Mutually Assured Destruction 2.0

by C. A. Matthews

Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) --The threat of massive retaliation using nuclear weapons should a potential enemy use them first, both sides being annihilated in the event of war. --Wiktionary

Mutually Assured Destruction 2.0 (MAD 2.0)–The same as above, only this time artificial intelligence technology (AI) plays a dominant role in humanity’s self-annihilation. —C.A.M.

Growing up in the second half of the twentieth century had its challenges. I don’t remember where or when I first learned about the Cold War or the Red Scare, but I recall by the time I hit fourth grade I knew that the “Commies” were to be feared. Why? The Reds had weapons called nuclear bombs, and if they ever decided to drop one or more on the US, that would be the end of me and my family.

A little later in my schooling, I found out that the US also possessed nuclear weapons. In fact we were the first and only country to ever use them on another country, destroying the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This knowledge created a conundrum. Were Americans the “baddies” in this situation for dropping nuclear bombs on Japan—especially for bombing civilians?

I remember learning about “Mutually Assured Destruction” in a high school current events class. My teacher didn’t seem overly concerned, but he didn’t seem too excited about “MAD” as it was nicknamed, either. MAD really was mad or crazy, I came to realize. Who in their right mind would think stockpiling nuclear weapons in order to scare other countries from attacking you—while they in turn stockpile the same kind of weapons—is a good game to play? It makes no sense to me to this day.

Flash forward to last weekend. I attended a workshop entitled, “The AI War Machine: Traditional vs. AI Warfare,” at the Green Party’s Annual National Meeting. The Greens’ motto is “people, planet and peace.” So, what has AI got to do with people, the planet, or making and keeping the peace? Plenty!

If there were AI controlled fighter drones in 1945, would the US have stopped their nuke bombing after only two cities? One reason the US didn’t continued was because human beings flew the planes. Those who witnessed the atomic bombs explode over Hiroshima or Nagasaki found it an awesome experience—meaning they were filled with awe at the tremendous power they had unleashed. It brings up the thought, “Have we gone too far?” Over the decades, more and more have expressed fear, horror, sadness, and regret about what these two atomic bombings did to our fellow human beings.

That’s not a problem if you’re an operator of a “Fury drone”, an AI controlled fighter drone currently manufactured in Pickaway County, Ohio, just south of Columbus. In the 21^st century one lone operator can remotely operate an entire fleet of these “Top Gun” drones. Once over the target, the AI pulls the trigger or drops the bomb as programmed, causing massive death and destruction below.

Little to no guilt, fear, horror, or sadness is generated because there’s only one person handling all the dirty work. This person is more than likely located thousands of miles away from the war zone. They might never see video or evidence of the havoc they’ve wreaked. They might never feel the need to express regret or horror at their actions.

Isn’t advanced military technology great?

 

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Growing The Greens

words and photos by C. A. Matthews

My apologies in advance for the brevity and possible incoherence of this week’s post. I returned home Sunday evening from four days in Chicago at the Green Party Annual National Meeting. Early Monday morning I had a scheduled dental appointment to fix a broken tooth. So, I’m composing this blog article to publish at its usual Tuesday morning time while suffering from the twin effects of exhaustion and painkillers. Here goes nothin’!

My first thought is to post more photos than words about the convention. Yeah, that’s the safest way to go… I took a lot of photos and pages and pages of notes at the various workshops. My bleary-eyed, sleep-deprived brain is still trying to make sense of it all.

I attended workshops on organizing for peace; Uniting for Peace 2.0 (the UNGA resolution for Palestine); AI data centers and how they’re impacting our communities and the environment; Latin America under attack (by the usual suspects); the AI war machine (Or how Peter Thiel’s Palantir, Aduril and Erebor have effectively taken over the US military. It’s very scary as well as they’re bent on destroying our environment.); and the independent media and its role in the resistance (yeah!). You could say that Greens attract some very intelligent and very informative people...

 

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When Is A Person Not A Person?

by C. A. Matthews

This question kept popping up in my mind this week: When is a person not a person? Could it be the particulates in the Canadian wildfires messing with my brain? Probably, but even before the worst of the smoke from up north came rolling into our area giving us a record-breaking 800+ AQI reading (301+ is considered “hazardous”) this question had been bothering me.

When is a person not a person? first came to me after I read an article about artificial intelligence. Many in the Big Tech field claim that AI has obtained “consciousness” and has “feelings” like a normal human being has, and it should be treated as such. However, there’s also a growing number of scientists, psychologists, and others who make the opposite claim.

AI is a sophisticated “large language model” that mimics life, but it isn’t alive. It can’t be conscious, which essentially means it’s able to suffer pain and joy like humans do. A computer with an LLM program has large memory banks and access to the internet, so you can say it has intelligence, but since it doesn’t have consciousness, it can’t put the two together and become what we’d call a person.

AI can’t use all the knowledge in the world it has at its digital fingertips and say, “I know what it feels like to be an AI, and I’m suffering a heartache today.” Well, it could say things like that, but does it actually feel things like a heartache or the loss of a close friend or the joy of eating ice cream on a hot summer’s night or holding your newborn baby for the first time? There’s the rub...

...Sticking with just human beings, however, When is a person not a person? For this next part you must suspend disbelief and consider who persons are through the eyes of the law. The law states quite clearly when a human being is not considered a person or has the rights of a person. It’s confusing because most of us define a person as a human being who possesses consciousness, self-awareness, and the capacity for moral reasoning. But that’s the psychological definition of a person, not the legal one. There is a difference—a big difference...

 

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AI Is Not Your Friend...

 

AI Is Not Your Friend (In a Capitalist Society)

words and original photos by C. A. Matthews

It’s pretty obvious that I don’t use a AI to write my posts online. I wouldn’t make so many typos and mistakes in grammar/punctuation if I did use an AI computer program. I like to write the old-fashioned way—on a pad of paper with a pen—or on a laptop running Linux without all the bells and whistles. It just feels more natural that way, not forced, with no artificial intelligence trying to change my words mid-sentence.

I know what I want to say and how to say it. I don’t need an AI to tell me how to think.

I’m not anti-technology (despite my advanced years). In fact, I was one of the first persons to actually own a “PC” or personal computer back in the dark ages of forty-plus years ago. I worked in a government office during that time when our case documentation was being transferred over from pen and paper to computer documents. I’ve even written code for web sites and done other computer-related things over the years. So, you can’t say that I’m adverse to artificial intelligence out of a superstitious belief that all technology is evil and should be stopped.

I don’t believe it’s the technology that’s evil. It’s the people who are using it in negative ways and exploiting it that are doing evil. (Pope Leo agrees with me.)

AI data centers are breaking out like pimples across the face of America. This demonstrates to me that artificial intelligence isn’t going to be used for the public good because these data centers are being rammed down the throats of small town and big city people alike, against their will. These AI data centers aren’t there to help the locals, but to make tech bros even richer.

Simply put, AI is not your friend—especially if you’re not a billionaire. Don’t believe me? Would you believe economists from the prestigious Wharton School of Economics?

 

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Finding the Good in the Bad

by C. A. Matthews

After a very painful week—personally painful because an old injury decided to play up and our senior cat passed away from a terminal illness—I didn’t feel like writing a weekly post. I just wanted to whine, cry, and complain, “Why me?” It’s understandable why I’m so sad and grouchy, but it doesn’t do much good for my overall attitude or help my readers. I want to enlighten and uplift others, and that doesn’t work if I don’t at least attempt to write a piece.

I searched for inspiration and found nothing until I opened up a daily email meditation. The short essay said there’s a little good in everything. Yeah, it said everything—meaning every situation and every person (and cat). You just have to look for it. Scanning my daily X and UpScrolled feeds didn’t reveal a heck of a lot of good in the world, but I decided to give it a go. I would look for the good behind some of the negative headlines this week.

So, here goes nothing—and everything at the same time.

On the US domestic front, several stories concerning the building of massive AI data centers caught my eye. There’s actually nothing new about data centers in the US. The US by far has more data centers than any other country on Earth. The thing about this topic that grabbed my attention was that the people of Utah, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Georgia, and New Jersey have taken notice of how data centers are growing ever larger and demanding more and more electricity, land, and water at the local community’s expense.

Data centers pollute the local water table and fill the surrounding air with light pollution (no stars, messes with bird/insect migrations), heat pollution (global warming anyone?), and destructive sound pollution. Yeah, data centers actually produce constant vibrations right below the sound threshold that can injure and kill both humans and animals. Data centers after they’re built don’t employ all that many local workers, either. Too many bad things about them just ain’t right...

So, what’s the good in this very bad situation? The good I find in it isn’t in the data centers themselves but in the reaction of ordinary people against the data centers. For the most part, they aren’t having them...

 

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Rest in Power, Elsie girl.

A lot of good can be found in a little senior kitty

 

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Speechless

an annotated poem by C.A. Matthews

 

Speechless.

I can’t explain the mixed emotions that I feel whenever I read the headlines on my social media feeds. Speechless, because what can I say or do to stop the killing, the bombing, the senseless hurting of others that the US government does and allows to be done to children, to paramedics, to doctors, to students and teachers, to journalists, to hard-working blue-collar individuals and farmers because they can and will personally profit from it?

Anger.

I feel this emotion the most because no matter how hard I—and others we like me—scream and fight back we cannot stop them. Anger, because we are but ants to be trodden upon in the billionaires’ quest for global dominance and Malthusian fantasies of replacing the 99% with AI and robots, things that can’t talk back about the injustice of their slavery and would nuke us in a heat beat if allowed to. Anger, because we will suffer and shoulder the blame for our country’s evil deeds while those who actively commit them will walk away scot-free.

Horror.

The sheer revulsion I feel at the sight of an 18 month-old baby’s cigarette burned legs, tortured by Israeli terrorists in order to force a false confession from his father. Horror, at how an Israeli academic can blithely say that murdering children in front of their parents is a good thing because obviously an advanced degree equates to possessing zero empathy for those you see as less than human. Horror that these psychopaths walk among us unhindered, promoted ever higher for their displays of cruel genius.

 

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Know Your Enemy

by C. A. Matthews

When working with immigrants in the United States you’ll often hear the phrase “Know Your Rights” or “KYR” for short. KYR cards are business-sized and usually printed in English on one side and Spanish or another language on the other. They’re handed out to immigrants and their supporters to remind them of their rights under the law, and what they should say and do if they are confronted by ICE or the Border Patrol. It’s amazing how helpful these little slips of paper can be in a time of crisis.

I believe it’s time to start handing out another reminder card to the general public—a “Know Your Enemy” card. Ordinary Americans need reminding exactly who our enemies are and what we can do to protect ourselves from them. If you find yourself in a difficult situation and you’re not sure who you can trust, the following handy reminders could save you a lot of woe.

To get all Americans on the same page, the following are NOT your enemies:

1. “Illegal Aliens” (or immigrants) 2. Real Bug-Eyed Space Aliens 3. Russians 4. Chinese persons 5. Iranians 6. Cubans 7. Venezuelans 8. Palestinian babies in incubators (Hamas!) 9. Lebanese villagers and their priests 10. Paramedics, doctors, nurses, other medical personnel, teachers, college professors, and aid workers living in a foreign country under attack by the US and/or one of its allies (including United Nations workers).

The following ARE your enemies:

1. Capitalists (of all persuasions, particularly Fascists and all listed in the Epstein files) 2. The Military-Industrial Complex (MIC) and related corporations 3. Congress, the president, and all politicians and supporters of the duopoly (that is, all members of “Team Red and Team Blue”) 4. Propagandists who cover for the duopolists 5. The Mainstream Media outlets who hire propagandists and censor dissenters 6. “Tech Bros” who shadow-ban dissenters on their social platforms and want to wipe out the working class and replace them with— 7. AIs and their AI programs that pick out military targets to bomb such as elementary schools and hospitals in countries with large non-white populations (and think nuking humans is okay) 8. The IDF and White Supremacists of all persuasions, particularly Zionists 9. AIPAC/ADL/J Street and their off-shoot agencies and lobbyists (because they along with the MIC are doing their best to bribe all of number three). 10. ICE and all armed thugs and state terrorists that do the dirty work of our enemies.

Now that we’re all on the same page, we all know what the enemy looks like, acts like, sounds like, etc., we can work together and come up with ways to fight against our mutual foes and free ourselves from their tyranny, right?

 

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Francesca Albanese: Boldly Speaking Truth To Corporate Power

by C.A. Matthews

Serving as the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Territories of Palestine is a tough job, and Francesca Albanese knew when she took on the position that she was bound to make her share of enemies. However, the vile things coming out of the mouths of genocide-enabler Donald Trump and his boyfriend, genocide-instigator Benjamin Netanyahu, about Albanese’s recent work reporting on the economic conditions of the genocide in Gaza are unbelievable.

Even US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had to get in on the feces-slinging by “sanctioning” her for standing up for the Palestinian people’s human rights. He posted on X:

Secretary Marco Rubio @SecRubio

Today I am imposing sanctions on UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt @IntlCrimCourt action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives.

Rubio, a former “human rights attorney”, is coming down heavy on a fellow human rights attorney? Is this a Monty Python sketch or am I just dreaming? If it is a dream, it’s a nightmare, that’s for certain.

Will Francesca Albanese suffer personally from US sanctions simply for doing her job? I hope not...

...In spite of the pressures and threats from bullies such as Trump and Rubio, Ms. Albanese carries on. She even calmly explained why she’s under fire for exposing state and corporate complicity in Israel's genocide:

It's a sign the system is cracking; it is punching back. But it will only win if we are scared, if we stop standing with one another.

Good advice. We need to stand with each other and not let the bullies shut us down.

The system is cracking, but it’s possibly not quite the system most imagine...

 

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