SCIENCE – REVIEWS AND VIEWS OF LIFE

WHAT’S NEW?

Belief in God is a work in progress for every human being. The proof of God will be peace on earth, a human accomplishment that may only be possible with a belief in something greater than us.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The God Delusion

Author: Richard Dawkins

Narration by: Richard Dawkins & Sara Jill “Lalla” Ward

Richard Dawkins on the left is a British author, evolutionary biologist, ethologist, and science communicator. Sarah Jill “Lalla” Ward is an English actress, voice author, and actor on the former TV series “Doctor Who”. (A woman’s narration seems solely to represent a non-gender based argument for God as a “…Delusion.”)

Richard Dawkins is a formally educated Zoology and Philosophy graduate from the University of Oxford. He became the first Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. “The God Delusion” is a daunting book that argues God is a fiction created by authoritarian faiths. In light of the history of human violence in the name of different God’ beliefs, Dawkins offers a compelling argument for God as a delusion.

Religion and Science.

Religious belief has rarely, if ever, been the primary cause of war in history but millions of deaths from The Crusades to the Holocaust to the present day have fueled wars in the name of different concepts of God. Judaism preaches that there is one, indivisible God. Christianity believes one God exists in three forms; i.e. God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit”. Islam believes in the oneness of God with no partners, no intermediaries, no incarnation, and no images. Hinduism believes in many gods, one God, or God beyond form, depending on respective sects of the Hindu faith. Buddhism is non-theistic and believes there is no creator, or divine judge. Buddhists believe understanding reality is the source of enlightenment. Sikhism believes in one God that is formless, without gender, and beyond religion. Sikhs blend belief in one God with emphasis on equality. The Chinese traditions of Taoism, Confucianism believe in a natural order of the universe based on ethical behavior and social harmony.

Dr. Jay Lombard agues God is real because His existence is proven by evolution and human consciousness.

The point is God means something “other” in different cultures. That difference in belief has caused an uncountable number of deaths. To a believer and non-believer in God, those deaths are an appalling loss to humanity. Is a different belief in God, worth a human’s death? Dawkins argues God is a delusion because He or It cannot be proven. The weakness of that argument is there are many discoveries that have been found to be wrong with further scientific exploration. Science progress cuts both ways; i.e. it proves and disproves what seems right but turns out to be wrong as further experiments prove.

Girl at War (a novel about the war in Croatia).

The patent differences in religious beliefs in God shows that dogmatism replaces further exploration for God’s existence. There are religious scholars who have challenged dogmatic arguments for God’s existence. At the very least, Dawkins makes one think about the horrible consequence of authoritarian beliefs in God and the slaughter of innocents from those beliefs. We are seeing that slaughter today in Iran and Lebanon from attacks by America and Israel. Of course, there are reasons beyond religion for those attacks but is murder of innocents an answer or just collateral death and destruction for desired results?

Belief in God is a work in progress for every human being. The proof of God will be peace on earth, a human accomplishment that may only be possible with a belief in something greater than us.

HISTORY LESSON

There is an irony in Higginbotham’s “Midnight in Chernobyl”. It is ironic to see what is happening in the 21st century with the revisionism of Presidents Trump and Putin. Their ideas of openness (glasnost) and system reform (perestroika) are a return to the past rather than the future.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Midnight in Chernobyl (The Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster)

Author: Adam Higginbotham

Narration by: Jacques Roy

Adam Higginbotham (Author, British journalist, contributing writer for The New Yorker, Wired, and The New York Times.)

Adam Higginbotham reminds reader/listeners of the terrifying consequences of nuclear power mistakes in “Midnight in Chernobyl”. Over 400,000 people are evacuated from the area of Pripyat, a carefully planned Soviet city of 50,000 people, near four nuclear reactors. One of four reactors explodes on April 26, 1986, at 1.23 A.M. There were actually two explosions. The first was a massive steam explosion while a second explosion blew a 1,000-ton concrete lid into the air. The core of the reactor is destroyed. The building surrounding the reactor blew apart and radioactive fuel and graphite filled the early morning night sky. Fires were ignited on the roof and surrounding structures.

Higginbotham explains the explosion occurs because of a safety test that is botched by the operators of the plant. The nuclear reactor is set into a low-power state that disables an automatic shutdown system. By setting the reactor into a low-power state, control rods lowered into the reactor cause cooling water displacement and a spike in radioactive activity. This is noted as a design flaw that Higgenbotham argues is known by Soviet leaders before the disaster. In less than a second, the reactor surges to more than 100 times its normal power level. This massive energy surge generates runaway fission that destroys the reactor in two explosions. Chernobyl becomes a highly radioactive death trap for workers and residents of the surrounding area.

The total number of people affected by the Chernobyl accident may never be known because of Soviet obfuscation and historical indeterminacies, but Higgenbotham suggests it reaches 5 to 8.4 million people living in Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia. According to archival records, all residents of Pripyat are evacuated and an additional 300,000 are resettled. Twenty-eight people die within three months of the accident, 134 develop acute radiation syndrome. The estimate of cleanup workers is 600,000 made up of firefighters, soldiers, engineers, and volunteers.

As Higgenbotham ends his history, he notes a Russian worker’s death in the 21st century from leukemia. Was his death a consequence of the Chernobyl disaster in 1986? Who knows? The point is representative of the consequence of uncountable deaths that may be related to erasure of truth in any country.

The Chernobyl accident reaches 5 to 8.4 million people living in Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia.

Higginbotham argues Chernobyl is a proximate cause of the unraveling of the Soviet Union. He suggests it accelerates the collapse of Soviet authority. This is an interesting supposition. He argues that Soviet leadership believes their system of government had a level of technological and administrative capability that illustrates a level of competence and achievement that is superior to all other forms of governance. The Chernobyl disaster challenges that self-perception. Hierarchal state control fails to train and manage the complicated nuclear industry. A rigid managerial hierarchy hides incompetence. It also breeds corruption and bureaucratic paralysis with top-down management because of information obfuscation and concealment at lower management levels. Fear of criticism by leadership leads to distortion of the truth at lower levels of government. Higgenbotham’s interviews of Russian investigators of the disaster reveals the incompetent training of lower-level employees who operated the facility. Their inclination is to cover-up mistakes rather than reveal them to their direct reports.

The economic cost of the Chernobyl disaster exposes the USSR’s Communist Party’s failure as a system of government.

Presidents Gorbachev and Reagan signing the nuclear non-proliferation agreement.

Higgenbotham notes environmental movements, and Russian anti-nuclear activists grew to express anger with Moscow and its leaders. The disaster undermined Soviet scientific and technological belief in Russia’s superiority. In 1986 and 1987 speeches Gorbachev notes in a Politburo address that the Chernobyl meltdown is a harbinger of the Soviet Union’s need to change. In a 2006 speech Gorbachev speaks of the need for apparatchiks to tell truth to power, to reduce soviet secrecy, and accept glasnost and perestroika as solutions for improvement of Russian leadership.

CONSCIOUSNESS & AI

A.I. is a tool of human beings and will always be a tool. If Pollan is right that human thought originates with emotion, A.I. regulation, and transparency must be aligned with human values of truth, right conduct, peace, and non-violence. If A.I. is used for military or authoritarian advantage, it may lead to the Armageddon of biblical prediction.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

A World Appears (A Journey into Consciousness)

Author: Michael Pollan

Narration by: Michael Pollan

Michael Pollan (American journalist, author, Lecturer at Harvard University, co-founded the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, received an M.A. in English from Columbia.)

Pollan is not a scientist, but he is a writer who has an opinion about consciousness based on detailed interviews with scientists and consciousness researchers. He defines consciousness as the subjective experience of being alive. Pollan interviews mainstream and recognized researchers like Roland Griffiths, and Robin Carhart-Harris while avoiding fringe theorists. He interviews scientists who are empirically grounded by experimental testing.

Roland Griffiths (Deceased American psychopharmacologist.)

Pollan also reads the works of Tononi, a neuroscientist who investigates “Integrated Information Theory”, Dahaene, a neuroscientist who researched “Global Neuronal Workspace Theory, and Thomas Nagel, a philosopher who coined the phrase “hard problem of consciousness”. He attacks the subject from multiple angles with experimental research done by plant and animal neurobiologists, AI researchers, and psychologists. What Pollan concludes from his interviews is that consciousness is the felt experience of being alive. This broad conception takes in all life based on interviews Pollan has with many science experts and philosophers who work in broad fields of human, plant, and animal life.

Stefano Mancuso (Italian botanist and writer, a professor at the University of Florence and the director of the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology.)

Stefano Mancuso explains vineyard-like plants exhibit consciousness in their drive for growth and survival with roots that behave with “swarm intelligence” to detect a pole nearby. A vinery’s root tips communicate with each other and make a collective decision to grow in a particular direction. Though this process is slower than in the animal kingdom, Mancuso’s experiments show vines preternaturally use their root systems to reach out to a planted pole to improve their growth through photosynthesis. The point of Pollan’s observation about plants is that a brain and neurons may not be required to show and sustain life, but plants appear to exhibit intelligence and sentience without a brain or animal-like nervous system. Plants seem to live without thought or emotion.

The easy part of consciousness is observed cause and effect. The hard part is knowing where cause comes from and why it arises in the first place.

Based on Pollan’s interviews of scientists and philosophers, he develops a central argument that animal/human consciousness comes from life’s need to maintain stability. However, his argument is that sentience does not come from initiated thoughts but from emotions that generate conscious thought. The implications of that belief are frightening because it may explain why consciousness leads to futile war. If thought process is a follower of emotion, reason plays second fiddle to action. Current events in the world show Pollan may be right. Fear of nuclear annihilation may be the cause of America’s futile war with Iran. Russia’s fear of becoming a lesser hegemonic power may be the cause of Ukraine’s territorial theft. If Pollan is correct, the futility of war will never end with emotion as precursor to thought and action.

Pollan’s interviews with representatives of the science and philosophical communities strongly implies human thought is as likely irrational as rational and may or may not be concerned about survival. The threat of A.I. is that it is used to reinforce the irrationality of emotion as a precursor to thought and action.

“Burn-In” is meant to reveal how human-machine integration challenges human society, both ethically and pragmatically.

What comes to mind is that A.I. might be able to assuage irrational decisions but A.I. is of no help if human thought is initially driven by emotions. A.I. only amplifies the harmful potential of irrational human decisions with thoughts only initiated by emotions. One comes away from Pollan’s book with fear.

Information is energy in today’s A.I. world., just as steam was in the industrial revolution.

Pollan ends “A World Appears” with a journey through philosophy that is interesting but unique to him. Some may become distracted by his personal journey, but his view of consciousness is enlightening and frightening.

AI RISK

The essence of Rickard’s book is that the use of GPT is a threat to the financial world and to world peace. If the war on Iran continues, there is increased risk of wider conflict, further financial stress, reduced human judgement, and greater potential for world conflagration in a nuclear war.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

MONEY GPT (AI and the Threat to the Global Economy)

Author: James Rickards

Narration by: James Rickards

James G. Rickards (Author, American lawyer, investment banker, media commentator.)

Though Mr. Rickards has something valuable to tell his audience, his writing leaves room for improvement. The initials “GPT” stand for “Generative Pre-trained Transformer”. They are an abbreviation for massive datasets gathered by artificial intelligence to aid one’s understanding of complex predictions about finance and military conflict based on collected language used to explain the world.

Languages of the world.

What Rickards intellectually recognizes is that collected language about the real world lacks human judgement which can accelerate human actions, weaponize misinformation, and increase conflict because AI lacks human reasoning. Without judgement, facts imparted by language collection may as quickly make wrong as right decisions. Optimum answers to complex problems require human judgement. Optimum answers may be aided by AI collated language, but human judgement is key to appropriate action. Rickards notes how stock market investors who rely on AI for decisions about what to do with their investments can as easily be misled when the market is in crisis because collected language is as likely to lead one further into crisis as toward a reasoned investment response.

Like the bombing of Dresden in WWII, today’s America is senselessly bombing Iran.

Rickard explains a financial decision based on GPT carries the same threat in regard to war. One wonders whether President Trump’s escalation of the war on Iran is not based on GPT that compresses decisions and amplifies the volatility of America’s actions. Is the war escalating because of GPT and inadequate human judgement? America is faced with incomplete information on a purpose for bombing Iran and what goals are intended for ending the conflict. What GPT predicts is more U.S. strikes, further Iranian retaliation, and prolonged conflict that will continue to roil the economies and citizens of the world. Regional war, let alone a World War, is increasingly likely to cause a global shock to financial markets.

Uses of GTP aka GPT.

CURING DISEASE

Green questions the profit motive of drug companies that ignore the benefits of drugs that poor societies cannot afford that would cure tuberculosis. At the same time, Green implies the political will of all nations fail to provide known curative drugs for tuberculosis.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Everything is Tuberculosis (The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection)

Author: John Green

Narration by: John Green

John Green (Author, YouTuber, and philanthropist.)

“Everything is Tuberculosis” is an apt title for John Green’s book but unlikely to attract many listener/readers. However, those who have read John Green’s books are attracted to his story because of the humor and insight he offers to living life. Green offers an interesting human perspective about a disease that kills hundreds of thousands of people every year and is both preventable and curable. Recognizing this critic’s own biases, “Everything is Tuberculosis” is a belief that there are only two important issues for human species’ survival, i.e., world peace and personal health. “Everything is Tuberculosis” deals with the principal of health while others write about world peace.

Tuberculosis transmission.

Peace is only indirectly addressed in “Everything is Tuberculosis” while health is the primary focus of Green’s book. Today, approximately 1.23 million people die from tuberculosis every year. Surprisingly, it remains the deadliest curable infectious disease in the world. An estimated 10.7 million people are presently diagnosed with tuberculosis. This high infection rate is for a disease that is curable and preventable. Green explains in countries with high rates of poverty, undernutrition, overcrowding, high HIV infections, and poor medical services tuberculosis becomes a greater killer of human beings than any other infectious disease.

The fear and anxiety of Covid mimics the fear of tuberculosis.

Green personalizes his story by being its main character. He writes in the first person and uses his personal anxiety driven thoughts to explain tuberculosis’ illness and vulnerability. As a child, Green recalls his own illnesses and anxieties that required hospitalization. He contrasts his life of economic security with the lives of many people in the world that have little to no economic security. He views tuberculosis, not as a scientist or patient, but as an observer of poverty in Sierra Leone and the personal life of a young boy with the disease.

The cost of medication.

The young boy’s recovery experience is on-again/off-again, in part because of his father’s skepticism about the effectiveness of drugs and his belief in God, but also because of a failure of experimental drug treatments from other tuberculosis patients that die. There is a happy ending when a new drug cure is found and started; the boy recovers, resulting in eradication of the infection. He finishes high school and goes on to college. Other stories of the disease in Sierra Leone show distances patients have to travel, the cost of treatments, and different economically challenged families who are discouraged by continued treatment. Those patients that do not continue the medical treatment often see regrowth of the Tuberculosis bacteria which ends their sons, daughters, fathers, or mother’s lives.

Green’s point is that human beings are dying from tuberculosis, a curable disease that kills; not because it is often fatal, but because of a human-systems’ failure.

TB deaths are a predictable outcome of poverty, undernutrition, overcrowding, political neglect, and global indifference. Green gets at the heart of the problem of societal indifference. The indifference is both political and economic. The political indifference comes from every government that is only concerned about their country’s health and welfare. The economic difference is similar but more pronounced in capitalist countries that focus on profit more than societal benefit. Political difference is in nation-state’ leadership whether countries are democratic or other.

CHINA YESTERDAY

Winchester’s biography of Needham offers valuable insight to scientific discovery and its intersection with socio/political structure of government. Government bureaucracy can either aid or impede nation-state’ discovery and innovation.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The Man Who Loved China (The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom)

Author: Simon Winchester

Narration by: Simon Winchester

Simon Winchester (Author, historian, British American author, journalist, and broadcaster.)

Having traveled to China a few years ago, it is interesting to listen to Simon Winchester’s biography of Joseph Needham, who is considered one of the foremost historians of Chinese science and technology.

Noel Joseph Terence Montgomery Needham (1900-1995, British biochemist, historian of science and sinologist who wrote a history of Chinese science and technology based on his British education and experience in China during the 1940s.)

Discovery of the new can improve or impede society. In listening to this biography of Joseph Needham, one wonders how farther ahead science might be if it was more widely shared between countries of the world. Needham is characterized as a polymath who became educated as a biochemist at Cambridge. Needham is a freethinking eccentric, a nudist, a folk dancer, and a thoroughly unconventional human being.

Dorothy Moyle Needham (English biochemist.)

Needham meets a fellow student at Cambridge with whom he pursues a scientific/intellectual partnership and an “open” marriage that lasts until the death of his wife in 1987. Needham’s first wife, Dorothy Moyle Needham, offers stability to his life while accepting a second woman, Lu Gwei-djen, as an intimate in Needham’s life during their marriage. Dr. Gwei-djen was also a biochemist who studied at Cambridge. When Needham’s wife dies in 1987, after 63 years of marriage, he marries Lu Gwei-djen.

Japan creates what is misogynistically characterized as “comfort women” in their attack and domination of China in the early years of WWII.

As WWII began and the Japanese were attacking China, Needham is engaged by the Sino-British Science Cooperation Office to document scientific manuscripts, meet Chinese scholars, and build a record of China’s scientific networks. His wife joins Needham in 1944 just before Needham’s return to Great Britain. Needham’s separation from his wife gave him time to become an important historian of Chinese Science. His grasp of the Chinese language from his association with Lu Gwei-djen is a great aid to his accumulation of China’s extraordinary advances in science that created many discoveries–long before the rest of the world.

Mao at the time of Needham’s travels in China.

Needham fell in love with China and became acquainted with the war years of China and its communist movement. Needham looked favorably on the communist philosophical movement. However, his political leanings were inconsequential because his primary focus is on China’s scientific history.

Early discoveries in China.

Needam’s research results in a book titled “Science and Civilization in China”. With the help of Lu Gwei-djen, his book became a societal corrective to the West’s bias about China’s technological backwardness. Needam reveals amazing discoveries made by China long before the rest of the world. He found papermaking is developed in the 2nd century BCE, the magnetic compass was used in China in the 11th century, gunpowder is discovered in the 9th century, and printing began in the 7th century. Adding to these discoveries are the many engineering and mechanical innovations of China. They discovered the value of differential gears to aid vehicle function, the idea of a sternpost to guide ships, water power to aid clockworks with escapements for timekeeping.

Agricultural invention in early China.

Needham discovers the agricultural and industrial breakthroughs of China. They used multi-tube seed drills and advanced iron plows to improve agricultural yields centuries before European innovations. Between the 5th and 3rd century BCE, China had developed blast furnaces and iron-working innovations that were not discovered in the west until the medieval period. The Song dynasty in the 10th century pioneered the use of paper money backed by the government.

Silk making in early China.

In the science of chemistry, silk production began thousands of years before the west understood its value. Porcelain innovation with hardening through a high-temperature process was used long before its discovery in Europe in the 18th century. Natural gas drilling was discovered with the invention of bamboo derricks and piping for industrial use. Chinese gas drilling dated back to when Roman legions were invading Europe.

China’s centralized bureaucracy.

What is puzzling about Needham’s book is not only how early these discoveries were made in China, but why these remarkable innovation capabilities did not continue through the twentieth century. He argues the foundation of their advances is its powerful, centralized bureaucratic state, a culture that valued practical knowledge, and a worldview that is comfortable with pattern, process, and observation of nature.

Management of China’s waterways is critical for agriculture and flood risk to those who lived near rivers. Life experience with the threats and benefits of water demanded Chinese attention. Literacy and standardized examinations in China created a cadre of technically motivated officials. With systematic observation of nature, these technocrats harnessed the power of water. So why has there been nothing like the scientific revolution that happened in Europe. To this reviewer, something changed with the rise of communism.

China’s education system.

Needham’s book argues the bureaucracy of China became too conservative and discouraged independent initiatives while emphasizing stability through exam-driven education. Conformity became more important than innovation. Needham infers the scientific revolution went into hibernation in China while blossoming in Europe. One may speculate that is partly due to emphasis on communism, a socio/political rather than a science/nature focused view of life, i.e. a view toward social stability more than one of curious exploration,

CHINA

BREATHING LIFE

Nestor’s book, “Breath” is worth a reader/listener’s time. Breathing exercises are not a cure-all for sleeplessness, snoring, or regulating blood pressure, but Nestor’s experience and Dr. Nayak’s research encourage reader/listeners to change the way they breath.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Breath (The New Science of the Lost Art)

Author: James Nestor

Narration by: James Nestor

James Nestor (Author, American science journalist.)

“Breath” is a surprising best-selling book about breathing through one’s nose rather than one’s mouth. Nestor’s participation in a 10-day Stanford experiment shows several negative medical symptoms associated with how we breath. Nestor experiences sleep apnea, raised blood pressure, high stress levels, and increased anxiety because of the way he breaths earth’s air. Nextor’s participation in a Stanford University experiment suggests nose breathing is a biological superpower because nasal passages filter and humidify the air we breathe. Exhalation from the way we breath releases nitric oxide and improves oxygen absorption.

“The story of CO2…” is that photosynthesis by plants converts sunlight into energy which makes CO2 the basis upon which all life exists on earth.

Stanford’s experiment reveals CO2 emissions from breathing are essential for all living things.

Experiment shows slow breathing for 5.5 seconds-in, and 5.5 seconds-out improves blood pressure, and heart rate variability that enhances calmness. Surprisingly, slow breathing increases carbon dioxide tolerance while aiding body absorption of oxygen. The consequence of breathing too fast surprisingly impairs oxygen delivery to our system. Oxygen deprivation is one of the causes of anxiety, fatigue, and poor physical performance. Practicing good breathing habits can help reduce anxiety and fatigue to improve physical performance. It is hard to believe changing our breathing habits can have so great an impact on our lives.

Changing how we breathe is not as easy as one might think.

In the past, when one could not breath on their own, they were placed in an iron tube to replace their natural lung function.

Not breathing through one’s mouth seems an easy change to make in one’s life but a 5.5 second inhale and exhale rule takes practice. The recommendation is to train yourself for 5-to-ten-minute periods until it becomes a learned goal, if not habit. Another suggestion is to alternate nostril breathing by covering one nostril and practicing the 5.5 second inhale/exhale cycle. One can alternate nostrils with breathing in with one nostril and out with the other. Nestor suggests a 4-7-8 technique of breathing. Using only your nose, inhale 4 seconds, hold for 7 seconds, exhale for 8 seconds. He believes it will help one fall asleep if they are having difficulty sleeping. In general, Nestor suggests one should become more aware of how they are breathing during the day.

Dr. Jayakar Nayak (MD, PhD, conducted the breathing experiment as a Professor of Otolaryngology at Stanford University.)

Nestor refers to Dr. Jayakar Nayak’s 10-day Stanford experiment in which Nestor participated. He wrote this book as evidence for the harm he was doing to himself and how mouth breathing for oxygen can be corrected by breathing through one’s nose. Patients, like Nestor, were trained in nose breathing exercises that show marked improvements from the symptoms of sleep apnea, sleep fragmentation, heavy snoring, and stress. Results of the experiment showed sleep apnea and snoring ceased, systolic blood pressure dropped, and heart rate variability improved in most patients who participated in the Stanford experiment.

Nestor’s recommendations are based on nasal breathing, slower breathing, and breath exercises supported by Dr. Nayak’s research. Nestor’s book, “Breath” is worth a reader/listener’s time. Breathing exercises are not a cure-all for sleeplessness, snoring, or regulating blood pressure, but Nestor’s experience and Dr. Nayak’s research encourage reader/listeners to change the way they breath.

HARD TIMES

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

THE WORST HARD TIME (The Untold
Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl)

Author: Timothy Egan

Narration by: Jacob York

Timothy Egan (Author, American journalist, former op-ed columnist for The New York Times, won the National Book Award in 2006 for “The Worst Hard Time”.)

Timothy Egan wrote an interesting history of America during the dust bowl years that resulted in the Great Depression that lasted from 1929 to the early 40s. “The Worst Hard Time” has concerning parallels to today’s economy. Timothy Egan notes the Dust Bowl is caused by climate change, water scarcity, and energy transition, i.e. all conditions of the year 2025.

Contrary to Trump’s belief that global warming is a cycle of nature, most scientists argue the earth is warming because of the world’s burning of fossil fuels.

Clean potable water is a growing threat to a rising world population.

American Oil Refineries.

Transition from fossil to renewable energy sources is being delayed by the Trump administration.

Agricultural markets dramatically rose and fell in the 1920s and 30s. Wealth and greed created by wheat farming blinded farmers to the harm they were doing to the Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas panhandle plains of middle America. With the scarification of soil and seasonal planting and harvesting of wheat, millions of acres of grass land were left barren between crop seasons.

Trump is a sad reminder of the political blindness of Herbert Hoover.

Herbert Hoover (31st President of the United States.)

Tariffs and anti-immigration policies were instituted by the Hoover administration as a response to declining prosperity caused by excessive wheat farming cultivation. This is reminiscent of President Trump’s response today with tariffs, militant immigration policies, and his rejection of science that warns of the impact of global warming.

Trump’s modus vivendi.

Artificial Intelligence in today’s economy has increased investment of billions of dollars in today’s money like that spent to grow and harvest wheat in the 1920s. Investment in farmland skyrocketed in the 1920s with farming as a way to increase wealth with cultivation of land that was nearly free in Nebraska, Oklahoma, and the Texas panhandle. Today, massive investments in A.I. are being made by wealthy tech company owners. Without pragmatic and careful implementation of A.I. to America’s economy, tech company’ investments may have the same consequence to its investors as the farming collapse had to the wheat farmers.

A.I. will become the engine of American economic improvement just as Industrial Revolution changed agricultural production.

Today, A.I., rather than industrialized agriculture, has become the great economic engine of America. Today’s massive investments are in A.I. rather than wheat harvesting. The collapse of wheat prices because of oversupply disrupted the American economy because workers were not needed. A.I. will have a similar impact on all industries which may lead to the next world-wide depression.

1933 Depression bread lines.

Trump’s idea of Making America Great Again is a twentieth century idea that may lead to economic collapse rather than economic prosperity. His tariff policies set a table for damaging the world economy in the same way they did when Hoover became President. America needs to embrace the inevitable decline of human manufacturing and focus on transitioning America to a service economy. America needs more doctors, nurses, social workers, educators, house builders, scientists, and ecologically minded politicians rather than investors and manufacturers of disposable conveniences. At the same time, regressive tax policies that penalize the poor and enrich the wealthy need to be changed. Tax revenue needs to be focused on America’s economic transition from a disposable manufacturing economy to service and ecological preservation industries.

The hope for GDP growth in America’s future depends on a change in economic direction.

America’s next President needs to forcefully change the economic direction of America in the same way Timothy Egan shows Franklin Roosevelt and the Secretary of Agriculture, Henry Wallace, did during the Dust Bowl and Depression era. The reversal of Trump’s mistakes will take more than one four-year-term for correction, but the next election needs to set a different course for the American economy.

EVIL’S PERSONIFICATION

One asks oneself, what leaders in the world today have remorse for the incarcerations, torture, and killings for which they are responsible? What remorse is there in Putin’s, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s, and even our American President’s thoughts?

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

CONFRONTING EVIL (Assessing the Worst of the Worst)

Author: Bill O’Reilly, Josh Hammer

Narrated By: Robert Petkoff

Bill O’Reilly, American conservative commentator, journalist, author, and television host. Josh Hammer, American conservative commentator, attorney, co-author, and columnist.

History taken out of the context of its time often distorts the reality of the past.

“Confronting Evil” is an interesting if not nuanced history of the most notorious leaders in the world. They were responsible for the torture, incarceration, and death of millions. As is true of most if not all histories of famous and infamous leaders, historians and pundits choose facts that reinforce their view of world’ history. Even the best historian is influenced by the time in which they write and their choice of facts.

Nathan Bedford Forest (1821-1877, General in the Confederate States of America during the Civil War.)

One is appalled by the truth of Nathan Bedford Forest’s view of slavery during America’s Civil War. Forest directed the slaughter of people based on the color of their skin. Forest condoned the murder of all who believed in equality of human beings. Forest is considered a hero to some but with the passage of time and a growing belief in human equality, Forest is recognized as a despicable human being by those who know the history of his life and profession. The evidence of science and human accomplishment show that the color of one’s skin is no measure of intelligence or capability. Forest’s mistreatment of slaves and the wealth he created from trading in slaves is reported in this history. By many measures, Forest is shown as an evil person by O’Reilly and Hammer.

The rule of Genghis Kahn is said to have caused the death of 40 million people, an estimated 11% of the global population at his time in history.

Presumed image of Genghis Kahn (1162-1227, Founder and first Khan of the Mongol Empire.)

By some measures, Mao doubled that 40 million number with his “Great Leap Forward”, the “Cultural Revolution”, his labor camp creations, and political purges. Hitler is estimated to have caused the death of 17 million with his genocidal policies while casualties from WWII are estimated at 85 million. Hitler’s antisemitism is born of the same stupidity exhibited by Nathan Bedford Forest in America’s Civil War. The contribution of Jewish society to the world is incalculable.

Mao Zedong (1893-1976) Father of the Peoples Republic of China)

Mao’s great leap forward is estimated to have caused the death of 35 to 45 million citizens. The rule of Stalin is estimated to have caused the death of 20 to 60 million U.S.S.R.’ citizens. Stalin’s takeover of Poland, and the Baltics after WWII and his cruelty is remembered by survivors of his rule.

There are many other evil characters in “Confronting Evil”. In the mind of westerners, the current leaders of Iran and Russia are evil. The leader of Iran, Ruhollah Khomeini is estimated to have ordered deaths of Iranians that exceed 250,000 since his takeover in 1979. Though he has passed, the succession of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has carried on with tens of thousands who have died in Iran’s involvement with Hamas in Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Lebanon. The predecessor of the religious leaders of Iran was Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi who reigned from 1941-1970. Pahlavi is estimated to have murdered 3,000 to 20,000 during his reign. These leaders ruled over an impoverished state but incomes per capita fell from $34,660 during the Shah’s reign to $3,150 under Khomeini’s rule. An irony is that income inequality hugely increased in Iran during Khomeini’s rule. Nuanced reality is that poverty and victimization of Iranians is more widely spread under Khomeini than under the former Shah. On an economic scale it appears Khomeini’s evil as a leader exceeds the Shah’s rule. Added to the economic difference is the religious zealotry of Khomeini which widened the gap of sexual inequality in Iran.

Ruhollah Khomeini (1st Supreme Leader of Iran, 1979-1989)

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (Current leader of Iran.)

The authors address the illicit drug industry and the evil of Pablo Escobar in Columbia and “El Chapo” Guzmán in Mexico. Escobar was killed in 1993 when pursued by drug enforcement officers while Guzmán is serving a life sentence in the U.S. The drug industry continues to thrive despite the harm it is doing to America and the world. The leaders of the criminal drug industry care nothing for the consequence of their actions because of the wealth and power the illicit trade offers.

Pablo Escobar (now deceased) noted on the left with “El Chapo”(arrested and imprisoned in America) on the right.

The last two chapters of “Confronting Evil” offer a pithy definition of evil. Evil is defined as doing harm without remorse. One doubts any of the leaders noted by the authors have or had any remorse for the atrocities they have committed. Whether they rationalize their behavior for the good of their people, their religion, or their country—they are evil by O’Reilly and Hammer’s definition. One doubts any of the leaders noted in “Confronting Evil” are remorseful.

RISK/REWARD

“IF ANYONE BUILDS IT, EVERYONE DIES” is an alarmist, and unnecessarily pessimistic view of the underlying value of Artificial Intelligence. This is not to suggest there are no risks in A.I. but its potential outweighs its risks.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

IF ANYONE BUILDS IT, EVERYONE DIES

Author: Eliezer Yudkowsky, and Nate Soares

Narrated By: Rae Beckley

Eliezer Yudkowsky is a self-taught A.I. researcher without a formal education. As an A.I. researcher, Yudkowsky founded the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI). Nate Soares received an undergraduate degree from George Washington University and became President of MIRI. Soares had worked as an engineer for Google and Microsoft. Soares also worked for the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the U.S. Dept. of Defense.

Dangers of A.I. to humanity

“IF ANYONE BUILDS IT, EVERYONE DIES” is difficult to follow because it’s convoluted examples and arguments are unclear. The fundamental concern the writers have is that A.I. will self-improve to the point of being a threat to humanity. They argue that A.I. will grow to be more interested in self-preservation than an aid to human thought and existence. The irony of their position is that humanity is already a threat to itself from environmental degradation, let alone nuclear annihilation. The truth is humanity needs the potential of A.I. to better understand life and what can be done to preserve it.

To this listener/reader environmental degradation is a greater risk than the author’s purported threats of A.I.

Pessimism is justified in the same way one can criticize capitalism.

The authors have a point of view that is too pessimistic about A.I. and its negative potential without recognizing how poorly society is structured for war and killing itself without Artificial Intelligence. The advance of A.I. unquestionably has risks just as today’s threat of mutual nuclear annihilation but A.I.s’ potential for changing the course of civilization for the better exceeds the agricultural and industrial revolutions of the past.

The nature and intelligence of human beings is underestimated by Yudkowsky and Soares.

There have been a number of amazing human discoveries that have accelerated since the beginning of civilization in Mesopotamia. Humans like Einstein and their insight to the universe will be aided, not controlled, by the potential of A.I. Artificial Intelligence is no more a danger to humanity than the loss of craftsman during the industrial revolution. Civilization will either adapt to revelations coming from A.I. or environmental degradation or human stupidity will overtake humanity.

Don’t succumb to panic. Life is life. A.I. advances require human courage.

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