Untruth and Nothing But the Truth

If honesty were such a great policy, I would wonder why we don't see more of it, except for the fact that I understand that most people, and that includes myself, don't know honesty on sight. Instead, what many people, and again, I include myself in this, recognize is what aligns with the world as they understand it to be, as it works for them and how they would like it to be. And to the degree that those things are often considered to be self-evident, things that contradict them are often seen as deliberate falsehoods. Because how could anyone understand things any differently?

In this sense, the problem isn't that people lie. It's the idea of Truth; either as it is, or as it should be.

I don't recall when it was, but some time ago, I let go of the idea that I could actually understand the truth of things. It started when my father, who was wiser than I gave him credit for, told me that the definition of "Obvious" was: "Something so crystal-clear that you're the only person who sees it." And that sparked the realization that part of everything I see is, well, me. I am the filter through which I see the world, and so I am going to see things differently than literally everyone else on the planet. For a long time, I likened this to the difficulty that two people have in seeing the exact same view of the world, because in order to do so, they would each have to inhabit the precise same physical space. Now, while that example still seems apt, it also seems inadequate to the task at hand.

I'm poor at Internet "Authenticity" because I don't naturally seek to reinforce the worldviews of the people around me. I don't know that I'm openly contrarian so much as my outlook on life tends to be just that much out-of-step with the people I normally hang around with; apparently without regard to what their outlooks are.

I've come to lack an idea of Truth, because I lack confidence in the trustworthiness of my own senses. And the universality of my experiences. That leads me to an understanding of why I find things to be true that disconnects them from the way they may actually be. I don't know whether that's a good thing or not.

Don't Think So

File under: Didn't everyone already know this?

I'm not sure why it took a group of Apple researchers to come to the determination that current generative "A.I." tools are not capable of genuine reasoning. I started referring to "A.I." as "generative automation" several months ago, as while it's, as I've said, a wonderful example of human artifice, it's pretty clear that there's no intelligence there. It's basically auto-complete on steroids.

Anyone who has used generative automation tools for real-world applications should understand that they're not capable of human-like reasoning. When I asked various LLM-driven chatbots how many grocery stores there were in Washington State, none of the tools I tested took the initiative to find numbers and add them up; and only one was able to find an answer that someone else had already created.

"The Truth About AI" is pretty much the truth about anything: The hype is just that... hyperbole. I'm not going to say that anyone who says that LLM-driven "AIs" can actually reason is engaging in hype; after all, there was the one Google engineer who seemed pretty convinced. But as someone who has simply sat through the standard accessible-to-laypeople explanations of how generative automated systems work, it was clear to me from the jump that there was no actual reasoning going on. And I've never really heard any differently, so I'm curious who was lying, and who they were speaking to. Any why they believed it. (The Medium article in the screencap is members-only, it turns out, so this is all I've seen of it.)

Sparse

One would expect a local mall to have more people in it, given that Black Friday is coming up. But while it may not be immediately evident from this photograph, most of the place was still blacked out. Only one building out of the four that made of the central mall had power. (It's not in the photo. because I was standing in front of it.)

I'm pretty sure that the stores that were closed for lack of power, and the employees that were furloughed as a result, are all going to feel some financial stress from this, even if it's not particularly much. That's a part of having creaky infrastructure that isn't often in the public eye.
 

Unlit

The "bomb cyclone" that formed near the Pacific Coast of the United States came by for a visit on Tuesday evening, and a good chunk of the region is still without power. And I'm not exactly sure why. According to Puget Sound Energy, the local power utility for the suburban area, the windstorm did a fair amount of damage to the high-tension transmission lines, and those needed to be repaired first. The current extent of the outages is unknown, because it turns out that the outage map isn't displaying things properly.

And this all speaks to my general gripe with PSE, which is that they tend to come off as unprepared for anything to go the least bit sideways. The storm that hit on Tuesday was described as a once-in-a-decade event. That shouldn't be enough to take down nearly the whole of the Seattle metropolitan area. Tree limbs falling on power lines is a regular enough occurrence that one would expect much more aggressive action to keep things clear, yet it's not unusual to see tree branches, or even whole damaged trees, effectively being supported by power lines. And the major power transmission lines through the region should be durable enough to stand up to high winds. Sure, this is not an area known for being windy. But there are times when it seems to me that any breeze strong enough to make for good kite-flying weather will result in the lights going out somewhere.

This is going to be a problem for the "Green Energy Transition." People are not going to want to give up alternatives if the electricity isn't reliable. One of the initiatives on the November ballot was about preventing the state from prohibiting gas-burning appliances in new homes, and stopping state-mandated electrification. It lost (possibly because it seemed like pretty obvious shilling for the natural gas industry), but I suspect that if Tuesday's storm had arrived a month ago, the outcome may have been different. It's one thing for the lights to be out, but the furnace, stove and hot-water heater to be working. It's quite another to be without any sort of appliances. Even as it is, I suspect that homes with gas appliances and heating will be more valuable than some people would like, and generators are going to be popular items for a while.

And the public has a role to play in all of this, as well. There's going to need to be pressure on the utility companies to prioritize resilience of their infrastructure. Otherwise, it will be something that's sold to the public at a profit, for the benefit of investors, and that expense will slow the process. And the area will go dark the next time that Mother Nature tosses a curveball our way.

Try Hard

So, a little over two years ago, I made the following observation:

But the problem with capitalism, especially as it's practiced in the United States, isn't that it's necessarily rapacious. Oftentimes, it's simply needy.

And I still believe this. Mainly because I can. I don't live in a part of the world where capitalism, even so-called "late-stage" capitalism, comes across as being actively, let alone competently, rapacious. But also because this is how it tends to present itself to me. Consider the following...

I've been the person who summoned, and paid for, a ride from Uber twice. I was on a business trip, about two and a half years ago, and needed to get to the office. It was raining, and pretty heavily and to walk would have taken more than an hour. Not having traveled outside of driving distance of home in some time, I did what I usually did; I went to the front desk, and asked if they could call me a cab. They couldn't. It seems that the rideshare operators had pretty much demolished the local taxi companies, but couldn't themselves be relied up on to turn up when the front desk summoned them for a guest. So I was on my own. With the clock ticking, I quickly set up Uber and Lyft accounts.

I wound up using Uber twice on that trip. That morning, to get to the office, and a couple days later, to get to the airport. That was it. I haven't used Uber since. This is what my "Promotions" section of my inbox looked like today.

This is what automated e-mail marketing does...

Like I said, it's been two years. So long, in fact, that when I logged into Uber today to check the dates, they weren't there. Yet Uber has been constantly attempting to get me to hail a ride or use them to order in food.

A constant stream of marketing messages, apparently in hopes that something will happen to my car, and I'll be in desperate need of something. Which, to be fair is possible. But in that case, both the nearest grocery store and my favorite Chinese restaurant are within walking distance...

One would think that after more than two years, Uber would have gotten the point that I don't need anything from them. But it's not in their interests to do so. They need growth, and that means more rideshares booked and more food delivered. And so I suspect that every couple of days, I'm going to receive another e-mail or two. Maybe forever. After all, it's been just over twenty years since I last donated to a political campaign. Another fundraising pitch hit my inbox today...