Tuesday, September 29, 2026
1567 War of Religion breaks out in France as Huguenots try to kidnap King Charles IX
1835 The Treaty of New Echota was signed between the US government and representatives of a minority Cherokee political faction to cede all lands of the Cherokee east of the Mississippi River to the United States
1890 US 7th Cavalry massacred 200+ captive Sioux at Wounded Knee, South Dakota
1908 A patent was granted for a 4-wheel automobile brake, Clintonville, Wisconsin
1970 Occupational Safety and Health Act was signed by President Richard M. Nixon
2020 First debate between US Presidential candidates Donald Trump and Joe Biden was held, widely criticized as chaotic and ill-tempered
2023 More than 50 people were killed in two suicide attacks in Pakistan, during celebrations for the birth of the Prophet Muhammad
2025 German airline Lufthansa announced they would cut 4,000 administrative positions by 2030 and replace them with artificial intelligence and digitization processes.
In bed at 9:20, up at 4; 0410 204.2 119/67/68 111; 52/70/51, cloudy
Morning meds at 8 a.m. Entresto at 5:15 a.m. and p.m.
Anti-Ziomism: A Jewish History by Benjamin Moser. I was struck by this passage in Chapter 1, titled The Sensitive Rabbi - Aaron Samuel Tamares, Poland:
For Aaron Samuel Tamares, the rabbi of the tiny shtetl of Milejczyce, the controversy would define his life and his ministry. Located on the edge of the ancient forest of Białowieża, on what is today the Polish side of the border of Belarus and Poland, even tiny Milejczyce, for Tamares, was sometimes too big. Nearly every day, weather permitting, he would head into the forest, where he composed most of his works. These were not, at first, intended to be read. “Whenever he became upset by an impure event that took place in society,” he wrote in a third-person memoir toward the end of his life, “he fled to the forest and poured his heart out before the innocent trees—and, with their help, put pen to paper.” When he began to publish, he adopted a pseudonym, “One of the Sensitive Rabbis.” It was under that name that he became known throughout the Jewish world. (p. 36).
Rabbi Tamares reminds me of myself, at least early on in his writing endeavors: sitting alone and writing, "whenever he became upset by an impure event that took place in society. He fled to the forest; I sit in my Lazy Boy recliner with my laptop. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, writers gotta write.
It is an interesting experience to be reading this book about anti-Zionism and its distinction from and relation to anti-semitism at this time in history, with the State of Israel now held in such low regard throughout the world, and with the Guardian film, NAZA, about Israel's behavior in its war on Gaza attracting so much attention in Israel and the U.S. I thought of the writing of Yeshayahu Leibowitz, urging Israel's leaders not to occupy the conquered territories after the Six Day War in 1967, when I read this in Moser's book:
Where other nationalist movements sought to overthrow imperialist powers, Zionism always sought to join them. From the beginning, when Herzl sought a sponsor, the movement had known that it would succeed only if it could find an imperial backer. The movement’s champion would arrive in 1917, when Britain issued the Balfour Declaration, a promise to establish a “national home” for the Jewish people in Palestine. This was both undignified and irreligious, Tamares insisted: Judaism was “independent of land, kings, and lords.” He had no doubts where this embrace of statism, militarism, and nationalism would lead: “It is completely incongruous and misleading to use the slogan ‘nationalism,’ inasmuch as it is the complete opposite of ‘The Bible.’ ” The Jews were enjoined to resist the same nationalism that was threatening to swallow up the world: “Even if the ideas of ‘nationalism’ and ‘terror’ had already conquered the hearts of all the nations, even so it would be incumbent upon ‘the people of the book, a nation driven and plucked,’ that nation most expert in matters of justice and compassion, to withhold its assent.” What was at stake was nothing less than the entire moral and spiritual legacy of the Jews. “Perhaps there was one people on earth, the Jewish people, which truly cherished the vision of Isaiah: ‘Nation shall not lift up sword against nation,’ ” he would write, looking back, a year before he died. “But those Jews who would suddenly delight in the beauty of the ‘loin of the warrior,’ girded with sword, must go forth with high hand to revile the prophet Isaiah!” (pp. 43-44). Kindle Edition.
In 1968, Leibowitz wrote an essay titled "The Territories" in which he warned what occupation of the conquered lands would mean for the Jewish people in Israel:
We know today what the fruits of Zionism have been, not only for the Palestinians Arabs and the rest of the world, but for the Jews, both in Israel and outside of Israel.“Rule over the occupied territories would have social repercussions. After a few years there would be no Jewish workers or Jewish farmers. The Arabs would be the working people and the Jews the administrators, inspectors, officials, and police—mainly secret police. A state ruling a hostile population of 1.5 to 2 million foreigners would necessarily become a secret-police state, with all that this implies for education, free speech, and democratic institutions. The corruption characteristic of every colonial regime would also prevail in the state of Israel. The administration would have to suppress Arab insurgency on the one hand and acquire Arab Quislings on the other. There is also good reason to fear that the Israel Defense Force, which has been until now a people's army, would, as a result of being transformed into an army of occupation, degenerate, and its commanders, who will have become military governors, resemble their colleagues in other nations.Out of concern for the Jewish people and its state we have no choice but to withdraw from the territories and their population of one and a half million Arabs.”
Doom and Gloom. Yesterday I wrote of the book The Nerd Reich: "It was the scariest book I think I have ever read, about the takeover of government by wealthy tech elites. That sounds preposterous, but we are partway there already with the election of Donald Trump . . ." Today I watched and read the interview of Bill Gates by Ezra Klein in this morning's NYTimes. It was the scariest interview I have ever seen. Gates said that AI is “by far” the most dangerous technology ever created and that the transition into the AI era could be one of the most turbulent periods in human history. That view is consistent with comments he has made in the past few days in other forums.
What seems to worry him most is not primarily a science-fiction scenario in which AI spontaneously becomes evil. His emphasis is more immediate and concrete: AI can greatly amplify the capabilities of malicious human beings. He pointed to risks such as catastrophic cyberattacks, bioterrorism, attacks on critical infrastructure, and potentially mass casualties on a scale that previously would have required the resources of a nation-state. Recent reporting on his remarks says he has warned that misuse could conceivably lead to a billion casualties or more. Others speak of a real risk of annihilation of the human species.
Gates also believes the danger is compounded by the fact that AI can increasingly replace or exceed human cognition in important tasks, while advancing faster than governments and institutions are adapting. In his own recent writing, Gates says that AI is the first technology capable of replacing and surpassing human cognitive abilities in this way, and that even under favorable circumstances the transition will be exceptionally turbulent.
He was emphatic about governance. He rejected the idea that the AI industry can safely police itself; the episode description characterizes him as calling self-regulation “insane.” He wants government, law enforcement, academia, and international institutions involved in monitoring dangerous uses and setting enforceable safeguards.
I had Gates' comments in mind as I watched the CNN coverage of Donald Trump's meeting with an abundance of AI and Big Tech executives this afternoon. (In his role of Lord of Language and Names, Trump has changed the term for Artificial Intelligence to Super Intelligence.) Trump continues to assert that no government oversight of AI development is necessary or desirable. He believes in self-regulation, which means no regulation. He turns for support to the CEO of Nvidia, Jensen Huang, who, to me, appears to be in a distinct minority among tech leaders in minimizing the risks of AI. Elon Musk was in the back row of the big gaggle of Trump and the execs outside the White House while Trump was questioned by the feckless White House press corps. Geri and I both noted his disbelieving facial expressions as Trump announced his rosy assessment about the non-risks of AI. Regarding all the people at this meeting and those at the state dinner for Xi Jinping, I'm reminded of George Carlin's stand-up routine: "They own us" and of Thucydides: The powerful do what they will; the powerless suffer what they must.
I still wonder whether we have already passed the tipping point on AI. As Donald Rumsfeld ominously reminded us, “There are known knowns, things we know that we know; and there are known unknowns, things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns, things we do not know we don't know.” Even the AI developers, the experts, don't know what they don't know about what's going on, or has gone on, inside their creations.
We are in deep shit. Our children and grandchildren, the world's children and grandchildren, are in deeper shit.
An anniversary note. I note that today is the first anniversary of the day the German airline Lufthansa announced it would cut 4,000 administrative positions by 2030 and replace them with artificial intelligence and digitization processes.
No comments:
Post a Comment