and stimulate the economy.”
Stein later added, “He’s a real doer. Hillary exemplifies the status quo.”
Military cuts? Well, I suppose it depends on how you measure spending. If it’s purely on a dollar basis, then Mr. Stein is desperately wrong, as demonstrated in this chart from Our World in Data:
See the purple line.
Source: USGovernmentSpending.com
To be fair, if we measure spending as a percentage of GDP then spending might look like it’s dropped. This chart to the left, if read in haste, might look like we’re in precipitous decline.
Then again, our military spending is bloated as it is, and our economy would benefit, long-term, if we cut it by, say, 30%. We’d still be far and away ahead of everyone else in traditional modes of combat – and I suspect non-traditional modes don’t require money so much as brains.
IN ANY CASE, blaming Obama for a budget controlled by Congress simply betrays this guy is basically a zero. The real question here is whether or not the Democrats kick him out of the party for being stupid, or if he rapidly retracts in a probably vain attempt to exit the burning mistake called the Trump Campaign.
A couple of readers sent me this.
Sometimes it takes teamwork!
More information comes to light regarding the pipeline near Standing Rock, ND, courtesy navajo on The Daily Kos:
In a Friday letter to President Obama, the United States Department of Justice, Department of the Interior, the Army Corps of Engineers, a coalition of more than 1,200 archeologists, museum directors, and historians from institutions including the Smithsonian and the Association of Academic Museums and Galleries denounced the deliberate destruction of Standing Rock Sioux ancestral burial sites in North Dakota.
As archaeologists, anthropologists, historians, and museum workers committed to responsible stewardship, we are invested in the preservation and interpretation of archaeological and cultural heritage for the common good. We join the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in denouncing the recent destruction of ancient burial sites, places of prayer and other significant cultural artifacts sacred to the Lakota and Dakota people.
On Saturday, September 3, 2016, the company behind the contentious Dakota Access Pipeline project bulldozed land containing Native American burial grounds, grave markers, and artifacts–including ancient cairns and stone prayer rings. The construction crews, flanked by private security and canine squads, arrived just hours after the Standing Rock Sioux tribal lawyers disclosed the location of the recently discovered site in federal court filings.
Former tribal historic preservation officer Tim Mentz called the discovery of the site “one of the most significant archeological finds in North Dakota in many years.”
The writer has a timeline of activities since August 2016 relevant to the pipeline.
Centaur Warfighting:
As an alternative to completely autonomous weapons, the report advocates what it describes as “Centaur Warfighting.” The term “centaur” has recently come to describe systems that tightly integrate humans and computers. In chess today, teams that combine human experts with artificial intelligence programs dominate in competitions against teams that use only artificial intelligence.
It appears the name of this thread is increasingly becoming a lost cause. Via Lawfare I find Defense One has a report on a study on current AI’s use on the battlefield, by Patrick Tucker:
At their smartest, our most advanced artificially intelligent weapons are still operating at the level of insects … armed with very real and dangerous stingers.
So where does AI exist most commonly on military weapons? The study, which looked at weapons in military arsenals around the world, found 284 current systems that include some degree of it, primarily standoff weapons that can find their own way to a target from miles away. Another example would be Aegis warships that can automatically fire defensive missiles at incoming threats.
An interesting, but inexact, analogy. Are we talking individual insects – or swarms? An ant colony can do interesting things, as this NewScientist (10 September 2016, paywall) article reports:
But then she [a hunting ant of the Eciton species] stops. The ground has dropped away in front of her. There is no scent trail, just empty space. Other members of the colony that were following begin to climb over her. Now, instead of walking in a line, they grip hold of one another using hooks on their feet, adding body after body to build an impromptu bridge. More and more join in, until they traverse the gap. And there they remain until the entire foraging party, numbering hundreds, has crossed. Then, as suddenly as it came into being, the bridge disperses, and the ants continue on their way.
How do these creatures achieve such an impressive feat of coordination with very limited brainpower and no overview of the situation? That’s the question a group of researchers working on Barro Colorado Island set out to answer. Their efforts have revealed how ants use simple cues to organise themselves into complex living structures. It’s a wonder of nature, and it could offer insights for engineers, mathematicians and robot designers. What’s more, it might even shed some light on our own interactions.
Individually stupid, collectively smart – without the integrated consciousness with which we operate. How about those AIs, do they work together as simply? Researchers theorize the ants have evolved a simple set of behaviors (rules) that automatically kick in as cued by their surroundings. Have the AIs been similarly? While evolutionary programming is no longer new, it does require an environment capable of repetition … I think. One of my regrets as a programmer was reading about, yet never trying, evolutionary programming. My point being that evolving behaviors is a time consuming business – just look at how long it’s taken ants.
Back to the Defense One article:
But even if the U.S. military “wins the competition” by producing the best autonomic systems, other nations may yet put AI to unexpected and even destabilizing effect. “It should be noted that the technological incorporation of autonomy will not necessarily come only from the world’s strongest powers, and the balancing effect that may have will not likely be stabilizing. Regional powers with greater abilities in autonomous weapons development, such as Israel, may destabilize a region through their use or through their export to other nations,” says Roff.
A clear recognition that software design and innovation is much more of a non-linear activity than hardware design. Mathematicians of transformational character can come from anywhere, even backward countries, because all they need is their minds … or, more traditionally, paper and pencil. While computers are advanced technology, it’s not difficult to acquire them surreptitiously – and programming is much like mathematics, it only takes a few gifted individuals to make tremendous progress.
That non-linearity can also work against you. One missed end-case, whether in the programming or the machine learning of the AI, and disaster could occur on the battlefield. But this is nothing new – from Napoleon to the Battle of Guadalcanal, mistakes by one side are used by the other to win battles, and sometimes those mistakes can seem minor at the time.
Finally, in view of the current Presidential election, Patrick notes this in regard to an ethical position that might result in defeat:
The observe, orient, decide, and act cycle, sometimes called the OODA loop, is today in the hands of humanity when it comes to warfare. But in other areas of human activity, like high-frequency trading, it’s moved to the machines. William Roper, the head of the Pentagon’s Strategic Capabilities Office, discussed his concerns about that acceleration at the recent Defense One Technology Summit.
“When you think about the day-trading world of stock markets, where it’s really machines that are doing it, what happens when that goes to warfare?” Roper asked. “It’s a whole level of conflict that hasn’t existed. It’s one that’s scary to think about what other countries might do that don’t have the same level of scruples as the U.S.”
It’s also scary to think about what the United States might do if its leaders woke up in a war where they were losing to those countries.
Poorly phrased, but the point is clear and relentless. Exploration of it is essential. It is my position that a philosophical or ethical system – or even just a point- that leads to the destruction of those who advocate that system or point is an unsuccessful, an unworthy system, or point. But is it logical to examine the consequences of an ethical position or point and, based on the calculated results, abandon it? In this section, the ethical position is that if a human life is to be taken, a human should make that decision, not an AI. But if that imperils your capability of winning a war … is it good ethics, or bad ethics? Are ethics based on reasoning, a priori, or results, ex post facto?
A reader has an itch to scratch:
That itch scratching research could actually be useful for those times you can’t reach a certain spot due to injury, etc.
There is a lot to think about, I think, in connection with that research. The plasticity implied – or perhaps the vulnerability of the brain to con men – is fascinating.
My reader explains the UHF reference with a simple picture:
Sure looks like a Nash. Love the colors. OK, I’ll look it up … UHF is a film starring Weird Al and Weird Fran Fran Drescher and others. Oh, my. Never seen it.
A reader writes concerning last night’s debate:
Most of the news I heard this morning declared The Don the winner, but then I hear that that clinton woman was saying she is the winner. Whatever, we’re the losers–or may be.
Which serves to lead in to a phenomenon I’ve noticed over the years of folks with opinions, be it blogs or other – the stubborn practice of staring at every event through the same prism. Here’s liberal Steve Benen of MaddowBlog:
Shortly before the first presidential debate of 2016 got underway, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a prominent Donald Trump ally, insisted that the Republican candidate would “pass the test of being adequately competent” during the showdown with Hillary Clinton. The message drew swift mockery for setting the bar for Trump success at such a woefully low level.
But by the time the dust settled on the debate, Gingrich’s prediction looked even worse – because Trump didn’t come close to demonstrating “adequate competence.”
After the event, Trump told reporters that debate organizers gave him “a defective mic.” He quickly added, “I wonder, was that on purpose? Was that on purpose?” Of course, there was no conspiracy involving Trump’s microphone, though all things considered, the GOP nominee might have been better off if his mic hadn’t worked and the audience didn’t hear what he had to say.
When Trump needed to be honest, he lied. When he needed to be poised, he came unglued. When he needed to appear knowledgeable, he rambled incoherently. When he needed to prove that he’d prepared for the debate, he made clear he hadn’t done his homework.
When Trump needed to change the trajectory of the presidential race, he offered fresh proof that he’s just not ready for prime time.
Dustin Siggins is perhaps a little more honest on The Resurgent, a conservative site:
Donald Trump lost last night. Hillary Clinton looked elegant — others have said “smug,” but who can blame her, given how badly Trump did? — and brevity was her friend. Trump couldn’t talk enough, and he definitely couldn’t talk enough about his businesses, his financial deals, or anything else that focused on him. He was defensive, he interrupted Clinton and Holt, and even his one-liners about Clinton’s record were lost in his ramblings.
As the old saying goes, “if you’re explaining, you’re losing,” and Trump spent a lot of last night explaining. And explaining badly, as Clinton played him like a fiddle for the last hour of the debate.
Then again, it’s easy to put Trump on the defensive when the moderator’s helping you out. This is one of the big talking points out of the Trump campaign post-debate, and it’s a valid one.
So we play blame the moderator. But he still thinks Clinton’s history is as bad as Trump’s. Bill Kristol, a conservative with a marked distaste of Trump, is very predictable in a Tweet:
Sophisticated types who’ve signed on w/ Trump are today grappling w/ the horrifying realization they’ve fallen in behind a con man & loser.
John Hinderaker of Powerline, a conservative blog, who was quite enthusiastic about Sarah Palin, saw the debate this way:
5) There will be lots of discussion about who “won” the debate, and it is easy to say that the winner–the better performer–was Mrs. Clinton. But asking who won the debate is the wrong question. The question is, did watching the debate make undecided voters more likely to vote for Clinton or Trump? My guess is that in that sense, the event was pretty much a draw, and we won’t see much movement in the polls over the next few days.
6) This is why I don’t think the evening was a bad one for Trump: most undecided voters will have seen Hillary as the embodiment of the political class. Smug, smirking, always ready with a torrent of words that can’t quite obscure the fact that to the extent she herself has wielded power, she has been a failure. Hillary Clinton is a walking exemplar of the political class that got us where we are now. A viewer who thinks America is doing great, our politicians are terrific, things have been going well in recent years and we need more of the same will be motivated to vote for Hillary.
Rod Dreher of The American Conservative is more honest, although it sounds like he wishes Trump had done better:
That’s it. Trump blew this thing, in my view. Hillary caught her stride about a half-hour in, and showed herself to be presidential. He came off as extremely unprepared. I cannot believe Trump helped himself tonight, though for all I know, the voters loved him. Hillary didn’t have a big win, but she did win, and I believe that she stopped the bleeding for her campaign.
I know that everybody has a different standard for Trump, but if Trump ends up judged the winner of this debate in the polls, I don’t know what to say anymore. There is no way Donald Trump is ready to be President of the United States. No way. And I don’t believe many undecided voters changed their mind to vote for Trump based on his performance tonight. …
Yes, Lord, yes, it is. With a stake through its heart and a garlic necklace. Ain’t nothin’ left for us religious conservatives but the Benedict Option.
Rod sounds bereft. Was it so important that this man, whose relationship with verity is so distant, should win?
So do I trust Hinderaker or Benen to be more accurate in their assessment? If I may indulge in an odd analogy, I wonder if neither of these guys would make for a good fencing referee. I’ve refereed a little, although I’ve never taken the test or stood for a director’s rating, but I do try to use a methodical, knowledgeable procedure. My approach is to remember that when you’re observing the world in general, your brain isn’t seeing or hearing or tasting everything you think it is – it takes bits and pieces, pattern matches it with stored experiences, and presents you with a good pattern that incorporates some of those bits – you can consider that to be a prism. (This is why sometimes something that is completely outside of your experience will be incomprehensible and require careful study to bring it into your experiential domain, as it were.) But often important details are lost, mutated, lose their chronological ordering, etc.
As a referee, I strive to remove that pattern matching. I try to see everything of importance during a given touch, within the last couple of tempos, without interpretation, until the scoring machine signals that something has happened (unless I see something that calls for a halt, of course). Then I try to replay, in my mind, what really happened – not what my brain wants to guess happened, but what I think I saw, without the prism (or filters, as I usually call them) and how it all fits together. Once that’s done, I apply a confidence level to the assessment, and assign the touch if the confidence level is as high as the “bar” I use, which is usually around, oh, 90-95%.
So are any of these pundits really seeing the true debate, or just what their prism shows them? I’m not sure. As I watched the debate, I was very aware of a struggle between the part of me who wanted to simply judge the debate, and the part of me who finds Trump detestable and untrustworthy. Part of the problem is the immense set of unknowns – how many lies did Trump tell? Is Clinton really crooked, or is that just poison from the GOP? Would immediate fact checking add or subtract from the debate1?
Another (semi-retired) blogger who did a live-blog on the event was Andrew Sullivan of The Dish, who I’ve mentioned before. I have more respect for Andrew than most because of his expertise (Ph.D. PoliSci – he knows the difference between conservative and fever-swamp fringe, and as a conservative, he loathes the GOP), and because of his mistakes. Why do they matter? Because, back in the day, he didn’t hesitate to acknowledge them, to explore why he made them, to retract positions when it became clear he’d badly screwed up. And he grew because of them. How about these other bloggers? Well, I don’t know. I haven’t read them for long enough. But I know that at least some qualify for the term zealot, so I wonder. But Andrew has displayed some important honorable human qualities which makes him worth keeping an eye on. And what did he say, keeping in mind his loathing for Trump?
10:39 p.m. What can one say? I was afraid that Trump’s charisma and stage presence and salesmanship might outshine Hillary Clinton’s usually tepid and wonkish instincts. I feared that the facts wouldn’t matter; that a debate would not take place. And it is to Clinton’s great credit that she prepared, and he didn’t, and that she let him hang himself.
His utter lack of preparation; his doubling down on transparent lies; his foreign-policy recklessness; his racial animosity; his clear discomfort with the kind of exchange of views that is integral to liberal democracy; his instinctual belligerence — all these suggest someone who has long lived in a deferential bubble that has become filled with his own reality.
Clinton was not great at times; her language was occasionally stilted; she missed some obvious moments to go in for the kill; but she was solid and reassuring and composed. I started tonight believing she needed a game-changer to alter the trajectory of this race. I may, of course, be wrong, trapped in my own confirmation bias and bubble — but I thought she did just that.
I’ve been a nervous wreck these past two weeks; my nerves are calmed now.
In the end, polls may tell the most accurate story. Here’s Benen again with some overnight news:
And though it’ll be a while until we have polling data that shows what effect, if any, last night had on the overall race, overnight surveys suggest the public and the pundits are on the same page about the first Clinton/Trump showdown.
Hillary Clinton was deemed the winner of Monday night’s debate by 62% of voters who tuned in to watch, while just 27% said they thought Donald Trump had the better night, according to a CNN/ORC Poll of voters who watched the debate. […]
Voters who watched said Clinton expressed her views more clearly than Trump and had a better understanding of the issues by a margin of more than 2-to-1. Clinton also was seen as having done a better job addressing concerns voters might have about her potential presidency by a 57% to 35% margin, and as the stronger leader by a 56% to 39% margin.
Also overnight, Public Policy Polling released the results of its own post-debate survey, sponsored by VoteVets Action Fund, which found less lopsided results, but which nevertheless pointed to a Clinton victory, 51% to 40%.
The same poll found most respondents believe Clinton has the temperament to be president and is prepared for the job. A majority said the opposite about Trump.
Republican pollster Frank Luntz hosted a focus group last night and found, by a 16-to-6 margin, participants saw Clinton as the debate’s winner. CNN, meanwhile, organized a focus group of its own in Florida with a group of undecided voters. Of the 20 participants, 18 said Clinton prevailed.
1If you want to know how many lies were told by the candidates during the debate, here’s a transcript and list from NPR. A screenshot to whet your whistle:
