Speech to text generation

AI

I have been working on the writing of Gilles Deleuze for over 15 years, and so it is interesting to see his theories manifest in the computational science of AI neural networks and large language models.

If there has been a touch of anxiety and existential dread to 2023, it is because AI that could easily pass a Turing test has been created, leaving us to admit that our brains, our consciousness, maybe even our sentience is more biological, material, and mechanical than we ever believed. In essence, what is special about us, and are we evolving towards a future where our co-habitation and maybe even integration with AI will fundamentally upend what we thought it meant to be human?

my love

 

Spiritual Ascent

The hypothesis is that if we are going to live fulfilling lives, we must prioritize spiritual fulfillment: rest, caring, love, tenderness, fun, joy, weakness, pain, growth, community, communion with nature, exercise, etc. I would say that "back in the day", many people got these things mainly through religion. They also got the bad parts as well: guilt, shame, dominance, ignorance, violence, trauma, brainwashing, war, sexism, classism, racism, etc.

Religiosity, in my day-to-day, and in that of many of my peers, is minimally impactful. I don't go to minyan, or even pray every morning. Even beyond religion, I rarely engage spirituality actively. I often prioritize work, family obligations, friend obligations, social media, travel, consumerism, video games, housework, TV, restaurants, etc. ahead of any kind of meaningful spiritual fulfillment.

I must prioritize the things that are actually improving my spiritual fulfillment, and question the value of everything else. The idea that there is not enough time is a straw man. I was lying in bed doing transformational breathing, and I hit the 20-minute mark, and I had 10 minutes left to go, and I felt a real pang of guilt that I was spending a whole thirty minutes on this indulgent exercise and then, as my palms and legs tingled and I became lightheaded, I realized that anything else I did today, or even this week might not be as important as this moment of self-love and exploration. Challenging myself to breathe continuously for thirty minutes, having a mild out-of-body experience is exactly where I wanted to be. Everything else can piss off.

It begins with practice. Spirituality is not something to be engaged, thankfully, in the abstract. It is lived through. What are the practices that I will calendar to engage in this, and will I make it the priority, or will I let other obligations get in the way? How deep can I go into my mind and intellectualism? Where will it take me?

 

AI: The Story Up Till Now

 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/03/technology/ai-openai-musk-page-altman.html

The Age of Jedi

Where the people can sing, the poet can live

- This is no place for love.

- One day, perhaps, unimaginable generations hence, we will evolve into the knowledge that human beings are more important than real estate and will permit this knowledge to become the ruling principle of our lives. For I do not for an instant doubt, and I will go to my grave believing, that we can build Jerusalem, if we will.

- James Baldwin, "Nothing Personal"

The Montessori Method

 https://harpers.org/archive/2022/02/every-child-an-emperor-on-maria-montessori/

sick bass chops

 

Kendrick's Breathwork Song

 

Mid-Transition Risks

 

The end of automobiles

The end of automobiles

When I first got hooked on reading about Peak Oil, it was the mid-aughts, there was apocalypse on one side, and on the other a technological solution that would allow us to live exactly as we were ad infinitum. Now, nearly 20 years later, the two sides have moved closer together. On one hand, we didn't run out of oil, nor did it get prohibitively expensive. On the other, we have more research into hydrogen and batteries that may in fact pose a partial solution to the end of petroleum. That does not mean that we're not heading for a deep correction and a reconfiguring of our planned landscape.

We are still going to run out of petroleum. A host of solutions will come to the fore. But ultimately they will be more expensive. Our commuting and individual-use automobile lifestyle will end. People will have to live closer together and public transit will increase. Our capitalist economy is based upon the smooth and cheap transport of goods and people and when that ends, the economy will also suffer. The poorest nations will be hit the hardest. We don't have enough electricity or critical minerals to create a long-term battery-powered or hydrogen car infrastructure. Perhaps it will be golf cart cities at best.

Is the Tao in all things? 

What would it mean to dance without ego?

Poverty is a ever-present emergency

Poverty is a ever-present emergency

In squeezing businesses and people to the brink, the just-in-time business philosophy that began with Japanese auto industry in order to reduce inventories has morphed into just-enough for our workers and even the unemployed humans that want to try to get by on scarce public services. The philosophy that the average worker now understands is one that by impoverishing our neighbor, we enrich ourselves, will end with a nation impoverished, a tower of babel surrounded by empty parking decks.

This was a short reaction to reading Matthew Desmond's Poverty, By America

Why are you crying?

 

Democracy falls apart

 

 

Transportation

My assumption is that over the next 40 years, the amount of gas-powered vehicles will go down due to cost of fuel.  

Some will be replaced by electric vehicles or hybrids.

Ultimately, we don’t have enough generation capacity to power all the EVs, even if we could produce them.

The result? 

- Denser communities. 

- A shift towards public transportation. 

- Golf cart-like, short driving radius EVs. 

- Higher stratification as these vehicles will be more expensive. 

Does the bee understand it will die before it stings?

Poetry is a tenderness doubled

 

A culture is no better than its woods

 - W.H. Auden

Love is of the body

 "Love is of the body; not a body, but of the body."

- A Room with a View, E.M. Forster