Some non-random thoughts on current affairs
AI (“Artificial Intelligence”) is certifiably artificial but absolutely not intelligent.
Elon Musk can serve as an illustration: quite smart about artifacts (cars, rockets) and quite ignorant, even stupid, about people and human nature (social media, politics).
The phenomenon has been cogently described by Kara Swisher [1] as typifying the idiots savant who populate much of Silicon Valley: having made one specific more-or-less technical breakthrough, they suffer from the illusion of understanding everything.
Quite a large number of popular aphorisms are applicable to contemporary matters:
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions” cuts readily both ways in the current political polarization (political correctness, wokeness, DEI bureaucracies — or “Drain the swamp”).
On the other hand, “Every cloud has a silver lining”.
The political left, currently obsessing about the nomination of seemingly loyalist but incompetent or inexperienced or certifiably unqualified individuals for leading positions in the government, will protest as I point to some of the good things that some of these nominations might conceivably bring about, by chance if not through well-based accurate knowledge:
→ The elimination of DEI bureaucracies in higher education and elsewhere
→ No more Federal hysterical obsession with non-existent human-caused climate change [2]
→ Better evidence before approving drugs or vaccines:
1. “HIV” does not cause illness but untold numbers of people all over the world are being fed toxic drugs if they test “HIV+”, at great and often public expense [3]
2. HPV has never been proven to cause any cancers whereas the vaccines against it are known to be dangerous to health [4]
3. Quite a lot of other mainstream medical practices are contrary to the evidence [5]
These good things might come if Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has a say in it.
Unfortunately, he cannot be relied on, as his statements are inconsistent and irreproducible,
and at least one of his published assertions is an inexcusable misrepresentation (about Anthony
Fauci) [6]
“Birds of a feather flock together” describes much that is wrong on all sides. The sad consequences include bad decisions fueled by Groupthink [7].
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”.
Large numbers of public commentators appear ignorant of many significant episodes in American history and in world history. For example, that innumerable slaves shipped from Africa had been first enslaved by Arabs and Africans, and that Britain and America pioneered in getting rid of slavery; or that the earliest definitely known indigenous inhabitants of “Palestine” were Hebrews and that there were no Muslims anywhere until many centuries later.
Unquestionably the death toll in Gaza is excruciatingly painful — because it is being broadcast live and contemporaneously. But the same death toll of innocent people took place in World War II, even at the hands of “the good guys”, albeit without world-wideTV coverage: say, the “carpet-bombing” of Dresden and the atomic bombs dropped on two Japanese cities.
Wisdom is to be found in many old texts and religious works. Perfectly relevant today remains “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's” [8]. That describes the necessity for thoroughgoing separation of Church and State — more thoroughgoing than we have so far achieved.
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[1] Delights and dangers of the digital age —
Reviewing Kara Swisher, Burn Book: a Tech Love Story, Simon & Schuster (2024)
https://henryhbauer.substack.com/p/delights-and-dangers-of-the-digital
[2] Climate-change facts: Temperature is not determined by carbon dioxide; https://scimedskeptic.wordpress.com/2017/05/02/climate-change-facts-temperature-is-not-determined-by-carbon-dioxide
[3] See hundreds of books and articles summarized at THE CASE AGAINST HIV,
https://thecaseagainsthiv.net; and for continuing coverage, see rebeccaculshawsnith.substack.com
[4] HPV, Cochrane review, and the meaning of “cause”, https://scimedskeptic.wordpress.com/2018/10/27/hpv-cochrane-review-and-the-meaning-of-cause
[5] WHAT’S WRONG WITH PRESENT-DAY MEDICINE; https://mega.nz/file/gWoCWTgK#1gwxo995AyYAcMTuwpvP40aaB3DuA5cvYjK11k3KKSU
[6] Science-deficiency of the MD-trained: Robert Gallo and Anthony Fauci
https://henryhbauer.substack.com/p/science-deficiency-of-the-md-trained
See the section, “With friends like these”
[7] Janis, Irving L., Victims of groupthink; a psychological study of foreign-policy decisions and fiascoes, Houghton, Mifflin (1972).; Groupthink: psychological studies of policy decisions and fiascoes(1982)
[8] Ascribed to Jesus in Matthew 22:21