From 404 media.
Grokipedia, meanwhile, looks like what you would get if you told an LLM to go make an anti-woke encyclopedia, which is essentially exactly whatElon MuskLeon Skunk did.Grokipedia Is the Antithesis of Everything That Makes Wikipedia Good, Useful, and Human
Here's the home page/directory for my posts on Bullshit.
As I start rereading this, to write this review/summary, I feel Bullshit Contagion hovering over me like a vulture. I really was never confortable theorizing that Frankfurt's "On Bullshit" was anything other than bullshit. I will try to ignore this. I pledge to do my absolute best to not just write bullshit about Truth, which I presume will be defined at some level as anti-bullshit.
Note, Frankfurt did not write an "On Lying" book. Lying plays a big part in this book as the opposite of truth.
Meanwhile, "bullshit" is mentioned quite a few times, but really doesn't seem to be part of the book's narrative.
One thing that kept popping onto my thoughts as I was reading this book is how horribly corrupted the souls of all the incredible, full-time liars of the Orange Turd's administration must be. Ugh, barf alert, the Orange Turd and his Fascist Flunkies [worst band name ever] come up way more than I would like. We live in trying times.
The 1st line of the introduction:
We are all aware that our society perennially sustains enormous infusions—some deliberate, some merely incidental—of bullshit, lies, and other forms of misrepresentation and deceit.So we're not starting with truth, we're starting with "misrepresentation and deceit".
This may be a bad sign: we get a great-looking new word: "prolegomenon" - which WikiPedia says means "an introduction". Hmmm.
There are philosophers who deny the existence of true / false, of truth / lies. Frankfurt is dismissive of this:
even those who profess to deny the validity or the objective reality of the true-false distinction continue to maintain without apparent embarrassment that this denial is a position that they do truly endorse. The statement that they reject the distinction between true and false is, they insist, an unqualifiedly true statement about their beliefs, not a false one. This prima facie incoherence in the articulation of their doctrine makes it uncertain precisely how to construe what it is that they propose to deny. It is also enough to make us wonder just how seriously we need to take their claim that there is no objectively meaningful or worthwhile distinction to be made between what is true and what is false.The introduction ends with this:
With these preliminary stipulations and reservations in place, let us begin. Is truth something that in fact we do—and should—especially care about? Or is the love of truth, as professed by so many distinguished thinkers and writers, itself merely another example of bullshit?
Chapter 1 defines an important aspect ot truth: that it is reality-based. Professions that must produce real results in the real world - scientists, engineers, physisians - cannot function without a healthy respect for truth.
truth often possesses very considerable practical utility.What professions function without this respect for truth?
It is well known, of course, that a cavalier attitude toward truth is more or less endemic within the ranks of publicists and politicians, breeds whose exemplars characteristically luxuriate in the production of bullshit, of lies, and of whatever other modes of fraudulence and fakery they are able to devise.But the rot doesn't stop there.
Numerous unabashed skeptics and cynics about the importance of truth (or about the related importance of long-established strictures against plagiarism) have been found among best-selling and prize-winning authors, among writers for leading newspapers, and among hitherto respected historians, biographers, memoirists, theorists of literature, novelists—and even among philosophers, who of all people might reasonably have been counted on to know better.Reiterating his preference for reality-based outlooks:These shameless antagonists of common sense—members of a certain emblematic subgroup of them call themselves “postmodernists”—rebelliously and self-righteously deny that truth has any genuinely objective reality at all.
No one in his right mind would rely on a builder, or submit to the care of a physician, who does not care about the truth. Even writers, artists, and musicians must—in their own ways—know how to get things right.
Chapter 2 introduces an important concept: facts, aka factual statements. As opposed to opinions and feelings.
We may admit, if we consider it wise to do so, that the evaluations we make are neither true nor false. However, we cannot admit a similar characterization of the factual statements, or of the reasoning, with which we must attempt to support those evaluations.Frankfurt feels that these issues are crucial to every society.In the same way, statements of fact are indispensable in explaining and in validating the purposes and goals that we choose and that we set ourselves to pursue.
Unless we know whether we are justified in regarding various factual judgments as true, we cannot know whether there is really any sense in feeling and in choosing as we do.I think Frankfurt would be aghast at the mendacity of all MAGAts.For these reasons, no society can afford to despise or to disrespect the truth. It is not enough, however, for a society merely to acknowledge that truth and falsity are, when all is said and done, legitimate and significant concepts. In addition, the society must not neglect to provide encouragement and support for capable individuals who devote themselves to acquiring and to exploiting significant truths. Moreover, whatever benefits and rewards it may sometimes be possible to attain by bullshitting, by dissembling, or through sheer mendacity, societies cannot afford to tolerate anyone or anything that fosters a slovenly indifference to the distinction between true and false. Much less can they indulge the shabby, narcissistic pretense that being true to the facts is less important than being “true to oneself.” If there is any attitude that is inherently antithetical to a decent and orderly social life, that is it.
Civilizations have never gotten along healthily, and cannot get along healthily, without large quantities of reliable factual information. They also cannot flourish if they are beset with troublesome infections of mistaken beliefs....
We really cannot live without truth.
Chapter 3 starts with a little bit of pessimism:
But, one might well ask: since when has being reasonable meant very much to us? It is notorious that we humans have a talent, which we frequently display, for ignoring and evading the requirements of rationality. How, then, can it be considered at all likely that we will respect and accede to the rational imperative that we take truth seriously?Frankfurt turns to 17th century philosopher Baruch Spinoza [1632–1677] to find us some optimism. The optimism comes via ... love.
Spinoza explained the nature of love as follows: “Love is nothing but Joy with the accompanying idea of an external cause” (Ethics, part III, proposition 13, scholium). As for the meaning of “joy,” he stipulated that it is “what follows that passion by which the…[individual] passes to a greater perfection” (Ethics, part III, proposition 11, scholium).So this is where the joy comes in - the "enhanced vitality"....
Spinoza was convinced that every individual has an essential nature that it strives, throughout its existence, to realize and to sustain. In other words, he believed that there is in each individual an underlying innate impetus to become, and to remain, what that individual most essentially is. When Spinoza wrote of “that passion by which the…[individual] passes to a greater perfection,” he was referring to an externally caused (hence a “passion”—i.e., a change in the individual that does not come about by his own action, but rather a change with respect to which he is passive) augmentation of the individual’s capacities for surviving and for developing in fulfillment of his essential nature. Whenever the capacities of an individual for attaining these goals are increased, the increase in the individual’s power to attain them is accompanied by a sense of enhanced vitality. The individual is aware of a more vigorously expansive ability to become and to continue as what he most truly is. Thus, he feels more fully himself. He feels more fully alive.
This is what he understands love to be: the way we respond to what we recognize as causing us joy. On his account, then, people cannot help loving whatever they recognize as being, for them, a source of joy. They invariably love what they believe helps them to continue in existence and to become more fully themselves. It seems to me that Spinoza is at least on the right track here. Many paradigmatic instances of love do exhibit, more or less straightforwardly, the pattern that he defines: people do tend to love what they feel helps them to “find themselves,” to discover “who they really are,” and to face life successfully without betraying or compromising their fundamental natures.This brings us to our 1st run-in with the Orange Turd & his Fascist Flunkies:...
Spinoza believed it follows from this that people cannot help loving truth. They cannot help doing so, he thought, because they cannot help recognizing that truth is indispensable in enabling them to stay alive, to understand themselves, and to live fully in accord with their own natures.
Therefore, Spinoza maintained, a person who despises or who is indifferent to truth must be a person who despises or who is indifferent to his own life.When you see the dead eyes, the sneering faces, you realize they are indeed indifferent to their own lives, as they are indifferent to other peoples' lives. They are soulless because they have sold their souls to the devil. Their only pleasure is in cruelty for the sake of cruelty, in dominating & sadistically torturing as many people as they can.
Chapter 4 discusses the usefulness of truth and truths, and brings us back to that most important of concepts: reality.
The consideration with which I have been dealing pertains to the usefulness of many truths in facilitating the successful design and pursuit of social or individual ambitions and activities, a usefulness that those truths possess only by virtue of being true.Frankfurt tells us about discovering truth as a child, and how much it meant to him. I believe he really is a believer in truth....
When we are engaged in active life, or when we attempt to plan and to manage our various practical affairs, we are undertaking to cope with reality (some of this reality being of our own making, most of it not).
...
Truths have practical utility because they consist of, and because they therefore can provide us with, accurate accounts of the properties (including, especially, the causal powers and potentialities) of the real objects and events with which we must deal when we act.
...
It is, in other words, a matter of knowing as much of the truth about those realities as is necessary in order for us intelligently to formulate and to accomplish our goals.
...
This is, indeed, the essence and the defining character of factuality, of being real: the properties of reality, and accordingly the truths about its properties, are what they are, independent of any direct or immediate control by our will. We cannot alter the facts nor, similarly, can we affect the truth about the facts, merely by an exercise of judgment or by an impulse of desire.
Insofar as we know the truth, we are in a position to be guided authoritatively in our conduct by the character of reality itself. The facts—the true nature of reality—are the final and incontrovertible recourse of inquiry.
When I was a child, I often felt oppressed by the chaotic jumble of implausible notions and beliefs that I felt various adults were attempting to foist on me. My own dedication to truth originated, so far as I am able to recall, in the liberating conviction that once I grasped the truth, I would no longer be distracted or disturbed by anyone’s (including my own) speculations, hunches, or hopes.But, reality can be hard, it can be unpleasant. Should we try to avoid it? [LOL, with the current political situation, I am certainly reading a lot more escapist literature.]
Some people would advise us that there may be realities so frightening, or so discouraging and demoralizing, that we would be better off not knowing anything about them. In my judgment, however, it is nearly always more advantageous to face the facts with which we must deal than to remain ignorant of them....
Without truth, either we have no opinion at all concerning how things are or our opinion is wrong. One way or the other, we do not know what kind of situation we are in. We don’t know what’s going on, either in the world around us or within ourselves. If we do have some relevant beliefs about these matters, they are mistaken; and false beliefs, naturally, do not effectively help us to cope. Perhaps we may be, for a time, blissfully ignorant or happily deceived, and in those ways, despite all of the difficulties that endanger us, we may temporarily avoid being especially upset or disturbed. In the end, however, our ignorance and our false beliefs are likely just to make our circumstances worse.
Chapter 5 is very short, exploring the implications of humans as rational animals, which he seems to be taking as a given.
Human beings are, by ancient definition, rational animals. Rationality is our most distinctive characteristic.It looks like the "rational animal" thing is from Aristotle. Given the upgrades we have been giving to other species with regard to acknowledging their mental capabilities, I think being worried about humanity losing its label as the "rational animal" is not a worthwhile use of our time....
However, we could not properly consider ourselves to be functioning rationally at all if we did not acknowledge the difference between being true and being false. To be rational is fundamentally a matter of being appropriately responsive to reasons. Now, reasons are constituted of facts
...
The notions of truth and of factuality are indispensable, then, for imbuing the exercise of rationality with meaningful substance.
...
If we have no respect for the distinction between true and false, we may as well kiss our much-vaunted “rationality” good-bye.
In Chapter 6 we go back to truth, facts, and reality, with a couple of new concepts added.
There is evidently a close relationship between the notion of truth and the notion of factuality. For every fact, there is a true statement that relates it; and every true statement relates a fact. There are also close relationships between the notion of truth and the notions of trust and of confidence.Frankfort discusses the etymology of truth & the somewhat archaic word troth - as in pledging one's troth, as in a betrothal, when one promises to be true to the other person. But here true means steadfast or loyal - wow, "true" has a lot of meanings. I'm surprised Frankfurt didn't spend more time on that.
Of course, it is not only in the contexts of betrothal and of marriage that it is important for people to trust one another. Social and communal relationships generally, in their multifarious versions and modes, can be efficient and harmonious only if people have a reasonable degree of confidence that others are on the whole reliable. If people were generally dishonest and untrustworthy, the very possibility of peaceful and productive social life would be threatened.Time for some philosophical backup. Immanuel Kant [1724-1804] agrees:
Immanuel Kant, for example, declared that “without truth social intercourse and conversation become valueless”.Michel de Montaigne [1533-1592], whom we met in "The Prevalence of Humbug", has even harsher words for liars and lying:
Michel Montaigne made a similar claim: “Our intercourse being carried on solely by means of the word, he who falsifies that is a traitor to society” (“Of Giving the Lie”). “Lying is an accursed vice,” Montaigne declared. And then he added, warming to his subject with rather extraordinary intensity, “If we did concern of a citizen. What is most immediately aroused in our response to the liar is not public spirit. It’s something more personal. As a rule, except perhaps when people misrepresent matters in which serious public interests are directly involved, we are dismayed far less by the harm liars may be doing to the general welfare than by their conduct toward ourselves. What stirs us against them, whether or not they have somehow managed to betray all of humankind, is that they have certainly injured us.but recognize the horror and gravity of…[lying], we should punish it with flames more justly than other crimes” (“Of Liars”). In other words, liars—more than criminals of any other sort—deserve to be burned at the stake.But, Frankfurt feels that maybe they protest a bit too much: because people do lie, and we mostly muddle through regardless.
The fact that people often engage in lies, and in other kinds of fraudulent behavior, hardly renders it impossible to benefit either from living with them or from talking with them. It only means that we have to be careful.I guess this next is true. We hate to be lied to not because we are concerned about the effects of lying on society, but because of the disrespect it shows to us personally.
When we encounter people who lie to us, or who in some other way manifest a disregard for truth, it tends to anger and upset us. But it does not primarily do so, as Montaigne and Kant would presumably have had it, because we fear that the mendacity we have encountered threatens or encumbers the order of society. Our main concern is clearly not the concern of a citizen. What is most immediately aroused in our response to the liar is not public spirit. It’s something more personal. As a rule, except perhaps when people misrepresent matters in which serious public interests are directly involved, we are dismayed far less by the harm liars may be doing to the general welfare than by their conduct toward ourselves. What stirs us against them, whether or not they have somehow managed to betray all of humankind, is that they have certainly injured us.
Chapter 7 continues where the prior chapter left off. What harm is a liar doing to us by lying?
The most irreducibly bad thing about lies is that they contrive to interfere with, and to impair, our natural effort to apprehend the real state of affairs. They are designed to prevent us from being in touch with what is really going on. In telling his lie, the liar tries to mislead us into believing that the facts are other than they actually are. He tries to impose his will on us. He aims at inducing us to accept his fabrication as an accurate account of how the world truly is.I have always tried to avoid lying for this exact reason: that lying creates an imaginary world, divergent from reality, and it is a lot of work to keep such a place going. This next I think is a little bit over the top:Insofar as he succeeds in this, we acquire a view of the world that has its source in his imagination rather than being directly and reliably grounded in the relevant facts. The world we live in, insofar as our understanding of it is fashioned by the lie, is an imaginary world. There may be worse places to live; but this imaginary world won’t do for us, at all, as a permanent residence.
Lies are designed to damage our grasp of reality. So they are intended, in a very real way, to make us crazy.Frankfurt asserts that lies also damage the liar. He quotes poet, essayist, & feminist Adrienne Rich [1929-2012]:
With poetic exactitude, she observes that “the liar leads an existence of unutterable loneliness” ... The loneliness is precisely unutterable because the liar cannot even reveal that he is lonely—that there is no one in his fabricated world—without disclosing, in doing so, that he has lied. He hides his own thoughts, pretending to believe what he does not believe, and thereby he makes it impossible for other people to be fully in touch with him. They cannot respond to him as he really is. They cannot even be aware that they are not doing so.He also uses Rich to backup his "makes you crazy" contention:The liar refuses to permit himself, to the extent that he lies, to be known. This is an insult to his victims. It naturally injures their pride. For it denies them access to an elementary mode of human intimacy that is normally taken more or less for granted: the intimacy that consists in knowing what is on, or what is in, another person’s mind.
“To discover that one has been lied to in a personal relationship,” she says, “leads one to feel a little crazy" ...Being successfully lied to undermines one's opinion of oneself - how could I have trusted that person, we ask ourselves. Frankfurt concludes:
When a person discovers that he has been told a lie by someone in whose reliability he had found it natural to have confidence, this shows him that he cannot rely on his own settled feelings of trust. He sees that he has been betrayed, in his effort to identify people in whom he can have confidence, by his own natural inclinations. These have led him to miss the truth rather than to attain it. His assumption that he could guide himself in accordance with his own nature has turned out to be self-defeating, and hence irrational. Since he finds that he is by nature out of touch with reality, he may well feel that he is a little crazy.
Chapter 8 is somewhat of a throwaway. It quotes Shakespeare's Sonnet 138:
When my love swears that she is made of truth,Frankfurt analyzes this as, they both know they are lying, but it is out of love, so it's OK. And since they know about the lies, they're not really lies? This is probably something St. Augustine would have contended in the mostly unreadable "On Lying". The chapter concludes:
I do believe her, though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutored youth,
Unlearnèd in the world’s false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue:
On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed.
But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
Oh, love’s best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love loves not to have years told.
Therefore I lie with her and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flattered be.
I do not ordinarily recommend or condone lying. In most cases, I am all for truth. Nevertheless, if you are confident that you can lie yourself into a situation like the one Shakespeare sketches in his sonnet, my advice to you is: Go for it!Meh.
Chapter 9 begins with Frankfurt drawing a distinction between little "t" individual truths, aka facts, and big "T" Truth - Truth as a concept. He then leans into proselytizing about why we should all be interested in Truth. This last chapter is actually somewhat inspirational, yay!
While I still am not sure that "On Bullshit" was not bullshit, I believe that Frankfurt is indeed passionate about Truth.
Caring about truth entails other things as well: finding satisfaction, and perhaps the special joy of the lover, in recognizing and in understanding significant truths that were previously unknown or obscure; being eager to protect, from distortion and discredit, our appreciation of those truths that we already possess; and, in general, being determined to encourage within society, insofar as we are able to do so, a vigorous and stable preference for true beliefs over ignorance, error, doubt, and misrepresentation.Frankfurt returns to his thoughts about the utility of truth.
We learn that we are separate beings in the world, distinct from what is other than ourselves, by coming up against obstacles to the fulfillment of our intentions—that is, by running into opposition to the implementation of our will. When certain aspects of our experience fail to submit to our wishes, when they are on the contrary unyielding and even hostile to our interests, it then becomes clear to us that they are not parts of ourselves. We recognize that they are not under our direct and immediate control; instead, it becomes apparent that they are independent of us. That is the origin of our concept of reality, which is essentially a concept of what limits us, of what we cannot alter or control by the mere movement of our will.Wow, you know, the Orange Turd I don't think ever went through any of this in his upbringing! Always spoiled, always getting his way, bullying - he literally knows no reality! He is stupid and ignorant, and continues to do what he has his entire life: lurch from blunder to blunder, never facing any consequences, getting by on his reputation. He clearly has no concept of Truth. What the hell is he? What is the word for it? Is he really a human being, or some flesh-eating zombie replicant?...
Thus, our recognition and understanding of our own identity arises out of, and depends integrally on, our appreciation of a reality that is definitively independent of ourselves.
I saw a pic today (probably real?) of MAGAts wearing t-shirts stating "The Orange Turd is GOD!". Maybe he is indeed a god - the god of lies, bullshit, bullying, and cruelty.
Here's the end of the book:
How, then, can we fail to take the importance of factuality and of reality seriously? How can we fail to care about truth?So will there come a reckoning for the Orange Turd? I doubt it. His trail of destruction will probably only stop when the cheeseburgers finally take him down.We cannot.
I really apologize for the presence of the Orange Turd in this review/summary. But, as his presence is currently destroying the US as a democracy and a world power, I guess at this point it's just table stakes.
So, what are my take-aways?
Or, maybe, lying is mammals, bullshit is marsupials? Parallel evolution of different families of "misrepresentation and deceit"?
On October 25, 2025, I formulated Heinz's 1st Law of Bullshit:
As I work on my magnum opus, "A Taxonomy of Bullshit", increasingly I seem to be concluding that there is just SO MUCH and SO MANY FLAVORS of bullshit, that you posit the 1st Law, and then worry about that which is NOT bullshit: truth, facts, reality, science.
To a 1st approximation, everything is bullshit.
It reminds me of my ruminations blogging about the CommonSense™ module that "AI" systems need so badly: that common sense is physical, it is based on our physical bodies interacting with the physical world.
I've always been much more mental than physical: math, logic, software. Although I did find in college that math proofs were too arbitrary for me, so I switched my major from Math to Physics - the lowest level of math entering the real world.
Music I guess is kind of at an intersection between the mental and the physical.
It is so surprising to me, that, in exploring the nature of truth, lies, & bullshit, that physicality seems to be taking center stage.
Here's the home page/directory for my posts on Bullshit.
Liu tries his hand at a near-future suspense thriller. The setting is post-bullshit apocalypse. LLM-generated slop is everywhere. Nice, the programs that identify & delete slop are called "blade-runners".
Liu mentions "hallucinations" 2x.
Part of the plot rests on a new technology, enabled by LLMs: guided dreaming as an art form.
Our protagonist is an ace programmer and "ai-whisperer" (Kobo synopsis), bad with people, great with machines.
Lots of plot twists and turns. I thought the pacing a little off at times. Still, a real page turner. It almost got too suspenseful for me. I really am getting old.
Yet another example of how completely unreliable this technology is, except when it is being chaperoned by a knowledgable human. And that is never gonna pay the bills.
Reddit's AI Suggests Users Try Heroin
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I really like the covers in this series.
I really should have paid more attention. The blurb for this book on Kobo clearly says:
It is a prequel to the third novel in the sequence, DAYS OF SHATTERED FAITH[, blogged positively here].You know, though, that should have been at the start of the book. At the end of the book, the author talks about how this prequel novella came to be.
Meanwhile, I'm reading the book - very good, Tchaikovsky's writing continues to improve, IMO - & 2/3 of the way through, I'm like thinking, "Wait a minute ... Haven't I read this already?"
In general, I think prequels mostly suck & should prolly be banned. Don't get me started on Star Wars Episodes 1-3.
Yet another reason not to use thieving LLMs. From 404 Media.
Wikipedia Says AI Is Causing a Dangerous Decline in Human VisitorsIt continually becomes harder to avoid. Everybody wants to justify the $$$ they are spending on "AI" by cramming their "AI" summaries down our throats.
And, of course, a lot of those summaries were harvested, without compensation or attribution, from Wikipedia.
Similarly, on YouTube, do not listen to generic playlists. YouTube is funding musicians to create derivative works, paying them pennies on the dollar. The next step, of course, will be LLM-generated slop. Just say no.
Here's the home page/directory for my posts on Bullshit.
From 404 Media. These guys are really, really good.
ChatGPT’s Hail Mary: Chatbots You Can Fuck
Here's the home page/directory for my posts on Bullshit.
I enjoyed the 1st 2 books of this series. There are good alien races, including intelligent ships with literal hive-minds.
Given that these are murder mysteries, it's sad, but not surprising, when things start feeling like "Murder, She Wrote", or some other cheesy CBS detective show. A murder mystery convention on an interstellar cruise ship, which is actually an ancient, incredibly powerful ship which has loaded the entire internet onto itself, including, oh boy, lots of fan fiction. Plus the ship is like the holodeck on steriods, visit the virtual worlds of your favorite series! I guess I'm not a fan of fan fiction. There are just way too many inside, nerdy jokes.
I was going to call it quits on this series, but I think I'll give it 1 more chance. I mean, crap, Charlie Stross's last book featured a gaming convention. Unfortunate that this meme has spread.
LLMs are about language. They can't taste shit. Who in their right mind would want to get them involved in the judging of beers? Pathetic. Fuck the techbros. Seriously. I used to be 1, no more.
Call Me Luddite. Luddism was never anti-tech, it was always about "who does the tech serve?" Fuck these techbros, over-hyping an impressive but totally NOT transformational technology. Together with crypto, a 1-2 punch to efforts to avoid the climate crisis. So they can become the next multi-billionaire oligarch.
And, let's notice that the current crop of techbro oligarchs are all kissing the ring of the orange turd and doing NOTHING to help the US from slipping into fascism, turning its back on renewables, rewriting history, etc. Fuck these assholes.
Time for a wealth/capital/Piketty tax of 100% on all fortunes > $1B. Seriously, what would that hurt? Billionaires should NOT be the ones to decide if we want to try & colonize Mars, or whatever. We, The People, need to make such decisions.
So, let's take all but 1 of their $B - hopefully they can budget or whatever to live on such a pittance - & then We The People can decide what to do with their ill-gotten gains.
Via 404 Media:
What Happened When AI Came for Craft Beer
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This quarter wound up having an unexpected theme: pedal steel guitar, FTW! Several albums featuring pedal steel, which I love. My 6 string, 6 pedal MultiChord pedal steel is still in the music room in the basement.
This album was going to get 3 stars, then: a pedal steel song! So 4 stars! Here's "Everything is Peaceful Love"
'
I feel like I'm getting spread too thin: exercise, music, crema di, birding, A Taxonomy of Bullshit, staying current, blogging, reading, cooking. I seem to be backing away from birding; my eyes are getting old, & for some reason, I'm still not that good at recognizing birdsong.
I think this is not a bad problem to have at my age. Just have to improve my juggling skills, I guess.
4 Techbro Masters of the Universe, with serious life extension, have left a dying earth to create utopia in orbital platforms throughout the solar system. Centuries later, they return to see if they can help out their homeworld.
Hmmm, Tchaikovsky's recent 434 page novel "Bee Speaker", which I read in June, used a similar trope, with martians returning to earth to try and help out.
Well anyway, in both cases, the techbros get their just deserts. This is an easy & fun read, & politically on the right side of history, I think.
This is a "post-LLM-generated-bullshit-apocalyptic" horror story! I never imagined I would be saying those words. This is an incredibly timely story.
In the ongoing Bullshit Apocalypse, the world is becoming increasing filled with AI slop. I think this is now unavoidable. Too many tech-bros looking for the big $$$. Everybody drinking the kool-aid.
Meanwhile, progress is being made on direct brain-computer interfaces.
So you're already living in a world filling up with AI slop, what happens when the AI slop starts leaking into your brain?
Model collapse is that happens when an LLM starts training itself on LLM output. The downward spiral into complete & utter bullshit happens very quickly.
I used to say, as soon as I could implant my net access chip behind my ear, I would go for it.
Now, no way, no how! The computer industry has so failed to make security issues a top priority, to me it is madness to allow net access to any part of your life of which you are not in direct, manual control.
So, no thanks to internet-enabled appliances that can be hacked & held for ransom, or bricked by the manufacturer when he decides to squeeze a few more $$$ out of you. Or to doorbells with net-enabled cameras that can be appropriated by the ICE-wipes or whatever government agency feels like it.
On top of that, now add AI slop to the picture. I absolutely DO NOT want that bullshit in my head!
I am on a mission from god to avoid LLMs. It is not too bad so far, but I know it will get harder & harder. &, will they have fixed the slop problem? Of course not. No $$$ in that. :-(
Here's the home page/directory for my posts on Bullshit.
Our main character is a snarky female who fights really well. (Scalzi is the King of Snark.) She has an alien assistant/bodyguard who is conscious only due to a hardware upgrade provided by humans.
The main drama of the story comes from interaction with the godlike but completely asshole Consu race. The plot twists are excellently unpredictable. The pacing seemed uneven at times, but that may just be me. An excellent read, glad to return to this universe.
I'm so glad some asshole tech bros are going to become asshole billionaires based on this shit. From 404 Media:
AI ‘Workslop’ Is Killing Productivity and Making Workers MiserableHuman workers see their colleagues who use AI as less competent, according to another study published in Harvard Business Review last month.
...
“Workslop uniquely uses machines to offload cognitive work to another human being. When coworkers receive workslop, they are often required to take on the burden of decoding the content, inferring missed or false context. A cascade of effortful and complex decision-making processes may follow, including rework and uncomfortable exchanges with colleagues,”
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I dropped 20-30 pounds prolly within the 1st year. Prolly 1/2 - 2/3 of that is back on currently.
In December, 2019 I popped a tendon on my ring finger in a bicycle wreck. That's a guitar finger, mercifully, after being splinted for 6 weeks, it reattached & I regained I think full mobility.
October 21, 2021, I ran into a metal post going about 15 mph. 2 weeks of the (completely purple) right leg elevated, 6 weeks total before I could start exercising again.
That was the last time I rode a bicycle. At my age, you can't afford that kind of down time.
I had been occasionally doing some floor exercises, very irregular. In the late 80's, early 90's, I recorded 24 1/2 hour episodes of "Bodies in Motion with Gilad", and used those for years. A lot of these floor exercises came from there. Also from my son, who stayed in shape for judo, & from my oldest daughter, who is a certified yoga instructor.
In the absence of biking, I started doing those on Wed-Fri-Sun, & added some light weight work. I do those 1st thing in the morning; later in the morning I do 16 laps of pool walking, rotating 90 degrees after each lap.
Here is my current floor work routine.
| Floor Work; b:breath; s:snort | 8# Hand Weights 16 reps | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Big inhale up, exhale down | 4 | Curls | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Neck & elbow stretch | 16 L+R | Upright rowing | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Neck stretch (nod) | 16 | Military press | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Pushups | 80 (88 Sun) | French curl (parallel) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chest stretch | 4 | Side lifts | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chest stretch (hug) | L,R | Front lifts | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Lat stretch | L,R | Bent over lifts | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Rotator stretch | L,R | Wrist curls | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Crunches | 64 | Toe touch, back bend | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Crunches w twist | 16 L/R | Tiptoes | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Knee 2 elbow | 16 L+R | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Knees 2 elbows | 16 | Repeat with 10# Hand Weights | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Lower back, neck stretch | 16b L,R | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Pelvic tilts | 64 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Leg lift & holds | 3x16s 1x32s | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Leg lifts | 16 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Groin stretch | 16b | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Side leg lifts | 64 L,R | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sponge | 16b L,R | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Plank | 4x 16b | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cobra | 16b | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cat | 16 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Rear leg lift | 16 L,R | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Toe heel toe lift | 16 L,R | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Side leg (dog pee) lift | 16 L,R | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Rear toe point lift | 16 L,R | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Big inhale up, exhale down | 1 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Walking Warmups | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Heel toe | 16 L,R | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Mini one-leg squats | 16 L,R | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Rear heel lift | 16 L,R | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Leg swing | 16 L,R | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The whole thing takes around 35 minutes.
I captured this because I have a 1 hour session with a trainer to make observations, corrections, & additions.
[Updated 2025-09-21]
The trainer said, good full body workout. A few tweaks are italicized.
This story is a 1st contact novel. Its wipipedia article describes it as "anthropological science fiction". It won the inaugural Otherwise Award ("An award encouraging the exploration & expansion of gender. Formerly the Tiptree Award.") in 1991.
This was a really fun read. Comparisons to Ursula K. LeGuin I don't think are unwarranted. The alien race is really interesting. Human-sized or larger Ewoks, with neolithic level skills? Fabulous metalworking & other arts & crafts. The supporting ecosystem is developed in great detail.
The females of this society never succeeded in domesticating the males. So after puberty, the males leave the villages & live in the wild. In the annual spring breeding, the females leave the villages & go to the males. The bigger males stake out the best (closest) territory around the villages.
Different tribes of the indigenes have different skills & cultures. These are interesting & amusing - like 1 tribe that has clans that view mocking the other clans as the highest pleasure.
The men cannot work together. The villages are populated by women & children & some very old, post-breeding men.
The 1st 1/2 of the book follows 2 human anthropologists interacting with the indigenes, learning their language, having adventures.
The 2nd 1/2 of the book brings more of the humans down. They left Earth maybe in the 22nd century, & maybe Earth is recovering from the Age of Extractive Industry Rape? It's interesting tho, 1991, there are some Americans, also Chinese (pretty much communist party types), & some Russians (also revolutionaries). The theme of the 2nd 1/2 is, can the humans be trusted to not somehow introduce capitalism to this planet, with the disastrous results which happened on Earth? Very political, a lot of good discussions.
I finished the book, I was definitely "OK, I'm ready for the next one ..." Oops! No next one. Wow, Arnason built such a believable, complex, & interesting world, incredible she didn't continue with it. Oh well, still a great read.
I wound up reading this book because I came across a positive reference to Arnason's politics, plus, it was towards the bottom of the Unread collection in the Kobo app on my iPad. That collection is currently at 163 books.
I am reminded of my friend David. For years, somehow, the movie "Chinatown" would come up, &, he had never seen it.
He also has never seen "Gone with the Wind", or "The Wizard of Oz".
He "has that going for him".
In his theory, say the Grim Reaper comes knock, knock, knockin' at his door. He can tell the reaper, "Hey, you can't take me yet, I haven't seen 'The Wizard of Oz' or 'Gone with the Wind', or 'Chinatown'. So, he's got that going for him.
Under this theory, I clearly have 163 eBooks going for me. "You can't take me yet, I have 163 unread eBooks."
It is amazing to me how despite being completely retired, I feel spread so thin: music, cooking, reading, writing, exercising. I try to lunch with a friend weekly. I don't see my extended family very much at all. My grandkids are starting to get beyond the age where I am drafted to babysit.
I'm starting to wonder if I need to drop something. I'm not sure what it would be.
Lots of weird utopian foo in the Just City. Eugenics out the wazoo, breeding by lottery - wow, turns out that wasn't very popular!
Athene's brother Apollo chooses to revoke his godhood for 1 generation & live as a human until he dies, at which point he goes back to being a god. He is 1 of the major characters. Another is Sokrates, brought into the experiment at the 5 year mark to teach rhetoric to the city's children, now 15 years old - of course!
A very wordy book, very philosophical. In the Acknowledgements, Walton praises Ada Palmer, with whom she has been palling around for a few years - good stuff, I luv Palmer's work & the level of philosophizing in this work is reminiscent of Palmer. It also reminds me of Dan Simmons' books of Ulysses on Mars, "Ilium" and "Olympus". He had lots of discussions of "arete", which Walton defines as "excellence".
One warning, this book has a rape scene in it. I don't like to read about rape, although my prolly fav sci-fi story of all time, "The Stars My Destination", by Alfred Bester, features a rape - but not a rape scene.
Still, very good writing, I have purchased the 2nd book of the trilogy. Check it out.
LOL, they have a counter for "Days Since Last Verified AI Catastrophe". Currently at 13, wow, that really is not bad! Maybe this AI stuff has become trustworthy? NOT!
AI Darwin AwardsMy work here may be done ...
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'
Tchsikovsky's prior book featured humans trying to survive in a killing zone: equatorial Earth, where the climate crisis has resulted in wet bulb temperatures never going below 95 degrees.
"Shroud" is set someplace even more inhospitable: a moon in a different solar system, with gravity 2x earth and a dense, non-oxygen atmosphere. No light reaches the surface of the planet.
The universe of this story is horrifying. After making it through the bottleneck caused by the destruction of Earth as a viable planet via offworld development, humanity is never going to get bottlenecked again. They will accomplish this by expanding into the universe as rapidly as possible, stripping all the resources as they go.
There seems to be a privileged (corporate) management class. Most people live in the worst of all possible gig economies: when The Concern doesn't have work for them, they are shelved, kept in hibernation for however long they are not needed. Ugh, ugh, ugh.
The planet Shroud, though, is inhabited by life that uses radio to communicate. The majority of the book follows a 2 woman team, an engineer & an administrative assistant, who wind up in a lander on the planet's surface, as they have to cover half of the globe to reach a point where they can possibly communicate to their ship. The natives get involved.
There's quite a lot of action, and the natives show Tshaikovsky's incredible imagination for forms of life and intelligence - I think that is his biggest gift.
Despite starting out reminiscent of his prior opus, this 1st contact story takes completely different & novel directions. It's a great read.
Golden Rule:
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Silver Rule:
Don't do unto others as you wouldn't have them do unto you.
Platinum Rule:
Do unto others as they would have you do unto them.
Bronze Rule:
Don't be an asshole.
I would never dream of using an agentic "AI" that does not understand & implement these rules.
We had rule-based expert systems back in the early-mid 1980s. Time for a revival?
So in addition to the CommonSense™ module, we also need the Morality™ module - & many, many others. LLMs are NOT the answer.
Am I setting too high a bar?
If I am granting a piece of code agency, you're goddam right I am setting the bar VERY high.
In 2007, with a few other folks, I got a patent on SmartDocs - documents with intelligence built in that would represent your interests. Prolly either HP or OpenText owns that patent now.
But, I remember thinking then, I have this smart document, with intelligence built in - aka, code - how do I debug it? I don't care who develops the code, human or "AI", it has to be debugged. & even if you do some pretty good debugging, do you still feel confident releasing it into the wild world? Where there are hackers waiting around every corner to subvert your efforts?
I think I decided: "no".
What percentage of Ethereum smart contracts wind up being hacked?
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