Tag: Fuck You MAGA

Should We Start Thinking Seriously About A Looming Singularity?

by Shelt Garner
@shetgarner

With the news that a major fusion technology breakthrough will be announced soon, given the other technologies that are rushing towards similar breakthroughs I find myself thinking about one thing — the technological Singularity.

The Singularity is the moment in time when technology goes so fast that human culture simply can’t keep up. Usually, the Singularity is associated with ideas like AGI, everyone living forever because we can upload our minds into a database…and fusion power.

While I’m not prepared to think we’re on the cusp of living forever, if things like the metaverse, AGI and fusion power (!) all become a part of everyday life at the same time, that sure does sound a lot like at least a “soft” Singularity, if nothing else.

My fear is, of course, that all these technologies are going to strike at the same time that we’re going through a massive political crisis in late 2024, early 2025 as we finally try to figure out what the fuck we’re going to do about the Trump Problem.

But, as an aside, I will note that if we reach fusion then I will have to begrudgingly admit that when my Traditionalist relative — who is a climate change denier — said “well, technology will solve it” might have been right. There is a chance now that we may end global climate change because, lulz, we achieve fusion power.

And, yet, even if we achieve fusion power, the kneejerk partisanship that created my relative’s climate change denialism will still be there. And that’s a real problem. Just like how being famous doesn’t solve any of your problems, so, too, will the Singularity not solve the severe political division found within the United States.

If anything, there’s a risk that when we’re confronted by even BIGGER issues — like “What the fuck are we going to do about AGIs?” we’re going to be so divided that Blues will have one absolute opinion about AGIs while Reds will take the exact opposite position out of spite.

Anyway, I don’t know how much all of this is my usual the-worst-case-scenario-is-going-to-happen inclinations and how much is this might actually happen. It’s actually pretty rare for human history to take the absolute worst case scenario, but has been known to happen on occasion.

Only time will tell.

So, I’m Getting A Surge In MAGA Nazi Hate Followers On Twitter

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I don’t know what to tell you on this one. Over the last few days, I’ve begun to get a steady trickle of new followers who obviously hate my politics. It’s a very surreal experience.

In a way, a follower is a follower and should some third party look at my follower list and it’s 10,000 people, they won’t care much if a third of them hate my guts.

I suppose I should tone it down some if people who are at the polar opposite of the political spectrum want to use me as some sort of confirmation that they should start a civil war. Ugh.

But I am who I am. I generally mean well, or, as the late Annie Shapiro said of me, I’m a “delusional jerk with a good heart.” It is a testament to how fucked up our political system is that someone such as myself, who thinks of myself as a “moderate” has become a “radical moderate” because of the rise of MAGA Nazism.

And, by definition, to have really strong opinions on Twitter is inevitably going to draw attention to you and, as such, you get hate followers.

A Hot Take On OpenAI ChatGPT

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I am not an expert on AI, but I did live through the early days of the Internet / Web revolution and it’s very interesting how similar it is to the rise of chatbots and, potentially AGI.

Everyone is coming at ChatGPT from their own personal direction because it’s so new that we don’t have any established idea of what it is or its place in society. As such, everyone projects on to it their hopes and fears — which is exactly what happened when it became clear that because of the Web the power of the Internet would soon be harnessed for the average person.

Before I go any further, I have to note that chabot technology is just one of several different emerging technologies that are probably all going to go mainstream at some point between now, and, say 2025. Things like the metaverse (Web 3.0) chatbots, the blockchain, robotics and automation are all going to fuse into an event that might be something similar to a “Singularity,” or at least a “soft” one.

The real Singularity, of course, will happen whenever we move past chatbot technology into the realm of Artificial General Intelligence. If you hook that up to robotic trends…yikes.

But back to chatbots.

I just can’t imagine that we’re all going to be using one chatbot — OpenAI ChatGPT forever going forward. I suspect that numerous other chatbots of equal or greater ability will pop out in the next few years. I say this because if you were to talk to people in 1945 about nuclear technology they might make a lot of assumptions on the idea that only the United States would have The Bomb going forward.

It didn’t happen with the a-bomb and it’s not going to happen with chatbots. In fact, if Moore’s Law is to be believed, we’re going to be aswash in chatbots as major company — and a lot of start ups — get woke to how advantageous it would be to them to have their own advanced chatbot to use. So all the people who seem to think that ChatGPT is going to somehow overthrow Google should probably slow their roll.

Another thing to note — and this one really grinds me gears — is how the extremes on both sides of the political spectrum seem really invested in chatbots. You have your usual suspects of ‘woke” people complaining about the stupidest shit — well beyond the obvious, legitimate concerns about potential abuse for racist or misogynistic behavior. They get upset if the chatbot is somehow goaded into doing something that they perceive as not following their “woke” media narrative.

Meanwhile, on the OTHER end of the political spectrum in a much more ham-handed way, you have the fucking MAGA Nazi cocksuckers who apparently want chatbots to be “Ultra-MAGA” so they can turn around and use that as justification for their own form of Social Darwinism.

As I’ve said before, I would feel a lot better if we had a functioning political system. As it is, we’re on our own. It’s inevitable that as chatbots grow in cultural importance — and more and more children turn to it to do their homework, the batshit fucking bonkers MAGA people are going to scream at the top of their lungs that chatbots are “woke” and the only way to stop their spawn from being “indoctrinated” into the “woke cancel culture mob” is for the Second Trump Administration to regulate it parrots MAGa doctrine.

I wish I was exaggerating. I really do. But I’m not. This is what I literally think will happen at some point in the not-so-distant future. Or, it could be, that instead of the Second Trump Administration doing it, the issue will be regulated differently in the new Blue Union as opposed to Trumplandia after we have a National Divorce and Second American Civil War.

The point is — things are on the cups of getting very, very turbulence on not just a technological basis, but a cultural, economic and political basis as well. The next few years could be some of the most dramatic in human history — or at least since the end of WW2.

Cal it “The Fourth Turning” or “The Great Reset,” or whatever the fuck you want. There’s not going to be any narrative or value to it while it’s happening and it’s going to be scary as hell to live through. There’s a reason why “May you live in interesting times” is a curse.

Is Elon Musk A Modern Day Henry Ford? (And Not In A Good Way)

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Henry Ford changed the lives of millions of people in a practical, beneficial way. He was also an astonishing antisemite. So spare me the fanboy whining about how we can’t criticize Elon Musk just because of all the “cool” things he’s up to.

The more Musk leans into being a MAGA Nazis golden child, the more dangerous he becomes — and more danger not just America, but the entire globe faces. He’s adding to an already unstable situation in the United States by being a MAGA Nazi “edgelord” on the very service that he owns.

All of this is part of a broader, even more alarming trend — MAGA Nazis are politically and culturally ascendant. They hate to admit it because they’re about the catch the car again because then they would have to admit that maybe their rage over the “woke cancel culture mob” is…a little too much?

Anyway, I’m growing more and more alarmed by Elon Musk’s shenanigans. He’s really helping to make the next election — or the time immediately after the next election — a potentially extremely dangerous not not just for Americans, but the globe as a whole.

The Coming Battle Over Chatbot ‘Bias’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatbotGPT grow more and more mainstream, there will be a growing tendency by the average person to assume whatever answer it generates is “objective truth.” People are going to treat it like praying to a god who just happens to give them a direct answer.

The problem is going to be that by definition, any statement of fact that doesn’t align with this or that person’s personal views will be seen as “bias.” So, on one side, MAGA Nazi cocksuckers will grow enraged if the answers the get are what the perceive to be “woke,” while center-Left people will be equally enraged if their chatbot shoots up answers that they perceive to be racist or misogynistic.

Under normal circumstances, when our politics functioned, there would be debate back and forth as to how to deal with this. Maybe, if it became that big a problem, the government might pass legislation regulating this particular element of chatbot technology.

But, lulz, that’s just not going to happen. All the techniques that MAGA Nazis have used in the past to make polite debate impossible, they will use to force the issue of “what is objective truth for a chatbot?” Either they win and we all get MAGA-approved “objective truth” or they win when a new chatbot designed specifically for them is designed and, lulz, yet another element of society is siloed into Red and Blue.

I still think there is a chance that a war will be fought over chatbot and AGI bias. And it could be a world war. The moment we have a setup where there is a battle between us (Humans) and THEM (AGI) anything is possible. Some pretty strange things could happen because once the nation-state isn’t as important as your views on our new AGI overlord, the civilization itself may be at risk of collapse.

I am well aware of how hysterical that sounds. But we have to start taking these things seriously. If there was some way for us to figure out the gray areas of “objective truth” in the context of politics, then there might be a chance that we might see us peacefully and gracefully transition into a post-chatbot, post-AGI world.

But Americans can barely agree on what color the sky is. So, we’re fucked. As I’ve said before, I’m concerned that given there might be a recession in 2023, that by 2024 we will face a perfect storm — a Singularity, a lingering recession and a massive political crisis surrounding the 2024 election.

‘Stab In The Back’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Rather than confront the fact that their hate-filled movement is unpopular, MAGA Nazis have decided but for the “stab in the back” done by a combination of Twitter and the Deep State, Trump would have won in 2020. This is so fucking dumb.

And, yet, MAGA can’t accept that they’re the bad guys and they’re already really fucking paranoid so even the suggestion that they were slighted in 2020 is enough to make them go completely insane. The “stab in the back” orthodoxy within the MAGA Nazi movement has developed at astonishing speed to the point that it now completely explains to MAGA everything that has gone wrong for them since 2020.

One darkly humorous element to all of this is MAGA now has a talking point to pivot to whenever someone like me has the temerity to remind them of the conspiracy between the 2016 Trump campaign and the Russians. MAGA Nazis from now on will scream at the top of the lungs “stab in the back” whenever the subject is brought up.

All of this is very alarming for a number of reasons. One of them is it’s yet another example of how the United States is careening towards a very dark future. The two sides now completely inhabit their own political and cultural silos to the point that if, say, a Certification Crisis strikes in late 2024 – early 2024 there won’t be any slack in the system.

The United States, the wealthiest, most powerful democracy in Human history is primed and ready to collapse into chaos as the two sides fight over who the president is. Add into this mix how old Biden is, how untested Harris is and how there’s a real possibility of a severe recession between now and 2025 in the context of a Singularity….and, oh boy.

I definitely believe that we are being lulled into a false sense of security about MAGA Nazis because of how the economy is doing ok — at the moment. The moment the recession kicks in at some point in 2023, all bets are off. A lot of people might join the MAGA Nazi ranks out of economic desperation and suddenly malignant ding-dong will have a huge amount of momentum going in to 2024.

If that does turn out to be the case, may God have mercy on our souls.

Slouching Towards MAGA Nazi Tyranny

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I love my Traditionalist relatives dearly and they have a great deal for me, but I’m enraged by how totally dumb the current narrative within the MAGA Nazis echo chamber is.

Elon Musk has given something MAGA Nazis a huge gift — they now have something to whine about whenever anyone reminds them of how Trump actively worked with the Russians to steal the 2016 election. It is now MAGA Nazi orthodoxy that but for the “stab in the back” on the part of Twitter, Trump would have won re-election in 2020.

The amount of gross stupidity combined with conflation of what really happened this entails is so broad and deep in scope that it really grinds my gears. But, here we are.

Rather than accepting that maybe their hate filled message isn’t a winning policy agenda, MAGA Nazis are now going to triple down on their hateful dreams. What’s so comical is if they could just wean themselves off of sucking Trump’s cock, they might be able to cruise into winning the 2024 election, no cheating necessary.

But, at the moment at least, that doesn’t seem to be what is going to happen.

If you throw in a severe recession in 2023 – 2024 and the potential of a Singularity happening at the same time…it’s very possible that MAGA Nazis — even if their nominee is Trump — will be able to have something of a Red Wave. Then the United States turns into an autocracy and I am pig tied and shot in the back of the head by an ICE agent after I get drunk at some point after 2025 and rant about how our Very American Autocrat can suck my cock.

Anyway, it’s all very disheartening. There’s just not much we can do. MAGA Nazis have their talking points and, really, the question becomes do they finally decide to start murdering people like me in cold blood on an individual basis or do they wait until they can use the power of the state to do it for them.

I’m Not A Fan Of How Every Element Of American Society Is Now Siloing Because of Politics

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Every day, Twitter grows more and more problematic for me to use. It definitely seems as though Elon Musk is actively pushing anti-MAGA people like me off the platform. I feel like MAGA propaganda is being pushed into my face whether I like it or not.

I have begun to use the center-Left Twitter clone Post some and I really enjoy it. And, yet, I have to admit that I’m alarmed that even social media is being siloed into different political groups.

This touches on the issue that MAGA Nazis are eating our democracy from within, using our well-meaning “tolerance” to plot their return to power. MAGA Nazis have a lot of momentum behind them at the moment and we’re not going to do anything until it’s too fucking late.

I suppose it’s possible that there will be a National Divorce — initiated by Blue States — in late 2024, early 2025…but I neither want that nor would think that Blues have it in them to do such a thing. It definitely seems as though all systems are go for the United States to transform into a MAGA Nazis autocratic fascist state the moment we have another Republican president.

Nothing might change at first, but eventually, in fits and starts the America that we all assumed would always be there…would be no more.

So, I think future historians will look back at how we’ve grown so divided politically there is NO element of our society that wasn’t divided into two sides as a sign that the end of American democracy was near.

Maybe I Should Become An AGI Ethicist

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One of my favorite characters in fiction is Dr. Susan Calvin, robot psychiatrist. Given how many short stories there are to potentially adapt, I have recent come to believe that Phoebe Waller-Bridge would be the perfect person to play the character in a new movie franchise.

A future Dr. Susan Calvin?

I am also aware that apparently one hot new career field of late is being an “AGI Ethicist.” But for, well, (waves hand) I think I would be a great one. I love to think up the worst possible scenario to any situation and I think a lot. But I’m afraid that ships has sailed.

I’m just too old and it would take too much time to learn all the necessary concepts surrounding the field to do formalize my interest. So, it’s back to being an aspiring novelist — if human novelists are even a thing by the time I try to query this novel I’m working on.

Given we may be about to enter a severe recession in 2023 and recessions are usually when there’s a lot adoption of new technology…I may not be too hysterical to fear novelists may be quaint by late 2023 – early 2024.

It does make one think of what jobs will still exist if you combine AGI, automation and robotics. These are macro trends that are all coming to a head a lot sooner than any of us might have otherwise expected. Given what’s going on with chatbot technology the current moment in time definitely seems like the quiet before the storm.

The years 2023 ~ 2025 could be some of the most significant in human history if we’re trying to solve the political problem of Trump at the same time the Singularity is happening all around us. Good luck.

What The Web’s History Can Tell Us About The Future Of OpenAI ChatGPT

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I was one of the first people to use the World Wide Web around 1994 when it was just beginning to gain in popularity. I was in college and I can still remember the transition from the text-based Gopher to Mosaic and then finally to the .08 release of Mozilla (Netscape Navigator.)

It was a very exciting time, to say the least. And, but for the way my mind is designed, I probably would have rushed to Silicon Valley after graduating from college and tried some sort of startup. But, alas, I’m a writer not a coder.

But here’s what I can tell you about what I think might happen to technology such as what is associated with OpenAI ChatGPT.

The first thing is — whatever happens, is probably going to happen a LOT quicker. Instead of about 20 years for the full impact of ChatGPT (and associated technologies) it’s probably going to be closer to five-ish years. A lot depends on how long it takes for true AGI to happen as well as how long it takes for someone to hook something like ChatGPT to the Internet and let it run wild. That connection to the Internet is going to be key.

While the the design of true AGI is rather abstract and could be something we always JUST about to see happen, connecting some better successor to ChatGPT to the Internet would be a practical way for Silicon Valley to change the lives of millions.

In fact, I suspect once ChatGPT-like technology is connected to the Internet, there will be a mad landrush like there was when it became apparent around 1994 that the Web was going to mainstream the Internet in a big way. There will probably be a number of ChatGPT-like faux-AIs that people use, which will lead to the earliest forms of market segmentation.

Then the typical capitalistic dynamic will occur and there will be HUGE speculation and maybe even a Tech Bubble 2.0 which will pop in the end, causing its own problems.

But this process could be sped up pretty quickly. Yet I will note that we just aren’t quite there when it comes to ChatGPT being a new Netscape. There are too many problems with it, it’s too easy for people in the know to poo-poo it as not being what useful. Though, I have to note, the first version of Netscape Navigator didn’t have the ability to print and it still managed to take off like wildfire.

My chief concern — and I have a LOT of concerns about ChatGPT at the moment — is when the tipping point on the jobs front will happen. If business begin to shed jobs not because of a recession in 2023 but because, lulz, the next version of ChatGPT makes those jobs moot, well, we’re all in for shitshow in late 2024 – 2025.

I say this because if we’re going through an epic economic and technology transformation just as we’re also figuring out if we’re going to have a civil war, turn into an autocracy or have a military junta established….then, well, late 2024, early 2025 could be one of the momentus few months in human history. I know that sounds pretty hysterical, but the conditions are there, at least, for something pretty dramatic to happen.

But only time will tell. I’m always wrong.