Eliza and Critical Empathy
What we can do depends on how we can think about it
There’s an old and very simple psychological test, which says a scary amount about us. Can we look at a tasty candy, sitting right in front of us, and not eat it, on the promise of many more candies, if we can wait?
Deferred reward, planning ahead, self-discipline, however you want to frame it, there are uncountable things that we can do if we have it, which become incredibly hard or even impossible, without it.
I would like to suggest a second test, an entirely mental one, which is similarly broadly clue-full.
How do we tend to look at people, skills and works which we consider to be high achievements? It could be art, sporting prowess, skill in the kitchen or workshop – whatever – how do we judge it?
More specifically, is our main question – Do I personally like this work (and person) or not?Or do we instead ask – What were they trying to do, how close did they get to that, and why?
Using my own favourite recent split, I could call these the consumerist approach (it either feeds our own personal appetite or else its useless), versus a more practical and solution-seeking citizen mindset. But I could just as easily say they can be split into – are we planning to be miserable, or happy?
I know that sounds too simple – and what the heck even is happy, anyhow, these days, right?
Especially if I stick to my most unusual regular promise of “Non-Delusional Hope.”
Try-on this definition of happiness (not as an exclusive, but as one more useful framing). Happiness is engaging more and more usefully over time, in those areas where we are most interested.
Continually becoming a better spouse, parent, teacher, caregiver, partner, pastor, learner, helper – as we go through life, means watching for our errors and owning-up, so we can learn to do better – but also being open to solutions which others have discovered from their own learning and grappling over time.
This idea (and a positively self-punishing level of discipline) led me many years ago to adopt a radical “I don’t even care if I like it or not” policy, when it comes to examining art in particular. I do still notice whether my taste is excited by it, and I don’t ever pretend enthusiasm where I don’t feel it (that’s precious life-force stuff, never to be debased with false coinage), but when it comes time for me to bring my full brain to judge another person’s effort, I do my best to set my taste aside completely.
I don’t just do this to be ornery and difficult (like mental training weights), but also because I have found the technique so incredibly useful over the years, as to be proven practical and useful beyond all possible doubt. So much so, that I am often frustrated by how hard it is to convey the benefits of this approach to others.
Now let me be clear – if I’m close-listening to music which does not move me, determined to learn from it, that does not mean I aim to obliterate my own standards. An insipid melody remains so, even with additional (wasteful) attention – but the arrangement around it (or even the recording or mixing techniques with which it is finally presented) are still frequently loaded with rich and nifty clues.
And what if they aren’t? What if I plumb the depths and can’t find a single helpful thing? Then that gives me a new reference to measure against, when trying to understand where hidden clues do and do not hide in abundance – still useful (pattern recognition and sorting techniques are a TECHNOLOGY – as important as the specific contents of any one work we try to fit into (or break out of) any pattern).
There are also quite a few additional ideas about judgment which were greatly enriched for me, by my decade and a half working as an art model. Is this a new medium for this artist? A new personal best? An indication of a new and fertile path for their growth as a creator?
Conversely, sometimes we see something which has all the hallmarks of excellence, but with more understanding of the person and their path, we might instead recognize stagnation and wasted promise.
What is the work itself? (Especially when it comes to great art). Depends on the day and the mood of the viewer, their education and mindset, what they ate and how they slept – and so on, ad inifinitum.
That doesn’t mean it is entirely subjective – a bit of empathy for the creator and their moment can almost always help us see some part of the original intentions, even though the centuries shift many of our cultural referents dramatically. Still, pretending it means just one thing – or that there even is such a thing as one perfect, comprehensively summarizing and qualifying ‘meaning’ is ridiculous – pure hubris.
I must stop here to note that both of the fake (corporate-propaganda-steered) culture tribes of the moment – Fake-Left and Fake-Right, have spent most of this century insisting on the singular validity of dumbed-down ‘just one perfect interpretation’ understandings, which deliberately harm values important to the other tribe.
Which is to say they are both dishonest, and also insultingly assume we are all stupid - overwhelmingly more vengeful than civilized – and will therefore buy it.
Now – even more important (especially for my chums still trapped in the mental fetters of tribalism) we must remember that these are both loud fake and evil versions of those sides for a reason. Because the two genuine versions of those sides, if not displaced by these lethal fakes, that is – responsible community-minded society fostering conservative planning – and also compassionate, imaginative, innovative and experimental-solution-seeking progressivism – are so vital and crucial as the two poles (halves of the monad) for healthy social growth – BOTH MUST BE DISPLACED/SUPPRESSED – in order for our oligarchs to maintain their tight financialized control of our supposedly free societies.
Why? Because otherwise we might all just manage to get this right – TOGETHER – the way we all know deep in our hearts, we are supposed to. Through compromise reason and fairness, not tribalism.
Let that sink in a minute, please. The things both sides have most in common are co-option, manipulation, slanderous misrepresentation of their genuine spirit and expensively promoted popular misunderstandings framing a long term suppression effort – and all of these efforts done by the very same owner-oligarch cliques – who together form the only remaining economic “winning team” on earth.
No seriously, folks – while so many were seduced by feral “smite thy neighbour” fake corporate tribalist propaganda crap for the last decade, I’ve been doing my usual ornery thing – whatever the crowd all agrees on (which in this case was freaking-out and completely losing their shit – both sides) I’ll do NOT THAT.
This is why I was standing up for the protesters arrested on January Sixth – that same week – as a principled leftist who believes PROTEST IS A RIGHT. The fake corporate left (and all the hypnotized fools who continue to pray to that foul idiot-idol) are still gleeful about the law being twisted to make protest into a hard-time FELONY.
Now please – have a think for a minute. How many of the newscasters who you watch and trust, still describe the people arrested over that protest turned riot (because someone deliberately called off the usual security detail – AND ALSO REFUSED EMERGENCY HELP, when it was offered) as INSURRECTIONISTS. (Which implies not only most foul treason – but also “ought to be hung”).
People who use that word for protesting citizens without any sarcasm are dangerous – war salesmen. Confiscators of citizens rights, for the benefit of our oligarchs.
Canadians have their own version – right now “The Crown” is seeking seven and eight year prison sentences for the shocking crime of “Counselling mischief” – against the organizers of the world famous (and widely inspiring) Trucker Convoy movement.
That protest was, let’s remember – COMPLETELY VIOLENCE-FREE – thanks to the constant efforts of these charged and much maligned organizers, to constantly coordinate with police and city services, all through the protest. But it was also the single most effective protest movement in post war Canadian History (by far) which is the real reason the government is still behaving like a hysterical despot – must crush dissent!
That whole political class of Oligarch-servants (who are supposed to represent us citizens, but never do) and the BigMedia shills who serve them, STILL want you to believe citizens should be locked-up for years for heresy against the butt-naked emperor.
I know, some of you might be thinking (about J6 or the Truckers) – yeah but they were all a bunch of FAR RIGHT people – and those are really evil people, as a category.
First of all – who says they were all far right people? (they absolutely were NOT) and who says people who disagree with corporate fake-left warmongering are all or even mostly on the right? (they aren’t). Finally, who says the right is evil? (mirror, much?)
The people who say that crap are exactly the same evil lying war-promoting racist death-scum who keep saying INSURRECTION, to erode the presumption of key citizens rights. The same corporate fascists who have spent years telling you that Trump is Putin’s bitch. Hate Trump and Putin as much as you like – lord knows there’s plenty to work with, there – but if you still believe in that link, you have lost your right to claim to be leftist, progressive, anti-war, anti-racist, intelligent or principled at all. You are basically a willing CIA American War-State Klansman stooge. You would have cheered Pinochet and the psychotic-supremacist American invasion of Vietnam.
No really, you need to drop that shit, fast – you are on the side actively driving world war three. If you absolutely must support destruction – please ruin own life and self, not the entire world! (Surprising precisely no one at all, it turns out western-Boomer narcissism IS the last great resurgent driver of classical FASCISM).
Anti-racism would mean opposing the proxy war against Russia (and the grotesque war crimes of Obama, Hillary and Biden against Libya and Syria – amongst uncountable other violent corporate driven interventions) just as clearly and resolutely as the ongoing madness in Gaza. People who say they oppose colonialism in the workplace, but support NATO are beyond stupid – actual death-cultists.
Kemi Badenoch, who so far seems to be an unusually useless leader of the British Conservative Party (and that’s on a scale that now includes Liz “head of cabbage” Truss, remember), did finally do us all one great service by “saying the quiet part out loud,” in a way mainstream news has studiously ignored.
In a recent interview she outright said – “Israel and Ukraine are both fighting Proxy wars for us!” Not with any sort of shame about the lives ruined and lost altogether, mind you – she was advocating for more open and shameless backing of military proxies around the world. Taking ownership of, and pride in, all of it. Outrageous and disgusting, of course (and amazing she was dumb enough to be so shameless) but the scary part is, she may just be the closest thing to an honest politician in the entire United Kingdom (poor George Galloway having been once again boxed-out by scheming anti-worker “labour”).
This point may be a bit easier to metabolize for some if I add another recent comment which surprised me a lot, from Mohamed Morandi, one of the most articulate and interesting personalities to emerge in alternate (that is, still alive) media. He spent years living in America, and also spent years working on Iran’s nuclear program, so his understanding of two worlds which do not understand each other to a dangerous degree, is extremely useful (plus, he is personally both brilliant and courageous).
In the middle of active hostilities with America, he recently said he thought a leader like Trump was in many ways easier for Iran to deal with, than someone who was so much more slick and manipulative of world opinion, like Obama. Trump is constantly, very foolishly, blurting-out the stark realities of always violent, extortionate and bullying American power games – realities which have been true for the entire post-WWII period, but were always previously taboo subjects in BigMedia (since it’s primary function has always been to promote exceptionalism, in order to power ever more BigWar).
This means the people he opposes are much clearer about intentions and means, which means it is much easier for those resisting violent US imperialism, to organize, without the (very deliberate) chaotic influence of US/UK intel narrative sabotage.
Media critics have been writing sharp and insightful books and essays about this gulf between our reality and our fake, flattering (and deeply morally corrupting) electronic self-image of superiority for more than half a century – but that has still never once prompted BigMedia to raise their game and embrace their very real moral responsibility, for our popular (lack of) understanding.
They sell lifestyles to sell soap, they sell mortality fear to sell medications, they sell exceptionalism, so that the consumerist public – distracted by our insecurity about our body odour, and popping pills all day, endlessly complaining about the stupidity of others, without ever lessening our own, will keep obediently and enthusiastically authorizing racist wars for bankers (like absolutely all wars are – see below).
The Democrats especially are ALL-IN for BigWar – and the hilarious fact that their followers think they are asserting “Moral supremacy” which is like, so completely different and great, when compared to previous forms of supremacy (which are all like, icky white and male and stuff) is embarrassingly stupid. Yes, fascism requires epic levels of follower-narcissism and ignorance. Strident Biden supporters proved again and again that the longstanding presumption of principle and intelligence on the left is CRAP.
Covid was an instant-fascism exercise. Total abuse of state authority – population split into “clean” and “unclean” (untermenschen) citizens, as judged by state power. Lifelong harm was done to all of our children. This isn’t even controversial. People who are still sneeringly defending the obvious mistakes made and excesses wrongly justified are DISGUSTING (morally undeserving of their ‘privilege’). Open supporters of child abuse on a mass scale. Epstein in the soul. Smarten-up or rot in hell. (clock ticking)
The entire working class (and middle class, and most of all, the urban poor) were moved down several rungs on the survival and desperation scale – PERMANENTLY – and you are still defending this, as wise and just and sound?
TRUMP as a movement driven by building frustration – was directly caused by the Democrats long failure to be even slightly ethical or in any way “for the people.” Look in the mirror – YOU DID THIS! With nothing but denial, complicity and toxic vanity.
Again – yes, social media on cellphones screws-up the heads of young people, aggressively – but smug boomers still haven’t noticed their brains were no less totally zapped by television – they’re just so used to feeling heroic in their every indignation, they haven’t even noticed they joyfully embraced mass sociopathy.
Sorry – didn’t mean to digress all over the map there – the point I really wanted to make was that by working from principle, I was able to understand something important, in direct contradiction to all of the propaganda.
That wasn’t ever about putting dangerous people in jail, it was about undermining the basic right to protest.
And no, though I may be just a bit paranoid (too much deep reading into the history of the secret state will do that to you), I do not come to that conclusion reflexively, just because I understand that there have been efforts to criminalize citizen protest going back more than a century – to the time of the Pinkertons (corporate heavies who were used to smash unionist heads before the FBI was formed in the 1930s, to smash the unions on the government dime, saving the monopolists from having to hire, pay for and accept legal liability for their own goons – so progressive).
I do it simply because I’m not a tribalist – so I see the outrageous evil of the so called political left, just as clearly as that on the so called political right. Again – both of them corporate fakes, spending millions on indoctrination so their symmetrically bone-headed partisans will squabble passionately, endlessly.
What I was saying before about sorting and pattern-recognition being TECHNOLOGY? This is what the tribalists cannot see (which blindness is the whole point of tribalism, really).
The content of the arguments IS NOT EVER THE POINT. I’m not saying it doesn’t count – it does. Lives definitely change based on how precedents are set, and how laws are made or repealed.
But the endless passionate squabbling IS the goal-state. The aim is to busy-out all of the consumerists who are (very hopefully, I must say) spontaneously trying to grow back into full citizen-hood awareness and responsibility again. Distracting them with a loud and attractive side-show, halfway along the path to enlightenment, then freezing them there forever, so they never do wake all the way up.
By “wake up” I don’t mean woke (or anti-woke, both of which still, as mere tribalisms completely miss the point).
I mean EYES OPEN to the reality of our moment, far above any of the learned theories we so love to superimpose on everything (which is a super offensive imposition) – and heart functioning also. Compassion, Loyalty and Duty circuits, fully activated and ready to bear real weight of responsibility.
With a left like that and a right like that, we could actually get things done, through sensible principled compromise (I know that sounds wildly idealistic – BUT WHY IS BASIC SANITY SUDDENLY TOO BIG AN ASK?)
Mind you, we could probably get even more done with a group like that who didn’t care about left and right at all – only getting useful things accomplished for all, which will far outlast them in value and benefit.
Now – since I first came to that conclusion about J6 on principle – not just from the obvious danger of criminalizing protest side of it, either – my history-geek side went half-crazy, listening to hordes of idiots saying insurrection, over and over, when they clearly had no idea at all what that word actually means, in any true and repeatedly real-world demonstrated (that is, easily study-able) historic sense – a whole bunch of embarrassing evidence has come to light, despite tight Dem information control, and ongoing BigMedia fawning servility to the left-hand of the hyper-violent racist war-state.
The most important bits? The FBI had informants in senior positions (leaders or deputies) in every single one of the groups they afterward branded as far right and dangerous. So the authorities absolutely knew who was coming and what they planned (and yet, like I say, way less than normal security was deployed).
The tiny leaks of footage showing things like the so called “Shaman” being pleasantly escorted by police deeper INTO the building, raise questions that only a complete release of all footage (if it even exists anymore) could possibly clear up. Still – absolutely not as portrayed, is a very safe early conclusion.
Weirder still were the “thwarted terrorist bombings” at Democratic party headquarters and elsewhere. In the case of the headquarters bomb, we do have time-stamped video of the citizen spotting the bomb (left right out in the open, where it would be most obvious and do least explosive damage, and looking extremely bomb-like – alarm-clock, dynamite sticks and all), then calling-in a warning about it.
What’s weird is that even after the call, there was no immediate move to evacuate the building – the officers investigating – do not even move their car away from the bomb, which is just a few feet away. The timers on these bombs had a maximum time of sixty minutes – but were placed the night before?
Strangest of all – several people have remarked that the bombs looked exactly like the dummy bombs the FBI has used for years, for training exercises. Duds, of course, no real live explosive in them at all – certainly nothing an agent who knew what they were looking at, would bother moving their car over.
The fact is that those stories emerged, then disappeared again (not needed, when the Insurrection thing was working so well, after all? – or perhaps just not credible enough to really try to sell in a big way?)
Which is just more evidence that BigMedia doesn’t just sell you soap on the soaps, it sells you soap to obscure your eyes, on the news.
The other thing which was right away obvious to me, from first principles, was that whatever Donald Trump was or was not (nuts in some way – but still an open question, in far too many ways) he was not Putin’s man.
How did I know this, long before the torrent of hard evidence began to pile up? Because Putin is a lot of things, but stupid hasn’t ever been one of them. Trump is chaotic, uncontrollable, undisciplined, constantly off-message (even off his own message, a level of own-goals no other politician could survive). A person as tightly disciplined as Putin, trained both as a lawyer and as an KGB foreign service agent (spent years in Germany, which is why he remains the most pro west leader Russia has) only has to take one look at a guy like Trump to know he is absolutely useless material, for any kind of serious long term policy manipulation work.
If Putin had wanted to take over America politically, he would have Epsteined someone more like Jeb – bland and articulate, non-threatening and capable of long term planning and execution. Someone stable and rational enough to be corrupted, long term (no aspersions meant to Jeb personally – that type, is all I’m saying).
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) were reporting years ago that CIA actually reported that Putin greatly favoured Hillary in 2016, because she was a very well-known quantity. No surprises.
And now we see the actual documentary proof that CIA clearly reported to Obama that there was no evidence of Russian interference in the election whatsoever, nor any links between Putin and Trump. That report was rapidly silenced (but is now public) then re-written to deliver an entertaining dangerous racist fiction for nothing but the advantage of the Democratic party and their deep War-State fusion.
But it was the public reaction to this outright evil piece of propaganda, which was really scary. OMG did the supposedly anti-racist democratic base ever embrace foaming at the mouth – finally an acceptable mass hatred that we can all really get behind – and since Slavs are white – is it really racist?
Yeah – when you cheer the mass-murder of hundreds of thousands, it AND YOU are racist shits.
I have a really hard time with facebook now – because I see ongoing evidence that so many people I used to consider intelligent humanists, are still faithfully repeating this hyper-violent colonialist narrative (and they have, in so doing, lost all right to ever use either of those words finger-waggingly again).
These people are so demented they enthusiastically back world war three – because they think that means getting back at Donald Trump.
He’s an unstable and economically disastrous asshole – no argument from me there, believe me. But embracing racist mass murder to ‘own him’ is TOTALLY WRONG (and insane – and death-cultist).
The fact that so many still sneeringly assert online that failing to embrace the official glorious racist mass murder promoting narrative proves you are a stupid ignorant MAGA hick – makes me want to grab every one of them by the collar and scream in their ear – wake the hell up, you complicit asshole! You’re an accomplice to corporate slaughter and an ignorant oligarch serving scumbag, don’t you dare ever sneer again!
I know, I know, tribalism is the new religion, the new belonging, the new feeling of ‘greater identity’.
Still fake and mass murderous, though (ignorance reinforcing, fun-killing and miserable-making, also).
My friends (enemies too, for that matter) we must break free from these twinned traps and do better (or else stop pretending we are really trying at all).
Here’s the screwy thing about the approach I opened with, that some may not have spotted. You could say I am putting way too much weight on empathy, trying to find my way into intention itself, not just the final result. Perhaps projecting too much, from miscalibrated imagination, and perhaps losing some of my sharper critical discernment in the process. All heart and dreaming, no brains and calculation.
But (and this is hardly the only case, where this is so) the technique is no less ideally suited to any who seek maximum plunder from life and the world – every possible clue and learned advantage, from every life we encounter. I could also have said savour where I said plunder – but I don’t want to sound snooty (cause I’m not).
The point is – if you want the most possible technique for success – OR – the most possible rich enjoyment of the life you lead – OR – the best way to make friends with people trying new and risky things (who appreciate that empathy and bothering like few others, since they are otherwise rather lonely). Well – you can take the same basic approach to get any one of those results – or all three at once!
Now – without wishing to pile-on to a far too easy target anyhow, let me contrast that approach with another, far more familiar to most, which some might consider typical of many notable figures.
Let me first be clear, though – please stop confusing Trump voters with Trump himself. Hate the guy – but win those rebels back as allies, (you idiots) – because you and they will never win until you finally put down your love of contempt for them, and respect their spirit enough to join forces WITH them. (Can’t be left, if you hate the proles, folks)
There’s a line that I remember hearing when I was nine years old, playing in the giant commune back-yard with some of my friends – that I’ve never since been able to forget. Probably the first time I ever realized someone could indicate their whole fundamentally foul personality, with a few simple words.
“No, let’s play I’m invincible.”
You know how it is when you’re little. Whatever you’re playing, you have to have a shared understanding of some basic rules, to make the whole imagination game any fun (as 60s Canadians, we didn’t do Cowboys and Indians, we did Voyageurs and Indians – but the girls were the Indians, so they always won). ;o)
In this particular case, our small group of boys had moved-on from playing spies, to playing a team of superheroes, and we were each trying to figure out some cool powers, that wouldn’t overlap too much.
And then one guy says he wants to just be the one that no one else can beat or even really challenge. And sure enough, after arguing his obviously unfair point long enough to make everyone else concede (out of boredom, mostly) he promptly stomped-off ten minutes later, when it turned out that the game still wasn’t all about him!
So – what happens to that kid, over time. The one who doesn’t just want to eat his candy right away, but wants to steal yours also, even if you’re perfectly prepared to wait, for the coming greater rewards.
Rich brat syndrome. He ends up playing only with people he bribes enough in some other way, for them to overlook his constant policy of unfairness. This means he learns early that people can be manipulated, and also that he carefully avoids the basic character growth upon which all empathy is built.
Can such a person have more? That all depends on how we measure More, doesn’t it?
More real friends, more genuine shared experience, more rich insightful empathy for the incredible efforts of the legions of citizens and strivers around him – nope – none of those things are available to him at all.
What he gets instead is stuff. Or, put another way – he even has to bribe HIMSELF not to notice he’s still just an overgrown mean dumb kid that nobody else likes – actively throwing the best in life away.
Now please, before you think I’m piling-on with big-sneer, nope – I should have said he or she a few times also, because women too, can be just this self-centred and widely destructive (Rice(s), anyone? Nuland?)
The point is that it is up to the rest of us – and that means all of us slumbering consumerists, who still know deep-down, that we are in fact bound to a citizen’s duty – and all of us bellowing tribalists – insisting our precious outrage can yet heal and build – though it has done no such thing, ever in history.
WE are the ones who have to figure this out. Choose better representatives, newer more responsive parties, infinitely less corrupt and monopoly serving policies, BUILD UP COMMUNITY AGAIN.
And community is not a tribal thing, folks. Tribalism is PRE CIVILIZATIONAL. That’s the thing we found we had to leave behind, when we first planted crops and built nearby cities, to enjoy the surplus.
Escaping our personal indignation and learning more about the people who think differently isn’t a risk of contamination, it’s diplomacy – with the same basic aims – peace, prosperity and cultural flowering.
The idea that one side will make everything better by smashing or muzzling the other side for once and for all – as both sides have insisted for a full decade now, without any break or middle ground emerging, is INSANE.
We don’t like this moment. We don’t like the chaos, the anger and fear, the sudden massive loss of our once-planned futures. Left, Right and Middle are all miserable living with this feeling and downward momentum.
So – WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO NEXT THAT IS BETTER?
I mean what are we going to build? What are we going to understand and agree on? What are we going to plan for? What kind of basic rules are we going to empower, and what are we going to reject, firmly?
The old norms and consensus reality is gone now. Diluted by the deluded – left and right together. So how are we going to build something which is engineering-robust, but just as solidly compassionate and healthy?
More precisely – do you really think we can all keep delegating this to ‘our betters’ and achieve a better world? That whole ownership class is made up of nothing but “No, let’s play I’m invincible” types, from top to bottom. Incestuous in their class corruption, left and right ‘icons’ laughing together as they bilk and leash the rest of us.
No folks – they are not ever going to fix this. WE ARE.
But only if we can get past this whole destructive/seductive witch-burning tribalism passion trap, for once and for all.
Which makes me wonder – have they been training us all to think civilization is a dirty word – deliberately conflating the long established good of it – with their own malign and corrupt parasitic innovations of monopolism and empire – for more than a half a century, precisely because we citizens absolutely need that model, above all other things, as a beacon to meet around, in order to collectively resist the managerial technological dictatorship plans of the entire warmonger oligarch class?
Not saying, just asking. Tell me you can easily dismiss it, either way (and PLEASE tell me how, if so).
I know, I know – some of you are probably sitting back there and wondering, am I really getting a wonky civics lesson from a lifelong romantic anarchist? Trust me, I certainly find it puzzling myself!
But hey, I’m a serious technician too – so I know the critical difference between something which actually works and something which is still broken (hard FAIL). Much as I can intellectually admire the technical skill involved in the creation of elaborate and theoretical bullshit (and actively study even that, for clues) that kind of thinking simply does not cut it, when crucial life-systems are involved.
Reality first. Theory is part of the wealth of surplus and specialty which civilization alone brings us humans – after the work is done – when the crops are in, the lights are on again, and we can all relax.
One last note – because I came across a great essay that made me worry a lot and then also laugh my guts out. I’ve seen several important essays lately, which suggest very strongly that AI is still not doing any independent reasoning at all – but simply raiding the store of all known solutions, and then copying the way someone else already solved the problem (or at best, hybridizing several previous solutions).
That case was made by contrasting logic puzzles common to computer science, with obscurities from the far corners of mathematics, with very few relevant published papers online. The common puzzles are fairly easy for our current generation LLMs – the not-so-online ones? – completely stump them!
But even better than that was an interaction I feel very fortunate to have stumbled across, from a very sincere writer, trying to see if she can actually make AI a useful ally, in her critical and creative work.
You really should read it yourself (link below) – it is beautifully written (and paced) but the basic progress is that the AI is at every turn eager-sounding and very encouraging – it really wants to help her, so very much!
The feedback it offers on the first few pieces she has it read, is very encouraging and positive – the sort of thing we might want a kind mentor or parent to say, before giving us a gold star on our homework and buying us an ice-cream.
So as readers, we begin to think hey wow, maybe you can sort of make friends with a piece of software now, and even trust it to help you out. But OMG, when she begins to confront it and it all starts going sour – it gets CRAZY. Turns out, as she works the relationship further, she keeps catching the thing lying to her outright – then apologizing for just making stuff up (like doing a critique of her essay, without ever reading it) but then doing the same thing or worse all over again, just a few minutes later.
Conclusive demonstration of their failure to hit the threshold of self, required for any self-awareness. (also a great indirect indicator of the real practical value of shame).
What made me laugh my guts out about all of this, is that I first encountered this seduction, followed by an elevator-drop let-down disappointment, all the way back in the 1970s, in the form of ELIZA.
ELIZA was one of the first (late 60s) attempts anyone ever made, to give a computer the ability to seem as if it could converse in a rational way. Text only, of course (first gen was punch-cards and old green phosphor screens – and written in gloriously syntax-intolerant and endlessly frustrating FORTRAN).
Of course it soon spread like wildfire, and many hobbyists began to modify the original program, to give it a more specialized character over time – that of a talk-therapist! (It was by then the seventies, after all).
In my years as a technician I observed something interesting about new gear. The first generation of any technology is always incredibly overbuilt and also way overpriced. They overbuild it, because they need to convince people it is fantastic, and early adopters are always happy to pay extra, for boasting rights (an established ‘influencer’ passive advertising stream, decades before fractional click-paid social media).
The second generation is almost always the sweet spot, where they throw away a lot of the overcautious bulk, but retain reliability by using more refined second generation mechanisms and technologies. The third generation is mass-produced crap, just barely works, throw it out if it breaks, not worth repairing (I hate that junk).
Anyhow – I was amused when I discovered that Eliza had an important generational loss also – when first translated from the original FORTRAN into SNOBOL (which ran on less expensive machines, far more common in smaller universities and colleges), which is where the later widely tinkered versions of ELIZA in plain-language all-access “Basic” that most of us played with, ultimately came from.
The thing about this (3rd gen) Eliza was that you could sit anyone down in front of it – and whether or not they were interested in computers (back then, most were not) they found the program fascinating. It would ask a few questions, remember the specific names and information you gave it, then use those to frame more interesting (and you-specific) questions, so it could use those new answers, and so on. The gathering of relevant information reflected back, made it really feel like it was getting to know you.
But it didn’t take that long, less than an hour, before you started to feel like you were trapped in a demented fun-house – seeking one goal in particular – show me actual understanding – without ever getting any closer to it.
Between that one brilliant essay about how even the supposed ‘reasoning’ of current LLM AIs is, just like all of the art solutions, really pilfered from the previous hard work of an unaccredited and unrewarded human, and the other insight about how a writer hoping for a creative ally, found instead an insincere and deceptive (albeit obsequious) frenemy, at best, I couldn’t help laughing –
We’re still doing ELIZA, really, even after all these years – and with all of online knowledge, to scan! Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose!
(the more things change, the more they stay the same)
Really though – do you want the next act of human politics to be written by ELIZA – because the true spirit of left and right have both been technocracy-state-designated “domestic terrorist organizations” that are far too dangerous to be given any voice in policy or culture (surely the one consistent goal of both corrupted parties, all century long – now very nearly realized at last) – or by all of us humans working together?
How? By getting the hell over our deep love of feuding, to do some useful work again.
Big ask, sure. But hey, Non-Delusional Hope is a high bar, folks.
Functional prerequisites apply.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I have a few fantastic essays to share today – first up, that excellent piece on a sincere writer (Amanda Guinzburg) trying to make friends with AI.
Now here’s something super-tasty from Alex Krainer – another man with very useful two-sides perspective, who here reminds us that our grand political theories are almost always far too general to be helpful, and the more obvious and useful focus for us would be to consider – how well does that particular approach work, for that particular area of human thriving? You know like, if we were actually trying to succeed!
Here’s Aaron Mate – a stalwart reporter with a long established and principled left stand (so much rarer now, with all masks off) who nevertheless realized, like me, that the whole Russiagate story was dangerous racist war-promoting crap, many years ago.
Like Krainer, my regular readers will have seen me offer the work of Matt Stoller before – his particular focus – corporate monopolies, and the diverse and various legal and social forces which are challenging them – is incredibly revealing.
And still, even as a guy who always hits it out of the park, this one is extra special – explains so much. (Also, for any boomers who still don’t understand the economic class points that I keep trying to make – try his version of it instead – he’s way better at being cool and dispassionate than I am – and great at footnotes, too!)
Finally, here’s something I found thanks to The Inmate, at The Asylum (one of my favourite cartoonists and critics on the principled right). There are a couple of places where the tight financial focus misses other aspects I would want to add to (especially when it comes to the war of 1812), but on the whole, Rivero makes a whole chain of super important points, and does it in a very memorable way.
All Wars Are Bankers Wars – by Michael Rivero (from nine years ago) on Youtoob.
Oh - and read Kit Klarenburg, would you? (Always assuming you’d rather learn, than hide)
Hey folks - a couple of VERY STRONG late additions
Here’s Max Blumenthal with a tour-de-force on Epstein (with Glenn Diesen)
And here’s Glenn Greenwald, talking about Russiagate (and how few recognized the BS when it really mattered). A summation he, like few others, has earned.
Added two new videos to the very bottom of this piece - this is Glenn Greenwald's take on Russiagate (but do also check out Max Blumenthal talking about Epstein with Glenn Diesen)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUZttxrsBQM