Author Archives: Mark R. Kelly

How Can AI Tell the Truth? Whose Truth?

Posted on Friday 25 July 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

More about AI, and how (from Steven Levy) there’s no such thing as a bias-free AI; Speculation on what a MAGA ideologically correct AI would be; Following up on Harari: how would an AI handle inconsistencies among, and within, religious … Continue reading →

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“American” Intelligence?

Posted on Thursday 24 July 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Trump wants AI to be not “woke”; how will he enforce that? And he doesn’t like the word “artificial”; A reel by Yuval Noah Harari about a realistic threat of AI; Heather Cox Richardson on the various deflections Republicans are … Continue reading →

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I visit you in another dream

Posted on Wednesday 23 July 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

How conspiracy theorists think most people agree with them; How Trump’s administration is purging climate data; How JD Vance thinks some Americans are more worthy citizens than others; Paul Krugman on ICE and New York City; Three items from JMG: … Continue reading →

Posted in Morality, Politics, Psychology | Comments Off on I visit you in another dream

It’s Always About the Gap Between Ideology and Religion, and Reality

Posted on Tuesday 22 July 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

And whether humanity can “grow up” and thrive by living in reality and not fantasy. Infrastructure note about More tags; Paul Krugman on why the right would see AI as “communist” — because it’s reality-based; (Aside: another arc of history … Continue reading →

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Sciency Things, and Presidential Pettiness

Posted on Monday 21 July 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Tom Nichols on presidential pettiness; How the Trump administration is using a strength of science to discredit it; Ethan Siegel on what we’ve learned for 35 years of the Hubble Space Telescope; A breakthrough in a grand unified theory of … Continue reading →

Posted in Lunacy, Politics, Psychology, Religion, Science | Comments Off on Sciency Things, and Presidential Pettiness

Pat Frank: ALAS, BABYLON

Posted on Monday 21 July 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

(First published 1959. Edition here: HarperCollins/Perennial Classics, 1999, 323pp, including author biography and publication history by Hal Hager) Next up in the group of apocalyptic novels I read in June, following Butler’s PARABLE OF THE SOWER, is this. It isn’t … Continue reading →

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Stories Mislead You About the Reality of the World

Posted on Sunday 20 July 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Crime on TV v crime in reality; Conspiracy theories on TV v conspiracy theories in reality; If stories mislead about reality, then what is science fiction about? – – –   I’ve mentioned before that my understanding is that there … Continue reading →

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Stories, Traditions, and Science

Posted on Saturday 19 July 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Why does MAGA hate science? Why do right-wing folks think Democratic policies have failed? And Paul Krugman on the top 10 political websites on Substack. – – – A significant essay, for my concerns. Salon, Kirk Swearingen, 19 Jul 2025: … Continue reading →

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Only Certain People Count

Posted on Friday 18 July 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Today’s news about Stephen Colbert; Conservatives have finally managed to cut funding to PBS and NPR; David Brooks on Trump winning the race to the bottom; Sure enough, EPA is firing hundreds of scientific experts; Fareed Zakaria on how Obama … Continue reading →

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Incompetence, Greed, or Sabotage?

Posted on Thursday 17 July 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Elizabeth Kolbert on the Texas floods and the administration’s undermining of climate research; How the Trump administration wants to discourage wind and solar projects; Recalling the Scopes trial, 100 years ago this month, and America’s continued antipathy toward science and … Continue reading →

Posted in Music, Personal history, Politics, Religion, Science | Comments Off on Incompetence, Greed, or Sabotage?