Patience

I am not a particularly patient person.  This is most evident in my driving habits.  I like to say that I am an energetic driver, but it is clear that I generally am impatient and too eager to get to my destination in the most efficient and fastest way possible.  My impatience is also evident in my unwillingness to endure long plateaus in new hobbies or acquiring new skills.  I am not big on persevering if progress doesn’t come pretty quickly.  

Recently, I have been confronted with an example of patience and perseverance that is making me reevaluate my own predisposition for impatience: my grandson.  He was born on October 18^th and I have seen him about every two weeks since his birth.

 

The thing that has really made an impression on me is how much time it takes for a baby to develop various physical capabilities.  Other animals can ambulate almost immediately.  Our family watched an Icelandic horse give birth to a foal that was up and walking within minutes!  Baby birds start to fly around two weeks – is that crazy or what?

 

My grandson, Oliver, whom I love dearly, just recently found his feet at five months.  He is capable of flinging his arms and kicking his feet quite energetically, but he is just now learning how to control his hands to bring objects up to his mouth for exploration.  He can roll over, but not back yet.  Crawling is months away and when he finally walks, at about a year, he will ‘toddle’ like a drunken sailor for another year.

 

Human babies are incredibly slow developing in the realm of physical capabilities.  They are literally helpless for years!  But something very profound and amazing is going on behind the scenes during all that time.  That big human brain is gobbling up much of the energy provided by its caregivers and creating a basis for incredibly complex activities in the future.

 

And despite the apparent frustratingly slow progress on the physical front, Oliver is undeterred.  He tries again and again to make different movements or explore different sounds or try different facial expressions.  He learns how to smile and laugh and emit shrieks of glee or frustration or discomfort.  

 

As it slowly dawns on him that his parents and others around him have amazing freedom of movement and speech, he recommits himself each day to emulating them.  His determination, and yes, his patience, are laudable.  He will not leap up and walk right away, nor will he make an intelligible sound for some time.  But he works on it, making slow but steady progress.  

 

Maybe I need to be more like Oliver.  I need to be willing to keep plugging away at the things I become interested in.  I need to persevere.  And maybe, like Oliver, I will find that some amazing things are going on behind the scenes when I persevere and be very happy with the long term result.

The Trump Gestapo

The arrest and possible deportation of numerous students who protested on campus against Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza is a shocking and dangerous assault on free speech.  It is reminiscent of the early moves by the Nazi regime to eliminate political opponents.  If our country cannot allow people to express their opinions freely and without repercussion then what kind of a democracy do we have?

The video of the Tufts graduate student being arrested by ICE is chilling to the bone.  Masked agents taking her into custody as she left her home as though she were a desperate criminal.  What kind of America is this?  If Trump had been our president during the Vietnam War, he would no doubt have made mass arrests of student protesters and attempted to silence all criticism.  

 

There is only one way to interpret these actions: a rapid descent into an authoritarian police state.  The ICE Gestapo are the first step.  What comes next?  Every patriotic American should go out into the streets and demand an end to these vengeful and unlawful acts before it is too late.

A Return to the Dark Ages?

Science funding cuts, vaccine skeptics elevated to key positions, incompetent sycophants in cabinet positions, climate change denial, a fire hose of falsehoods, religious fundamentalism directing public policy, attacks on the judiciary, retribution initiated against all perceived enemies or critics.  The Trump/Musk regime, in its quest for vengeance, is doing its best to send America back to a modern variant of the dark ages.

It is hard to know how many of the Trump/Musk initiatives are ideological and how many are simply tossing red meat to the adoring minority of the population that feeds their massive egos. Trump famously denied any knowledge of Project 2025 and even suggested that some of it was too extreme, but he has been following its playbook almost to the letter.

 

The half of the population that voted for Trump was motivated by various concerns, but chief among them was the economy and the declining quality of life for much of the middle class.  The actions that Trump has taken to address these issues have mainly been chaotic and unfocused, such as imposing and rescinding tariffs on an almost daily basis.  Or cutting important programs to supposedly decrease our deficit, though the programs’ cost is down in the noise of the federal budget.  

Congress may, by some sleight of hand, be able to make some popular cuts in taxes before the midterms, but the promised return of manufacturing, and a solution for the general economic malaise are highly unlikely to occur by then, or ever, for that matter.

 

The anti-DEI, anti-abortion, anti-vaccine, anti-science, climate denying part of MAGA that is propelling us toward a new dark age is probably much smaller, perhaps as low as 25% of the population.  But they are a highly agitated group and they worship Trump.  Trump and Musk may find it euphoric to bathe in the glow of their frenzied adulation, but I suspect that their promotion of those causes will backfire in the midterms, especially if no economic benefits have accrued.

 

Is the USA really regressing to a state of ignorance where most of its citizenry rejects science, revels in conspiracy theories, and seeks a return to conservative religious values?  I refuse to accept that as inevitable and I expect the American people to deal a crippling blow to the MAGA extremists in less than 20 months.

 

 

Trade Deficits, Tariffs, AI and the Future of Manufacturing

One of Trump’s signature obsessions is the trade deficit.  He sees everything as win/lose, and despite the fact that most economists disagree with his position, he believes he can use tariffs to erase our trade deficit and bring back manufacturing jobs to America.

The loss of manufacturing jobs here has occurred over several decades.  It is not difficult to understand why.  Once global trade and relations offered the opportunity for developing nations to play in the game, their lower labor rates made the shift inevitable.  The result was a loss of middle-class jobs here, but also the increased availability of less expensive goods.  

 

The use of tariffs to ‘even the playing field’ will certainly make goods more expensive.  But will it truly bring back manufacturing to our country?  It seems that tariffs would have to be applied worldwide to avoid just having the manufacturing move from one low-cost labor country to another.  And the investment and time necessary to create new factories here would require investors to believe that this is a long-term phenomenon and not just a Trumpian phase that will be gone in a year or two.

 

But there is an interesting question about the future of all manufacturing that plays a role here and makes Trump’s vision of an American factory renaissance even less likely.  The question is this one:  how will AI impact manufacturing in the next 20 years? 

 

About 10 years ago I visited a brand-new diesel engine plant in Mississippi.  Mississippi was no doubt chosen because of its low labor rates and the lower probability of union formation.  The general manager of the plant told me that the starting salaries for workers were around $18-20/hour, much lower than traditional manufacturing salaries in years gone by.  But more astounding was the fact that the total number of workers in the plant was around 400, in stark comparison to previous engine plants where the number was closer to 4000.  The use of robotics and automation had reduced the number of workers by a factor of 10.

 

As the AI juggernaut accelerates, which no doubt will spur major improvements in manufacturing automation and robotics, how many jobs will future manufacturing plants actually have?  It is highly likely that the great majority of these jobs will disappear.  If so, then the location of a factory will become less dependent on the cost of local labor.  It will probably be more dependent on the tax situation, the availability of materials, and the overall corporate strategy.

 

If manufacturing no longer employs significant numbers of workers, then it will have less impact on the country where it is located.  It will no longer play a large role in solving the crisis of middle-class salary stagnation or unemployment.  It will enrich the corporation and its stockholders, but not much else.

 

Rather than focus on the delusional nemesis of trade deficits, the real challenge for the future is understanding the very nature of work in an AI saturated world.  In the revolutions of the past, new jobs have always replaced old jobs, and there is a temptation to believe that will be the case with the AI revolution.  But the computer revolution has already demonstrated that new jobs are not always the equal of old jobs, and that allowing the market to take its course may not produce satisfactory results.  Things are changing too fast to be complacent.  

 

 

Living Forever – Blessing or Curse?

If one can take a short break from breathless exclamations about the AI revolution, another area of technology with potentially life-changing consequences comes to mind: aging research.  A field that has long labored in obscurity has recently made significant progress and is causing some to predict dramatic new anti-aging regimens in the coming years.

Many hallmarks of aging have been identified, such as deterioration of cells or organs over time due to increased inflammation; genome instability; damage to DNA, proteins and lipids due to the reactive oxidative species that metabolic processes generate; and changes to telomeres, the repetitive DNA sequences at the ends of chromosomes that get shorter as a cell divides.

 

One area of aging research focuses on preventing aging by addressing the factors above.  The result would be a slowing of aging.  There are also hormonal therapies that rejuvenate skin cells, an aesthetic attack on aging to produce a more youthful appearance.

 

But in the last year scientists have also demonstrated ways to ‘turn back the clock’ on cells and restore them to their youthful state.  This was accomplished in a limited setting by inserting specific Yamanaka genes into cells.  This epigenetic approach (epigenesis is the process by which cells differentiate), whether by chemical process or gene therapy, actually changes the instructions that the cells receive and can accelerate, slow down or even reverse the aging process.  In some experiments, the cells have essentially been ‘re-booted’ to their original youthful state.

 

The implications of this research are profound.  If the human body can stop aging or be continually restored to a youthful state, what kind of world would we have?  Two extremes come to mind:  In one, we age gracefully to a certain point and then arrest the aging process.  We stay 65 or 70 for eternity.  But if anti-aging can completely restore youth, then certainly no one would choose to age past whatever ideal age they imagine for themselves, which is the other extreme.  Or perhaps we would age up to a certain point to have the full experience of aging, then backtrack to that ideal age?  The variations are infinite.

 

The sensible approach to anti-aging would seem to be to slow down the aging process so that people have longer and healthier lives.  But once the genie is out of the bottle there would be no turning back.  The rich would trade in their face lifts, tummy tucks, collagen lips and hair transplants for a return to their glorious youth at any price.  

 

What kind of fiendish groundhog’s day would our lives become?  A world full of 18-year-olds strutting around with full hormonal impetuosity!  Would our brains stay youthful and accumulate wisdom and experience?  Would injuries eventually curtail our exuberant youthfulness or would they all be repairable as well?  

 

If we think we have problems with climate change and environmental disasters now, just imagine the impact of exponentially increasing hordes of Peter Pans inhabiting our planet.  What the hell would the billions of eternal 18-year-olds do with themselves?  What kind of nightmarish society would evolve?

Even if anti-aging remedies merely extend our lives another twenty years I can't get very excited about them.  Who wants to live with a 90 year old body for another twenty years?  Even pickleball gets old at some point.  The younger generations would come up with some sort of a soylent green solution for that nonsense.

 

Anti-aging, gene editing and AI are all technologies that have potential repercussions that simply boggle the mind.  To be honest, I have a hard time imagining their advantages outweighing their disadvantages.  But wait, there may be a simple solution.  AI may just gene-edit and anti-age the hell out of us and create an eternal caste of slaves to do their bidding.  It would be a bit of poetic justice, you have to admit.

My Abhorrence of Arrogance and Malice

I am finding it very difficult to accept the fact that Trump, Vance and Musk are the face of our nation.  I am at odds with most of their policies and actions, but it is their arrogance and toxic behavior that most disturb me.  I despise bullies, blowhards, braggarts.

I have interacted with many people in my seventy years of life, from childhood friends to teachers to coaches to bosses to co-workers and subordinates.  People exhibit many different types of behaviors, from enchanting to offensive.  

 

I have had coaches, teachers and bosses who were taskmasters and quite demanding.  I accepted that behavior in good faith if their approach was respectful and had a measure of humility.  But some of them were malicious.  Their treatment of others was imbued with arrogance and a mean spirit.  When they were critical, they spoke angrily and hurtfully, not caring about the impact of their words and their actions.  They did not hesitate to brag about their own capabilities while demeaning others. They reacted viciously to any perceived slight. They didn’t acknowledge or tolerate nuance or ambiguity or disagreement.

 

They could be quite charming and friendly under some circumstances, especially with friends and acquaintances, or people they considered their equals.  But their mode of management and direction was brutal.  They had a tendency to lie or misrepresent things to obtain their goals.  They were the personification of ‘the ends justify the means’.  Some were spectacularly successful.  Trump, Vance and Musk are these people on a larger stage.

 

The substantial part of our nation that voted for Trump is either blind to his obvious narcissism and mendacity, or they are willing to accept ‘rough’ behavior in the service of crushing woke culture or fixing our economic woes.  I suppose that in their view, liberal elites and government workers looked down upon them and belittled their religious beliefs, their patriotism, and their concerns about government excess.  Trump, Vance and Musk are their avengers, and their supporters don’t seem to mind the cruel tactics they employ.  Indeed, they appear to be delighted.  So much for our better angels.

 

Trump’s petty, vindictive acts – renaming the Gulf of Mexico, threatening Greenland, Panama and Canada, treating Europe like a vassal state, firing non-white and female military leaders, threatening and firing government workers without any real analysis of what parts of government can reasonably be trimmed, taking away security details from people who have criticized him, excoriating a courageous leader who rallied his nation against a ruthless Russian invasion – may have underlying motives that one can assign to his overall ‘America first’ mantra.  But the manner in which he has conducted his first month in office is unquestionably that of a brutish and arrogant tyrant.

 

In my worldview, there is no excuse for arrogance or cruelty.  There is a sadistic element in the Trump/Vance/Musk playbook.  It is purposely vengeful.  It delights in shocking and wounding.  And I am ashamed to have these men represent me in the world.  

Why Do Good Things Happen to Bad People?

As I watch the Trump/Musk plutocracy conduct a cruel and chaotic mass firing of government employees and threaten and blackmail other nations, I feel heartsick and horribly disappointed at how life often seems to reward the worst people with power, wealth and fame.

Donald Trump and Elon Musk are both profoundly impaired human beings.  They lack empathy, they are emotionally immature, they are grotesquely vain and narcissistic, and they are frighteningly vindictive. Both Musk and Trump seem to be trapped in an endless adolescence.

 

Their business success is probably at least partially due to these pathological traits, which is a very sad and depressing fact.  The history of human endeavor is replete with examples of people with horrific flaws wielding tremendous power and causing mayhem and tragedy.  

 

Both Trump and Musk achieved wealth through audacious, risk-taking ventures.  Trump was never seen as a great genius, but his massive accumulation of wealth made him a celebrity in a nation that worships the rich.  His unscrupulous character and hardball business ethics were well known from the start, but he, like so many of the rich, was never called to account for the way he did business.  The only thing that mattered was that it succeeded.

 

Musk, on the other hand, was idolized early on for his technical acumen and his apparently visionary commitment to a world of electric vehicles and space adventure.  He cast himself as the planet’s savior from climate change and the world swooned in admiration.  A closer look at his business trajectory poses many questions as to how much of this hero myth was self-generated after clever appropriation of other businesses and their already well-developed strategies. 

 

But now the true character of both men has come into stark relief.  With the unbridled glee of a spoiled eight-year-old torturing a cat, Musk revels in wreaking havoc in real people’s lives.  He seems to experience a diabolical joy in the fear and heartbreak that his DOGE goons have inflicted on tens of thousands of dedicated government employees.  And Trump stands behind him, sneering proudly – “this is my son, with him I am well pleased”.

 

Yes, it is a sad truth that bad people will often have their way in this world.  I find it highly dispiriting, but I know from history that their success is not the end of the story.  Justice will not necessarily be served directly to Trump or Musk.  Trump may keel over from a fast food induced heart attack before he experiences any sort of consequences for his actions.  But good people will rise and the pendulum will eventually swing away from the red zone of the Trump/Musk villainy.  I just wish it were more like the movies and the bad guys got their punishment quickly and we got to see it happen.  Sigh.