After a career in the entertainment lighting business encompassing, sales, technical support, marketing, photography, and writing, I now manage and market veterinary hospitals.
This decaying house The largest on the block Once admired by all Now falling into disrepair Rotting from the inside out
What seemed like advantage An accident of location and resources A place for a grand experiment Is now seen as hubris and folly There are better houses now Even to those who live here
Clinging to fantasies of an age gone past When windows were clean and bright But cracked windows still let in the light And squeaking brittle doors still open and close Yet they can break at anytime And trap those within or without
To be made great again A house requires strong foundations Rights, not privileges that wax and wain With each new landlord Nobody boasts about freedom in this house anymore
The carpet smells of mildew And pipes all rattle and rust An infrastructure collapsing through a lack of understanding and care But sure, let’s cut the rent for the penthouse tenants When the only thing that trickles down is piss
The people across the hall were disappeared last night No longer welcome or protected See what complaining about the rats gets you The Super is just following orders he says But that did not work at Nuremberg And it shouldn’t work now
This house is a fire hazard A death trap waiting to happen Cold winds blow throughout And all the landlord cares about is the neighbors The neighbors who now laugh and pity us With a mixture of fear and disappointment
Nobody visits this house anymore They are warned to stay away And those with cards of green don’t dare leave Because privileges don’t apply with these landlords Or find yourself renditioned to a secret basement Somehow, somewhere
But from my tiny corner of this house I refuse to be quiet Even if it means losing my place I’m here to poke the bear With words and white middle-class privilege I stand on the right side of history And not just of this house
Is this really what we want? Is this really who we are? What we have become?
To dismiss
Diversity Equity And Inclusion
And turn it into a thought terminating cliche
Perfect for those who can’t spell D.E.I. Or understand that woke means awake
Although; “the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them.” The definition of woke given by Ron DeSantis’ general council in a Florida court room, works pretty well for me too
Do we really want to call this a virus? Cancel culture, identity politics, left vs. right These are just distractions from what we don’t talk about From what we are supposed to be immune from
Class
It has always been about class It has always been about a return to serfdom The creation of caste system A technocratic feudalism
This is not rolling back the years This is the systematic dismantling of the idea of a dream Sure a dream sold and marketed fought over and clamored for But still a dream that most of us bought into
This does not end well Nazism never does
There is no Republican Party anymore There is just MAGA The Democrats are cowed and neutered Cloaking themselves in the flag and the next election
As our society burns down around them
Nobody is coming to save us
There is no heroic savior
Our culture has shaped us to believe that it takes someone extraordinary to affect change A hero, A prince or princess A chosen one That it takes special powers Training A unique past
But it doesn’t It takes people
People affect change People make resistances People overthrow dictators People make revolutions People decide what kind of society they want to live in
A coup To create an oligarchy Or more accurately A plutocracy To end a democracy Already on its way to Idiocracy
And institute feudalism With a side order of fascism On the back of our information We will be categorized and conditioned If we are not Gilead or imprisoned
All under the watch of the weak And the sex offenders The racists and the anti-transgenders
Our only hope That their stupidity and incompetence Is greater than their hate, their ignorance And weaker than our resistance
These has-beens With their learning machines And anti-vaccines Parading around in their limousines
Are not as strong as the blades of our guillotines.
You know how I know this is a giant Ponzi scheme? Because you are endorsing it Selling a future you don’t even believe in Trying to make other people feel stupid By pretending you are smart That you understand You are not that clever
If it does not make sense, guess what? It does not make sense To get in early, is to get out early Before the rubes realize there is no product Just the illusion of something for nothing You’ve taken a not too well thought out idea And turned it into a cesspit for grift
To make matters worse You add to climate change The energy requirements for mining crypto Are more than equal to solar power production And for what? A tool that lets you buy drugs on the dark web anonymously And since the FBI are now able to trace blockchains You suck at that too
Name all the arenas you want Misuse the internet famous and exploit their 15 minute adoring fans
It feels like the end of days It keeps feeling like the end of days I think about the meaning of life What if it has no meaning? No purpose, no greater goal
Enrico Fermi was a physicist who worked on the first atomic bomb In 1950 he asked the most obvious of questions “Where is everybody?” If there are billions of stars, some much older than ours Where are all the ancient spacefaring civilizations? Why are we alone?
Astronomer David Brin postulated a solution to the Fermi Paradox in 1983 The deadly probes hypothesis – more commonly known as the dark forest theorem That the universe is a dark forest full of dangers and dangerous hunters To make oneself know in the forest by crying out Is to make oneself vulnerable to those dangers Game theory suggests in this situation it is best to shoot first and ask questions later And to not cry out
As bleak as this theorem is There is something worse That all civilizations follow a similar path That they mine their ecosystems for industrialization For the fuel of technological growth That they create weapons of mass destruction to protect themselves from those they disagree with That they value their short-term economic goals Over the environment they live in
And therefore, they destroy themselves
That life just doesn’t get to create the stuff of science fiction The road to industrialization Is the road to self-destruction That life never really survives the industrial revolution
As author, Bill Bryson says “Life, in short, just wants to be. But, …it does not want to be much”
Except we had to have agriculture We had to have industry We had to have a Cybertruck on Mars
There is a strong argument that plants domesticated us Not the other way round Bending us to their will Shaping our society to their needs Put a monkey on a treadmill and they will jump off But not us We keep going Chasing a fantasy Chasing a science fiction
If we have the capability and knowledge to colonize Mars We have the capability and knowledge to save Earth And as much as it grieves me to say it My visions of spacefaring into the future Are destined to remain fictions of science We are going nowhere The problems too great The benefits too few Too many hard steps To the step to colonize Mars or anywhere else Too many steps to a Cybertruck on Mars Let’s face it It’s too many steps to a working Cybertruck on Earth
Space won’t save us anytime soon And the universe is telling us something
It is telling us to stop.
Image unashamedly stolen from the Tesla website and used under fair use for criticism, comment, or news reporting.
The killing of a multi-millionaire CEO Rich on the back of claim denial How appropriate for American change to come from the barrel of a gun Rather than the killing of classrooms of children
The 1% of the 1% begged for forgiveness A realization that their oligarchy came from exploitation That the game was rigged in their favor And so we should all just stop playing The misery of the majority Fed on dreams of avarice While choking on propaganda and lies Of the American nightmare they dreamt of
So in fear of a tale of two cities Health care became universal The homeless housed through basic income Politics meant service rather than riches The soldiers laid down their weapons No longer the servants of hegemony The police upheld the law rather than enforced it A right to not get shot Rather than a right to shoot Renewables given the subsidies of the polluters Food became free of pesticides and price gouging Public transportation replaced road building
Power accountable to the powerless
A country for the people and of the people Became more than words of control The billionaires became millionaires Paying their fair share of taxes For the benefit of all
A bloodless revolution in how we all chose to live Started through the spilling of blood
The clown show has come to town While the bankers watch their children drown Led by a cruel and weak fool Unaware that he is being used as a tool Each clown has a singular trait With lies to flatter and obfuscate While the majority welcome this vacuous parade The different and marginalized look on afraid
If the clowns are not fed and suffer They will feed on each other A clown knows no loyalty Even to royalty Kings that are made Are just facilitating the charade
And the clowns like the cacophony With pretensions to theocracy They are singularly ill-suited For the what they have instituted And nobody is laughing At what the clowns are choreographing We are all just trying to hunker down When the clown show comes to town.
Ohio A shitty motel Worried about bedbugs The phantom itching of fears The lipstick on a pig of a renovated flop house While the rain pours down through dawn’s meager light Watching hope drain away on tv One state at a time The phantom fears of bitter disappointment Wondering what dissident means in an American oligarchy A country of inequality enshrined in court and law That respects neither
They lost because they believed in science They lost because they were of color They lost because they were a woman
I see a headline that says America has changed And I can’t help but feel that the only thing that has changed is that the veneer has been stripped away
This is not a country based on freedoms Those are the lies told to ourselves to sleep at night Like Santa Claus or recycling that works
This is a country that has returned to its roots A land founded by religious extremists pilgrims Not Pilgrims fleeing persecution But pilgrims seeking freedom to persecute One of our earliest cultural memories Burning women at the stake
A country built on the back of theft, genocide, slavery, and broken promises
And then arming ourselves to the teeth to protect against the coming retribution Even if it costs us our children
Choosing once was folly Choosing twice was choice
Driving through Michigan the day before the signs were all for her While in Ohio, it was all for him
Melissa says “do you really hate me that much,” a cry into the dark Alyssa says “I want to come with you to the UK,” only half in jest. Susan says “ don’t forget about your promise from the last time” referring to marriage and having a plan Sarah says “I don’t know how anyone can vote for her.” And I wonder if I know her at all
Driving through Kansas and then Tennessee the day after all the signs are gone Like tokens of shame and guilt Hidden away in the night the evidence of a hate crime And nobody seems happy in the gas stations and restaurants
Free books Books by the pound Great books for $2.00 Books by local authors Books by those who don’t get into bookshops
Art and tarot UFOs and weed Hunter and Burroughs Billy Bragg and H.L.T. Quan Zines and chaps Stickers and postcards Signed and rare The weird, the silenced, the banned, and the marginal
And poetry So much poetry Enough for a heart-full
A cultural nexus A haven and open to all Events, outreach, and selfless In a town that always has to fight for artistic recognition A town with an inexhaustible capacity to shoot itself in the foot In a country where the National Endowment for the arts is 0.003% of the federal budget A country that needs far more art and far less weapons
How to define a great bookshop? By how much it will be missed.
The Greek word Utopia was brought into common English usage By Sir Thomas Moore His 16th century book of the same name Described an idyllic island of equality A society run for the benefit of is citizens Utopia means literally “no place.” From there it was a hop, skip, and a jump To the word dystopia
How do we know when we are living in a utopia vs. a dystopia?
Can we agree that a minimum quality of any society Never mind a utopia Has to be that it is run for the benefit of its inhabitants?
Anyone feel like they live in a society that is run for their benefit?
If our society is not for its people Then what is it for?
What is the point?
Joseph Schumpeter was an early 20th century political economist He is responsible for the concept of the entrepreneur He also popularized the concept of “creative destruction” That new ideas would lead to the destruction of the old ways of doing things and that it was the driver of growth in an economy That capitalism was an evolutionary process However, he also believed the capitalism would eventually collapse Weakened by the very things that pushed it forward Ending in corporatism run by elites
How do we know when we are living in a utopia vs. a dystopia?
If something is bad for people working in an economy But good for the economy
What is the point?
Who is the economy for?
In the middle of the 20th century, mathematician and, considered by many, the inventor of the modern computer, Alan Turing, proposed the imitation game More commonly known as the Turing test The imitation game was a test for a machine to fool a human into thinking that the machine was human
We are in the midst of the great AI revolution With its promise of freedom from drudgery, and a new generation of tools and productivity
However, art was first
Art the refuge Art the joy bringer Art the context giver
Whose drudgery and productivity is this AI revolution for the benefit of?
How do we know when we are living in a utopia vs. a dystopia?
Technological improvements that don’t bring improvements but just destruction of the things that we most value
What is the point?
There is a surprising lack of reverse Turing tests in this AI revolution A test to separate what is machine regurgitated rather than human created The lack of footnotes with generative AI would seem to be useful addition for a “tool” Stimmed by over protection of algorithmic secrets Or perhaps potential evidence in copyright infringement lawsuits And then there is the insistence on the marketing friendly term “A.I” Rather than the more accurate machine learning
Machine learning is what humans have previously created Scraped from the internet Stuffed into a blender And output to decent summarization engines and lukewarm guessing machines without a thought to copyright and intellectual property
We will sleepwalk into AI invading the workplace Learning from us Getting better because of us Replacing us because it is cheaper But eventually failing because of a lack of new data
We are the Ouroboros The snake eating its own tale From the ancient Egyptian “Enigmatic Book of the Netherworld” From the tomb of Tutankhamun A funerial text of prescience From a people long gone
How do we know when we are living in a utopia vs. a dystopia?
Sam Altman, is the CEO of OpenAI, originally a non-profit focused on AI safety But now a for profit company, that is most widely known for ChatGPT, And the internal infighting over the lies and riches of temptation Altman has said multiple times onstage and in his own blog “AI will most likely lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime, there will be great companies created with serious machine learning.” When Michael Crichton wrote “your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” He was talking about bringing dinosaurs back from the dead, not making poor people poorer and rich people richer.
Tech Bros can’t even make a printer that works
What is the point?
The Artificial Intelligence apocalypse Will not be killer robots who look like Arnold (a lot less of those kinds of movies of late for those not paying attention) The Infopocalypse will be algorithmically incoherent An internet of machines talking to machines Manipulating and obfuscating to the highest bidder “Alexa, “should I leave my wife” Answered by averages and random chance The opinion of machines more important than the opinions people The death of the internet as a tool is probably already here With Reddit the default result on Google for almost everything Since when did Reddit become the arbiter of truth?
How do we know when we are living in a utopia vs. a dystopia?
According to Greek myth When Pandora opened a box in the care of her husband All the evils of the world were released Slamming it shut too late she trapped hope in the box
We live in a world of technologies that are artificially limited Or forced into failure For the benefit of “society” rather than the people in that society Copyright only seems to matter to those who can punch downwards Your iPhone can’t have a headphone jack So we can sell you Bluetooth headphones for hundreds of dollars Our books, movies, and music are not owned But at the whims of a subscription model and changing licensing agreements Cloud based document sharing to put paid to paper And those pesky printers Selling ink that costs more than the printer was just not quite good enough
The promise of lies The lies of promise
What is the point?
If we can limit and implement technology for benefit of corporations, billionaires, and the status quo it can be limited and implemented for people
Are we in a pot of slowly boiling water?
The fable goes, that a frog will jump out if placed in a pot of boiling water But will be slowly cooked alive if placed in cool water that is incrementally heated However, what actually happens if you place a frog into boiling water, is that it dies And if you place a frog into cool water, it jumps out because it can
Can we jump out of the pot, or have we already been dumped into the boiling water? Not using AI will require the courage of our convictions That being creative does not always have to be destructive That moving fast and breaking things just leads to broken things That societies should be for the benefit of all the people inside them And that we all get to decide what the point is
Word Outlet 