Just Going For Better

On people's problem with virtue signaling:

Are you complaining that I believe myself to be virtuous, or is it just that I'm stating my values, indicating I think those values are virtuous, and you object to that?

Are you saying you're in opposition to those values, and that we need to hash it out?

We should talk.

Some takeaways:

1. It's not poverty in America. It's poverty by America
2. LBJ's War On Poverty reduced the number of poor Americans by 45% in about 10 years
3. FDR's Social Security has cut Elder Poverty by 90% in some states
4. Biden's COVID Rescue Plan cut childhood poverty by more than 50% - in about 8 months
5. 38 million Americans live below the poverty line
6. 12 million kids live in poverty - almost 1 out of every 6
7. It's very expensive to be poor in America

Stop speaking the language of Scarcity, and start realizing the language of Plenty.

Today's Great New Thing

Gartner Group

The promise of great things is real, and the hype is really real, but the reality &/or the time it takes the Great New Thing to deliver on the promise always falls short, or it causes problems that can be quite a bit bigger than the one it was intended to solve.

Adam Conover

Dan Olson

A Tech Bro Fantasy

I'm growing increasingly concerned about what feels like a metric fuck ton of people switching off reality in favor of one comforting bullshit dream or another.

I do it quite a bit myself, actually. Mine is usually "Mike Wins Lottery Jackpot!"

Or, just as often, it's imagining and rehearsing my killer slap-backs as my ex-wife tries a little tough-love-chastisement about "You really need get over it already, dude".

But all that strikes me as being pretty normal, lame, and harmless. What I'm worrying about is that the fantasy we're indulging in is double-edged:

• AI is going to make a whole world of nothing but ice cold sweet tea and oven-fresh macaroons
• AI is going to turn it all into a hell scape of unimaginable horror.

Adam Conover

But here's the thing: AI is nothing without human input. I can think up something new and unique on my own and for myself. AI can't.

It's not the machinery we have to fear - it's the machinery in the hands of the bad guys. As always.