The United States and Israel: Assassins par Excellence

What does it say about a country when it uses assassination as a major tool in foreign policy and defense?  Is this a classic case of ‘the ends justify the means’, or a slippery slope to a dystopian future?

Israel has long utilized individual or multi-person assassinations as a means to exact revenge, create fear, decapitate organizations or impede certain activities that they feel are future dangers for Israel.  The USA has also employed assassination as a tool to respond to hostile actions (for example, the targeted killing of an Iranian general in 2020 after an Iranian attack on a US air base) and it used the CIA for assassinations for several decades during the cold war.  

 

More recently, the USA has targeted boats in the Caribbean it suspects of transporting drugs and has destroyed them and killed all persons aboard.  It is reportedly giving the CIA free reign to plan and implement the assassination of the President of Venezuela.  War has not been declared and these actions seem clearly to be extra-judicial and in violation of international law.

 

The post October 7^th Israeli actions included numerous assassinations in addition to its almost total destruction of Gaza and killing of over 70 thousand Gazans.  The indiscriminate murder and maiming of Lebanese who happened to have pagers that Israel had refitted with explosive charges stretched any possible justification of legitimacy, as did the murder of scientists who were working on nuclear programs that may or may not have been directly related to weapons development.

 

Both Israel and the current USA administration scoff at international objections to any actions they deem to be in their best interest.  Israel justifies its existence on a UN resolution in 1948, but paradoxically has ignored the UN and all other international bodies ever since in its occupation of Palestinian territory and oppressive apartheid rule over the inhabitants.  The USA has initiated military action whenever it sees fit without any appeal to the international community.

 

A nation is not an individual.  It is a political entity tasked with serving the best interests of its citizens. However, the moral code that a nation claims, and the actions that either support or violate that moral code are not without consequence.  The USA has long portrayed itself as a virtuous land with high moral principles and as a force for good in the world.  Assassinations, extra-judicial killings, torture, economic blackmail and other cynical acts of so-called self-interest may have the desired effect in the short term, but they are an abomination.  They lead the world toward a dark future and they are a shameful commentary on our own moral failures.

 

 

The Runaway Train of AI

The runaway train of the AI frenzy is another great example of how human nature and the free market can conspire to push humankind much faster than it can possibly adapt, likely causing major disruption and damage.

Humans love to create, and they also love to acquire wealth, fame and power.  The capitalist system and free market have accomplished many great things, but the frenetic and hurried nature of innovation and competition has often had very nasty side effects that would have been less pronounced had there been a more controlled and thoughtful path.

 

There have been multiple technological frenzies in our history that have dealt heavy blows to society.  The first may have been the conversion to large scale agriculture as hunter gatherer societies went from small tribal units to vast populations under the despotic control of a combination of religious and military tyrants.  Yuval Harari, who wrote the highly entertaining and insightful book “Sapiens”, called the agricultural revolution the biggest fraud in history!  The relatively stable and fulfilling lives of the hunter gatherers became infinitely more precarious and unpleasant with the transition to large scale agriculture.   

 

In the long run, of course, agriculture would become a reliable and powerful aide to humanity, but it took tens of thousands of years.

 

The industrial revolution, heralding the advent of true capitalism and the free market, is a perfect example of how a technological frenzy can accelerate societal change much faster than it can be accommodated.  Once the steam engine genie was out of the bottle, there was no stopping.  Soul-sucking, smoke-spewing factories spread like wildfire and entire families worked 6 or 7 days a week, 12 to 16 hours a day, including children.  The working conditions were incredibly harsh and dangerous.  Many of the artisans and skilled craftspeople lost their livelihoods, and vast numbers of people left the land to become even more enslaved in dirty, oppressive cities.

 

Of course, agricultural work was no picnic, and in the long run (a hundred years later!) factory and manufacturing work would provide a more stable and less onerous labor situation than farm life.  But the transition was brutal and it can be argued that its chaotic and cruel path led, or at least strongly contributed, to some of the most horrific events of the 20^th century – world wars and revolutions, dictatorships and genocides.

 

Another technological revolution was nuclear power.  The rapid development and proliferation of nuclear weapons came frighteningly close to annihilating the entire earth several times, and is experiencing a bit of a renaissance today as the large number of nuclear capable nations vie for dwindling resources and find themselves in an ever more confrontational geopolitical system. But at least there we have governing bodies attempting to control and restrict their use.

 

The most recent example of technological frenzy is the one-two punch of the computer and the Internet. The first punch, let’s call it a jab, put computers on everyone’s desktop and automated much of our business and commercial lives.  There was some level of displacement and job loss, but not nearly the type of hard-core unpleasantness that occurred in the industrial revolution.  Ironically, however, there was also not the dramatic increase in productivity that pundits expected.  We are still waiting for that.

 

The second punch of the digital revolution, call it a roundhouse blow, hit us hard.  The Internet, social media and smart phones developed so quickly and became so dominated by megacompanies and super wealthy individuals that the initially miraculous availability of information and connection became a nightmare of digital manipulation. It sparked a breakdown of civility, a tsunami of disinformation and populism as well as a torrent of anxiety, depression and psychological damage.  Not to mention the loss of privacy and the absurd inundation of advertising.

 

Central economic planning and control in the style of mid-twentieth century Soviet Russia or China were tragic failures.  But abandoning all civic control of the development of major societal forces and technologies and allowing the free market and human greed to dictate our future is not turning out to be a great idea either.  

 

And now we have AI.  The frenzy around AI far exceeds any previous frenzy.  The race to develop more advanced versions and facilitate ever greater processing of digital data is driven by a combination of competition, greed and a desperate fear of not staying relevant.  The primary players are all public or private companies with nothing to rein them in and huge egos at their helm.  There are prominent voices crying out for caution and a more controlled and monitored process of development.  Many of these voices are experts in the field.  But they are generally being ignored, and the cult of the totally free market and no government interference has firmly entrenched itself in the Trump autocracy and billionaire class.

 

No one can stop AI, and no one should.  But the short and long term disruptions and risks of AI progressing at a dangerous and breakneck speed may well be more than our planet and species can accommodate.  Like the arms race of the 50’s and 60’s, even if our nation were under more intelligent leadership there would be tremendous pressure to ‘beat the Chinese’.  The only effective restraint would have to come from an international movement and agreement between the key competing governments.  In the current climate of suspicion and ill will, this is, sadly, unlikely to occur.

 

Taxing the Rich: So Necessary but Almost Impossible to Achieve

The election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York City has brought new energy into discussions of wealth and income inequality.  The NYT reported in an article on the French debate over imposing the Zucman tax (a wealth tax on those with more than 100M euros) that it is estimated that the wealthiest 1% in the world own 43% of the world’s wealth.

I find it difficult to understand how people cannot concede that wealth and income inequality have grown dramatically and that the superrich have far too much power in political and economic spheres.

 

The super rich, surrounded by sycophants and unimaginable wealth, become deluded about their accomplishments.  They interpret their success as evidence of superior wisdom and capability.  They imagine themselves as humankind’s heroic class.  Like emperors, kings and robber barons of the past, they define their role as that of demi-Gods, chosen by destiny.

 

A subset of the billionaire class believes that they are more capable of solving the world’s problems than governments that they view as paralyzed by partisan rancor and boxed in by outmoded ideologies and platforms.  They are convinced that their control of much of the world’s wealth is warranted.  Many see massive investment in technology (under their control of course!) as more likely to provide long term benefits than any redistribution of wealth or other government programs.

 

But there is no technology quick fix for the world.  Neither Musk’s robots nor Altman’s Super Intelligent AI nor Zuckerberg’s meta-world will substitute for the slow, but steady international improvement of conditions on planet earth.  Indeed, it is more likely that these overwrought technology investments and frenetic races to dominate AI will cause more harm than good.

 

The French economist Thomas Piketty, in his book on this topic, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, recommends much higher taxes on both the income and wealth of the rich. But how likely is that to occur? 

 

In the USA, the subject of taxation has been highly controversial since before the birth of our nation.  Even when it is emphasized that tax increases would only affect the top 10% of incomes and wealth a significant percentage of those in the middle or lower classes side with their wealthier compatriots in strongly opposing such taxes.

 

The main arguments against increasing taxes on the wealthy are the following:

• Large tax increases will cause an exodus of those affected to countries with low tax rates (what Piketty calls ‘the race to the bottom’)
• Tax increases will hobble the economy by decreasing technology research, investment and expansion of businesses. It will decrease the incentive of entrepreneurs, inventors and job creators.
• The real economic problem is overspending by governments and increasing taxes will only make this problem worse.
• The rich already pay a majority of the taxes.
• Redistribution of wealth will only encourage sloth and dependency in the lower classes.

I will address each of these arguments and then explain why I sadly have almost no hope for any sizable wealth distribution outside of a major catastrophic chain of events.

 

First of all, let’s face it.  Almost everyone fights like hell to keep what they have.  And when you are a billionaire or have a few hundred million, then you have quite an arsenal for battling anyone or any group planning to take money from you.  The argument that higher taxation will cause capital flight is very valid.  Wealthy people already hide part of their wealth offshore.  Many New Yorkers already live half the year in Florida to escape NY city and state taxes.  But more on that later.

 

The long-lived argument that higher taxes on the wealthy will cripple the economy, stifle innovation, etc. etc. may have some validity at certain levels.  But today’s plutocrats have so much wealth that it is ludicrous to claim that having to give up some of it would cause them to stop investing or innovating. Exempting smaller entrepreneurs and business owners where increased taxation might hamper their efforts would need to be part of a larger tax concept.

 

The argument that governments are overspending and that higher taxation will simply encourage more profligate spending may have a germ of truth in some cases.  Any significant tax increases must go hand in hand with earnest bi-partisan efforts to analyze government programs, reduce where possible and eliminate waste. I think it is reasonable to aggressively pursue both revenue and expenses.  But a chaotic, vengeful and slapdash gutting of government departments a la DOGE is clearly not the right way to do it.

 

The argument that the rich already pay a majority of the taxes is specious.  The amount of taxation should be based on how much the taxpayer can bare without serious consequences, not by the percentages, especially in times of rising inequality.  Significant increases in taxes on both income and wealth would not change the lifestyles or the business decisions of the superrich and would barely impact even the top 10%.  As Jesus said, to whom much is given is much required! 😉

 

And the final argument, that wealth redistribution would only encourage sloth and dependency, is a fallback to the weary, old claim that the world will always have rich and poor and that the rich propel the world forward, while the poor drag it down.  Yes, human nature has elements of sloth and opportunism, and it also has elements of avarice and arrogance.  No one is advocating a scheme to completely eliminate poverty or inequality.  

 

To counter this line of argument, I would avoid using increased tax revenue for direct transfers to low earners.  Instead, I would invest in quality-of-life areas such as healthcare, education, transportation, network access, housing and urban renewal. This would defang the concerns about creating more dependencies and entitlements.  Creating a better quality of life so that there is less cost for healthcare, transportation, childcare and housing could make lower wage earners more productive, more stable and less vulnerable.

 

But there has rarely been a move to significantly raise taxation in advanced societies.  The great majority of the wealthy will never embrace it and they have ever more power to obstruct it.  Capital flight would certainly occur and it is highly unlikely that all nations will agree to avoid the ‘race to the bottom’ of providing tax shelters for those fleeing taxation.

 

The only times in history where redistribution of wealth has been achieved and inequality has decreased occurred after major wars or brutal economic depressions.  Unfortunately, this is probably the only likely scenario for rectifying the current disparity of wealth in this world.  And all signs point to one or the other occurring in the not-too-distant future.  I vote for depression, being the less catastrophic of the two.  But maybe climate change will trump them all!

Surprise, Surprise! - Macho is Cool Again

Mark Zuckerberg all muscled up, fantasizing about masculine energy and doing MMA when he isn’t licking Donald Trump’s boots.  Elon Musk doing his best storm trooper impressions on stage and populating his future mars spaceship with his progeny (minus one trans member who had the temerity to not pander to the demi-God wannabe).  Jeff Bezos looking embarrassingly pathetic with his bodybuilder physique and his trophy wife.

This is Revenge of the Nerds meets Rambo.  The tech titans are shedding their dweeb skins and becoming REAL MEN!  What a metamorphosis!  But sad to say, this is actually more reminiscent of Gregor Samsa’s metamorphosis into a huge cockroach.  Talk about deeply-rooted insecurities and damaged goods!

 

And then there’s Charlie Kirk and the whole world of so-called lost men who are feeling left out and under-appreciated.  They all want to be macho again and not feel guilty about it.  They want respect, damn it!  They want wives who will submit.  They want jobs that proclaim their manliness.  They want real lives as good as their video games.  They want to believe in absolute doctrines and dogma rather than have to ponder the mysteries of the world and attempt to understand the science that is the best bet to explain it.

 

Yes, machismo is all the rage.  And the most absurdly contradictory example of masculinity is leading the charge: Donald Trump.  But you need to get with the program, Donald.  Do some training, ditch the fast-food addiction and limit the makeup and hairspray.  You look ridiculous, bro!  

 

But then again, so do the rest of them.  Having billions of dollars apparently buys you a pass on looking like a desperate, foolish caricature of a superhero.  No, superrich doesn’t mean supercool, guys.  The retro macho thing will go through its cycle, hopefully without starting WW3 or a civil war.  You may have the money to buy a presidency or torment the world with increasingly toxic social media and cheap goods, but in the end, you can’t change the fact that you are deeply insecure little brats, and the followers you attract will find that embracing macho culture brings a very short-lived joy.

The AI Conundrum

 I am admittedly not a big AI fan.  After having spent my whole career in technology and generally embracing each new trend and capability, I am now evolving into a bit of a luddite.

Today I happened upon articles in the NYT, Nature and several other news sources that framed the myriad controversies that swirl around the AI juggernaut.  These types of articles are becoming ever more common.  Here are some of their fears:

 

• Environmental and resource concerns over the inexhaustible demands for server farms and electrical power
• The negative impact on developing countries where US tech giants have built vast server farms that compete with local needs for water and power
• The fraught decision-making in many countries as they weigh falling behind in the AI future versus meeting the basic needs of their constituencies.
• The uncertainties associated with generative AI accuracy, reliability and debugging.
• The unauthorized and uncompensated use of content 
• The effect generative AI will have on human creativity and skills
• The potential rapid loss of jobs (new jobs may eventually be created as in past technology leaps, but the initial impact might be so sudden as to cause major trauma)
• The likely rapid introduction of AI into military goals, creating a costly new arms race in addition to the costly AI race
• The existential dangers that a future AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) may pose

 

It is probably naïve to believe that anything could put the brakes on the AI juggernaut.  Competition and multi-faceted FOMO, as well as basic human curiosity will drive it forward no matter what scruples may arise.  What politician or tech executive can argue caution in the face of the AI gold rush?  

 

The AI true believers probably fall into two potentially overlapping categories of allegiance.  The first is the oldest motivation in human endeavor – greed.  The money and valuations that AI companies are already achieving beggar belief (though belief has been similarly beggared in past tech hype cycles as well).  Even with a likely dot-comish bubble deflation there will be unreal amounts of money to be made.

 

The second allegiance is to the billionaire-backed, messianic, ‘this will save the world’ club.  Musk, Altman, Zuckerberg, Ellison, Andreesen, Thiel and their brethren have jettisoned all concerns about climate change, plastic pollution, wealth and income inequality, international conflict and any other mundane earthly problems and seem to believe that AI will be the solution to all problems and will save the planet (how it will do this is still to be determined).

 

The accumulation of wealth in the hands of the increasingly narcissistic and wacked-out  billionaire club has made breakneck AI development an inevitability.  And under the current despotic Trump regime there will be nothing but encouragement as long as the Tech world licks the boots of the glorious leader.   The en masse shift of the tech bros away from Biden and the Democrats to Trump and the MAGA world can be directly traced to their outrage at the democrats’ inclinations to place some controls on AI development and potentially break up the clearly monopolistic tech giants.  And, of course, the democrats’ caution over their side hustle of cryptocurrency contributed to the breakup.

 

So, the AI conundrum is not whether it will be pursued as aggressively as possible because that is a foregone conclusion, but rather what ordinary people should do about it.  As for me, I will mostly fight it because I do not wish to be seduced into ever more soul-sucking forms of technical bondage.  Human beings of the world unite!  You have nothing to lose but your digital chains!

 

Trump’s Legacy: The Decline and Fall of the American Empire

Several recent news items caught my attention, and no, I am not referring to Trump’s triumph of vanity in Gaza or his gestapo-like dispatching of troops to democratic-run cities.  I am talking about a new report on the breaching of climate ‘tipping points’ and the failure of a global conference on limiting plastic pollution, followed by a report on industry executives who travelled to China and were blown away by its innovation and mastery in robotics, electric vehicles and renewable energy.

Trump is absolutely obsessed with opposing and destroying any of his predecessors’ accomplishments regarding climate change and renewable energy.  He has declared climate change a hoax perpetuated by ‘bad’ and ‘dumb’ people, and in his uniquely idiotic way, dismissed electric cars because they ‘don’t work in the cold’.  He has ordered an end to wind farm development, charging station rollouts and all research associated with renewable energy and global warming.  No doubt he welcomed the collapse of the plastics conference as well.

 

Future psychologists will be challenged to catalog the full list of Trump’s pathological traits, but the toxic mix of envy, narcissism, resentment and vengeance that drives his decision-making will be at the top of the list.  So deeply embedded is this psychosis that he has embraced every right-wing conspiracy theory and anti-science quackery that comes his way.  He has appointed charlatans and idiots to cabinet positions, with their only qualification being total obeisance to his will.

 

What does this mean for the future of our country?  We will soon be years behind in the development of renewable energy and electric vehicles.  We will have abandoned our leadership in international efforts to address climate change and other planet-threatening trends such as ocean acidification, plastic pollution, landscape and forest damage, and the loss of lifeforms and biodiversity.  We will have crippled our scientific research community and hamstrung our universities.  We will have irrevocably destroyed the trust of our most loyal allies.  We will also have seriously delayed efforts to transition away from fossil fuels and obtain a more sustainable balance of energy.

 

No empire lasts forever, and we have had the extraordinarily good fortune to be in a dominant economic and military position for over a hundred years.  But pride goeth before a fall, and there is no more extreme case of pride than the current president and his administration.  Trump will go down in history as the president who paved the way for the great period of decline of the United States, and the ascendance of China.

 

 

The Pendulum or the Spiral?

As an avid reader of history, I look for clues in the past to understand what is going on today.  George Santayana said that ‘those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it’.  But the past has many different outcomes for seemingly similar trends, so how can one attempt to predict the future and respond appropriately?

The aggressive authoritarianism of Donald Trump and his administration appears to be unique in the history of the United States.  There have been other periods where presidents have acted forcefully and tested the limits of presidential power.  Andrew Jackson, Teddy Roosevelt and FDR are examples.  However, the vengeful nature of Trump’s authoritarianism, his pathological narcissism and his attempts to vilify all opponents and create a climate of fear are substantially different from these other presidential terms.

 

Are we on a path to repeat the fascist nightmares of the 1930’s?  Will Trump use his absurd depiction of the internal dangers of the radical left and crime-ridden cities to declare martial law and push us toward a true police state?

 

The periods of 1919-1921 and the Depression saw the country lurch toward dangerous and unstable economic, political and social circumstances.  But in both cases, the crises passed and the country returned to a state of equilibrium.  In both politics and economics, which find themselves inextricably linked, there is a dynamic that is similar to the motion of a pendulum.  There is movement from the moderate center to a more extreme position, followed by a return to the center and a move toward the other extreme.  

 

The pendulum swing is a cycle of politics, just as the economic patterns of inflation, unemployment, and job and GDP growth go through their various stages.  You have a Reagan/Bush cycle followed by a Clinton cycle, followed by Bush and then Obama.  This has been a healthy if imperfect way for US politics to find compromise and make slow but steady progress toward its lofty goals as a society.

As the pendulum swings in one direction, the opposing side depicts the motion as dangerous and extreme.  Politics is a game of hyperbole and drama.

 

But history is also full of times when the pendulum swing becomes too violent and there is no return to equilibrium; where the cycle morphs into a spiral of ever-increasing radicalism, hostility and, ultimately, violence.

 

What causes this departure from the normal cycle?  Are there specific events, crises or conditions that predispose a nation to begin falling into this deadly spiral?  In the 1930’s there was a poisonous mix of desperate economic times, a general sense of alienation among large portions of the population, strongly nurtured grievances from the first world war and demonic, yet charismatic strongmen.  There was also a cynical acquiescence by key business, political and military leaders who saw the short-term upside for themselves and ignored or rationalized the clear dangers.

 

In Germany, a single event – the Reichstag fire – gave the new chancellor Hitler the opportunity to suspend most civil liberties, including freedom of the press, freedom of expression, habeas corpus, and to authorize monitoring of the post and telephone.  By claiming the act was evidence of a widespread communist plot to overthrow the government he convinced the German president, von Hindenburg, to issue the decree.  This dramatically propelled the German state away from any semblance of democracy and into a police state and dictatorship.  

 

We do not have a desperate economic situation, though there is a huge disparity in wealth and income that is becoming ever more toxic in our society.  And it is not out of the realm of possibility that a major recession and economic shock will come in the next few years.  

 

Trump has already fabricated the myth of a widespread conspiracy of the radical left and of crime-ridden cities, and has taken first steps toward a police state by use of military forces in democrat-governed cities and by transforming ICE into a huge paramilitary force.  He has attempted to rally the military around the concept of using domestic conflict as a training ground. And he has instructed the justice department to target so-called radical left groups and their supporters.  It is not difficult to imagine a single dramatic event similar to the Charlie Kirk assassination serving as a Trumpian Reichstag fire.

 

It is also very possible that we are truly in the steepest part of the Trump pendulum swing, and that the reaction of the nation will be to reject his extremist agenda and bring us back toward the center, presumably by significant shifts in the midterm elections. 

 

The difference between a pendulum swing and a death spiral may be a set of random events or an insidious, orchestrated coup that creeps up on us and catches us off guard.  But at least half the country is on alert now and profoundly opposed to the Trump administration, so if the spiral is to occur it will be ushered in with the kind of sad, feeble reluctance to make a strong, timely stand that is the Achilles heel of comfortable human beings.