Responding to Generative AI
The headlines are rife with Artificial Intelligence updates. Some of the articles spell out concerns and fears. Justified concerns if you have ever seen any number of films set in a dystopian future. Others celebrate our inevitable march towards an all knowing Artificial Intelligence (AI). Most miss the nuance of what is general AI, compared to the demonstrated practical applications to date. All the exhibitions remain far from Artificial General Intelligence.
Radioactive People
Fox News made space for the C and D students to feel welcome. W Bush spoke their anti-intellectualist dialect. The Orange Clown made it fashionable to just be dumb and proud. And now, we are left with Radioactive People everywhere. In our halls of Congress, Doctor’s Offices, PTA meetings, Podcasts, and more. They have always been there but far less vocal. The consequences were too high in the past for spewing racist, conspiracy laden, and purely nonsensical vitriol out into the ether. Now, it is come as you are, the more ignorant on the topic the better.
Recession Proof & Reparations
I like simple approaches. As Leonardo da Vinci said, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” My recommendations and ideas are grounded by my naivety and that position has the benefit of an outsiders perspective. There is a whole practice of Citizen Science and how a fresh perspective is key to solving problems that have long perplexed or lost priority from experts. When it comes to financial policy and strategy we have been lead by the architects of fuckery who gave us housing derivatives, cash equivalents, SPACS, trickle down economics, and all other complex financial instruments they cannot explain to their grandparents. So I make no apologies for not being lettered enough to share my simple ideas below.
Labor Party
Workers have had a banner couple of years under the pandemic. Commanding better pay, unionizing where possible, going fully remote permanently, and resigning in droves. Workers have forever been under assault from entrenched corporate greed to suppress their collective power, and now face the impending threat of the automation of jobs a myriad of careers. America is a place where we praise John Henry for working himself to death for the company and not the company sacrificing for the worker. It’s time to reverse that.
B-Corps
Businesses do not have a responsibility to fulfill core human principles of belonging, purpose, community, and ritual. When they try to, the outcome is a simulacra of the real thing. Often cold, plastic, and disposable. Their goal is to make money, for their shareholders, and maybe after the fact look after their stakeholders. But what if their was a corporate structure that worked differently? A way of existing for or co-existing with the mission to fulfill larger human objectives, beyond what is socially of the moment.
Parental Leave
I can tell you that the three plus months were not enough. Expanding your family is hopefully an intentional event, and that change is fraught with complexities; both known and unknown. Getting an ample window of time to bond, settle, and form routines is a benefit that should be made a federal mandate and not just a luxury for tech workers.
Dinner for Eight
Near the middle of the summer of 2021 I sat down and have dinner with most of my team at work. There were exactly eight of us. The flow of the conversation and evening went perfectly. I started thinking to myself is 8 the magic number for a dinner party? Especially important as we restore a our social lives to a semblance of what was. But if we resort to the same old two step are we doing ourselves a disservice? Yes, this is an epistemological look at the structure of a dinner party. If experience is the stuff of life and dinner parties are an experience, than this is important stuff to ruminate on.
Banned Books
My parents taught us to read before we started school. Pizza Hut ran promotions that got us to read more in exchange for more slices. Reading Rainbow helped us explore new genres and and adventures at scale. Our treasured but not appreciated enough teachers guided us to find deeper meaning in every word and page. This reading journey has been one where we have peered from behind the eyes of protagonist of all shapes and colors. We have been with them as they conquered dragons, faced racism head on, rebuilt fallen societies, discovered their own self and identity, and weeped with them at every loss.
Eudaemonia Machine
I took on a long delayed challenge and wrote a novella during the quiet and solitude that the early days of the pandemic. By my estimation it’s nothing worth reading and unless I put serious effort into revisions, it won’t be shared more broadly. In the year that followed I also wrote a screen play inspired by a dream that consumed me one night. These creative outpourings were for me and me only. Long solitary swims out into a sea of imagination and wonder. The very doing was enough. I had reached a state of Eudaemonia (or Eudaimonia). The common link between these swells of productivity was space.