Picking Sides

Over the weekend, there was an Ipsos/Reuters poll that covered the ongoing attacks on Iran and the Trump Administration's use of force in general. While the headline proclaimed "Just one in four Americans say they back US strikes on Iran, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds," for myself I wonder if that was what was actually being measured. Consider the results that drove the headline:

While the Democrats booed louder than the Republicans cheered, there's still a pretty clear partisan divide in the numbers, to the point where I wonder if this is really a poll about partisan identity. I'm pretty sure that Ipsos/Reuters weighted their results to better align with what they understand the current partisan percentages to be, so it's unlikely that the percentages given reflect the raw numbers. It is interesting, however, where the numbers for partisans do and do not align with the "Other" category at the bottom of the graph. It's also interesting that, in terms of the "No" choice, that the numbers for the "Other" category roughly align for those for all survey participants, given the broader variance in the other two options.

Overall, the Democratic-identified participants come across as the most reflexively partisan, in the sense that they are more likely to disapprove than Republicans are to approve, less likely to approve than Republicans disapprove and less likely to be undecided about the matter. This could give Republican office-seekers heartburn come this year's election season, as the Democratic coalition tends to have more high-propensity voters, as I understand it. If that holds, and the lower-propensity voters who would otherwise lean Republican stay home, the Democrats may find that they have enough new seats in Congress to actually change things, at least on some level.
 

Salesmanship

Part of me wants to ask: If generative automation is so great and wonderful, why are there so many messages that seem to attempt to threaten people into using it? Like the following example:

taste, domain experience and relationships are still incredibly valuable but refusing to use AI for the tactics and execution part of your job is a one way trip to being unemployed 

plan accordingly

But I suspect that I know the answer to that.

If I'm going to pitch generative automation to you as a positive thing in your life, something that can solve problems for you, I have to actually know you well enough to have an understanding of what your problems are. It doesn't do me any good to say that you'll be able to write 10x more code, if you don't write any code for a living.

But a claim that not using generative automation for tactics and execution will result in unemployment doesn't require me to really know much about the actual job someone is doing. There are a lot of jobs that have some tactical and executive functions attached to them. So the message of "use automation, or else!" can seem more broadly applicable.

This trade in anxiety doesn't serve anyone well, because its primary purpose comes across as setting people up to be blameworthy for any eventual misfortune: "Oh, you can't find another job that will support you and your family? Should have leaned into AI harder!" And what good does this do anyone?

In the end, it's an odd message: "This is critically important to you, but not so important that I feel any need to offer affirmative guidance on how to do it." And in this, it feels like American individualism talking, in that it doesn't care if anyone else succeeds. Which may be the point all along.

Another Go-Round

There was a protest today; big surprise. I didn't see it take place... I only caught some of the preparation for it, a long line of cars, formed up on the shoulder of Interstate 405 North, bedecked with flags. There were a number of Iranian flags, and a fairly good representation of the Stars and Stripes, too. What was somewhat surprising was the number of Israeli flags that the protestors had brought along. Traffic was flowing too quickly (as in, it wasn't stop-and-go) for me to risk taking a picture. I'd hoped to get a snapshot when I came back the other way, but by then, the protest had moved from its staging area to wherever it was actually planned for.

I'm starting to have the same thought whenever I see a large protest against the Administration around here: This place is too Blue for anyone to care. Neither the President nor Republicans in Congress are going to be moved by a protest in the Seattle suburbs. It's much more likely that they'll regard it as convenient fundraising fodder, casting the protestors as anti-American supporters of the government of Iran.

I understand why dialog with Red America isn't happening, but I'm still of the opinion that it's the most fruitful path forward. Which, perhaps, isn't saying much. It's possible that the United States is too far gone for a coming together to even be possible, let alone change anything. There's too much invested in the fighting, and each side sees backing away from that investment as a crippling loss.

News reports claim that the Supreme Leader of Iran has been killed in the strikes, and we'll see how things materialize in the wake of that. It's unlikely that the United States will be able to find someone high up in government who will agree to work with Washington, as happened in Venezuela. But it's just as unlikely that Iran would fare much better than Iraq did, in the event of an invasion. So the best case scenario may be an internal uprising within Iran. We'll see if it comes to pass.

Remembrance

A pair of firefighters cleaning up the remnants of a van fire, down in Kent last Sunday. I would say that it's unusual events like this that prompt me to carry a camera with me pretty much whenever I leave the house, but in looking at this picture to evaluate whether I was going to post it, I noticed the fact that the firefighter's names are on the bottoms of their coats, which had completely gotten by me when I was actually at the scene.

And that brings me to another of the reasons that I carry a camera; I'm not as observant as I would like to be. Perhaps, if I hadn't been viewing the world through the small screen on the back of the camera body, I would have noticed the names, but I wouldn't place any money on that. And I'd forgotten about the Starbucks across the street until I looked at the photographs again.

I wonder how much of the world around me has slipped through my fingers, due to inattention or a memory that, sometimes, seems barely worthy of the name. And in that sense, the camera is a net, that backstops my fallible senses.

Ticced Off

The fallout from John Davidson shouting "nigger," at this year's British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards continues. I'd like to say that I understand, but I don't. Jamie Foxx can claim all he wants that Mr. Davidson meant what he said, but the random shouting of obscenities (otherwise known as "coprolalia") is what Tourette's Syndrome is all about for many people, despite it not being a consistent feature of the disorder. (Not that Mr. Davidson himself hasn't joined in the pile-on, questioning why the BBC would chose to seat him near a live microphone.)

The word doesn't have intent grafted on to it. Its history is not an integral part of it. Yes, it had a lot of baggage. But there's no need to be saddled with that baggage, regardless of the circumstances. The word is a word. Nothing more, nothing less. And in this circumstance, it wasn't an expression of bigotry or anger; it was simply a vocal tic, of a sort that's been been known about for 200 years.

Beating up on the BBC is not going to make "nigger" go away. Just like accusing Mr. Davidson on bad faith can't suddenly rid him of his disease. And treating him as if he is just using it as cover for racial animus is to give into the generalized distrust that the Black community (especially here in the United States) seems to have for the rest of the world.

I'm still of the opinion that treating this as anything more than an unfortunate side effect of mental disease or defect grants "nigger" the very power that people seem so afraid that it has. Treating it much like any other six-letter word would go much farther towards defanging it than outrage and recrimination every time it appears on-air.