Friends, if you're like most people, you probably think a supercomputer has it out for you -- or at least poses an existential risk to your job. On the latter score, I suspect you may be right, and I, among many Americans, may see my career field cast into obsolescence by the rise of artificial intelligence. Already, most computers are more personable and lifelike than I am. It's just a matter of time before they're better at just about everything else! Yikes.
This is just one of many fascinating topics that Brian and I cover on this week's Newsmaker Show. We also address the presidential sweepstakes of Trump versus DeSantis, the significance of the deal on the debt ceiling, and the charms of the Emerald Isle! When we get to This Day in History, Brian and I discuss the ousting of Richard Nixon and what it meant and means for the "Deep State", the Battle of Jutland, and the trial and execution of Adolf Eichmann, one of the chief organizers of the Jewish Holocaust.
Now that's a radio show! Ergo, only a certifiable lunatic would refuse to tune in...
https://wlea.net/newsmaker-may-31-2023-dr-nick-waddy/
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Here's the article on A.I. and the threat it poses to humanity that prompted me to bring up the subject on the show:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-65746524
In other news, although opinions differ on just how evil Anheuser-Busch is, as a corporation, its Bud Light brand is still getting hammered because of the company's embrace of Dylan Mulvaney, "transgender influencer", as a spokes...person. I don't have a dog in this fight, but it is nice to see that conservatives can make a boycott stick, which will certainly get the attention of corporate America as nothing else could.
https://www.newsweek.com/bud-light-sales-decline-dylan-mulvaney-boycott-latest-1803292
Tennis superstar Novak Djokovic is being criticized for having the temerity to make an overtly political statement at a tennis competition about a beleaguered country...that isn't Ukraine. I mean, how dare he? Doesn't he realize that staying on script is a requirement of the job?
https://www.bbc.com/sport/tennis/65764399
Perennial presidential candidate Chris Christie appears to have decided to join the race for the Republican nomination in 2024. Apparently, all the other times the GOP base has slapped him down weren't enough! He's back for more.
https://www.newsmax.com/politics/chris-christie-white-house-run/2023/05/31/id/1121836/
Finally, here's an excellent article on where we stand re: racial preferences. It's getting harder and harder for schools and businesses to discriminate on the basis of race directly (much as they want to!), so they are increasingly turning to indirect means that are designed to achieve the same effects, i.e. increase black and Hispanic representation at all costs. I believe it's likely that the Supreme Court will soon disallow any use of race preferences in college admissions. I also believe it's inevitable that the cultural Marxists in charge of American education, and much else besides, will get around the ruling by pursuing more subtle and creative approaches to racial discrimination. For instance, standardized tests are about to go the way of the dodo bird -- and we all know why.
https://www.city-journal.org/article/engineering-racial-outcomes
Dr.Waddy from Jack: It would be fascinating to trace the origin of entertainers like professional sports stars and actors having ascended to the level of seers. Perhaps until the late 19th century, actors in the U.S. were deemed somewhat low life. How prescient that was and how gratified its believers would be if they could but witness the lamentable cultural corruption so many actors have propagated in our time. To expect sports stars to concentrate on their speciality and leave politics out of the arena is reasonable. The cultural marxists who so presumptuously preempt our society are by definition totalitarian. There are settings in our civilization in which their pervasive politicing is obnoxious and destructive. But totalitarians cannot abide this.Psychotic perfection is their inexorable motivation! And in demonstrating this so they give warning of how it would be if they triumph and suppress all doubt and insolent disagreement.Politics are best left out of sports lest the left use their presence for leave to practice it there without restraint, to the advancement of their comprehensive dictatorial conviction.
ReplyDeleteDrWaddy fromJack: Couldn't get the broadcast but, Jutland: British Admiral Jellicoe , commanding the main British fleetat Jutland, was said to be the man who" could lose the war in an afternoon". But I think not. The Brits had many more of the "dreadnought"all big gun" battleships than the Boche. Their main tactic was to repeatedly try to isolate portions of the Brit fleet and defeat it piecemeal. At Jutland German Admiral Scheer fled as soon as he knew he was facing the massed British fleet. He could not equal Brit firepower. His battleships were Wilhelm II's bathtub toys and he did love them so. If the Germans had fully engaged they would have lost several dreadnoughts and Wilhelm would have freaked and confined the survivors in port. For the most part that's what he did anyway. The Brits lost three lighty armored "battlecruisers" which they unwisely put in the battle line but they still had more than enough to thoroughly rule the waves. But below them? Thank God the Boche did not put all that battleship metal into subs. In the event those flimsy things almost starved England.
ReplyDeleteJack, I tend to agree that politics and entertainment are a bad mix. Actors and sportsmen ought to hold their tongues, therefore, but they seldom do. Of course, the Left does not regard endorsement of climate change activism, or trans rights, or police abolition, as "politics". They regard it as literal virtue signaling, a.k.a. saintliness. I suppose they might agree that endorsing a political candidate, say, might constitute politicking, but we both know they wouldn't bat an eyelash at the most vehement denunciations of DJT. That would be music to their ears in any setting!
ReplyDeleteOne point I made in the broadcast (which I learned only recently) is that the Brits waited so long to protect their merchant ships with convoys because they were afraid of dividing their naval assets for exactly the reason you suggest. That implies that the Germans missed a big opportunity: the chance to hit Britain with a High Seas Fleet-U-boat one-two punch. The Germans ONLY chance was to fight the Royal Navy piecemeal, and there's no inherent reason why they couldn't have done so.
Dr.Waddy from Jack: A.I.Strikes me that since Marx held forth, a form of A.I. has already plagued humanity. Marx's convictions were counterintuitive and have proven catastrophically so in application. He bade humanity discard the wisdom painfully established over centuries and act on unquestioning faith in Marxist "scientific"predictions, even unto lethal force.Simply follow his unprovable precepts, free of moral , intellectual and humanitarian restraint and eventually, redemptive justice and material well being would be realized.How many millions of mindless worker ants have embraced this tragic artifice? Too, we can be sure that recently developed "unhuman" ( as per the cited article)electronic advances in A.I. are being closely examined by the left for prostitution to their Marx mandated journey to totalitarian perfection.
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack:Yes, its certainly true that Jellicoe was greatly concerned about Uboats doing terrible damage to the fleet in the North Sea.A combined and coordinated effort by Uboats and the High Seas fleet might have evened the odds. The full potential of the submarine was probably not yet realized. I think the Germans might not have been fully cognizent of what grave danger they had already wrought on Britainwith their subs. A full North Atlantic onslaught perhaps could have decimated the AEF as it crossed and that might have enabled the 1918 boche offensive to succeed. A Normandy level invasion of a 1919 Festung Europa might well have been impossible especially if Britain had succumbed.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Jack. A.I. is mildly perturbing. Human artifice, by contrast, is downright horrifying at times.
ReplyDeleteTrue, the Germans were flying by the seat of their pants. In neither world war did they apply the power of the submarine with consistent strategy or adequate preparation -- luckily for Albion!
Dr.Waddy from Jack: Yeah, by 1939 Hitler thought he could hazard anything, regardless how brazen and succeed against the pusillanimous democracies. Thank God he poo pooed his military advisers' advice to wait until 1945. By then he would have had swarms of highly advanced subs, a mainly jet driven air force, a surface navy which just might have been able to force the channel and maybe even ICBMs , true heavy bombers and nuclear weapons. Presumably they would not have encountered the superlative Soviet T34 tank and might not have been so motivated to develop the monsters they deployed too late for them.
ReplyDeleteJack, I'm not as convinced that time was on Germany's side. I've seen the opposite view argued convincingly: that war in 1938, which Hitler seems to have wanted, would have been more advantageous, because British/French rearmament was in its infancy. Very hard to say, in the final analysis.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: One other factor: Czechoslovakia had a large army which had a strong reputation, even though it had not been tested. Maybe Czechs and Slovaks distinguished themselves in Austro-Hungarian service. Too, they had built some border fortresses which the Wehrmacht was pleased not to have to assault.
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