Heatner Cox Richardson's letters

As a teaser for why you should subscribe on Facebook or wherever you can to Heather Cox Richardson's almost-daily summaries of the state of our union. 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/disl1h1jrn5ms2b/heather%20cox%20richardson%20sep%204%202020.docx?dl=0

Trump's Criminal Conspiracy to disrupt the election

Think about this paragraph from Josh Marshall's piece on Trump's "Criminal Conspiracy" to disrupt the election in Talkinpointsmemo.com today.

«Often we think about his chatter as though it's annoying and distracting but as long as he finally respects the results and doesn't take steps to prevent people from voting that it will all have been words. No harm, no foul. But of course that isn't remotely the case. Think about it this way. How much time are you thinking about who will win the election in the ordinary sense: i.e., who will get the most electoral college votes in a more or less free public vote. And how much are you thinking about whether the President will use his executive powers to disrupt the election or remain in power despite losing? I venture to say you're probably spending quite a bit of time in that second mental space.»

 

Senseless Tragedy

My friend and piano teacher Nick just let many of his friends know that a good friend and housemate committed suicide this week. This is so very heartbreaking. I felt that what he wrote about how it affects others is so worth repeating that I am sharing it with most of the people I know. I have personally known several people, some very close to me, who experienced a "near miss," as in an attempted suicide that they later realized was a barely avoided narrow escape from a terrible loss not just to themselves but to others in their lives. It is never as bleak as it seems, and life has a way of reforming itself into a new outlook, every time. 

Anyway, here are his powerful words: 

" If you are considering doing something like this, I beg you not to. The people who love you, love you more than it will ever be possible for you to know, and there are people you are yet to meet who will love you even more, that you are robbing yourself of the chance to meet and experience. And I know this is cliche to say, but this is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. And you won't be here to feel the relief of the "solution." The people who are left behind will be left with a hole for the rest of their lives. Love yourself. At least allow others to love on you, and believe them when they say they care. You are not a burden. You are needed. You are loved. And if you stick around, you will slowly and gradually come to realize how much so you really are, and how much your mere existence enriches the lives of us all. If nothing else, know that -I- love you, and that -I- need you here as long as you can be."

We are all stressed in this difficult time, but we should remember that others are in pain and may need us to reach out to them. 

Stay well and remember that others love you, everyone. 

David

This happened in the last 2 weeks

• The Federal government sends storm troopers, pretextually in response to mostly peaceful protesters' causing minor property damage to Federal facilities but actually to patrol streets... to an American city without insignia, ID, or even agency identification, dressed in military camo, against the outraged objections of both Senators, the district's congressman, the Governor, the state's AG, and even the local US Attorney. An AG in another state files charges against right wing vigilantes who brandish guns at peaceful protesters in clear violation of the law, and immediately the governor of the state announces that he will pardon the violators if they are convicted. A governor of another state issues an edict forbidding local jurisdictions from requiring basic sanitary precautions in the midst of a lethal pandemic.

• It's not supposed to be like this. We must sweep these people out of power at all levels of government, with the greatest urgency, lest we lose the small-d democracy we so righteously claim to care about in this nation.

this is totally lovely... ola gjeilo (living Norwegian composer) a capella hymn Ubi Caritas sung by some consummate musicians on a staircase

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCQOXY-FWTk 

Important Perspective on Where We Are

Please read this. Every word. This is a perspective that every American needs to fully understand and keep forefront in their minds as we move forward to utterly defeat Trump and decimate his Death Cult Party in November, so we can elect Biden and Democrats to "Build Back Better." (Not the best slogan in the world, but it does catch the basic plan).  (Post on Facebook by Heather Cox Richardson, Prof. of History and author of a new book, How the South Won the Civil War. 

Heather Cox Richardson

July 12, 2020 (Sunday)

The big news today was the administration's escalating insistence that our public schools must reopen on schedule for the fall. Today, on Fox News Sunday, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos told Chris Wallace (who is one of the Fox News Channel's actual reporters), "We know that children contract and have the virus at far lower incidence than any other part of the population, and we know that other countries around the world have reopened their schools and have done so successfully and safely."

Wallace asked her if it was fair to compare countries that have as few as 20 new cases a day with the U.S., which is currently seeing 68,000. DeVos dodged the question.

She vowed to cut off federal funding for public schools that do not reopen. Wallace asked "Under what authority are you and the president going to unilaterally cut off funding, funding that's been approved from Congress and most of the money goes to disadvantaged students or students with disabilities?" "You can't do that," he continued.

Then DeVos said something interesting: "Look, American investment in education is a promise to students and their families. If schools aren't going to reopen and not fulfill that promise, they shouldn't get the funds, and give it to the families to decide to go to a school that is going to meet that promise," she said.

This is the best explanation I've seen for why the administration is so keen on opening up the schools. DeVos is not an educator or trained in education or school administration. She is a billionaire Republican donor and former chair of the Michigan Republican Party. She is a staunch proponent of privatizing the public school system, replacing our public schools with charter schools, as her wealthy family managed to do with great success in Michigan, which has been flooded with low-performing charter schools, which have very little oversight.

It seems she is hoping to use the coronavirus pandemic to privatize education across the nation.

Indeed, the administration has responded to the pandemic by continuing its assault on the activist government Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Democrats put into place in the 1930s, and on which we have come to rely.

FDR's New Deal and, after it, Republican President Dwight Eisenhower's similar Middle Way, used the government to regulate business, provide a basic social safety net, and promote infrastructure, like roads and bridges. But that government has been under siege ever since it was built by men eager to get rid of government regulation and the taxes necessary to provide a social safety net and infrastructure. In their view, returning the government to the form it took before the 1930s will allow a few wealthy men to dominate society without government interference, thus protecting their liberty and permitting those who know best how to run the country to be in charge.

Since 1981, when President Ronald Reagan took office promising to scale back the federal government, Republican leaders have promised to cut regulation and taxes, and to return power to individuals to arrange their lives as they see fit. But they have never entirely managed to eradicate the New Deal government.

When he took office, Trump set out to do what those before him had not. He has left offices unfilled, slashed regulations and taxes, and did all he could to privatize the functions of the U.S. government.

The administration's response to the pandemic highlighted the attempt to replace government functions with private efforts. Trump put his son-in-law Jared Kushner in charge of managing the crisis, and Kushner promptly created a task force of young people from venture capital and private equity firms. With no experience in emergency preparation and no contacts in the relevant industries, the volunteers on the task force were ineffectual, simply gumming up the efforts of the career officials whom they were trying to replace.

Notably, when states turned to the federal government to help direct the national response, Trump turned them away, telling them to manage on their own. At the same time, Project Airbridge, the new federal system designed to get critical supplies to the states, used the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to fly supplies to the U.S., but then turned them over to private distributors to get them to their customers. This public-private partnership, as the administration called it, frustrated state governors whose incoming supplies were sometimes confiscated for redistribution to places the administration deemed more urgent.

After the first coronavirus bills shored up the economy, Trump began to talk of tax cuts for businesses and investors, arguing—as has been Republican orthodoxy since Reagan—that tax cuts will stimulate the economy (although there is no evidence that this is the case). States and cities and towns are reeling from the loss of tax dollars, but Republicans have been reluctant to support them, apparently hoping to permit them to declare bankruptcy. This has been a long-term plan on the part of Republican leaders, for in a bankruptcy restructuring, the social safety nets of Democratic states like New York could be slashed.

Not helping local governments through this crisis will also cut public school funding.

And finally, with the support and encouragement of the administration, Republicans are downplaying the seriousness of the coronavirus to urge children back to school and their parents back to work. Today, White House officials started trying to discredit Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and one of the president's leading advisors on the pandemic. Fauci has warned that the country is not doing enough to shut down infections, and that things will get worse if we don't. Unless the economy regains traction, we are facing extraordinary economic dislocation that can only be addressed with the social safety net the Republicans want to get rid of altogether.

In all of this, the administration sounds much like that of President Herbert Hoover who, when faced with the calamity of the Great Depression, largely rejected calls for government aid to starving and displaced families, and instead trusted businessmen to restart the economy. To the extent relief was necessary, he wanted states and towns to cover it. Anything else would destroy American individualism, he insisted.

But by 1932, the same Americans who had supported Hoover in 1928 in a landslide recognized that his ideology had led the nation to catastrophe and then offered no way out. They rallied around Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who worked together with Congress to create an entirely new form of national government, one that had been unthinkable just four years before.

Last week, presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden explicitly echoed the dynamic of the 1932 election, highlighting the economy and economic opportunity. His policy paper reads: "Even before COVID-19, the Trump Administration was pursuing economic policies that rewarded wealth over work and corporations over working families. Too many families were struggling to make ends meet and too many parents were worried about the economic future for their children. And, Black and Latino Americans, Native Americans, immigrants, and women have never been welcomed as full participants in the economy."

Biden's economic plan for the country is, according to his campaign, the "largest mobilization of public investments in procurement, infrastructure, and R&D since World War II." Called "Build Back Better," the plan calls for investment in infrastructure and R&D to revitalize high-paying American industries and bring critical American supply chains back home. He calls for a revival of trade unions—gutted after 1981—and higher wages, as well as higher taxes on corporations (although not to the levels they were at before Trump's tax cuts). The document is a strong one politically, undercutting both Trump's "America First" language and promising concrete policies for voters suffering in the Republican economy. But it is interesting as well for how clearly it marks a return to a vision of a government that stops privileging an elite few, and instead works to level the economic playing field among all Americans. 

The OTHER major Supreme Court decision yesterday, a surprise and unusually progressive opinion by Goruch

The two Trump related SC decisions yesterday sucked all the oxygen, but a third major decision is extremely important and shows the way towards recognition of the enforcement of treaties with native peoples in the future. This summary by historian Heather Cox Richardson is informative. 

.....major victory for indigenous peoples. In a 5-4 decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma, the court upheld the claim of the Creek Nation that a large chunk of Oklahoma, including much of Tulsa, remains a reservation for the purposes of criminal prosecutions. This means that natives on the land cannot be tried by state court; they must be tried in tribal or federal courts. While this will affect state convictions of Creeks, tribal leaders say it will have little impact on non-natives.

Oklahoma had argued that while Congress had initially established a reservation for the Creeks, it had ended that reservation when it pushed Creek individuals onto their own farms in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. But Congress had never explicitly gotten rid of the reservation. Neil Gorsuch joined the majority and wrote the decision, saying "Today we are asked whether the land these treaties promised remains an Indian reservation for purposes of federal criminal law. Because Congress has not said otherwise, we hold the government to its word."

The decision details the history of U.S. and Creek interactions, and notes that the federal government often went back on the promises it made to the Native Americans. The decision holds the federal government to the treaties it negotiated with the Creeks, and as such, the decision has the potential to affect a number of other conflicts in which federal agreements were overruled by other state or federal actions, but were never explicitly ended. The decision certainly has the potential to apply to four other reservations in eastern Oklahoma whose histories mirror that of the Creek lands.

Heather Cox Richardson and my plan to devise an "Oregon Plan" for America

If you liked Heather Cox Richardson's piece I sent around, she has a Facebook page in which she delivers folksy but scholarly and  fascinating American history lectures via live stream and also makes cogent and succinct (as well as historically informed) comments on current affairs. I can't say I listen every week, but she is interesting and engaging and makes you realize that understanding the history of how we got to this ridiculous predicament is helpful in thinking about how the hell we navigate ourselves out of it. 

Apropos, I'm thinking of writing a long open letter to "President-elect-to-be" Biden, and Schumer and Pelosi, laying out an "Oregon Plan" for a step by step approach to repairing our republic and our society. If I actually do it, I'll share it first and maybe hone it a bit, incorporating any changes and good ideas suggested by others. I don't kid myself that I, a mere retiree in a remote West Coast state with no political connections and no financial heft, have any chance at actually being influential, but sometimes ideas are "in the air," and when individuals make the effort to actually express them,it contributes to the overall process of their becoming real potential policy. 

Please indulge a little rant about the COVID response

It was bad enough, as in searing blue-fire anger, when the Trump Death Cult and their administration did nothing during the long lockdown... a time which the American people sacrificed precisely so that their government could organize a real, and effective response to the Pandemic. The experts were unanimous and perfectly clear what needed to be done. We needed to stage a massive mobilization, comparable to a major World War of the 20th century, to develop tens and tens of millions of tests, administer them broadly and widely, hire an almost literal army of contact tracers, train, organize, and deploy them; and organize and deploy a massive system of isolation and quarantine of people testing positive. We knew this; epidemiologists explained all this to the government officials with the power to make it happen. And to a great extent other countries have done this, and as a result have come close to containing the virus; are able to manage outbreaks. We are not. We are on the verge of the whole thing commencing another out of control geometric increase. Here it is nearly 90 days out, and not only has our government not done what was needed, they are bragging about doing nothing, denying the truth of the pandemic, feeding their foolish followers lies and propaganda, and cutting back even on what minimal efforts were made. This is not negligence. It is not even recklessness. This is criminality, and we must not tolerate it further. We have marched for racial justice, for an end to police violence. Now it is time to demand that this do-nothing, malevolent government step the fuck aside and let others take the lead and serve the American people in their time of need. Demand that Trump resign now. We should be prepared to take to the streets to demand action. It is not enough to just vote him out of office. We need to organize and demand that there be a real response to this threat to our peoples' health, their livelihood, and the very economy these idiots claim to be trying to protect!

Heather Cox Richardson : good summation of the State of Trumpworld at this very moment

This is a rather good post lifted from the Facebook page of the political historian Heather Cox Richardson. Good summation of the current state of Trumpworld. My impression is that CNN and MSNBC are floundering a little over the weekend to put together a coherent narrative. (I don't usually even watch either of them on weekends, but I get the impression the ongoing meltdown of the Trump campaign and presidency is sort of coming to a head right now). Even the Post and Times seem a little unfocused. This piece is tight and informative. 

June 20, 2020 (Saturday)

Yesterday's standoff between Attorney General William Barr and the interim U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Geoffrey Berman, whom Barr was trying to fire, was only one of today's significant stories.

Last night, Barr announced Berman was "stepping down." Berman retorted he was doing nothing of the sort and that Barr had no authority to fire him. This morning, Berman showed up for work. Then Barr wrote Berman a letter saying he was "surprised and disappointed by the press statement you released last night…. Because you have declared that you have no intention of resigning, I have asked the President to remove you as of today, and he has done so." Barr gave no reason for the firing.

Because Berman was an interim U.S. Attorney, appointed by the court rather than confirmed by the Senate, it was not clear if Trump had the authority to fire him (although it was clear Barr did not). But that point became moot quickly, when Trump told reporters: "That's his department, not my department…. I'm not involved." The president's disavowal of Barr's declaration means Barr, the Attorney General, has lied in writing twice in the past two days.

And Berman had gained his point. Barr's letter said he would not replace Berman with an outside candidate—which was highly irregular—but would follow normal procedure and permit Berman's deputy, Audrey Strauss, to become acting U.S. Attorney in his place. With this win for the Southern District of New York's U.S. Attorney's office, Berman said he would leave his post. A former SDNY prosecutor said: "After all this what did they gain by getting rid of Berman? Nothing."

Berman's office has been handling a number of cases involving Trump and his allies, including one involving Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani and political operatives Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, who are charged with funneling Russian money to Republican candidates for office. The three have also been involved in the attempt to smear Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden by digging up witnesses in Ukraine who are willing to testify against the Bidens, although after repeated investigations there is no evidence either Biden committed any wrongdoing.

It may be these cases, or others, that the Trump administration is eager to quash. My guess is that we have not heard the end of its attempt to stifle the SDNY, but there is yet another roadblock in their way. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and usually a staunch Trump supporter, said he had not been consulted on the proposed replacement for Berman. He added that he would follow Senate tradition, and permit the Senators from New York, where the office is based, to veto the nomination if they wished. Nominee Jay Clayton has never been a prosecutor, and New York's Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrats both, will almost certainly not accept his candidacy.

There was another loss for the administration today. A federal judge decided against Trump's attempt to stop the release of former National Security Advisor John Bolton's memoir of his days in the Trump administration. U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth said it would be impossible to stop the distribution of the book, which has already begun to circulate.

The judge also blasted Bolton for moving ahead with publication without an official government sign-off on the book certifying that it did not reveal classified information. He warned that Bolton might face prosecution if he has exposed national security secrets in the book. Bolton's lawyer welcomed the decision and said "we respectfully take issue… with the Court's preliminary conclusion at this early stage of the case that Ambassador Bolton did not comply fully with his contractual prepublication obligation to the Government…. The full story of these events has yet to be told—but it will be."

The other big story today was, of course, Trump's rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, designed to jumpstart his campaign and reunite him with the crowds that energize him. His campaign manager, Brad Parscale, along with the president himself, has spent days crowing that almost a million tickets had been reserved, and the campaign had built an outside stage for overflow crowds.

But far fewer than the 19,000 people Tulsa's BOK Center could hold showed up: the local fire marshal said the number was just under 6,200. Young TikTok users and fans of Korean pop music (so-called "K-Pop stans"), along with Instagram and Snapchat users, had quietly ordered tickets to prank the campaign. The technological savvy of their generation has turned political: they knew that the Trump campaign harvests information from ticket reservations, bombarding applicants with texts and requests for donations. So they set up fake accounts and phone numbers to order the tickets, then deleted the fake accounts. They also deleted their social media posts organizing the plan to keep it from the attention of the Trump campaign.

The poor turnout after such hype was deeply embarrassing for the campaign. Trump's people took down the outside stage and Trump blamed "protesters" who had kept supporters out of the venue for the small size of the rally, but there were few reports of any interactions between Trump supporters and protesters and no one was turned away.

The rally itself did not deliver the punch Trump's people had hoped. The speech was disjointed as the president rambled from one topic to another, rehashing old topics that no longer charged up the crowd, many of whom were caught on camera yawning or checking their phones. It was clear that The Lincoln Project's needling of his difficulty raising a glass to his mouth and walking down a ramp at last week's West Point graduation has gotten under Trump's skin: he spent more than ten minutes pushing back on those stories—the ramp was "like an ice skating rink," he claimed-- which, of course, only reinforced them.

Much more damning, when discussing coronavirus, he told the audience falsely that the recent spikes in infections are because there has been more testing: "When you do more testing to that extent, you are going to find more people, you will find more cases. I said to my people, 'Slow the testing down, please.'"

This is an astonishing admission. More than 120,000 Americans have died of Covid-19 so far, and while in some states hard hit early on numbers of cases are declining, cases are right now spiking in a number of other states in far higher numbers than increased testing would show. Experts agree that the administration's odd reluctance to test for coronavirus cost American lives. Within hours of his statement, it was being used in a political ad against the president.

Far from energizing Trump's 2020 campaign, the rally made Trump look like a washed-up performer who has lost his audience and become a punchline for the new kids in town. According to White House reporter Andrew Feinberg, a Trump campaign staffer told him that Biden "should have to report our costs to the [Federal Election Commission] as a contribution to his campaign."

HARM REDUCTION

I can't cite chapter and verse scientifically. But (for a change) let me try to keep this brief.

1. Unlike (paradigmatically) New Zealand, and slighly less so other countries including some in Europe, the US has simply FAILED to do what is necessary to prevent the virus from roaring back when "social distancing" etc. is loosened. We can't get the time back and it's very clear we are NOT going to do the massive test, contact trace, isolate regimen that was the only option to actually suppress the virus.

2. The lockdown regime, stay home stay safe, is not sustainable. People just won't do it, so they have to be given an alternative. It's very much like "just say no" in past campaigns against teen pregnancy or drug use. Abstinence alone is not a viable option.

3. We may, just may, have gotten lucky. There may be a bit of a summer reprieve underway, at least in places where there was a lockdown in place long enough to bring the numbers way down. There are parts of the US where this is NOT happening, and short term peaks are still in the offing.

4. So what to do? If you live in an area (Oregon, even New York now, Washington, California), where the virus is somewhat controlled, given what we now know about how the virus spreads, this seems to be the best advice:

Always wear a mask when you go out in public places where you will be within 10 feet of other people.

Carry and use hand sanitizer and wash hands frequently and thoroughly, especially when outside the house.

Avoid public places where you aren't six feet apart, unless absolutely necessary, and when it is, wear a mask and don't linger in such places. Restaurants MAY be reasonably safe, if they are spread out enough and you are in a group that's only "household."

Avoid activities that involve yelling, singing, strenuous physical activity, etc. with others. This is tough, but it's really necessary. (Playing music with others is a big problem. Possibly outdoors or with maximal separation. But choral groups are screwed. There's just no way to do that safely now. )

Obviously, avoid big crowds. Malls, movie theaters, concerts... these things are best avoided for now. Sad, but I see no way around this.

A good thing. It is reasonable in harm reduction mode (that's what this is) to make pacts with a FEW friends and relatives to form extended "double" groups, but not too many. What this means is you agree to certain standards you will all follow with regard to social distancing, masks, etc., but then you will admit each other into your virtual household so you can socialize with them, with reasonable hygienic precautions, as if they were part of your own household. We all need some social contact. This is fraught. It's like high school. Are you in my "in" group, or not? But it's really the only safe way to have intimate social contact with people outside your household.

Another good thing. Apart from strenuous physical activity, outdoor recreation, maintaining physical distancing, is pretty safe. Go for walks, hikes, even swims, boating, etc. Just dont' party too close. Backyard gatherings (masks and hand sanitizer preferred) are safe if physical distance is maintained. Meet friends for dog walks, etc.

Minimize physical contact (except with actual family members). Don't hug. Don't shake hands.

This sucks. Some day there will be an effective treatment or vaccine and we can set all this aside. But as I see it, something like this modified harm reduction protocol is NECESSARY. If we want to avoid another 100,000 deaths (or more), especially in Fall, when there is nothing really in place other than peoples' behavior to prevent a recurrence of rapid spreading, we have no choice but to pretty radically change our lifestyle semi-permanently.

Thoughts? (Other than that, as usual, I didn't manage to keep it brief).

Interesting Book; John Danaher: Automation and Utopia

What does the book do?
This book provides a novel and optimistic
case for the automated future. It doesn't shy
away from the recent criticisms and
challenges to technology, but it does make
the case for an intellectually respectable form
of techno-optimism.
In the process, the book undermines some
cherished beliefs in the value of work, the
fallacy of utopian thinking and the importance
of 'reality' in the well-lived life.
Who is the book for?
Anyone who cares about the impact of AI and
robotics on the future of work and human life
more generally. Anyone who wants to be
optimistic, but realistic, about the future.
Anyone who is willing to question their
current commitments and beliefs. Anyone
interested in the philosophy of technology.
What's different about it?
This book provides a rigorous and detailed
assessment of the post-work future, and
moves beyond the superficial hype one finds
in other books on this topic. It aims to
disorient the reader and open their minds to
new possibilities, using stories and concrete
examples to illustrate its key arguments.

What are the key arguments?
Automation and Utopia defends a number of
controversial and novel claims. It does so in a
way that fully engages with critical and
contrary views.
• A defence of the claim that humans are
obsolescing and that we are moving
beyond the 'anthropocene' to the
'robocene'.
• A robust, up to date, defence of the claim
that widespread technological
unemployment is possible.
• An extended argument for the claim that
work is bad and that you really should hate
your job, even if you enjoy it right now,
including a discussion of income inequality,
and the perils of platform work.
• A defence of the claim that automating
technologies pose five major threats to
human flourishing:
• They block human achievement
• They make the world more opaque and
usher in a new era of techno-
superstition.
• They distract and monopolise our
attention.
• They manipulate us, dominate us and
undermine our autonomy
• They turn us into moral patients (i.e.
passive recipients of well-being, not
active agents of change)
• A defence of the claim that humanity should
organize itself around largescale utopian
projects.
• A detailed and extended defence of the
claim that we should become cyborgs (i.e.
fuse ourselves with machines and become
more machinelike)
• An equally extensive discussion of the
limitations of the 'cyborg' ideal.
• A detailed and extended defence of the
claim that we should 'retreat from reality'
and prefer to live in virtual worlds.
• A defence of the claim that much of what
we currently think of as 'reality' is in fact
'virtual' and that what we currently call
'virtual' is in fact 'real'.

John Danaher is a Senior
Lecturer in Law at NUI
Galway, Ireland, and the
coeditor of Robot Sex:
Social and Ethical
Implications. He has
published over fifty papers
on topics including the
risks of advanced AI, the
ethics of social robotics,
meaning of life and the
future of work, and the ethics of human
enhancement, His work has appeared in
The Guardian, The Irish Times, The Sunday
Times, Aeon, and The Philosophers'
Magazine. He is the author of the popular
blog Philosophical Disquisitions.

What are the key arguments?
Automation and Utopia defends a number of
controversial and novel claims. It does so in a
way that fully engages with critical and
contrary views.
. A defence of the claim that humans are
obsolescing and that we are moving
beyond the 'anthropocene' to the
'robocene'.
. A robust, up to date, defence of the claim
that widespread technological
unemployment is possible.
. An extended argument for the claim that
work is bad and that you really should hate
your job, even if you enjoy it right now,
including a discussion of income inequality,
and the perils of platform work.
. A defence of the claim that automating
technologies pose five major threats to
human flourishing:

. They block human achievement
. They make the world more opaque and
usher in a new era of techno-
superstition.
- They distract and monopolise our
attention.
. They manipulate us, dominate us and
undermine our autonomy
. They turn us into moral patients (i.e.
passive recipients of well-being, not
active agents of change)

. A defence of the claim that humanity should
organize itself around largescale utopian
projects.
A detailed and extended defence of the
claim that we should become cyborgs (i.e.
fuse ourselves with machines and become
more machinelike)
. An equally extensive discussion of the
limitations of the 'cyborg' ideal.
. A detailed and extended defence of the
claim that we should 'retreat from reality'
and prefer to live in virtual worlds.
. A defence of the claim that much of what
we currently think of as 'reality' is in fact
'virtual' and that what we currently call
'virtual' is in fact 'real'.

What does the book do?
This book provides a novel and optimistic
case for the automated future. It doesn't shy
away from the recent criticisms and
challenges to technology, but it does make
the case for an intellectually respectable form
of techno-optimism.
In the process, the book undermines some
cherished beliefs in the value of work, the
fallacy of utopian thinking and the importance
of 'reality' in the well-lived life.

Who is the book for?
Anyone who cares about the impact of Al and
robotics on the future of work and human life
more generally. Anyone who wants to be
optimistic, but realistic, about the future.
Anyone who is willing to question their
current commitments and beliefs. Anyone
interested in the philosophy of technology.

What's different about it?
This book provides a rigorous and detailed
assessment of the post-work future, and
moves beyond the superficial hype one finds
in other books on this topic. It aims to
disorient the reader and open their minds to
new possibilities, using stories and concrete
examples to illustrate its key arguments.

John Danaher is a Senior
Lecturer in Law at NUl
Galway, Ireland, and the
coeditor of Robot Sex:
Social and Ethical
Implications. He has
published over fifty papers
on topics including the
risks of advanced Al, the
ethics of social robotics,
meaning of life and the
future of work, and the ethics of human
enhancement, His work has appeared in
The Guardian, The Irish Times, The Sunday
Times, Aeon, and The Philosophers'
Magazine. He is the author of the popular
blog Philosophical Disquisitions.

 

From the LA Times on "socially distant" socializing

I'm not necessarily endorsing all the conclusions of this piece, but pass it on for information. My personal take is that when you have the new case rate down in the less-than-3 a day area, as Oregon now does, a little relaxation of the isolation regimes is justifiable on a "quantification of risk" basis. Sensible distancing, selectivity, small groups, outdoors, hygiene, etc., but not total isolation from everyone. There are, after all, mental health factors to be considered too. 

https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-05-16/so-you-really-want-to-see-your-friends-heres-how-to-assess-the-risk  

 

Blame enough

• Trump did not conjure up this pandemic in the Oval Office. But he IS to blame. He wasted months doing nothing despite all kinds of intelligence warnings, and even since we began sheltering in place, IN ORDER to give the government time to devise and execute a strategy to actually suppress this virus, he and his government have done, effectively, NOTHING. Our economy COULD be on the road to recovery, had they mobilized a smart response. But no, they care nothing for the people, only for themselves, and they lack imagination. Completely. They lack courage and determination. Completely. They have fucked this thing up. Completely. And they, and he, refuse to accept any responsibility. Completely. But guess what, DON? WE BLAME YOU. And we are going to throw you out on your ass.

George Packer: We are living in a Failed State (Atlantic)

George Packer in the current Atlantic. Here.

"The crisis demanded a response that was swift, rational, and collective. The United States reacted instead like Pakistan or Belarus—like a country with shoddy infrastructure and a dysfunctional government whose leaders were too corrupt or stupid to head off mass suffering."

I would change "or" to "and," as there is no doubt on either score. 

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Pulse oximeter

See this. Might want to consider investing $50 or so in a pulse oximeter. Available in drugstores or on Amazon. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/opinion/coronavirus-testing-pneumonia.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage  

 

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Strategic Stockpile of Oil Now

With oil below $5/bbl,* there is no way that fracking can be profitable. I am of a pragmatic frame of mind, despite my idealistic/social democratic politics, if you choose to believe those are not pragmatic (they actually are, but never mind). The US should restock its oil reserves by buying oil, not for release to the market for use, but for greatly ramped up underground storage. And NOT for future use as fuel. We must, simply must, when this pandemic is over, switch to a major crisis-mode conversion of our industrial and transportation economies, and eventually every aspect of our economy, to renewable energy sources. One of the consequences of that will be that oil exploration and development, which is inherently more expensive than in the past, will become completely unprofitable. Oil companies that have failed to diversify sufficiently will fail. But more to the point, oil production will virtually cease, sometime before 2050. And that's mostly a good thing. But oil is not only a fuel, and in the future will not be a fuel at all. But it WILL be a strategic, critical MATERIAL. For plastics, pharmaceuticals, advanced chemistry. A steady, small compared to today but hardly negligible, supply of oil into the medium-long-term future will be crucial. And here is our opportunity to ensure that supply for generations at the lowest price that will likely EVER be seen for oil again.  

-*Had to correct the above ½ hour after writing it, because oil dropped from below $10/bbl to below FIVE dollars! 

 

 

Lessons to Learn

There are two very broad takeaways that it seems to me we as a society must learn from this pandemic. In addition to a whole host of other things that I hope it motivates us to reform. But here are the two that it seems to me we need to be talking about NOW, including in the context of this year's presidential and Congressional elections.

1. We have spent trillions and vast human effort and lives countering the HUMAN threat. Defense and counterterrorism. Some of this, such as aircraft carriers and far more ballistic missiles than could ever be used in any imaginable survivable conflict, are obsolescent and of dubious worth. But we balk at spending a few hundred million dollars at really being prepared for microbial attacks. Read the article on Tony Fauci in the New Yorker. We could probably develop a universal flu vaccine, that would work against any flu virus. It would cost more than we've ever spent on a vaccine. But, seriously? Consider what really matters to people. There is promising research that could even lead to a molecular understanding of viruses that might lead to almost Star Trek like responsiveness. A viral platform vaccine that you just tag in the specific genome and you have an effective vaccine within days, with the basic safety already pretested. And on the diplomatic front, we could do far more to make sure that pathogens are not free to pass from animals to humans. The Chinese should face sanctions, for example, if they don't eliminate wet markets once and for all. To sum it up, FAR MORE effort on public health security is the takeaway.

2. The need for universal health care and systematic and universal preparedness to deal with threats to human health. If there is nothing we learn from this pandemic else from this, let it be that the time has come to recognize robust, high standard health care as a right of all citizens and a global goal for all of humanity.

I will have more bloviation on "learning lessons from this" later (fair warning, but anyone not of a mind to think about these things won't read this far anyway LOL).

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looney toon

Before any of our time. (1930)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kPhP3ZNw6A   

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••          Дэвид Студхальтер 

Vote like the future depends on it. 

Because it does. 

Vote Blue 2020. 

Helping out in Wisconsin

My vote here in Oregon isn't going to have any effect on the presidential election, so I sent a contribution to Wisdems.org to help them make sure every Wisconsin Democrat has an absentee ballot and knows how to vote in November. Instead.  

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Vote like the future depends on it. 

Because it does. 

Vote Blue 2020.