mental health – The Books are Taking Over…

AI in America – A Critique

As someone who has worked in IT for… well, almost 30 years now, I have generally embraced new technology as it arrives. Certainly there have been trends in the industry that I have not been enthusiastic about at all, such as the domination of the software market by subscription models which require you to pay a monthly or a yearly fee. That trend has also led to software makers not selling software on a CD anymore, and that led to computer makers not putting CD-ROM drives in computers anymore. I am not a fan. I also dislike the trend that makes devices smaller and thinner at the cost of said devices not having 3.5 mm headphone jacks or ethernet ports or even many ports at all. It means that to connect things that used to be quite standard (like a printer, or a network cable) you now have to buy an adapter or a dock of some sort (unless it’s Bluetooth or wireless). And that’s annoying to me.

But the hands-down worst thing (in my opinion) that the technology industry has embraced in recent years is AI, or as the orange moron in the White House and his sycophants like to call it, SI [I don’t particularly care what he calls it and so I will continue to call it AI and risk the ire of Trump and MAGA everywhere]. There are a lot of reasons I dislike AI: it has been vastly oversold to the public in terms of what it can actually do accurately; it is costing a truly gigantic amount of money and so far has not shown much return-on-investment (in fact it seems to have all the makings of a big financial bubble); the technology is supposed to put a lot of people out of work, and many companies are already using AI as an excuse to trim their workforce; far too many people in the industry are pushing uses of the technology out without thinking of the constitutional, ethical, and legal implications of what it does (not to mention them not having any real plans to deal with the rapidly mounting instances of misuse of the technology); and finally, the tech CEOs and billionaires pushing all this absolutely DO NOT have the best intentions towards democratic societies, civilization, and the overwhelming majority of the human race. They are out for themselves and don’t care about democracy. They want to accumulate as much money and power as possible before everything falls apart. So no wonder they have embraced Trump so quickly. The speed at which data centers and AI-based surveillance technology is being pushed out in the United States should absolutely be cause for alarm, and not just because they cause a host of environmental problems as well as consume obscene amounts of electricity and fresh water. They also play a huge role in the domination of cultural and societal narratives on media and social media. That’s why some people freaked out so much when Ukraine destroyed Russian data centers. The attacks showed that much of the traffic on social media (and probably millions of Elon’s followers, for example) are actually bots. Traffic and number of followers determine things like ad revenue for social media platforms. The guy who used to go on and on about how he wanted to get rid of all the bots on the social media platform he wanted to buy actually benefits from millions of bot accounts on his platform because they pay monthly subscription fees to get blue checkmarks and as long as he gets paid and they drive the messages that he agrees with (and they most certainly do) he won’t do anything about them.

Also, AI has become such a huge part of surveillance technology that the cameras that use AI to help identify license plates (known as ALPR or ANPR cameras generally) have inspired a whole new social movement that is very anti-surveillance state: websites (such as deflock.org) dedicated to showing you exactly where the cameras are located; helpful instructions on how to fight the companies trying to put up the cameras in your community; some folks are just cutting all the cameras in their community down; some people are using expandable foam insulation to disable the cameras without even having to remove them; some people make signs with very long poles to block the cameras. It’s fascinating to see the creativity as well as the fact that people are all across the ideological spectrum in their opposition to the cameras.

But despite this encouraging collective effort against AI surveillance, some of the kids are not alright. There seems to be a growing trend in which young people are using AI for virtually anything and everything. And their parents, for the most part, have no idea what their kids are doing with AI. Kelly and I personally overheard a conversation in our little Vermont town between a parent and their tween-aged kid in which the kid insisted that AI was their friend. Kids, at least broadly, do not have the ability to determine the difference between real emotions and the emotions simulated by a chatbot. They don’t have the experience and judgment to question the answers AI gives them. And they certainly don’t realize that chatbots are basically intended to agree with you all the time because the designers made them that way to encourage more use. So AI will tell you that you are right even when it comes to encouraging destructive or suicidal behavior. Even AI bots specifically designed for mental health purposes have failed when dealing with suicidal users. Parents of tweens and teenagers who become emotionally dependent on AI bots, as well as those with younger kids should try to be wary and informed when it comes to AI and their kids’ interactions with it.

So if you want to use AI to do your homework for you, or if you want to hand your creative impulses over to it and let it do all your writing and thinking for you, be my guest, but don’t expect me to support you by enthusiastically embracing the technology and the slop that it generates as “literature” or “art” or anything of the sort. I think it’s crap. And I think that techbro billionaires would LOVE to not have to worry about paying salaries and benefits to human beings if they could just buy robots or AI tokens to do all the work instead. But I will keep insisting that my books and music and movies be made by people, and I hope society will ultimately agree with me.

-Geoff

Second Class

Today the United States made approximately 52% of the population second class citizens. In doing so, it removed any doubt as to whether or not the US is a first world nation. Any nation that is so corrupt as to allow the system designed to keep different branches of the government both separate and in check to rot away completely is a failed state.

Overturning Roe isn’t just about the overweening hatred of women and pregnant people that is foundational to the Republican/Fundamentalist/Catholic/White Supremacist/Billionaire/Toxic Cis Hetero-normative hegemony in this nation. It’s about fear and control. It is not and has never been about the unborn. If it was, prenatal care would be both funded and required, and people who neglected pregnant people’s healthcare would actually suffer consequences. But they don’t.

There is no pro in the “pro-life” movement. The anti-choice movement was created as a political movement to unite historically opposed allies so Republicans could get elected. That’s it. That’s the “pro-life” movement. It’s a con, and a very successful one.

If you think you’re virtuous because you’re screaming at people going in and out of Planned Parenthood, the vast majority of whom are receiving basic medical care regardless of sex or gender, you’re just being a judgmental asshole. If you think it’s acceptable to tell people that “women just shouldn’t be able to kill babies” then you don’t understand science, and you’re still an asshole. If you think someone who has been raped should be required to carry their rapist’s potential offspring to term, you’re certainly not getting your advice on morality from Jesus, and you’re an asshole.

The truth is, abortion is not mentioned in the Christian Bible. Other faiths, such as Judaism and Islam, actually value the lives of their adherents and consider abortion to be necessary medical care to save the lives of the already born. You know, those of us in whom society has already invested. In other words, the lives of actual people.

But here in the United States a small group of very wealthy, very white nominally Christian people have hoodwinked many of you and outright fucked the rest of us. They play on your fears. They turn your basest instincts about in-groups, out-groups, skin color, and sex, into weapons and then use them against you. Really, to a large extent this isn’t even about Democrats or Republicans, this is about Oligarchs. Because at the end of the day, if you have a uterus and you’re rich, you’ll be able to get necessary medical care, like an abortion, no matter what.

It’s the ordinary people, the rest of us, that will suffer, as we do now. We suffer in a failed nation with no nationalized health care; institutionalized racism and sexism; homophobia and transphobia; ableism and systemic and cultural indifference to the disabled; and with a huge part of the population that genuinely believes that it is really OK to hate loudly and proudly. We suffer with the largest incarcerated population in the “civilized” world, and we have an epidemic of gun violence unlike any other country on earth.

Roe is the first, but it won’t be the last. While we’re all angry now, let us make today important not because of what we lost, but because of what we begin. Let today be the day that historians recognize as the beginning of the revolution. Oligarchs, we are coming for you. Everyone else needs to get on the correct side of history, or else fall with the Oligarchs. They are going to wish we only had torches and pitchforks.

On not giving a damn

Disclaimer: Geoff loathes this movie and book upon which it is based. That’s not why I am posting it here. That’s just a bonus. (Love you, sweetie.)

The scene above is important for one really major reason. For all of their ups and downs and crazy drama, Rhett no longer cares for Scarlett. At all. He doesn’t love her, he doesn’t hate her, he just doesn’t care.

This is probably where I should warn you that this post is about unpleasant things. Trauma, PTSD, abuse – a lot of stuff. Turn back here should you need to. Likewise, for a variety of reasons, what I’m going to write may be a bit opaque with oblique references. This is necessary. I apologize for the confusion.

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Malignant Narcissism and Subjective Reality: a primer

For several years now I’ve seen people wringing their hands about Donald Trump over one specific thing that I intrinsically understand about him but that most people seem unable to. It was evident in his campaign and has only become more evident since his sham of an election: Trump lives in his own extremely subjective reality. If you’re on Twitter and you read @docrocktex26 then you know what I’m talking about.

Donald Trump is a raging, decompensating, malignant narcissist. It was obvious during his campaign and it has become so obvious now that it would be painful to watch if he wasn’t also such a horror of a human being and in a position to destroy so many lives as his own falls apart around him.

I’ll go ahead a put the disclaimer here now: I’m not a doctor, psychologist, social worker, or other medical or mental health professional. I am someone who’s had 25 years of experience dealing in my own life with a malignant narcissist. I can spot them quickly now and I have seen what they’re like, especially when they have a secondary diagnosis which aggravates the first. In Trump’s case that appears to be Alzheimer’s or a form of dementia.

Here’s why all of this is important. The media, the general public, and lots of folks in the government keep asking the same questions over and over again. “Why does he lie so obviously? Doesn’t he know we can fact check him? Why does he say outlandish and patently, provably wrong things? Who does that? When will it stop?” Pro Tip: It won’t.

The answer is not that Donald Trump has some special disregard for the truth or the rules. The answer is not that he’s extra stupid (he’s just garden variety stupid, folks). The answer is that someone who is that serious a narcissist constructs a world view in which the only thing that matters is what they think, say, and do. That means that his entire reality is subjective and fluid. If he says that he talked to the Boy Scouts, then he did so. If he says that Heather Heyer’s mother loved what he said, in his mind she did. Even if the call never really happened. When lies are pointed out to him he simply waves them away. We are in the wrong, you see.

It’s hard to explain this to neuro-normative folks and those who haven’t seen a narcissist up close in person and in action, but these people are so good at manipulation that they believe their own lies to the exclusion of all else. Because deep down their own psychological injury and ego steers everything they do, they fit the world around them to to their own narrative. Most importantly, narcissists are completely devoid of empathy. While some of you may have heard that said, the ramifications of what it means regarding subjective reality are incredibly important.

Someone like Trump understands himself to be the center to his own universe. His family, children, wife and ex-wives, and grandchildren are, at best, extensions of his own ego. They are trophies to be held up and stared at and to be shoved aside and ignored when inconvenient. He is not capable of actually loving them and they are a means to an end to be used when he needs them, ignored or worse when he doesn’t.

Putin, on the other hand, is a goal. Putin himself could be anyone in the world, who he is as a person doesn’t really matter. What he represents is everything. He is a crime kingpin, the leader of a massive country that he controls with iron grip, and he is the wealthiest man on the planet. For Trump, attaining the presidency of the United States was really a booby prize by comparison. What he wants, more than he’s ever wanted anything, is to be the richest, sexiest, baddest, blondest, strongest, most terrifying man in the entire world. His continued relationship with Putin proves that he is willing to do anything to get to where he perceives Putin to be.

Do I agree that Putin is “richest, sexiest, baddest, blondest, strongest, most terrifying man in the entire world?” While it’s more than probable that he’s the richest man in the world, I don’t agree with the rest. Most westerners won’t. But Putin projects the exact image that Trump has created in his own mind about himself. So he’ll stop at nothing to achieve and reinforce that goal (especially as he ages and his Alzheimer’s makes it more difficult to sustain his own self image). This includes treason, sedition, and more prosaic things like joining forces with white supremacists, Nazis, and neo-Confederates.

At his core is this malignant narcissist a racist and bigot? Yes. And no. Oh, I’m quite sure he was gleefully taught racism, sexism, homophobia, and hatred at his father’s knee. There are reports going back to his elementary school days of Trump being a bully. But we have to remember that with someone who is a narcissist we’re working with more than a learned behavior. There was more going on when he was finally forced by his staff to read his too late, too short condemnation of what happened in Charlottesville last weekend, and that’s this: he fundamentally doesn’t care about anyone other than himself. He can’t, he lacks the basic programming to do so and doesn’t care to try to learn how.

Bigotry is a super convenient vehicle for a narcissist to express a general disdain for anyone who isn’t them. A narcissist on the level of Trump is so emotionally stunted and isolated from the rest of us that hate is easy. Hate is a tool. Choosing to “other” the rest of us and make us the enemy, use us as tools to achieve a particular goal, or simply destroy us for fun isn’t a hard decision to make. For Trump, deciding to allow or encourage the deaths of peaceful protesters, students, bystanders, or anyone else not integral to his need to become Putin 2.0 is simpler than choosing which tie to wear.

If my experience is any indication, he’s only going to get worse. He’s only going to get less in touch with objective reality and he’ll isolate himself more by tossing more and more members of his inner circle under the proverbial bus. While I’d be happy to see Bannon, Miller, and the Gorkas without the protections afforded by their jobs, the only way we get Trump out of the White House is legally. His frothing Nazi base has been given the green light and they will continue to show up in parks across America to preach hate until we stop them, one rally at a time.

Our job is to keep our eyes on the ball, remembering that sometimes this game has more than one ball in the air at a time. We need to fight the Nazis while calling them what they are. We need to follow the Russia scandal and keep it in the news, this is what will get him. We need to support each other, none of us can be on all the time, this is exhausting. And, most importantly, we need to keep the pressure on. While Trump is the head of the snake, this is a long snake with deep roots in American history. We need to pull the whole thing out before we can begin to heal and fix this country.

~Kelly

I think Cersei is the Trump of Westeros

It’s been a while since I have written anything about Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire. I have been struggling to figure out what to talk about. Then the other day Kelly and I were talking, and it occurred to me that Donald Trump and Cersei Lannister actually have quite a bit in common.

Separated at Birth? Wait, no. That's just gross. Never mind. — Separated at Birth? Wait, no. That’s just gross. Never mind.

Follow my logic, if you will.

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Gratitude & Grief

Life is always a mixture of the bitter and the sweet, the dark and the light, the gratitude and grief. I admit that I often focus on the bitter parts to the exclusion of all else. That is in large part due to the fact that a large portion of my 20’s and almost all of my 30’s have been spent dealing with one crisis or another and, last year, dealing with death after death. That, and the way that people treat you, tends to color one’s outlook on the world a bit. Depression doesn’t help either.

That being said, this year is turning out to be one of the best in a long time. Despite losing Bucky last week, things seem to be looking up for us.

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AIR, Empty Shoes, and Coming Out

I’ve been thinking for a very, very long time about writing this post. Years, actually. Part of it has been the courage of Jenny Lawson, The Bloggess, that’s allowed me to even think about doing it, part of it has been the necessity of living a life that is so controlled by this somewhat hidden part of myself, and part of it is that I feel more and more like I’m lying by not being open.

Truthfully, there’s still a huge stigma. I have lost at least one job because of it. I have family who flatly refused to believe me when I told them. Interestingly, it was an email I received from a friend at Harvard yesterday that made me realize that not only did I want to spread the word about the contents of her email, it was the perfect venue through which I could finally open up and come out of the mental illness closet.

My name is Kelly Hopkins and I am mentally ill. I have Major Depression, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and PTSD.

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Things you should be reading right now

Yes, we know that at midnight tonight you’ll be dressed up and in a theatre seeing Star Wars. (We’re waiting to see it with our nephews and niece after Christmas.) But, this is some of the stuff that we’re reading right now. We think you should be reading it too.

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