Artificial Hubris

We are increasingly fed authoritatively phrased, AI-generated summaries when we ask questions.  Google Search, for example, will often provide such a synopsis as its first link for a question such as "What is asynchronous CMOS".

The problem with this is that if you ask me a question about something beyond my ken, I will preface whatever remarks I might make with a demurrer acknowledging that my understanding of the question is limited at best.  On the other hand, the AI generated synopses blithely compose prose using the same authoritative linguistic formulae used for all responses, regardless of the AI's limited training.

This was demonstrated recently by a colleague who asked the latest publicly accessible version of ChatGPT about GreenArrays' chips and then about the Forth programming language.  I am intimately familiar with both and so I believe I can objectively assess the replies he received.  In both cases, the usual smugly authoritative-sounding prose was generated, which to someone who knew nothing about either topic might have seemed like good and useful information.

Unfortunately for such a recipient, though, it was immediately obvious in both cases that the data on which ChatGPT's "training" had been based included little, if any, actual information about either, and was full of nonsequiturs such as the assertion that the "GAC 144" (the actual part number of our G144A12 chips and the actual name of our F18 computers were never mentioned) had an instruction set particularly well suited for parallel applications.  To all of us who designed, implemented, and use this instruction set, we do not discern any aspects of that instruction set which acknowledge the possible existence of parallelism, or were introduced to facilitate parallelism, at all.  Rather, the primary distinguishing characteristics of that instruction set are its simplicity and the minimalism embodied in its design and implementation, neither of which ChatGPT even hinted at.  Both responses were full of such things which, from a human, might be taken as suppositions, but in the case of an AI which cannot be assessed in terms of human nature it is difficult to classify nonfactual assertions.

I am personally concerned that as people begin actually reading what LLM engines like ChatGPT produce, many will begin using such prose as foundations for their understandings of all sorts of things.  If this becomes a widespread practice, I believe we will be educating a generation or two with terribly flawed foundational understandings as the least of evils.  If AIs are introduced into our societal education systems, I am not pleased contemplating how those generations will be "programmed"; worse, as people begin having AIs "think" and compose prose for them, the habits of actually thinking and of innovation through imagination and human perspective will doubtless be muted.  Perhaps the worst malfeasance in this area would be the replacement of a good teacher's humility and epistemological reflection with the arrogance of an ill informed large language model possessing an "imagination" not understandable in human terms.

About a "Need for Regulation"

 Elizabeth Warren and others assert that the "failure" of FTX demonstrates a need for "regulation".  I think that is nonsense.  Our entire financial system, in which the tokens we exchange with each other are symbols "backed" by something, as well as all business transactions we make, is based on trust.  Trust that those whose position gives them the power to do us harm have Honor and will not ever use that power.

The criminal who ran FTX and its many tentacles should be in jail awaiting trial for theft, fraud, misappropriation of massive amounts of others' property and no doubt other crimes.  In an older world he would have already been tried and summarily sentenced to a suitable punishment for one who has caused as much pain as he has, such as public disembowelment.

That he is instead free demonstrates how useless regulation would be; he has not yet had even a slap on the hand, yet those who would regulate are those who should be cutting his hand *off* rather than solemnly talking about "regulation".  You do not regulate criminals.  You deter them by guaranteeing punishment to fit their crimes.  Perhaps you do not do this if they have been conspicuously sucking up to you and giving you money they have stolen from others?

Then, further, who would be doing the regulating?  Our central government, of course.  That being the same government who has defrauded us by stealing a good fraction of our savings through government induced inflation.  Remember?  "Trust that those whose position gives them the power to do us harm have Honor and will not ever use that power."  Those who would regulate have demonstrated that they have no Honor in this respect and are unworthy of our trust.

I believe it is long overdue that those who *are* our central government (the elected representatives, to a degree, but more so the *millions* of unaccountable, permanently employed bureaucrats who believe they run the country) should themselves be regulated and, where appropriate, given fitting punishments.

Fighting Inflation, Huh?

The Federal Reserve has caused massive effects on regular people by simply changing the prime interest rate.  For example, after being forced to sell my home in 1999, I had enough money in the bank to earn $1400 per month in interest, mostly on T-bills.  When the FED cut rates in 2001-2, that income stream vanished for me as it did for anyone else who had been old-fashioned enough to hold savings.

Now we are suffering inflation which, at the grocery store and most other necessities regular people must buy in order to survive, far exceeds the year-over-year ratios published by our central government; for regular people it is more like 100% and beyond than like 8.25%.  Of course the central government has a conflict of interest because the numbers it quotes trigger cost of living increases for 2.4 million or so federal civilian employees, for all of us who have paid into Social Security for most of our lives, and undoubtedly for others, creating budgetary problems if they actually keep their promises.  In addition, quoting small numbers allows politicians to pretend that this is no big deal (see Joe Biden "only an inch").

In addition, because this massive inflation is due, directly, to Federal, State and local policies ... policies that contravene the spirit if not the letter of the Constitution ... over the past 2.5 years in particular, the central government has a further interest in pretending that this is no big deal.  Forcing people not to work, then bribing them to postpone going back to work, printing literally trillions of dollars to be spent on boondoggles and given away for nothing or attempting to buy votes, running businesses into bankruptcy, destroying the profitability of the remaining taxpaying business ... these acts and their ilk are directly inflationary.

Now, the Federal Reserve "solves" this problem by jacking up the interest rates to nearly what they were back in the 1990s.  Smooth move; this gives more revenue to everyone who lends money (bankers and investors, mainly; regular people who lend their savings to banks still do not earn squat for interest.)  Among the beneficiaries are the likes of Communist China which holds a substantial hunk of our national debt.

However, for the regular people who have had to borrow money to pay their bills but have not yet earned enough to pay off those loans... or who are still borrowing money... this is no good at all; it simply accelerates their progress toward bankruptcy.

In addition, it will of course have a very significant effect on the central government, whose debt is now on the order of six times what it was in 1999.  Each one percent on sovereign debt of $30 trillion is $300 billion.  At merely 3.33 percent that is a trillion dollars per year of interest on the national debt.

Wherever will the central government find this extra trillion dollars per year?  Only two choices:  Print yet more money, further increasing the national debt and ensuring perpetually high inflation, or tax us all to death.  (Prosperity is not an option; it is in the process of being outlawed, see ESG and other destructive policies/programs.)

Neither alternative is good for the country.  Indeed, putting us in this position is a great way to degrade or destroy our nation.  Good going, globalists; yours is the only visible agenda such wanton destruction serves.

Where does the Electric Car Mandate lead?

Statists dislike allowing serfs the ability to move about of their own volition.  The light aircraft industry, and the ability of common folk to afford flight training and the purchase of aircraft allowing them to easily cross a thousand miles in a day under their own power and at their own volition were things essentially done away with by the end of the 1980s, through the connivance of trial lawyers and insurance companies (remember that lawyers are over-represented in politics.)  That was good news for totalitarians, but there was much left undone.

Recently, Klaus Schwab allowed that private transportation is wasteful and should be abolished (meaning your and my motorcycles, cars and trucks, not, of course, the private jet aircraft that congregate annually in Davos and at the WEF facilities in communist China and probably will into the indefinite future).  Consider the following in light of this statement.

One horsepower is on the order of 750 watts (745.7) at 100% conversion efficiency.  Simply overcoming drag at 60 mph requires on the order of 10 to 20 HP, with considerably more used dealing with necessary vertical and horizontal maneuvers.  Let us go with the lowest numbers, such as 7.5 kW, and with an estimate of 84 billion driving hours per year in the US.  This gives a low estimate of 630 TW-hr per year, roughly 1.72 TW-hr per day, 72 GW continuous.  At the end of 2021, total US generating capacity was on the order of 1.1 TW.  Superficially this would seem to require on the order of a 7% increase in total 24x7 generating capacity.

In reality 10 HP is a very low estimate for average load.  In addition, nothing is 100% efficient.  We are talking about BHP or equivalent watt-hours delivered to the road.  The electric motors are not 100% efficient; they get hot, as do the batteries (this is why Tesla S max available power is reduced by its control logic at speeds over 80 MPH or so), and that heat is produced by wasting the watt-hours stored in the battery.  If for no other reasons than generating heat, the batteries and electric motors are <100% efficient.  Then we have the power grid to deliver charge to places presumably within walking distance of everyone in the country's homes.  To fully charge a Tesla S requires delivery of 100 KWh.  Even if you believe the EPA number of 402 miles per charge in that vehicle, that charge will have to be replaced or topped off frequently.  My house uses on the order of 64 kWh/day.  Charging a Tesla S daily would increase my personal consumption of electric energy by a factor on the order of 3, while if I only traveled 133 EPA miles average per day that would be more like merely DOUBLING my consumption.  For people living in small apartments the increase ratio will be substantially greater.

The electric power distribution grid is not 100% efficient either, nor are batteries for storage of wind or solar-derived energy.  However, here are a few key points:  Firstly, it is obvious that the US must add well more than 10% to its gross delivery capacity, and pay a considerable amount of waste heat along the way to ultimate delivery.  Secondly, the grid and local delivery capacity must be substantially increased as well.  Thirdly, the parts of the country in which the availability of private transportation is most critical are those which are sparsely populated and hence those requiring long travel distances for services such as medicine and repairs, for shopping of all sorts, and for visiting friends and family.  These are the areas which will require the largest increases in energy delivery capacity per capita.

Further, the energy consumption for charging vehicles will not be smoothly distributed throughout the day.  There will be peak demands at the most common charging times, and if the charging stations are not where the vehicle is normally or conveniently parked, arranging for staggered charging schedules will not be straightforward nor convenient either.

Looked at from the point of view of a bureaucrat, this will be one more thing to control.  Right now there is not much a bureaucrat can do to control the travel of individuals.  Anyone can find a gas station and drive wherever he or she likes any time of day or night, refueling as necessary along the way.  Nothing is rationed.  No permission is required.  Look right now at California, for example, which is merely coping with normal demand and does not have its universal EV mandate yet.  However already rationing and prioritization of electric consumption are increasingly being imposed.

I propose that the "EV Revolution" will never be completed.  Long before the full, predictable results of this "transformation" have occurred (bear in mind that the above back-of-the-envelope calculations are intentionally very low), bureaucrats will reveal with great surprise that the necessary generation and distribution capacity will be infeasible to create without undue effect on "climate change", let alone inflation caused by creating all of this with non-market funding.  The price of a kWh will increase considerably, priorities will be set, rations allocated, permits created at probably an additional cost, and long before full national-scale private EV deployment will be feasible it will have been priced and regulated beyond the reach of an average citizen who now enjoys virtually unlimited private transportation subject only to his own personal financial resources.

At that time, politicians like Buttgieg will again point out that people can easily solve "their" problems by switching to "public" transportation, and one bureaucrat's dream will be within reach:  That of having direct control over how, where, when, and carrying what, common citizens may travel beyond walking distance even within their own cities, counties, and states.

Public transportation allows for inspection of baggage, checking of ID, recording of personal travel, and forbidding carriage of for example defensive weapons, simply as a beginning.  Once virtually all travel, even over short distances, becomes "public", such totalitarian arrangements may be tightened and restricted further.  The possibilities are seemingly endless.

Such developments would be dear to the heart of bureaucrats all over the world, and are in lockstep with the stated goals of the World Economic Forum whose trainees occupy tens of thousands of positions in politics and bureaucracy the world over.  So, without the intervention of a superior force, I believe the above to be the inevitable ... and therefore the intended ... result of the ongoing programs to mandate Electric Vehicles, something that I believe to be a disingenuous intermediate step toward forbidding the freedom we currently enjoy with private transportation.

=== Above written 18 Sep 2022.  Update on 20 Oct 2023:  The International Energy Agency issued a report this week saying that global implementation of "renewable energy" will require 49.7 million miles of transmission lines will have to be rebuilt or replaced, and estimates that the world needs to spend $600 billion annually on grid upgrades by 2030.  The revelation mentioned four paragraphs above appears to have begun.  I wonder how long it will be before the "climate change" effects of all this will be discovered?  - GB

Projection is a pandemic

 Xi demonstrates that he is every bit as good at projection as are American leftists.  It is he, after all, who has destabilized Hong Kong in breaking Communist China's promises to the world in general and to the Hong Kongers in particular.  Yet he blames Hong Kongers for "destabilizing" their own homeland by resisting or at least dissenting in opposition to his breach of promise in subjugating them.  My heart aches for the poor bastards.

If there is anything the American left should boycott and divest, it would be the CCP tyrants, the businesses they own, and the places they infest.  But of course they will never do that; the American left salivates over a quick buck without any evidence of moral guidance.  And, of course, the American left projects its atrocious venality upon its opponents, we who simply love liberty and wish to be left alone while we buy locally produced goods in preference to those made by the tyrants and their slaves.

Not a "Conspiracy Theory"

 Whoever is actually making policy in the US Government, while casually pulling the strings of Joe Biden as he stumbles and stammers in his pretense of "leading" our country, is obviously intent on diminishing the capacities and the morale of the United States and of its people.

The catastrophic damage which been achieved during the past year and continues today is severe enough that it cannot be dismissed as the result of "incompetence" by anyone with the intelligence to step out of the way of an oncoming train.  This damage is too thorough and too far-reaching in space and time to be unintentional.

What is not obvious is who is giving orders to those making policy.  To destroy the United States and the lives of its people argues for a foreign actor, or perhaps an actor that believes itself to transcend nation-states.  Possibilities such as the "NWO", the crocodiles of Davos, the Rothschilds and their obscenely wealthy fellow travelers, and so on seem much more likely than Kim of North Korea or the ignorant "antifa" of the US.

Let us skip lightly over the tyranny of politicians and bureaucrats, along with their outright lying and then accusing those who inquire about these lies as purveyors of "harmful misinformation" since the start of 2020.

Suppressing US production of fuels and then embargoing fuel from its major producers abroad does not punish the producers, it brings productivity to a screeching halt in the US.  I will see this before many others because I do a lot of work for a major corrugated container producer, and that industry has for all my adult life been a very sensitive leading indicator of the output of American industry.  It makes for a very provincial life in places like Northeast California, Wyoming, or West Texas where going anywhere from one's home depends on moderate to long distance transportation.  We haven't seen its effect on delivery service from the likes of Amazon but that seems inevitable, and without that service life will be muchly changed in places like the above; even here in Cheyenne its effect will be significant.

Cutting Russia off from SWIFT struck me at the time it was proposed as a marvelous way to accelerate the dismissal of the US Dollar as the world's reserve currency, and this has begun to arise as a topic for widely read commentators.  Given the general bloody mindedness of the EU, I am pretty sure this is the reason they backed the embargo of SWIFT service to Russian banks; despite that the Euro will almost certainly not be the dollar's replacement.  I wonder how it will be when not only Europe but the US is obligated to pay for commodities like oil, uranium and lithium in Remibi.

I believe it would be healthier for the world to identify, and then hang, the perpetrators of this misery right now, than to lament the harm they are in process of doing after it has finally sunk home to everyone and will be extremely difficult to remediate.  Playing God on a global scale ought not be rewarded.

Eisenhower's Farewell Address of >50 years ago

 Previously I've referenced this address.  I heard it live on television 17 January 1961 and it was discussed in school for the next four years.  Perhaps it is not that familiar to others, but in my opinion it should be.  Therefore I copy below some excerpts from the official transcript of which have not received as much attention as have others, yet which are particularly relevant in the 2020s.

================================

We should take nothing for granted <;> only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

...

In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been over shadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system-ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.

==========================

I suggest that the underlined passages above accurately foresaw and explained the gross malfeasance by Fauci and others two years ago in coercing men who, for example, had concluded that a virus outbreak had escaped from a Communist Chinese laboratory, to nevertheless co-author a paper which asserted the opposite, as well as many other efforts to manipulate public understanding and opinion through outright propaganda and which have led to actual harm to the citizens of our Nation.

Perhaps the only significant aspects of the past two years omitted from President Eisenhower's otherwise prophetic foresight were things like the employment of the traditional media and novel corporate forums for public discussion of the issues of the time as accessories to the efforts of the "elite" through selective reporting, vilification of opposing opinions, "fact checking" by parties with 'dogs in the races', and outright censorship.  In 1961 the Press would have been appalled by this and would rather be picking apart the pronouncements of the "elite".  In these troubled times, alas they are no longer performing that useful service but have been co-opted by the same forces they ought to be investigating.

I think Eisenhower had a clear vision of where things could go, insofar as his imagination allowed at that time.  I wish, however, he had consulted men like Isaac Asimov or Robert Anson Heinlein for their thoughts on what might lie beyond the horizon of his imagination before completing those last paragraphs of this part of his historic address.