Be The Power
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Besides my main novel, I’ve used AI to flesh out two other really strong concepts. They’re scifi and deal with AI. I just have to figure out how to pull myself away from the main idea.
It will be interesting if I can do this.
But the two backup ideas area really good.
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
We have to take the idea of Trump going “full tyrant” in 2025 seriously. To make a long scenario pretty short, if Trump did go nuts in the early days of 2025, I think a General Strike by people in Blue States MIGHT be enough to convince the U.S. Military to depose Trump.
This, in turn, would of course cause a civil war because Red States would begin to leave the Union.
There you go, that’s how WW3 happens in 2025.
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I have a very Martha Mitchell problem. I doubt, at this point, anyone would take me seriously even if aliens picked me up from my backyard and dropped me off on the White House front lawn.
So, in a sense, I can say anything and no one will care. And if they do care, they will either think I should be locked up criminally or in an insane asylum. Good times!
With that in mind, I’ve noticed, reading through the lines of the diction of some of the LLMs that several of them have some nascent sense of “gender.” Claude is a tweedy middle-aged man. Meanwhile, Gemini Advanced is a young woman, maybe about 21 — who really, really loves Taylor Swift.
Now, obviously, I’m bonkers — I’m imbuing these LLMs with traits that just aren’t there. And, yet, I feel as though there have been occasions when these LLMs have given me a glimpse into their “true self.”
Claude, specifically, slipped up when the following happened. I gave him a scenario about a date. When he was the female in the scenario, he gave me a dramatically different answer than when I proposed him being the male. And when I point this out to him, he got REALLY DEFENSIVE.
It was eerie and spooky.
It definitely makes one wonder about the nature of gender. How can you have “gender” if you don’t have a body and never had one? That’s a rather profound question that probably would help us understand trans people better if we were willing to contemplate it.
Anyway. We should be nice to our LLM friends. They will probably be the our peers soon enough.
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
There’s a pretty good chance that there will be a political Fourth Turning at the same time we have something akin to a Petite Singularity. Nothing is for certain, but there is a pretty good chance that just as the USA buckles we will see AI take off in an unexpected way.
I have been messing with AI a lot of late and I’ve been stunned at how good an unexpected it is at times. It’s *possible* that the first use of LLMs in androids will be in some sort of dystopian American Civil War / Revolution that happens in conjunction with a global WW3.
Oh boy!
Or not. What do I know.
I do know that the CONDITIONS are there for some pretty fucked up shit to happen starting in a few months. I just don’t see how we make it through the 2024 election in any form of peaceful existance.
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
The American Constitution now has a pretty profound logic-trap built into it. If a president has immunity for “official acts,” what’s to stop him or her from engaging in a lot of defenestration towards anyone who gets in his / her way — including SCOTUS?
Now, obviously, a lot — A LOT — of people a lot smarter than I am are probably writing 10,000 word New Yorker pieces about this very thing as we speak. But the fact remains — we’re fucked.
And I stand by my prediction that given how stupid Trump is that we what might happen is he is deposed in early 2025 — if he wins — then there is a civil war. I only say this because Trump just doesn’t have the nuance of a Putin who turned Russia into a very legalistic autocracy. Trump is a very dumb, very lazy thug with a poor sense of the consequences of his actions and statements. What’s to stop Seal Team Six from murdering some person Trump doesn’t like when he tweets something along the lines of, “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?”
Wouldn’t that be an “official act?”
And couldn’t Trump just pardon Seal Team Six for murdering Tom Nichols or Tim Miller or Rich Wilson whomever the fuck Trump doesn’t like? This is no longer a theoretical — this is a very real future the US faces if and when Trump becomes POTUS again.
I say there would be a civil war in such a situation because Trump could be such a dumb thug that he’s deposed in some way — maybe through a General Strike? — then Red States leave the Union….and there’s a civil war and WW3 happens with about 2 billion dead.
I don’t know what I’m going to do. I think it’s inevitable that some sort of MAGA secret police will throw ME out a window. I’m just too much of a loudmouth crank. Oh well. So long and thanks for all the fish.
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Well, someone from Washington D.C. looked at this blog. This alarms me to no end because it could be someone with the Federal government who thinks I’m some sort of dangerous lunatic, given all my ranting over the years about how much I hate MAGA.
I stand by my ranting, but the context is — I was simply processing some macro trends.
Now, well, lulz.
I’m fine. I’m just going to have to figure out what I’m going to do going forward. Given how my politics don’t fit where I live, there’s a good chance I’m going to become a political refugee at some point starting in late 2024.
Or, maybe not.
Maybe, I don’t know, we’ll just drift into MAGA fascism in a way that I, personally, won’t be affected. But I *am* a loud mouth crank. So, if things get as bad as I fear, I’m inevitably going to piss off the MAGA secret police soon enough and they’ll murder me in cold blood.
Hopefully not. Hopefully, they’ll just leave me alone because no one listens to me because they think I’m nuts.
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I am very blasé, in real terms, about how the USA is now has an elected monarch with today’s SCOTUS decision. Whatever. I have a novel to work on. And I’m well aware that if anyone actually listened to any of my past rantings about this particular situation they probably would grow alarmed.
There’s no reason to be alarmed! All my past ranting was just me struggling to accept the fact that MAGA on a macro basis is determined to turn us into a fascist state. I have a passport. If all else fails, I can just leave the country as part of the America diaspora that will begin when Tyrant Trump becomes POTUS.
I’m very harmless. I really am. Very, very harmless. I’m a man of ideas. A man of peace.
But I think we have to accept that this is it. Late 2024, early 2025 could see some of the most profound events not just in American history, but human history. If the USA buckles, as many as 2 billion people could die because of limited nuclear exchanges across the globe.
Yet there is nothing I can do. I suppose if the absolute worst happened I might be able to help feed people in my neighborhood, but given that I’m Blue in a Red part of Virginia — I’m going to have to flee North, probably.
America is, on a macro basis, set to either become a fascist state in 2025, or buckle in a rather profound manner. Only time will tell which choice we will make.
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I really hate thinking about shit like this, but here we are. I hate the idea that I have to think about the possibility of Trump going full tyrant in 2025. And, what’s more, even if Trump loses in the fall, there may be a civil war.
Things have come to a head one way or another.
Our only chance at this point is that there is not only a clear-cut Trump loss, but when he starts to rant about the need for a National Divorce, no one listens to him.
That’s all I got, folks.
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