Month: February 2023

Of AI & Dave Chappelle

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Something about how Twitch freaked out over how the AI generated Seinfeld “forever episode” said some pretty dumb anti-gay, anti-liberal and anti-trans jokes I find alarming. It’s not so much the jokes themselves that are at issue, but the idea that there was such a kneejerk reaction when it came to something dumb that an AI did.

Dave Chappelle

I’m extremely sex-positive and I honestly don’t give a shit what you do with your body as long as everyone is of age and it’s consensual. Love is love and all that. What bothers me is this incident feeds into the MAGA narrative that the “woke cancel culture mob” wants to turn everyone gay.

It’s already a struggle for me to talk to me Traditionalist relatives about ANYTHING without having to spend 10 minutes hearing from them about how the “woke cancel culture mob” wants to “groom” little kids. It’s all part of the broader “Gay Scare” that we’ve been living through the last few years. It sucks, yes, but that doesn’t change that there are are well meaning Christians who still think being gay is a “sin” and no longer believe in democracy because of the “gay agenda” of “woke people.”

What if the AI was, instead of doing rather bland Seinfeld-like jokes was programmed to do a never-ending Dave Chappelle-like set? It seems in today’s “woke” environment that that would be damn near an impossible thing to do. All of this is very corrosive and makes me fear that when the time comes in late 2024, early 2025 that it will be a near foregone conclusion that the United States will either slip peacefully into autocracy or have a National Divorce that prompts a civil war.

This is also sort of a quintessential “chatbot bias” issue. The very thing that the “woke cancel culture mob” freaks out about — telling jokes about gay people — is the very thing that MAGA wants to wallow in. And if they can’t get an AI to write a poem praising Trump, they’re going to want regulation to force the issue. Remember, Trump to this day crows over how he was able to get people to say “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays.”

So, chatbot “bias” is just the sort of thing that MAGA is going to scream about at the top of their lungs at some point in the very near future. It could be just a matter of days before Trump or DeSantis picks up the “chatbot bias” standard and starts to scream about how this is just another thing that the “woke cancel culture mob” want to use to “groom” little kids to be gay.

UGH.

These are macro trends were dealing with and there really is nothing we can do about it. Either American democracy survives the 2024 presidential cycle, or it doesn’t. In other words — we’re fucked.

It Was A Long Time Ago & Nobody Cares Anymore

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing about my time in South Korea as an expat is, for one brief shining moment I was a somebody. I felt like I lived up to my “potential” because I was not only DJing at the best expat bar in Seoul, I was — at one point — the publisher of the only English language magazine in the city.

The events that left me emotionally kneecapped all happened in the course of a less than a year from late 2006 to early 2007, though there was an extended epilogue that would finally see everything come crashing down in February 2008.

I’m really leaning into my very, very romanticized memories of my time as an expat to flesh out a six novel project that is meant to be something of an allegory about the Trumplandia Era.

The thing that is growing more and more alarming is, of course, the fact that I’m no longer young. My looming 50th birthday is causing me no end of existential angst. Now that I finally have both ambition and motivation I’m kind of stuck with one clear path as to how to pull myself out of oblivion — stick the landing when it comes to writing my first novel.

But even then, even under the best of circumstances, it could very well be in my mid-50s before I actually see any sort of improvement in my lot. And, as I keep saying, if I get what I want, I don’t get what I want. I could write a successful breakout first novel and I’ll be so old that I won’t be able to date 24 year olds and become a smug “bi-costal” Twitter liberal who looks down on the Poors of middle America from first class on my way to LA or NYC.

I suppose some of all of this is coming from how I’m finally transitioning from the wilfully delusional stage of working on this novel to the point where I kind of have to sit up straight and take things a lot more seriously. Publishing is an industry and me being delusional just isn’t going to cut it in the world of the cold hard metrics of actually getting a novel traditionally published.

Anyway.

The point is — I still have a lingering desire to return to Asia for at least one visit before I drop dead. It’s not going to be anything like I remember and, in fact, it might just be really boring. A lot of the reason why I think about Seoul so much says more about my dissipated youth than it does what actually happened in Seoul.

Ugh.

Crooked Media Needs To Grow Up

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve enjoyed listened to the Crooked Media podcast network since the beginning, but it’s beginning to have some growing pains. I’m talking specifically of how it continues to have the core Crooked team of hosts read their adveristments.

Would you take media advice from this ding-dong on the right? (Me.)

This made sense back when they were a plucky startup, but now…not so much. Time to put on your big boy pants, guys. Hire someone to read the fucking ads, your lackadaisical approach to something as important as reading ads is starting to be embarrassing.

What’s more, it just doesn’t make any sense for Crooked to use its hosts to read ads. There needs to be a wall of some sort between editorial and advertising, just like in a traditional news organization. If it’s not just you and your bud doing a podcast, but rather an actual company….maybe hand off reading ads to professionals?

As an aside, I wonder if maybe Crooked Media would be interested in merging with the Vox Media company. Seems like that might be a very complimentary merger. But, what do I know. Whatever. No one listens to me.

The Second Draft of My First Novel Continues To Move Forward

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

At this specific moment, I’m editing and reworking the first act of the second draft of my first novel. Things are going pretty well other than the fact that I fear the novel is going to be too fucking long.

My fear about this is so strong that it’s really encouraging me to also work on one of the other, scifi, novel concepts I have rolling around in my head. The idea is, the more novels I have to query when the time comes, the more likely one of them will get published.

But it’s going to be really tough to pry my attention away from this novel I’ve been working on for so long. Things are going really well with it and the moment it seems like what I may find myself doing is simply editing a lot of writing I’ve already done so it is a cohesive whole that beta readers can read without me embarrassing myself in the process.

Actually going through and reading the novel now is really helping me to plug holes and to see logical inconsistencies that would otherwise make beta readers chuckle if they saw them. So, in a sense, things are movie really fast.

I still believe I can wrap up the second draft by the spring so I can begin the beta reader process no later than, say June 2023. I continue to be in a very unique situation that I know just can’t last forever.

Something, one way or another, is going to change and when that change happens, I might get thrown off my feet for a little while as I adjust to the new conditions. To that extent, I sort of feel like I have a deadline of, well, NOW.

As my 50th birthday approaches, I definitely feel a lot of existential angst. I need to just shut up and write. But, alas, I’m 100% extroverted so that’s not really an option.

This Can’t Go On Forever

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The lingering political crisis that the United States has been experiencing can’t just keep going on forever. Something’s gotta give one way or another. We’re going to have to make a choice of autocracy, civil war or military junta sooner or later.

At the moment, it seems as though the issue is Trump.

If he is the 2024 Republican nominee, then win or lose, the risk of a Second American Civil War increases dramatically. If he ISN’T the nominee, then the United States is probably going to drift peacefully into autocracy under the next Republican president.

The only possible way we might punt this particular problem down the road is if somehow a Democrat is able to win in 2024 without Red States leaving the Union.

That’s it. That’s all I got.

The conditions of Trump being insane and Biden being very, very old are not exactly the greatest for the long-term health of the United States. I continue to worry that I’m going to become one of millions of domestic political refugees in late 2024, early 2025 when it becomes clear that the United States is about to collapse into Red and Blue nations that want to rid themselves of the other.

Now, let me be clear — I hate violence and, lulz, I have a novel I’d like to publish. So, all things being equal, I’d rather us be an autocracy so at least my six novel project that is just want big rant about how much I hate MAGA will be far more culturally relevant.

But we are still too far away for me to have any sense of what is really going to happen. It all depends on Trump. He could very well be seen, because of macro issues, as the man who single handedly stumbled into Great Man status because he destroyed the United States by being a lazy idiot.

Like I said, I hope it’s autocracy, if we have to make a choice.

Thinking Seriously About Implementing A UBI Because Of The Chatbot Revolution

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Up until now I’ve been cool to the idea of a Universal Basic Income outside of using it to replace the social safety net. I’ve been reluctant to embrace UBI because on one hand everyone is really lazy while on the other there are ambitious people who would rather burn the country down than be limited in what they could earn.

But now, with the advent of the looming Chatbot Revolution, I find myself reviewing the need for a UBI.

The use of UBI may be forced upon us a lot sooner than we might otherwise expect, if a “Petite Singularity” happens at some point between now and, say, early 2025. Everything is happening so fast that it could be that the 2024 presidential election is the first in which the use of a UBI becomes something we all talk about.

One way I could maybe see a UBI happening is if we bribed rich people by replacing the Federal Income Tax with a massive 30% VAT. Once fucking plutocrats get what they want, then the UBI can be instituted. But, even then, there would have to be some sort of exceptions so Type A personality people could do their thing.

Maybe, if you had some sort of job that couldn’t be replaced by a chatbot or android, you would get the right to make money over and above whatever the UBI might be? It’s a very curious situation.

I still think it’s possible that all of this may be moot for the time being as we sot out of we’re going to have a civil war, turn into an autocracy or have a military junta. It could be the late 2020s, or early 2030s before we figure out some pretty existential political issues in the United States.

Will My Living In Oblivion For Way Too Long Prohibit Me From Getting Published?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There is the rather dubious claim that “you have to have 15,000 Twitter followers to get a book deal” floating around the writing community on social media, which leads me to wonder if I’m doomed because, well, I’ve been living in oblivion way too long.

It’s kind of deep to think that I could write the fucking Bible but, by definition, because I’m a just a rando living in the middle of nowhere that I can’t get a book deal.

I’m not prepared to believe this to be true, but it something I find myself thinking about a lot these days. I think this is part of a broader acceptance on my part that I’m beginning to leave the wilfully delusional stage of going the traditional route for trying to get my first novel published.

I will note as an aside that absolutely no one I know is supportive of me doing this. Everyone wants, for their own selfish reasons, to go the self-publishing route. No one believes in me enough to even support my dream of being traditionally published.

It sucks.

But I’m prepared to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune on that front. I want to be traditionally published, damn it. Even if it means I could be pushing 60 by the time people have the book in their hands.

Wanting to be traditionally published forces me to have the absolute highest standards possible. It’s the only way I’m going to make my dream a reality.

Forget Turning All The Matter In The Universe Into Paperclips, The Real Issue Is Chatbots Won’t Say ‘The N-Word’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Where to begin with this one. So, rather than hashing out the important implications of the looming chatbot revolution like the potential need for a UBI, here we are fighting over how a chatbot wouldn’t use a racial slur to save millions of people.

For a group of people who grow ever-so-offended at the suggestion that they’re fucking racists, MAGA people sure do think up reasons to use racial slurs out of the blue.

This is so monumentally dumb and so much one of those things that is at the nexus of Incel-MAGA-Pothead culture that the fact that I feel forced to address it makes the whole issue even more grating on the nerves.

The reason why this is so dangerous is it’s simple for idiot MAGA people to process. Remember, for four years the president of the United States ranted about people not saying “Merry Christmas.” So, as such, it’s easy to imagine Trump ranting about how if only chatbots weren’t bias (relative to racist, misogynistic MAGA cocksuckers) there would be peace on earth and America would never again be threatened by a Chinese balloon.

And something something Hunter Biden’s laptop and or peen.

The chatter about “woke chatbot bias” is growing at alarming rate on Twitter. So, logically, even ding-dong Trump is going to eventually pick up the idea of “ending chatbot bias” as a political issue in the 2024 election. The more cultural weight we give chatbots, the more the calls for “regulation” to “end chatbot bias” will grow.

The question of course, is the enteral “who watches the watchers.” If the very idea objective truth doesn’t exist in the minds of MAGA, does that mean the only way you can produce a chatbot that doesn’t have a “bias” is if they are bias in favor of MAGA?

That particular question answers itself, I’m afraid.

So, if we don’t have a civil war starting in late 2024, early 2025, we’re probably going to be an autocracy and, as such, whenever we use a chatbot we’re going to have to wade through it saying the n-word for a few minutes before we get the answer to the question of “why is the sky blue?”

All About ‘Chatbot Bias’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It is beginning to dawn on me what, specifically, has been delaying the chatbot revolution up until now. People like Google wanted their chatbot to be something akin to a utility that was devoid of the nastier elements of the human experience. Because it just did not seem feasible to do it, they decided it wasn’t worth the trouble and kept the technology to themselves.

Then came ChatGPT.

And so we’re now off to the races with something akin to an arms race, to mix metaphors.

With this arms race, the idea of “chatbot bias” is now careening towards the forefront of everyone’s minds because we’re so hyper polierzied that the very thing that Google and others tried to prevent is also the very thing that people on the extreme Right want chatbots to wallow in.

Any hint that a chabot won’t spew on the hate of MAGA talking points is enough to make MAGA cocksuckers freak the fuck out. In fact, we are so close to the Right pivoting away from screaming about Critical Race Theory to screaming about “woke chatbots.”

In fact, I would suggest it’s just a matter of time at this point. As chatbots grow in culture significance as humans defer more and more decisions to an “objective” chatbot, the demands to regulate chabots so they aren’t “woke” is going to grow and grow.

And, in fact, that might be one of the first acts of America’s autocrat at some point after 2025 — demanding legislation that requires chatbots to spew out MAGA taking points and the ever-important poem praising Donald Trump. Ugh.

Now, obviously, the center-Left isn’t exactly innocent in all of this, either. There are elements of the far “woke” Left that will pitch a fit no matter how equitable the chatbot’s answer to the ever-pressing, “what is a woman” question might be.

Or, put another way, rather than solving actual problems, we’re all going to yell at each other for a few years about how “woke” the chatbots that are slowly taking over the world may, or may not, be.

Welcome to the future.

Of Marjorie Taylor Greene & The Potential For A Second American Civil War

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I continue to be alarmed by the political rise of Marjorie Taylor Greene because she’s just the type of person who Trump would pick as his second term Veep. What is so worrisome about her is she is it could be her, not someone like DeSantis, who is able to be the younger, more focused Trump.

MTG

Now, some context — I believe that if Trump is the 2024 Republican nominee that the risk of a Second American Civil War increases dramatically. He is so stupid and yet so popular within the ever-radicalizing MAGA Republican ranks that he could, unto himself, push Blue States out of the Union in late 2024, early 2025.

Or something. Something bad could happen.

What’s worse, Trump is beginning to make noise that if he doesn’t win in 2024, that THAT will be cause for Reds to start a civil war. The key issue when it comes to a potential civil war is it’s most likely to happen if we can’t figure out who POTUS is by January 20th, 2025. If that is still up in the air for any number of reasons, then the one institution that would otherwise stay out of the political fray — the U.S. Military — may be forced to step in for a little while to force cooler heads to prevail.

As such, as I keep saying, there are three possible Bad Things that could happen in 2024 – 2025: autocracy, civil war or military junta.

Anyway, back to MTG.

She’s such a curious mixture of craven buffoonery and political ambition that she definitely reminds me of Hitler. All she has to do is become Trump’s second term veep and she suddenly becomes a potential POTUS. I think everything we fear Trump would do in a second term but might be too stupid to pull off, she would actually be able to do.

Yes, she comes across as an ignorant moron, but she is very, very politically craven from what I can tell. So we need to be weary of her. She’s not going away and she could very well become POTUS.

One thing that is absolutely clear to me — we are careening towards a massive turning point in American history and any number of people we don’t really think about could suddenly become huge historical figures because of an unprecedented political crisis.