“I know what you mean, Blair. Trust’s a tough thing to come by these days.” – The Thing
Pretty soon they’ll just cast a bird. I can see it now, “Heron of Troy”. (all memes as-found)
I’m old enough to remember the song Land of Confusion coming out. It was from Genesis, which really should have been named “Phil Collins and some other white GloboLeftist dudes.” The video was and is hideous. It was intentionally hideous. I rewatched it again before writing this and ended up regretting it. If there is place for the True, Beautiful, and Good, well, brother, that video wasn’t it.
Okay. I assure you, this isn’t a review of a forty-year-old video, but rather the phrase that comes to my mind as I write this particular post. The world is really into WTF territory, a true Land of Confusion.
What’s going on? Is it time to start drinking heavily?
The largest product launch in the history of product launches is going on. Of course I mean Artificial Intelligence. A.I. has distorted everything, and I mean everything in our economy. There is (in my humble opinion that is more often wrong than right) no particular reason that the stock market should be doing as well as it is. A double Snack Wrap© meal with some fries and a drink costs $8.00.
The Dalai Lama went to Vegas last year because he loves Tibet.
That’s two tortillas, some Official Chicken Product®, a sauce, some shredded lettuce, potatoes deep fried in estrogen-laden oils, and, if you’re lucky and made the right choice, water or coffee. I guess this is an example of fake money for fake food.
Wouldn’t a bit a of steak be better? Even a little bit?
Gahhh! I keep wandering. Like I said, Land of Confusion.
If you really do a deep dive into the main prophet of A.I., Sam Altman, I assure you that you’ll become concerned that Sam is managing a trillion-dollar business with the potential that, if it fails, to lead to another Great Depression. But, hey, if it succeeds, there’s a 20% chance that humanity might be erased like mosquitos in a pup tent.
Honestly, I wouldn’t hire Sam Altman to manage a Taco Bell® in Modern Mayberry, but I guess that fast talking, double-dealing (according to Musk) and just plain greasy-seeming guy is the kind of person that we want to turn the economy over to.
If a robot commits a robbery and it’s caught after the battery dies, will police have plans to charge the suspect?
We’re riding the edge. And this sort of inflation on the bubble of reality has led to other inflations. Silver is following the classic signs of a bubble. But unlike A.I., silver is real. What’s real? Well, whenever I have a question like that I just leave it to old Jack Burton (Big Trouble in Little China):
Egg Shen: “(You) can see thins no one else can see. Do things no one else can do.”
Jack Burton: “Real things?”
Egg Shen: “As real as Lo Pan!”
Jack Burton: “Hey, what more can a guy ask for?”
Egg Shen: “Oh, a six-demon bag!”
Jack Burton: “Terrific. A six-demon bag. Sensational. What’s in it, Egg?”
Egg Shen: “Wind, fire, all that kind of thing.”
At this point I feel like Jack Burton. I’m just looking for something real. And silver is real. I can pick it up, feel its density, hear it go ‘ping’ like silver does, and give it to my sons when I die.
But silver went up. Then it went down. I hear rumors that a certain bank dumped all of its short positions when silver hit its recent low. Will it pop up in the next week?
I have no idea.
I’m not sure I care.
I’m just tempted to but a contract and go for delivery and show up to a COMEX® warehouse in a rented car from Budget™ and pick up 340 pounds of silver for the grins that would give me and then play Snake Plisskin from Escape From New York trying to get out of, well, New York where most of the COMEX vaults are.
The most famous human who bounces is that Irishman, Rick O’Shea.
The price of computers is also exploding. Why? Well, A.I., silly. Bill Gates (who the Epstein Files would indicate might have had to get rid of a nasty case of some Indonesian junk that’s going ‘round) has said, nah, man, why do you have a computer at all?
The idea, I think is to make computers like the one I’m typing on to be unaffordable. On one hand, I can see that if A.I. can do the calculations to weaponize the DNA from warts to infect humans into violent zombies or hack into the Pentagon instead of running a screensaver that might be a problem.
And yet . . .
A personal computing device has been available to me my entire adult life, and having my information in my house, on a hard drive I own is normal to me. Having to depend on the Indians running Microsoft® to not dump a tikka masala or a curry into the server and bring down my posts, family memories, and also kill Mabel’s life support in the ER in Cleveland doesn’t seem like the best idea.
Honestly, keeping Indians away from everything seems that way, but YMMV.
Then there’s Hollywood®. It appears that the only thing they want to create is unmitigated racist crap. Yes, racist. How else do you explain the cast for the latest Troy® movie, which features a black woman as Helen of Troy.
Here’s the take of one wag on X®:
What’s the difference between Syria and Detroit? How you get stoned.
A black woman as Helen of Troy? That’s bad. It’s not only bad, it’s offensive. It is, again, the opposite of the True, Beautiful, and Good in every single sense. And if the opposite of the True, Beautiful, and Good is Evil, well, there you go. And Zendaya (yes, that poor dog-faced girl Zendaya) playing . . . Athena. You know. A god. And Zendaya is a Midwest 5/10 on a good day.
Sigh. Land of Confusion. Again.
The most non-crazy item I’ve seen this week is Elon Musk saying that he’s thinking about putting a million data centers in orbit for creating A.I. processing. At least they won’t be subject to Sanjay dumping his sambar into the SanDisk® and stopping sanitation in San Francisco.
Oh, too late. Have you seen San Francisco?
Imagine how insulted Elon’s girlfriends feel when he says they look like a million bucks.
When Elon is fantasizing about putting a million of something into space is the most sane item of the week so far, it should tell you something.
When I read the headlines, I think back to my New Year’s resolution: drink more water.
So far, with the news in January, I’ve only gotten to: drink more.
