If some allow new thoughts to sprout
Stop that Now a crowd will shout
Jut forth their chin and raise their snout
Claim it’s fine some go without
Too hard to change don’t make us doubt
For days gone by we’ll stand and pout
Shake our fists declare our clout
And that’s why time is running out
Status Quo
The wise ones heed which way winds blow
Which ways to swerve when to cry whoa!
When to stand tall when to lie low
Which lines to cross and those to toe
When to step in and when to go
Which cards to hide and which to show
When one should reap when one might sew
Some day my friends I Pray we’ll know
Turning Points
Old Wolves preach to the sheep
Stay afraid in line please keep
And let’s be divided deep
Try to teach our kids for cheap
New ideas they’re far too steep
Can’t control what thoughts might reap
As our young mind’s fall asleep
Who will save us when we weep?
Banning Books
The Notion that we are going to be able to control ideas by manipulating code or telling our youth what they can’t have… well I’m not betting my magic beans out that Peace.
so… it’s August 2023 and according to astronomers, astrologists, and a lot of people who pay attention to such things, there are going to be two “Super Moons” in august. Now in the 70’s and probably still today it was common to see many types of moons coming from big Pontiacs, Fords, and Station wagons of all varieties… but that’s a different sort of story altogether. No we’re talking about that place where a half century ago we sent some space pilots to go walking around to pick up some rocks and smack a few lofty irons towards no particular greens.
Well on the first trip the space explorers had to walk around, but after a bit the guys decided “hey we’re Americans there is no sense in walking even a few miles when we can drive.” So..of course the rocket nerds got together with the gear heads and built two or three moon buggies but since they were going to cost a lot they weren’t called moon buggies they were called “Lunar Rovers.” Now there were three missions that had cars and while official mileage may very it is estimated that these vehicles traveled a total of about 17 miles. What we do know is that the first of these moonlit (well the astronauts probably weren’t lit) drives took place On July 31, 1971 which is a half century ago now. It’s not clear from any of the articles what the space jockeys were driving around trying to find as there weren’t any open drive-thrus up there and they had all that Tang already. So … here’s what can be guessed. First the 17 miles was only supposed to be 9 miles, but the drivers were guys and there wasn’t any road signs on the moon and you know these dudes aren’t calling NASA or asking anybody else for directions. Now that may not be true, however it’s either that or they just kept driving looking for the best parking spot.
Okay what does this have to do with seeking Peace and Joy? well in driving like in life we spend a lot of time moving around searching for some destination. And don’t pay attention to all the cool stuff along the way and even though we have experiences or what we might otherwise call the “vehicles” in our life we often times leave cool experiences parked for long periods in between the times we take curious paths for a spin. It’s hard to say why we pay so much for our cars and our experiences (like let’s say learning to read or think logically) and then then leave those things parked… but we do it all the time as in the United States we expect to leave lives parked along with our cars because there are 4 parking spots for every car we own and every car spends almost 95 percent of its life parked.
So in Seeking Peace and Joy maybe we should take our lives out for a spin now and then. They’re will be plenty of places to park ourselves and also why don’t we drive by our local mall and figure out that the places where we might park are far more spacious than the stores we are headed towards which means we expect to leave our our cars somewhere we don’t hjave to pay for and won’t have to walk too far from thus reducing the possibility of actually having to enjoy the outdoors or run into fellow human beings…
So maybe we should reconsider the whole parking lot thing as we often pave paradise and put up a parking lot..
anyway if you ever make a trip to the moon there are three slightly used cars… but the parking meters probably need a dime or two or the fines might be a little steep I suspect you might be able to use one of the rovers if you can find a charging station (just like your EV here on Earth). … … Enjoy the Super Moon and don’t waste your time looking for the perfect place to sit still.
Peace.
Sometimes Seeking Peace and Joy requires conversations about hard human topics like Religion and Politics. Change can come but we need to watch the small signs like a nod, a lump in the throat, or a simple pause… the “jump” doesn’t always happen when two people are face to face. This 8-line rhyme is about that.
As you sit there on a stump
Calmly chatting with a grump
Who presumes you are a chump
Don’t allow your soul to slump
Prime your brain give it a pump
Give his false myths a sharp bump
In his throat you’ll see a lump
As his logic just won’t jump
Bipartisan committee?
Writer’s Note:
It’s been a little bit since the last entry and as I have stated before. There are reasons but no excuses, I am sorry. I’ve been inspired but not in a way that produced appropriate subject matter for this media or for this time period in the life of my friendships or family… but alas that is passing slowly so I appreciate those who have checked back and those who have read or reread past postings. we are once again hearing the clicking and clacking of the chain and the wheels pulling that long line of cars to the top of the first hill and peeking over the very top the track falls away and then strectches out before us…here we go!
Popping the AI Balloon
So we are sitting in this “Wings” restaurant in Winston-Salem and seeing some children at our table a perfectly nice young man pulls a pre-blown balloon from a stash around his belt and bends and twists it into the shape of a “dog” in a matter of seconds and it, of course, is pretty impressive. However, the guy says something snarky and well not being able to resist a response flows from my mouth.
“sure that’s impressive…you can blow into a balloon and make it into a dog…..but can you blow into a dog and make it into a balloon?”
And here is where the Seeking Peace and Joy Universe makes it’s stand on AI and Chat GPT99.3 or whatever…
Humans have created code that devours data and spits out predictive language, sounds, and pictures that humans layer human qualities upon. there’s a fancy term for when we put human characteristics on things that are not human it is anthro …morphine ask your AI to give you the correct word and tell you why AI isn’t just another case of that….good luck AI.
You see… have you ever heard your AI break into a giggle in church? Has your AI ever had just enough to drink to break into a long hilarious story about the time when…. ? Did you ever hear AI trying to hold back a tear when you were parting for a long time? Did AI ever bet you that he/she could spit or urinate higher, farther, or longer than you?… Now take a close look at the next balloon animal or flower, or sword, or whatever… isn’t it your human brain that is granting it a reality? It is your imagination and your wanting it to be something that makes it so…..
In short you are giving it meaning it simply doesn’t have the ability to create on it’s own…. It is just a balloon full of hot air that we choose to treasure for a bit. AI has substance and utility for certain yet it is one human’s creation borrowing the data supplied by anotheir’s set of data known as experiences. What would happen if the experiences weren’t had, verbalized, and shared? Well the air would go out of the AI balloon pretty quickly I would suspect…. If you don’t think so… ask your phone to tell you a joke and see how long it takes for you to get bored or to hear the same joke twice….. not long.
so…. Has this been an editorial….yep… and an encouraging one …yep. You see we are not the balloon we are the breath that makes the balloon into whatever shape AI will be. We determine it’s shape and we suggest the shape to others.
Now until AI can blow into a person and make us into a balloon (with the possible exception of politicians) let’s all chill and keep being thankful for our actual intelligence and our emotionally wonderful existence. More soon…. Peace
Life’s a gunfight at high noon
Might not get a silver spoon
Could start howling at the moon
Choose retreat to your cocoon
Shrivel up like an old prune
Or make a dog from that balloon
Sing out loud the happy tune
And know that good things will be soon
BRIGHTER THOUGHTS
Why artificial Intelligence is So Very Human
So… Chongo and his Sister Elizabeth (even in 22,000 B.C.E. females had out-evolved their male counterparts jk) are out hunting for some ingredients for elephant soup which of course requires some elephant because fast food restaurants and SPAM had not yet shown the world you could use “meat-like stuff and get away with it. Anyway our distant ancestors were trying to bag an elephant and as one might imagine a couple people tossing a few rocks and a sharp stick just didn’t quite make the grade. However, sitting around the cave later eating some tasty blueberries Chungo and Lizzy pondered “what if we could throw rocks farther and faster?” Fast forward a few years and presto Bambi is running scared when hearing the retort of Uncle Steve’s AR15. After all what is a gun? It is the human expression of wanting to throw a rock faster and farther.
Oh let’s look at Galileo for a second now he learned how to use a telescope and why? Because he had this idea that maybe the physical universe didn’t quite match what those noted scientists in Rome (the Pope and his boys) were putting out. So this telescope was just a device that made his eyes stronger and able to see better right? Well you can read the Galileo story in many places, but the bottom line is he stood up and said I sort of agree with Copernicus on the whole “the Earth is not the center deal”. Well the Pope says “Dude we can have a stake fry and you can be the main course or we can charge you with crimes against the cross and lock you up for the rest of your life… Well since there wasn’t Door Dash, Netflix, Amazon, XBox or even Nintendo 64 Galileo lived out his incredibly unfulfilled life knowing he had only done what humans have always done evolved through using a human invented device.
Oh and who among you has a cell phone? Or who among you uses a computer? Phones were all invented because AG Bell was working on something to help his hearing-impaired mom. Yep he made this thing called a telephone as a disability accommodation so the next time someone suggests that an accommodation might be made… think hell that’s a good idea..how can we help? Anyway this phone idea spread like the need for someone to remind you that you can extend your car warranty and also now you can talk to friends and family across town, the country, and around the world.
We invented keyboards, dictation software and laser printers because there was never going to be enough feather quills to go around and monks like chanting far better than walking around with candles in dreary rooms and eating with inky fingers. Even “fast-fingers Father Phil couldn’t crank out the 23rd Psalm as quickly as most 2nd graders can build cities with Mindcraft.
And that brings us to the “Seeking Peace and Joy” portion of this entry.
You see… we might be freaked out about what AI can do, yet don’t you think we have been freaked out about what we can do with a gun, what we can see with a microscope or telescope, or how many scam calls we still get?
If you want to gain peace with regard to this….understand AI is just what humans do…
If you want to seek some joy even in the AI world invite your neighbors to a picnic sit down and talk with them about their lives, sing a few songs, raise a toast or two…. Set your cell phones and iPads on the picnic table and every 20 minutes or so make sure the phone is off because if you shut it off it won’t be talking with the group, making dinging or other noises and that silly android just won’t have any fun at all. Then the next day while you are out planting a tree set your phone on the porch and try to figure out how it helped the planet that day. You see finding some peace and joy in what your spirit housed in a human body can do in ways that a series of codes housed in a machine cannot. Oh and possibly STOP COMPARING YOURSELF TO OTHER PEOPLE AND MACHINES.
I bet you wish this was written by chatGPT lol no chance.
Peace
perhaps instead of wondering if we should be afraid of how much machines can become like and replace humans—
MAYBE WE SHOULD ASK
HOW HAVE WE ALLOWED PEOPLE OR CONSTRICTED PEOPLE TO BECOME SO MUCH LIKE MACHINES THAT WE NOW BELIEVE A MACHINE COULD EVER REPLACE ONE PERSON LET ALONE A WHOLE BUNCH? In short, why are we growing human machines?
And now we fear machines
Used by businesses and teens
Forging themes and rural scenes
writing books and magazines
Congress folks and college deans
Set aside your counting beans
Will these chips replace our genes?
Can you tell us what life means?
Artificial Intelligence
Well .. asking folks who likely hire others to use and understand technology any more recent than a touchstone. Phone to become educated and to make decisions. About an industry that is now trying to figure out how to recapture it’s money making potential… is going to be a fool’s circus.
The horses are not only already out of the barn they have rounded the far turn and are lumbering down the backstretch… oh well let’s move on.. Shining a Little Light On the subject
So in the AI world what does one do while waiting for their friends to trickle charge? Maybe we take a minute or two to reflect on a few facts that come across our very quixotic and nimble neuron-synaptic processor **sometimes called a mind or brain**.
In reflection on some of the facts it would seem a small yet growing tsunami of fear is rolling toward most of us and that is the fear of AI.
Yep in the seeking peace and joy universe it seems reasonable to examine all fears including this one so let’s do so shall we?
Yep it sure seems like new AI products and processes are showing up everywhere and are probably chugging away in places we don’t even know. Hence, as the function of bots increases and completes “once human “tasks some folks wonder if their employment /job will disappear. Well of course it will just ask any blacksmith, typesetter, keypunch operator, or Blockbuster store assistant manager. If these folks aren’t available track down a chariot builder, a coal truck delivery worker, TV repair person —well you get the picture… entire classes of employees in industry after industry has come and gone and has it changed how much we like chocolate, sex, or hotdogs (Americans eat about 20 billion with a B or 70 apiece each year)?
One might say…wait a minute this is different… well maybe—maybe not? It was not so long ago when many of us heard math teachers and many other educators crying out that these handheld 4-function calculators needed to be kept out of schools and if they weren’t the world was doomed… Well it seems like the math and science needed to fuel advanced tech and communications survived those pesky little nerds flashing their Texas Instrument marvels.
(Side note) I am the first person to argue that we need to teach children computational concepts and enlarge our memories with math “facts” because it is the mental exercises we do in problem solving when doing math in our heads is incredibly valuable in finding options in solving other challenges and humans are genius at creating and discovering new and unique situational issues that need evaluation and actions followed bye review and reworking… doing math in your head builds the tools for doing that…. No matter how much we hated those story problems.
Back to AI… you see those calculators were/are math AI….and many of them are solar-powered now…. Oh wait they solve that problem too?
The challenge it seems is not what AI can or cannot do or who will have their jobs replaced…. After all jobs are rarely done for jobs sake are are done to give people a sense of earning esteem or security and when 44% of all jobs in both the industrial and professional realms are repetitive….why isn’t a given robots will have them?
Anyway why do I jump around in these posts? No rational system like a computer can or would follow this runaway train of emotions and thoughts and it is my responsibility to be a creating and unique contributor to life among and between us… ask an AI to seek peace and joy why don’t you and see what happens? …In short …grow you.
This was not created by “chatgpt”
