What To Do Today?

I did not wake at 4 AM, or 5, but 9:23 AM.

When I called it a night last night at 10 PM, the plan was to clear off the table. There is stuff here for the blog. Then go to the food bank. Then do laundry. Then go get ink for the printer. I wanted to start on my fiction tonight, but most likely tomorrow.

Now, I feel like doing nothing.

Here is how I finished off last night with Resident Alien on in the background (as it is now)

I wonder what the Trump voters think of his potential cabinet picks. No, I do not spend much time on that, since I doubt any of the voters either are paying attention or understand the potential problems. Shaking things up does not equate with competence. The incompetence of Trump's appointees only proves the incompetence of the government, which only feeds MAGA delusions. 

What is wrong and can go wrong is the topic of Kash Patel Is Getting in the Way of His Own Retribution by Paul Rosenzweig (The Bulwark).

There are more questions than answers in Kate Jayroe's Fiction Craft and Film (Cincinnati Review), but they are good questions. I am of the opinion that the big difference between 19th-century fiction (say, Tolstoy or Dickens) and 20th-century fiction (say, Hemingway) is the influence of film.

The blurb for Boston Review's The AI We Deserve mentioned John Dewey. I had to give it a look.

What does any of this have to do with a utopian vision for AI? If we define intelligence purely as problem solving and goal achievement, perhaps not much. In Storm’s prehistoric idyll, there are no errands to be run, no great projects to be accomplished. His Stone Age wanderer, for all we know, might well be experiencing deep boredom—“thinking preferably about nothing at all,” as Storm suggests.

But can we really dismiss the moment when the flâneur suddenly notices the eolith—whether envisioning a use for it or simply finding it beautiful—as irrelevant to how we think about intelligence? If we do, what are we to make of the activities that we have long regarded as hallmarks of human reason: imagination, curiosity, originality? These may be of little interest to the Efficiency Lobby, but should they be dismissed by those who care about education, the arts, or a healthy democratic culture capable of exploring and debating alternative futures?

***

As for the original puzzle—AI and democracy—the solution is straightforward. “Democratic AI” requires actual democracy, along with respect for the dignity, creativity, and intelligence of citizens. It’s not just about making today’s models more transparent or lowering their costs, nor can it be resolved by policy tweaks or technological innovation. The real challenge lies in cultivating the right Weltanschauung—this app does wonders!—grounded in ecological reason. On this score, the ability of AI to run ideological interference for the prevailing order, whether bureaucracy in its early days or the market today, poses the greatest threat.

Incidentally, it’s the American pragmatists who got closest to describing the operations of ecological reason. Had the early AI community paid any attention to John Dewey and his work on “embodied intelligence,” many false leads might have been avoided. One can only wonder what kind of AI—and AI critique—we could have had if its critics had looked to him rather than to Heidegger. But perhaps it’s not too late to still pursue that alternative path. 

From The Brisbane Times: 

The year in books: Writers pick the best reads of 2024 

 Cosmic science, dystopian fiction, and other new books by Cameron Woodhead and Fiona Capp

Check out what is going on elsewhere on this planet. Do not be parochial.

Today, I found out how much I am out of touch.

Morrissey sold-out show at the Murat Theatre. Yeah, finally, Morrissey comes to Indy and I knew nothing about it until today when I decided to see what Nuvo was publishing nowadays.

Speaking of Nuvo, it is still operative. Support local journalism.

White nationalism festers again. Perhaps we need to improve our teaching of history. The Confederate States of America stood for white supremacy; the CSA were the losers. I read The rift that doomed the Confederacy by Katherine Bayford (Englesberg Ideas) this morning, and I am left again with the thought white supremacy always proves white inadequacy. America is greater with W.E.B. Dubois, Maya Angelou, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Amy Tan, Awkafina, Richard Pryor, and Angela Davis than with David Duke, D.C. Stephenson, Steve Bannon, or Donald J. Trump.

I have my own parochialism, reading Fintan O'Toole's ‘Ireland keeps you honest’: Fintan O’Toole on his four decades writing about a changing country made me think of Indiana:

That intimacy mattered because Ireland was shifting, not just on the large scale of economics and identities and national narratives but in the nature of the conversations we were having with ourselves. What could be seen and said and acknowledged and recognised was changing. Reality itself – the specific gravity of our lived and local truths – was being redefined. It was possible to imagine as a journalist that you were taking part in that conversation, even if it was only by making people so cross at you that they had to articulate for themselves what they were so cross about.

I often wonder whether anyone will again have such freedom, such privilege. Newspapers are under such pressure now, in terms both of money and of the nonstop demand for immediacy, of time, that their capacity to indulge arrogant wordsmiths is increasingly limited. But there will always be those of us for whom journalism beats working.

The intimacy that was Indiana feels long gone now.

Trump as a threat to the world: If Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael continue business as usual, the next government will quickly be in trouble (The Irish Times)

The outgoing Government was able to paper over the cracks because it had vast amounts of money at its disposal. The next administration is going to have to fight to hold on to what Ireland currently has; Donald Trump’s tax and tariff policies pose an imminent threat to our economic model. The odds are that the resources available to the next administration will tighten significantly during its term. 

Our tariffs will have reactions; other countries will raise their own; what we buy that comes from overseas will cost more.

I have not paid much attention to the Romanian election until Romanian election: What the hell is going on? (Politico) came through in my Google News feed.

This Sunday, Romanians were due to vote in the second-round runoff election for their next president. They had two candidates to pick from: center-right small-town mayor Elena Lasconi; or Călin Georgescu, a far-right independent who was catapulted from obscurity into the lead in the first round of voting on Nov. 24. 

On Friday, Romania’s Constitutional Court decided the first round of the election was so badly damaged — by an alleged Russian operation to influence the result — that the whole process needed to be scrapped and started again.

Putin is not our friend. Just keep saying that until it gets through your thick skull. The attack on Romania is an attack on NATO, which is an attack on the United States.

Okay, I need to get dressed and see about the food bank. I really do not want to, but I've got move to prove I am still alive.

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Is it dawn in Honolulu?

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