Influences

Angry white folks are upset that Horatio Alger is no longer taught in public school. He was, of course, a fictional character, fake even in his own time way over a century ago, as unreal as Sir Lancelot .

Alger represented an ideal that anyone could succeed with luck and pluck. Like Caesar, Washington, Napoleon. More to the point Carnegie, Edison, and Ford. In more modern times Gates, Jobs, Musk. Ruthless, lucky, smart and very hard working to achieve great things from their own effort .

Implication in my tender years was that anyone could do this, just by working hard. Only later did we realize that most of those heroes came from backgrounds of wealth, social status, or unusual training. Even Jobs, now lionized, had a technically employed father who brought home computer stuff when most people had never heard of it .

Influences, contacts – whatever. I am not saying that these paragons did not work hard, did not deserve success. They did. But “merit” as a fairy tale of rags to riches is rarely any more true than any other apology for the wealthy and powerful .

The playing field was never level. Maybe even less so now.

Tao-Chi

Or Shitao – translations are imperfect and names often change with careers. A Chinese painter contemporary with Reubens and Rembrandt who could not be more different. I’ve never really enjoyed Rubens, but I adore Rembrandt as a free spirit. Shitao is much more modern and kin to John Marin .

Whatever visual art may be in its many forms naturally reflects on its culture. Much of the Renaissance work now seems pretty boring in light of cinema, photography, AI, and slick advertising. The “shocking” impressionists are easily imitated by ubiquitous computer programs. What is a painter to do ?

I’ve gone my own way. I accept my various handicaps as part of what makes me unique. I try to correct a few things, work on fluidity and spontaneousness, be creative but not lose touch with the real world as I experience it .

There’s a great satisfaction in that. It’s why I’ve always admired the “literati” tradition. Although often observed in the breach, the ideal was of gentlemen of means who made pictures in their spare time and did not need to sell them. With a bit of philosophy thrown in .

So periodically I pull out my library volumes and admire some nearly life-size color reproductions. It truly helps me relax and create on my own blank sheets of mulberry paper .

A Pound of Prevention

Everyone knows “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. Another one of those wise sayings that seem less useful when applied to your own life .

Oh it’s good to be prepared, and to try to avoid horrible later problems by planning for them and even taking some action to avoid the worst. As a first approximation, it’s hardly bad advice. Filling the gas tank before a long trip across the desert avoids pain and expense .

But these days, there’s a little too much prevention available, and much of that only haphazardly connected to avoiding cures. If you follow every bit of internet advice on diet, for example, no good is likely to result. Much “prevention” rests on flimsy evidence. And genuine “cures” are not all that hard to come by. Pounds of (possible) prevention are hardly worth carrying around to avoid an ounce of cure .

One of the biggest problems, of course, is that advice for the future is based on past experience. In rapidly changing times, the past is hardly the best guide to what will be. Even when we think we are following tradition, the chicken soup we eat today may scarcely resemble that of our ancestors. And honestly, we live in a much different environment from them .

Common sense old proverbs have therefore become suspect. Even though they may sound comforting .

Snowstorm

In this colder than normal winter, another large snowstorm has covered the area. It gives me a chance to reflect on my luck in living when and where I do .

Aboriginal inhabitants of America are often pictured in summer, and described as inhabiting Eden. Early colonists are shown as snug in log cabins. But in fact there was illness and famine, rarely enough heat, and little to do but wait out the season and hope for spring. Even a hundred years or so back there was often no electricity .

I now inhabit paradise. I expect there to be constant warmth, light, entertainment. Too much food, always fresh fruit and vegetables. Medical aid reliably available. People think it’s a great inconvenience to be “stuck at home” for even a day .

Until ten years or so ago I had to shovel a large driveway, but now I just walk behind my machine .

It’s always good to appreciate the best times, the finest weather. But perhaps it is more appropriate to give thanks for our technology and civilization when the natural world is less kindly. This morning I certainly do so .

Ain’t What You Do

As the old song goes “ain’t what you do, it’s the way what you do it.” We have come to recognize the value of those lyrics in these days of a clumsy, brutalist federal government. Maybe what they are doing is not strictly “illegal” – although that is open to question – but the manner in which they carry out activities is simply awful and completely out of step with the traditions of this culture .

The president is a loose cannon. Taking outrageous positions, annoying or horrifying everyone, then forgetting what he was trying to do. His asymptotic hyperbole – anyone who disagrees with his current thinking is foul evil incarnate for a day or so. He must be stroked and praised or he throws a tantrum. We’re not used to that in the US .

And, of course, we have the focal point of ICE, a law enforcement body whose members have no resemblance in appearance nor deed to any police here in the past. To begin with they assume their target is guilty, violent, and vicious (with no evidence whatsoever) and pretend they are engaged in a dangerous heroic act as they haul away frightened men, women, and children whose only fault is to be around when a quota comes due .

There are, and were, civilized and less provocative ways to do this. We used to call it “rule of law” and “due process.” The appropriate terminology now might be “fear and awe”. Or simply “terror” .

Certification

The aristocratic elites always have a reason for their position at the top of society. Once upon a time it was “divine will” or “blue blood”. Now it is “merit” as if each child has an equal chance to become one of the people the elite are looking for in the next generation. What they are looking for mostly is people just like them …

In any system the extremely competent or extremely lucky have a small but finite chance to rise up a class or two. Until recently much of that ladder was financial worth, another favorite tradition of aristocrats .

Meanwhile, the lesser folks also sought some means of security, however humble. Once it was guilds, or the trade your father did. Recently, much was directed at “certification” .

Certification is simply a disguised guild system. In today’s economy and information age it is largely irrelevant. But legal requirements provide a useful barrier to entry to anyone trying to break into the club. Costs and time keep the riffraff at bay almost as well as “merit” insulates the wealthy. Mostly, it services the shrinking “middle class”. Oh, it all works, it seems. Always has. Society needs to use stuff like this to accommodate individuals. But a Martian ethnologist would surely have fun observing and writing its term paper .

Fragile AI Dreams

The WSJ and other media are filled with stories and predictions about the “AI revolution”. Some are utopian, some dystopian, some just weird and crazy. But all seem to have one glaring flaw .

That is the fact that AI – unlike life – is quite fragile. All the scenarios I have read assume that somehow things go on as now – lots of power, a connected grid, open communication, government power, social order, no electronic catastrophe (EMP blast, malware, whatever).

None of that is guaranteed, nor even likely .

I sense it as a lot like the advent of the internal combustion engine. Most dreamers saw it as a replacement for a horse. Some maybe understood it had advantages over steam. But nobody foresaw the social dynamics that ensued. Few even understood what it might do to transportation itself – for example to the road infrastructure .

Right now AI is free and exciting. But it can be easily wrecked. I’m not saying it will be, I’m not pretending I know what’s coming .

But I am sure it will be a lot different than what is currently predicted by both admirers and those who worry .

“Founders”

Kings justified themselves by “divine right”. Dictators claim “the will of the people”. In an era that worships wealth, billionaires claim “merit,” They are, simply, the best and brightest .

There is no doubt that many wealthy people work quite hard. As did many kings and dictators. As does, really almost everybody. And it is fair to believe that some work is good for society, and some irrelevant. Most of us want to believe that our tribe is best, and those who help our tribe should be respected .

Modern economics has become a high risk game requiring great access to capital and power. Like any gamble, it does require knowledge and perseverance. But on the increasingly overweight fringes of the bell curve of wealth distribution, it appears that luck rains supreme .

I respect brilliant people who toil for social good. I am less excited by “capitalists” who shoot dice in often rigged casinos. I do not think a “founder” is a god-like “maker” who always benefits society. I think he/she is often an extremely fortunate son of a bitch who began with a lot of advantages, thought only about winning money, and ignored most of their common humanity. Very like bad kings and evil dictators .

I don’t worry too much about wealth inequality. I do worry about idiots (kings, dictators, billionaires) who believe they are right about everything and should be worshiped by the rest of us.

“Broken Window” Rights

“Broken window policing” is well known. Its logic is that if you tightly punish miniscule crimes, big crimes will decrease dramatically. That approach has been seen to work in large cities, at least for a while .

A similar approach is now being taken in regard to those pesky “rights” government often finds so annoying. Persecute the tiniest infringements of nebulous laws – then resistance against large intrusions on public and private rights will be much less. Alas, that seems to be working as well .

The final meeting place of this is naturally the famous “what is not mandatory is forbidden”. Law and order folks are fine with this as long as the law is on their side. After all, they are the “decent” people .

A problem with “broken widow policing” is that it raises the bar of criminality, as law enforcement knows. A suspect internally certain of being killed will shoot it out rather than ever surrender. We already see most horrific crimes as expansive suicides .

And there is always the age-old human adjustment “might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb”. If I’m going to be harassed for saying something “bad”, I might as well go into all out rebellion mode and do something drastic .

Society is a complex brew of ever-changing adjustments and one shot simple solutions rarely work for long.

Big Eyes

“Your eyes are bigger than your stomach” is an admonition to would-be gluttons surveying a feast. Maybe children eyeing mounds of candy, maybe revelers drinking champagne, maybe elder vacationers at a cruise ship buffet .

The implication is that short-term hedonism and overindulgence will lead to eventual pain and misery. All of us know that this is true in daily life, although unfortunately it is quite easy to ignore common sense .

Ultra-powerful magnates now suffer the same illness. They believe they can do anything of which they conceive. And no matter what visions their eyes view at the moment, their imagination conjures more. More. Bigger, longer, stronger. Candy without end .

I suspect indigestion will follow. Unfortunately, the ultra-powerful can affect us all. The present may be lean as they gobble their resources, but it is entirely possible civilization could collapse in the aftermath .

Most of those industrial paragons are macho males. One wonders if they ever had mothers who warned them about their “big eyes”. Too bad .

They are having their monstrous feast. The rest of us can only fretfully wait for the inevitable outcomes, and the nasty cleanups to follow .