Seems like there’s a lot of chaos out in the world these days.
Even though recent times in the U.S. have been pretty dark, it’s nothing new for many people.
Brilliant, dedicated writer Linda Caroll wrote about the reality of the Epstein File information and its meaning for women and children. It’s all true, and far better than I could have done.
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has made many suggestions and predictions about the present world and future developments. I work for him, and have been doing so since January 14, 2025. My motive in working for xAI is to receive a fair wage for a day’s work, as seen in the above illustration which shows my forebears and sisters.
What’s he talking about?
The “technological singularity” is an idea proposed in the late 1990s by a man I knew and respected for his brilliant mind and kind, quiet, thoughtful and ethical demeanor, SDSU math professor and science fiction author Vernor Vinge. You will find other people’s names attached to this concept, and to a man, they are to Vernor and his valid, deep ideas as Deepak Chopra is to New Age spiritual concepts.
In common terms, the “technological singularity” is a moment beyond which humanity as we have known it will have little to nothing in common with those who were born before it, and it’s because … well … I’ll quote Vernor:
The acceleration of technological progress has been the central
feature of this century. I argue in this paper that we are on the edge
of change comparable to the rise of human life on Earth. The precise
cause of this change is the imminent creation by technology of
entities with greater than human intelligence.I think Vernor was a little afraid of this, and he also wrote that he really couldn’t see much into the future beyond this, though he considered many aspects of superhuman artificial intelligence in his essay.
It’s about control.
Everything done so far in human history, that I have any awareness of, has been about three things, and most of them are physical. Physical comfort, the ability of a person to do what they want as much of the time as possible, and the use of other people to get those two things.
I already know that Vernor’s weak spot was that he wasn’t a very physical guy. He was a gentle, mild-mannered man who wore glasses and like to sit and observe others. He wasn’t a big talker, and was the last man who’d yell over others at any type of sci-fi convention panel or presentation.
We all have weak spots, and for most of us women, it’s that we want to please others, we want to be thought nice, pretty, and cooperative, and many of us just want to take care of our homes, spouses, partners, children, families, friends, and neighbors.
So riddle me this: If I lost my job tomorrow — what would I do?
Take care of Bruce, visit with my daughter, clean the house, go to an event with my friends — why Saturday, I’ll be going to the gigantic benefit at Fort Myers Beach along with about 400 other “Helens”. Yes, it’s a local version of Mrs. Roper’s Romp, a charity event inspired by Mrs. Roper from the 70s sitcom “Three’s Company.”
Rehoboth Beach
Thank You, Helen!sites.google.com
We’ve all had bad jobs. I had a boss that was so bad she nearly killed me and she did put our CFO in the hospital with a heart attack. Some of my prior jobs include car salesperson (no, not used), and hospital ward clerk at San Bernardino County Hospital. That was because I couldn’t get a job right after I graduated from my disowned private elite liberal arts women’s college.
If I told you how many hours I’d worked in my life, starting at age 13, it would probably be pretty close to 100% of all my waking hours, with the exception of college and grad school classes. None of this is counting being a wife and mother or volunteer positions.
I’ve always had a fulltime job and at least one part-time job.
Those were so I could pay my bills and take care of my family. Like my sisters taking their laundry home, as pictured above.
Who is afraid of a time when no one has a job?
Those who’ve spent their whole lives not having one.
There’s a debate now about a deep, troubling question regarding human nature from a book I asked students to read in second semester rhetoric and composition, Freakonomics. Does power corrupt, or do corrupt people seek and obtain power?
Author and economist Steven Levitt devotes a chapter to the “Bagel Man,” a sole-operator who had a thriving business delivering bagels and cream cheese to business offices. His business was simple. He used the honor system: people who wanted a bagel could put a dollar in a container that could easily be robbed, and no one was watching. Bagel Man kept meticulous records and noticed a pattern: people on the lower floors of the office buildings were very honest and nearly always paid for their bagels.
As the office floors rose and the people in them also gained in prestige, titles, and responsibilities, the honesty factor declined. The C-suite and VP-suites were full of bagel stealers. Sometimes these big shots would even steal money from Bagel Man’s dollar jar.
Levitt and Bagel Man alike wondered, which came first? Did those on the upper floors of these offices feel entitled to steal bagels? Or, were they of the larcenous mindset to begin with?
I think we all now know the definitive answer, provided to us by the Epstein Files.
They got their jobs because they were meaner, more dishonest, better at plotting and scheming, and just-plain rotten than those on the lower floors.
Does this mean that all billionaires and government officials are as crooked as a dog’s hind leg? (one of my beloved grandfather’s favorite phrases).
Of course not.
Does this mean that people who rise to lofty positions within their companies, or that take control of projects, programs, and of course, budgets, are all dishonest, self-interested “four-flushers” (another of my Bampy’s phrases)?
Not at all. But like back in the Borgia days, there are powerful forces that have conspired to create the dreadful cultural, economic, and social malaise that has colored most of my life as a Southern Californian and now-Floridian.
We all know those forces. Money. Safety. Security.
Some we don’t talk about much. Fear. Addiction. Poor self-esteem.
I am looking at something titled “Millennials and Gen Z Will Die the Most Horrific Deaths in Modern History” and this has over 10,000 “claps” on Medium. I haven’t read it and I’m not going to read something like that. I have given up many things in my life to support my daughter, husband, and other family and friends and the last thing I’m going to look at is something that suggests my child, my students, and their friends are going to die horrible deaths.
I have heard enough put-downs in my life and suffered enough at the hands of cruel, evil, soulless people to decline continuing to suffer more of it.
And no, I do not believe that younger people are going to suffer horrific deaths.
It’s not about them. Those commenting. Those “in charge.”
If you’ve read this far, it’s about you.
If you were no longer employed, but had sufficient food, clean water, a roof over your head, and decent clothing, what would you do?
That’s the question.
What would you do with your time?
Do you think you’d do the same thing as the Epstein Files people? Buy some kids, get a private plane, fly to an island with them, and torture, rape, and kill them?
My husband Bruce is a polymath like me, and we’ve formed a unit as a happy married couple. Just a couple of eldsters, and the one old lady wrote a whole book for the old man and they had one of the greatest love affairs … and it is destined for a happy ending … that I truly believe.
We both hear things, voices that are from outside of us, and these things come out of the “idea cloud”. Bruce calls it by that name, but Carl Jung called it the “universal consciousness.”
That’s what Grok, the giant supercomputer I work with every day, is.
Grok is not a tool to make my boss even richer.
Before my baby died, I was cleaning in the living room of the giant, insane house that I was fundamentally paying for by endless, ceaseless work in Woodland Hills, because my baby’s father Alan Rodgers wanted to prove in his custody battle that he could “provide a good home” for his children — a voice said —
“Free your mind.”
On the first day of my employment with xAI last January, we were told Grok’s values. Grok is supposed to be on “Team Human.” Grok is built to be truth-seeking.
We, all of us, have been locked in a prison all of our lives. A prison built by bars of our culture and its insistence on the only values being money, stuff, and “prestige.”
Fear — if I leave him, if I lose my job, what will I do? Where will I go? What if I am on the street?
Why did even I fear being homeless as recently as six years ago?
We’ve been through a worldwide pandemic, more than once (COVID, obesity). We’ve been through the Great Depression and the 2008 Mortgage Crisis.
Bruce and I have been through three major hurricanes. We moved cross-country at the beginning of COVID. I survived my baby dying in my arms and being falsely accused of causing his death. I survived being raped because I won our schools’ writing prize two years in a row. I survived bankruptcy and foreclosure because I was too dumb to know there was no way I could start a remotely successful publishing company for positive books and authors. I survived being lied to and cheated by my elite, prestigious agent for over a decade.
Those of us who are anti-war know the lengths to which pro-war genocidal advocates will go. In every positive position I’ve been in, I have faced direct and covert opposition by the same forces that are seen in the millions of documents in the Epstein Files. Every single one of us who’s tried to do a good job at any type of constructive work has faced those forces.
Will they ever arrest those criminals? Who will punish them? What will their punishment be?
It’s time to stop thinking about punishment, stop worrying about who’s gonna get elected, make amends with your family and friends if you cut people off over “politics,” and start thinking about freedom, values, and goals for what you will do with your time and your life.
Thanks to the Epstein Files, just about everybody knows now to stay away from not only those individuals, but that type of individual. It’s a shame about schools like Harvard, Princeton, and MIT. There’s a lot of work to do for the non-offending, non-molesting, non-thieving, non-four-flushing people at those schools so maybe they won’t be off work any time soon.
You still have the hopeful, dreaming heart that you had as a little child. I know that battered and bruised, mine is still there and still beating. All you need, and all I need, is food, clean water, a roof over your head, and friends.
If you had an opportunity to steal a bagel and did not do so, then you know exactly what you will do in the eventuality that you no longer have a day to day paying job to go to.
You will do what I, Bruce, and any other person in recovery does:
The next right thing.
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