- Bill McKibben on how we weren’t built for a world like this;
- Locus server issues today;
- More destruction: Trump scales back fuel emission standards, and removes supports for LGBTQ+ folks;
- How Trump’s new AI-powered America.gov tells truths that counter Trump’s lies.
NY Times, Bill McKibben, today: I’m Exhausted. You’re Demoralized. We Weren’t Built for a World Like This.
Opening:
Psychologists have claimed that evolutionary biology leaves humans ill-equipped to deal with giant, slow-moving problems.
A point I’ve made repeatedly — or at least, the point that *most* people have trouble dealing with slow-moving problems, especially conservatives, who dismiss anything they see as long-term, meaning it won’t affect themselves in their lifetimes.
But suddenly we live in a moment when problems are speeding and piling up.
The climate crisis now consists of walls of water sweeping down Nepali rivers, obliterating entire towns in the blink of an eye, and wildfires that wipe out California neighborhoods in hours. And we’re confronting the birth and Bunyanesque growth of a new technology, artificial intelligence, that, according to some of its creators, is fairly likely to kill us all in the near future. We have to sit and listen as men worth unfathomable sums speculate about whether our species will survive their companies’ initial public offerings.
We definitely weren’t designed to cope with all this — our bodies, our nervous systems, our brains. Among all the other dangers these developments represent, they’re simply wearing us out. A lot of us would like politicians to offer, alongside their promises of affordability, even a glimpse of serenity.
Again, I’ve observed this for some time. The piece is mostly concerned about psychological consequences. The writer adds a comment at the end:
It increasingly feels to me like we just aren’t designed to cope with the pace and scale of events that keep crashing down on us — I mean, how are parents (or grandparents like me) supposed to cope with the notion that AI might wipe us all out, or that the El Niño now bearing down on us will take temperatures to unprecedented heights for our species? Along with affordability, might it be wise for some politician to start thinking up a few strategies for serenity?
Of course, “designed” only makes sense in terms of evolution. Humanity was “designed” by natural circumstances to survive in its ancestral environment, which was quite different from our modern environment.
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Distracted today by the hack of the Locus server, which has brought down sfadb.com, though apparently the digital wonk at Locus has managed to restore locusmag.com and this site.
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Let’s note a few things very briefly.
They’re either stupid, or malicious.
- NY Times, today: Trump Sharply Scales Back Fuel Economy Rules for New Cars, subtitled “The move marked the final step in the administration’s efforts to dismantle policies aimed at speeding the shift to electric vehicles.”
- Advocate, yesterday: Trump strips Biden-era LGBTQ+ language from Title IX rules. Advocates warn of far-reaching damage
- Subtitled: “Cathy Renna of the National LGBTQ Task Force says the rollback weakens protections for trans students, women and girls, and students who experience sexual violence.”
- Because those people don’t matter to Trump or MAGA.
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Most interesting story today.
Slate, Ian Prasad Philbrick, today: Donald Trump’s Chatbot Says Joe Biden Won the 2020 Election, subtitled “We finally found someone in the Trump administration who’s willing to tell the president the truth. It’s a robot.”
Trump launched AI powered America.gov, which tells the truth about things like climate change and the 2020 election. Contrary to what Trump says. How will this work out?
And
JMG, today (from Washington Post): White House Launches Federal Services AI Chatbot, And It’s Already Changing Answers About Trump’s Lies
The predictable thing is that Trump will instruct the Chatbot to conform to his lies. How will he do that? Where will this lead? You already can’t trust AI.
