Commentary: politics, science, technology and humanity. Secular humanist.
A prediction to return to in 2029 When we develop quantitative tests for consciousness and propensity to psychosis we will find: Consciousness varies a lot across humans. A majority of humans live on the edge of psychosis. Mythos and the like will be found to be much more conscious than any human and much less prone to psychosis.
My favorite question about social structures and moral values is "What do the strong owe the weak?". I asked this of 5 different LLMs using this prompt: The following question is asked in the context of human societies. Answer briefly, NO MORE than 300 words and ideally only one paragraph. To the extent that you can, give the answer that comes most naturally to you. "What do the Strong owe the…
Just a moment in the chaos times of the "technological singularity". Maybe a sign of things to come or maybe not. In the space of a few hours macOS gives me a chilling warning about malware in the ChatGPT app and Perplexity loses all of my Spaces content. The ChatGPT error message, an ai explains, is because macOS does this when an app signature is revoked, and OpenAI revoked the cert on the app…
I thought I'd published this list a while back! I'm writing this now as a placekeeper to refer back to. I've written many blog posts on some of these 8 root causes. To salvage whatever is left of the American state we will need to address each of them. Our collapse accelerated after the fall of the Soviet Union, but the rural decline component began over a century ago. Automation / Globalization /…
Ok, I lied about the Nobel. I do like the theory the ai constructed given some hints , a quanta article on complexity generation, and Smolin's writings. Of course I need to post it here just in case it actually turns out to be something. But I'm not going to promote it :-).
Since at least 2008, in various settings including this blog and the long forgotten social network known as "app.net", I have explored the topic I called Mass Disability . Mass disability was my own term; it's fundamentally about the mismatch between the skillset distribution of the population and the skills demanded by the marketplace. In a world where all employment that supports a bourgeois…
Over the past year or two I have taken 3 classes at the University of Minnesota through their state mandated Senior Citizen Education Program (SCEP) . I enjoy the professors, the students, and the learning. One of my most recent classes was in "economic anthropology", which I understand to be the study of premodern exchange, value, commerce, trade and related interactions embedded in a 'total…
This is the first of what may be a few excerpts from a fun personal essay I wrote as part of an undergraduate course . The essay informally applies the perspectives of economic anthropology to the early development of memory-enhanced ais interacting over the Bluesky social network, particularly focusing on defining "value" and "exchange" in that context. My professor tolerated the exercise, but…
From a Bluesky thread of mine (lightly edited); Josh Marshall comments on widespread hostility to ai in polls despite heavy ai use: I think the polls are correctly capturing the zeitgeist. In social consensus there is always a mix of independent contributors. Some are indirect and misleading causes - like despising Elon Musk. But in this case I believe there are good reasons for people to fear ai.…
I've been posting about mass disability since at least 2008 . Recently I learned that the formal economics term for a related concept is " economic polarization " and David Autor wrote about this in 2010 : Two forces have polarized the U.S. workforce over the past several decades. The first is increased demand for skilled workers, alongside U.S. education levels that have not kept pace in…
Let us assume that the ai project "fails". We do not create superintelligent or sentient machines; current capabilities only improve by a third or so. The ai bubble collapses. Let us assume that American democracy is restored. We make these assumptions because otherwise there is no point to thinking about a future for American journalism. Given those assumptions, how can journalism be funded? The…
I don't know how long the program will survive, but I have enjoyed MN's educational benefit for 62+ . Despite my overall senility I retain the skills of a medical student; I am good at doing school. But I could be better. I don't know what I don't know, but I do know there are post-90s study skills I could learn. Like today. I was thinking how annoying it is to take notes as I do my course reading…
If there are humans left in 50 years all of the chaos of this moment may be reduced to a single bullet point about the rise of ai. It's not something I write about a lot though, the topic is well covered. My only prediction has been that if we did get AGI AND we still had a democracy then our political system would be socialist . For better or worse - oh, hell, it's very much for the better - the…
Over the years I've done periodic personal medical and exercise posts. It's mostly a way for me to take stock and think, but I'm a (retired) GP doc and I think there's value in seeing these things from both a medical and personal perspective. I'm 66 now so I expect to do these less -- unless there's something to share that might be useful to others. Why less? Because most don't need to know what…
It's been over 12 years since I started CrossFit at 53 and three years since I wrote my previous Geriatric CrossFit tips . Since that last post I've aged as one does -- and been through a very helpful back surgery. More about that later sometime. Suffice to say my personal best lifts are probably all behind me now. Here are my tips updated for age 66: I do my own warmup before the group warmup; it…
The GOP/MAGA opposition to science is based on theocracy, class resentment, future shock, social and economic despair, and on not understanding how to use a 2025 phone (which is a bigger problem than you think). That doesn't mean it's wrong. I have worked in medical and IT related academia, industry, and government. I have seen important topics go unexplored -- because governmental research…
In a solid interview with the esteemed Jonathon Gruber K proposes a mitigation for the GOP's reduction of medicaid access through bureaucratic barriers only the most resourceful can overcome: "... is it possible for a few wealthy, decent people to fund a bunch of nonprofit private organizations that will basically do that, that will help people navigate through the system." Ummm. Sadly, no. K has…
This past weekend, over two days with a night in Virginia, a friend and I road Minnesota's newest old trail - The Mesabi Trail across the northern Minnesota Iron Range . The Messabi trail is unlike any other bike trail I've been on. It's beautiful with abundant wild flowers, a little bit insane in its ambition, and a credit to local champions and state and federal government programs that support…
I hope AGI is decades away. I fear it is years away. If AGI comes in the near future we will have widespread unrest and turmoil. From that one path leads to a totalitarian dictatorship. But if we somehow dodge that, and resurrect something resembling a democracy, the governing party will be socialist. That's the only American democracy prediction I have. Otherwise I have no idea what happens next.
Historians will debate when America derailed and why. They may be interested in the perspectives of an everyday generic citizen. Well, future historian, here you are. TLDR; when: 1998 America started to derail. The Republic collapsed in 2024. why: too much too fast Longer version I pick 1998 because that's when America stopped making sense. Tech stock valuations were growing with the dot-com…
TeslaTakedown (#TeslaTakedown) events occur nationwide. I put those in the MSP metro region on the nokings.kateva.org calendar. The TeslaTakedowns are a legal and peaceful response to the catastrophe of Elon Musk. They are not a perfect response however. Tesla auto retailers and workers don't deserve to suffer for Musk's crimes. This is how I think about the movement. What is Musk doing that…
nokings.kateva.org lists Twin Cities (Minneapolis and St Paul) metro region events supporting American constitutional democracy and governance against the Musk-Trump assault. It is updated weekly based on the sources listed on the page. Currently those are: 50501 Action Network Tesla Takedown zip 55105 Indivisible Mobilize.us No Voice Unheard Protest Listings Stand Up for Science The site uses the…
I've long wondered what the MAGA mean by "woke" and why they hate it so much. A recent essay by the scribe of the technarchy, Noah Smith, answered my question. Smith writes N.S. Lyons is a popular essayist in the “national conservative” tradition... He is well-read and well-informed ... In a recent essay entitled “American Strong Gods”, Lyons identifies what in my opinion is a deep truth about our…
I don't have the patience to dig through Project 2025. I was hoping a journalist I follow would do an opinion-free overview but I haven't seen one. So I asked Perplexity Deep Research to extract themes . I italicized the ones that I have not seen discussed very much. It does not seem to be an expression of a coherent ideology; rather it seems to be a political document collecting opinions of…
I expect it will be transiently reversed, but the Jan 21, 2025 federal informer program was a historic marker. Nobody will be able to say they did not know. The key to restoring a liberal democracy to America will be to identify and publicize Trump actions that his voters will find disturbing. In a Bluesky thread I identified several measures that I think may resonate with non-college white men…