Apr 21 2026

some funny bits from Tim Dorsey’s The Maltese Iguana

“I don’t need to read anything to know what I’m talking about!” / “In one sentence you’ve just summed up everything wrong wtih our country today!”  p152

“A few short years ago, we could look at a drinking glass and agree it was filled to the midpoint with water, then argue about what it meant.  But today?  Good lord!  We all look at the same glass now, and it’s either A: half-full, or B: a squirrel.”  p153

“Entertainment,” said a smiling Serge.  “I love watching when assholes hit a wall.  their brains aren’t wired for anything that can’t be solved with shittiness.”  p214

“After all, a woman was being savagely attacked …  Something needed to be done.  So everyone swung into action and turned on their cell phone cameras.”  p226

“So,” said Serge.  “What do you like in a man?” / “Absence.”  p260

 

Apr 12 2026

Suppose two married women …

Suppose two married women get jobs outside the home at the same time, forcing their husbands to hire someone to do the cooking, cleaning, and childcare.  Ten hours/day, 5 days/week, at $20/hr.  It’s a lot to afford, but the men have so-called ‘breadwinner’ salaries.

Suppose it turns out that Emma is hired by Alyssa’s husband (on Alyssa’s recommendation) and Alyssa is hired by Emma’s husband (on Emma’s recommendation).

And they’re both really enjoying their evenings off and their $52,000/yr incomes.

Apr 02 2026

Who’s ethically responsible for an AI’s behavior?

Excellent question.  One I’ve thought about (as a philosopher and an ex-ethics consultant) and raised here.

One might suggest that an AI is like a gun, and ‘we’ve’ always argued that those who create guns and bombs should not be held responsible for how they’re used.  Not sure about that, but regardless, an important difference is that a bomb doesn’t have agency.  Well, I guess not until now.

So it’s more like the issue of whether we should hold parents responsible for their kid’s behaviour.

I’m leaning toward yes.  Especially since most people, and AI techies, create children and AI agents without having any qualifications whatsoever regarding child or AI development, and that includes MORAL development.

 

 

Apr 01 2026

Suppose by some biochemical quirk …

Suppose by some biochemical quirk, the hormones we’ve been feeding cows inhibits testosterone in humans, so the more meat men eat, the weaker they become.

Suppose that within a year, males lost their 30% physical strength advantage over women.

What would happen?

Mar 23 2026

Naomi Alderman’s The Power meets Monty Python’s “Hell’s Grannies”

A man struts and huffs and puffs and expands like a blowfish, but all the old women close their eyes. Deny him the female gaze. Refuse to be a witness to his Almighty Greatness, let alone a cheerleader.

And not only does he deflate, he disappears in a puff of, well, nothingness. Existential nothingness. Beauvoir would be delighted.

Camus would be pissed though.

Cool. So … very cool.

Yeah, it’s not that we’ve stopped reflecting men at twice their size, thank you Dale Spender and Sally Cline; we’ve stopped reflecting them at all.

*

She kills him.

WTF!

He consented. She paused. Did anyone hear him say ‘No’?

Next time she drugs him. Then kills him.

WTF!

He consented. She poked at his inert body. He didn’t resist.

Next time, she asks him. I’d really like to kill you.

What?

Do you consent?

What?

She looks at the others. I swear half of them are too stupid to live.

She shoots him.

WTF!

Relax, no one saw me. I’m an old woman. Invisible.

Unfuckable.

Same thing.

Yeah.

Mar 08 2026

The blink. This is perfect.

“She blinks at me. … The blink isn’t confusion. It’s not processing. It’s a screensaver. It’s her brain going into standby mode because the incoming information doesn’t match the preset programming.”

from a repost with no author name

 

 

Mar 08 2026

“… these guys have no idea how stupid they look.”

“The camera closes in on two cops standing beside the tank, each with an assault rifle.  Both weigh over three hundred pounds.  One is wearing a uniform of green-and-gray camouflage, as if he were hunting deer in the woods.  The other is wearing a uniform in brown-and-beige camouflage, as if he were hunting insurgents in the desert.  These two clowns are standing in the driveway of a suburban home about fifteen minutes from downtown, in a well-developed city of a million people, and they’re wearing camouflage.  The sad and scary thing about this image is that these guys have no idea how stupid they look.  Instead, they’re proud, arrogant.  They’re on display, tough guys fighting bad guys.”   from Rogue Lawyer, John Grisham (p125)

Mar 03 2026

Claude’s Constitution

https://www.anthropic.com/constitution

I’m half way through and just can’t …

To this point, I have two questions:

1. Have any of the authors prepared a comparable constitution for their own child/ren?  If not, why not?  If so, could I read it?

2. Have any of the authors taken just ONE philosophy course in Ethics?

 

 

Mar 02 2026

Non-Experts are Training AI

https://www.darioamodei.com/essay/the-adolescence-of-technology

The really scarey thing is that those who are training AI have themselves no training in training.   No Education degree.

Let alone a Psychology degree and a Philosophy degree.  And they’re juggling concepts like autonomy and morality?  WTF?!

And considering the range of applications (unlimited), it’s alarming that they have no Humanities knowledge.  Nor Social Science knowledge.  Nor even Physical Science.

They’re coders.  Guys who’ve lived in their parents’ basements for most of their lives.  And do what they do either for the giggles or the money.

Successfully “growing” a human being (a member of their own species) should be a prerequisite for these guys.  Have any of them done that?  Even just 10 hours a day?

‘Raising’ an AI is like raising a child with no nervous system (no capacity to feel pain) (and so no basis for empathy) and, of course, no morality.  Oh, and a super-IQ that’s off the charts.  Who among us is up to that task?  I mean, what can possibly go wrong?  (And did I mention doing it FOR THE MONEY?)

But what we’re seeing is a bunch of guys just fuckin’ around.   (And why am I surprised at their … unpreparedness?  When they fuck around with their meat-dicks and through utter negligence fertilize an egg, do they step up?  No.  So many just … walk away.)

 

 

Mar 02 2026

What if the typical worker’s pay had risen like CEO’s pay?

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/what-if-the-typical-workers-pay-had