Homelessness

 HOMELESSNESS

I'm sorry, but I object to these fruitless discussions about homelessness.  If some person or persons live in a camper beside the road or in a tent in a park, they are not homeless.  Their homes are in a camper beside the road or in a tent in the park.  Simply because they don't have two bedrooms and two bathrooms and a kitchen does not qualify them as homeless.

Once again, some city council person complained about some guy with a grocery basket full of his worldly goods hanging out in various places, normally close to a fast food dumpster.  After all, a guy has to eat and there usually is plenty of food found in various dumpsters.  You just have to know where to look.  This guy is perfectly content which, usually, is the real cause of the city council person's complaint.

These people are not homeless; they simply have habitation habits not consistent with yours.  If they wanted to work at some menial job for minimum wage so they can afford some dump called an apartment, they can do so.  Hardie's, Burger King, McDonald's, KFC are all hiring all the time.  Go ask and you will receive.  Pretty simple really.

What we really object to is that these people object.  They object to our expectations.  We have come to expect that since we spend our lives in activities that in no way benefit us except in cash so that we can eke out an existence from a job that may be gone next week, they should have to do the same.  After all, we just signed a humongous loan to buy a $350,000 house that will be gone in the first windstorm and will cost me any  money I might  accumulate in insurance costs to reimburse me from that first windstorm.

I saw a photo of the campers lining the ocean side streets of Malibu with a huge smile.  These people have it made - - beautiful climate, leisure, ocean on one side and a road to town on the other.  What more could one ask for?  What is even more delectable: the multi-million dollar mansions across the street, most of which are only inhabited by the people who take care of them, have owners worth millions if not billions who hate those people littering the neighborhoods in which they have invested, causing a depreciation in the value of their very expensive houses.

It's not that these people are missing out on anything important.  What do most of us do anyway at home besides finding something to eat, go to the bathroom, either watch TV or surf the net after dinner, and then take some medication to help us sleep another night.  Oh, I forgot, mow the yard and wash the car that you owe $40,000 on.  What's so great about that when I can do exactly the same thing (no mowing or washing) by the ocean without huge loans to pay on every month.  If you need a little extra cash for a vacation, just drop in to the local Pizza Hut for a few weeks and wait some tables.  It's all good.

Richard E H Phelps II

Mingo

What's Next?

 WHAT'S NEXT?

If one were to pay attention to current developments, one would realize that there are, at a minimum, two things that will change our lives immensely and these two things are   not material:  they exist only electronically.  These two things are AI and quantum computers.  But, they will affect every aspect of our lives.

Let's talk quantum computers first.  These will be with us shortly, within a decade.  From what one reads, these computers will be millions of times faster than traditional computers: the computers that we have had now for approximately 80 years.  If one were to stop and look, one can see for oneself that the computer as we know it has changed the world we live and work in.  It is not the same world as it was before the advent of computers.  Now we will have a method of computing that is unimaginable and our lives will change dramatically because of it.

The human species, us, have with difficulty, been able to adjust to all innovations.  Innovations have always, and presumably always will, benefit some and destroy others.  The industrial revolution is our model for the effects that technology has had. There is no  reason to believe that the future will be different.

The second development, which is occurring now, is AI.  AI will be all-encompassing.  Being a criminal defense attorney, I see it already in the mischievous use of AI to defame, terrify and simply annoy others.  What AI will do to a population that spends its time online can not be adequately digested.  

An acquaintance said to me:  "I went on ChatGPT to find some interesting things to do in Des Moines:  that I could do with my eight year old.  My friend didn't call up an acquaintance, someone in the neighborhood, a cousin or other human being to help find something to do for the evening.  He used AI; he used an electronic knowledge bank.  I was not privy to the results of this effort.

But to think of AI, is not to analyse the result of a query,  but to think of the effect it will have on us as people or as friends, acquaintances, fellow workers, etc.  I no longer need to call Fred to discuss some matter or for suggestions and ideas, I use AI.  Who needs Fred when I have ChatGPT?

So what do you say!  So you don't need Fred anymore, so what?  Is there any reason even to know Fred?  And how are decisions to be made and how will these decisions affect others?  Where is the best place to rob a store?  What is the best way to liquidate a rival?  How was the decision to attack Iran made; was it a person or was it ChatGPT?  

Let's say a major decision has been made using ChatGPT and that decision has had consequences not envisioned nor beneficial, but devastating.  Who do we blame?  Who do we hold accountable?  What this really comes down to is that we need to start thinking about these things collectively.  Our legislatures, rather than worrying about someone being transgender or a book in the library depicting a gay teenager, might start considering how we are going to deal with the tremendous societal changes that are coming through quantum computing and AI and others we may not even be aware of. 

Our lives are going to change and we need to think about what will be happening to us and the people we care about.  This should be a collective effort.

Richard E H Phelps II
Mingo

Bleeding Edge

 BLEEDING EDGE

Thomas Pynchon

Books for Bigots

The second of Pynchon's oeuvre read, as the learned are want to say.  My plan is to complete it slowly, one chapter at a time - - before nodding off.  Having first read MASON AND DIXON and now BLEEDING EDGE, I have a good idea of Pynchon's efforts in immersing himself wholly in different worlds.  Amazing really. 

What strikes me immediately is how much effort his books must require: the absorption of  huge amounts of information, encyclopedic really.  And I have just begun Vineland which again takes an entirely different set of knowledge.  But of course, these pieces are for the purpose of considering the probabilities of Bigots reading the book under discussion, not Pynchon's encyclopedic efforts.

I would suggest that a Bigot reading BLEEDING EDGE could quickly become confused.  Having read a number of novels in my life, it seemed to me as I was reading, that this book got away from Pynchon.  There is a lot here. There are many characters and many subplots, the center being Maxine who operates a small investigative agency allowing her the acquaintance of all those who live on the margins in and out of the Dark Web but never a resolution.  Or, if there is, I missed it.

Highschool age children, an ex-husband or errant husband, reappears; corporations doing extremely secretive and assuredly illegal activities; undisclosed government agencies appearing and reappearing with uncertain motivations; various and sundry computer geeks searching the Dark Web; a sister and  girlfriends married to men involved in the mystical activities of mysterious corporate entities.  Nothing ever very clear.

And then we have 9-11 and descriptions of the city during and after the event with its effect on various individuals.  Having visited New York in October of the year the twin towers came down, it is a pretty accurate description.

Throughout the book there  is always the hint of sinister threats and activities that could adversely affect the various characters that come and go and through all this Maxine is apparently investigating the source of all this highly suggestive evil which is the corporate spirit, Hashslingerz. 

Then we have a couple of interesting chapters plugged into the book that really don't seem to have much purpose other than to get your attention.  The first is the chapter where Maxine does a pole dance at the club and goes home with a man who apparently she needs assistance from in her search of the Dark Web and  masturbates him with her feet - - him having a foot fetish.  Just another day's work for Maxine.  Most Bigots with whom I am familiar would find this chapter disturbing.

Then we have a chapter where the mysterious Nicholas Windust orders her to her knees on the floor strewn with debris and does her from behind.  This being done directly upon her appearance in the apartment without any "how are you" or other salutation.  She submits and after, thinks, it actually was fairly enjoyable.  But this chapter nor the one referenced above  do not add any to the story and simply cause you to wonder "What the hell?"

These two chapters are reminiscent of the abduction in Chapter 53 in MASON AND DIXON where Eliza Fields is kidnapped by Mohicans presumably and taken to a Jesuit Monastery in Canada where she meets Captain Zhang and together they escape the Jesuits and return to the area being surveyed by Mason and Dixon.  That was a very puzzling chapter as are the two in BLEEDING EDGE.  And, again, one wonders why they are there other than to renew the reader's attention if beginning to wander.

But they are there and the effect on most Bigots with whom I am familiar would be privately titillating and publicly horrifying in that most Bigots of my acquaintance have contradictory personal and public views of such situations totally opposite from each other which causes high levels of internal consternation which, in turn, they then inflict on those with whom they associate.

Since there is sex, and sex of various sorts, this would not be a book for the general Bigot of my acquaintance which would be somewhat unfortunate in that it does give a glimpse into the lives of computer geeks whose lives are online rather in the daylight dealing daily with actual people.  Writing about a life on line will of necessity become common since that is where most people spend most of their time now.

Again, I will give Pynchon credit in immersing himself in another world and giving us a view of it.

Richard E H Phelps II

Mingo