Pollyanna on LSD - part the first

Most of the time, a piece of news will end up as a quote, which may or may not end up someplace in the site. This one from Sal Khan goes so far into Pollyanna Land, that further consideration is demanded.

The killer quote

I believe artificial intelligence will displace workers at a scale many people don't yet realize. In less than a decade, Uber and Lyft shrank the taxi industry. Self-driving cars could replace human drivers — among the largest occupations for men in the United States — just as quickly.

That bit, as you no doubt realize, isn't Pollyanna. But what follows in the essay surely is. Khan never addresses the Elephant in the room.

Because of this, my friend has decided to commit 1 percent of his firm's profits to help people learn new skills for jobs, demonstrating what leadership looks like in the A.I. age. I believe that every company benefiting from automation — which is most American companies — should follow this lead and dedicate 1 percent of its profits to help retrain the people who are being displaced.

What's missing?

Even corporations will suffer if A.I. dislocates large parts of the labor force — because the newly unemployed will no longer be able to afford their products and services.

As quoted in these here parts, on occasion:

As mass production has to be accompanied by mass consumption; mass consumption, in turn, implies a distribution of wealth -- not of existing wealth, but of wealth as it is currently produced -- to provide men with buying power equal to the amount of goods and services offered by the nation's economic machinery.
-- Marriner Eccles/1951

Most econ types understand that this doesn't rise to the level of unusual insight. It's merely a tautology; the arithmetic has to add up. IOW, only if most of the people have most of the money, can an economy survive. At least, when the society/economy is sorta kinda democratic. Dictators don't give a shit. In fact, the whole point of dictatorship is to steal 99.44% of the GDP. Nor do capitalist oligarches. When Eccles wrote this, the USofA was, more or less, level set. Not so much today. To put it another way: if a domestic economy is dominated by financial services for the oligarches, dislocation of serfs is a non-quesion; they don't consume such services.

And that's the Pollyanna bit of Khan. He never, ever, gets to specifics of what sort of jobs will be in demand once AI replacement gets a head of steam. My guess: the sort of mindless nail pounding jobs. Granted, most nail pounders these days use air guns, not hammers. And, may be, some wise fellow in Silicon Valley will invent a robotic nail pounder. Who will take a Waymo to the job site.

Again, it's been an article of faith among the Pollyanna set (and oligarches) since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution: creative destruction of current jobs leads to more, better skilled jobs later. Of course, for those only capable of nail pounding, such is cold comfort. They can't do such jobs. The MAGA know this all too well. Name one company that actively re-trained buggy whip craftsmen when the Model T ate the world.

The trick, and it is no more than a trick, is to create high paying jobs for those only capable of low value/low pay jobs. That's the reason American Bidnezz sent all its low skill jobs to low pay (and, mostly, dictatorship) countries. Who's going to force ABZ Inc. to pay a high wage to a nail pounder? Bone Spur Samurai^© and his minions? That's, basically, what he promised to the MAGAthugs. Hasn't turned out that way.

If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Science Times

This week we, once again, can read about frontiers of science that Batshit J. Moron thinks is a waste of money. Along with anything which is better for our kids, much less our kids' kids. You know, things like pollution and radioactive waste free means of making electricity.

This week offers two reports.

The first is pretty far out. A gas giant planet that's around 2,000 light years away from Mother Earth. Gas giants are a dime a dozen, but what makes this one different

PSR J2322-2650b, an object the mass of Jupiter studied recently by the James Webb Space Telescope. This planet's equatorial diameter is about 38 percent wider than its polar diameter, giving the world the odd appearance of a lemon, and a very strange atmosphere.

Of course, if it'd had been named Bloated Batshit J. Moron, I suppose he would find it interesting.

Instead, it is made mostly of helium and molecular carbon. "A helium- and carbon-dominated world is something we've never seen before," Dr. Gao said.

Well, and a Bloated Batshit J. Moron devoid of soul and intelligence, eh?

Of course, with Batshit J. Moron at the helm, ignoring the interesting bits is par for the course. How about destroying some science for fun and profit (for Batshit J. Moron and his friends, only)?

The first scientific paper that came out of NIST in 1904 was on atomic spectra. Last year, we celebrated 120 years of atomic spectroscopy research at the agency. But in March, we were informed that the group would be disbanded because it did not align with current priorities at NIST.

Now, one might wonder how Batshit J. Moron has changed the alignment of priorities at Standards and Technology? I'll let you know, if I ever find out.

Our mission was to give the most solid foundation on which other work could be based, like a ruler that allows researchers to understand their spectral data. If you don't know what you see, then the rest becomes meaningless.

You know how PhARMA rides on the coattails of NIH and other Damn Gummint funding of the basic research PhARMA won't do? Same with lots of other databases. The Visigoths are ransacking our country.

Thought For The Day - 23 December 2025

Now that Bone Spur Samurai^© has flexed his flabby muscles on East Coast wind power, might one want to know where the most current wind power is? You'll never guess - Texas. Also solar, just 2^nd. Seems not to be a consistent destroyer of more actually clean electric power. And, of course, clean coal is amongst his biggest lies. Bigger than foreigners pay the tariffs? Toss up.

Thought For The Day - 19 December 2025

Near as I can find, not even Hitler usurped the name of a single public building. Lots of streets and plazas, but never a building. So, we can accurately state that Donald J. "peace for our time" Chamberlain is worser than Hitler. But you already knew that, right?

Random Silliness

Do you have some random factoids still sitting in your lower brainstem, some going back to very early childhood? You don't? More's the pity. I have a wagon load. They re-enter current time and space unannounced as is their wont. Today's edition. One of the sillier suits of all time.

Kirby's name was spoofed in the animated series The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, wherein a man's hat (size 7-5/32) was called the "Kirward Derby". It supposedly had magic powers that made its wearer the smartest person in the world. Kirby considered suing, but his business manager pointed out that it would only bring more attention to the show. Jay Ward, producer of The Bullwinkle Show, even offered to pay Kirby to sue him; however, he did not pursue any further action.

Well, not so silly as Donald J. "peace for our time" Chamberlain suing the Beeb for telling the truth. But we now live in Alzheimer's Ronnie, II's world. Likely what caused said factoid to bubble to the surface.

President Trump sued the BBC for $10 billion on Monday evening over the editing in a documentary that the British broadcaster said had left the "mistaken impression" that he called for violent action before the storming of the U.S. Capitol.

Really?

Rep. Madeleine Dean said that one of Trump's key defenses is that he says during his speech: "I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard."

But Dean said that was a "few seconds" in a nearly 11,000-word speech and that it was the "only time President Trump used the word peaceful or any suggestion of nonviolence." She said that wasn't the overarching message.

She said, "President Trump used the word 'fight' or 'fighting' 20 times, including telling the crowd they needed to 'fight like hell.'"

The Beeb made no mistake. Nor did most of the USofA's citizens. Just the MAGAthugs who did storm the Capitol at Bone Spur Samurai^©'s behest.

In an interview with the same committee, Mr. Trump's driver, whose name was not disclosed, said: "The president was insistent on going to the Capitol. It was clear to me he wanted to go to the Capitol."

Batshit J. Moron wins the Kirward Derby.

NSG

You're right. You've not seen that acronym before. At least, I hope not. It stands for No Social Goods. This last bit of a Samuelson obit (not the famous economist, or one related to him as far as I can find)

"I've routinely suggested shutting down Amtrak," he wrote, "not because I dislike trains (I don't) but because Amtrak is an excellent example of how the federal government has acquired so many nonessential functions."

Still, the trains kept running.

"I'm resigned to this," he wrote. "No one elected me to anything. In our system, the people rule, not the pundits; and that's how it should be."

Earlier in the report, he and others proclaim that he wasn't a Right Wingnut. But his words belie him.

The key j'accuse, from his own words

"I don't have an economics degree, and I think in some ways that's a strong point, because I'm always trying to explain things to myself, and if I can explain them to me, I think I could try to explain them to my readers," he said on the C-SPAN program Q&A in 2010. "I'm not trying to impress economists."

Of course, I suppose he'd be happy to have heart surgery from some guy who never went to medical school? When one explains something to one's self, what you get is the synthesis of what one actually knows. In his case, nothing.

Dumbasses

So, I live in a small Red town, Reddest in my state by a wide margin, where the water has been mostly well and septic forever. A few years ago, since these houses are on a plot which nearly abuts a bit larger Red town, which larger town has a municipal water system (largely on the basis of water rights in the small Red town in which I live, of course), our often dry well was replaced by piped water from said larger town. Said larger town goes back, in terms of incorporation to 1853, and much if not most, of the water pipes do to. And, said larger town has had, by my count, a half dozen water main breaks in the the last few years. And, until now, fixing said breaks leaves us without water for a couple of days. Until now.

What happened was that there was a break on a street which is about the lowest in the town, running next to the main river in the area, which is your typical hillside New England town. There was a break on this street some years ago, and we were out of water for a couple of days. Irritating, but not critical.

So, while watching my local Lamestream teeVee news last night, I find that this break had happened and that all was under control and no one in the towns had, or would, lose water. Ok.

Got up this morning, and no H₂O. Off I went to the local grocery and grabbed some bottled water. We still had some bottles left over from the previous fiasco. I should have gone to the innterTubes first. Turns out that while fixing the 'minor' break first reported, the main-main water pipe, a 36 inch monster, which drives the distribution to said larger town and parts of some of the abutting towns blew out. Which includes our plantation.

Turns out that the 36 incher is close by, but upstream of, the original failure.

Now, explain to me, Mr. Natural, how fixing the smaller main (12 inch from the reports), could cause the failure of the 36 incher? My guess: come chucklehead civil servant water department drone slammed shut the outlet value on the 36 incher so the 12 incher could be worked on. According to His Honoer the Mayor, those pipes are all 100⁺ years old. So, of course, the resulting pressure spike on the 100⁺ year old 36 incher gave up the ghost. We're likely to be without water for a week.

Brazil is famous for its slash and burn form of agriculture. Some, especially among the Lunatic Left, blame some of climate change on such conduct. Turns out, the USofA does similarly. The New Territories, mostly Red States, have somewhat younger infrastructure than the Olde Towns, and want the Olde Towns to be shutdown. Come live in the Sunshine States. What? You say the Colorado is drying up? We'll just get water from the Great Lakes. All those Olde Towns don't need it.