The Ol'Buzzard
DID I RUN AND AM I TIRED?
I feel sorry
for my brothers in arms who wear a ball cap proclaiming their Vietnam service,
as if that was the high point of their lives.
No one chose
to be there. No one was killed or wounded
by choice. 58,000 died, and most of those were between the ages of 18 and 25.
And that
58,000 number was probably a low-ball number manipulated by the government; not
an actual count; not accounting for people who later died from war wounds,
injuries, toxic poisoning, and suicide…
I am sure the number would be well over 100,000.
Ask a Vietnam
vet why he was there, and he can’t tell you.
It was politicians moving around pieces on a checker board, and vets
were the expendable pieces.
We weren’t
there to support a democratic government in the south. We were there to establish and support the Tan
Son Nhut Air Base, giving us a nuclear threat presence on the southern border
of China. It was all about China. It was geopolitical politics.
China did
not want an American nuclear presence on its southern border any more than we
wanted a Russian nuclear presence in Cuba, on our southern border.
We could
have, at any time, moved into the north and taken Hanoi, but that would have
brought China into the war.
China did
not want open war with the US any more than we wanted war with China, so we
armed the south, they armed the north, and we fought to a stalemate that, for
fifteen years, maintained a status quo, allowing us to maintain the geographic
nuclear threat on the Chinese southern border.
Finally, the
death toll of American forces became too much to hide, and anti-war activism
threatened the politicians in office; so we retreated with our tails between
our legs – we surrendered the war – we accepted our death toll as having
accomplished nothing, cut our losses, and came home ignobly.
A Vietnam vet
wearing a hat proclaiming his service is equivalent to a rape victim wearing a
hat with a picture of her rapist.
WE were both
violently fucked.
the Ol’Buzzard
DEI has always been promoted by the Democratic Party and always rejected by Republicans.
I was raised
in Mississippi during segregation. I
witnessed first-hand the degradation and suffering of the Black community.
The Supreme
Court’s dismantling of the Voting Rights Act is turning back the clock on Civil
Rights; a step back for racial equality.
That said, I
feel that some DEI is past its time.
In college admissions, minority racial groups have been given preferential consideration. I believe that preferential consideration based on race is past its sell-by date
We can still
debate the need for race-based DEI hiring, housing, and other issues.
the
Ol’Buzzard
Yesterday I
sold a set of snowshoes to a retired State Trooper in northern Maine. It dawned on me that I was seeing a
generational divide that goes further than old people aren’t techno-savvy.
I was seeing
a gap in basic values between the old and the young. I had had those snowshoes advertised for two
years, and no one showed interest. This was
because wooden snowshoes are large and heavy.
You can buy aluminum snowshoes that are small and lightweight.
But it goes
beyond that: My snowshoes were made by a person. Someone shaped the wood, steamed
it until pliable, formed it on a jig, then someone with skill laced them with
leather thongs, varnished them, and put their stamp on them.
I bought the
shoes in 1976 - fifty years ago. I have
revarnished them numerous times. I stored them carefully when not in use. The value of these shoes, to me, was more
than just their use. I cared about them
and took care of them.
Who cares
about a factory-bent oblong piece of aluminum with a plastic sheet
filling?
I have a
Silva compass that is sixty years old, a pocket knife that is ageless…
What does a
young person have today that they value so highly they will still have it fifty
years from now? Their cell phone?
THE FUTURE IS YEATERDAY
I got up
this morning at 5:30 to feed the cat.
When the daylight
peeks around, and the birds start singing, the cat walks onto my chest and
tells me she’s hungry and that I must get up.
The weather
this morning is 45 degrees and overcast with a wind warning, so I turned the thermostat
to 74.
When my wife
gets up ill make breakfast: grits cooked in the microwave and soft-cooked
hard-boiled eggs in the Instant Pot pressure cooker. Even though my wife is from New England, I
have convinced her that grits are good.
I have a hydrangea
in the back of the car that I need to plant, but the temperature tonight is
dropping below freezing, so I will hold off a couple of days.
The cat has
eaten and gone back to bed with my wife, so here I am on the computer.
Today I will
do my exercises, read, complete a crossword puzzle, play Scrabble with my wife
at lunch time, and watch television; settling into the routine of an old man
retired from an adventurous life.
But something
strange is happening on the West Coast in Silicon Valley, and I don't know what it is.
There has
been a time-rip, and an alien entity from the future is launching a
conquest of the earth.
Something is happening, and you don't know what it is, do you, Mr Jones?
the Ol'Buzzard
What kinds of egotists constantly take pictures of themselves?
In my last blog, AI ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE OR PERHAPS ALIEN INTELLIGENCE, I posted a picture of myself.
After the fact, I realized that that picture was taken in 2017 - the last time I took a picture of myself.
So, just for honesty, here is what the Ol'Buzzard looks like in 2026
We are
living at the advent of artificial intelligence. It started with a machine teaching itself
chess, and is now the reigning champion. Soon followed language models that
have mined the internet and now will answer your questions.
We are
moving toward generative artificial intelligence (GAI); AI is now writing its
own code and communicating with other AI devices in a language that humans have
not been able to understand.
These machines are learning exponentially, and if the platforms are large enough, AI could acquire all human knowledge. Then, by extrapolating using logic, deductive reasoning, and thought experiments, it could expand knowledge beyond the human capability of understanding.
Would we
be looking at digitally sentient beings?
In our
egotistic human, narcissistic self-conceit, we have created gods in our own
image, have sometimes designated certain humans as gods, and even have created
our view of interstellar aliens in our image.
The movie
character Paul has two arms, two legs, walks bipedally, has two eyes, feet,
hands, and human traits.
But what if
aliens were a digital intelligence, at such an advanced level that they don’t
require bodies? Without bodies, these digital
intelligences could travel at the speed of light, solving the problems of
extreme distance/time paradoxes. They could control fleets of robotic drones and
digital entities we can’t even imagine.
We shouldn't
wonder why these intelligently advanced aliens wouldn’t make contact with us. To them, we would appear as some biological
slugs of no practical interest, an invasive species, or bio-virus desecrating
this planet. A species that needs to be
eradicated.
Aliens might be interested in Earth’s
resources, but certainly not us.
Sometimes at night, I lie in bed conducting
thought experiments - at the level of a slug - of no practical use.
the
Ol’Buzzard