Are You a Hat Person?

An American who does not recognize those red hats that have prevailed and been sold AT A PROFIT by a President have been living a sheltered life. I presume any who made it this far know the hat I am talking about. I am intentionally skipping the abbreviation and only sticking to the last letter of the abbreviation. Again is not a particularly hard word and I think most people understand the meaning but I’ve included the Merriam Webster definition here.

So today, we kept it to six minutes and the topic is AGAIN.

Good Ole Grover

I have many friends in my life that disagree with me about politics. Not a big deal. I always aim to keep it civil. Shame on me as this has taken me now nearly ten years to realize what has always baffled me about President #45 and #47. Perhaps I was disappointed by the re-emergence of a do-over. You see, the only time in American history we elected someone, rejected them, and then elected them again, was Grover Cleveland, a one-time Mayor from my hometown. I did a book report on him PERHAPS in the 4th or 5th grade or so. The fact this happened AGAIN fascinates me.

History Repeats Itself

What is it that made these two figures (Cleveland and Trump) interesting? They couldn’t be more different. One thinks tariffs is a very beautiful word. The other rejected them. In both eras, Americas were confused and at least for a period embraced an idea that ends badly. Whenever tariffs become a thing, people are scared and a demagogue can reign. We can either sow fear or offer leadership. The last big battle over tariffs everywhere was ushered in Post WW1 and brought us to fascism nearly everywhere through WW2. America survived and resisted. We were the outliers. The whole world chose their dictator. We were lucky — ours was benevolent. He was imperfect. Modern crackpots love to talk about FDR as if he were the anti-Christ. Nearly the whole world self-destructed with leadership like Franco, Tojo, Mussolini, anti-democratic Popes, Hitler, Stalin and Mao. Does anyone REALLY want to debate the merits of FDR against this backdrop? The end of WW2 threw tariffs on the ash heap of history and a world of international trade ensued that shaped the modern world and no worldwide conflict for nearly 80 years.

AGAIN

I GENUINELY hope that every one of you that receives this will forward it to someone you know and love in the AGAIN camp — I want to hear some reasoning. If you are already there, do the opposite! I am interested in a range of voices. Whether you are in the AGAIN camp or not, pick your favorite President and era from our past and let me know “I’d take that right now”. I want to hear from all of you. The AGAIN crowd has it easier — they’ve bought the hats so presumably they’ve read them. If politics are not your jam, weigh in on the worst beards among our former Presidents or maybe envision one of our recent Presidents with a particularly memorable beard (this is what AI is for). I think my question is SIMPLE & FAIR. I also believe if you CANNOT articulate an answer it is likely you are amid a pool of folks that haven’t even thought through what they claim to believe. I think I may be wrong about some of this and I sincerely want to hear why that is. I figure people who take the time to read are more likely to take time to think. Therefore they are way more likely to share an interesting take.

So for the true believers of that red hat four word slogan I have a few SIMPLE questions. They pivot completely on AGAIN so this should be easy.

1. Since GREATNESS is the goal in some foregone era per the slogan, just explain who the President was that defined the GREATNESS you wish to revisit. That will make it straightforward for any of us wondering what you actually are wishing for.

2. Please, if you can, articulate the SPECIFIC policies that made that former President shine for you and what you hope we can revisit AGAIN. I am eager to learn and maybe shift my thinking accordingly.

3. My sneaking suspicion based on thinking about this is what we are bought into today DOES NOT ALIGN with any former President or beliefs. The forlorn AGAIN may just be an ill-formed lie that moves a lot of hats.

I hope my readers can extend the circle of this discussion and help me understand. To know what it is so many of my fellow citizens wish to experience AGAIN. I will be grateful.

For those of you who were KIND enough to join me as guests in today’s post, I thank you for your consideration. If you happen to own a red hat, I hope you now realize now what foregone era you are hoping to ignite AGAIN.

We live in strange times. If politics is just not something you want to talk about in public, send me an email. I’d love to hear about other ways to look at our current situation.

Presidential Trivia

For those of you who were steady consumers of my old Newsletter, you may remember, my favorite Presidential story is about William McKinley. He got assassinated in my hometown of Buffalo, NY. All I really know is the assassin Leon Czolgosz was smartly dressed on that fateful day in 1901. It turns out that my great grandfather made the suit he wore the day he shot the President. While a bit dark, the way I figure it, if not for the assassination we would have never ended up with one of the greatest President’s ever, Theodore Roosevelt. He was the last President who made it onto Mount Rushmore. My apologies to the McKinley family.

Beard Poll

In the spirit of something for everyone, let’s talk beards. The United States has largely avoided beards in the Presidency but we seemed to compress the outliers from the Civil War all the war through Reconstruction. I guess during the period where we wanted to sort of end slavery without ending it, the beard was the way to go. I’m ignoring porkchop sideburns and moustaches. Beards only means Lincoln, Grant, Hayes, Garfield & Harrison. Today there is no Something Else option because Substack still limits us to a feeble five options. If you can’t decide, Wikipedia to the rescue.

Don’t Bother

My major premise today is IT DOES NOT MATTER whether your think Greta Thunberg or Donald Trump is a more credible source for learning about the climate. The facts are what they are. The angry rants feel like wasted energy even if you have hitched your wagon to one of these messengers. Fiction is sometimes useful to explain and understand stuff. I was inspired to this message after listening to a couple of interviews with the author of “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind”, Yuval Noah Harari. One of his quotes that led to a greater discussion was about fiction.

“Our world is built on fictions. They're all around us: nations, corporations and religion were invented in the human imagination. And if it weren't for the fictional stories we collectively tell, we might not be the dominant species on the planet.”

The quote is provocative. There are greater truths embedded in the fictions of our world. Harari posits that fictions are merely useful shortcuts we create. They are not substitutes for truth, they are merely shortcuts. His books are great reads if you are interested.1

A Voter Guide

I forgot the poll in my last post and some readers let me know they were disappointed. To make up for it I put the poll near the front and included a sort of “voter guide”. Our protagonists have polemic views about the climate so I decided to let them frame the poll today. The anger from each of them is palpable. I worry about their blood pressure and mental health. My favorite part of these quotes is “blah, blah, blah” and a dose of inane conspiracy.

Greta Thunberg (GT)
“We can no longer let the people in power decide what is politically possible. We can no longer let the people in power decide what hope is. Hope is not passive. Hope is not blah, blah, blah. Hope is telling the truth. Hope is taking action. And hope always comes from the people.”

Donald Trump (DT)
The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.

The fiction part of things is useful. The unfortunate disconnect for many is people check their critical thinking after they’ve chosen the horse they like in the race. People often make this decision based on the color of the horse’s silks. Gene Wilder said it best.

How About the Poll For Starters

Beyond forgetting the poll last time, I also got a bit of outrage from someone who directly said “your post was a lot longer…”. Well, a seven minute post is not very long in my estimation and I figure it is WELL BEYOND the folks who might be lecturing me :) On any account, I am working to be more economical with my words. Today is 7 minutes again. If you remain unsure about the merits of 6 vs 7 vs 8, here is some guidance from a classic movie.

My premise today is whether you are partial to GT’s OR DT’s view about “the climate” is immaterial. The facts do not care about your feelings is my point of view today. Today the poll comes first so I don’t forget. I HOPE that many of you regret the answer you give by the time you finish this post. That will mean my argument was persuasive!

What Are The Facts

Scientists are just as likely to get stuff wrong as anyone else. Just because someone decided the moon was made out of green cheese doesn’t make them right. However, this is where science does have a decided advantage. It is the method of always testing the latest proposal and either reinforcing the idea or throwing cold water on it. It is not ever the claim that is interesting or compelling. It is the process that follows the claim that makes it more or less likely. Do this enough and you have a surefire method to getting closer to the truth. I prefer this to inane shouting. If you are a decided fan of GT or DT, my two cents are:

“Faith is belief absent facts. Blind faith is belief despite the presence of countermanding facts. I admire faith as a starting point. It’s just the start though.

Burning stuff for energy has served us well. We have gotten REALLY GOOD at it also. Nevertheless, we are now at a time where with some hard work, we have finally figured out an even better way to make energy and keep this planet we have in decent condition for the people to come. We don’t need faith that solar power might work —just buy it on Amazon.

The Way Forward Was Always Under Our Nose

The natural world and all of its processes run on sunlight — the story of us is simpler than it seems. Once you realize this, we merely must figure out how it works and emulate it — that is what renewable energy is in a nutshell. The power is in the light, the wind, the tides, water flow. We copy them with solar power, wind turbines, tidal generators, dams and geothermal capture. All of these are free (or at least no marginal fuel cost). No fuel required is hardly controversial. What could be easier than that.

The Old Way Is Not That Easy Anyhow

Sure, you can (1) continue to search for stuff to burn, (2) dig it up or force it out, (3) move it to your burn pit (4) bury the leftovers in the ground or the air (5) capture perhaps 40% after all that effort & make some electricity. We can do it but it seems a lot of effort for little benefit.

We have developed a better mousetrap. I am doubtful the folks who worked hard on solar arrays and wind turbines did it because they are enamored with Greta Thunberg. They enjoyed the challenge of making a better mousetrap. Once the better mousetrap exists, it is foolish to ignore the new way just because you didn’t think of it. There’s a lot of free energy out there — one day in the hot sun without sunscreen is all the proof you need. Once you figure it out, we all know deep down how stupid it is to keep hauling firewood and coal unless you want some s’mores.

Simple & Obvious

Envisioning the next tool is what makes us Sapiens amazing. A solar array is the new campfire. This has happened before along the path of human advancement. As one of my favorite quotes attributed to the Yankee catcher Yogi Berra goes: “when you come to the fork in the road, take it”. Soon enough we eliminate the fork in the road because the correct path becomes obvious regardless of the shouting.

A Parable

A long time ago, humankind came up with the idea of the wheel. Scholars figure the first application were grinding wheels to crush grain and make bread and probably crush all sorts of other stuff. Eventually, we realized wheels could be a good way to move stuff around. Before the wheel we know that humanity mostly was using sleds. I am SURE there were “burn baby burn” advocates who really wanted to stick with the sled because learning how to make the wheels was something the next village was better at. I can even imagine there were ranters who were yelling at the sled crowd and turning the transition from sled to wheel into something existential. Neither of these steps are necessary. Use the wheel. Take the win.

As for the folks in the next village who figured out the wheel. If your neighbors next door get belligerent and are sure you have something up your sleeve with your newfangled wheel, sometimes you just have to move on. Maybe they will eventually realize a wheel is actually better than the sled. If they do not, Darwin has already shared a prediction how they will end up. Greta could stop ranting about the people still locked into sleds. Donald could stop ranting how the wheel is a conspiracy. Greta and Donald both are fortunate to live in free societies. I remain hopeful that the majority of people will eventually vote for the wheel and hang the sled in the garage for those days with fresh snow. For you film aficionados, just think about Rosebud.

Why MEH?

I have carried on many times when posting about my History Book Club. I’ve learned so much and the best thing about it is the different points of view. Our founder has often shared his perspective on what a good history book NEEDS. One of those elements is a good map. I happen to enjoy economics as a good way to explain the world at times. Of course, I would not have stuck with the club for as long as I have unless I also enjoyed history. MEH means Maps, Economics & History.

Maps, Economics & History

So on Inauguration Day, I was reminded how I was going to hear the word tariff a lot in the next four years. I am neutral on the word. Not sure I love it but I’m certain I don’t hate it. I know I have never made a list of my favorite words — I am sure, however, if I did, tariff would not make the list. If you want to hear about why tariffs is a beautiful word, click here.

Maps

So this part of the post is maybe fun. Part of the post is inspired by a fellow Substacker who has committed to not use her phone while on public transportation. I ask you do the same. Using Google will spoil this. Later on in the comments share with me how you did. So there are 12 countries in South America. It is probably too grand of a leap for you to know where they are located so I’m just wondering how my my audience thinks they can name. Here is a map if you are a visual person. All of the non-white spots on the maps are real countries. Only two of the white ones are actually countries — the rest are territories or places a handful of countries have not gotten around to giving their freedom just yet. If you don’t want to play (spoil sport) you can skip ahead I guess.

Life Is Short — Make Some Local Friends

Before we continue, congratulations to any of you who were able to name 10 of the countries of South America — that is amazing. If you actually knew their location, I am in awe. It is not necessary to love every one of your close neighbors but getting along with them seems sensible. In the year 2000, every single one of the twelve countries in South America had the United States as their #1 trading partner. This brings me to our second question. Of these 12 countries, how many of them do you think still have the US as their #1 trading partner? Bonus points to the bold among you who think you can name some of them!!! By the way we are moving along with MEH since who we trade with is about friendships, relationships and comparative advantage. This is what ECONOMICS is all about. Living in Minnesota I am fully aware that even if I figured how to grow mangoes, no one is looking to buy Minnesota mangoes. There are definitely better spots in the world to grow them. Who doesn’t love a mango?

A Little Bit of History

So now it is time for some recent history. I mentioned that in 2000 all of the countries of South America counted the US as their #1 trading partner. I think that is a pretty good story. Besides if you are growing mangoes and have a country to the north that wants to buy them, that seems smart instead of trying to find some faraway place to sell the ones you cannot eat.

From the question I asked in the last section, something very disturbing has been happening in our part of the world recently. There is an old joke that I enjoy that I am not going to clean up or it will dilute the effect.

When you go to a party and at the end of the evening you conclude that everyone at the party was sort of an asshole, the best conclusion is, you are the asshole.

So the answer to the previous question is that only one country in South America remains as our #1 trading partner. It is the pink one on the map (Colombia). Since we are coming up on Valentine’s Day, it is likely if you purchase some flowers they came from Colombia. They are a large provider of cut flowers and coffee. Two things we seem to enjoy in America. I’m glad we have a friend with great coffee and flowers! Comparative advantage...

What Happened To The Eleven Other Countries?

Something has been happening since the year 2000 and in the mid-2010s it has started to get MUCH worse. All of our neighbors seem to be finding a better place to trade with. If it is a next door neighbor that makes sense. In fact, the United States counts Canada and Mexico as our largest trading partners. That seems pretty good to me. Maybe if many of them had Brazil, a regional power as #1 that might be sensible. It is after all what shaped America’s trading relationships with its South American neighbors for a long time.

Since President Trump came into office a couple of weeks ago he has picked a fight so far with four countries (1) Colombia (2) Canada (3) Mexico and (4) China. What all of these countries have in common is they are all top trading partners with the United States.

Staying On Track

There are LOTS of other countries in Central America, North America and the Caribbean. I think it is about 38 in all in the Western Hemisphere. That would have made for an overwhelming map quiz so I thought South America alone might be fun. This, however, is not exactly a happy story. You see of the countries in all of the Western Hemisphere, America has been losing trading partners and friends at an alarming rate. It turns out that the only countries in the Western Hemisphere where America retains a #1 trading partner relationship with is Canada, Mexico and Colombia. It is time to cue the joke again.

When you go to a party and at the end of the evening you conclude that everyone at the party was sort of an asshole, the best conclusion is you are the asshole.

Trade Can Be a Metaphor For Friendship

You don’t have to be nice to your neighbors but it helps. That might be what finding common ground is. Many years ago I enjoyed the book “Getting to Yes”. It was about negotiation. Negotiation is about compromise and finding a way for both parties to win. If you think negotiation is just about getting your way all of the time — You might be the asshole.

America Can Be a Force for Good in the World

After WWII, America was in a position of conquest. It could have chosen to part out the world the way every conqueror in the name of religion or monarch or president or autocrat had done before. America chose to sacrifice to create a better world. It required sacrifice but it also made things better for Americans also. America is not perfect. However, the arc of history since 1945 during the Cold War has always felt, at least to me, that America was in it for more than just themselves. I don’t think we were the asshole.

The post Cold-War has begun to emerge, at least in the eyes of some as a challenge between the US and China. I believe, judged by our past America offers a path. I also believe through friendship, compromise and getting to yes, we can offer an example that makes sense to other nations. I think it can start with don’t be an asshole.

What Would Be Some Good Signs?

Here in 2025, 35/38 countries in the Western Hemisphere are not a #1 trading partner with the United States. I think we make some cool stuff and are open to trying new things. I’m not sure how this happened. I suppose if you go to a party and there are 38 people there and you only know 3 of them, the easy thing to do is to go mix with the people you know. Getting reacquainted with one of the many you have fallen out of touch with might be even better. Finally, if there is one real loud man or woman in the corner who is kinda funny but says some pretty crass stuff, stick with reacquainting yourself with someone else. You may just reignite a friendship.

Let’s Make A Deal

Since I have not been lurking a lot on Substack lately, forgive me if this topic is dead to you. I will get right to it and believe that for many of you this will be a different angle on eggs than what you’ve heard. If this just turns out to be a few minutes you won’t get back, I apologize in advance.

First, Let’s Agree On Something

One of my goals as I am in my sixties is to avoid becoming a crotchety old man like Clint Eastwood in the movie Gran Torino. Clint brings an earnestness to the phrase “get off my lawn”. I sometimes fear that the way I see the world is a narrower angle than I would like. I try to understand other’s perspective but sometimes that is hard. If any of my posts seem out there or from too narrow of an angle, please let me know. I try to ignore writing about stuff I haven’t thought through. The eggs thing, from near the beginning of the “inflation” we associate with them has seemed idiotic to me and the solution obvious. What has come to pass in the years since the H1N5 virus joined our world is not surprising. Life finds a way.

Some Oldies

Whether eggs or chicken, Americans are in love. I wrote about both of them in early 2023. If you are obsessed with gallus gallus domesticus, you might enjoy these.

In one of those old posts one of my favorite Substackers checked in on the poll about how many eggs you eat in a year with an amazing / disturbing estimate. Now that eating eggs is something we must budget for, I will ask the same question I did a couple of years ago. I expect the counts will be down.

Chicken Living

Everyone knows eggs are expensive and I think most of us know there is a bird flu that is affecting the health of the bird flocks. In human history there has likely never been a worse time to be a chicken.

• Being a layer hen was never easy but after domestication at least they likely lived outdoors and had a coop to chill out in. Nowadays it is very tough. We raise a specific breed of chick and birth them in vast numbers. Life’s lottery for them is if you are born male, you are euthanized that same day. The females move on and become layer hens. In that circumstance they were fed and cared for and kept alive until their peak laying years were behind them. What makes this very moment in time so tough is the hens don’t often make it through their peak laying years thanks to the H1N5 virus.

• On the flip side for the special breed of optimized chicken we raise for meat, life is a full court press. Broilers and fryers get about 7 weeks. Roasters closer to 13 weeks. Free-range broilers for those of you with heightened awareness usually get an extra week and an organic broiler (Whole Foods?) gets about 12 weeks.

Domesticated Animals Were Doomed Anyhow

However you slice it, I would suppose if animals beyond us could read, the domesticated animals would not be fans of the Bible and might try to destroy every copy. That passage from Genesis 1:26:28 literally, in the case of the chickens, cooked their goose:

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air,

The story of chickens and hens turns on that unfortunate word dominion I suppose. The domesticated animals couldn’t catch a break from the beginning since the Torah was written on parchment made from the “right” animal, usually a calf, goat or deer. Any way you slice it the early books were not good for them.

My Take On Eggs

For a long time, I have believed the worst feature of humans is we get stuck. We’ve got these amazing brains but we also have the primitive early brain in the back. Once stupid s#$t gets into our heads thanks to anger, impulse, outrage — all the stuff we get from our primitive brain, change becomes very hard. The story of why eggs are expensive is pretty simple — quite a lot of us have stupid stuff stuck in our heads. I hope this is news to many of you or I have wasted your time. You won’t hear this from the people you entrusted the nation to last go-around or this time.

1. The layer hens live close together. The H1N5 bird flu is a wonder of nature.

2. It has been with us now heading into 3 years. Avian influenza outbreaks have been with us before — this one figured out how to survive winters.

3. H1N5 has a good chance to be a perennial virus. There are only a few things you can do with a virus (1) catch it and hope you survive or (2) hope it magically disappears (3) consult microbiologists and make a vaccine.

4. In the US we’ve figured out a 4th option. Try stuff like horse cream, take an anti-malarial or just attack microbiologists for making vaccines.

5. So what happens in cycles all around America with eggs is

   1. chicks are born and raised to mature layer hens ( we kill half because they are male)

   2. the layer hens start laying eggs — we hope for this window to be a long time. Often a flock suffers an outbreak of avian influenza. We often kill the whole flock and start all over again.

   3. no more layers — need for layer hens — return to step a

Each time (c) happens supply and demand kicks in and prices go up. This will continue. People will periodically write about it on Substack or Facebook or TikTok or Instagram. When Biden is President it is his fault. When Trump is President it is his fault. Neither of them are right — in fact it is shocking to me that the most advanced nation on earth has been stymied by egg prices. For now, this is merely a fault of IGNORANCE and the unwillingness to adjust your beliefs that are stuck in your head.

There are a GROWING NUMBER of places on Earth that have not accepted this idiotic cycle we are in with eggs. What do you think they’ve done?

1. They just want to raise eggs reliably. Earlier we discussed the three things you can do with a virus. Only option three can break the cycle we are in (vaccines provide immunity to viruses). Any other approach is mythology or faith / hope (belief in something absent evidence).

2. For about 4000 years since we wrote it down, we’ve largely embraced the dominion doctrine. Viruses / disease were punishment. We need to mend our ways. A guy named Edward Jenner back in 1797 was the turning point. He encouraged us to stop thinking things like viruses were punishment — they were just living things called viruses. Most challenges we face in life simply require us to change our thinking — not as easy as it sounds unfortunately.

3. Jenner created the first vaccine. They are the answer to viruses. I’m glad he didn’t have any horse cream.

4. So here’s the punchline. A growing number of countries around the world are vaccinating their birds (yeah they work despite what our soon to be HHS Secretary RFK Jr believes)

5. Prices have returned to normal and the flocks are not facing cycles of culling. I call it progress. The French are getting back to enjoying omelettes.

6. In some countries where they have been vaccinating the birds for a while, prices have returned to well under $1 a dozen — Make Eggs Cheap Again (MECA).

If you want to learn more about Edward Jenner, here’s another oldie.

The Poll

So now that eggs are a luxury item, I thought the same poll I did last time could be interesting again.

The Real Fun

How high do egg prices get before we start doing economic substitution? Let’s get into that in the comments. How high do egg prices get before we just say meh. Around Thanksgiving I made a bunch of cookies of all sorts. Most every decent cookie recipe I know calls for eggs. I tend to double most recipes — lotsa eggs.

I still eat eggs but not as many as before. The picture I chose today was soft boiled. I rarely bothered to make soft-boiled eggs and thought they reach their zenith when offered in a perfect ramen. Almost a bit luxurious. Anyhow, since (1) I eat less eggs (2) have a contraption that makes egg prep easy with no mess (3) that has a soft boiled option — they’ve become my go-to way to make eggs. How about you? My favorite ways to make eggs now are

1. Soft boiled

2. Poached

3. scrambled with lots of stuff in them

4. hard boiled

5. baked in a cookie or a cake

The first four are the options with my egg maker. Everything else gets a pan dirty and requires extra prep.

Wait a Minute, it Makes me Special

Well I’m back again but far away from a commitment to a steady schedule. I only plan to write when I am inspired to explore something with all of you.

Way back when, I occasionally explored one of the things that makes humans (homo sapiens) UNUSUAL — I am not willing to commit to special :) We are all wedded to a belief system, I just happen to be attentive to allowing mine to evolve. I’m sure I am more rigid than I imagine. Nevertheless, it starts with an internal invocation to be flexible in my thoughts and open to new evidence.

When I began thinking about jumping to conclusions, I immediately thought about one of the special features / bugs of being human. I think we evolved from other creatures into something very special unusual. Our primitive brains lie in the back. Their best attribute is they are quick to judgement. They can keep us safe in the moment, knowing to step back from the curb when an absent minded driver is hurtling toward us. I am thankful there is no chain of thought decision tree required in our frontal cortex to weigh the pros and cons of retreating a few steps.

A few Google Scholar searches tell me that making this decision with our cortex likely cuts my life expectancy — our front brains is cool but AWFULLY slow. So I accept that back primitive brain is USEFUL — especially when a quick decision is needed.

Let’s Discuss

So instead of my long-winded meanderings, let’s discuss if the topic is interesting? I can always expand the topic in the future if anyone cares about it. I ended up with some time to consider this today because a minor surgery for Denny (the dog) got rescheduled.

Jumping to conclusions is probably baked into our dual brain existence. The reasons and methods why it happens are described in the chart at the top. I sure wish I did it less. I think being aware it is a thing is the first step to doing it less.

The Poll

Please have some FUN! I cannot view your votes. I just see the results like you. The only way I get to know how you voted is if you ARE SO EXCITED you share in the comments. That is the best IMO.

I expect these posts to be infrequent for now, but I was inspired by yesterday and would love to hear from my old readers.

Way back in 2001, on the fateful morning of September 11th, we faced, as a country, one of the most unfathomable tragedies in our Country’s history. Shortly after that terrible day, in one of its first course of action, Congress met and managed to agree that an understanding of what happened should be prepared so that we could learn from the day’s events.

In due time, The 9/11 Commission Report was published. I felt it was almost the duty of Americans of all stripes to read the book, consider its consequences, and apply the lessons of that horrible day.

I read the book and it was indeed sobering. For me, what I remember most about the book were not some arcane detail. Rather it was the near poetic synopsis of the reason 9/11 was able to occur.

A FAILURE OF IMAGINATION

When all was said and done, a ragtag group of 20 hijackers (one was in jail in Minnesota) turned the world upside down. The final tally determined the sum total of the effort was achieved for about $500,000. A paltry sum when we consider the far-reaching consequences.

When people become disaffected, angry, and embrace cultish ideas, no matter their reasoning it can unleash the most unexpected of consequences. The final analysis of what happened that September morning was:

The 9/11 Commission's final report identified "failure of imagination" as a key factor in the United States' inability to prevent the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

I thought of this late last evening and was inspired to return to Substack, if only for a day. I don’t know for how long or in what circumstance so for now, here’s one post. I’ll see if in the coming days I want to continue.

For now, the only thing I want to do is provide you with a poll. Polls were one of my favorite elements whenever I wrote a post. I always tried to pick something topical. I hope this fits the bill.

On the first day of President Trump’s return to office I thought I might give EVERYONE a chance to check in with how they feel. The theme is simply your memory of January 20th, 2025. If I don’t provide an answer that works for you, PLEASE check in and share your best answer that works better for you. Hope that some of you meet me in the comments. I wish there were more options but I see that Substack still limits us to five options :). BTW my picture today was at the swearing in. Apparently hand on the Bible is now optional :)

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate. You only have six more days to be odd (2023) and then you must revert to being even (2024) and level. Best wishes to all of you in the new year. Writing on Substack for 2+ years was fun. I hope that some of my writing spreads a bit of enjoyment for you. Thanks to all of you who took the time to read. For those of you who sent occasional comments, thanks for the encouragement. Onward.

217 DOWN, 2 1 TO GO!

While not the end, I can see it from here! This is my last Book Review as a part of “Why Living Today Rocks”. It coincides with our last book of 2023 and ready to acquire and read our 2024 books! What a great book to finish with. For those paying attention to the countdown I took last week off so next Monday or so will be my last post.

I used to have the historic order of books available for my History Book Club on this Substack. I removed the index recently from this Substack as it will not be a relevant link and I may even close this Substack altogether. Here are the books we plan to read next year. Twelve more willing tweaks to what I believe rather than just repeating nonsense. Hooray. Here is a link for next year for those interested. I will establish the link in my subsequent Bookclub-only Substack. What a fantastic smattering of books for the year ahead! When I look back on the books I’ve read in this club over the years I am consistently amazed by how much I enjoyed the books I did not expect and would have never chosen on my own.

The Book of the Month

My guess is if you asked 100 American adults what they think about Catherine de Medici, the most popular answer would be I never heard of her. The only exception might be people who watched “The Serpent Queen”. I suppose it is a tribute to my fellow book club members’ willingness to select this book as one of our reads this year. I was unfamiliar with the author so I did look her up before reading. Leonie Frieda is the daughter of Swedish aristocrats, a fashion model, a jet-setter, and settled into an impressive career as a history author! I was immediately intrigued as a different sort of voice can lead to a different sort of story. The book did not disappoint.

Who Is Catherine de Medici?

The first thing I learned reading this book is due to a petty obsession of mine. It seemed silly to read a long book about a pivotal woman who shaped history in the 1500s without at least knowing how to pronounce her name. I found out the correct pronunciation is day-mah-dee-chee. I’ve been mispronouncing it all my life and I think so did my history teachers.

Another Nice Gathering

I try hard to make time for my book club. December 12th was our last meeting of the year and I was glad to be there. There were 15 people in attendance. When there are a significant number of people who attend but don’t manage to finish the book, it is a bad omen. Of the 15 in attendance, 4 did not even finish the book and hence did not vote. The remaining 11 rated the book 7.1 out of 10. It has been strange as the ratings of the books seem to be trending downward. I believe in most cases because we filter through 30+ possible nominators and then further filter through voting we typically read great books so our scoring is consistently high. This month’s rating I think was due to something else though.

My Take

This is the story of one of the many legs of the Medici family. Catherine has been written about extensively. It seems to me world history, at least for the walking apes has gone through some important transitions:

• Life was a slog and it required clans and small groups of us to work together. We were mostly mystified by the world.

• Larger groups developed more sophisticated views of the world and their understanding, combined with revealed truths organized us to a better understanding of our place in the world. Revealed truth was revered and valued and came to dominate large societies. When these revealed truths came into conflict the misery between the contentious was profound (think Crusades).

• Powerful men and women saw that usurping these truths, crowning themselves as divine allowed great concentration of power and conquering misery (think Kings and Queens as divine).

• The rise of economics and the importance of access to raw materials and finished goods created powerful family Empires like the Medicis. In the same way that religious though was uneasy to pass off power to divine Monarchs, both the religions and Monarchs came to depend on the family dynasties for goods, services and even loans/largesse.

• Eventually through inter-marriage and magical thinking, families like the Medici’s could rise to the highest levels of society. I liken this stage to the reference to old money versus new money. I believe we are now at the age where the money is the ultimate scorecard, for better or for worse.

In the 1500s, literacy rates were about 11% and would rise closer to 60% by 1750. Like almost everything, all progress is relatively recent. Our book focused on the 1500s. It was an Age where a bit of intermarriage and sophistry was all that was necessary to turn an Italian into the Queen of France. This is the story of Catherine de Medici. Three of her sons would become the Kings of France. Our book focused on the imprint Catherine had at this pivotal point in history. In some ways the book had similarities to Isabella: The Warrior Queen by Kristin Downey which we read previously. It is fascinating to me that it seems likely that history trashes women in powerful positions in the past and viewed through a different lens has a significant impact on our opinions.

This book seemed well-researched and heavily referenced the well-thought of books about Catherine written previously. Nevertheless it provided a different interpretation and avoids the well-trodden “serpent Queen”. I learned a lot in reading this book and for that reason, I rated it an 8.

My Fellow Members

Many of the other readers (who finished the book) were decidedly mixed on the book. This is a disturbing period in France (and in most of Europe). I believe this is simply because society is pivoting toward financial considerations governing life. It is still necessary for the Isabellas and Catherines (and Holy Roman Emperors) to capitalize on religious rubrics to sustain ruthless power. The book illuminates the horrific St. Bartholomew massacre in France. It is the age of religious war between Catholics and Protestants (Huguenots in France). It is hard to imagine more opportunistic and ruthless treatment of our neighbors. It is not surprising to me that the other Monotheistic religions have managed to focus on their small differences rather than their common ground. It seems to be a feature of our upright walking ape. I can only hope that perhaps with the guidance of AI and better tuning of conclusions, we can transcend and become better.

What’s Next

I’ve reached the end of this Substack journey. This was time well spent for me and I am thankful to each of you who took time to read. I think I have the writing bug and will redirect my efforts in a new creative way. Thanks for reading.

The Poll & Music

216 DOWN, 3 TO GO!

I set out on Substack to be thoughtful and novel. I am largely satisfied. While my writing never found much of an audience I am happy I had a chance to become a better writer.

What I Want to Avoid

I am not surprised by the chatter surrounding Artificial Intelligence (AI) but am exhausted! I don’t see the unrest over Chat-GPT and Bard as particularly interesting.

AI images encourage people to prompt as if they just ate half a pan of hashish brownies. There is no harm, it’s just not that interesting to me. An analogy to childhood is Spirograph and Lite-Brite were not creating art.

Substack Obsession

The press has portrayed Chat-GPT as an existential threat to writing and the feeling is amplified here. I have been using the assistant in Gmail for quite a while — it doesn’t appear threatening.

This Post Is Finally Gonna Surprise You

Here is some vocabulary for today’s post.

Artificial Intelligence | Machine Learning | garbage in = garbage out | neural networks | Large Language Models (LLMs) | Convergence

Why LLMs Seem Dumb

My FAVORITE “feature” of LLMs like Chat-GPT and Google Bard is the application gets dumber, seems to lie, and has been termed AI hallucination.1 The results are 100% based on all the data they used to “train” the model (machine learning). I am looking forward to the xAI LLM from Elon Musk, the consummate carnival barker. He will be using Twitter/X content (you are the product) to train his model.2 While I am no longer on Twitter/X, I am confident that you would be hard-pressed to find a poorer source of diction, writing structure, or erudite musings than the content on X. Time will tell but I expect lots of poop emojis. Is there a better source of garbage in = garbage out than Twitter/X? I doubt it.

Is AI Doomed?

The answer is no — there is hope for humanity because of convergence. All of the interesting AIs are not the LLMs. The future belongs to reinforcement learning. LLMs are mostly based on a static snapshot of their training and that data is limited to the data they can steal! The only way Chat-GPT improves is to manually train with new data or intervene on all the dumb stuff discovered so far.

I think a useful analogy is an English teacher. You turn in an essay. Your teacher uncaps their red pen and bleeds all over your paper. Products like Chat-GPT are MANUALLY TUNING the neural network and trying to anticipate the mistakes kids might make IN ADVANCE. All of the very interesting AIs adjust to what they see each day! I think an English teacher might advise it is foolish to anticipate all possible errors in advance. It probably does not help that the tuners of LLMs are not stock option millionaires. Garbage In = Garbage Out.

Why the LLM obsession? Improvements in our lives are not as interesting as “draw a unicorn with a beanie on his head” or “write a story about World War I that includes the usage of drones”.

Good News Is Right Under Our Nose!

• My favorite reminder of “good” AI is autopilot which has been around for over a century! This classic scene from the movie Airplane is tough to beat.3

• Top-tier self-driving AI systems have been developed by Tesla and Waymo. The systems are constantly training on the latest driving experience of the whole fleet of cars and they learn nightly from the mistakes made the day before! They improve like children touching a hot stove. Even before the pandemic, Waymo was already simulating 100 years of driving every night BASED ON ALL PRIOR activity across the fleet. Now that is reinforcement!4

• The press has difficulty generating clicks for the relevant and reinforces the edge cases. What makes THESE systems different than Chat-GPT and Google Bard is when they do stupid stuff, the model discerns the error and begins reinforcing a better answer. Effective AI will depend upon the quality and breadth of data available. Instead of fretting so much and speculating on things we don’t know about like Ivermectin5 (horse cream), or hydroxychloroquine6 (a derivative of a WW2 treatment for malaria) — let’s try giving greater credence to following where the data takes us. A fun aside — tonic water used to contain quinine. I wonder if the British officers thought having a gin and tonic would fight malaria? Did anyone on FB/Twitter/X promote gin and tonics for COVID?

  • Deepmind AIphaFold7 — Every living thing on this planet can be reduced to a bunch of amino acids connected like TinkerToys in a repeatable pattern — we call them proteins. Before proteins were first described in 1838 we were splashing around in the mud. How proteins fold is one of the fundamental understandings of the universe. I said universe because we find proteins all the time on meteorites and they are not the same as the ones we are using. Humans are made up of 25000+ proteins. Here is an old and early post that remains in my mind as having my best subtitle as this Substack adventure winds down.

    DeepMind AlphaFold learned 3D geometry and has described how 200M+ proteins fold. This used to be an onesey-twosey thing for humans in a lab. Life gets better.

  • Deepmind GNoME8 — Graph Networks for Materials Exploration. There are about 100 elements in the periodic table. When we put them together we can mix Sodium and Chlorine and make some salt. Mixing stuff is another drudgery for humans. Mostly trial and error. In the history of humanity, we’ve figured out about 42000 compounds of consequence. AlphaFold decided 3D geometry was worth knowing. It has now been applied to the mystery of material science instead of proteins. GNoME has proposed 200000+ new and novel compounds. Legions of humans COULD HAVE NEVER accomplished this. Welcome to the future. Life gets better.

  • IBM Watson started to play chess and Jeopardy by training on all the recorded games ever played. I guess that is pretty cool but a lot like Chat-GPT. At least they weren’t using chess games played by me for training ala clipped training data nonsense used to train LLMs. The method is good enough to beat people at games almost every time. It takes time to feed in all those games. The newest AI game players are a bit more like us. They are taught the rules of the game kinda like a kid. They figure out the rest by playing. In the beginning, they lose a lot. In a very short time, they are better than any human who ever lived. Learning from experience is infinitely more interesting than memorization. I’m guessing by memorizing the filth spewed by even the founder, training on Twitter/X data is the surefire way to create more anti-Semites. Bad ideas ultimately start with narrow-minded people. Wouldn’t it be better if we could call bullshit and stop listening to bullshitters? Reinforcement learning rather than Facebook and Twitter/X musings in your feed is a better way to learn unless your side hustle is blood pressure medication. I wrote about AI gaming way back in this post. It was a bit long but had a lot of fun commentary.

    If you want a cool explanation of deep reinforcement learning AND you remember the old Atari game system, this one is for you! You might be overwhelmed to the reference to curiosity and addiction in the link. Having raised three boys who loved video games, this is a blast. It was called Agent57 since there were 57 games available on the original Atari game system.9

The Poll & Music

If you are waitlisted for the Neuralink clinical trial, this is the song for you!!!

My last footnote is only for those genuinely interested in reinforcement learning. Memorizing the next word based on the last word will eventually be understood as a parlor trick. There is an interesting link here10 and a deep dive for the intrepid in the body of the article. I imagine skateboarders and snowboarders learn new tricks by hanging out with pals and emulating what they see one step at a time. I would imagine a whole generation of kids have watched a Michael Jordan dunk on YouTube and eventually figured out how to do the same.

215 Down, 4 To Go

An update on one of my favorite posts and a year of hard effort.

A Minnesota Story

In 1930, the Nobel Prize for literature was awarded, for the very first time, to an American. The recipient was Sinclair Lewis, a man born in Sauk Center, MN in 1885. If you are interested, here is his acceptance speech in Sweden accepting the prize. Amongst my many posts here on Substack, I experimented only once with an interview. It remains one of my favorites. The person I profile is the working definition of today’s title. JL and a large group of volunteers brought the book “Free Air” by Sinclair Lewis to life. It was a community effort. There are only four posts to go. If you want to understand this story, the link is worthwhile for context.

The man I profiled (JL) in the interview is a fixture in the town where we raised our children. Whatever the need in Rosemount, MN, JL always seems to be present to say what can I do to help. When I started this Substack, JL was one of my first subscribers. It does not surprise me he became one of the people who always found time to read, comment, and sometimes correct me when I got something wrong. He is always kind with his time and seems to make time for everyone. For my little Substack, JL always made time. While I am thankful, I am not surprised.

Substack provides a nice synopsis of each user’s statistics. I have no reason to doubt their accuracy. JL read nearly every one of my posts, voted the polls with some frequency, and scattered a lot of likes and comments throughout. I know when I moved to stop Substacking, I realized that lots of people theoretically “open” a post but are never or rarely moved to do anything else! As I said once already, I am thankful but not surprised.

What Becomes of An Idea?

When people have an idea I am not sure how many (1) get acted upon (2) come to fruition. What I knew late last year was that JL was going to (1) find the right people (2) raise sufficient funds (3) realize the dream of performing a play of a movie lost since its premiere in 1922. JL works through obstacles and most importantly, delegates well. There is a lot of talent even in the smallest of towns. I marvel at the detailed follow-up against a large vision from the beginning. It is the array of people who worked together to make this play a reality. A lot of that background is available on the city arts website. Here are a few links for those who want a flavor of a small town trying to make a difference.

• Main Arts Website

• All About the Play

• Support the Arts

The Orts That Led To A Play

Sinclair Lewis wrote “Free Air” in 1919. By the next year, he became well known for his book “Main Street” which received consideration for a Pulitzer nomination. By 1926 Lewis was awarded the Pulitzer Prize which he refused. In 1930 he became the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.

In 1922 “Free Air” was made into a silent movie. No copies of the silent movie currently exist. The screenplay was lost. JL, with no prior experience, decided to write a screenplay from an array of clues left behind in the book, still photos of the filming of the movie in our little town, and the sleuthing of other sources. None of it was possible without the help of others. Sometimes we have all we need but that necessarily requires asking for help when we get stuck.

Opening Night

The show premiered on November 10th. There were six shows in all and my firsthand impression was it was excellent. In the intervening period when the production was envisioned, I ordered a couple of Sinclair Lewis’ books. I read “Elmer Gantry” and “It Can’t Happen Here” last winter. I intentionally avoided “Free Air” because I wanted the show to be my introduction.

I think I will consume many of the Sinclair Lewis books. I have enjoyed them thus far. While not related to “Free Air” I thought “It Can’t Happen Here”, written in 1935 was a cautionary tale about the emergence of Fascism in the United States. Now I understand why a certain t-shirt rose in popularity in America’s recent past. I included a photo of the shirt in the old linked interview. While the quote is not attributable to Lewis, after reading the book, the sentiment is obvious.

"When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross"

Punching Above Your Weight Class

I loved the play. When I looked at the stage and the setting and all of the volunteer support, it was a community success story. The costumes, the direction, and the props were great! This was far beyond community theater. The car which played a central role in the story was a remarkable labor of love for the gentleman who built it. The play run was two weekends and a great success. The town of Sauk Centre, MN has tentatively engaged to include the performance during the annual Community “Sinclair Lewis Days” festival in the summer of 2025. Here is the website from last summer. I think for the troupe the performances will be a thrill.

The Poll & Music

Since things are winding down for me here on Substack, I have a poll question. I enjoyed making the polls but it always seemed they were more interesting to me than you.

The effort of many and commitment to each other is needed to pull off a performance like Free Air in a small community. Early in my Substack journey, I wrote a post about the history of music development. In that post, I shared a fun street musician version of a song.

The song is about what is required from a group of people working together for each other. This one is worth another listen. For most of you, this is new as this was early days.

214 Posts Down, 5 to Go

While it was not a consistent pattern, I eventually made my history book club reviews a part of my Substack. Since we meet on the 2nd Tuesday of each month, these appear on the following Monday. My book club is one of my favorite activities.

Why is History Education So Controversial?

I recently read a statistic about reading habits in America. Has anyone out there ever heard of a Pareto Chart? It is probably boring mathematics and statistics for most of you. As I look back on my writing I remember the advice “you should write for yourself”. I have always tried to do that and be authentic. I suppose swimming against the tide and trying to make a Pareto chart interesting is a lost cause. This post means only five more to go till the end of 2023 — HOORAY!

A Pareto chart has surprising application to many things in our daily lives. The gist of Pareto is that 80% of what is going on is accomplished by 20% of us. It extends far beyond people but when it comes to reading, it is interesting. So the statistic I found interesting (and disturbing):

A bit more than 50% of US adults did not read a single book last year. This brings to mind a quotation attributed to one of my favorite historical figures, Benjamin Franklin. “If you love life, then you love time, for time is what life is made of”. The thought continues “If you want to know what someone is like, take notice of how they spend their time.” How we spend our time reveals the best profile of what a person is like absent the masks we often sport.

It turns out that beyond half of adults not reading at all, and a subset of those that do read are prolific readers! A Pareto chart has inspired the somewhat common expression that 20% of the people do 80% of the work. I am not so sure about that one but it works for book readers though!

Why the Pareto Tangent?

What the numbers above make clear is somewhere along the line, the joy of reading dies for many of us. Since I enjoy reading, I realize I am perhaps biased toward its importance. It could be that reading books isn’t important at all. We must always permit the possibility we got it wrong. My opinion is the more people explore the world of reading, the better informed they will be. I also believe a well-informed society guards a better future. All of this bumps against mysticism, outright ignorance, raw political power, and misdirection in our modern age. The durably outlandish, highly unlikely, and “good old days” yearning remain capable of highjacking human intellect. I have an idea let’s ban books! What do we know:

• The chance to reach people and shape their future is in their youth.

• Children, by definition, are in their formative years and developing their interests. To squash this early seems the cruelest and dumbest of plans.

• It would seem restriction rather than nurturing reading and exploration is the surefire method to limit their future and what they might share with the rest of us.

• Rational limits on content and suitability are reasonable. What I know is educators and librarians are better equipped to develop what is age-appropriate than hare-brained reactionaries. I fear the same rejection of expertise amongst social media imbeciles and rank amateurs purporting to “doing their own homework” is part of the silly trend of the uninformed distorting policy. Next time someone repeats an unlikely statistic or outright absurd, ask them what a Pareto chart or just see if them can even spell it.

• I believe the heeding of the zealotry of conservative Christians to make this decision is no more sensible than the Saudi-funded Madrassas in Pakistan and Afghanistan that have created generations of largely illiterate zombies who managed to memorize the Koran. There have been 150M books written, why should we stick to the “innate wisdom” of 2 or 3 much less heed the advice of someone only interested in 1? Life improves and living today can rock. Distrust the ancient and unlikely.

What Does This Have To Do With November’s Book?

I looked forward to this book when the schedule was laid out. Sometimes I think understanding where you’ve been helps us understand our place. I’m not sure when I became a fan of history books. I am pretty sure it wasn’t because of the cheesy textbooks of my education. Our author spends a lot of time identifying errors and omissions in an array of textbooks. He is focused on “things that are wrong”. He is especially focused on “things that are wrong” that fit the political bias that pervades this book.

My Opinion On History Textbooks

I believe history textbooks are a reduced set of stories and even myths that reinforce a point of view. My education was Parochial. I think history books have the challenge of being similar to religious education. Present some limited script, imply it is authoritative, and isolate those who believe something slightly different. Context is not provided as we are trying to map a story spanning many years and perhaps eons. The wrath of the “yeah but” crowd is inevitable and stands firmly in conflict with critical thinking. In the broad reading in my history book club I think I now embrace the historical importance of a person is like a pan of jello. It will start liquid and eventually firm up a bit. It will remain jiggly for a while. Time is required to establish a workable explanation of what happened in an era and its consequences. In the end, however, history textbooks are a series of appended Wikipedia profiles with less depth to fit a curriculum. They offer the DISTINCT DISADVANTAGE that they get no refinement till the next edition.

The Meeting

There were 17 at the table to discuss the book. I think many of them were EXCITED to see the results of the voting for next year’s books! More than 1/3 of the attendees did not finish the book including me! I sat in position 15 so I was able to hear lots of opinions on the book. Here are some anonymous quotes:

“too wordy and repetitive”, “repetitive — too long”, “couldn’t wait to finish”, “it’s an academic book and dated. The difference between the 1995 and 2018 editions was striking”, “stuck in the 1980s”, “print was bad — silly sentences”, “what is missing in history education is teaching people there is complexity in the world”, “not big picture”

My Take & the Consensus

By the time it was my turn to speak, I was relieved that I had abandoned finishing the book. To be quick in my review sans rating (I did not finish) I started with:

I love the expression “that’s an hour I’ll never get back”. I toiled through this book and eventually conceded…I think it is the human condition to consider ourselves exceptional. I had a parochial and later technical education. I learned little of consequence in history class but always wanted to know more. I surveyed a couple of history classes after graduation for FUN. When I traveled I tried to read about the places I visited. Discovering this book club has been a great solution to genuinely understanding history.

Interesting Observations

My favorite takeaways from my fellow members today are provided. Even when the book misses the mark, there is always something to learn:

• Things get better

• History SUFFERS from the human proclivity to embrace truth as static. In other fields, we call this divine or revealed truth. It is inconceivable parents would accept the idiocy of teaching math or science as if it were still the 1500s.

• Education should be about teaching complexity and subtlety instead of mythmaking.

The Poll & Music

Our book club has read a lot of books. I learned something from each of them. That doesn’t mean I always love the book — that’s not how it works. I do, however, love the long-form process of a careful review of a topic. I think because I likely didn’t learn much history in school, that made it a clean canvas for a life of discovery.

If you are interested in a quick history of most of the 20th century, you could do worse than this:

There are lots of ways to see the world and I think each of them are useful. After a bunch of posting it is not surprising I might repeat myself. It feels better to consider it means my thinking is converging. In an old post I shared a favorite quote from the statistician George Box — “All models are wrong but some are useful”.

Right, Wrong, and In Between

When I was young and impressionable my parents started with right and wrong. I think the model was wrong but it was useful! Right and wrong is a great way to simplify the world especially if you don’t know what a hot stove feels like. Yes and no, right and wrong, left and right, up and down. Useful, but wrong sometimes.

I would imagine we would have figured out most everything a while ago if there wasn’t any subtlety to the world. What our path on this Earth has taught us is we need our eyes and other senses at all times. I figure once we accept black or white as a truism, we may as well wear a hood and earplugs. Certitude is the path to getting lost in the wilderness.

This doesn’t mean there is no value in a compass, our anchored beliefs, or acquired knowledge. What is true, at least for me, is with practice I can be joyful in learning new things or even subtle adjustments to what I thought I knew.

I didn’t always think this way. Nowadays I have come to a place where I have equal parts faith and hope that any current understanding can always be refined and get better. For those things I’ve gotten wrong and let be settled in my mind I must work through it to a better understanding. I like to believe this is not only better for me but for the reflected self the world experiences. The best part of all of it is the approach nurtures my hope and faith.

What a wonderful thing it would have been to have this outlook as a young man. That’s not how it works. We are all works in progress.

Marble Talk

So what’s up with the marbles? Today I am imagining that everything worth knowing in the world and how it works can be represented by a bunch of marbles. Now the experiment I would like each of you to imagine is the following:

1. Let’s imagine we spread out all the marbles as representatives of what I will call consequential knowledge

2. Now, imagine you want to choose the fraction of “all the marbles” that represent what we’ve collectively figured out.

3. The marbles left to be figured out will be the leftovers.

4. So before we go further, pick a number for the fraction of the marbles we’ve figured out so far.

5. I suppose based on whether you are a pessimist or an optimist will govern whether you use the large jar or the small jar.

6. Today’s poll comes early as I want to see how my readers view the world and our progress so far.

I Want Your Opinion

I certainly have an opinion but unless I am just full of it, I can be swayed. I would prefer hearing from some of you as I can’t help but learn something that way. Join me in the comments for a fun dialog. I plan to revisit this topic early in December and it will be heavily based on your opinions.

Some Ideas From The Past

A topic I have discussed previously is the recency of when we developed an alphabet. I think all of the necessities for us to trailblaze toward understanding have been accomplished. An alphabet was a huge step forward for us.

Another opinion I consider important is conquering the limitations of our senses. There is a lot of very cool stuff out there. Some of it is REMARKABLY small while other parts of our world are IMPOSSIBLY large. If you are interested in small stuff and want to understand our progress so far, this one is for you

If your interest shades toward big stuff my favorite is about supernovas.

Wherever you come down on my question for a Monday morning, please check in with a comment. If you prefer your anonymity please vote in the poll.

Music

In the spirit of there are no wrong answers, enjoy this song by one of my favorite artists. The dude can sing.

A deadline shifted my Substack till noon — lunchtime reading?

One Part Belief, One Part Fear

An older post was about Supernovas but it started with Oppenheimer. Nothing makes me happier in my book club or movie viewing than when people have great differences of opinion. I loved the movie. I also enjoyed the humorous take that it was a three-hour movie about a security clearance. While I think a lot of people will enjoy the movie, I am not hearing a lot of people who reduced it to what I thought it was about.

While a lot of important cultural and technological advancements occurred in Europe from the 1400s forward, my opinion is a major development was centered upon three monotheistic religions — Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

While they all have Abraham in common, you’d never know it in the way they treat each other. Many years ago a good friend recommended a book. It was a short read but has stayed with me, for now, twenty years. It was simply titled “Abraham” and was written by Bruce Feiler. It was an eloquent explanation of what might unite so many of us rather than the path we have taken. As a lover of history, it is hard to miss or ignore the profound role of anti-Semitism that shaped Europe and its ex-pats. The role of Christianity and Islam in this smoldering hatred is hard to ignore.

Part of the story of “Oppenheimer” is everyone did all they could to ignore the contributions to understanding our world as particle physics emerged. The United States was not profoundly tolerant of the Jews, they were simply less oppressive than the places many of the scientists fled. By the time of the war, Jews had largely been herded into Poland or confined in Russia. There were more Jews in Poland than in ALL OF WESTERN & SOUTHERN EUROPE combined. For centuries, abject hatred and animus had played a terrible role. Everywhere else they had been ostracized for centuries. For me, the broader story of Oppenheimer was that their contributions were tolerated but the celebration was simply impossible for American culture. At some level the persecution and the emergence of the Communist witch hunt was inevitable.

I am an optimist and believe life improves. I also believe there is a way to go. The emergence of Neo-Nazis coming out of the woodwork is a story of PROFOUND ignorance over the last 20 years in America and Europe. It is depressing to me. There seem to be apologists at the ready after all these years. For frequent readers, my favorite shorthand that bothers me is the tendency of people to know something is wrong but fall back on “yeah but” to protect their tribe. Amongst lawyers as the joke goes, this is simply pounding the table. We can be better. When I began voting in 1980 I never dreamed that things like the Confederate flag or Neo-Nazi mentality would become a minority component of a major party coalition. I can only assume many in such a party (the overwhelming majority I hope) simply have figured out how to say “yeah but” look at the other guys and consider that enough. For me, these ideologies are deal-breakers. I respect but fear that for many, “yeah but” is a better rationalization. Mine is just an opinion. If we meet IRL, I hope we avoid “yeah but”.

What’s The Macro Result?

Google Search transformed the world. Sure there are other search engines. Russians use Yandex and the Chinese use Baidu. It is not clear to me that things have changed enough in the 75 years since the end of WW II. I do believe America remains the world’s best hope. I believe people vote with their feet. It is the reason America remains the destination. What does this have to do with Google? Look up Sergei Brin. Understand the trials for his family. How did he end up at Stanford? Bring me your tired, your poor, your oppressed minorities. Understand why they never gave up hope to get here. Another Jewish ex-pat who managed to make a difference. The brain drain in Russia is palpable. The brain drain in Europe was profound during the 19th and 20th Century. History can continue to repeat itself if we can resist “yeah but”.

Over the next twenty years, the same thing will happen in China. Families that have the means will get their children here for a better life. A master race of Han Chinese and a top-down what you should think mentality (bias reinforcement) has led to a profound and ongoing genocide in Western China near the Gobi Desert. What is the crime of the Uighurs? They are not “real Chinese”. Did you know that China is “encouraging” Han relocation to dilute the Uighur gene pool? It is profoundly disturbing and reminiscent of racial purity NONSENSE we have witnessed before. Everyone could use the reminder of where it leads. Humans from anywhere on this planet share 99.6% of their base-pair DNA. Stop saying and thinking stupid s#$%. Most of all, if something dumb trickles into your head, resist the urge to say “yeah but”. The next time you see neo-Nazis carrying tastefully modified American flags and chanting “The Jews will not replace us”, please realize that supporting such a movement AND the party that accommodates them, is a far cry beyond “yeah but”. I’ve had people I know well refer to all of this as “just mean Tweets”. All of us, in our hearts, know it is much more than this.

The better angel in all of us needs to believe this movement can be squashed. What nearly 80 years since the end of World War II also advises is passivity and tolerance are not the answer. The lesser angel in all of us believes there is no consequence to who we choose to represent us. As a lover of history, I believe it is instructional. I believe that history teaches us is decisions we make collectively have consequences. I do not believe when we go to the polls we have any sense of the consequences. We vote on our hunches. Save for Jesus Christ, more books have been written about Abraham Lincoln than anyone who ever walked the earth. Abraham Lincoln in the election of 1860 lost the vote in his home county. He is the only President in our history that was not welcome in his hometown. [now the subtitle of this post might make sense]

What is the lesson of history and the consequences of decisions at some moment in time? I read a whitepaper a long time ago about the angst in the US State Department when nations reach a crossroads. The expression that focuses their concern is “One person, one vote, one time”. The gist is whatever a culture might feel is its essence will sometimes be at stake when we least expect it. Long after I read the whitepaper, I saw the expression appear in the news as elections approached in Iraq and later Afghanistan. I doubt that people when they voted in 1860 saw the election as existential. The US is the most amazing of experiments. We were founded out of conflict with England. Nearly 100 years later, Lincoln presided over the execution of war over America’s original sin. As a young five or so, much of America burned almost 100 years later as we navigated the cashing of the check written on the blood of the Civil War. Almost fifty years later, (1) mass shootings in a Synagogue in Pittsburgh (2) Neo-Nazis marching in Virginia to the din of “the Jews will not replace us”. It is inconceivable to me at least that many don’t realize the gamble they face as America faces a pivot again. Sometimes the election is not about what your marginal tax rate might be.

The Poll & Music

With the awareness the only constant is change, I realize I, like many, suffer from recency bias. Not every decision is pivotal. Some just feel larger than others. Mostly, when I am not sure of myself, I examine how reversible a decision might be and what are the consequences. I feel we are amidst big decisions with big consequences.

I plan to use the abbreviation FLC a fair amount today. So let’s get it over with. FLC is short for fully loaded cost.

Keep It Simple

Ockham’s Razor is one of my favorite principles. While exceptions can prevail, I believe almost anything reduces to the simplest explanation being the best. Many challenges divide us philosophically, politically, socially, and economically.

So why FLC?

I am not a fatalist. There are all sorts of problems and challenges we get bent out of shape over. I believe most problems are just one good idea away. Once the better idea comes, nostalgia and hard-nosed Capitalism become partners and dig in to fight the better idea. Someone always has something to lose when a new idea arrives. The better idea typically emerges but not without avoidable pain, discomfort, and distress. For me, that is the better way to think about problems that seem intractable. I also believe if you are in the business of making X, it is in your SELFISH interest to indoctrinate your customers to believe the status quo rules and there is no need for any adjustments. So for today give me the benefit of the doubt and let’s talk about why the idea of fully loaded cost (FLC) is an idea whose time has come!

Explain Yourself!!!

What do I mean by fully loaded cost? Our economy creates innovative products all the time. My ideas here are not novel and I think they are sensible. Any product that costs a certain amount for the consumer but creates OTHER COSTS for others is the root of many of our problems. I hope that each of these (or at least some of them) makes my opinion about FLC clear and interesting!

Premise: Travel by Road is Necessary

People will travel by car or truck for the foreseeable future. I reject virtue-signaling how they should do it. I merely want anyone who operates a vehicle to play the fully loaded cost to society of their travel. If someone wants to drive a 9000-pound pickup I just don’t want the driver of a 2500-pound subcompact to subsidize them. I don’t think you need to subsidize the opposite behavior either. I generally believe in NO-DISTORTED markets and believe we will get to efficient solutions when we ruthlessly excise the corruption. When I casually consider the externalities of driving the following jump out as obvious:

1. Sometimes we hurt, kill or damage the property of others. This is priced in insurance.

2. Every mile we drive, we leave pollution behind that hurts all of us collectively. This is not priced accurately and dramatically understates the impact. It is UTTERLY ridiculous to not set taxation levels on fuels based on the grams of pollution that results from its burning. Just because a car might run a long way on plutonium it would be ABSURD to allow it as a motor fuel. Adjust taxation on diesel in accordance with the DAMAGE it transfers to the innocent bystanders.

3. Every mile we drive DESTROYS collective property. This is not priced accurately. The shortfall is borne in aging and unsafe infrastructure.

Items 2 and 3 are massively distorted and highly underestimated. Those who love the current system yell (1) no new taxes (2) manipulate the system behind the scenes (3) pick winners and losers — hint they are not you and I. The costs of driving are not complicated. Damage to the roads and damage to the environment are obvious. The difference is the gap to the FLC.

Why Do My Roads Have So Many Potholes?

• Roads get damaged based on how much someone drives and how heavy their vehicles are! This makes the CULPRIT of how bad roads and bridges are due to personal trucks, commercial trucks, and electric cars.

• The FLC of driving is how much YOUR vehicle deflects and damages the road.

• Destruction and poor maintenance of the roads are PLAIN TO SEE. Destruction of the environment is trickier. There is consensus for each of them just to different degrees. In Minnesota, our consensus of the former came home when the 35W bridge collapsed into a river.

• Political gridlock means we classify this as an intractible problem (1) Liberals might want to raise gas taxes. (2) George W Bush against the backdrop of the 9/11 attacks pursued tax cuts to PREFERENTIALLY favor pickup trucks IF AND ONLY IF they weighed MORE THAN 6000 pounds and reward them with tax deductibility (still a thing). It was an ACTIVE POLICY of some automakers to add steel wheels to their vehicles to get them to 6000 pounds. (3) States like Wyoming PUNISH the purchase of electric vehicles — let’s screw the libs. (4) Policies of the “sky is falling” type are to give preference to the purchase of electric vehicles. What is the truth? People who buy a Rivian pickup are driving an 8500+ pound vehicle!!! Why not just make a dump truck your daily driver?

• The truth is a sensible automotive policy would be to TAX THE VEHICLE based on the number of miles driven BASED on its mass plus the total amount of carbon in the atmosphere. In that way, the user would be paying the FLC.

• WHAT MIGHT RESULT? — The (1) roads would be SAFER, (2) people would move toward more rational vehicle choices, (3) those who are damaging the roads would be paying for it (4) the marketplace would provide new options once the distortion of subsidy is lifted (5) the people who do not drive would not be subsidizing the profligate misuse of a public asset.

• In the spirit of facts are stubborn things, ponder this in terms of how much the cost of goods is transferred to others. Think about this the next time you consider someone who drove your tomatoes across the country on a tractor-trailer instead of in a local greenhouse. Why, exactly, is it SENSIBLE to subsidize the tasteless tomato and lay off a large portion of the cost on those who didn’t want a crummy tasteless tomato in the first place?

• Am I tilting at windmills? I am quite sure that for many of you, the next paragraph will be SHOCKING.

“A fully loaded tractor-trailer weighs 80,000 pounds, 20 times more than a typical passenger car at 4,000 pounds, but the wear and tear caused by the truck is exponentially greater. One analysis contends freight-hauling trucks cause 99 percent of wear-and-tear on US roads, but only pay for 35 percent of the maintenance.”

• THE REAL WORLD — What I was reminded of when I wrote this was an unusual location in north-central Minnesota. The sand in that area is the right diameter for fracking. It is NOT LOCATED on an Interstate-class road. Firms that engage in hydraulic fracking bring their heavy trucks into the area and largely destroy a set of secondary roads. The State of Minnesota needs to maintain the road. The RIGHT SOLUTION is no oversized trucks on that road. If the sand is genuinely important let the fracking firms upgrade and maintain the road instead of a free ride on taxpayers. I am not against fracking. What I am against is firms engaged in some practice in which they extract a mythical profit and lay the rest off on taxpayers. The difference in costs is the FLC. If you think this is an isolated practice. Consider the fact that the Federal government often BUILDS A LOGGING road for outsourced firms to lumber out national forests. It would seem rational to expect the company that does the logging to build the road that they need to make their bid work. It would seem Weyerhauser can afford the FLC. I am NOT AGAINST LOGGING — it just seems absurd that taxpayers need to build a road to make the deal sensible. If you are interested in learning more, check out the footnote. The PRC is infuriating.1

Rest assured I have several examples of this crazy principle. My commitment to shorter posts means one example will have to do. Please join me in the comments. My sense and opinion is FLC primarily describes a lot of the painful challenges in our economy be it pollution, soil quality, and recycling. The guiding principle is whoever originates the product should retain the responsibility for the FLC of the product including the impact on society. Here are a couple of previous posts that discuss similar concepts.

Regardless of what your FAVORITE activity happens to be, what is wrong about charging upfront for the fully loaded cost of an activity. This single action would discourage bad behavior and encourage limiting necessary behavior to the greatest extent possible.

The Poll & Music

Today is about the simplicity of the answers once we commit to change. I consider it a great myth that change is beyond our capacity. It starts with deciding what is going on is no longer tolerable. While she never got a residency in Vegas, amongst the young Disney kids who became music stars I always considered this the very best of voices that appeared in the era. Realization is the key step and how we get to change. Listen at least till at least 01:00 and I am sure you will appreciate a great voice. I think we could readily plug her voice into a revival.

Here are some possible topics for the comments if you are interested in the dialog:

1. What is the FLC of driving a mile in a given vehicle?

2. What is the FLC of a 20 oz bottle of Coke?

3. What is the FLC of ultra-processed food?

A little late this morning. Family comes first. Will check in on your thoughts later today.

For those of you who have supported my writing from the early days, today I venture back to nearly the beginning! I have not been a steady poster and have taken some breaks. I first dipped my toe into Substack in late September 2021. About a week into posting, I did a 4 part story which I am still quite partial to. It was about science, being human, the world we live in, and social media. No wonder I needed four parts! Part 2 applies to today’s post and is about what we have in common with every living thing. We all have senses, some better than others and our optional bigger brains just piece the sensor together. Before we get all full of ourselves, lots of animals (some of them seemingly lowly) can do way better parlor tricks than us!

The Creative Class Seems Anxious

The fear of an AI-written future is palpable, especially on a platform like Substack. Whether in the essays themselves or leaking into the comments there is a lot of collective angst about AI and its impact on creative things. I enjoy the expression “Never underestimate the ability of humans to rationalize”. Growing up in a working-class town, I don’t remember the creatives being anxious as robot welders replaced humans or the United States migrated its steel production over thirty years producing the same amount of steel with 20% of the workforce. The creatives in tweed jackets seemed to be okay with progress. I don’t remember folks cursing that those new robot welders will never be able to match the artistry of Uncle Frank’s welding talent. In those days writing was something a machine might never do.

A Trickle Becomes A Waterfall

We are in the EARLY days. AI 1.0 limits itself to language mostly. We are simultaneously amazed and fearful (at least the writers and other creatives). I think our current preference for Chat-GPT and the like is mostly our ego. The alphabet is about 4000 years old. What we hear utter, understand, interpret, and respond to is a small part of how we see the world. There is a lot more to our senses and the Chat-GPT craze is based mostly on a small slice of what we perceive. At least in my estimation, our perception is based a lot more on vision than talking. Most of all this world we share an an evolution over billions of years leans more heavily on smell, taste, and vision than it does on speech. We just managed to crack this aspect of us and perhaps stress it on an outsized basis.

In the same way for example that early search engine data was purely text, I think AI (at least the Chat-GPT flavor) is just text and despite the shiny object is rudimentary. I have little doubt that the rudiments of thought and even consciousness that we seem to revere will soon collapse into a familiar, understandable, and repeatable pattern.

Artificial Intelligence Is Intelligence

I am not immune to seeking a better understanding of Chat-GPT and Google Bard. I am sure there are many other interactive communicators, but these seem to be a good place to start. They are both fun to play around with. Chat-GPT is focused on generating text responses while Google Bard is more focused on a conversation. They both have their place I think. Chat-GPT is based on a somewhat large crawl of the internet including some books. It is not surprising it might generate convincing content since books in print are a reasonable analog for above-average writing.

Don’t Mind The Double Standard

The marvelous spongy blob on our brainstem is a cool bit of evolution. A while back I wrote an essay chock full of interesting ideas (wow am I full of myself today) titled “It Starts In Your Head”. I thought of this old post recently as I am making my way through an interesting book titled “The Science of Storytelling: Why Stories Make Us Human and How to Tell Them Better” by Will Storrs. There is a wonderful confluence between science and storytelling. Only a small subset of us has a firm understanding of many scientific breakthroughs. Stories are for the rest of us. My sense is one of the great opportunities ahead for the creatives is the creation of such stories.

It’s Just a Neural Net

A generation of computer scientists have been INSPIRED by humanity. Neurology has not quite unmasked how neurons work but this has not stopped the onward march of science! What I know for SURE is if this paragraph doesn’t wrap up quickly I will lose some of you. Neural nets are a human-inspired synthetic way to imagine how we reason and figure stuff out. I think these topics are worth learning more about if you are even a little interested. The first one is pretty good (reading), and the second one is for the truly interested (video).

• Neural Networks for Dummies

• Basics of Machine Learning

Okay, so that is as techie as we will get. Time for the fun and the reason for my excitement in this post.

Did You See That?

When I was a kid I remember hearing that if someone loses one of their senses, one of the other might be heightened. I never knew if this was true or not. What I do know is sometimes when you lose a sense some of your other senses can get worse!!! An example of this is early onset vision loss is associated with reduced taste sensation. Nearly all sensitivity to flavors is reduced except for saltiness.

Let’s Talk Senses

I have written many posts about how our brains seem to work. I am MOST amazed that everything in the plant and animal kingdom is related and we can map the inter-relationships in a sort of tree of life. Darwin chose the tree as a great metaphor for explaining relatedness.

It just seems to me if beetles can discern visual patterns in a complex way we are barking up the wrong tree pursuing the special nature of human consciousness. If you are more interested in this topic I think a few of my essays explore this further in a useful way. I am most intrigued by the interaction BETWEEN the senses we seem to know little about. Topics that interest me include

• Why does light therapy induce cleanup cycles in our brains and fix cognitive defects?

• Why does sound therapy induce cleanup cycles in our brains and fix cognitive defects?

• If we are dramatically special why do such a broad array of animals possess senses well beyond ours like CO2 sensors, electromagnetic sensing, magnetometers for migration, color-changing capacity, etc.?

• Why do early onset blind humans experience loss of some taste capacity and heightened taste capacity for stuff like saltiness?

• If a broad array of traits have resulted across the animal kingdom why is it so hard to imagine that something as simple as a neuron might not take a bit of a trial and error path to emerge a new feature like consciousness?

What is the Future?

A very long time ago, internet pundits were up in arms with the angst that Google was reading our Gmail to generate “relevant” advertisements. Google was pretty straightforward at the time. They advised they had begun integrating AI into Google Search (around 2005). They had already begun the path toward multi-sense relevance to better understand us. This meant video, navigation, and audio (music) to better facilitate and represent what is going on in this upright walking ape with five senses. A focus and angst on “the last war” is likely a fool’s errand.

The Poll & Music

One of my favorite artists explored the silliness of leaving this up to a handful of us who know better (and are trapped inside a dual-brained animal pursuing survival and advantage). Our primitive selves and how we see things might merit a second look. I think that AI might be just the answer. It might even be able to save us from ourselves.

Closing

AI is a companion technology to what it is to be human. There is no reason to assume that a carbon-based multi-billion-year trial and error evolution of what a bunch of neurons coupled with some cool senses can accomplish. The secret sauce, in my opinion, is to (1) have a broad sensor network (2) assemble such data (3) create a model of what we “know” and (4) project the near future. A silicon-based version of this seems likely to be able to do this very well. I say strap in and enjoy the ride.

I try to embrace optimism. I think the big problems in the world (like war, indifference, inequality) need a fresh set of eyes. We have many times, perhaps due to the primitive roots of our brains pursued genuinely dangerous pursuits. I believe a more holistic evaluation of what is going on is the path to stability and humans pursuing a destiny of greater understanding of the world we share and the people we share it with. Leaving this just to people has perhaps created problems that seem intractable.

Things Don’t Just Happen

There is an element of randomness in our lives at times. I think it is very important to come to terms with the uncertainties and just roll with the changes. A while ago I wrote about a random bit of road rage that I witnessed in a wintertime post. I don’t dwell on the chaotic elements of life we encounter and just ride the wave. If you are newish here and don’t know what a coal roller is, click through and jump down to the paragraph titled “And Now the Ugh”.

My History Book Club is the opposite of “things just happen”. There are lots of moving parts and when we examine them, things don’t just happen. I created a link on my homepage titled “BookClub”. It is a historical record of all the books we’ve been exploring since the end of 2011. If any of the books seem interesting, the tabs [byMeeting], [byTitle], and [byAuthor] offer links to GoodReads, Google Books, Amazon, and AbeBooks if you are interested in learning more or buying a copy. While he will be anonymous here, THANK YOU TO GD for organizing and managing the nomination process! It is a lot of work and seems a mostly thankless job.

What’s Ahead?

We have 37 nominations for our reading list for next year. I’m not sure the greater membership wants to read my recommendations but I nominated the following books. If you are interested in my taste in books, click the Learn More link in each case. As we learned in Hamilton, 525,800 minutes is what you get each year. Each of the books below is worth a bit of the pile. If you happen to be American or have an interest in American History, the 3rd book is likely the best explanation of the American experiment I have ever read.

How About October 2023?

Beyond the selection of books for the year, our wonderful volunteer GD also distributes the books for the year in multiple ways. Since we meet on the 2nd Tuesday of the month, we get a mixture of either four or five weeks to read our books. We load the longest books to take advantage of the extra week of reading time. Beyond that, wherever possible the books get distributed by theme. Since the prior Monday was Columbus Day (Indigenous People’s Day in Minnesota), this book was plugged into our October meeting.

The Meeting

The turnout was sixteen people for our meeting. About average or a little light I think. 5 of 16 did not finish the book so wouldn’t provide a complete evaluation. The burden would fall on the 11 of us. While our assessments of the book are just opinions, I am fascinated by the extremes. Two people voted the book 10/10 while we also had a 3 and a 5 mixed in! The book led to widely divergent opinions. I voted it a 7 so somewhere in between. The overall average rating was 7.1 of 10 which is quite low side for our reviews. I imagine if you select books that someone bothers to nominate (and hence loves) and are further filtered by the members’ voting, we self-select for above-average books. I think that is why our books typically are rated 8 and above.

The Good

I learned some new things in this book. The tragedy and perhaps genocide by some measures of Native Americans is a difficult and sometimes horrrifying story to hear. There were many facts I was exposed to in the book. I am always grateful when I broaden my perspective on a topic.

The Bad

The book reminded me of the expression “To a hammer the whole world looks like a nail”. While the author provided reasonable examples of the clash between European settlers and Native Americans, I was disappointed when she bent 500 years of history and reduced it all to colonialism for example. There was more than adequate content to avoid talking about the War in Vietnam. I am not an absolutist and I dread conversations, books, and opinion pieces that reduce to black and white. I just don’t believe it is a useful way to analyze.

• Everyone who disagrees with you doesn’t hate America.

• Every action of a school librarian is not “woke”

• Every single policy intersection doesn’t mean someone is being racist

• The world is not 6000 years old just because a wonderful guide to living might imply their written history seemed to coincide.

• American policies across the years have been neither a consummate evil nor so perfect that we should ban the books that say otherwise.

The book failed for me because of its absolutist stances.

The Verdict

It would be a shame and frankly quite boring to be in a book club where others just read the favorites of someone like me or someone else. A comprehensive approach to selection means compromise for ALL OF US. The world would be a better place if more things worked that way. Some of the books I recommend are probably stinkers for the same reason it is likely the planet is closer to 4.5B years than to the 6000 year option. No one has cornered the market on the truth and ignoring those that claim otherwise is always a good plan.

The Poll & Music

Here’s a song that combines books, music, and love. What could be wrong with that?

Blasts From the Past

Today is all about references to old posts I liked (and you might also). They only made the cut if I had some inspirational update. This post is BEST-VIEWED on the web rather than email or the app. All of these posts have inspired some news in my Google Newsfeed. I’m glad I tend to click on space exploration and the like rather than the latest indictments. Makes for a better newsfeed.

I Miss Tennis

This has been a very difficult summer for me. I love to play tennis and I am blessed with a wonderful circle of friends who enjoy the game also. I have been contending with a health problem related to my feet and my Type-2 diabetes. This is certainly the least amount of tennis I have played in years. I am confident I finally have a good diagnosis and action plan to get back on the court. I cannot wait.

Scaffolds

I read recently the early forays into FAKE MEAT are struggling. Not surprising to me. I continue to be an “opportunarian” {my word} but will try almost anything. This old post was about an amazing and fast-advancing branch of science. This was inspired by this funny application of scaffolds. If you believe the world could use an easier-to-eat burrito or gyro, this is for you!

Ornaments

As a result of my post “Keep Calm & Carrion” I am receiving some unsolicited recommendations for planning my demise. One more absurd than another. I was inspired to think of this old post by another ridiculous option for managing your final disposition. If you want to know your options, the link has 23 novel methods on offer. One of these, in particular, reminded me of a friend who is a talented writer and a retired high school English teacher. He recently wrote a screenplay. I was lucky enough to be a proofreader. It is a magical tale. Becoming an ornament seems as good a use as any for pelletized me. For fans of the movie “The Interview”, perhaps Kim Jong Un would consider becoming a firework?

Get Off My Lawn

For movie buffs who enjoyed the movie “Gran Torino”, Clint Eastwood exhorts his Hmong neighbors to “Get off my lawn”. The screenplay was written by Nick Schenk from Minneapolis. It was inspired by the Hmong community of immigrants who call St. Paul, MN home. The story was set near the St. Paul Ford plant. The movie moved the story to the Detroit area. Many of us can get territorial over “our perceived property”. I enjoyed writing “An Iberian Play Date”. It is kind of a story about encroaching on other’s property. We are a weird species who made up private property, build fences, install invisible fences and even sit on chairs watching our video doorbell feeds. For all the obsession about controlling our illusory property, we sure get miffed when other creatures do the same. My post about killer whales was about the evolution and learning of the apex predator of the sea, Orcinus orca. Ever since the post, I get steady updates from Google News. There was a recent high-profile yacht and sailboat race off the coast of Gibraltar. Apparently, the race organizers did not secure rights to the course. They seemed shocked when some neighbors yelled “get off my lawn”.

If You Blink, You’ll Miss It

We are born with perfectly serviceable, everyday eyes. Cover your eyes with a blindfold (or notice when your vision begins to decline). Your perception of the world takes a major hit. Some of my favorite explorations are the world at its smallest and largest scales. Our eyes take care of the in-between. Novel experiments that explore the extremes of scale reveal our world in unexpected ways. The recent movie Oppenheimer was a tour-de-force. The timing circuitry to coordinate the implosion of a bomb is small fractions of a second. We take this for granted nowadays with the Uber performance of our phone cameras. The absolute state-of-the-art commercial camera flash can produce light in a 1/80,000-of-a-second pulse! Each time we try to understand nature better we need better instruments. One of my favorite books I’ve read in a while is “The Perfectionists”. It was a simple story. It described how each time we figured out how to make stuff more accurately, a whole new world of products and discoveries came into view! I wrote a post about making stuff smaller and smaller and named it “5 Nanometers”. It’s from the early days but quite good. I am sure if a few of you peek, it might even get a comment or two!!!

A whole new world of discovery awaits because there has been a basic science breakthrough in massively improving a flash. This breakthrough is not new but it is new to me! The promise is to be able to capture what is happening over 1 billionth of a second!!! That’s 1/1,000,000,000. A whole new world awaits. A beam of light travels about eight inches in that time. Many uncovered mysteries to come! These BASIC SCIENCE breakthroughs beget a wave of new discoveries.

The Poll & Music

Sometimes old is new.

Thanks for the patience as I missed my post last week Monday as well as yesterday. I definitely missed writing but didn’t quite feel up to it. I have finally stopped coughing and feeling better! Hopefully I will sneak in a catchup post since I missed last Monday AND this Monday.

Keep It Simple!

I am a relative novice when it comes to the topic of meditation. The extent of my knowledge is I have sampled it and it is a powerful experience if you commit to it. A companion topic that gets an awful lot of space these days is consciousness. A Substack friend shared the perspective that there are a lot of self-important people with all sorts of all-encompassing explanations while a perfectly serviceable version emerged with the Buddha THOUSANDS OF YEARS ago! The level of self-importance is captured best by the number of times people fall back on “the hard problem”. I wonder if Newton or Einstein interrupted people all the time and reminded folks that what they were considering was a “hard problem”? I figured it would be unfair to write about this topic unless I did some research which included a fair amount of reading and some Podcasts.

For those of you who follow the consciousness discussions in science news there is finally pushback on a well developed theory called Integrated Information Theory (IIT). I am not a neurology expert but I am also not a dolt. To the extent that I’ve read about it, this seems like an explanation that requires a bit of faith rather than a scientific test. It’s okay to believe what you wish absent evidence, it just doesn’t seem like science to me. Before folks like Newton started providing TESTABLE explanations for how stuff moves in the sky, a prevailing theory for comets was Gods riding fiery chariots. These are fun stories but absent a testable thesis it is hard to call it science.

That’s a Lot of Arrogance!

Exploring a topic like consciousness is a blast. When I wrote about the remarkable creatures named Orca Orcinus a while back, I learned enough to doubt the tendency of a bunch of Homo Sapien neurologists to craft a tale that simply fed their narcissism, assured we are special, we are different and consciousness is rare and reserved mostly for upright walking apes. I think it was at that moment I decided such reasoning was ridiculous. The Orca story is not primarily a consciousness story but entertaining nonetheless.

Isaac Newton Didn’t Retreat to the “Hard Problem”

Now I suppose if you are enamored or mystified or even awe-struck by consciousness, this might seem like a bunch of bluster. However, I do believe that the most amazing discoveries of how this universe works have turned out to be simple and elegant. To me, there is no reason to believe history won’t repeat itself. When Isaac Newton was vexed by how things like planets and moons moved around, he might have had moments thinking “this is a hard problem”. What actually happened is he imagined a simpler explanation. Of course, to prove it oo himself, he sharpened his writing utensil and developed a variation on mathematics to explain himself. One of the funny things about calculus, perhaps a subject many avoided in their college years is it is quite simple and elegant. It merely focused on describing change (differentiation) and accumulation (integration). While the symbology might seem daunting, it remains simple and elegant. My favorite part of Newton’s journey was the title of his seminal work. “On the Movement of Heavenly Bodies” is the title he chose. Newton’s Laws of Motion would fit on an index card. Simple and elegant.

If It’s Not Special, Not Rare, What Is It Exactly?

We’ve crafted belief systems that place humanity as centrally important and having dominion over all other creatures. Over a wide array of my writing, I have focused on the transformational quality of measuring things. It has been the gateway to unbelievable discoveries and insights about our world. There is NOTHING special about our eyes but the inspiration of the telescope and the microscope changed everything. There are creatures in this world with senses well beyond what our lowly genome can manage. The ability to sense electric currents, and magnetic fields, and see the ultraviolet is littered across the animal kingdom. What good are these senses/sensors unless we can act upon them? That, to me, is the magic of creating an image of what all these senses mean. My sense is this is consciousness.

Bring Back the Nintendo 64

Early in my career, I worked on computing systems for nuclear power stations. The original installed systems had 64K of core memory. A nice phone nowadays has about two million times as much memory. I know these comparisons are boring to some but they have a point. The point is even those original crude computing systems were sufficient to monitor a nuclear power station and inform operators when valves closed to a precision of 16/1000s of a second. Maybe those systems were comparable to what a beetle can surmise. When I think about the Nintendo 64 (or the main monitoring computer for a nuclear power station circa 1975), the lesson for me is a little bit of computing goes a long way. I’m not sure what the comparable number of neurons is but I imagine it is quite modest. A while back I profiled a silly science experiment wherein a small number of neurons were programmed (in a dish) to play pong. All of the following cool tasks (1) play Donkey Kong (2) monitor a nuclear power station (3) play Pong might just be what neurons do and that is all there is to it. Searching in vain for something that deviates from simple and elegant may just be a fools’ errand.

Let’s Talk Beetles Just To Mess With the Neurologists

A long time ago I profiled the showcase of different senses. The lowest to the grandest of creatures sport different arrays of senses. Some of them are quite surprisingly advanced relative to our capacity. I looked back on an old post and realized that beetles have infrared sensitivity that allows them to migrate in forest fire conditions and sense the heat for upwards of 50 miles! For the record, beetles have vision, touch, smell, and taste. A handful of beetles can even hear! It’s not that I’m proclaiming outsized capacity for beetles. What I am saying is all animals of every range have senses and varying capacities and contemplative brains for planning and analysis. I think it is contrived to design theories of consciousness in deference to the “hard problem” that carves out a special place for humans. Embracing something fanciful just because your current capacity to analyze falls short seems foolish. I don’t think this is necessarily science but more likely an outsized, unjustifiable arrogance. It is amazing we can frame a model of the world our senses provide the inputs to. I share your wonder. However, I think we are far from alone.

How About Machine Consciousness?

What I learned from those primitive computers from the 1970s adequate to monitor nuclear power stations is that we shouldn’t sell the basic models short (think beetles and birds). I also believe neurons are neurons and just like a modern iPhone, it is amazing compared to one of those old nuclear plant computers (64KB vs 256GB corresponds to 4M times as powerful). It is not a shock that a shiny pocket-sized computer might have all of the pre-requisites for consciousness. I believe this is the root reason why neurology researchers are moving the goalpost and making arbitrary pronouncements largely not subject to validation for their flavor of consciousness.

The Poll & Music

With all the unease about artificial intelligence, I suppose it is okay to start thinking about this sort of stuff as external rather than innate. Here’s a song that explores the idea.

Ahoy, Books Appear Over the Horizon!

We are amidst my favorite time of year in my book club. One of our members is feverishly beating the drum for nominations. Alas, procrastination always wins. I would expect he will receive the lion's share of the nominations in the last couple of days. Each of the forty-odd members CAN nominate up to three books. It would be a logistics nightmare if we had to wade through 120 books to pick next year’s reading list. My guess is we will end up with about 40 nominees from which we will pick next year’s twelve. Nominees are due by our next meeting on October 9th and then voting is finished by November 14th. There are a surprising number of moving parts to running a book club. For the record, I submitted my nominees for next year early on. I find the hardest part of the process to be limiting myself to three books.

Our just-completed book was “Fascism: A Warning” by Madeline Albright. I decided not to put THAT in the title or subtitle because we all have grown tired of politically charged words like fascism regardless of where your views lie. Despite all that, the book was excellent. Perhaps my avoiding the title and the cover as a feature photo was inspired by the author. I’ll get to that observation soon enough.

My only gripe with the book was Ms. Albright was unwilling to commit to whether the elephant in the room fit the definition of fascistic tendencies. I am not sure why I wanted her to commit but just felt it left the book a bit open-ended.

A book club such as ours has had ample exposure to fascists of the past. Their playbook is remarkably predictable it seems. Albright takes the reader on a journey through time and flags the unflattering patterns of fascists of the past. What is unsettling about all of it is fascist behavior seems easy to identify yet we seem to fall for it nevertheless. What is striking is most all of them are decidedly unoriginal!

We had a good turnout on a beautiful September evening. There were fifteen people ready to weigh in. I was the last to arrive and the emcee singled me out as tardy and got to share my review to start. I enjoyed the book and felt Albright was uniquely positioned as she had grown up in Prague, Czechoslovakia. The arc of her life and how it was shaped and distorted by fascism made hers a voice worth heeding. I only wish she had taken a position on recent US history. Whether I would agree with her or not was not the point, I wanted her opinion. I rated the book 7.5. Two of the fifteen in attendance did not finish the book. The consensus of the 13 voters was 8.5 out of 10.

I thought the most effective part of her writing was to offer quotes and behaviors of the past that are recycled by the practitioners of today. Such examples are powerful if your mind remains open. The examples of the rise of fascism and how societies simply wake up in its midst, powerless to change it make identifying its symptoms of paramount importance.

If any of you are moved to try a history book, here is a link to the ones we’ve read sortable by Title and Author. The list is available on my homepage if the mood suits you. Drop me a note if you are interested in a recommendation. In return, if any of you have sci-fi tips I am interested.

My sense is many of us are in an echo chamber. I would imagine the book would be valuable to people on the fence and seeking a new perspective. Alas, I think they are as rare as albino buffaloes. This finally brings me back to my love of my book club. The reading list for next year will be a compromise for all. It is often the books I didn’t consider that I enjoy the most. I like to think it is a great formula to shape and change our attitudes. Once you get used to it, changing your mind is a pretty cool thing!

The Poll & Music

I was the right age for “The Clash”. I loved their 1979 album set “London Calling”. Since today it was fascism, “Clampdown” seemed a great choice.

While I’m sure unsure of the exact content, since fall is upon us, it is time to write about food again. See you next week.