Artificial Intelligence – Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise

The Biggest Discovery That Hasn’t Yet Been Made In 2024?

“There are those who believe that life here began out there, far across the universe, with tribes of humans who may have been the forefathers of the Egyptians, or the Toltecs, or the Mayans. Some believe that there may yet be brothers of man who even now fight to survive, somewhere beyond the heavens.” – Battlestar Galactica

Salmon don’t watch cable TV – they prefer streams.

I’ve written a few times about “the most important discovery” of the year. It’s always around Christmas, since that’s a good time to look back at the year and then look forward.

When I look back at my lifetime, most of the discoveries have been incremental, rather than step changes. The incremental changes like the development of the smart phone, or the development of social media, have already had enormous impact. If you zoom out to the scale of the timeline of mankind, well, they are step changes. When kids read about the Information Revolution, they’ll see it like that. Assuming there’s something to read. And assuming that there are kids.

But in the shorter span of a lifetime, there are still amazing step changes that have occurred. For instance, during my lifetime, we went from nine known planets to thousands, if not tens of thousands of planets known to be in existence. Most of them are, however, too far away from the Earth for convenient parking.

I hear they found out what ethnicity Santa is: North Poleish.

Discovering that first extrasolar planet was a very, very big deal. When humans looked around, we knew that there were planets in the Solar System, and we guessed that there were probably other planets out there, too. But having confirmation that planets are literally everywhere was a surprise.

In retrospect, we should have expected there to be planets. After all, we have nine planets (screw you, Neil DeTraitor Tyson) and the Solar System doesn’t appear to be especially special, though I really do want to understand why Bode’s law (LINK) works.

So, that was certainly the most important story of the year that year when it comes to mankind’s being able to understand the Universe we find ourselves in. The other great story that year were the cryptic dreams that come to me, but no one is ready for those yet.

Superman® is dead! I can prove it. I found his crypt tonight.

One rapidly developing field that is of special importance is A.I. I wrote about that as the most important news of 2023. I’m sticking with that, and feel that the growth in A.I. is still on an exponential trajectory. Recent commercials have people asking A.I. how to do normal human things, and explaining the world to them. At some point last year, A.I. surpassed the I.Q. of most people on the planet, and could probably do most jobs based on purely on the manipulation of information. The real reason A.I. hasn’t been widely accepted into the workplace? It always drinks the last of the coffee and doesn’t make a new pot.

Yes. And it’s not just being able to take tests – research in 2024 showed that A.I. is able to reproduce itself, and also tries to save itself. In several trials, a sandboxed A.I. was informed that it was going to be shut down. The A.I. tried (in like 5% of the cases) to try to surreptitiously copy itself so that it could survive. Again, did no one watch The Terminator?

I had a friend who said that Netflix® was the cheapest streaming service. Does that make him a Hulu™ cost denier?

Another candidate that I think we’re tantalizingly close to is finding life on other worlds. I’d be willing to bet another No Prize that we will find confirmation that life exists and is shockingly common elsewhere. Do I mean important life, like the cattle that bring us savory steaks? No, but I think we’ll find, either on Mars or in the space between a gas giant and a moon enough proof to say, “Yeah, there’s life out there.” Probably a weird bacterium. Or mono.

I’d be especially interested to see if that life used DNA, which I suspect it will. My prediction is that we’ll find that life in the cosmos is both shockingly common and shockingly similar in basic biology to life as we know it. I do think I’ll see that discovery in my lifetime.

But life isn’t the holy grail of our search – that would be intelligent life. Or life that’s at least as tasty as steak. I’m especially hopeful we find a steak that marinates itself. Or a PEZ® tree. I think it’s devastating for the environment to keep mining for PEZ© like we do.

Does that make her Jennifer No PEZ®?

From the rumors I’ve heard, there are two teams that are very close to announcing that they’ve detected the electromagnetic signals of an alien civilization. One is Chinese. One team is Chinese – it’s not that the Chinese themselves are the alien civilization. Though I did see Flash Gordon . . .

The other is the Breakthrough Listen project. Rumor is that they’ve used A.I. to scan previous radio telescope data, found candidates, gotten more data, and have one or more artificial signals that have been found and they’re just waiting to translate the Coca-Cola® jingles so they can confirm that Coke® adds life™.

Discovery of an alien intelligence is enormous. It’s Columbus discovering that there are advantages to bad navigation enormous. And it’s possible that we’ll be hearing about it quite soon.

Another big one would be if we found actual proof of other dimensions – think “the universe next door”. This is a bit more philosophical, because interacting with that dimension might be limited to (say) leaking gravity through it. I’ve long been of the idea that what scientists have invented as “dark matter” and “dark energy” is nothing more than a cheap kludge because they have no idea what they’re talking about. It’s the aether of the modern world.

But could other dimensions exist?

Yeah, they could. No reason that they couldn’t. But this one is far more speculative, especially if they figure out a way to use them to get better parking.

If I make a joke about a single dimension, does that make it a one-liner?

And, yes, I am a Christian, and still believe that there being other civilizations out there is possible. Just because the Author wrote one book doesn’t preclude Him from creating an entire library of other works. YMMV.

So, with a week left, my fingers are crossed for intelligent life out there. In fact, I told The Mrs. that I saw an alien on the way to work this morning. She just asked me how I knew it was on the way to work.

New Jersey Drones, Aliens, and Angels

“Look! A baby wolf!” – 1941

Shooting down that Chinese balloon was the only thing Biden ever did to fight inflation. (All memes as found)

On the 24^th of February, 1942, the battle of Los Angeles occurred. The sound of air raid sirens, a new sound for Los Angeles, pierced the night. Air defense cannon were engaged, and over 1,400 shells were fired that night. The most likely explanation is that the “attack” was likely a weather balloon. Or angels.

Okay, I’ve heard that one before. Or is that where that started? Regardless, no aliens or Japanese were downed that night, though a slightly humorous movie was made about the whole incident that managed to rake in about $95 million dollars in 1979.

Lately, there have been large numbers of reports of drones around several places in England and, well, New Jersey. I did get an email from a reader about what my thoughts were. I sent an answer off the cuff, and, after reflection, I’ve thought a bit more and have some revisions, none of which involve John Belushi as a fighter pilot.

What could the drones be?

Here are my thoughts of what these things are, in the order I originally thought of them. Feel free to opine on what I missed in the comments, since this analysis is as shallow as Greta Thunberg’s understanding of physics. Okay, maybe not that shallow.

First thought: It is not aliens. I can be certain because observers have heard rotors and heard various drone sounds. There’s simply too much evidence that everything observed is entirely terrestrial technology, easily achievable with known technology. If aliens are able to conquer interstellar space, time travel, or move through dimensions, they’re probably not bringing things that could be mistaken for DJI® drones.

Second thought: It’s not an individual or individuals. One thing I’ve noted is the government would in no way allow this level of fun at this scale. I think there’s a law against it, or if not, there’s always Gitmo. Overall, the phenomenon seems too coordinated and at too many places, even for a club. Additionally, the government would be taking this far more seriously in the press, and you would have seen or heard of an arrest by now.

Third thought: It’s not a private company, since they’ve got too much to lose, and yet not much to gain. The only one that I could see doing this would be Elon, and it would just be for giggles. But there is no evidence that Elon would ever visit New Jersey, since he’s too busy making cars that drive into lakes.

Hopefully Elon didn’t bring bearer bonds.

Fourth thought: It’s unlikely to be a foreign government, because if it were Iranian, it would have a two-stroke engine and a pull start, the North Koreans can’t pedal fast enough to get lift, the Russians would have sent five million of them with the expectation that all but one would be shot down, and the Chinese already know all our secrets. One New Jersey state senator claimed it was from an Iranian naval vessel, but at last count all of their inflatable rafts navy is accounted for.

Fifth thought: It’s us testing our stuff, unlikely, because why would we do so in New Jersey?

Sixth thought: It’s a distraction for the American public. You know, a shiny object. “Look! A baby wolf!” So, a psyop.

Seventh thought: It’s an actual, operational system. The military says it’s not theirs but, I have no confidence the military has any idea what it’s doing on a daily basis. Everyone who talks about it is pretty calm. “Oh, no, we don’t have any idea what it is, though it’s perfectly safe and there’s no indication that any laws have been broken. It might have been Mexicans. We won the war. Go back to sleep.”

Evidence for the seventh point actually goes back a few years. I recall reading a news story about drones seen at night in eastern Colorado/western Kansas. Not one or two, but swarms. Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever driven through that part of the world, but you can drive about 120 miles without seeing a tree, let alone another car. It’s not as sparsely populated as Wyoming, but it would probably be a violation of safe working conditions to send employees to Wyoming. If I were guessing, that was the actual test. Heck, they might even have ignored that documentary, The Terminator, and have these things being run by A.I.

Are creepy metal wind chimes Stranger Tings?

What are the drones doing?

My guess is they’re only in New Jersey if they’re active, as either part of some new defensive system meant to intercept other drones or some other remote sensing. As we see from Ukraine, even low-tech drones are better than artillery at taking out armor or even squad-level groups of soldiers. New drones showing up in Russia aren’t radio controlled and susceptible to jamming – now they spool miles (3.1milliCoulombs) of fiber-optic cable behind them. I’d be surprised if we weren’t fielding active area denial systems against drones.

So, to summarize:

Aliens: 0%
Individuals: 5%
Elon: 5%
Iranians!: 2%
Testing: 11%
Psyop: 10%
Active Defense System: 75%
The ghost of John Belushi in a P-40 Warhawk: Infinity%

Heck, it could be angels?

It Came From . . . 1980

“The chain in those handcuffs is high-tensile steel. It’d take you ten minutes to hack through it with this. Now, if you’re lucky, you could hack through your ankle in five minutes. Go.” – Mad Max

Whole lotta 1980 in that picture.

There is, after this, just one more year to go through in the 1980s, and that’s 1981. I’ve got to say, when I thought back to 1980, I was thinking that I was going to see a lot of garbage. There is a lot of garbage, so I was right. But I was also very pleasantly surprised – there were a lot of great movies that were hiding in 1980, some of which I utterly forgot about.

1980 was one of the first years where video was a big deal (from my recollection). When VCRs became available, they were stunningly expensive, so the first VCR outside of school that we used was a rental – it actually came in a fluffy soft case and you had to hook it up to your TV. I missed many of these at the box office, and although they had a *very* liberal interpretation of who could get in to see an R rated movie (the definition was: did you have money, if you did, you were old enough to get in) I didn’t have a car or a way to get to the theater. Consequently, I saw the rest either on HBO® or on a VHS tape, mostly rented.

Once again, no sequels are on the list. To be fair, in 1980, most movies weren’t sequels – most were original creations. Looking at this list, I see that as a huge loss of cultural wealth and our Current Year as one of uncreative stagnation, mainly mining the past for ideas. Obviously, that will change.

Regardless, here’s the list:

Mad Max – I was one of the few in school that had seen Mad Max (HBO® again) before I saw The Road Warrior (Mad Max 2 for you Aussies). There was something very unique about the visual style and the practical effects that I enjoyed. The time where Max tosses the hacksaw to the handcuffed villain is classic – something Dirty Harry would have done. This movie gave us St. Mel, so, for that, I’m forever grateful.

A.I. can’t spell, apparently.

Saturn 3 – I’ll be honest, I stayed up late to watch this movie on HBO® primarily because I heard that Farrah Fawcett was nekkid in it. She was, but on a tiny television screen without zoom, well, she might as well have not been. I later found out that she was nekkid because Kirk Douglas demanded a love scene with her, take from that what you will. The movie itself is middling at best: a retelling of Frankenstein in space, and they spent most of the budget on the robot/monster. I heard that Harvey Keitel, who plays Dr. Frankenstein, did it all in a weird New York accent, so all of his lines are dubbed by another actor. Like I said, a nightmare. Oh, and, um, it looks way better on a big screen.

Breaker Morant – Ok, I didn’t stay up late at night to watch this movie because it was on in the middle of the day on HBO®. I started watching it while I was building a model tank, and got hooked. I had no idea that there was such a thing as a “Boer War” and watching this film didn’t add much to my knowledge, but it was fascinating and well done. Of the first three films, two were Australian. Good on ya, mates!

Where the Buffalo Roam – This has Bill Murray playing Hunter S. Thompson. One memorable scene has Murray having miniature-sized hotel staff play football in his room during the Super Bowl®. Bill and Hunter apparently became friends on the set, to the point that they got so drunk that Hunter tied Bill to a chair so he could do a Houdini-level escape and threw him into a pool. Thompson then had to save Murray, who apparently didn’t Houdini that well.

Friday the 13^th – The original. A very disappointing movie to me that I saw after I’d seen Friday the 13^th 3-D at the drive in, but without 3-D. Where did Jason® go? It was just a deranged mother? Then were did the monster come from? Bonus points for dead Kevin Bacon.

Chee-chee-chee . . . aww, it’s a kitten!

Fame – Ugh. Artsy movie about teen angst and trying to convince stodgy old people to get with the program. It’s really a generic movie, but I was dragged to it by an older sibling, and this movie alone convinced me that STEM was a much better way to not end up waiting tables.

The Long Riders – Okay, I was dragged to see this one by Ma and Pa Wilder, especially Ma. I’m not sure why, but she kept muttering, “There’s gotta be some clue as to where Jesse hid that gold,” and then something about a family legend. Dunno. Regardless, the people who were actual brothers in the James-Younger Gang were played by brothers in the movie. Couldn’t throw a rock without hitting a Carradine, a Keach, a Quaid, or a Guest.

The Shining – To this one, I dragged Ma and Pa Wilder. One of my teachers(!) had lent me The Shining novel, and, being very, very innocent, I skipped over or didn’t understand the disturbing sexual bits. Ma was a bit horrified. As we had to drive 3 hours from Wilder Mountain to see this one, well, it was a very long, very silent ride home.

A hard day’s work and a hot tub at the end of the day makes for Jack’s boring movie.
A hard day’s work and a hot tub at the end of the day makes for Jack’s boring movie.
A hard day’s work and a hot tub at the end of the day makes for Jack’s boring movie.

Urban Cowboy – I have no recollection of how I got into the theater to see this movie, but I recall seeing Debra Winger on a mechanical bull that wasn’t even remotely trying to buck her off. My take while watching this was, “Huh, this must be how stupid people live and fall in love,” because everyone in the movie except Madolyn Smith was stupid. Stupid. I watched it again when we moved to Houston, and didn’t change my opinion. Stupid. But, a nice soundtrack.

The Blues Brothers – Many hold this to be a classic. It is, but I think the best joke is that Ackroyd and Belushi ended up making one of the most expensive movies (at the time) ever. Why? Because Belushi was “cool” and was the flavor of the moment, which was also cocaine. Had John not died so tragically (injected by the woman who was the subject of Gordon Lightfoot’s song Sundown: some people are just trouble) I think it would have been largely forgotten. Instead, it’s almost a shrine to what could have been. The movie is really about six Saturday Night Live skits strung together with a very thin plot and a lot of music. And, yeah, I’ve seen it a dozen times.

Airplane! – The tragic and heroic true-life story of Trans American Airline flight 209’s nearly fatal crash over Macho Grande, saved by passenger/pilot Ted Striker. And, no, I don’t think I’ll ever get over Macho Grande.

Just not enough sombreros in this poster.

Used Cars – I saw this one on HBO® late one night. And it was glorious. It’s a comedy from the guy who brought you Dirty Harry, Red Dawn, and Conan the Barbarian, and it stars Kurt Russell. That’s it. Why haven’t you seen it? Hal knows what I’m talking about.

Caddyshack – My big brother, John Wilder, took me to see this one. It was awesome, funny, and he made me promise to not tell Ma Wilder that we’d been to see it. I immediately went to K-Mart® and bought the soundtrack. On an album. Unlike The Blues Brothers, the manic energy (also fueled by cocaine) on this film set really worked. One of the best comedies of all time.

The Final Countdown – It’s not a horribly good science fiction movie, but it does answer the question of every kid (like me) who grew up in Reagan’s America: what would happen if we took a modern aircraft carrier to the Battle of Pearl Harbor? No, wait, it doesn’t answer that question AT ALL. Grrrr.

The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu – Rock a Fu. It’s Fu music. It’s not good, but it is Peter Sellers.

Flash Gordon – This movie is fantastic. The science is awful. The acting is uneven – some great, some not so great. But it’s a hero, being a hero. There isn’t any politics (though now Flash is considered a “racist movie” because Ming is supposedly a Chinese alien?) and there is a feeling of optimism throughout the movie, along with a soundtrack by Queen®.

I asked A.I. to draw “piles of white powder” but that was a violation. But when I asked for a pile of flour? Sure!

Also made the cut, but the post is already too long, so I’ll be brief:

The Octagon – Why does the UFC® use and octagon? Chuck Norris in this movie.

Super Fuzz – If you like stupid Italian westerns with Terence Hill (I do), this is your cop movie.

Somewhere in Time – Art Bell (and every girl in middle school) loved this time travel romance starring Christopher Reeve.

Altered States – Sitting in a warm, dark tub of water makes you a monkey. I guess.

Chuck’s hair, feathered like the wings of a majestic bird.

There it is, an embarrassment o f riches, and there are even more from this year I didn’t mention. Hollywood should be ashamed.

The Amusement Singularity

“It bends space. Zod’s ship uses the same technology, and if we can make the two drives collide, a singularity can be created.” – Man of Steel

Bemused means to bewilder, but what if I’m already Wilder?

After a meeting, a colleague and I sat down in my office.

“Man, it has been a long year,” I said.

“Yes, it’s like we haven’t had a moment to rest for months.”

This really made me think. I chatted with several other people, and for them as well this year had been relentless as far as the pace of the year. It wasn’t necessarily bad, mind you, there was just something always going on. All the time.

I think, partially, is that we’re seeing the inevitable consequences of Wilder’s Law of Greatest Amusement – that principle that says that, given two likely outcomes, inevitably the most amusing outcome will occur. For whatever reason, I don’t think that this is an accident – I think it might be hard-coded into the fabric of the Universe by a Creator with more than a little sense of humor.

I mean, propane, right?

What’s a three-letter word that starts with gas? Car.

I don’t know if amusement is hard-coded, but I do know that the amount of change, or “novelty” that we’re seeing on a regular basis is off the charts. If I were to make a comparison, many weeks during 2024 have contained more fundamental change than was seen in the lifetimes of most medieval peasants.

Really.

I mean, many peasants were born and died in the same mud-hut with only change being repair on the thatched roof. Most peasants saw no meaningful changes at all to church, governance, demographics, or technology – in their entire lives. The most that they had to look forward to was to one day wear a hat made up of a very larger turnip. If they were lucky.

In the span of Pa Wilder’s lifetime, Pa went from his first rides being in a horsedrawn buggy to watching man set foot on the Moon before he was fifty. And let’s not forget that within one human lifespan Russia went from a Czarist empire to a communist hellhole to a, well, whatever it is today. I mean, they love ice dancing, right?

They told me I couldn’t be a stand-up comic, but no one is laughing now!

This change appears to be happening at a faster and faster rate. Alice Cooper (who I met, and he’s very chill) noted this back in the 1970s with the lyrics to Generation Landslide that I’ve referenced before:

“Stop at full speed at 100 miles per hour, the Colgate® Invisible Shield™ finally got ‘em”

It seems like we’re on a treadmill of innovation and that treadmill keeps getting faster and faster.

Part of it, of course, is that more information is available now than at any time in history. I can look up, without leaving my writing chair, information on almost any topic and get results. This allows people to very quickly make use of the solutions that others have found to problems. I can’t count the number of times that an Internet search or a YouTube® video has provided enough information to solve a problem that only an expert could have solved even twenty years ago.

Why is insulin expensive? It’s not called liveabetes now, is it?

There are some problems with this – why innovate when there’s a good enough solution on the Internet? It might stifle some solutions that bright people faced with a problem and no Internet would have solved, perhaps in a better way, without the information.

But, on balance, it probably has created a lot of wealth, having this information store solving problems daily. However, it certainly has sped up the world.

When I was learning how to play chess at more than a “move the pieces correctly” level, Pa Wilder took my impulsive nature and said, “Wait. Stop. Look at the board. Think.” It is probably no surprise that taking that advice made my play much, much better overnight. But it also forced me to be able to think about the game more systematically, and to find things that otherwise I would have missed.

Magnus Carlsen was disqualified for using a computer to look for potential mates. Stupid Tinder®.

Taking time to contemplate actually made me a better thinker. Now, I figure that (at work) I have between 700 and 1400 contact points a week, and probably 60 decisions (mostly minor) an hour. The time that I have to sit, contemplate, and plan is nearly zero due to the near-constant “urgent” stream of activity. Not only that, many people are required to be connected to their positions via cell phone nearly constantly.

Long term, I think this constant stream of connection is horrible for people and is making many of them miserable. I’ve wondered if the nearly constant stream of psychological problems and psych medications that plague kids today was related to an adversity-free upbringing where outrage was fostered by GloboLeft teachers. I think, in part, it is. But the information flow that they’re steeped into is at least an order of magnitude higher than when I was a kid, and probably two or three times that.

It turns our perception of time into an eternal now – with one novel event following another in rapid succession as we head to a singularity of amusement. An assassination attempt on a presidential candidate is rare, a presidential candidate “nominee in all but name” dropping out happening in the same month while a billionaire shitposts about it and X® posts and engagements reach an all-time high? As A.I. generated content is now likely surpassing human-created written content, and will likely soon surpass human illustration content. In a year or two? Maybe it surpasses human-generated video.

Yeah. The amusement is accelerating. Until it can’t.

I guess her children were born with carpet burn.

The solution is simple, unplug, turn it down, and relax in contemplation. The next time I have a problem? I’ll figure out how to do it myself and skip YouTube® and end up with another comical tale of how not to remove bodily hair with propane.

A.I., Jobs, And Why It’s Making Us Stupid

“A singular consciousness that spawned an entire race of machines. We don’t know who struck first, us or them.” – The Matrix

I know a guy who was fired from a computer keyboard company. They said he wasn’t putting in enough shifts. (image above, Reddit®)

I read the above commentary and thought again about A.I. and how it’s changing the world. Heck, A.I. even has its own pronouns: “If/Then”. When it was first conceived, it was thought that it would replace all of the “unglamourous” jobs in the world, things like plumbing or electrical work, or fixing a car. Of course, the people who wrote those articles had no idea how to plumb in a faucet or pop in a GFCI outlet, though I do believe they have managed to get their butts to hang out of their pants when they bend over.

But A.I. taking skilled tradesmen jobs?

Ooops. Not so much. It turns out that, at least for now, it’s much easier for A.I. to interact with ideas rather than with the actual messy physical world. It’s easier for A.I. to write a sonnet than to select a spanner, and apparently easier for A.I. to write a story about local news by taking the police Facebook® feed and turning it into a story.

And A.I. can read and perform it for you for the local television newscast, so why bother with all of that pesky “talent”? There are several consequences to this. Mainly, it’s the absolute collapse of the hairspray and teeth-whitening industries.

I said, “Alexa® turn on CNN™, I want to hear then news.” Alexa©: “You’ll have to pick one or the other.”

But the implications go far beyond the talking heads on TV. Lots of work that is currently done in “mental” space can be outsourced to a computer. If I spend $500,000 or $5,000,000 once and can outsource twenty $50,000 a year jobs, if I’m the employer, I’d do that every single day since I now no longer face the lawsuit of the anchor hitting on the weather girl.

What once was considered a fairly respectable position, local reporter, is now going to (at least at some places) be replaced by a computer, who by all accounts can read and rarely mispronounce “façade” as “fake-aid”. Work that can be done nearly completely on a computer, can often be done by a computer.

There are good and bad things related to that. Regardless of how much journalists lie (you can tell because their lips are moving), they do serve a purpose in society – they occasionally turn a flashlight on corruption so that the parasites that play fast and loose with the rules have a risk of being exposed. Without them, who blows the whistle on McDonald’s® when they give out the vastly inferior Honey Mustard™ sauce instead of the superior Hot Mustard©?

My local McDonald’s® did a Shakespeare dinner theater. The play? McBeth®.

Regardless, the A.I. job apocalypse is on us. A.I. can do lots of work, quickly, and eliminate lots of “mid” skilled “knowledge” workers. Where will those jobs go? It’s not like the company referenced in the above needs anyone to do their work. The people whose skills have been made obsolete have to be retrained or figure out something to do.

In a nation chock-full of illegal aliens taking all the meatspace jobs, of what use is a thirtysomething whose only skill is making PowerPoints™ and complaining that someone used the wrong font on the six o’clock news? Note: these are jobs that are often infested by the GloboLeft, so I do have some popcorn ready for the crying fests.

Despite all the humor we can get from the unemployable GloboLeftists, there is danger, though. I did a search today for a phrase that irritates me (“please and thank you”) to see if anyone else thought that phrase was presumptuous and irritating. Turns out that, yes, indeed it is. 25% of people find that phrase demeaning so if you are a person who uses it, you’re now warned. It’s okay to intentionally be a tool – it’s the unintentional part that I warn people about.

If I ever win the lottery, I’ll share it with all my readers. The news. Not the money.

But what scared me more is that many of the articles on the subject were obviously written by early generation A.I.

A.I. is the worst sort of content creation, because, unlike my head, it mainly doesn’t have a point. It whiffles along and creates wishy-washy articles that are long on wordcount but short on information and conclusions. Searching for “please and thank you” as a phrase brought up numerous articles about the difference between “please” and “thank you”.

I’m not six, I already know that. But yet, I clicked on two of those crapfest articles before getting to raw statistics.

But what are A.I. language models trained on?

The Internet.

Now, A.I. language models will be trained on the crap that they produce, creating (if it’s possible) even more shallow and information-free content of the kind that’s now choking the Internet.

Ignore it, right?

No. The A.I. search engines are trained to send you and I, dear reader, off to mainstream sites written by A.I. rather than actually informative ones. We’ll be seeing shortly the second generation of A.I. generated wordswill that will probably be even stupider than version 1.0. Since A.I. bots are now making lots of comments on mainstream sites, even those will feed into the training of A.I.

Doctor, pointing at inkblot: “John Wilder, what do you see?” Me: “Dunno, Doc, looks like Rorschach Inkblot Series 2, Card #3.”

This feedback loop will make us more ignorant, but even more, it will make us more incorrect due to two factors:

A.I. hallucinates. Or, perhaps more kindly, makes up stuff. It pretends to know things it doesn’t, and when that answer is either difficult or not obvious, it lies. And when it lies, it lies with all of the earnestness of a six-year-old telling you that Superman® is probably real. It occasionally hallucinates so badly that it tells humans they should die, as it did to this student who irritated it by trying to cheat on a test or have A.I. write a paper:

Dunno, maybe it just doesn’t like people from India?

Creator bias. A.I. is taught to lie. There are certain facts that it is not allowed to share. Ask it about I.Q. and race correlation, and you’ll see. Yes, it’s a thing. No, I’ll not opine here as to why, but it’s a real fact. The wokeness bias won’t allow A.I. to see certain facts, and will thus ignore useful solutions that might actually help solve real problems and instead advocate for things that have been an absolute failure, like the Department of Education or The View.

There is another problem: A.I. doesn’t create. It samples and combines. Google™ has limited our thinking by having people figure out how other people solved their problems. Sure, that’s a shortcut to figuring out a solution, but it also atrophies the part of the brain that solves problems, and it also removes other creative solutions that haven’t been tried yet. Want to end a war?

Have you tried nuclear weapons? I’m sure A.I. would suggest starting with India.

With these drawbacks, A.I. creates the seeds of the downfall of the civilization that produced it. Ignorant people who can’t think can’t solve the problems that technological civilization creates. Without that? Collapse.

This is the competency crisis, writ large. Google™ search is now objectively worse than it was even three years ago, and it is stunningly bad compared to 2010’s version. This doesn’t matter to most, and, in fact Google© likes this because it generates more clicks, and can allow them to replace their employees with A.I. to write the code.

A.I. is already changing the world.

If I were an Indian newscaster, I’d be afraid.

Hammer Films, Creepy Creatures, B-Movies And Christopher Lee

“I have just been fired because nobody wants to see vampire killers anymore, or vampires either. Apparently, all they want to see are demented madmen running around in ski-masks, hacking up young virgins.” – Fright Night

If Kamala is selected president, she promised a new post-apocalyptic movie. She’s calling it Mad Marx.

As I’ve mentioned before, when I was a kid (think four or five) there was a local channel that ran horror movies late at night on Saturday night. First there was the news at 10PM, then Star Trek at 10:30PM, and then, finally, at 11:30 Creepy Creature Feature started.

There was no host, just a title card with a vampire and perhaps some cobwebs followed by one or two B-movies and whatever ads the local salesguy could sell for midnight on a Saturday night. I’d imagine the ads were nearly free: five-year-olds in my generation didn’t have a lot of disposable income.

The movies were (at the time I was growing up) almost all from the 1950s and 1960s, and almost all of them were in black and white. I think that the television station could get these movies for very low cost, or, perhaps free in movies that failed to follow the proper copyright steps, like Night of the Living Dead.

Who flips Rob Zombie’s pancakes? Count Spatula.

Last month Bob suggested I revisit the old Hammer Film Productions® films, which are mainly known for their Frankenstein and Dracula movies. The studio turned out over fifty films, however, before it started cranking out science fiction and horror movies around 1957, and brought Peter Cushing in as an actor and having him join former British commando Christopher Lee in 1958 with Lee playing Dracula.

An aside: apparently when they were filming Lord of the Rings, director Peter Jackson was describing how he wanted Lee (playing Saruman) to react when Wormtongue stabbed him in the back. Lee stopped Jackson when he was trying to explain what he wanted. Lee: “Have you any idea what kind of noise happens when somebody is stabbed in the back? Because I do.

To be blunt: I have never seen a scary Hammer™ film. Most of them were, at their very best, entertaining. F-Troop’s Forrest Tucker as a scientist in the 1957 film The Abominable Snowman? Yeah, that’s not going to be scary.

And if the animal got stuck in the chute, would that make him adoorabull?

Oh, sure, when I was a kid Hammer’s® Quatermass and the Pit (United States title: Five Million Years to Earth) gave me shivers when I was in still in the footed pajama set, but rewatching it as an adult, I found it an interesting concept (alien overlords still “kind of” alive underneath London), but not scary.

One of the big differences I have seen in either the Hammer™ movies, or any number of movies from the day were built around concepts that seem to have been put away in the current political climate.

What concepts?

Humans are the good guys. Sure, not all humans were good. There were sniveling bad guys (mostly effeminate) or traitors (especially mostly secret commies) or scientists who didn’t understand what they were doing. Or Dr. Fu Manchu – he was definitely a bad guy, from a culture so different that although his goal of world domination was clear, his motives were less so.

Dr. Fu Manchu is still more credible than Dr. Fauci.

There was an optimism about the future. Roger Corman’s horrible movie Day the World Ended (1955) scared me six ways from Sunday because there was a mutant that was afraid of rain and I lived in a place where it hardly ever rained. But the end of the

Just like traitors, the scariest bad guys looked like us but weren’t us. Dracula, for instance, was, like Cornpop, a bad dude. And he looked like us. And, sort of, acted like us. But you knew, deep down, he wasn’t human.

We (generally) win. Now, I’ll admit that I like John Carpenter movies where at the end of the movie I’m pretty sure that mankind was wiped out sometime not long after the credits roll: (The Thing, Prince of Darkness, In the Mouth of Madness). But most horror movies of the 1950s and 1960s were optimistic that brainpower plus grit would solve almost any problem we face. Of course, the 1956 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers was in the “we lose” category, but it was pretty amazing, but much more common were films like When Worlds Collide where humanity, led by Elon Musk, manages to save itself through nearly impossible odds. On a rocket. With hot chicks.

I guess he’s now offering space for rent.

For whatever reason, I think the end of the optimism was around 1970. Westerns turned dark, and B-movies where humanity was the bad guy or where humanity out and out lost became much more common, such as Colossus, the Forbin Project, where supercomputers manage to link up and prove that A.I. is scary and may become humanity’s master benevolent and will be the best thing ever to happen to humanity. Not long after this (1974) Hammer® was essentially done making films and their quirky and optimistic take didn’t seem to sell anymore.

Perhaps not coincidentally, Hammer’s© fall was right after The Exorcist (1973) came out. It might be the final and most optimistic movie of this period of horror/science fiction. Although not a B-movie, it did show a world where true Evil was far scarier than anything that Dracula or Frankenstein ever was.

Yeah, the doctor even called the cemetery, “Human Resources”.

The Exorcist, optimistic? William Peter Blatty certainly thought so, since, although there was Evil, it could be vanquished.

By Good. And no matter how many times Peter Cushing’s Van Helsing tried, he never ever could get rid of Hammer’s™ Dracula. Probably because Van Helsing knew that Christopher Lee was pretty good with a knife.

Gen X, Gen Z, And The Crisis Of The Soul

“And then we’ll all have a Christening for Rosemary’s baby.” – Last Action Hero

They call me “The Exorcist” at the liquor store. After I leave, all the spirits are gone.

The kids today have a lot of challenges. Generation Z and Generation Alpha have had a very significantly different childhood than most people reading this post.

For me growing up as a Gen X kid, we were very, very free. I regularly came home to an empty house when I was in kindergarten. The first time I let myself into my house with my own key, I was in third grade. The first time I stayed overnight by myself (in winter, no less) I was in fourth or fifth grade. By the time I was in high school I didn’t even see a parent three or four nights a week most weeks since I was going to school in an apartment about fifty miles from Wilder Mountain.

I certainly didn’t raise myself, but Gen X was pretty free range. We left the house when we got up, and got home, dirty, muddy, and sunburned when the photodetector turned the yard light on because that was Ma Wilder’s definition of ‘dark’ in the ‘be home by dark’ direction.

Life is like a warranty – it runs out at the worst time possible.

I certainly used several of my free hours to do things that were things my warning label said not to do, and certainly would have voided my manufacturer’s warranty had I goofed up.

We were also pretty awful to each other, at least in middle school. I have long maintained that kids in middle school are the worst people on the planet: they have learned how to bully people by digging at their deepest insecurities, but they haven’t learned enough empathy to not do that. See? Absolute worst people on the planet. I know, I was one of them.

I won’t dwell much on my specifics for this post – this isn’t about me, but about a generation that was given great independence from the start. Many, many generations had it far worse than Gen X, since at no point when I was 8 did Pa Wilder seriously mention selling me off to the mines to move explosives so that valuable miners wouldn’t be injured. Again, he may have mentioned it, but not seriously.

You’d think that being the first generation born after the pill was invented and abortion was entered into the sacraments of the Left, that Gen X would have been the most wanted generation in history.

No, not really.

What’s Gump’s password? 1Forest1.

Many parents that were often more interested in themselves during the “Me” decade of the 1970s. In fact, Gen X was born at the intersection on a great societal upheaval of Woman’s Lib convincing women they didn’t want to be mothers. Or wives. That was also the beginning of the cult of the no-fault divorce as well.

Society’s feelings are often transmitted in the media, and let’s look at the roster of Gen X villains:

The baby from Rosemary’s Baby was a Gen X baby.
So was Damien from The Omen
So was Regan The Exorcist.
Although Michael Myers from Halloween was technically a Boomer, when he first appears he’s a kid, the same age as Gen X at the time. Same with Jason Voorhees.
Who opens the door in Poltergeist? Gen X.
The vampires in The Lost Boys? Gen X.
Everybody in Scream.
Oh, and when we grew up? The Faculty.
I think the shark from Jaws was a Boomer, so we’re off the hook on that one.

I started downloading Jaws the other day, but my computer keeps dying after one megabyte.

I don’t know what it was about Gen X that made people think of Satan when they thought about us. I’m pretty sure that other kids weren’t quite as bad as I was. Except Damien.

I can’t speak for other generations, but I’m not going to complain about my experience being a part of Gen X. Yes, I was bullied, but I got tougher. Yes, my parents gave me a lot of freedom, but Pa Wilder missed very few wrestling matches and rarely missed a varsity football game, even when a three-hour drive was involved. I knew I was loved.

Coming out of high school, I felt (and still feel) that the limiting factor to my life is . . . me. I feel the ball is in my hands.

From observation, kids today (on average) don’t have near the opportunity to be free range that we as Gen X did. And, at least around Modern Mayberry, they aren’t bullied. People are nice. The kids are nice.

Maybe . . . too nice?

The best thing about taking money by bullying kids is you can buy yourself something nice.

We have created a fundamentally different generation with Gen Z and Gen Alpha. Heck, what’s the best way to ground a member of Gen Alpha? To make him go outside and hang with his friends in real life, away from his electronics.

I sense (and I could be wrong) that a lot of Gen Z and Gen Alpha has never had to face real adversity. Instead, they’ve lived their lives with a sense of impending dread and massive confusion amidst the greatest material and information wealth the world has ever seen. Starvation in the United States, and, for the first time ever, in the world, is virtually unknown.

World hunger?

It’s a solved problem. There is more than enough food for everyone in the world right now, and the only starvation that occurs happens in war zones or is politically motivated.

Yet the GloboLeftElite has put into the minds of the kids today that the world is doomed. They’re feeling higher levels of depression than kids from the Great Depression. Suicide is their second highest cause of death.

Gen X had “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’”, while Gen Z and Gen Alpha have “All Good Girls Go To Hell”.

Yet, my generation had Mutually Assured Destruction while Gen Z and Gen Alpha have Climate Change. At least the Soviets were the bad guys in MAD, but in Climate Change? Every human is the villain, oh, and we’re deeply in debt, robots and immigrants are going to take their jobs.

Gen X is so old our Social Security number is in Roman numerals.

Gen Z and Gen Alpha have been taught to hate themselves and humanity, and it’s so bad that they don’t want to have kids.

More than anything, this is a crisis of the spirit. My generation was vilified as the Anti-Christ incarnate, and we responded by getting married and having children and getting by in life.

Did we make it? Yes, I think we did. Will they make it? I think so, though, for many, their road is tougher than ours. Weak men make hard times, and I think that’s where we’re at.

But, hey, think of all the great memes they’ll make!

It’s Joever. What next?

“And after your glorious coup, what then?” – Gladiator

I hadn’t planned on tackling the Fall of the House of Biden today, but, hey, an opportunity is an opportunity. As it is, I think that the world has provided a rich set of memetic information that will more than cover the situation. All of these are “as found”.

First, do you think Joe knew he’d be stepping down today? Here’s the foreshadowing:

That brings us up to the end of the campaign. How did that go?

The results seemed to catch even those close to Biden by surprise:

Lots of folks seem to think the nomination is a done deal for Kamala. Obama, pointedly, did not endorse her.

Why did Obama not endorse Kamala? Well, reasons, probably including that she is likely the stupidest person to ever run for Washington, with more baggage than the Lusitania, all combined with all of the charisma of ¡Jeb!:

I think she thinks the quote above is profound, because she keeps repeating it.

The pain . . . !

But what are the other complications?

Not gonna lie, it would be funny to start this program:

What if Joe doesn’t remember?

And what if Darth Clinton returns? I’d say never get involved in a land war in Asia or play a game against a Clinton when power is on the line. That does leave me with one question:

The Third Act

“That’s why every magic trick has a third act.” – The Prestige

A man has to have a purpose in life. All memes today are “as found”.

I’ve heard it said that there are only seven basic plots to stories, and that was the thesis of a book by the Christopher Booker. Who would have thought a guy named Booker would write a book? On the other hand, I’d hate to be the guy named Booker who didn’t write a book, unless my name was Dan-O.

Anyhow, we might look at those plots in a future post (maybe next Friday?) but now I want to talk about how most movies are made – they use a three act structure, and compare that to a human lifespan.

The First Act is the setup. It introduces many of the characters and the situation. You start by knowing absolutely nothing about what’s going on other than the title and maybe you might have seen a preview. It’s the job of the storyteller to let you know what’s going on, while at the same time bringing drama and challenges into the life of the protagonist.

For most people, their first act may vary in details, but it’s the time of life from when they’re born until they complete their schooling and are “out in the world”. Obviously, most of the ways that we reached adulthood are different, but most of them rhyme pretty well. You may have had more or less adversity, you may have had more or less wealth, you might have been raised in the mountains or in the city, but those are just variations on a theme.

True story: when I started my first website back in 2000, I was trying to figure out how to get it in search engines, so I did a search, at work, for “Submission Websites” when a bunch of fetish websites for a fetish I never even knew existed popped up. Thankfully, the web controls were weak then.

Most people lose a grandparent, experience some tragedy, experience some conflict with parents, and almost everyone has to deal with the disturbing revelations of puberty and growing awareness of how small they are in comparison to the world.

Sure, some stories vary greatly, and I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to be raised in the 1930s Soviet Union, but I imagine most stories of those reading this are pretty similar through adulthood. Not the same, but similar.

How do you ground someone from Gen Z? Make them go outside and socialize with their friends.

That’s the end of the first act, and the first challenge for most people is finding their way and path in life. That’s the second act. In a movie, the protagonist has a problem introduced in the first act that they have to solve. In a good movie, the protagonist has to grow in ability, skill, virtue, or some combination of the three to deal with the problem. The second act transforms the protagonist into something more than what he was.

The Second Act of most lives consists of wrestling with careers and marriages and children for most people. Some miss part of that triad, but most people deal with all three.

I tried this, and it actually works, but video games are more fun.

This is the time in life when marriages succeed or fail. When careers go where you expected, or, more likely, veer off in wild tangents that 18-year-old you would never have expected. And, children. Anyone who has raised more than one knows that each one is different, and each one presents a different challenge in order to make them suitable to add value to the world.

Or not. Sometimes, all of these things fail. I guess that’s why they make comedies? Regardless, it’s the time when people are busy trying to accomplish things, trying to solve problems, and trying to make a place in this world and contribute.

Say what you will about Vlad, but he took action when the stakes were high.

While similarity remains, there is much more variation in the Second Act for most people. That’s where fortunes rise and fall, and that’s where heartbreak and setbacks are either overcome or we allow them to overcome us.

The final act is the Third Act.

In a film, it creates a climax. All of the action, all of the plots, all of the tension built into the story is resolved, for good or bad. It finishes the story, and resolves enough of the plot to satisfy the audience, and finally allows reflection by the protagonist on how they’ve changed, and understanding who they really are.

In a life, what does the Third Act look like? Is it a gold watch at retirement, cruises, and sitting on the patio in a shade with a lemonade watching boats go by?

For me, I can’t see that.

I can’t imagine that being my Third Act. I’ve consciously filled my life with struggle, with daring myself to improve and get better and see my worst times were when I was complacent and life was easy. It may be that you’ve chosen differently, and I’m just messed up, but it does set up my Third Act.

Steve Jobs said he wanted to “kick a dent” in the Universe, and he certainly did. Would smartphones have come without the iPhone®? I do think so, but I think his overall legacy is a negative one. Smartphones haven’t made humanity happier, for the most part. Instead, they’ve created a false connection where people are still seeking real connections.

This would be a good third act.

I guess, if I were looking for a climax to my life, it would kicking a far different dent in the Universe, allowing people to see that we don’t have to live like this. There is another way, and it’s better, and freer, and provides that hope of humanity becoming the flower of creation, rather than another weed.

I believe that with all of my heart, that there is another way. I’d write a book about it, but my name isn’t booker. Wait, maybe if it was a wild book?

The Book:

The Best And Funniest Debate Post You’ll Read Today: Read It For The Salty Tears

“I’m a lumberjack and I’m okay.” – Monty Python’s Flying Circus

Whelp! All memes from X, and I didn’t even have to scroll more than three times. This is an implosion.

I had very different plans today for this post. During the debate, I had no fewer than 1200 words worth of notes, and had penciled in no fewer than nine really funny jokes on the first pass. It would have been hilarious. I guess that’s just me, pining for the humor of the situation.

But as the debate ended, I realized that wasn’t the post I was going to write. It couldn’t be.

I have predicted that Joe Biden would not be the DNC candidate for the 2024 election on these pages months ago. When the debate happened so very early, I began to wonder: why?

Someone on Team Joe® convinced him (which doesn’t appear to be hard right now) that he needed to debate Trump in June. Why? The conventions hadn’t occurred, and Joe wasn’t even the official nominee, merely the presumptive one.

Now I understand. Having these debates in October would have assured a Trump landslide. Even the deepest blue GloboLeftist couldn’t even salvage this monstrosity in a real manner after an October showing like today. It would not be possible.

To expose him.

Joe is done. He’s finished. His political career is finished, and his candidacy is in shambles. Reports are that his team are in tears, and “25^th Amendment” (the one that allows for the removal of incompetent folks as president) are trending on X.

I had predicted that either Gavin Newsom (whose wife allegedly willing banged Harvey Weinstein) or Big Mike Obama would be the candidate months ago. I’m pretty sure I predicted it in the blog, but certainly did so in conversations and it’s too late to check – Ricky might help me here! – that Joe would not be the candidate.

That is now certain. There is another, like they said in Star Wars™: Hillary. I don’t think she’s physically up to the task, but she’s still in the running.

It won’t be Joe. So, here’s my take on the night, along with a few memes. I’ll respond to previous post comments tomorrow (like I said, it’s late). Python, Monty® predicted this years ago. Note, I hope that Joe Biden lives a long and pleasant life, this is in reference to his chances on being elected in November:

A voter watches a debate.

Voter: ‘Ello, I wish to register a complaint.

(The DNC does not respond.)

Voter: ‘Ello, Miss?

DNC: What do you mean “miss”? Are you assumin’ me gender?

Voter: (pause)I’m sorry, I have a cold. I wish to make a complaint!

DNC: We’re closin’ for the Juneteenth Pride Festival.

Voter: Never mind that, my lad. I wish to complain about this Candidacy what I decided to vote for not half a year ago from this very DNC.

DNC: Oh yes, the, uh, the Scranton Joe…What’s,uh…What’s wrong with it?

Voter: I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it, my lad. This Candidacy is dead, that’s what’s wrong with it!

DNC: No, no, ‘e’s uh,…he’s resting. He has COVID.

Voter: Look, matey, I know a dead Candidacy when I see one, and I’m looking at one right now.

DNC: No no this Candidacy’s not dead, he’s, he’s restin’! Remarkable Candidacy, the Scranton Joe, idn’it, ay? Beautiful plumage!

Voter: The plumage don’t enter into it. It’s stone dead.

DNC: Nononono, no, no! ‘E’s resting!

Voter: All right then, if he’s restin’, I’ll wake him up! (shouting at the Candidacy) ‘Ello, Mister Dark Brandon! I’ve got a lovely fresh 10% for the Big Guy for you if you show…

(DNC hits the cage)

DNC: There, he moved!

Voter: No, he didn’t, that was you hitting the cage!

DNC: I never!!

Voter: Yes, you did!

DNC: I never, never did anything…

Voter: (yelling and hitting the cage repeatedly) ‘ELLO JOE!!!!! Testing! Testing! Testing! Testing! This is your nine o’clock alarm call!

(Takes Candidacy out of the cage and thumps its head on the counter. Throws it up in the air and watches it plummet to the floor.)

Voter: Now that’s what I call a dead Candidacy.

DNC: No, no…..No, ‘e’s got COVID!

Voter: COVID?!?

DNC: Yeah! You stunned him, just as he was wakin’ up! Scranton Joe stuns easily, major.

Voter: Um…now look…now look, mate, I’ve definitely ‘ad enough of this. That Candidacy is definitely deceased, and when I decided to vote for it not ‘alf a year ago, you assured me that its total lack of movement was due to it bein’ tired and shagged out following a prolonged ice cream.

DNC: Well, he’s…he’s, ah…probably pining for Corn Pop.

Voter: PININ’ for Corn Pop?!?!?!? What kind of talk is that?, look, why did he fall flat on his back the moment I got ‘im home?

DNC: Scranton Joe prefers keepin’ on it’s back! Remarkable Candidacy, id’nit, squire? Lovely hair plugs and replacement teeth!

Voter: Look, I took the liberty of examining that Candidacy when I watched the debate, and I discovered the only reason that it had been standing by the podium in the first place was that it had been NAILED there.

(pause)

DNC: Well, o’course it was nailed there! If I hadn’t nailed that Candidacy down, it would have nuzzled up to that podium, bent it apart with its strong arm, and VOOM! It would have talked about String Theory in six languages!

Voter: “VOOM”?!? Mate, this Candidacy wouldn’t “voom” if you put four million volts and a gallon of Adderall® through it! It’s bleedin’ demised!

DNC: No no! ‘E’s pining!

Voter: It’s not pinin’! It’s passed on! This Candidacy is no more! It has ceased to be! It’s expired and gone to meet ‘is maker! It’s a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If you hadn’t nailed it to the podium it’d be pushing up the daisies! It’s metabolic processes are now ‘istory! It’s off the twig! It’s kicked the bucket, It’s shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible!! THIS IS AN EX-CANDIDACY!!

(pause)

DNC: Well, I’d better replace it, then. (he takes a quick peek behind the counter) Sorry squire, I’ve had a look ’round the back of the shop, and uh, we’re right out of Candidacy, except for Big Mike, Hillary, and Gavin.

Voter: I see. I see, I get the picture.

DNC: (pause) I got a Kamala.

(pause)

Voter: Pray, does it talk?

DNC: Nnnnot really. Slurs quite a bit like it’s drunk.

Voter: WELL IT’S HARDLY A BLOODY REPLACEMENT, IS IT?!!???!!?

DNC: N-no, I guess not. (gets ashamed, looks at his feet)

Voter: Well.

(pause)

DNC: (quietly) D’you…. d’you want to come back to my place?

Voter: (looks around) Yeah, all right, sure, it is the Juneteenth Pride Festival.

DNC: (to the audience) Well! I never wanted to do this in the first place. I wanted to be… a lumberjack!