Up in the Air

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

Imagine you are atop a cliff, and must leap to another. Below you there’s a chasm.

Your only chance is to leap for it. Which means there’s a moment where you’re suspended in the air. Between peaks. You could just go down hard. Lost. Done.

All you can do is keep your jump, keep your form, keep going.

Right now the US, and to an extent the world (because buckos, if we don’t make it, they’re just as cooked) is suspended in the middle of that jump.

If we fail the chasm is deep and dark. Note I’m not saying it’s eternal. If we fall the chances of the human race going down for the long count are minimal. I believe in humans. We’re scrappy and mean, a crazy little ape that just won’t stay down. But the count can be extended without being the final long count. And it can be very dark without the sun going out.

I don’t need to detail the chasm, I think. I’ve talked about it before. This generation is seriously unprepared. People out there are getting college degrees for the diploma they can’t read and being saddled with loans for jobs that don’t exist or which, thanks to the plethora of H1B visas don’t have openings, or don’t pay what they used to pay.

Even the trade schools read as a “modified, limited hangout”. A lot of those jobs are getting eaten by improved technology and/or being paid less because of immigration of one sort or another.

In fact, when making decisions for kids, I hear desperate grandparents suggest trade schools and I think “That’s a way to calm the grandparents, in the long run it won’t mean much.”

Because it all depends on how the jump goes. And either way any training you can get now, whether ivy league or local trade school if we crash you’re going to be out of luck. It’s going to be more of what we have seen: schools, government and everything weaponized against the people they theoretically serve. … for a while.

Not as long as they think it will be, because…. whisper it with me Catastrophic Technological Change. It will take their plans down too. But what comes after, we don’t know. Except that it will take a while. And what comes after only the gods of chaos know.

Except we haven’t fallen yet. We’re in middair.

Which is the reason that everything right now is in suspension. The current generation is caught between the current thing and what comes after.

What comes after? We don’t know. We know right now there are people trying really hard to remove obstacles and improve the chances our foot lands on the next peak. That the catastrophic technological changes, as it dissolves the present creates a future worth living in. That we have a shot. We, the US, western civilization, humans.

But it’s impossible to know exactly how we land, if we land, etc. because there are many things in the air with us. Mostly because–

Look, our economy has been hampered, played with, messed around since Wilson at least, and likely before. Sure, sure, the tech favored what happened, the hyper centralization of things, but there were still choices made that hinged not on the tech, but on the ideas in people’s heads. Centralized was considered better. Top down more efficient. And the cult of the expert led us into the hands of some very strange theoreticians.

It’s like a stream whose course has been deviated by dams. As you remove the dams, you get the river flowing back to its course.

Except in this case, it’s not the same river. Not anymore. Because tech has changed. People have changed. And no, not for the worst. I know. I can hear you people out there. I swear to bob assuming your ancestors were idiots and young people are dumber than you were is the immutable sin of mankind.

No, the young aren’t dumber than you were. They’re undeniably worse educated, in terms of formal education, but they are in many ways more used to change, to learning on their own, to finding their own paths than we were. Partly because we didn’t give them what they needed, and they’ve been finding their path. Partly because… well, we didn’t have acess to the firehose of information the new tech provides.

So what comes next? Who knows. You can’t tell the shape of things to come when they’re still not here. I can make guesses. I’m pretty good at guessing. And five years out I might make some accurate guesses. 20? 30? No.

Someone talked about how if you bring your A game neither AI nor anything else can stop you. They’re not wrong. But here’s the thing, your A game might not have the course you would play it on yet.

Look, when I was eleven I knew I wanted to be journalist. I wanted to find out the truth. I wanted to write about it. (I also wanted to write fiction, but that wouldn’t pay enough to live off of in Portugal.) So … well, when I investigated the possibility I found my politics (weird and European as they were) locked me out of the profession, because I wasn’t communist nor could I condone communism. Even if it called itself socialism and put on a funny wig.

So that was done, right? Except that now, forty years later that is precisely what I do, both here — let’s call it editorials — and at instapundit — let’s call it the night desk.

Could I have guessed at the shape of what I do now? Heck, guys I couldn’t have guessed 20 years ago when I started this blog on livejournal where it would take me, both good and bad.

Part of this is that we’re in a time of high change. Not in a time when you can prepare your kids for a future that might not be like the present but will be pretty close. And change is likely to accelerate as we remove the dams and trammels on the flow of tech, of economics, of invention.

Until recently I thought we were about to be shoved off the cliff, and we’d fall and then have to trust luck and spirit to make it back up fast enough that it wasn’t all lost.

Right now though, we’ve jumped. We’re up in the air, and our foot almost touches the next cliff.

All I can say is right now there’s hope.

The generation coming up, the generation caught in pretty bad positions? They’re the generations in between the ordered world of the past and what comes next.

What can we do?

Don’t give up on them. Don’t give up on removing the obstacles to freedom. Don’t give up on tech change.

And if you can, influence things in the direction of hope, of possibility, of innovation, of human liberty.

The way the wind blows might affect our jump only a little. But anything to give us a better chance.

Throw your heart into it, and throw yourself forward.

85 thoughts on “Up in the Air”

  1. I think the blame for the Progressive innovations has to go back to Roosevelt (Theodore, not Franklin), who was elected as a Progressve before Wilson got in. He wasn’t the monster Wilson was, but he pushed for things that were unnecessary and sometimes harmful. And as I understand it, his campaign in 1912 helped get Wilson in, so he gets a share of the blame there.

    Though my other great villain for that era is Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., source of the Supreme Court decisions about “shouting ‘Fire’ in a crowded theater” (which was his metaphor for publishing criticism of Wilson’s war policies—so he was offering a rationalization for censorship of a kind that hadn’t been seen since Adams, and had been repudiated with Jefferson) and “three generations of imbeciles is enough” (a justification for compulsory sterilization). When I see people praising him as a heroic figure it makes me ill.

    Liked by 2 people

    2. TR is a fascinating figure. A terrible politician, but a great man. And it’s difficult to fault him too much for his political choices given the context in which he was operating.

      Like

      1. I tend to agree. His position on personal responsibility resonates with me, as does his type of environmentalism. The fact that he was essentially a “top downer” may have been due at least partly to his military experience and knowledge; the comment (John Paul Jones?) about the absolute requirement for the ships to be essentially despotisms with rules described exactly how I believe he felt on that, and he simply extended it beyond the military.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Oh, there’s more to it than that, though that is a factor. He was a blue blood, but also took noblesse oblige to heart. He also had the snobbery inculcated from an Ivy League education, which was far more intense in his day than now (and that’s saying something). I think, also, his experiences other than military, as when he was police commissioner in NYC, tended to reinforce his top-down outlook.

          Also, unrelated to the point, but it should be mentioned in any discussion of TR: he was a President who earned a Nobel Peace Prize for actually doing something, ending the Russo-Japanese war. And that’s a warning about unintended consequences, since that negotiation contributed to Japan’s increasingly imperial ambitions.

          Like

  2. I am a wedding photographer and I am hopeful based on the young couples I work with. Totally anecdotal, but I am seeing a spiritual revival. Many of my young couples are living a “traditional” life. They are not living together before marriage, they are having children (and the weddings are full of young couples with 3 or 4 or more kids), they want to live on one income and home school, they dream of a few acres and a flock of chicken. They go to church! They are not obsessed with material things like cars or houses (and they look for housing they can afford on one income and not a McMansion).

    Yes, you hear about all the “bad kids” now days, but I wonder if that is just the internet and social endlessly repeating a hand full of stories… most of the young people I know are way smarter and making better choices than I did at age…

    Liked by 2 people

    1. My only contact with young people these days is at church, and, since it is an Eastern Orthodox church, I’ve been unwilling to view it as typical. Many young families are members, most with 3 or 4 kids (and probably still working on more). I will say that in the 3 years since I’ve been attending our small local church, we’ve processed over a hundred from catechumen to baptized & chrismated. We had a typical attendance of 150-200 when I started, and it’s become clear that soon we will have to split off a “mission church”. Pascha (Easter) services were overflowing even on weeknights, and I only hope we didn’t annoy our Navy housing neighbors by taking up every parking space within blocks.

      Like

    2. I help coach a men’s rugby club, ages 21-35 average. I spend a fair amount of time with one of the most random assortments of young men one could imagine running from working the overnight at a supermarket to hedge fund trader. All ethnic groups, all incomes. Long story short, the kids are alright.

      Liked by 2 people

      1. That sample is self selected for those who have taken the initiative to compete. Otherwise, I agree.

        Like

        1. agreed. They are the oddest assortment of young men you’d ever meet. So odd it can’t be random. I love them, even the ones I don’t like, because they’re willing to lay it on the line. Their wives, girlfriends, and children are alright too. So much despair so ai wanted to mention that these kids are alright.

          Liked by 2 people

          1. So much despair so ai wanted to mention that these kids are alright.

            Is this a tell, HAL? 🤖

            Like

          2. By and large, even the ones who are confused about how to go forward and are depressed are all right. I think the exceptions are few and made much of.

            Like

      2. I think there’s a massive split going on in the youngest generation, where the bifurcation is between those who “date” for whatever that means these days, and those who get married and start life.

        The video parts of the interwebs are full of the former, all complaining about each other and the chaos that modern app-“assisted” dating has become, while the latter are out there making babies and (somehow, out here) buying houses.

        I do not know how that split will resolve.

        It is notable that, at least out here, the “car seats” barrier to more than two kids seems to be a real thing. Perhaps it is due to the insane housing costs making even larger minivans and the full size SUVs, which would accommodate third and fourth car seats, not a practical purchase unless one is wealthy (as calibrated out here). My over-the-back-fence neighbors are an exception – I think they are up to 5.

        Like

        1. On that note. Niece and husband are closing on their second home this next Friday. Outside of Camas WA, 3 bed, 2 bath, on 1 1/2 acres. Advantage they are borrowing the down from his parents so they can close, move in, and sell the current starter home, an older 3 bed, 1 bath, large city lot, in Vancouver WA. Disadvantage, won’t have the same low, low, mortgage rate. They have one child. Want more. Little more difficult for them as she is (OMG!) 36 in August.

          Liked by 1 person

    3. I think part of it is the internet (social media) making things louder than they really are. And part of it is there is more visible DRAMA!!!!!!!!! among youngsters. My Day Job supervisor said this was one of quietest years he’s seen. I boggled, then remembered that I see DRAMA!!!!!! that happens in my slice of the world, but not the relative quiet around that slice.

      Liked by 1 person

    4. I’m involved with two scout troops (one boys, one girls NOT Girl Scouts), and both of them are growing quickly. Seems there’s a demand for learning outdoor skills and leadership and teamwork. (Also note, for the folk who were decrying the concept of girls in the BSA, that both troops, in terms of “OMG opposite sex”, seem to be large of the opinion “who has time for that? I want to build a tower.”)

      Liked by 1 person

      2. Anyone wants to decry about “girls in BSA” point them to Campfire and 4H. Campfire has been coed for a few decades (since ’80s, I think). 4H has always been coed. And in both the units are mixed. BSA Explorers has been coed since the ’60s and Venture also has been coed since 1999 (or not depends on how the Crew is chartered).

        In the end the same percentage of teen girls will earn Eagle as the teen boys do. Initially higher percentage because they’ve been denied so long. And they will pull up the percentage of boys earning Eagle too. Same reasons for both will provide the incentive to drop out.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. My daughter’s kind of funny on the subject of Eagle. She doesn’t really care about earning it. OTOH, she’d further along toward it than a lot of people, and I always tell her that she should get credit for the things she does, so there’s a good chance we’ll be able to push her over the finish line in good time.

          For their application, they are supposed to write a personal statement about their goals and aspirations. I have been informed by the people who run the Eagle Boards of Review that “my mom made me do it” is a valid type of statement, since they still did all the work.

          Like

          1. Let’s see if WP lets me post this time. Grrrrr (Got “can’t post this” message.)

            I’ve seen “kick in the pants”, or “sorry for the additional gray hairs” awarded to scouters at COH by the Eagle honoree. Usually scouts who turned in their Eagle application notebook on their 18th birthday.

            The struggle is real.

            Our son started wanting Eagle as a Tiger. Doesn’t mean it was easy. (Dang it kid you actually have to talk with the board of review adults!!!! What happened between 1st class and Star? IDK Not the only scout to pull this, but dang. Eagle BOR he was fine. But his first Star BOR, no.)

            Liked by 1 person

            1. I’m committee for my sons’ troop, so I do a lot of BoR. And they are easy in this troop, because they make sure the scouts have it together before they get to us. Having a lot of ASMs doesn’t hurt, either.

              I want another ASM in my daughter’s troop. Or more accurately, one that isn’t going to college in a few months or who is just an ASM on paper.

              Like

    5. Since the West was the first to be infected with progressive rot perhaps it will be the first to recover as well.

      Like

      1. Did the West get it first? I thought certain cities in the East (and portions of the Midwest, glares at Chicago) had it first. I suspect it metastasized to the West. (In Silicon Valley in the ’70s, you’d see an extraordinary amount of Land ‘o Lincoln license plates every June. Not all engineers are hard rock conservative. Took me a while…)

        Like

      2. I assumed by “the West” you meant the Left coast, but maybe hemisphere? If so, I’ll go the the “perhaps” and continue hope.

        Like

        2. In context, I assumed that “West” meant “Western Civilization”.

          Like

        3. We can hope.

          At least where you live either homeless are driven out by the weather and you don’t have to deal with sidewalk tents and park invasions. This is despite the number of homeless safe spot with places that have individual shelters, showers, sanitary options, and allow pets (i.e. not traditional shelters). Oh, wait … these locations still don’t allow drug use.

          Another note. Haven’t seen the FB post but one of my sisters (the liberal one) noted that a fund raiser was recently was held at a property outside of Ashland, for Kotek. Sigh, a cousin (told you family was “divided” politically).

          Like

  3. Our media is saturated with doomcasting. Shun it. No doubt the presstitute folks were writing of the certainty of defeat right up until Yorktown. And even afterwards. “The Sky -IS- Falling!! Yeeeeek!” sells better than “We got this. Chill.” Dump that shit.

    I have -vastly- improved my mood by substituting for most of my prior media consumption. . First, a stupid building/puzzle game. (almost any game/puzzle works for that OCD consumption habit.) Second, productive/constructive chores. Channel that energy into improvements and you will shock yourself with the improvements.

    Turn the idiot box off. It is full of idiots telling you to do stupid doomshit. Inspiring music or speakers fill the void and move you to greater things.

    Since genuine doom is rather rare, when one has an ongoing sense of impending doom, one racks up a pretty solid record of “Nope. Wrong.” You can take a certain perverse delight in the Black Dog Report when you reason out that it is almost always completely utterly wrong, and seldom more than slightly right.

    Liked by 1 person

  6. If I’m deciding between Trade School and college right now, the first question Is ask is: how much does it cost, followed by how soon should it pay, then, how portable are the skills?

    Materials working, electrician, plumber, if you can get your basic cert and start working in a year or two without tons of debt, seem like a good risk. Because even if it isn’t your career, you can get some cash flow, and have a usable skill, even once you’ve shifted to other things.

    But if they’re 4 year degree things with tons of time, money and physical hazard going into getting them, that is not so good a risk.

    I do think the 4y degrees are going to get hit hardest. What the ongoing H1B fraud scandal is showing is, is that a 3-6 month course and a certain degree of basic competence and discipline is enough to reach the necessary entry level skill for most white collar jobs.

    And given most white collar jobs also depend on the employees not defrauding the company, at some point, probably soon, companies are going to wake up and figure out something other than lying about a 4y degree and 20 years experience in a 3y old language to use as a filtering mechanism. At which point the Universities are very very screwed.

    Remember, the money to service those six figure loans comes from the employer. You can’t make a career out of something that does not pay well enough to service those loans, which puts a very real lower bound in the pay scale employers can offer and get honest candidates for. The Unis were not just robbing the students, they are defrauding the industries as well.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Also, (some) trades have apprenticeships – you get *paid* (granted, not very much at the start) to learn the trade.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. I did “apprentice” with an electrician friend on a Saturday morning long ago pulling wire in the City shop for radiant heating. Both City employees and OSHA were absent. He was on the top step of a 20′ stepladder pulling, and I was atop a garbage truck feeding wire. Finished by noon. And there was the quiet pride later at the local bar as he told them all that was left was to install the heaters.

        Like

    2. When Griggs vs Duke Power Company is dead (and buried with a stake through its heart under a crossroads) the use of college degrees as a proxy for real aptitude will go away, and academia’s main source of income with it. It hasn’t happened yet, but the GOP has at least seen that it needs to happen, so there’s hope.

      Liked by 2 people

  7. I will advise my grandson, Wee Jamie, to acquire skills that people will pay him to exercise, and which can’t really be outsourced to AI or another country. Carpentry, fine carpentry, electrical work, glass blowing, specialty welding, auto mechanics … whatever. Being adaptable, and having skills is the key, even better if you can teach yourself independently.

    I’ve always known how to sew, and embroider. I’ve branched out into millinery. I know how to do drywall (thanks, Dad!) and set tile. I taught myself how to do book layouts, and a course at the Defense Information School taught me some basic graphic design.

    Liked by 1 person

          1. …and on that as in other goals my reach yet exceeds my grasp, as a reply of mine upthread just went into mod for no apparent reason.

            Like

  9. “Throw your heart into it, and throw yourself forward.”

    Since I tend to look at things heart first, this phrase landed with me. Hard, in the best way.

    I feel like I have an obligation to everyone around me to work hard and be optimistic. I want to create/recreate a world where mom stays home and tends to the chillen, and papa goes to work. One good income to buy the house, the cars, and send the kids to higher education of whatever kind. The kind of country where you want to volunteer for military service because you get a leg up, and you do honorable work, and you learn cool stuff.

    It’s touch and go right now. The “big beautiful bill” is… well, it’s big, for sure. No telling whether the debt will blow us up completely.

    So, work hard, stay optimistic, give kids a reason to want to get older, give them a reason to hope.

    Liked by 1 person

    3. I was thinking it sounded cool, until I got to the part about “The Muppets Studio, part of the Magic of Disney” …. modern Disney is NOT something I want advising our young students!

      Like

  11. I have noticed that alot of current advertising seems to be FEAR in one form or another … almost ALL the drug marketing appears to be along the lines of 1) you must be suffering 2) we can maybe help you suffer less 3) please ignore the side effects …

    Car ads seems to be the expection but they are selling being “cool” … so I guess they are working under the assumption that nobody wants to be un-cool …

    Now fast food seems straightforward … we sell the stuff you like to eat … so they sell joy mostly …

    It seems ALMOST all politicos base their pitch on fear … “You’ll lose Medicare, etc, etc. ” or they stick to the tried and true “I’ll give you a bunch of free stuff” …

    I do see why most of the rest of the world does not allow ads for drugs …

    Like

    1. *Current* advertising? Oh my dear, it’s been like that since it began.

      Infomercials in particular. I used to have a radio shift which started with infomercials, which all boiled down to “You’re going to die. Buy our stuff!” (Okay, okay, it was “these products will keep you looking younger,” but fear of death is ultimately what that is about.)

      Liked by 1 person

    2. Late 90s, my cousin quit a computer sales job in a huff because they sent him to a class on FUD.

      Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt.

      When they got a service call, they were to use those to upsell the little old ladies into buying more stuff rather than fixing the problem.

      Like

      2. My cousin once told me they desperately wanted some car company to name some model the Huff, so when they wanted to leave in one, they literally could.

        Liked by 1 person

  12. I am slowly making my way through a biography of Ludwig von Mises, and it’s kind of stunning how much of a pariah he was in his own time, let alone how his achievements are denigrated now. The man never held an official university post (something I thought was only true of the time following his flight from the Nazis), because he wouldn’t tell the powerful what they wanted to hear, he insisted on telling them the truth.

    His insights remain unparalleled. Prices are the best way to transmit complicated information culture-wide. The masses know better than any “expert” what is best for them each individually. And any interference by “experts” in the price mechanism of a free market is destructive.

    Mises lived 92 years, and never got the respect he deserved in his lifetime, but also never complained. He just kept plugging along, telling the truth, denouncing lies, and ignoring the scorn of the academy and the fashionable elite.

    If nothing else, I devoutly hope that the current cultural chaos shakes out in such a way that Mises’s insights and achievements are understood and embraced by the generation in-between and the generation that comes next. I fear that far too many people just covet power, and will ignore anything that argues against that. We shall have to wait and see.

    Liked by 1 person

  13. It’s the same river. But it jumped its banks, and has switched to a different channel. But because people forget rivers do that, everyone assumes the river is the same it’s always been.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Sometimes it aggrades (builds up the bed) sometimes it degrades (has more water and cuts downward into the bed). Cuts off oxbows, decides to leave its banks and wanders almost a hundred miles away, then wanders back (Yellow River, 1090s-1150s or so).

      Liked by 1 person

    2. Read John McPhee’s essay on the Atchafalaya. We’ve been attempting to keep the mighty Mississippi out of there for some time, but Ol’ Man River is going to win at some point, and then New Orleans will no longer be the delta.

      Liked by 1 person

  14. Time of rapid change remind me of all those scriptures that say on the Lord alone we can rely.

    Like

  15. By the grace of God, I have been failing upward my whole life. Off-balance, off-key, and often close to ruin…

    …but I’m still here…

    Like

    1. After Operation JUST CAUSE, Van Halen should have re-released a single with “Jump” on one side and “Panama” on the other. ;-)

      (Sadly, though I was on jump status at the time, and I participated in JUST CAUSE, I didn’t get a “mustard stain.” My mom watched me jump back in to Fort Bragg on 12 January 1990, so there is that.)

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Oh, that brings back memories. I got tapped for shuttle bus duty for troops from Sacramento to Travis. (Normally I was a vehicle maintenance control manager – the guy overseeing the service desk people.) One night the fog was so thick that you could barely see the taillight of the vehicle 50 feet ahead of you. That was a LONG tedious drive up and back on I80 at like 30 mph. And there were some idiots trying to drive 70 under those conditions.

        Like

        1. Oof, tule fog.

          So as a side note, tule fog has decreased notably in the last several decades. And the reason is, in fact, human-caused. But in a good way.

          See, they studied the cause of decrease of these incredibly dense fogs and traced it back… to less pollution. Apparently, particulates in the air cause fog formation (of course), so fewer artificial particulates means fewer fog banks.

          This does not stop the haze, though. That brown layer you see over the Sacramento Valley/Central Valley in summer is nothing more than aerosolized dust.

          Like

  17. Re this gen less edumacated than the last, et cetera: This has been going on for a very long time. Go read the letters home from the kids who fought in the Unpleasantness Which Shall Not Here Be Named, and goggle at how far, far more literate the private soldiers of the 1860s were compared to more recent examples of kids the same age.

    Like

    2. If you look at old schoolbooks, the usual thing was to have selections from Great Speeches and from poetry as reading selections. Then the kids were supposed to memorize one or two of them, and then recite that.

      They also spent a lot of time copying out proverbs, Bible verses, and notable quotes.

      They also did a fair amount of vocabulary work for spelling recitation.

      So yeah, of course they sounded more literate in their letters home.

      Liked by 2 people

      1. Not even old (well old NOW). I remember the 6th grade reader having Poe’s The Gold Bug and Emerson’s Concord Hymn or at least parts of it. The 8th grade reader had O’Henry’s Ransom of Red Chief. The readers were newish (I think the 8th Grade ones were unused , so vintage 1974). In US History/Civics we memorized and recited the Gettysburg Address. Admittedly First grade was the damnable Dick and Jane readers. My daughters didn’t read quite the same things (junior high in the late 2000’s) though still mostly decent stuff although interspersed with a lot of stuff to add “diversity”. Currently elder daughter teachers Math in the 8th grade. Her students read The Outsiders as well as a somewhat tweaked version (slightly simplified english) of Romeo & Juliet. Elder daughter can still recite the opening to that from memory which amuses her students who never memorize anything. They also don’t seem to write longer papers with citations (which we started in 7th grade and were taught about avoiding plagiarism) and are unable to make decent written arguments.

        Like

  18. Late to the party, sorry. Whenever I feel like jumping (crossing) the chasm, I make myself a chamio tea and sit quietly till the need passes, NOT. Like a lot of folks, I’ve a need for speed. Mostly because that’s what gets you across the chasms of life. As a GOF, I can look back to working on A.I. like devices and programs in the 80s on real Symbolics machines. Zetalisp was a lovely language! Nonetheless, the current massive lookup tables and the trained, sloppy search engines get quicker results than we could back then. It’s still not AI. We now have 8 bit floating point, 4 bit floating point being used to “match” information. Now the need for speed, is starting to look a little strange. What happens when incorrect information is trained into the LLM? Just what I wanted, a quick wrong answer. Worse yet, what happens when the training program is deliberately lied to? StarNet…

    Like

  19. I want to jump all Democrat Politicians and liberal Judges with an Abrams tank, wearing Evil Knevil Leathers while playing the Star Spangled Banner with a guitar. Should be fun.

    Like

    2. Kzin. I suspect Kzinti do not take well to having their race name incorrectly transliterated. Luckily they aren’t here, Yet :-) .

      Like

  22. I’m just trying to jump as fast as I can, and hopefully hit the landing every single time.

    And make it through each day, one at a time.

    Don’t get mad at people who don’t have a clue, because nobody wants to have a clue these days.

    Enjoy the things I have, because God knows nobody is making anything like it now.

    Read something new every day, if I can.

    Write when I can.

    Avoid streaming services like the disease of absolutely terrible wallpaper paste entertainment productions they are.

    And try to be the change I want to see in this world.

    Liked by 1 person

Comments are closed.