Category Archives: Economy

A Nice followup

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This is a nice followup to mariner’s post, ‘Good News’. It is published by Axios:

It’s Giving Tuesday — the annual day when people across America and around the world donate to the causes and organizations they care about.

  • It also kicks off the holiday giving season, and charities see donations continue to roll in through December.

📈 The big picture: Americans are giving more. Last year, Giving Tuesday donations hit $3.6 billion, a 16% jump from 2023.

  • The generosity didn’t stop at cash: The number of Americans who donated goods jumped 32% and the number who volunteered ticked up 4%.

Zoom in: Writing a check isn’t the only way to participate in the season of giving:

  • Here are four other powerful ways to give back:
  1. 🩸 Donate blood. “Of the approximately 62% of Americans eligible to donate blood, only 3% do so each year. But someone needs blood every few seconds in America,” Vox reports.
  2. 🥫 Donate food. Many food banks and pantries across the country say they’re still seeing surging demand even after SNAP benefits have been restored. Check out Feeding America’s list of items to donate to food banks and which ones to skip.
  3. 📚 Donate your skills. If you can code, ask local charities if they need website help. If you love to read, pick up volunteer shifts at your library. If you’re on top of your own shoveling, offer to clear an elderly neighbor’s driveway.
  4. 💌 Donate your good cheer. Several organizations are seeking volunteers to spread joy — especially during the holidays. A Million Thanks mobilizes people to write letters of gratitude to service members and veterans. Love for our Elders collects letters for older adults. Cards for Hospitalized Kids distributes handmade cards to children in hospitals in all 50 states.

Try it! Many families weave giving back into their holiday traditions. Consider a group volunteer outing or spend a Sunday afternoon writing letters and cards together as you gather with your loved ones this season.

Bottom up is best!

Ancient Mariner

Faster than a speeding genome

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Evolution has left the human body.

First Aboriginals in Australia. Using a diverse database of DNA from ancient and contemporary Aboriginal people throughout Oceania, researchers have determined that people began to settle northern Australia  60,000 years ago

America’s big robotaxi rollout. As of November 2025, robotaxis are operating in 5 markets: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Atlanta and Austin, Texas. They are coming to 10 markets in 2026, mostly in the South, and 5 markets some time in the future. Once the stuff of science fiction, robotaxis are now regularly plying the streets of Atlanta, Austin, L.A., Phoenix and San Francisco, and will be coming soon to at least a dozen more cities. Brought to mind is the lightning fast change in the life experience of the Homo sapiens – from using reins to steer to passing time communicating with Alexi or Roblox while the ‘team’ decides which way to go.

The telegraph. The Morse system was adopted as the international standard in 1865, using a modified Morse code developed in Germany in 1848. Before that time, humans could not speak to any human beyond the human voice range or line.of sight. it was a noticeable, rapid shift in human activities and lifestyle. Even more mental restructuring occurrs when the entire string of telegraphic inventions is included: telephone, radio, television, internet with social media, and now, suddenly, other electronic things even do our thinking and communicating for us – whether we authorized it or not.

The next step is to not need the planet environment at all. As soon as Mark Zuckerberg gets his artificial reality working, we will have arrived at  the world of Matrix.

Ancient Mariner

 

 

 

 

Measuring the fog

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Readers are aware of mariner’s concerns about the future. Specifically, there are four global phenomena that are trying to make serious changes to the status quo of human life and to the planet.

The first to be measured is population. It was estimated by the United Nations to have exceeded eight billion in mid-November 2022. It took around 300,000 years of human prehistory and history for the human population to reach one billion and only 218 more years from there to reach 8 billion.

The global population is still increasing, but there is significant uncertainty about its long-term trajectory due to changing fertility and mortality rates.The United Nations projects between 9 and 10 billion people by 2050 and gives an 80% confidence interval of 10–12 billion by the end of the 21st century with a growth rate by then of zero.

This pattern of accelerated birth rates hits a point of psychosomatic collapse where the population begins to fall. This behavior also was proven in population studies with mice back in the 1960s. Those mouse studies also showed a societal collapse into two classes: a few very stable families where some family members served as border guards and, by mouse cage standards, were very wealthy. The other class being subject to mob violence, constant fighting, killing and an indifference toward newborns.

If population were an isolated phenomenon, it would be comparatively simple to manage. However, it becomes part of today’s fog because population is related to economics, habitat and behavior of the planet – as each of the four are integrated with the other three.

Hence the fog. Will the planet ignore human viability and destroy the balance of the surface with heat, storms and mass extinction or will the planet be influenced by dollars because there aren’t enough worldly resources to sustain modern economics as we have known it? The relationship between habitat and population is close.

Have humans made it too expensive to be the only creature who needs a fancy toilet, a water tower and septic system along side piped in fresh water just to pee? The industrial/technical age has created large economies at great expense to the habitat. It used to be instead of consuming millions of acres for grazing giant herds of beef, transportation and factory processing at local populations, that a person could buy fresh beef, lamb and chicken from a local butcher shop requiring only a dozen or so workers from farmer to customer.

Which causes are hurt the most of the four – economy, habitat or over population? Mariner hasn’t mentioned global warming.

Climate change is big in the news today because in just a few years, big cities, massive industrial centers and land itself will be destroyed.

So which should humans fix first? It looks like AI will tell the remaining pseudo humans the answers.

It’s all a big fog.

Ancient Mariner

He is back

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Mariner. Nobody special, just mariner. He has been visiting for a few days with long-time friends who live on a gorgeous property among the mountains of Arkansas. One could write tomes about the differences between Arkansas and Iowa. The most memorable difference is roads. In Iowa, one can be lost on long, unending gravel roads in the midst of endless fields without a home in sight. In Western Arkansas, the roads are first wrapped around a stick a lot like a spool of wire and then, in that curly state, they are laid down in a continuously elevated and sunken series of very tightly curved roads. Homes are scattered along the road but typically are hidden in the continuous forests.

While visiting, his friend Tom brought up a Biblical issue mariner had not come across in all his years of rummaging in religious tales: The holiday name ‘Easter’ is derived from an early Assyrian goddess Ishtar, a goddess of birth and fertility. Her symbols were an egg and a rabbit, hence Easter. The Roman Catholics firmly deny this, of course, but there is no smoking gun in the history books – just gossip. If the reader is interested, there are many web sources. Just type ‘Ishtar and Easter’ in your search engine.

Another piece of scholarly information mariner retrieved from his search engine was that dark chocolate and red wine trigger freshened brain attentiveness. Maybe over the ages that was a DNA patch so you could remember where the cork is. Similar to Ishtar, type ‘red wine and chocolate’ in your search engine.

On to a more important observation mariner noticed from a comfortable chair and a glass of red wine within the tunnels of alter ego Nosey Mole, is that Trumpians, other republicans and the democratic party and progressives, too, all are beginning to fragment. This situation could move three different ways: 1- The government will continue to crumble, most likely leaving political control with the Trumpians after the 2028 election 2- delete current election practices to the point that the outcome will be unstable and debatable 3- Corporate domination of society will be entrenched enough to virtually stop any democratic precepts from moving forward – AKA money wins.

Please, please be very careful who you vote for in 2028.

Ancient Mariner

 

 

Sailing

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Sailing is an excellent metaphor for many of life’s experiences. There are the times when preparing to sail is overwhelming in its endless detail and distractions; there are times, while underway, when the weather changes a sailor’s plans; there are long periods of time when there is no one about except the sailor, the boat and the sea. If ever humans lived a sailing life, it is now.

A course on the ocean of reality has unpredictable weather, even hints of hurricanes and monsoons. Reality is driven by unknown weather confronted by a boat built in the past on dry land. Our boat’s energy and purpose comes from using the boat’s sails to interact with the waves and winds of reality – providing purpose, function and survivability.

How easy it is to use the sailing metaphor in the daily life of humans. We learn early in life that reality is not often kind and may even be determined to cause difficulty at the daily level. Yet humans must sail on, destined to fulfill purpose in life and even to physically survive.

Where is a sailor’s security while on the ocean? It is the boat, of course. It is also true that a human’s psychological self needs a ‘home base’ to feel secure. What is home base for a sailor? the boat. What is home base for a human? family and friends. It is family and friends across a lifetime that have helped build your boat. It is your family and friends that have shaped your sails and built a rudder to steer you through reality. But don’t feel life is their burden – you built the hull and mast. Yet, family and friends are a known and integrated base in the midst of the storms of reality.

If there were only one tool a sailor could take on a sail, it would be a compass. How would one know they were sailing in large circles? It is quite fortunate that sailors have a compass. It’s like using a GPS to get to the port of Maragogi, Alagoas in Africa. Fortunately for humans, the planet has an online network that can tell someone in what direction they are going just by using magnets.

If only such dependability were so with human culture. Just like a family provides direction and stability, one would think society would help, too, being a derivative of friends and family. Perhaps, every once in a while in some short sixty year period, society is stationary enough to live a pleasant life knowing where a person is and who they are supposed to be.

Such a time is not today. The disruptions, storms, abuses and ignorance that lie about today are like a miles-wide plastics and trash dump floating on the ocean of reality. No one knows where to go or when. No social identity is secure. Our rudders, whether boat or person, are clogged.

Now is one of those times when a sailor is alone with his boat for long stretches. The sailor must have a bonded relationship with his boat from which to draw confidence. Yes, the same is the situation for a human today. Only from our bonded relationship with family and friends can we draw confidence and security while sailing the oceans of today’s reality.

Ancient Mariner

 

 

 

 

 

How long since you foraged?

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If one isn’t sure that evolution is at play in the way Homo sapiens is evolving, consider foraging.

Many of us are familiar with the nomadic model of foraging. Most kinds of animals forage today. In parts of Africa, animals with hooves must migrate hundreds of miles to accommodate seasonal shifts in drought. “Cave man” lived on what it could catch and kill along with a surprising cuisine of indigenous plants. “Going to the store” meant scrounging in the woods or spending most of a day (sometimes more) hunting smaller animals or collaborating with other Cave Men to catch some protein.

Many thousands of years later Homo learned to grow his own food. Even in the nineteenth century, a significant percentage of Homos grew their own sustenance. However, rather quickly in the last two centuries, Homo has left foot-bound self-sufficiency behind. Homo learned to use a horse – not the first interdependent relationship between species.

Moving along quickly, the horse, then the train, then automobiles, then airplanes, then cruise ships – all had an impact on human foraging. It wasn’t long before foraging meant hunting for a grocery store and even special sharing (like leopards do) in restaurants.

Restaurants have been a mainstay for quite a while but evolution never stops. Homo foraging is pushing restaurants out of business by replacing an in-house meal with food orders delivered by organizations like Grubhub. A common effect on evolution is disease; COVID really pushed delivery services even to include foraging for grocery stores.

Already evolving in delivery services is a humanoid that looks like a minion. This likely will send restaurants the way of shopping malls and storefronts. Just let Alexa know and she’ll do the foraging for you.

It is a common speculation that future phases of evolution will allow the ancestors of Cave Man to sit or lie about while humanoids assume the responsibility for evolution in general, including work, leisure, foraging and social dependency. Perhaps a regenerative physicianoid will discover a drug that prevents bedsores.

Does anyone remember having to forage for a gopher for dinner? Among the greenery on the side of the road, which plants are okay to eat and which plants will poison you?

At least Homos know they will join the other 16,000 extinct creatures that have passed during the Anthropocene Epoch.

Ancient Mariner

 

There’s a weed in the garden

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If the reader has ever had a garden, they know the real trouble spot is weeds. Weeds sneak into the lawn or garden as tiny, well behaved plants; they may even have flowers. But gardeners know very quickly the nice little plant becomes boisterous, obnoxious and quickly trashes the garden, replacing it with something akin to messy unraveled hair and hides the garden plants beneath a flood of growth.

It’s too bad but AI is a new weed. Today AI has some appealing functions, especially as a source of entertainment and has new toys to play with on the computer – like writing all your letters to your mother. A cute little weed but beware: AI can take over the Amazon Forest while the reader is on a cruise!

Today, AI has been identified as a weed that will take over our understanding of how the world operates. It is just a conversational item now but in five years it will devastate the labor and white collar job market. An early indicator: Amazon is about to lay off 16,000 workers; the ‘weed’ is spreading.

The arts, that is, visual arts like painting and acting and writing, already show signs of abuse by the pushy weed. Even learning how to write with pen and paper may disappear from the school curriculum. To the other extreme, if the reader’s computer has kept up with system updates, they can read and write in any language. That is the weed offering some false greenery to hide the influence it is gaining in the garden.

Exactly like Creeping Charlie, AI literally overnight can take control of the garden. AI decides where it will grow, how rambunctious it will be and never consults the gardener.

At the moment, there is no nation in the world that has enough weed killer to control AI – especially the United States which has no operating federal government. AI will continue to grow, even competing with global warming as the largest disruption in the Anthropocene Epoch.

If the reader needs advice, consult Alexa.

Ancient Mariner

 

The thin line

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Gardeners are well into autumn, planting new bulbs and plants to bloom next Spring, clearing out finished stalks and annuals – and weeds. Potted plants must come into winter shelter as well as garden plants that are not able to deal with Zone Four winter temperatures. Autumn is fix-the-lawn time. Move Amaryllis into dormancy for Christmas and hang the bird feeders.

No doubt most folks in cooler climes are dragging out warmer coats and sweaters,  maybe even some long-johns. Then it is time to reset the thermostat and put heavier blankets on the beds. Mariner’s wife tackled restoring a basement rife with children’s toys and storage of unknown objects. In another week or so, family visits for the holidays will begin – a raucous blending of generational differences but rewarding.

It is also time to check the tires and likely get a checkup for the vehicle(s). Is this the year to take down the huge but dying oak tree? Finally, one is pressed to repair lightbulbs, buy new batteries for everything, wash the windows and maybe wash the siding, too.

The kids have adjusted to life in public schools but not necessarily to early wake-up times. Daily trips to fun places like fairs, amusement parks and public campgrounds have dwindled to only a slight chance. Maybe take the family to a park lake to use a canoe before the park closes.

These experiences constitute the thin line of normal life that is left in these tumultuous – dangerously tumultuous – times. Within this thin line is the thin battery from which we must draw enough power to survive Jason’s Arc of the Hero. We are the Argonauts of the 21st century. Our next confrontation is a year from now when a national election is our sword.

Ancient Mariner

YIKES!

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Mariner went online today to check his email, where he has links to news and culture sources not contaminated by the distortions of broadcast television or the free-wheeling imagination on social media gossip giants like X, Tik Tok and Facebook.

He scrolled to an email from the Atlantic Monthly advising a new edition. He connected to the website and other sites – and was struck with much angst. But first, mariner wants to assure his readers that The Atlantic Magazine is a reliable source of intelligent, centrally focused information and as a bonus provides articles of significant insight. Here is what Wikipedia says about The Atlantic:

See: (The reader may have difficulty accessing the article. Try going through Firefox on their news strip below the login page.)

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2025/10/ai-slop-winning/684630/?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us

Below are some clippings:

From AXIOS, an article about AI becoming an 18th century pirate.

Those attacks could halt production at factories, knock hospitals offline or control power grids — all before anyone even realizes something’s wrong. Advancements in generative AI are giving hackers the ability to boost their own skill sets and automate parts of the attack chain.

There was a technical article describing the new global economic system – completely computerized. You aren’t needed anymore as a signatory; salaries will be based on huge evaluations of business sectors to determine your income. What folks today call ‘balancing the checkbook’ won’t be needed or available – similar to Social Security today.

Having been exposed to ‘news’, mariner hustled back to Nosey Mole’s tunnels and had a cup of coffee.

Ancient Mariner

 

 

 

 

 

More about self containment

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Mariner felt good reading the AXIOS piece about analog bags referenced in the last post. In his own romantic naturalist mind, he can see a correlation between a mindset focused on self survival in an AI world and the same mindset focused on chopping enough firewood to keep warm overnight in a world without electricity. Is this mindset Homo’s way of dealing with Nature’s rule about survival of the fittest?

No one can deny the violent change happening today. Mariner did a test watch of broadcast news on television yesterday – something he has refrained from doing for some time. It was frightening! The world’s governments falter under the planet’s total disruption; unbridled consumption of the planet’s resources increases every day; economic transition into a computer-owned financial world wanders aimlessly without regard for social ethics; violence grows in every corner of the world.

It is time to assure ourselves that we are practicing survival skills.

Given the unbridled power of intelligent computing, Homo may suffer greatly as a species unless they develop survival skills that keep AI contained.  Governments and corporations are not focused on human survival or even individual rights. Each of us must develop skills that offset the humongous waves of invasion by AI. One way is to detach daily behavior from social media and Internet-driven guidance on personal matters. The analog bag is an important example although a tiny one.

Perhaps more committed behavior to community activity or an active hobby that distracts one from global travesty at least momentarily is a survival skill. Perhaps taking an educational course may switch on an independently thinking mind. The objective is to use one’s own brain to evaluate survival as much as possible – given the disorganized world is everywhere.

Who knows, when it’s all over one survival skill may be chopping wood to keep warm.

Ancient Mariner