Year: 2024

Categories
Media Startups

Day 1110 and Somatic

I’m upset. I feel it in my body. Soma apparently means “body” in Latin, somatic is “of the body” so to have a response in your body is a somatic response. I’m having a somatic response.

I’ve been surprised at the emotional campaigns that have been waged against technology in the general, and artificial intelligence in the specific, as of late. But I am starting to feel the emotional weight of the collective fear and emotion in my own body. Futureshock is here and the fear mongers are here to tell you and I that we should be afraid.

This weekend there was op-ed was published in IEEE entitled “Open Source Artificial Intelligence is Uniquely Dangerous.”

The o-ed was written by David Evan Harris who is a chancellor’s public scholar at UC Berkeley. He used to work a Meta on ethical AI. Now this not the opinion of IEEE which is calls itself “the world’s largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity.”

You’d think that sort of mission would be a little more on board with new technologies. But maybe David is just an extreme voice. Op-Ed’s are meant to represent a variety of opinions after all.

But how should I feel about the benefits of technology when it’s presented to me like this? They used a skull to really get across the visceral fear. No friendly face to make a concession to our silly human anthropomorphic desires. Let’s scare the stupid hairless apes.

Don’t worry the government and regulations will save us from this psychedelic skull

I have an inherent skepticism when someone wants to sell me on the dangers of regular people having access to something new and potentially transformative. Why must we always default to the precautionary principle? Why is fear always our default?

I don’t want to let this sort of thing get to me. But I can see the narrative campaign being waged against artificial intelligence and the sheer volume and tenor of coverage leads me to believe that everyone is aware of its potential.

Claiming artificial intelligence is only for the knowledgeable few chosen by committee of expert sounds so sensible. But I think my body knows better. I should be upset by this.

Categories
Homesteading

Day 1109 and Cabin Fever

I hope the rest of America is enjoying the polar vortex that is bearing down on them. Our weather improved somewhat from from there last two days of -40 into the comparatively balmy -5.

I do feel a little bit stir crazy being inside for this long or maybe I’m just feeling a little crazy from pain. I’m feeling some intense pain in my spine and joints during this freeze. It’s unclear if the pain weather related but I’ve got no reason to be experiencing any kind of flare so my mind has tied them together.

I’m hoping that as the weather recedes for us on the western half of the country I’ll be ready to leap into action. I’m a bit antsy. I’ve been considering a number of moves as I have commitments to work on a number of portfolio and founder related initiatives as well as the most crucial #FreedomToCompute campaign.

I’d write more but I am not at the top of my game so I’ll dip back into reading and hope tomorrow is a good day.

Categories
Homesteading Preparedness

Day 1108 and Frozen

It’s cold in Montana. I woke up at 6am as the forecast predicted the coldest weather would be around dawn. I was not disappointed. . We have a personal weather station so we can get a read right outside our home.

The station measures wind direction, wind speed, wind gust, UV & light, temperature and humidity, as well as precipitation measurements (though that works much better with rain than snow).

The weather station feeds all the data to the display screen, which then pushes the data to our home automation system as well.

Our EcoWitt showing it as -40F outside Bozeman Montana on January 13th 2024

Two interesting details you may notice. The humidity was 73% outside which looks misty when it’s that cold. The other is our house was down to 61F. That is quite a spread of temperatures even still. Also fun fact, -40F is also -40 Celsius. It’s where we Americans finally agree with the rest of the world.

I’ve definitely felt the weather in my body. The pain in my spine is worse. But I feel it elsewhere in subtle ways. My joints hurt. My skin is dry. Even my sinuses are dry. It wears a bit heavier. I won’t mind when we get back to a more normal sunny and 30F.

Categories
Preparedness

Day 1107 and -20 Below

The polar vortex that is hitting the northwest of America has come to Montana. It was an eerie scene as the light of the setting sun contrast off the dark of the inbound storm

The Bridger Range as the storm comes in

We woke up to -20F temperatures (which is -28C). That the sort of cold you can get frost bite from in less than 15 minutes of exposure.

Our weather station this morning.

Obviously this is a day for staying inside. There are however things you should do to make sure you are safely prepare for this kind of weather. Keeping closets and cabinets open and letting water drip helps with freezing pipes.

You should prepare extra layers and emergency food and water as you would for any other storm. If you have to travel make sure you’ve got a car emergency kit.

That should include, aside from a full tank of gas, “jumper cables, sand, a flashlight, warm clothes, blankets, bottled water and non-perishable snacks,” according to Ready.gov

Axios Prepare for Extreme Cold

We’ve got a roaring fire in our wood stove and have backups for both gas heat and electricity through our solar. So we should be snug as a bug. So stay warm outside everyone.

Alex still went in the hot tub at -20
Categories
Media Reading

Day 1106 and Happy Birthday Matt

I love to write. I love to read. I read, and then I write, and then I do all over again. That simple cycle repeating itself powers my life. It’s how I learn. It’s how a lot of people learn.

Being literate allows me to reach beyond the bounds of circumstances to anyone else who can also read and write. The word has been the protocol that connects us.

That we can share information amongst ourselves is a triumph of generations overcoming the desire to control the word.

I can share what I write with you because of a man named Matt Mullenweg. Maybe you know who he is and maybe you don’t. But if you are reading this post it’s because of him.

It is his 40th birthday today. I want wish him a Happy Birthday with this post. Happy Birthday Matt.

You gave our generation the tools to be heard and you have shepherded those tools well over many years. I value your efforts. I value it with my loyalty. I have for almost twenty years. And I have always felt that loyalty was respected by WordPress through the commitment to protocols we agree upon because they work.

The software that powers this blog has done so reliably for 1106 days in a row. And it’s not even my first blog. I started blogging in college using WordPress. I launched an entire career because I published my writing not in books or magazines or newspaper but on the internet.

In the intervening decades, I’ve used lots of software and many types of media. I’ve committed to many kinds of technology and adopted any number of platforms, systems and even new languages. But the home I’ve trusted most on the internet has been WordPress. Thank you.

My parents are both readers. That’s what I inherited from them. The true richness of my childhood was not in any material resources (which varied) but in its prioritizing access to information. In my lifetime that went from libraries to the internet.

Now I get to be both a reader and a writer. And that’s how I know things have improved. Thanks for being a part of building those improvements Matt. Happy Birthday. I hope I get to write you another happy birthday wish here again when you turn fifty.

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 1105 and Other Writing

For as much fluidity as my daily writing habit has achieved, I can still get caught up in a synopsis. I have relieved any pressure to make a daily dispatch (which took some effort) but a quarterly or yearly one can get me to glitch. I like to add more information to my modeling like any self respecting nerd. As much as information integration looks effortless it is actually a laborious process. I read tens of thousands of words every single day.

Now I do work from a strategy. Which means I only adjust my tactics on a weekly or quarterly basis. And I will not be sped up on assessing the character of individuals or the caliber of their ideas if I can help it. When I need to move fast I have to do it within the guardrails of what I believe to be right.

And it’s important to remember that heuristics some heuristics don’t need regular updating. Moral codes shouldn’t need much updating. Maybe you believed the wrong layer of abstraction and have to change your priors to align with your moral code. That’s totally fine.

But you shouldn’t be changing around your code of ethics. That’s how you get criminals. Arbitrage is never permanent. Criminals can have a stronger moral compass than business people or religious institutions. This fucks with everyone. I cannot account for all sinners nor most demands for purity. I can however hold myself to my own standards and so should you.

I do what I can to telegraph my own belief systems and where I derived them. There are lots of signifiers I leave in my wake. I am a Christian. I am a capitalist. I am a Protestant. I believe in markets and judicial review. I believe some things are beyond market but all things are subject to forces beyond our control. That’s how I ended up picking Calvinism as a sect but it’s pretty niche.

I’ve believe luck is just opportunity meeting preparation and you can do a lot to increase opportunities and even more to increase preparation. I don’t like rentiers but I do like the bourgeoisie. Property rights are good and regulations are only as good as the people that make them. That’s why we I’d prefer we have fewer laws. We must act deference to our own failings as human but never so much that it harms our capacity to organize.

Categories
Preparedness

Day 1104 and Storm Systems

It’s finally time for severe winter weather alerts. Much of America is under various forms of extreme weather watches.

We got half a foot of snow in southwest Montana in Gallatin county but it looks as if we’ve more on the way with plenty of gusting wind and temperatures dropping to -10 Fahrenheit.

We’ve got a number of habits around storm preparations in our family. I like to take a shower, run a few loads of laundry and run the dishwasher. Cleaning up yourself and your house before a storm is a good habit.

The idea is that if you lose power for an extended period you will appreciate having a clean home. In the cold and dark you don’t want to be surrounded dirty dishes. The extra time to feel you live in a clean house is well worth it.

Day 364 and Before The Storm

Losing grid power isn’t something we need to worry about as we’ve got a number of redundancies for both power and heat. We’ve got a solar array and wood burning stove for backups.

Alex stacking up wood

However the weather plays out, we should be I good shape.

Categories
Community

Day 1103 and Choosing Optimism

We finally got some significant snowfall in Montana last night. We’ve had a dry and relatively warm winter, so having half a foot of light powder was good news. It seemed to put everyone I met today in spirits.

I had cause to go into town and it was all smiles everywhere we went. A quick doctor visit was all enthusiastic exchanges about how beautiful it was outside.

The universe must have picked up on my general optimism as while we were in town some friends texted let us know they were coming through on their way to the airport. The timing worked perfectly as we went over to the other side of the valley to meet up before their next bit of travel and intersected for some socializing. Football games, bingo nights and bar food certainly sounds like a nice night in America.

As much pessimism infects our daily narratives, sometimes all it takes is a snow day and being together to remind you that we’ve got of reasons for optimism.

After reading about Joel Mokyr’s Culture of Growth thesis on the importance of a positive mindset for technological progress I’m reminded again that we have to bring that mindset to daily life.

The popularity of the e/acc mindset is a reminder that we can choose optimistic narratives to reset the negative algorithmic tilt. I am grateful for every social interaction I have with others who want to discuss progress. I see commitments in lives every day to building. There is optimism everywhere from biohacking to open source software to bingo nights.

Categories
Culture Media

Day 1102 and Culture Matters

They say you shouldn’t talk yourself out of success. “You don’t know until you try” is the mantra of mothers, personal trainers and enthusiastic internet friends.

“Don’t negotiate against yourself.” People fumble their own ball all the time. Watching men strike out with women is practically an entire genre of social media. Confidence is key and reality might reward you more than you would be inclined to reward yourself. Go for the girl!

But I don’t think I realized we could talk an entire culture out of success until recently. Which is on me. I’m well versed in propaganda and media, so I should have had the priors for this intuition but it didn’t seem so clear to me until recently that humans were being talked into failure to launch.

This article in the Financial Times asks if the West is talking itself into decline. And it’s a bit bleak.

Another interesting theory is that of economic historian Joel Mokyr, who argues in his 2016 book A Culture of Growth that it was broader cultural change that laid the groundwork for the industrial revolution. Prominent British thinkers including Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton championed a progress-oriented view of the world, centred on the idea that science and experimentation were key to increasing human wellbeing

Is the west talking itself into decline?

It seems that there is now an interesting new overview that gives us some proof of what was being said across different narratives in different cultures. Mokyr’s theories being proven out by economic historians is encouraging for a few reasons. The British has a much more progress and technical oriented literature than the Spanish and got to the Industrial Revolution faster despite the Spanish lead on colonial mercantilism.

So what can we take away from this bit of economic history? The West has begun shifting its language away from technology and progress and back into caution, worry and threat.

Is the west talking itself into decline

If we can simply improve on our situation by believing we can advance, improve, and progress then we should spend all of our time talking about the possible better futures.

I wasn’t allowed much television as a child but my mother believed in Gene Roddenberry’s positive future. Wasn’t it a delight that the best of humanity was seeking out new life and new civilizations? Let’s try not to get too fixated on the failures to imagine perfect futures to remember that we aspired to good futures. No don’t let good be the enemy of perfect and get out there and make something.

Categories
Politics Reading

Day 1101 and Domestic Terrorism

I spent most of my day reading. I had a glorious backlog of essays, papers, and other sundry pdfs to enjoy on my Readwise Reader. They are my favorite new mobile app for keeping track of my library. And I enjoyed an afternoon dedicated to reading.

It is the anniversary of the January 6th capital insurrection. I remember being afraid to write about my feelings at the time and now I’m grateful I captured some of the intensity. It was early in my daily writing habit as day six.

Just by chance we had the same meal today as we did on January 6th. A wine braised short rib over risotto. An unplanned synchronicity.

I had another synchronicity. The essays I was reading was by FBI designated domestic terror group member. The human rights class I took in college was taught by the leader of the Weather Underground by the name of Bernadine Dohrn.

And now we’ve got these January 6th domestic terrorists whose goal was to stop the electoral count. The Weather Underground “group’s express political goal was to create a revolutionary party to overthrow the United States government.”

It was a day to be reminded that enemies of the state come and go.

It’s funny how the left wing domestic terrorists of the sixties went on to be tenured professors at top universities. I got introduced to Rawls and developed an interest in critical theory.

I can’t say what the January 6th insurrection folks will get up to in the future. Maybe one day someone’s daughter will hear Q Anon Shaman lecture about human rights at Harvard. I doubt it though. But you never know.