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.

 

 

 

The H-1B Visa Problem

I despise almost all of what Trump has initiated in his nine months in office, but the H-1B Visa fees are not something I worry about.  In fact, wouldn’t the world be better off if we couldn’t rob other countries of their top talent?

There are three arguments against pillaging the best and brightest from other countries.  The first is that we should be focused on improving our own educational system.  We have three hundred and some million people in this country.  There is no conceivable reason why we should have to go far afield to find talent.  If the reason is better preparation in specific areas, then the tech companies should work with universities and secondary schools to improve the pedagogy in those areas. 

 

Within our population there is enough brain power to do anything.  There is no legitimate argument that we must tap other nations for the most intelligent or capable workers.  It is a simply a matter of developing the wonderful intellects that are already here.

 

The second argument is that H-1B visas are in essence a continuation of the western exploitation of the resources of other lands.  How can we expect these countries to become more stable politically with better developed economies and opportunities if we are taking the raw human resources that they so desperately need to make progress in a competitive world that is already stacked against them?  

 

The same is true for our visa system for studying in the USA.  It is a wonderful thing for our universities to train citizens from across the world if there are limited educational opportunities in their own country.  But we should not allow them to stay, for if they do not return, we are essentially stealing them from those other countries.

 

The world is a competitive place and I fully understand that there is a strong motive for recruiting talent, whether through university education or H-1B visas.  But the world is also a profoundly troubled place with grotesque inequalities among nations.  And those troubles and inequalities are no longer remote and meaningless to us.  They are increasingly causing strife within our land through immigration issues, climate change, wars, drugs and criminality.  There is no question that the loss of valuable intellectual talent contributes heavily to these woes.

Brain drain is a catch-22 for developing nations.  The more troubled or unstable a nation is, the more the best and brightest flee for better opportunities, which in turn creates more instability.  Developed nations are exacerbating the problem by aggressively recruiting people from struggling lands.

 

The third argument is that the H-1Bs are predominantly used to fuel the AI furnace, and the last thing this world needs is a furious, no holds barred arms race in AI.  We would all be better off if AI development were less frenetic and more measured, with essential ethical and safety analyses guiding the technology.  It would also be good for many countries to share in the development of this technology to motivate them to use it for the common good.

 

The AI arms race is similar to the nuclear arms race in the cold war.  But the mutual assured destruction scenario at least kept those arms in a dormant state.  I highly doubt there will be any such hesitancy or precautions in the application of AI technology.

 

Of course, all of my arguments are idealistic in the extreme and unlikely to ever be considered in public policy.  No doubt my concern for other countries and use of the term ‘exploitation’ would be ridiculed as hopelessly bleeding heart by more conservative readers.  But it is in my nature to ponder problems and look at an idealized scenario.  It is a naivete of sorts, but it is satisfying to me to imagine a more perfect world.  

 

Is Charlie Kirk the Horst Wessel for MAGA?

First, let me say clearly that I think the murder of Charlie Kirk is abominable and tragic.  There is no justification for this type of political assassination.  But the reaction of Trump, Vance and the rest of the MAGA world is frightening and incredibly cynical and manipulative.

 

Horst Wessel was a middle-class university student who reveled in the masculine subculture of the Sturmabteilung (SA) of the late 1920’s. He became a leader of a street cell that courted violent encounters with communists in Berlin.  He was shot by a communist thug over a lodging dispute and died later in the hospital from sepsis.

 

Josef Goebbels, at that time the Gauleiter of Berlin, had been looking for a martyr to use for propaganda purposes.  Horst Wessel was perfect for the role.  As the Nazi party became ever more powerful and the storm troopers grew in numbers and violence, Horst Wessel became an icon.  A song that Wessel had composed became the SA anthem and ultimately the Nazi party anthem and was known as the Horst Wessel Lied (Song).  To this day it is illegal to perform this song in Germany and both the lyrics and tune are banned.

 

There are strong parallels between the history of the Horst Wessel martyrdom and the current MAGA efforts to make Charlie Kirk into a noble hero cut down by evil leftists.  In both cases, rather than lamenting the violence that pervades society and calling for calm, the events were used for political vengeance and initiating draconian witch hunts for so-called co-conspirators. 

 

Ignoring the complex nature of violence in the USA, which has touched all sides of the political spectrum and is often more a question of mental illness and alienation than of political motivation, is profoundly deceitful.  And publicly shaming, threatening, suspending or firing people who express opinions that are critical of Kirk or that minimize his assassination are clear violations of free speech.  It is a very slippery path to a police state mentality.

 

There may indeed be wrenching sorrow in the MAGA ranks over the death of Kirk, but using his death as a way to limit political discourse and target political foes is clearly an authoritarian move that endangers the most basic rights of our country.  The proper way to honor Kirk would be to make a strong appeal for reconciliation and harmony.  We may not be able to cease vilifying one another in the short term, but using Kirk’s death to ratchet up the tension in our fragile democracy is courting disaster.

It Really Is All About the Data

Figures never lie, but liars will figure.  This pithy quote is attributed to Mark Twain, but like so many quotes, may be falsely attributed.  However, the implication that data and statistics are important but can be manipulated by the unscrupulous is an important caveat to any discussion of the importance of facts and data.

The recent assassination of Charlie Kirk, who often engaged in heated debates with liberal college students as a way to spread his hard-right brand of Christian conservatism, caused me to review some of his debates and consider the larger question of how we study and interpret the issues that plague our current political landscape.

 

Charlie Kirk was no deep thinker.  He was a hard-right provocateur in the spirit of Rush Limbaugh and other shock jocks.  He is being eulogized for his willingness to engage in debate and dialogue, but these debates and interactions were always superficial.  No serious analysis of issues took place.  The goal was to ‘own the libs’, and Kirk was somewhat skilled at making clever jibes that seemed to make sense to an audience desperate for validation of their own prejudices.  His so-called debates were pure entertainment, not a real channel for engagement. Charlie Kirk was a skilled political operator, nothing more.

 

The only way to truly work through political, social and economic issues is to analyze the data and think deeply about how that data can be interpreted.  It isn’t easy, and it isn’t foolproof. There is always potential for people to manipulate or misconstrue facts to confirm their biases.  But careful study and good faith interaction will generally lead to at least a moderation of extreme views and a potential for compromise.

 

Sadly, the American people have little patience for data or details.  Ross Perot’s candidacy for president in 1992 was doomed after he famously brought out a flip chart and tried to educate the audience by using graphs and data.  Americans are bred on political sound bites and the verbal pugilism of talk radio, TV news and Internet memes.

 

Our rabidly partisan political situation has triggered a near total abandonment of deep, factual analysis.  The primary channels of social media have no capability to foster gracious, sincere exchange of carefully thought-out views.  There are Internet spaces where deep thinking is recorded (substack, patreon and others), but only a tiny minority of Americans engage.

 

When careful, deep analysis is abandoned, the political landscape becomes dominated by boisterous, brutal and violent people.  The loudest, most extreme and most simplistic opinions are embraced with fervor by a public that only has appetite for the clever quip or the putdown.

 

When data and facts are no longer the basis of political dialogue, democracy goes into a death spiral.  Who will pull us out?

France’s ‘Block Everything’ Protests – The Start of a Unifying Theme for Troubled Democracies?

On Wednesday, a day after France’s assembly gave a no-confidence vote to its Prime Minister that resulted in his resignation, over 200 thousand people went into the streets to protest inequality and potential budget cuts proposed by the Macron administration.

 

The great majority of the participants polled were adherents to left or far-left politics. The right was an early advocate of the idea to demonstrate, but the increasing role of the left, still a sworn enemy, discouraged many from the right. The far-right party, the National Rally (RN), has focused its key ideological tenets around immigration, nationalism and euro-skepticism.  The RN is also anti-woke, which tends to alienate it from the left.  But its strong populist nature is fed significantly by economic insecurity, which suggests a possibility for a future alliance.

 

The French republic, like the USA, has a debt larger than its GDP (123%).  It also has seen dramatic increases in income and wealth disparity over the last 40 years similar to the those in the USA.  The challenge of coming up with a budget that begins to reduce that debt has overwhelmed Macron and his party, somewhat ironically named Renaissance.

 

All of the western democracies are facing similar challenges.  Both moderate left and right parties have failed to rein in budget deficits and growing populist movements are becoming significant threats.  In most cases, the efforts to create a balanced budget are focused on spending cuts rather than increases in taxes – a unilateral approach that is primarily  alienating the lower classes on the left presently, but has the potential to broaden its repugnance.

 

The economic situation in all of these countries is becoming more precarious with each passing year.  Interest payments on debt are rising, military outlays are increasing and populations are aging. The attempts to cut public services or delay retirements are extremely unpopular, but up to now have not created a united front across the political spectrum.

 

If the economic trends continue to be bleak and begin to seriously impact quality of life and employment opportunities, then I predict the populist movements will finally look past their cultural and immigration focus and find common cause with the left in assailing the absurdly unequal distribution of income and wealth across the developed world.

Movements like ‘block everything’ (bloquons tout!) will begin to attract people from across the political spectrum.  The ruling classes, who generally resist raising taxes out of a combination of self-interest and free market dogma, will finally be forced to address both sides of the budget equation.  If there must be pain (and there is no doubt that pain will be necessary) then the pain must be shared or there will be hell to pay. 

Where Is the Dreaded Antifa, MAGA people?

Not long ago, for MAGA diehards, Antifa was everywhere.  Every Black Lives Matter protest was rife with Antifa terrorists.  Every anti-Trump rally was a mob of violent Antifa communists, ready to bring mayhem and impose a new Marxist order on America, that shining city on the hill, that lonely bulwark against European socialism and Chinese takeover.

Well guess what, MAGA people, Trump ‘won’ the 2024 election by less popular votes and less electoral college votes than Biden did in 2020 and not a single Antifa stormed the capitol to try to take back the ‘stolen election’.  No democrats raged against voting machines or mail-in ballots. 

 

The ‘but what about ism’ that equated violent right-wing militias and MAGA extremists with the bogeyman Antifa was pure nonsense from the start, but has now come into clear focus.  The internal threat to America has never been the left-wing activists who believe that Trump and the MAGA movement are leading us ever closer to an authoritarian police state.  This, if nothing else, should be crystal clear now.

 

Recall that there was a huge effort to blame the January 6^th riots on Antifa false flag agitators immediately after the attacks.  When the extensive investigations by the FBI yielded not even the slightest evidence of Antifa involvement, the MAGA world began to minimize the January 6^th events, latching on to Trump’s description of the attempted coup as a ‘day of love’.

 

Right-wing extremists, whether the John Birchers of the 50’s, the Nixon moral majority of the 70’s, the Reaganites of the 80’s, the Gingrich cabal of the 90’s, the Tea Party of the late 2000’s or the current MAGA and Christian nationalists, always need an enemy to vilify and a threat to fearmonger.  Immigrants, trans and gay people and Antifa were tangible enemies, and communism and Marxism the abstract threat (never mind that not a single significant political party or presence in the USA espouses either communism or Marxism currently).

 

Antifa was never a highly organized group.  It was simply a ragtag assembly of people who felt that it was important to oppose emerging fascist trends in the country before they became entrenched.  They became active during the first Trump presidency and immediately became the poster child for MAGA propagandists, who portrayed them as a highly dangerous fifth column in America.

 

Well, it turns out that the real fifth column is now populating the seats of government and is rewriting history, blackmailing, arresting or firing all opposition, deporting hundreds of thousands of ‘tired, poor, huddled masses’, imposing martial law on cities, and forbidding all college protest.  

 

So much for the Antifa threat.  Now that we know what the real threat is, will there be enough time and willpower to act before irreparable harm is done?

Trump: The Abuser in Chief

Watching the heroic Zelensky have to profusely thank the tyrant Trump during his recent visit with European leaders was deeply disturbing.  Trump’s only real objective in negotiating over the Ukraine/Russia war is to win a Nobel Peace Prize.  He couldn’t care less about the tens of thousands of lost lives or the trauma visited upon Ukraine.  He hasn’t the slightest interest in creating a strong consensus with European leaders or with Zelensky.  If getting to a settlement requires forcing Ukraine to accept what are really unacceptable demands, then he will not hesitate to use threats and insults to achieve it.

Our nation is by far the most powerful empire in the world, and when its leader is a tyrant and an abusive narcissist, the rest of the world treads very carefully in its interactions with us.  Proud men and women swallow their pride and kneel before this megalomaniac because to do otherwise could harm their countries, or will lead to other unhappy outcomes.

 

Many so-called successful people are horribly abusive in their relationships with other people.  Almost everyone has encountered this sad truth in their lives, whether in business, the military, education, sports or even love.  If the abuser is in a position of power or dominance, then this abuse can seem to be very effective, and it encourages ever more abuse. 

 

Occasionally the abuser will suspend the abuse and treat the abused with some degree of consideration, or show some level of kindness or approval. The person who is abused will practically crawl up into the abuser’s lap out of sheer relief when this happens, and it is a sickening dynamic to witness.

 

Abusers have deep psychological problems, but they rarely have to confront them because human beings generally try to avoid conflict.  The people that abusers denigrate, criticize, insult and threaten are either not in a position to be able to combat these injustices, or they have been beaten down so completely that they are no longer able to judge what is or is not abuse.

 

Outside observers, peers or even superiors recognize the abusers and internally criticize their character and tactics.  But the success of the abusers often causes others to ignore their distaste and overcome their scruples in dealing with them.  Calling down an abuser requires a high degree of ethical fortitude, and sadly, that is a rare commodity these days.

 

So a large part of the United States and the world will continue to stroke the ego of this buffoon, who by some horrible twist of fate is now the most powerful man in the world.  Some may even feel sickeningly grateful when he exhibits some tiny bit of good will or bestows some small benevolence.  And we will all wait in outraged impotence as his temper tantrums and idiotic machinations create havoc and harm around the world, praying that in 2028 the United States comes back to its senses.

Absurdly Extreme Policies with a Razor Thin Margin of Victory

The Trump administration and congress have pursued an agenda of extremely aggressive extremist measures in their first 6 months even though half the country is strongly opposed to most of their initiatives.

Party line politics has played an increasingly large role in the US legislature and executive branch.  The unique nature of our two-party system often allows one party to control the presidency and both houses of congress even when the margins of victory are tiny.  This has increasingly led to legislative and executive actions by one party that have no support at all by the other party, creating a thirst for retribution once the other party takes control and creating a whiplash effect in policy.

 

The last three presidential elections have been extremely close.  In 2016 Clinton won the popular vote (48.2% to 46.1%) but lost to Trump in the electoral college (304-227).  In 2020 Biden won the popular vote (51.3% to 46.9%) and the electoral college (306-232).  In 2024 Trump won the popular vote (49.8% to 48.3%) and the electoral college (312-226).  The previous elections saw more substantial victories, but the popular vote margins have rarely been more than a 10% difference (Reagan’s win over Mondale, Nixon’s win over McGovern, and Johnson’s win over Goldwater being the rare exceptions in the last 60 years).

 

The House of Representatives and Senate have traded hands over the last three elections with both houses being won by the president’s party in presidential election years and the House of Representatives changing hands in midterm elections.  The margins in all of these elections have been small.

 

Given the obvious 50/50 nature of recent political affiliation, it would seem logical for both parties to work together to craft legislation that is a compromise of the views on both sides of the aisle.  But instead, most legislation is passed with bitter party line votes and strong protests from the minority party.  

 

This has reached a crescendo in the current political environment.  Trump’s executive orders and autocratic rule have been rubber-stamped by a craven, fear-driven republican-controlled congress that has only a tiny majority but is able to operate as if it has a huge mandate. A supreme court stacked with three conservative justices that Trump was allowed to appoint under clearly fraudulent circumstances has yet to exert any braking effect and seems unwilling to challenge Trump’s authoritarian impulses.

 

An objective observer cannot help but judge the Trump regime’s first 6 months as the most extreme set of policies and executive actions that this nation has ever experienced.  And the fact that Trump and his congress squeaked out wins in the last election makes this especially unwarranted and dangerous.  We are careening toward a state of civic distrust and enmity that does not bode well for the future of our democracy or our sense of a common purpose.

 

African Impressions

I just returned from a first-time trip to Africa.  I was there a bit over two weeks.  We started out in Arusha, Tanzania and finished up in Nairobi, Kenya.  Karen went on to Kampala, Uganda where she helped out in conducting a week-long course in trial practices for Ugandan lawyers.

We visited six places in Tanzania and Kenya, four of which were well known safari destinations.  Experiencing the incredibly beautiful landscape and wildlife of these areas was sensational.  It beat all of my expectations and I am quite grateful to have had this good fortune.

 

I received a very good impression of the efforts that both Tanzania and Kenya are making to preserve their natural heritage.  We were in vast conservancies where there is a great deal of focus on protecting both the landscape and the animals.  Both of the safari companies that we used also are committed to supporting these efforts and employing a very high percentage of people from local communities as well as funding development and philanthropic projects.

 

Tourism is a major factor in the economies of both countries.  It became obvious to me in talking to the people I met at the lodges and hotels that the tourism sector dominates the non-agricultural labor market.  Many, if not most, of them had studied tourism and hospitality in either universities or technical schools.  They lamented the fact that employment outside of the tourism industry was very difficult to obtain and that other industries were not growing apace.

 

Interestingly, in many African countries, remittances from the diaspora are a major part of the economy, averaging 6% of the continent’s GDP and surpassing foreign investment and development assistance.  Though helpful in the short term, this flow of money from successful expatriates is evidence of the loss of valuable resources from these countries.  Developed countries take the best and brightest, luring them with university fellowships and other economic opportunity.  This is a high price to pay for these remittances and cannot be seen as anything but a further exploitation of these countries by their former colonial masters, only partially compensated by the inflow of funds.

 

It seems that Africa is highly dependent on both tourism and extractive industries – mining and oil. Agriculture is also very important, accounting for 30-40% of the continent’s GDP and employing over half the workforce.  Unfortunately, agriculture is highly dependent on manual labor and thus the productivity and wages are low.  This is beginning to change but will take time to significantly impact production and profitability.

 

As in most developing economies, much of the profit is repatriated to the international companies that have invested in Africa or exist due to the legacy of colonialism.  And the remaining profit is often embezzled by corrupt leadership rather than reinvested or shared with the general populace.  None of the people I interacted with had anything good to say about their governments.

 

On the positive side, I was highly impressed by the education, the energy and the incredible warmth of the Africans I met in Tanzania and Kenya, and Karen is finding the same is true for the Ugandans.  If this small data set is any indication of the human potential of Africa, then one must be optimistic about the long-term future.  The legacy of colonialism still has a negative impact in many areas, but the potential of these people will manifest itself soon, I feel certain.  In the meantime, I will research ways to help financially through organizations that empower local action rather than the same Poverty Inc NGOs and missions.

 

 

Do the Rich Fuel the Economy?

Here is a simple, but I believe reasonably accurate rebuttal of the argument that cutting taxes for the wealthy is good for the economy.  

It is estimated by numerous sources that the wealthy spend about 1/3 of their income and ‘save’ the other 2/3.  The middle and lower classes, on the other hand, spend a much higher percentage of their income.  It is estimated by the LendingClub report that 52-64% of consumers live paycheck to paycheck, spending all of their income.  Moreover, the average personal savings rate, defined as the percentage of disposable income saved, is a meager 3 to 4 percent.

One might think that the rich save a greater percentage of their income because they are paragons of financial virtue, but I doubt that.  I think it is more likely that they simply cannot spend fast enough to get through more than a third of what they earn.  Their income is a combination of wages and investment income, and the old adage 'the rich get richer and the poor get poorer' applies.  The wealthy experience an embarrassment of riches, and even though their spending becomes ever more expansive, the majority of them cannot outspend their ever-increasing income.

 

The top 10% of wage earners apparently account for 50% of consumer spending.  However, that does not mean that decreasing taxes to the rich will benefit the consumer economy (which is about 70% of the GDP) more than decreasing taxes for other groups.  On the contrary, a tax dollar given back to the wealthy will only increase spending by 33 cents, but if allocated either to government projects (infrastructure, etc.) or to the middle or lower classes, it will increase spending by almost the full dollar.

 

It seems perfectly logical that if you want to increase consumer spending, which is the heart of the economy, then it is more effective to allocate funds to lower income citizens.  Similarly, if you want to reduce the deficit, then it would be better to increase taxes for the wealthy, as that would have less of a negative impact on spending.

Conservatives would protest that this does not consider the impact of investment that the wealthy make with the other 2/3 of their income.  But I would argue that there is plenty of wealth out there already for true investment in new companies or innovation.  Most of the so-called investing that the wealthy do on an annual basis is in the stock and bond markets, hedge funds, real estate and other investment vehicles that serves merely to increase asset prices.  

Industry grows due to demand.  Investment in businesses is only effective if the demand for products and services is there.  Putting money in peoples pockets creates demand, and the non-rich spend a lot more of their pocket money than the rich.

 

Critics will argue that taxing the rich is a form of class warfare and is driven by class envy, and that it will damage the economy.  But as Jesus said:  “The rich will always be with you” (oops, maybe that was the poor?). There is no danger of the rich ever disappearing.  But a healthy economy and society are more likely if there is a less absurd disparity between the rich and the rest of the world.

The Path from Rebel to Hypocrite

Besides making compelling music, one of the main characteristics of most rock and rap stars when they begin their careers has always been their rebellious persona.  They are raging against something – the system, the man, the rich, the capitalists, the phonies, the government, the record companies, the police, the military.  

With their youthful exuberance and anger, they implicitly portray themselves as heroes and champions of the persecuted, the downtrodden, the forgotten, the losers, the poor, the incarcerated.  This is why teens and younger people idolize them.  They are expressing the dismay and the resentment that we all feel when we realize how broken and unjust the world is and how our parents and society have gone along with the whole thing.

 

Then, before you know it, these erstwhile rebels that we have placed on the pedestal of our idealistic imagination have an entourage of bodyguards, managers, CPAs and lawyers who are investing their millions, finding ways to avoid taxes, shielding them from any negative publicity, jetting them from party to party and creating connections with all the other glitterati and power-brokers of the world.

 

So much for rebellion.

 

A similar path is followed by young movie and TV stars, whose indignation at social inequities, ocean pollution, climate change and wildlife extinction knows no bounds, but who after a few years of success find themselves flying their private jets into Venice to attend the Jeff Bezos wedding.

 

The path from rebel to hypocrite is well trod.  We human beings are easily seduced by wealth, power and fame.  Our principles and convictions are easy prey for the rapacious riches of this world.  And our ability to rationalize and to self-delude is prodigious.  

 

None of us wants to be a hypocrite, but quite frankly if someone has a modicum of success and/or luck in this world it is highly likely that some measure of hypocrisy will ensue.  It is damned hard to stay true to one’s convictions when the world offers up its delights.  We quickly succumb to the allure of fancy houses, cars, clothes and vacations, and being feted by important people who know even more important people.  

 

The former rebels assuage their consciences by attending philanthropic galas and making donations.  They speak out forcefully on issues.  They become spokespeople for important causes and generously bring their fame to fundraisers or photo ops.   

 

But it is all mostly a façade.  The passion is performative. The fire is gone.  The embers remaining provide just enough light to illuminate the hypocrisy of it all.  It is the human condition writ large for all to see.

 

Dancing and Singing in the Rain

Who has not been enchanted by Gene Kelly splashing through puddles in his exuberant song and dance in the pouring rain?  It is one of my favorite movie scenes of all time.

Dancing and singing are powerful expressions of human emotion.  Everyone loves to see a talented dancer or listen to a beautiful song.  But as our society becomes ever more addicted to social media and streaming services – TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Netflix, etc. – the amount of time that we ourselves spend singing or dancing has become very tiny indeed.

 

What has changed?  From all reports, earlier societies had traditional dances and songfests with everyone participating.  Singing and dancing were important cultural touchpoints and reflected the joy and sometimes the sorrow of the human spirit in communal form.

 

Nowadays, teenagers and young adults will sing and dance only at concerts or weddings, and by the time they get just a bit older only the loss of inhibition due to significant alcohol will inspire them to get out on the dance floor or sing, and only at the occasional wedding.

 

And the men are the worst.  A lot of men absolutely refuse to dance, even at weddings.  And they would never be tempted to break into song on any occasion.  The sole exceptions to this are times of pure drunken revelry, which are not generally very healthy cultural events.  

 

What is going on here? Has self-consciousness become the plague of our times or have we just become lazy and unwilling to let go?  Perhaps part of the problem is that we no longer gather in groups and create our own entertainment.  We go to restaurants, or to a party or social gathering, but there is almost never a chance to sing or dance at these events.  

 

It is also difficult to have people sing together because the music scene changes so rapidly and there is not a common songbook that everyone knows by heart.  And dancing has primarily become random movement, entangled swaying or fairly explicit grinding rather than the learned patterns that one sees in folk dances, ballroom dancing or line dancing.

 

I will insert a disclaimer here that I am mainly talking about white, American culture.  I suspect that Hispanic and African-American groups, and perhaps other countries, have a bit less reluctance to sing or dance, but I am also fearful that they too are slowly being infected with the virus of social media and streaming voyeurism.  

 

There are still a few enclaves of avid dancers – Texas line dancers, International folk dancers, square dancers – to name a few.  But sadly, these dancers are a small minority and generally qualify as hobbyists.  

 

The same is true for singing.  There are choirs and choruses and rock bands and a cappella groups, but again, a small minority of people participate.

 

There is something very primal, cathartic and powerful in singing and dancing, especially as part of a group or community.  One experiences the triumph of a shared humanity over the individual ego or performance.  It is a shame that we are rapidly losing the opportunity to experience this shared exuberance as a break from our individual striving and often lonely existence.  

The Deceptive Allure of Preemptive Military Action

In the book ‘Moral Man, Immoral Society’, Reinhold Niebuhr argued that human beings can individually be moral, but that larger groups, societies and nations are essentially immoral entities because they will always act in their perceived best interests and will not be persuaded by moral arguments.  The recent use of preemptive military actions by Israel and the USA to attack Iran are classic examples of this truth.  But the glamor and excitement of military action are almost always followed by the horror of both the intended and unintended consequences, and the creation of new paths of conflict and hatred.

The aftermath of World War Two saw the two dominant powers, the USA and USSR, avoid direct military confrontation, but proxy wars continued to be fought from 1950 to 1990 in Korea, Vietnam, Central America, Afghanistan and many other parts of the globe.

 

Both the USA and the USSR took preemptive military or covert action during that period with little pushback from the world community in places such as the Dominican Republic, Iran, Cuba, Grenada, Guatemala, Chile, Panama, Nicaragua, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Indonesia and numerous African countries.  In the covert actions there was no public acknowledgement of what had been done, so there was no effort at justification other than internal, secret arguments based on the amorphous goal of national security.  The public justification for explicit military action was anti-communism for the USA and anti-imperialism for the USSR.

A close analysis of these actions and their consequences would certainly call into question their efficacy.  The toll of death and political dysfunction left in their wake was tragic and has left a legacy of perennial chaos in many cases.

 

With the fall of the Soviet Union, the USA had free rein in military adventurism.  Its first venture, the Gulf War of 1990, was largely perceived as a success in the west and gave the USA an inflated sense of its ability to effect rapid responses to world events or perceived problems through military means.

 

The debacle in Somalia in 1993 (the Battle of Mogadishu) dampened that hubris temporarily, but the successful NATO involvement in the Bosnian War gave renewed confidence to the US.  The 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers in NYC in 2001 created a mania for military response that ultimately led to ‘forever wars’ in Afghanistan and Iraq with both short- and long-term negative results and massive civilian deaths and displacement.

 

Israel, a nation founded in war, has perceived itself to be in a state of war for its entire existence.  It has initiated preemptive military action numerous times without hesitation and its intelligence services have become the most adept assassins in world history.  But all its clever bombing and killing has not brought it any closer to living in peace with its neighbors and the Palestinian people who live in shameful misery within its territory.  

 

The only real impediments to preemptive military actions and assassinations are a recognition of the unintended and long-term consequences that may result.  Moral or ethical concerns play little or no role, but historical perspective should give every nation pause.  Diplomacy, sanctions and world pressure may be frustratingly slow to produce desired results, but beware the allure of a quick fix that is just sowing future seeds of disaster.

The Irony and Hypocrisy of MAGA Immigrant Hostility

Immigration is a difficult issue and it is roiling every wealthy country.  Liberal democracies have tried to control immigration but have been fairly receptive to it for both humanitarian (wars, famine and repression) and economic reasons (to compensate for declining citizen birthrates).  Populist groups within these countries have emerged as almost single-issue parties, riding a wave of hysteria about the economic, cultural and crime aspects of immigration. 

 

In the USA, Donald Trump won his first nomination almost solely on the basis of his anti-immigrant rhetoric after race-baiting his way into public awareness with the infamous birther conspiracy theory.  And there is little doubt that his dark denunciations of immigrants were a major factor in his election last November.

 

In a troubled world with political, economic and climate catastrophes on every front, it is not surprising that large numbers of people dare to attempt crossing into countries where there is much more opportunity to live freely and in peace, and to become economically stable.  There is a very fine line between refugees, economic migrants, and climate migrants.  The motivations are really no different than they were when our ancestors made the trip to this new land.

 

How much immigration is manageable for a country without destabilizing it in some way or another is a tricky question.  It is particularly fraught in a time when globalization is giving way to unilateralism, and the post-industrial economy is dramatically changing the labor market.

 

It is reasonable, though somewhat dubious in terms of moral and ethical principles, to say no when immigration rates become too high.  But this refusal should be made with a heavy heart and as much empathy as a government and its people can express.  It should break all of our hearts to have to turn away the stranger in need.

 

But the MAGA world, strongly characterized by its self-proclaimed evangelical Christianity, indulges an almost maniacal animosity toward immigrants.  Trump and Vance routinely slander undocumented immigrants and describe them with racist and demeaning language.  They are cast as criminals, drug addicts, terrorists and lazy opportunists.  The MAGA Christians cheer as masked gestapo-like ICE agents round up dreamers who have been here since childhood.  

 

Where is their Jesus in this?  “For I was a stranger, and you welcomed me”.  Where is the love and the sacrificial charity that is the very essence of Jesus’s teachings?  It is both ironic and deeply hypocritical that the MAGA world, with its loud pretense of Christian piety, should be so stridently and heartlessly vindictive to the desperate people that have risked all and started anew as strangers in our land.  Shame on them! 

FX Saturation or Oh no, Not Another Tom Cruise Movie!

Mission Impossible – The Final Reckoning is in the theaters!  Ho hum.   Ok, let’s all just agree that Tom Cruise is one badass dude.  He is a living example of how massive wealth can keep aging in abeyance (or perhaps there is really is something to that scientology stuff?). But quite frankly, I will be perfectly happy to never see or hear about his derring do again in my rapidly diminishing lifespan.

I loved Mission Impossible when it was on television, though I imagine those episodes would seem dated and lame if I were to be desperate enough to watch them again.  In my youth I was fascinated by all the secret agent stuff and loved a good war movie.  I could sit through a couple minute car chase and a lengthy fistfight and be fascinated with the special effects necessary to stage them.  I was eager to watch each new Hollywood blockbuster.

 

But now I avoid them like the plague.  When I am forced to watch one due to social pressures, I find all the endless battle and chase scenes with all their incredibly high-tech CGI and special effects boring, trite and formulaic.  They simply do not interest me in the slightest anymore. I start to root for the evil guys out of sheer indifference.

 

Perhaps it is the fact that at almost 71 years of age I have seen so many adventure movies that I just don’t see anything new or intriguing in them.  I am particularly saturated with special effects.  I couldn’t even get excited by most of the Star Wars movies, though I was absolutely blown away by the first one.  I loved the first Raiders of the Lost Ark movie, but after that, Harrison Ford just left me cold (envy perhaps?)

 

I’ve only seen a few of the Marvel franchise or any of the other superhero stuff.  As a kid, I read comic books nonstop and would have killed to see blockbusters like the ones that seem to come out every few months. But now I couldn’t care less about the Fabulous Four or Green Lantern or any of the others whose names have now slipped into inaccessible spots in my memory.

 

Is it just me?  Is everyone else adoring this constant flow of Hollywood blockbusters with their ever more expensive, elaborate and stupefying special effects?  Do I no longer have my childlike wonder?  Can I no longer be thrilled by a fantastic adventure?

 

My movie and series tastes are very narrow now, and I find fewer and fewer things that really capture my imagination or that don’t seem terribly cliché to me.  But that’s ok.  I read more books and I find less sensational fare to pique my interest. I am a victim of FX saturation, but I can still fall in love with a book or a movie.  I guess I just have to accept that I am a bit of a snob and learn to live with it. 

No Political Party Has the Answer for the Post-Industrial Economy

The Post-industrial Economy is upon us.  The developed world is experiencing the death throes of industrial labor as a combination of automation and off-shoring to lower wage countries relentlessly eliminates manufacturing jobs.  Delusions about ‘bringing back manufacturing’, as voiced by Trump and other populists, will appear ever more irrational as the exponential advances in AI and robotics put the final nail in the coffin.

In reality, the post-industrial economy has been insidiously emerging over the last 90 years, as the service industry grew exponentially and other labor sectors stabilized or declined due to automation.  Here is a graph that depicts how services have increasingly dwarfed manufacturing and agriculture since 1840.

Significant numbers of manufacturing jobs left the US for lower wage countries.  Advances in robotics and AI will replace even those jobs at some point in the near future, just as automation essentially reduced farmwork to a skeleton crew of farmers and seasonal workers whose jobs few Americans want and are likely to be performed eventually by clever robots.

 

So now the future of labor is in services and so-called ‘knowledge work’ – jobs that require specialized education.  But for a significant segment of our population the service jobs are a poor substitute for the high-paying factory jobs of the past.  

 

Why is the average service job so much lower paying than the manufacturing jobs?  One theory is that the service sector has very low union representation compared to factory work. Collective bargaining has historically been one of the primary means for workers to achieve a better standard of living.  But even with labor unions, it is unlikely that the majority of service jobs will provide a satisfying standard of living.

 

In addition to traditional service jobs, there is a growing segment of so-called ‘gig jobs’.  These are jobs that are often independent work for limited periods of time making use of the Internet, social media, or working for Big Tech as contract labor.  These jobs may have a reasonable level of compensation, but they are typically short-lived and workers must hustle to stay employed and achieve a continuous cash flow.

 

As automation continues to advance it will no doubt take over many service jobs.  Much of customer support has already been automated, and brick and mortar storefronts and salespeople are disappearing.  Logistics, trucking, ride services, low level legal services, initial medical diagnoses, cashier services, fast food services and many other services can conceivably be partially or totally replaced by AI and robotics.

 

New service and gig jobs will be created, and perhaps there is no limit to what new ways people will find to make money, but it is likely to be a much more chaotic and uncertain labor model.  Can social media influencer be a career?  Will there be any stability in the work life of the vast majority of people?  

 

Neither the democrats nor the republicans nor the MAGA world have the faintest idea how to recreate the American workplace of the 50’s and 60’s.  Trade wars won’t do it.  Culture wars and immigration raids won’t do it.  Even taxing the rich more won’t do it, though using some of their vast wealth to create a better infrastructure, universal healthcare and free education might at least make the stagnating middle class less vulnerable.

 

We are facing a brave new labor world.  Populists have benefitted from the fear, anger and uncertainty that this new world has provoked, but they will be no more successful in finding a solution than the globalist elites that they have blamed and castigated.  The invisible hand of the market will flail helplessly.  Bold new social engineering ideas are needed ASAP, or the future will be one of disharmony and revolution.

Separating Anti-Israel Protests and Violence

The recent killings of a Jewish/Israeli couple and a Molotov cocktail attack on people at a rally for Jewish hostages in Gaza are tragic events and there is no justification for them.  However, the immediate efforts by the Trump regime and MAGA world to associate these acts of violence with the general protests against Israel’s war on Gaza and treatment of the Palestinian people are entirely misplaced and reprehensible.

There are protests against Israel taking place around the world.  European nations have taken strong stands against the disproportionate Israeli response to the October 7^th attacks and the recent use of humanitarian aid restrictions as a war strategy.  There have been sharp increases in anti-Jewish actions in these countries, though I know of no murders having been committed despite a far higher degree of anti-Israeli feeling and expression than in the USA.

 

Whether these are also associated with latent antisemitism is very difficult to discern.  The simple fact is that Jews are very closely associated with Israel, and the passionate feelings about Israel’s conduct of its war find expression in protests and opinions that are focused on Jews. 

 

Violent acts are often coincident with passionate protesting and criticism.  During the Vietnam War protests, a small number of people took violent action in expressing their rage against the war and the ‘system’.  During the civil rights era, an armed section of the Black Panthers committed violent acts in their belief that peaceful protest would not bring equality.  But in neither case were those violent acts seen as a justification for clamping down on peaceful protest and differences of opinion.

 

Violent acts like the two most recent ones would probably have taken place even if there were no protests on campuses.  Let’s face it, violence is endemic in our country.  Every effort should be made to prevent these acts, but denying people the right to protest and express opposition to US policies and deporting everyone who has voiced any concern about Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people are the behaviors of a despotic regime.

 

Anti-Semitism vs Anti-Israelism

Big news!  The MAGA world has become the noble standard-bearer for the fight against antisemitism.  Hurray, hurray!  Their righteous fury over Palestinian protests and campus efforts to defund America’s support of Israel is a sign of their deep affection for Jewish people and their unyielding support for non-discrimination and tolerance, right?  Yeah, right.

The Trump regime, Christian evangelicals and other MAGA types have become strange bedfellows with the Jewish world and Israel.  Jews might be wise to view this passionate embrace with a bit of skepticism, as fervent Christians have not historically been the best supporters of Jewish people (see the inquisition, the pogroms, the holocaust and a long list of other less-than-affectionate treatments).

 

Christian evangelicals are supportive of Israel primarily because the return of the Jewish people to the holy land is seen as a pre-cursor to the second coming of Jesus and the Armageddon.  Christians are also not big fans of Islam, which may play a role in their newfound Jewish affinity.

 

As for Trump and the political right, their crusading efforts on behalf of Israel’s war in Gaza and their indignation over supposed antisemitic trends in American society are simply a way to demonize the left and provide a means for launching their war against universities.  They couldn’t care less about Jews or tolerance or antisemitism.

 

I understand the deep-seated fear in Jewish people of any hint of antisemitism, and their paranoia about their security, whether here in America, in Europe or in Israel.  The history of antisemitism is long and painful.

 

But here is the thing:  It is not unreasonable to believe that Israel has gone far beyond its right to defend itself in inflicting devastation and horror on Gaza.  There is an element of cry-wolf in Israel’s painting itself as constantly in existential danger.  Israel is the most powerful nation in the middle East and perhaps one of the most powerful in the world.  Its military and intelligence services are incredibly capable and it also has nuclear weapons.  It has more or less wiped out Hezbollah and it has made Iran look weak and impotent in every encounter.

 

Israel has become a bully as regards the Palestinian territories and people.  Its settler-dominated government and increasingly extremist political slant is clearly intent on seizing as much of Gaza as possible and continuing to steal land and settle the West Bank.  It has been building settlements in the West Bank continuously since the 1967 invasion and there are now over 700,000 settlers in this territory that the UN and most nations consider occupied land.

 

Jewish people have associated Israel with Jewish identity from the start.  Jewish people in the United States embrace this association.  Therefore, it is not hard to understand why anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian sentiments are also conflated with anti-Jewish feelings.  If I am criticizing Israel’s actions, am I antisemitic?  If I am calling for an end to military support of Israel until it ends the war in Gaza am I pro-Hamas?  A large number of Israelis and Jews in the United States have voiced similar feelings.

 

It is absurd to categorize the majority of anti-Israel protests as antisemitic.  And it is dangerous to use a pretense of protecting Jews from antisemitism to prosecute or deport protestors on campus or anywhere else.  America is at its strongest when it embraces free speech and the opportunity for competing views to express themselves, even in fairly energetic protests and marches.  The Trump regime has all the characteristics of a nascent police state, and this fake concern about antisemitism is a ruse that must be fought on every level before it assumes even more frightening forms.