Category Archives: Politics

Education in an AI world

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Walton Family Foundation and Gallup’s latest Teaching for Tomorrow report finds that while most teachers engage in professional development, the most beneficial opportunities — like peer collaboration — are often engaged in at a lower rate. At the same time, many teachers lack the classroom resources and staffing support needed to do their jobs effectively.

This report from Walton Family Foundation is a common perspective about the future of education. Education, like medicine, community support for the indigent, and even the nation’s governments – all are subject to the fate of history, changing society and real world confrontation. It is true that education as a concept is under great stress; it is true that the the recent plague interrupted an entire generation’s sense of decorum in the classroom; it is true that internet communications have reshaped the center of informative social dialogue; it is true that a slowly decaying form of government is incompetent in its service to the nation’s educational need and other government-supported cultural need as well.

Mariner suspects the largest impact, especially in colleges, is books. Who needs them? He has written in past posts to the blog about why we need education, methods of education and even the management of education. In this post he focuses on how  humans must be educated in the future and even now as great shifts of the planet, technology and behavioral environments are bouncing about in the winds of change.

Education, in particular, is easily affected by culture and innovation. Note the following examples and how quickly and fully these examples modified ‘normal’ education practices.

֎  In 1910 only 79% of children enrolled in schools. Only 11 percent of all children between ages fourteen and seventeen were enrolled in high school, and only 8.8% graduated. By 1950, the age of fossil fuel emerged, two world wars occurred, and an economic restructuring changed the social structure of society. Education statistics immediately changed. In 1950 84% of children enrolled in school and high school graduation leaped to 59%. The GI benefit of a paid college education thrust colleges into the general public sphere and bachelor degrees were economically available.

֎  Ezra Stiles, a former president of Yale University, died nearly 230 years ago. It is Mr. Stiles that we owe the grading system that has prevailed since. His clear intention was to publicly rank and sort students according to their achievement, not to give them feedback on their learning or to suggest how they might improve before the next exam. This kind of class ranking was a mechanism for conveying status and privilege (or withholding them), oftentimes mirroring the social structures of the world beyond the ivy-covered university walls. (Some suggest this intent created the ‘woke’ class).

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Whether we accept it or not, Mother Nature outfits each and all her species with all the survival skills and behaviors needed to sustain a normal lifestyle for each specific species. In the case of mammals and many other branches of evolution as well, Mother outfitted them with ’emotion’. Emotion is the way humans integrate with one another, learn social values, develop compassion and reinforce safety. Emotion permits bonding not only to others but to the world around them.

Mariner looked back to our forefathers, the early Homo sapiens and the Neanderthals. No books. There was lots of art in caves, on stones and wood, even on pottery; perhaps art is a primitive form of writing, of documenting emotion.

Our forefathers learned through social bonding the need to build homes for shelter without the benefit of watching This Old House on PBS or the dozen books mariner bought in order to build his house. These primitives learned by watching, sharing and caring. – Call it peer collaboration.

Instructors of any subject no longer need to read a lot of books and be the only source of truth and knowledge. That form of respect is gone because students don’t need books any more. However, indeed very important, is the fact that today a student’s emotions are needed in order to build knowledge for survival. Instructors must use tools out of the emotions kit to build a world value system that is not available in today’s society.

Ancient Mariner

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Age Shift

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Anyone who studies ancient history of any kind runs into a phenomenon called an Age. Ages are slow – really slow. Depending on which field of history one is studying, for example Earth science, Ages can last as long as millions, even billions of years. For most human periods since the last Ice Age, an Age will require 2-5,000 years to live its time. If one clocks in at the earliest existence of economic/political times in human history, an Age averages about 1.5 to 2 thousand years and is growing shorter at the speed of a half-life algorithm [the next step is approximately half the value of the previous step].

Abstruse, he knows. Let’s do a few examples:

֎ The last ice age lasted a little over 20,000 years.
֎ Bronze Age lasted 1,300 years.
֎ Iron Age lasted 700 years.
֎ Classical Era lasted 1,000 years (historians call them Eras now).
֎ Medieval Era lasted 1,000 years.
֎ Early Modern Era lasted 300 years.
֎ Modern Era has lasted 2,000 years but has begun shifting rapidly since about 1900AD.
֎ On their own initiative, current humans created a new age for us: the Anthropocene Epoch which replaces the Holocene Epoch, beginning at the end of the last Ice Age 11,700 years ago.¹

This is a lot to explain in order to suggest that religion is subject to the Ages as well.

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Was ‘religion’ part of all the ages? Yes, actually. In purely Homo terms, religion is part of the human survival makeup as much as dogs and wolves have an innate understanding of their role in the pack. One of the earliest discoveries of a caveman family, back before the Ice Age, showed evidence of caring and sharing: a male had a destroyed leg in the prime of his life. He was cared for for many years, being fed, sharing family time and, eventually, buried carefully in his cave. No Popes needed, no choirs, no congregation, no architecture. In its physiological role, religion is feelings and caring and sharing with others. This behavior is key to survival.

Funny that Jesus spoke of the same primitive behavior 20,000 years later as the path to salvation. Mariner has never forgotten the documented event where a mother gave her baby to another person to avoid having the baby eaten by lions in the coliseum – the mother’s fate. Religion is innate feelings necessary for survival – even if Interstates, airplanes and smartphones have stretched the definition of ‘family’.

So, religion as we know it has been waylaid by the Greeks who needed administrative positions for their ‘gods’ and especially the Romans who worshiped grandeur. Western Europe didn’t help much either with excess social discipline. Then the Age of War (20th Century) distracted everyone from innate survival practices because Homo was and is in the midst of an ‘industrial toy’ age. New is better.

Welcome to the Industrial Age or maybe the new version, the Technological Age. So how much are church buildings selling for these days?

Ancient Mariner

¹ Wikipedia.

Where the West began

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Mariner’s normal inclination is to see the world through the eye of a sociologist. The core of sociology is the study of results from human social patterns and aspects of culture associated with everyday life.

During the last few months in a very unhurried way he seems to be researching the Middle East as the birthplace of nationalism, the birthplace of comprehensive theology and the first region to openly implement neutral colonialism – all significant roots that support today’s cultural operations. What makes it even more interesting is the existence of East/West trade routes and the eventual social and economic incursion by Greece, Rome and Russia.

At its height, the Persian Empire encompassed all of the Middle East: modern-day Iran, Egypt, Turkey, and parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan. It was also known as the Achaemenid Empire. To make it convenient to this post, the term ‘PE’ will be the euphemism. In ancient times PE was controlled by czarist kings who proclaimed themselves Gods and ruled over the most brutal nations in history. It is fascinating when one realizes that virtually the entire social/political/economic/religious structure of today’s Western Alliance began in the Persian Empire.

Mariner’s favorite example is the first creation of an independent supreme God which began in Lycia, a small nation in the PE across the Aegean Sea from Greece. Her name was Cybele, the female god of creation [BLOG Apr 7, 2016] who later existed as Rhea, Mother of Gods in Greece, then as Sybil, Mother Of Gods in Rome, to Mary, Mother of Jesus in Christianity. In addition, many of today’s Jewish/Christian rituals and religious practices are similar to rituals in Zoroastrianism – the first unified religion in the PE – a time when Israel was one of the nations of PE.

The other creation of note, at least for this post, is the birth of colonialism. One of the  PE Kings, Cyrus II or Cyrus the Great [mentioned in last post], allowed all the nations within the PE to carry on with local practices in religion and daily life. This included allowing those nations to make trade deals between member nations with a general oversight from PE. If this insight were stretched a bit, it could also be the origin of republics – just like the United States!

Mariner apologizes for making the reader suffer such detailed stuff. It keeps him occupied while coping with another PE creation: Donald.

Ancient Mariner

 

 

 

 

Judgment Day

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Everyone talks about the day when Jesus will return to gather his deserving flock. Most of today’s Christians have a ‘good deed’ savings account to make sure they will be included. But mariner has a suggestion: you may need to read the Gospel Matthew and most of Gospel Luke to find out who gets to go and who doesn’t. Let’s take a simple test: In the Bible (Matt. 5:3-10) are ten types of people who will be saved on Judgment Day. Let’s see if any of us are in there. Hmm . . . Well, mariner doesn’t see a lot of names. Better check out the parables in Matthew and Luke to see what we need to do to get a ride to heaven.

Another issue that gets in the way of a trip out of here on Judgment Day is recognizing what the gift is. For example, many, many folks believe the gift is a piece of paper with a picture of an American President on it and heaven is a lot like Orlando Beach.

A third issue is that Christianity is a part time job. Many Christians give up Sunday morning to go to church when they actually wanted to sleep late (note that in the savings account). A fewer number give a meaningful amount participating in charities and even fewer participate in helping develop community participation. Well, at least there’s free coffee and donuts before the service.

Strip away thousands of years of accumulated Christian literature, politics, economics and social change. What is left is what Jesus wanted: God is the power of love. God’s love steers our life day in and day out. When we live our lives by using God’s power to love, Jesus said we are sitting at the right hand of God.

Given Jesus’s words, no Judgment Day is needed. Live by God’s love and you are experiencing the Promised Land. No waiting! Take a short trip this afternoon.

Which word does not belong in this list?

Caring
Sharing
Compassionate
Convenient
Sympathy
Empathy

Ancient Mariner

Tuvalu

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A fascinating report in the AOL news strip gives an insight into the future of nationalism. Within this century, the Island nation of Tuvalu (9 coral atolls in the Pacific) is about to go under the ocean and completely disappear. The nation of Tuvalu already has set up political relationships with Australia and New Zealand that will allow Tuvalu citizens to live in these partner nations but sustain a Tuvalu political structure complete with its own voting rights and a shared economy.

Mariner has been struggling to find a transitional model for nations moving into the future of international economy and having to share sustainable agricultural regions; already national boundaries are of dwindling importance because of the Internet.

But Tuvalu has not taken the path of economic conversion. Rather, they have invented a new way to sustain nationality via social identification and a political structure that doesn’t need its own territory to exist. Their national model much more clearly defines how nationalism will transition to globalism. It is a truly insightful article that has broadened mariner’s thoughts about the future.

A quick and pleasant read with an extremely insightful perception of the future. See:

https://www.aol.com/disappearing-island-nation-plans-exist-152004992.html

Ancient Mariner

 

Jobs threatened by AI

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On the CBS website, mariner found a detailed analysis of what types of jobs may be most threatened by automation. An easy way to understand the impact is to consider how the Internet has changed the reader’s shopping habits – what ever happened to malls?

Impact from GPT4 [Pre-trained software capable of dialogue and creative writing – including songs]

Customer services representatives
Accountants and auditors
Software developers
Secretaries and administrative assistants

Overall

Computer programmers
Financial managers
Accountants and auditors
Sales representatives (wholesale and manufacturing)

Automation

General and operations managers
Accountants and auditors
Receptionists and information clerks

Augmentation

Chief Executives
Maintenance and repair workers
Registered Nurses
Computer Systems managers

Mariner would offer an outlook if he could – no one can. We are in a fog without a map and must confront dysfunctional government, unbridled corporate behavior, tendency toward war as a solution and a dissatisfied planet..

Armageddon proceeds

Ancient Mariner

The new job market

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There seems to be increasing news coverage about the job market, especially when comparing past, present and future markets as presented by government figures. The presumption from the White House is that the tariffs will restrict foreign manufacture and allow US manufacturing to grow substantially.

On the other hand, banking, investment and private institutions don’t feel as secure about the effect of the tariffs. They speak to the influence of ChatGPT already in the marketplace which is affecting employment today. In mariner’s local newspaper he reads that a nearby river town’s pubic library plans to replace a desk librarian with a bot that can check in and check out materials. When McDonald’s is forced to modify products and prices in order to sustain sales, something must be afoot.

Further, the public has an innate feeling that one had better be frugal – an attitude that contributes to recession. It’s likely that the persistent news coverage is about closing branches and even closing large stores so they can reinvent their fiscal model.

The White House is doing everything it can to bolster financial reports – even to the extent of disassembling the Federal Reserve so the interest rate can be lowered.

While it is true that the giant manufacturers and retail powerhouses can respond to the tariff situation by offering more jobs, that seems not to represent the closing of many shops and small industries because of the new market, tax regulations and AI.

It appears the economy will be dancing on thin ice for the next year or two. One can hope for a new approach after the midterms. Amos insists that mariner mention the collapsing US influence in world markets.

Ancient Mariner

 

 

A genuine news ‘capsule’

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Greetings readers, noting a change in weather patterns in the Midwest. In this morning’s email, mariner found an unusually brief but profound news wrap up from the Associated Press:

“In the news today: The Shanghai Cooperation Organization – led by Russia, China, and India – could emerge as a challenge to America’s global leadership; a major landslide has become one of the deadliest natural disasters in Sudan’s history; and the legal impacts of President Donald Trump sending National Guard troops into US cities. Also, scientists are helping a red-legged frog return to Southern California.”¹

It would be difficult to describe as briefly as written so many global issues of such great importance and diversity. Even a little known frog species speaks of the massive extinction occurring around the planet

• The SCO meeting of the Eastern World speaks to an evolution-like rotation of global dominance. The West’s supremacy began to emerge in the Victorian Era starting in the mid 1800s and emerged a century later as the leading political, philosophical, economic and social leaders of the world . It took an age of colonial economics, two world wars and the wealth that only a rich country sitting on the richest continent in the world could provide to finalize the shift from the eastern nations to the Western Alliance.

The winds of change suggest the next evolution is beginning. As with every other evolution, it is accelerated as new technology, new economics and shifting global issues have come together.

• The disaster in Sudan is only the latest example in a long list of planetary effects caused by multiple-century movement of the Solar System, especially expedited by global warming. There are disappearing ice shelves at both poles, platonic shifts loosened by a warming planet and severe undercutting of commercial farming and availability of potable water as a warmer atmosphere begins to reshape global weather patterns. Add in the effects on global economy caused by rising oceans.

• Then there is Donald. The American citizen has proven that something isn’t right with the nation because he was, in fact, elected by them. It is noteworthy that a terrible, dictatorial leader is part of the evolutionary shifts in world power from Ivan the Terrible (1547-1584) to Adolf Hitler to Putin to Donald – plus a dozen or so in smaller nations. Their job is to destroy the old system so transformations can begin anew in the new age of electronics, diminishing wealth, overpopulation and international difficulties – after the dictators disappear.

• The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History” by Elizabeth Kolbert, was published in 2014. Through detailed research of current and recent disappearances of every kind of creature driven into extinction by a changing world shaped almost single handed by humans, 16,000 species have disappeared. Very important but hardly noticed is that the rate of extinction is increasing.

Historians and scientists have the audacity to create their own age: the Anthropocene Age. Is this world situation something to be proud of?

Ancient Mariner

We need a culture map

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Every generation has its own lifestyles, a combination of habits, behavioral perceptions and historical benchmarks. For example, how many of us use pen and paper to write long letters? How many of us realize how much of a cultural shift is represented by Rosie the Riveter, the icon representing a shift of women in the workforce from 12 million to 20 million by 1944. Walk through the years with Benny Goodman, Ella Fitzgerald, Molly Bee, Frank Sinatra, Elvis, Nat King Cole, Peter, Paul and Mary, ABBA and Taylor Swift; how many of us have a microwave? How many years did it take to shift from calf-length skirts to black stretch pants?

And within just one generation, who stills types their letters on a typewriter? In fact, who still writes letters (200 words) to family members? Facebook takes care of letters today. Everything, every person from childhood to today is linked to you and vice versa. Want to know what’s happening with Uncle John? Facebook has it all. Just push a button and say, “Handle it”.

There is no avoidance of the fact that in the four most recent generations, each generation is living in a different world. Not just the normal generational shift that occurs as we age but so different that if, indeed, the world were a stage, a different show would be showing for each generation.

From the Silent Generation (1928-1945) to Generation Z (1997-2010), the entire planet has moved from an atmosphere of ‘war makes power’ where the west won control as the world’s political, social and scientific leaders, to an atmosphere of a planet falling short of resources, disruptive climate and causing economic stress to the point that it is a common opinion to stop raising beef because of its cost both to producers and to the environment.

Industrially, in just 75 years technology has moved human behavior to an unknown experience – promoting television in the 1940s to smartphones today. A central force that modifies human behavior is the Internet – a science which remains unbridled today and already evidences different behavioral values in human society.;

Metaphorically, we live on a world with no compass, no directional indicators, no rationality. We are encased in a fog. We have boarded a carnival ride about which we know nothing. Times are changing like they never have in living history.

Our emergency pack should include the basics: community participation; family allegiance and support; eliminate debt by living more frugally; be aware of resource management (less CO2 and avoiding plastic are big issues now); avoid depending on disruptive leaders who promise quick solutions – there are no quick solutions. FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) is broke and the climate is becoming more boisterous – have an alternative planned.

Ancient Mariner

 

 

Handle it, handle it

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Does the reader remember the TV show Carter Country (aired in the 1970s)? One of the characters was a chubby character named Mayor Burnside who managed all his duties by saying “Handle it, handle it” . Well, it turns out that in the very near future, we all will handle life like Mayor Burnside.

Axios published an article today that describes how, in the very near future, we will take care of life’s decisions and personal communications simply by saying to our computer, “Handle it”. Here is an excerpt from the article:

The big picture: As AI agents improve and multiply, bots representing individuals will interact with bots representing companies, and human use of the open web will continue to decline.

  • My bot will talk to your bot — but you and I will probably talk a lot less. . . .

Take one of the most basic things we do today — buying stuff online.

  • We’re used to a world in which you click around, check products and prices from different vendors — maybe with help from a comparison service or website. While prices can fluctuate and algorithms sometimes play a role, as on Amazon or Uber, the purchase decision remains firmly in human hands.
  • But AI-driven e-commerce means that vendors are going to start rapidly changing their prices based on your identity and other variables — not, just say, once a day but by the microsecond, and differently for each customer.
  • Ransomware gangs are already deploying chatbots to negotiate with their victims, as Axios has reported.
  • Next up: Victims of ransomware attacks will let AI agents handle their response to the attacks — leaving all the people involved free to relax on the beach, assuming there’s any money left in their bank accounts.
  • To see the easy-to-read article, here is the link:

https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-ai-plus-051cd187-147a-4a85-b588-008f8c056657.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axioslogin&stream=top

Markets like Walmart, Amazon and surprisingly, small markets on eBay, already are constructing buy-sell software that does not require direct authorization from you, the buyer. One service like this that the reader may be familiar with is automated purchase which is authorized by the reader once then is taken care of by computers. Another service already on its way to not bothering the reader unnecessarily is medical tests and appointments which often will appear automatically in your patient portal.

Beyond the scope of the article, alter ego Guru says this form of automation is bound to lead to corporatism, where, instead of capitalism and socialism, ‘governments’ also will be run in a similar fashion. Politicians will simply say, “Handle it, handle it” and corporate, human-independent computers will make policy decisions. Note that computers will be owned by corporations.

Great article!

Ancient Mariner