RealMarkDeneen

Me?? I must not have been clear in my comments. I have no worries about online surveillance because I have no importance, significance, power, or position on anything that would threaten any institution or person. I'm just a member of the meaningless, irrelevant, drooling herd that is on the Internet. The world's most invasive surveillance network was not invented to find out that Mark Deneen likes vintage Martin guitars and 1950s era cars. No sir. But, there are people who do have great importance, and wield influence, and have certain potential powers, and could be considered threats to various institutions, processes, or conditions. It is those persons who are liable to be "undermined, hampered, impeded, cancelled, deplatformed, or even prosecuted," precisely because of their risks to the causes or conditions that are unwelcome to those powers doing the surveilling. A specific kind of case comes to mind immediately - that of the "whistle blower." The Internet Age has not been kind to whistle-blowers. Another case is dissidents. The mass acceptance ("ho-hum") of "total surveillance" is a recent phenomenon in America. As recently as the 1970s such spying by Americans on Americans was considered a violation of sacred privacy rights and something so distateful it was only found in dreadful authoritarian countries.

My Dell is pretty old - maybe 2015 or so. When I received the last WIN 10 Update a couple months ago, I at first worried and considered a new machine. Then, I slapped myself in the head! Every app I use works perfectly fine under WIN10. Why on earth do I care about Win 11? About 99% of my use of the PC is "typing" and I think 8-cores and 32GB will handle my 35WPM pecking. Then after a little more time I discovered an amazing benefit of having a stranded OS --- they stopped comandeering my machine for those weekly hour long updates just when I needed to get on and print something in a hurry! WOW! Finally! I have a machine that I can run to, open a doc and print it immediately! What I always dreamed an OS should do is finally here! Now, if I could only get Apple to "strand" the IOS, and MACOS, I'd be able to use those devices too. /s

Over-consumption Absolutely no doubt that the Internet amplifies global over-consumption. I probably wouldn't call that a "benefit to humanity" - but many do. We even have Internet delivery services of fast food, which is very clearly being "over consumed" considering the um, status of our community health. Circumstance is not approval It's not uncommon for someone to voice a complaint about the US Constitution by using their "free speech rights" granted therein. Is that Ironic, or simply a recognition of "what is" and using what is available to combat the unuseful. What sort of social structure would it be where everyone demurs to whatever it is "others" want to impose? "Others" might be governments, armies, corporations, institutions, dictators, madmen, or your neighbor. Most of our life's circumstance was simply inherited. Yes, people do "fly" to other cities to attend Climate Change conferences. That's not ironic, it recognizes circumstances as "what is" and then pursuing a different reality. Would they like to dis-invent air travel? Probably. Impurity and compromise are ever present in the world. That's no reason to accept the status quo. Comparing the Internet to a library? Libraries do not host billions of dollars of annual crime against its users. Libraries are not hosting stalkers, identity thieves, and bullies, or child pornographers. At my two local libraries, no librarian walks behind me taking notes on what books I browse, what magazine articles I read, or what references I look up. Last I checked (and this might have changed) they did not report all my reading to the NSA. When I enter the library, there is no line of peddlers I must first wade through as they push their wares into my face. My library does not check my ID, and record my visits. I kind of like that ability to be anonymous sometimes. A much better comparison for the Internet would be Bentham's Panopticon, not the NY Public Library. The absolute #1 priority of the Internet is surveillance of the population. This "idea" arose almost the moment the Internet was born. The impact of that function hasn't been felt yet. It's a sword of Damocles hanging over the world. The candy being distributed along with its ever deeper penetration probably won't keep everyone calm forever, but so far it is working well. The comments have been great!

Bruce, No doubt at all that when live interaction enters the picture it erases the "digital sterility". Totally agree. And many wonderful live interactions have occurred which began on the Internet. But, all of that kind of live interaction was a feature of life available "pre-Internet." I used to belong to writer's clubs, photography clubs, and informal HiFi clubs, and what you describe was possible and present in each of those. Thanks for that remembrance though. It was wonderful thast so many of your friends could be that helpful. Cheers!

That's a great point to discuss! Pre-civilization indeed featured clans, families and tribes of very small numbers compared to say nation states today. There is a feature about groups though that must be added to the analysis: "Trust" In small groups of dozens or mabe even a couple hundred, each member knows each other member. Further, each member forms a "profile" of each other member. Part of that profile is about how much trust to place in each member. When group size exceeds the ability to be familiar enough to make profiles, the "trust index" of the group falls rather rapidly with size. My local community has around 1,000 specific members. I can only name about 6 that I can "trust" specifically. There are at least 800 members I know next to nothing about. If I extend this ring out to my county, there are 2.5M and I can still only name a few dozen I can trust. This lack of trust in the "we" - when "we" includes millions or billions of strangers is a substantial problem for leadership. A guy says, "Let's save the world by building 2,000 new nuclear power plants." Whether he is dead right, or dead wrong, becomes irrelevant because the 7.5B other people in the world have no basis to trust this guy. How could they? Change gears to a small tribe of 30 people. The tribe's "scout" says, "I looked ahead and there's a river we can't ford about 5 miles ahead, we need to go more to the south to a better crossing." The other 29 people of the tribe have built up trust in their scout, because he has been leading them well for 5 years. They go south in confidence. The Internet has had about 30 years to "make some big improvement for humanity" and I don't see it, even though 3 billion or so are using it.

What was the total capital investment sunk into building out the Internet? What benefit did the global population get in return? Trying to come up with a humankind benefit that exceeds the capital investment is not easy. Could all that capital have been used more beneficially? I imagine a guy with a delapidated house. The roof is falling in, the plumbing is leaking, it is full of termites and rats. He wins a $10,000 Lotto, and decides that the best thing he can do with that money is build a fantastic Christmas Lights Show with a million dancing LEDs, and Jingle Bells blaring from the rooftop. And everyone comes from far and wide to see his amazing light show. He sits inside brushing the cockroaches off but enjoying the admiration from the crowds outside. Just kiddin'

1. Eyes The concept of "looking into one another's eyes" is just one of the many forms of "essence and presence" that makes human contact meaningful. Auras, micro-expressions, odors, and the ever-popular body language are other reliable foundations for meaningful human interaction which is thrown out the window in the digital world. The world suffers from a pronounced lack of compassion, and that only gets worse as life moves away from the natural world and farther into the digital world - i.e. "Metaverse" 2. Deathbed declarations First, there is no "should". And I have never been at anyone's side when they died, so I have no first hand experience. "Tell Laura I lover her," from the song by the same name, is probably a very common expression before the end. The most famous (well-known) last words are probably from Jesus: "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." So, when I said no one would regret not having chased after more "information" that just reflects my views about what is important in life. But it's a big world, and maybe there are people for whom that quest is the lifelong journey. I dunno. I hope not, I guess. If I were able to plan my own last words, I'd probably choose something like this: "I wish I had seen the folly of it all when I wass 20 instead of 70."

There's absolutely nothing Social about social media, is there? Avatar-to-avatar relation is not a social relation that builds love, compassion, solidarity, and community. That requires "presence"-an extremely crucial aspect of face-To-face human interaction. Presence is chock full of all the subtle aura that humans (even dogs) rely upon to developer trust, respect, love, compassion for each other. Maybe this comparison will resonate here: Face to face relations are to avatar to avatar relations as live music is to stereos playing recorded discs. The point of life is not " gathering more information ". Have you ever heard it said that a man on his death bed said, "I wish I'd spent more time collecting information?"

Oh, goodness no! I gave up solder slinging a looong time ago! I pass the time writing and playing guitar. I do still have a stereo though. Good to see you! Every couple days another of the old timers waltz in and its fun to see you all. I guess like a corner bar, there's no way to stay awy too long? Cheers! Mark

FWIW, I enjoyed the video. And the presenter is a good speaker. It has a touch of that "flat Earth" kind of logical appeal that was making the rounds a few years back. The thing about stereology is that for many, myself included, it's far more of an artform than an engineering discipline. Much like oil painting is not the same as drafting, or CAD. There's no perfect garden design, or car design, or way you should hang art on the wall. There's no perfect way to play a guitar. And as Bob Carver will tell you, no perfect way to design an amp. It's just an unlimited personal expression---as long as you don't wear brown shoes with a blue suit!

About the video. 1. He incorrectly claims "there is no direct connection from power plant to your home." What he means is "no direct physical connection." But, there most certainly is a direct electrical connection. The coils in a transformer need not "touch" to create continuous flow of current. The current flow from power source to sink IS continuous. 2. In various words he implies that power is not "in the cable." But of course it IS in the cable because HT lines can exceed 150C in temperature. And, for any fixed distance and load, the lower the line voltage, the more power loss is suffered. Hence the reason long distance lines are at 400KV - 745KV - to minimize losses in the cable. Magnetism and current arise together the same way "heads and tails" appears on a coin. If this were not so, one could use ANY tiny gauge of wire to conduct any amount of current desired. We know that isn't true, right?

Yes---Merlin too.

Raising wages is a different proposition than handing out stimulus checks. Wages are trailing all other economic gains. That distortion makes any price hike feel extraordinary. If wages had tracked say asset prices more closer there would be no panic over prices. Everything is relative. A $25 streak is expensive when you make $15/hr. No problem though if you make $50/hr. Higher interest rates are regressive adjustments. Very few executives will get laid off, but a million low wage workers are about to lose their jobs by early 2023.

There is a case to be made that the Internet is ungovernable. ex:https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/09/netchoice-paxton-first-amendment-social-media-content-moderation/671574/

Yes, there will be a Doc Package for all the products. Some more complete than others. Sorry to say that as a "one man band" my record keeping was pitiful. But, I think it will be good enough to get a tech up to speed. BTW, if any of you had used a tech you can recommend, it would help others to cite them in this thread.

I only have to worry about 10 years or so. The youngins out there who are looking at say, 50 more years, really have to plan carefully where to set down roots and build social and economic equity.

Yeah, that's a big disqualifier for sure. My list is mostly New England states, especially Vermont, New Hampshire and upstate NY.

My relatives in Fort Myers have evacuated to the Atlantic coast. Their house is on a canal system, and to my eye sits only about 3 feet above water level. Maybe a little more, it's been awhile since we visited. I've been actively assessing the states with the lowest risk of climate change disasters as a potential "final move." Although my state is in the top 10 most risky, my specific location is sorta, kinda, mostly, pretty secure, compared to the 11 million people living in forest fire regions. I would already have moved, but the Better Half is much slower to consider radical changes.

Deep Fakes and AI Deep fake tech is just in its nascent phase. Imagine when it is fully deployed? AI can already make paintings and photographs that are good enough to be compared to human efforts. Imagine when that is fully deployed? Humans are already spending more eyeball time on screens than the physical world around the screen. Can that be a good thing? It isn't that people won't "know" real from fake, it is that they won't bother to care.

Regarding Electric Cars 1. Annual global production of cars: 57 million (and rising) 2. Our current climate/pollution/eco-destruction problem was caused by over-production and consumption creating too much pollution. Is it really likely that MORE production, using even rarer materials is the ANSWER, and not just an extension of the problem? Considering that the "tipping point" for CC occured already in the 1970s, how can this idea possibly be beneficial? A more prudent "evasive action" would be to "sunset" the production of all cars such that it approaches "replacement level" only. Use up the inventory of the cars already produced.

If only it could take us back to 1900 B.C. There would be a chnace to start over.

Yes, that's the standard playbook and reason "civilization" was invented. It has had it's run though. It may have taken 7500 years to enslave humanity and destroy the planet, but it is out of gas. No more runway. Not much more to exploit at compounding rates of growth. De-growth is upon us.

Ten years ago, it seemed that every conversation eventually had the word "Facebook" popping up. Um, not so much today. The "avatar-to-avatar" relation took awhile to reveal itself as useless and fraudulent compared to the time tested "face-to-face." Yes, it was transactional, but devoid of love. It's dying a slow death, but dying none the less. It was just another hula-hoop, Pet Rock, managed by insincere gangsters that got found out. Is anyone really watching sit-coms anymore? Or the evening news?

I think the cell phone is far more effective for that role. It is the "chip implant" all the paranoids were scared of in 1975! Who knew the masses would run out and buy their own tracking chip for $1,000 a pop? Dr. Mengela not needed.

Yes, it is, but doesn't need to be and shouldn't be part of a healthy society. I compare sports riches to the massive distortion in our food system that has Americans consuming insane amounts of sugar. Yes, it is happening, but it doesn't have to be this way. First, the USA is a highly managed economy overall. Huge amounts of money are officially appropriated for defense, Social Security, policing, jails, courts, support of foreign wars, space programs, primary education, and special subsidies for agriculture. Second, we have a highly managed tax structure wherein tax policy is used as a powerful tool and prime mover for markets. The latest craze being tax credits to buy electric cars. Third, what possible point is there to financial policy if the goal isn't "betterment of the society?" If betterment was a goal, policy makers would rank the positive contribution of various economic sectors and adjust policy accordingly. Just to propose a sane example of such a thing, I would suggest that "fresh, clean water in all communities" is 100X more important than playing and televising baseball games. And since the water systems all across the country are all short of the required capital to buildout and maintain a working infrastructure, let's tax baseball salaries and baseball corporations at 90% and divert all that extravagant entertainment capital to the water systems across the nation. I'm sure 20-something boys wouldn't mind playing baseball in the fresh air for a mere $4M a year when the alternative is flipping burgers. Of course, I am oversimplifiying the example to make the point sharp. But, using managed policy for "betterment" shouldn't be such an absurd idea.