It reminds me of the political woman who was against abortions because one of the foetuses might grow up to cure cancer.  [Uh, much likelier is that it would grow up to be a psychopathic killer].

Many have feared and verbalized about the dangers of  a conscienceless machine  with unknown limits being empowered–and urged–to facilitate unlimited goals, even unknown and/unknowable goals.    Quick as a wink, it’s already happening.  As reported in  Nicholas Kristof’s N.Y. Times opinion column today,

One recent study found that 98 percent of deepfake videos online were pornographic and that 99 percent of those targeted were women or girls.

Jamelle Bouie’s Opinion:

It should go without saying that the “great replacement” is idiotic. There is no “open border.” There is no effort to “replace” the white population of the United States. Racial diversity is not a plot against the nation’s political institutions. And the underlying assumption of the “great replacement” — that, until recently, the United States was a racially and culturally homogenous nation — is nonsense.

Musk is especially preoccupied with the racial makeup of the country and the alleged deficiency of nonwhites in important positions.

On X, Musk recently pinned a post to a slickly produced video that purports to expose a “Democrat open borders plan to entrench single-party rule,” in which Democrats shepherd millions of people into the United States and “keep them in the country at all costs.” Musk says, “This is actually happening!” The video had, at the time of this writing, well over 50 million views.  (Bouie doesn’t say if AI was involved in the video).

Musk is far from the first person to push the “great replacement” theory. It was featured in ads released by Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, a top Republican in the House. “Radical Democrats are planning their most aggressive move yet: a PERMANENT ELECTION INSURRECTION,” said one version of the advertisement. “Their plan to grant amnesty to 11 MILLION illegal immigrants will overthrow our current electorate and create a permanent liberal majority in Washington.”

The foregoing is from the opinion column of Jamelle Bouie on March 23, 2024*. Nan’s concern is that this apparently wild and wooly man [Musk] has great status with NASA and is a power in our world of newer and newer occupiers and agents of space and wealth.  What will the outcome of this become? Scary.

*N.Y. Times..

FOOD FOR THOUGHT:

From IF A FOETUS IS A PERSON…

“Typically, parents apply for a Social Security number when they obtain a birth certificate, but if states declare that personhood begins at some earlier arbitrary point in time, they will need to provide evidence, perhaps through a life certificate, that this new person exists and resides in their state. Once the life is established, can a mother insure a six-week fetus and collect if she miscarries? Will the tax code be adjusted in these states to allow parents to claim their unborn children as dependents at conception? If so, can a woman who suffers more than one miscarriage in a fiscal year claim all of her?

“There are no laws that allow the United States to deny citizenship rights to a natural-born citizen merely because they reside with, or in, a noncitizen. Detaining any person without arraignment or trial violates the Constitution and international human rights laws. A fetus has not committed a crime, not been arraigned or charged, not weathered a trial by a jury of its peers, not had the opportunity to confront its accuser. These laws redefining personhood surely mean that a pregnant woman cannot be incarcerated, as doing so requires confining a second person without due process.

“Every state permits the custodial parent—who has primary physical custody of the child and is primarily responsible for his or her day-to-day care—to receive child support from the noncustodial parent.8 Because a fetus resides in its mother, and receives all nutrition and care from its mother’s body, the mother should be eligible for child support as soon as the fetus is declared a person—at conception in Alabama.

“Trying to define citizenship and personhood based on the laws of each state creates some far-fetched and even ridiculous scenarios. If we follow that logic, we will tie our Constitution into a knot no court can untangle.”

Carliss N. Chatman, If a Fetus Is a Person, It Should Get Child Support, Due Process, and Citizenship, 76 WASH. & LEE L. REV. ONLINE 91 (2020), https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/wlulr-online/vol76/iss2/2

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ALABAMA has become the latest state to ban diversity, equity and inclusion [DEI] initiatives. On Wednesday, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed a bill that forbids those programs in public colleges and offices.  The bill, SB 129, mandates that DEI offices and initiatives that are funded by public colleges or government agencies be dramatically changed or removed altogether. In addition, it aims to stifle academic lessons that center gender, race, or identity [the bill refers to them as “divisive concepts”].

I’d like to know, who made them divisive?   Sure doesn’t make me want to go to school or college or work in a government agency in Alabama….

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HERE COME THE CLOWNS –  Not to be too disrespectful, but what riches await us in outer space? —  “Keep track of things going on in our solar system and all around the universe.”  –N.Y. Times   [Nan says: ….Don’t forget Heaven…]

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ANOTHER TOPIC, ENTIRELY:

One of the advantages of being free is writing and sharing something imperfect.  I’ve sure been known to do that!  It helps keep me “cleaned out.”

WHY NOT?

I’m cold and I’m old

and I wish I was thirty

and warm.

I’m old and I’m told

to just write the best

that I can.

If I could I would

so put up with me

please.

And maybe one day

I’ll cough out a gem

on a whim.

Okay?

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ALL RIGHT — I guess blogging can get to be a disease: oh, the power of it all…..

Trophic Relationships in Deep-Sea Environments
FOCUS: Methane ice worms are found in dense colonies at cold seeps where
they live on mounds of exposed methane hydrate (“methane ice”), and feed on snow algae.  (Wikipedia et al)

….OF THE BAD NEWS:

“Though most of the attention paid to methane emissions these days focuses on that leaky industrial infrastructure and the climate risks of new liquid natural gas facilities, what worries me most is how much of it seems to be coming from natural sources, which may be responsible for 40 percent of the annual total — and the share may be growing, thanks to the effects of warming on emissions from wetlands, in particular, where higher temperatures promote more microbial activities that generate methane.” –David Wallace-Wells N.Y. Times opinion Writer

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BULK CLONING?

“They may have invented a way to clone monkeys in bulk.”….Primates tend to resist cloning.  “For some, that is a blessing, since it postpones the awkward day when somebody proposes  cloning people.”   At present, the only folks making money from cloning are the companies that clone pets and horses.”—The Economist Jan. 20, 2024, “Mass Production?”

QUESTION:  Would all good cloned people have a place in heaven, or just the first one?  What color would their skin be?

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BTW:

A lot of time and money is being spent trying to make AI recognizable for what it is.  “But in the battle between the fakers and the detectives, it seems that the fakers have the upper hand.”  —The Economist, “True or False?”

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Sorry, I don’t know if this is a repeat or not…

WHO OR WHAT AM I?

I wonder…

An icicle melting

in warm rain?

Or poppies sprouting

in my brain?

A beat to someone

else’s drum

or sidewalk gum,

that just hangs on?

Tromp it, stomp it

I’m the boot.

O sole mio!

I sing at the

wailing wall,

ruffling my wings.

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