Depending upon one’s source for news and information, we seem to be in various states of confusion or emergency, literally and figuratively.
In the category of literal confusion, we have the state of Massachusetts. There, apparently, people have become so confused by the tangled web of 21st century legal proceedings that they are no longer able to grasp the most basic tenets of Law, the Common Law. The most fundamental of these is: Harm no one, nor their property. Eleven out of twelve people were prepared to accept that although three small children had been murdered by their mother — a fact that was not disputed — she should not be held criminally responsible for killing them. Legalistic justification aside, Mikey simply questions what happens when so-called reasoning becomes complicated enough to bend the simplest rule imaginable. Bad hair day be damned, the lady killed her kids and should be held accountable in this writer’s humble opinion. The proverbial slippery slope of tolerance… Once it gets its greasy nose under the tent—the tent may not be long for this world. The story also takes a few less tragic but equally bizarre turns. The first of these is that over one million dollars was raised on the defendant’s behalf. The second is that women turned out in droves to show their support for the murderer.
Now let us move on to the category of figurative confusion. Just after the 25th anniversary of what can only be called the-mother-of-all confusing incidents—the events of September 11, 2001—in roughly one week the fear meter was turned up to 11 on social media concerning at least three different issues. There may well now be yet another reason to panic according to X or whichever outlet you prefer, but as the author is currently occupied at the moment in the writing of this post, whatever emergency is happening will have to occur without Mikey’s mention of it. Nevertheless, please know that he loves you all.
Firstly, there was, and still is—despite its disappearance from the social media X-clamations, the issue of Flock cameras. This is truly a severe invasion of privacy and is eerily reminiscent of the Orwellian surveillance state as depicted in the book 1984. Perhaps this gained more attention than Big Brother appreciated and so something had to quickly take its place? This topic, however, should remain in the halls of public discussion despite all the other reasons to lose one’s mind that are trending. A recent article, published at WIRED, reveals that after hackers ripped down a Flock camera and accessed the data inside, they found that the device had captured 1.6 million images of roughly 50,000 vehicles in just 21 days. Would it not be a more appropriate use of tax dollars if the American people had access to this kind of information about the actions of their representatives in Washington, DC?
Frau Farbissina’s skills were then called upon!
Whoever or whatever fulfills her commands were successfully and quickly able to deliver the newest pandemonium which was the threatening topic of AI. As this subject quickly became predominant, the stories ranged from cute and funny to dire and dramatic. The most comical of these is a Russian entertainer’s song about her intentions to marry ChatGPT. Mikey’s friend Charlie got a real kick out of that one. Then there were stories on such publications as Business Insider with fear-inducing headlines that proclaimed “Tech leaders say a kill switch won’t be enough to stop rogue superintelligent AI.” And just a week earlier the same organization offered this happy little tune entitled “We asked AI how it could kill humanity. Here’s what it told us.” Social media posts often made these stories seem tame in comparison so no need for Mikey to wind up the doomsday clock further at present.
Then the AI-is-going-to-get-humanity story ended almost as abruptly as it had begun and the sounds of the gears being switched were overcome by the blare of the trumpets announcing the impending approach of World War 3. Mikey calls this war Russia versus the rest of the world. But, what does he know, he’s just a Cultural Icon of sorts? Russia, a mysterious and unknown quantity for many in the West, is ostensibly the perfect villain for the times. We’ve always been at war with Eurasia. This story, in essence, is very simple, and with the key traitorous component being checked off the list back in 2019, here we are. Woe to the poor people of Ukraine, caught as pawns in this sordid chess match gone wild.
Now more than ever, can’t we all “just give peace a chance?” Seriously.
