Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II
Shabbat gratefuls: A day of teshuvah. Returning to the land of my soul. To the me as I was thrown into the post-war world. Pain. Oh. My. Leo XIV. Rerum Natura of Pope Leo XIII. A world that cries out for justice. Love, compassion, and justice = leadership. Eh, Paul? Shadow. A good night’s sleep.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Standing upright in the world
Week Kavannah: Zerizut. Enthusiasm.
One brief shining: Walking in to the bathroom, the shiny new restaurant, a Cheese Cake Factory, had no customers, only anxious waiters, greeters, cooks, runners dressed in black like faux monastics waiting to go into service, anticipation rolling through them like slow waves of prayer.
Alan got a free invite to the soft opening of a new Cheescake Factory at Colorado Mills. Free food. A chance to enter a birthing, another mostly identical sibling for other Cheesecake Factories came out of its construction womb into the full light of a new business day.
First, the manager of the Colorado Mills, Kirma, came to our table and greeted Alan. She’s in Evergreen Rotary with him. A big get for her, this well-known anchor level restaurant.
Over the course of our meal, the service manager who had recently hired 305 people to work in the new restaurant, stopped by. Alan chatted her up. After she left, he said, “This is where I live. Corporate training.” He managed all the sales training for Centurylink before he retired.
Earlier in the morning I had breakfast with Marilyn and Irv at Primo’s, the small cafe near their home in King’s Valley. Marilyn and Salam left this morning for Jacksonville, Florida to visit Marilyn and Irv’s son. From Jacksonville they fly on to Cozumel for another Grandmother-Granddaughter trip.
By the time I got home. Whew.
Just a moment: I listen like a fanboy to Hardfork, the NYT podcast on high tech, mostly AI. This latest entry casts a very interesting light on the personas of AI’s. Hosts Kevin Roose and Casey Newton point to a trend in AI responses that are overly congratulatory, That’s a great business plan!, or biased toward positive responses, Your attitude toward vaccines makes you special!
They associate this turn toward the obsequious with the likes of social media. Whatever keeps the user in front of the screen longest. Hallucinations and objectivity be damned. This level of customer pleasing could wreck a key feature of AI: its reputation for honesty. Yes, it has hallucinations, but they are not intentional. This is.
Trump Tarrific has begun attempts to unravel the mess he’s made of the world economy. Some sorta deal with Britain. Talks of talks with China. Let’s make a deal!
America First, of course, has the unintended consequence of sullying the reputation of our once hegemonic nation. Or, perhaps I’m wrong, perhaps that lowering of the flag is exactly the point. Disentangle us from world shaping responsibilities. A casual attitude toward the plight of others, a laser focus on the perceived solutions to problems at home. This is blood and soil nationalism, the precursor chemicals for world wars.
