Tag: Big Ideas

UFOs Are Real: Now What?


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Here are the options we face when it comes to the UFOs that the Pentagon told us are “real.”

  1. It’s a Psyop
    All of this is just the US government fucking with us in an effort to distract us from something. What, though?
  2. It’s all a big misunderstand called by faulty equipment
    It’s all just easily explainable telemetry problems that may be connected to number one.
  3. Private companies have Singularity technology
    We’ve reached the Singularity via private companies. They have all these technological goodies they’re keeping from us — for some reason — and they’re going to slowly roll them out over the next few decades to maximize profit.
  4. The US government has Singularity technology
    What we’re seeing is some DARPA, NSA, CIA shit. Why they would not only be spying on their own military base but also be so conspicuous about it is unknown.
  5. Foreign governments have Singularity technology
    China and Russia (at least) have developed extremely advanced technology and, instead of using it to dominate the globe NOW, are keeping it secret so…they can use it at some point in the future?
  6. ETs.
    Probes — or something — from a highly advanced Galactic Empire have travel across the vastness of space, only to hang out on the Eastern seaboard and do really conspicuous shit that all but assures they will eventually be known about by the broader human public.

Tik-Tok’s ‘Algorithms’ Continue To Be Spooky


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Not a day goes by now that Tik-Tok doesn’t serve me content that is so narrow, so specific to me personally that it makes me sit up and take notice. Of course, I guess that’s the point. One of the most recent instances of this involved me looking at a model’s video on Instagram where she told people to follow her on Tik-Tok. I thought hard about this for a moment, then was ultimately not interested enough to write her Tik-Tok username down. I did not think anything more about it until that very model popped up in my Tik-Tok feed right on cue. I continue to have a lingering suspicions that it’s at least possible that one of three things is happening.

  1. Tik-Tok is far more intrusive than we imagine.
    If this explains how I saw that Instagram model’s Tik-Tok account after thinking really hard about her, then that’s something that, while aggravating, at least fits within the established computing paradigm. That’s something I can accept. Somehow, Tik-Tok is so intrusive that it was able to monitor my Instagram usage and noticed me pause on the Instagram model’s video telling me to follow her on Tik-Tok. All that’s probably a national security threat, but it’s still not that weird.
  2. Tik-Tok is using hard AI to figure me out.
    All this does is take the first option and supercharge it. This takes Tik-Tok’s words about the power of its “algorithms” at face value. All I’m noticing is Tik-Tok’s “algorithms” are so advanced that somehow they are able to infer from my online activity that I would like to follow that Instagram model on Tik-Tok. Again, this is severely troubling from a national security point of view, but it at least doesn’t sound nuts when you tell people about it at a bar.
  3. Tik-Tok is reading my mind in some way
    This, of course, is the most bonkers of all the options. But hear me out. What if the reason I go that model’s Tik-Tok account pushed to me so soon after seeing her Instagram post is I thought really hard about it. As such, when I thought hard for a moment about finding a pen to write down her account name, Tik-Tok’s Singularity technology, it’s “digital telepathy” picked up the concept and waited for me to use the service again so it could push me her account. This is, by far, the most dangerous of the three because that would mean the government of China, through Tik-Tok is able to monitor the minds of millions of Americans — many of them children. This also at least, in an abstract way, raises the prospect of an “inception” scenario where the Chinese government could not just monitor our minds, but implant information into them.

    Ok, that last bit was pretty insane, even for me. But it felt good to write it. Anyway, which one to I think is the right answer? It’s probably some sort of fuzzy area between 1 and 2. There’s no “soft Singularity” involved, it’s just that existing technology has reach the point where it’s really good at figuring out what’s going on in our minds via available information that we provide without thinking about it. At least, that’s what I hope is going on. If Big Tech really can read our minds, then, well, we’re kind of fucked.

Ok, Tik-Tok, I Get It, You’re Still Reading My Mind (Or Something): Alexa Chung Edition



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now, let me begin by saying because of a very strange set of circumstances a few years ago it’s at least possible that an FBI agent in Washington D.C. monitors this blog to see if I mention fashion It Girl Alexa Chung. This stems from a dumb misunderstanding.

Anyway, let me be clear: the conditions that caused me to briefly have a celebrity crush on Alexa Chung are now long gone. I still have an obsessive personality, but now I’m obsessed with the novel I’m working on.

The reason why I say all of this is today I was minding my own business, using Tik-Tok when I was served a video that was all these photos of Alexa Chung. I have long worried that maybe Tik-Tok is, I dunno, reading my mind, and the fact that I have not in any way do anything anywhere to indicate to Tik-Tok that I would be interested in Alexa Chung for any reason is very odd. I also got served Mighty Boosh videos today, as well, which is equally odd.

Now, I am well aware that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof and so given how bonkers the idea that Tik-Tok is, in any way, reading my mind is, I’m leery of giving the idea too much credence. And, yet, I’m stumped how Tik-Tok’s “algorithms” could narrow down my personal interest in both Alexa Chung and the Mighty Boosh if I’ve done absolutely nothing of late online that would give them reason to believe that.

But I guess somehow they figured it out without reading my mind. But I am left with a lingering unease. Tik-Tok knows way too much about me and it’s a mystery how it happened.

PS: Dear FBI Agent — leave me alone!

The Trouble With UFOs



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Both options when it comes to the recent sightings of UFOs by the USAF come with some serious problems. Let’s look at the two options and struggle with their individual problems.

ETs
If the UFOs are of alien origin, then their appetence is somewhat underwhelming. That they would do something so prosaic as simply hang out off the American eastern seaboard to monitor a U.S. Navy base is…kinda of meh. If you have the ability to travel the light years necessary to get to earth, why do something as dull as that? Also, why haven’t other nations come forth to say they’ve seen similar things? Why would the U.S. Government be the only one in the world to show such footage? Lastly, I struggle to believe that if aliens had the ability to get to earth that they wouldn’t also have the technology necessary to make themselves invisible. I know that’s jumping to conclusions, but it’s a reasonable assumption to make.

Humans
If you were a foreign government that had developed technology far, far more advanced than the US Government, why would you blow your secret on something as dumb hovering conspicuously off the coast of the United States? It definitely seems as though whomever designed these craft (drones?) wanted us to know they existed.

Bonus Issue:
Why has the U.S. Government changed its tune on UFOs so abruptly? I know there’s some sort of report that’s supposed to come out soon that Congress will be given…but that seems like just a fig leaf for a bigger reason. What that “bigger reason” my be, I have no idea. It’s all very curious.

America’s Stark Choice: Autocracy Or Civil War


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The United States is far less stable on a political level than we realize. If I have to spend this much time thinking about all the different ways we could buckle sooner rather than later, we got a problem. I generally believe that if there’s going to be any kind of modern civil war, it’s going to be in the 2024-2025 timeframe.

And, yet, we have to deal with the bonkers Cyber Ninja recount in Arizona that has the potential to be extremely destabilizing. If they do manage to pull a Trump “victory” out of their butt — which they definitely seem hellbent on doing — then there’s a good chance that Trump will pop out of his hidey-hole and scream at the top of his lungs that this “proves” that he won the 2020 election and, as such, the Biden Administration should be “nullified” (whatever that means.)

What’s more, that’s not the only way we might find ourselves in a hot civil war — the unexpected death of any number of major political leaders, for any reason, would do the same thing at this point.

The point is — the United States is at a breaking point. We’re primed and ready for a collapse of historic proportions pretty much at any point between now and January 2025. It’s pretty easy to imagine that MAGA Republicans in Congress will simply refuse to certify the election of anyone they don’t like and that will be when we face a very, very stark choice: do we become a fascist state or do we find ourselves in a hot civil war?

I don’t particularly want either outcome, but as I keep saying, the issue is no one will have a choice. We’re all going to have to make some existential decisions. There will, at last, be no middle ground. We’re all going to have to pick a side, any side and risk our lives by doing so.

Why Elon Musk’s ‘Neuralink’ Is Such A Dumb, Misguided Idea


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

This is so frustrating. Elon Musk wants to rummage around in my brain with something that requires drilling a hole in my head and hooking up directly to my wetware. I find this very dumb and misguided because Arthur C. Clarke in his book “3001: Final Odyssey” comes up with a far more practical — and less intrusive — answer: the mindcap.

Now, some context.

There’s evidence that Facebook has, at least, a patent on some sort of mind reading technology. And hardly a day goes by that I don’t use Tik-Tok and think its reading my mind in some way. It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does happen, it’s very spooky.

As such, if it’s possible they’ve figured out a way to read my mind in some way via a non-contact solution, why not develop a form of that technology that involves a skullcap of some sort laced with electrodes (or whatever) that touches my skull and allows the same things we hope for with the Neuralink without the risk of accidently being given a lobotomy.

It seems very obvious to me that if you could sell people at $1,200 mindcap that skips the middle step of wearing MX (VR / AR) equipment. It definitely would aid in the adoption of such technology if you didn’t have to overcome the resistance to wearing bulky goggles and allowed people to “see” and “hear” media using their own minds.

But, go ahead Elon, keep drilling holes in people’s heads.

You Can Feel The Historical Forces Aligning To Cause Either A Second American Civil War Or Decent Into Autocracy


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s rare that you can actually see, first hand, significant macro historical forces at work. But that’s what we got right now in the United States. The crux of the issue, as is explicated in Ezra Klein’s “Why Were’ Polarized,” is white people are beginning to wake up to the looming inevitability of them being in the minority and a sizable portion of them don’t like it one bit.

All the fucked up shit going on in the United States spring from that fact. Everything from the fight over immigration (brown people scary!) to abortion (make more white babies!) to you name it comes from not “economic anxiety” but regular old racism.

There’s no such thing as reveled truth and I can’t predict the future, but I am enough of a student of history to know the America we have known for about 240 years simply isn’t going to make it through the passions of another presidential cycle. Or, if it does, it will only happen at the cost of a great amount of blood and treasure. Nothing short of a Third American Covenant [first: 1776 second: 1865)] will save our sorry asses at this point.

In other words — a civil war.

But that’s not the only option. We could just shrug when MAGA Republicans refuse to certify Joe Biden’s reelection and in January 2025 and that’s it. We’ll be run by hateful MAGA cocksuckers for decades to come. They will slowly at first, then faster and faster begin to crack down their pet peeves about modern America until they transform us in to Trumplandia.

But 2024 is it. That year will be make or break. But there won’t be any middle ground. The time for compromise will be over. You will have to pick a side, one way or another, no matter what the outcome is. And it will be existential. If there’s a civil war, then your personal safety will be decided by your politics. If its autocracy, then you either become a Good American or you get pushed out a window by a weaponized ICE agent.

As I keep saying, I have no idea what to tell you about how to prepare for this epic clusterfuck. I would suggest you get out of the country if that’s an option. But if it’s not, then make sure your personal politics align with the state you live in.

There are plenty of things that could happen that could punt this particular problem down the road. It happened in 2020, it could happen again. But Republicans are so far into fascism at this point that either they provoke significant political violence or they win and snuff out our liberties once and for all.

MAGA already glorifies political violence and it’s only going to get worse. But I have said over and over again, they are making a serious mistake on a strategic level by being so fucking bloodthirsty. If they were just patient and played by the rules, they could get everything they wanted in a peaceful manner. The entire system is already rigged in their favor in various ways. It’s when they overreach and steal the 2024 election in an extremely brazen fashion that the country will grow extremely unstable.

But, who knows. We might just shrug and let MAGA end our liberal democracy without any conflict at all.

Georgia As Setup For America’s 2024 Catastrophe


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s growing clear that our choice in 2024 will be quite stark. The move to restrict voting rights in Georgia indicates that the setup is being established for Republicans to finally, finally get their macro wish — to make it so difficult to vote that people finally give up and let them run roughshod over our undead liberal democracy.

This is where you never can tell.

On one hand, it’s possible that now that the passions of the Trump Era are easing that voters will get sucker punched in 2024 and they will either lulz it and let Republicans rape our republic or they will grow enraged and, well..dun dun dun there’s a civil war.

This setup will grow even more obvious the moment Republicans take control of Congress again. It’s going to suck so bad. The one-two punch of severe voter restrictions and a Congress controlled by fascists pretty much means the end of our liberal democracy is here…unless there’s a civil war and solve our systemic problems that way.

And, don’t forget, either way — autocracy or civil war — there’s a good chance that the entire world order will be re-arranged. No matter how much fucking MAGA cocksuckers may want us to think otherwise — America is the indispensable nation and we’re the glue that keeps the world together. Take us out of the equation and…oh boy. I would estimate within a year of us “bringing the boys home” nearly half a billion people could be vaporized. Indian and Pakistan are always one misstep away from blowing each other to hell. Take the US out of world affairs and that particular disaster is almost a foregone conclusion.

As I keep saying, the issue is — enjoy this quiet before the storm. These two years before Congress flips may be the most quiet we get for the rest of the decade.

The Future With No Shock: The ‘Strange Days’ Of The Soft Singularity


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It seems as though the Soft Singularity is here. Advances in AI, automation and what I call “digital telepathy” have reached a critical juncture. And, yet, it seems as though Big Tech is fucking with us — they’re using a lot of new advances in the darkness because, what, they don’t want to spook us?

I find this very annoying because I really want my fucking $1,200 mindcap that allows us to skip the MX (VR – AR) phase of things and go directly to Strange Days shit.

And I’m not talking about a fucking Neural Link where you have to drill into someone’s head — I’m talking about something like what you find in Strange Days or Odyssey 3: Final Odyssey that happens by simply laying the device on your head. No drilling necessary. It’s unintrusive mind reading. In fact, imagine if you could harness the processing power of your own mind as part of mindcap. That’s some next level Singularity shit right there. If you could ride off your own wetware for processing power, wow!

And if you assume like I do that Big Tech (Tik-Tok) can already read our fucking minds, then what I’m proposing isn’t really that big a deal. If they can read our minds without touching our skulls, imagine what they can do if they have something that actually touches your skull?

But, again, no one listens to me.

Yet, I do think we’re probably within the Event Horizon of some sort of Singularity. It’s as if Netscape was only an enterprise company and only people in the bowels of the Big Tech knew about the World Wide Web. I feel as though for crass power and monetary reasons that there’s a chance a lot of Singularity-ish advancements have been made and…we’re supposed to be stuck wanting to get into Clubhouse of all things?

Or, put another way, I just feel something’s up. I don’t know what it is, but for some reason The Powers That Be have decided to hide some pretty big technological advancements from us for the time being. There’s bound to be a reckoning at some point. You can’t keep being able to read people’s minds via their cellphones a secret forever, you know.

I guess they’re going to try.

But, let me be clear — I have no absolute proof that Tik-Tok is rummaging through my mind. But I do feel as though it’s something we should think about being possible.

Think Big: Silicon Valley & The Soft Singularity of ‘Digital Telepathy’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

A long time ago, when dinosaurs still walked the earth, I was in college and obsessed with this thing called the Internet. This was before the World Wide Web. This was back when having an email address was, in itself, something of a future shock.

Flash forward to the present day and, meh, we’ve been in a technological holding pattern for about a decade now. Sure, a lot of apps have been designed, but the basic thing that powers it all hasn’t changed in over a decade: the smartphone.

Now, here’s where things get tricky.

I think Big Tech has figured out a way to read our minds. And, what’s more, they’re getting kind of brazen about it because, I mean, who’s going to believe that our phones are reading our minds? And, let me be clear, I absolutely hate conspiracy theories. I think they’re the last refuge of the intellectually dishonest. So, I’m very reluctant to think what I’m saying I think: that Big Tech can read or minds and they’re using that ability on the DL to sell us ads.

And, really, this would not be that big a deal real terms — at least not now — but for one thing: Tik-Tok. It’s at least possible that the Chinese government, through Tik-Tok is rummaging around in the minds of American’s youth via Tik-Tok. I say this because of all the services I suspect can read our minds, Tik-Tok is the absolute most brazen.

They really push it. I think about something once without telling anyone else and lo and behold, I get a pushed a video or ad about that subject the next time I log on to the service. This is not to say there aren’t plenty of other ways they’re figuring me out. They’re probably listening to me via my phone. They’re probably monitoring every way I use my phone and using algorithms to figure me out. I get all that. THAT makes sense.

It’s when I get pushed something on Tik-Tok that seems to not only reference something from within my internal monologue, but takes it to the next level of referencing, say, the appetence of a lost love that is floating around in my mind all the time. How does an algorithm figure THAT out?

And, if you want to got that route, if “algorithms” have gotten that advanced, then that, in itself, is a serious issue. That’s not an algorithm, that’s AI and that needs to be discussed and, if necessary, regulated.

Or, put another way, I’m beginning to think we’ve already reached a “Soft Singularity.” A combination of oligarchy, greed and fear of the public’s reaction is causing Big Tech to keep this fact away from the average person. But it seems that if they keep fucking leaning into their ability to Black Mirror shit that there will, at some point, come a moment of reckoning.

But I’m a nobody. No one listens to me.