Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity is Nearer . . . Gets Nearer

As the date of release date of Raymond Kurzweil's The Singularity is Nearer: When We Merge With AI (June 25 of this year) approaches we are seeing more reviews of the book, and commentary about its contents.

So far it seems that Kurzweil is not making any radical revisions to his earlier predictions, but endeavoring to show that we are continuing to advance toward the realization of what he predicted in his prior 2005 book, and indeed, what seems to me his more ground-breaking and foundational 1999 book, The Age of Spiritual Machines.

This can seem less than surprising. While many assessing Kurzweil's forecasts, even when limiting themselves to just his forecasts regarding the area that is his focus rather than broader economic or political developments about which his knowledge has seemed fairly casual, have found him much more often wrong than right, Kurzweil has tended to regard himself as overwhelmingly getting it right rather than wrong. Defending his 147 predictions for 2009 in answer to Alex Knapp's critcisms of them as "mostly inaccurate" in Forbes, Kurzweil insisted that 78 percent of them were entirely correct, another 8 percent only off by a year or two, and only a mere 2 percent classifiable as wrong.

Still, when we consider what he had to say about matters like virtual reality and self-driving cars we are reminded that what he thought we would have in 2009 we still lack in 2024, all as the prospects of whole technological areas seem to have fallen sharply in the years since--as with nanotechnology, a bubble that can seem to have yielded next to nothing as compared with the promises then current, which were quite important to his vision. Yes, when someone points this those who refuse to brook any suggestion that this is anything other than an era of revolutionary technological changes insist that really nanotechnology is all around us, but when pressed admit that this is at best a matter of incremental improvements in a number of well-established fields rather than, for instance, the materials revolution promised by the use of exceedingly strong and lightweight carbon nanotubes in large-scale engineering, or even chip-making--never mind the wondrous nano-machinery an Eric Drexler described. In spite of that the buzz for Kurzweil's book has him continuing to project nanobots in our bloodstreams helping to keep us healthy in the 2030s. I admit myself skeptical about that one--but I do wonder what he has to say in support of his claim.

Cynically Exploiting a Generational Divide

In our age the grubby work of mainstream politics is far, far less a matter of building coalitions among different groups on the basis of their common interests than of playing them off against one another to push an agenda very few actually want. Thus has it been standard operating procedure to promote "culture war" for the sake of enabling a neoliberal economic program. Indeed, if for a period during the 1990s neoliberals, in a moment of utopian euphoria (or insanity, or idiocy), thought they could do without a culture war that had always been an imperfect tool for their purposes, turning to a more congenial "market populism" instead, but the way their utopian project came crashing down around them as they went from disaster to disaster in the twenty-first century had them doubling down on cultural warfare. Indeed, this seems inextricable from the way the Great Recession quickened the long rightward march of politics--with this, when one looks closely, not the end of neoliberalism but rather an attempt to save as much of it as possible.

Of course, in doing so they were already playing an old game, if more intricately. Traditionally culture war, which has been known by many names over the years (like status politics), has been a matter of ethnicity and religiosity. Today gender is a large and conspicuous part of the game in a way without precedent, while there is also an abundance of appeal to generational divides--and especially the fears and hates the old are supposed to feel for many of the young. Thus Rishi Sunak trots out his idea for National Service. The idea is bound to cost him points with the young--but to whatever extent he is actually trying to win this election, hoping that it will appeal enough to youth-hating oldsters to gain him enough points with them to more than make up for any such loss there.

Such maneuvers deserve to fail, and fail miserably. Perhaps they will do just that on Britain's own Fourth of July.

Drivel About the Draft

Some months ago there was an uptick in the chatter about the possible reinstitution of conscription in Britain in the wake of public remarks by retiring Chief of the General Staff Patrick Sanders. In the main it was light-minded, culture war-mongering nonsense from commentators knowing and caring nothing of the practicalities of the matter, and perhaps not even why there is so much talk of a draft in the first place, but sure that they find the thought of the millennials they despise being brutalized in basic training and coming home in body bags delightful.

This chatter waned, of course, but, as Rishi Sunak to all evidences does his best to lose an election that was already looking pretty hopeless for the Conservative Party after a long and disastrous time in government (think where they were in 1997, but much, much worse), and in line with this eager to guarantee the alienation of the younger voters who would actually be making the "sacrifice" of which those in power and those who duck-talkingly repeat their words so love to speak, raised the matter of mandatory national service, apparently in much the same spirit.

One would think those people had never heard of the fact that armies must not only have recruits, but equip them as well if they are to actually function as a serious fighting force. That one cannot mobilize a population without also mobilizing an economy, and that there may not be very much "economy" to mobilize, especially not the kind that counts in "finance" and "services"-oriented Britain a those aforementioned commentators cheerled for so many years. The likes of Nigel Lawson may believe, or profess to believe, that manufacturing is irrelevant, that an extremely import-dependent nation of sixty million can live on "services," but selling real estate and trading currency and even making London a "lifestyle" hub for the international super-rich does not outfit armored divisions. And as this process has been broadly evident across much of the world, not many others have much capacity these days, such that the few who still do can hardly meet the entire demand of a rearming Europe. (Certainly South Korea can't build enough tanks for everybody who wants them! Not for long anyway, the way things are going.)

When you see commentators talking about that you will know the discussion has gotten serious. Still, I would not rule out a draft happening without it getting serious. Those that lickspittle court historians hail as "statesmen" and encourage their countrymen to revere as such, when one judges by the facts and not the flattery, have generally not been an impressive lot--and as cynical as they are stupid quite capable of ordering lots of people to put on uniforms, and then only much later worrying about actually getting the uniforms.

Liz Spayd's Counterblast at the New York Times' Readers Over Bret Stephens' Column and What it Shows Us About Centrism

Liz Spayd answered the backlash from readers over the publication of Bret Stephens' climate denialist first column back in 2017 with an expression of support for a greater diversity of views on the opinion pages to be achieved by "busting up the mostly liberal echo chamber around here," and criticism of the Times' readers for not taking "at face value" Stephens' attack on climate science as honest skepticism.

Looking back at Spayd's piece her position strikes me as an object lesson in the centrism that is all too often confused with "liberal" or "left" views (when it is, in fact, classical conservatism adapted for twentieth century America).

It is very telling of this centrism that the Times' editorship's desire for a greater diversity of views led to the inclusion of a Stephens on its pages--the conservative center more easily looking right than left for its opinion and its insight; far more likely to extend a conciliatory hand toward the right than to the left; and when those to its left question its doing that, the center defending not just its conduct but the right to them, as it attacks the left for saying anything about the matter. Indeed, in answering the "liberals" who stood in for the left in this discussion, Ms. Spayd accused them of intolerance for other views--all very much in line with who is and who is not part of the "legitimate" conversation in the centrist's eyes. Put into the terminology of centrist political theory, the Times' left-leaning readers were a pack of "ideologues" and "extremists" behaving in an "uncivil" fashion--as a result of their doing what the "civil," "pluralistic," "pragmatic" politics by which centrists set such great store disallows by their remembering that in politics people are not always forthright about their meanings, intentions and goals, their actually paying attention to context, their thinking that actual physical reality is of any importance, and caring more about addressing a pressing real-world problem than "getting along." For in the view of centrists like those for whom Ms. Spayd spoke anyone legitimately part of the conversation ought to take a presumably legitimate Stephens "at his word," accepting his claim "that he has no intention of manufacturing facts and that he will be transparent with his audience about his ideas and intentions"--even though bad faith and outright lying have for decades been foundational to climate denialism, and Stephens' personal history generally and writing in that very column particularly raised alarms on that point, the more in as centrist media such as the Times have enabled denialist propaganda such as they suspected Stephens of at every turn, not least through the "both sidesism" into which Spayd's remarks at the very least played in a way all too familiar.

One may imagine from this that it is easier to stay within the bounds of "legitimate" discourse when one is getting their way (as the climate denialists have generally succeeded in doing), rather than those criticizing, let alone trying to change, the "status quo" (as those concerned about climate change are)--and they would indeed be right, centrist theorists drawing the boundaries of legitimacy in such a fashion as to make it impossible for any leftist to meet the standard (as it regards any structural criticism of society raising such matters as capitalism, class and power, the reliance of explicit social theory, among much, much else central to the leftist tradition all absolutely off-limits). By contrast the same rules have been far more accommodating to the right, and in practice the centrist less ardent about enforcing the rules against it, permitting it to assume the right to be "legitimate" unless proven otherwise (with this almost impossible to do to the satisfaction of a conservative, anti-leftist centrist, as Spayd's piece reminds one).

All of this is underlined by how situations in which the center defends the left to the right do not seem to come up the same way--though admittedly such a situation could hardly have done so when the Times, while having a veritable army of avowedly right-wing columnists (this was, after all, the place where Ross Douthat coined the term "woke capitalism," while the Claremont Institute's Christopher Caldwell writes for them too, etc., etc.), and its supposed "liberals" are often anything but (as with a certain "free-market Savonarola" who cheerled for war after war with famously vulgar, brutal and racist rhetoric), has no one writing for it on such a regular basis who is anywhere near as far to the left as its avowedly right-wing columnists (or even those who are not avowedly so, like the aforementioned free-market Savonarola) are far to the right.* And it would be a surprise were it otherwise given the recent quantitative assessment of the paper's front-page stories demonstrating its consistently favoring the concerns of the right--just as the conservative, and ever rightward-inclining, centrist can be counted upon to do when it really matters.

Conscription in a Neoliberal (and Neoconservative) Age

"There is no such thing as society," snarls the neoliberal--meaning exactly what they sound like they mean, even if they deny it afterward, or others deny it on their behalf.

However, those who talk in such terms are not unknown to suddenly decide that there is such a thing as society after all--when it lets them make demands on the less powerful members of that entity whose very existence they just denied. So does it go with figures like Rishi Sunak proposing bringing back mandatory "National Service" for the young in a fashion that, however much Sunak insists that the proposed program offers "choice," is undeniably intended to press at least a portion of the relevant age cohort toward the armed forces (while, with General Patrick Sanders floating visions of British mass armies for fighting on the continent, the pressing of a few that way is plausibly interpreted as a first step toward much more).

The reaction of the most relevant part of the public--the young from whom the government is intent on exacting this service--is not merely unimpressed with Sunak's talk of "choice" (and "opportunity"!) but hostile to the idea, enough so that it is a reminder that it is one thing for politicians conducting an electoral campaign with such extreme incompetence that they seem determined to lose to shoot their mouths off about such plans, another to actually make such a scheme work. However, national-level political figures these days, in any country, rarely show any understanding of the concept of making things work, or even seem to care to pretend to do so for simple appearance's sake—and get away with it the more easily as their courtiers, and the courtiers of those to whom they really answer, are, as always, highly accommodating of their most brazen stupidity, ever assuring them that they are brilliant even as they consistently prove themselves the extreme opposite of that word in all its senses.

Looking Back: The New Republic's list of Overrated Policy Intellectuals From 2011

Recently I stumbled across The New Republic's 2011 list of "overrated" policy intellectuals.

I admit to not recognizing every name on the list (I did not remember previously hearing of Drew Westen), and to not being in a position to judge some of those I did recognize because of my knowing something of their work only secondhand--and especially the particular charges the list's makers laid against them (as with Rachel Maddow).

Where those I could judge are concerned I did not think that Ayn Rand belonged on the list at all, not because of any strengths or weaknesses of her work, but because she died almost thirty years before the list was made, in contrast with everyone on the list who was, at least at the time, among the living and actively part of the scene.

Of the others many seemed entirely appropriate. Fareed Zakaria? Definitely, and for exactly the reasons the list's makers say: "a creature of establishment consensus, an exemplary spokesman for the always-evolving middle," and frankly, an off-putting "mix of elitism and banality."

Parag Khanna? Likewise a fair choice. I reviewed his book The Second World. He got enough right that, a more generous reviewer then than now, I was on the whole favorable to the work--the more in as I was inclined to emphasize the positives over the negatives. Still, it was not one for the ages, and Khanna's next, How to Run the World, left me deeply unimpressed--"a self-congratulatory anthology of clichés and platitudes—the life of the mind, Davos-style" in the Republic's words. And nothing I have heard or read of him since has suggested I needed to bother with his work.

Still, I would say that this portion of the list was at best right fifty percent of the time--which also made it wrong fifty percent of the time, with Frank Rich one such case. The Republic's charge was simply that he is "an utterly conventional pundit of the old salon liberal variety." Even were that true it seems to me that his being an "old school salon liberal" would still leave him several cuts above the competition given the degeneration of the quality of political commentary across the spectrum of mainstream opinion, such that he has injected into that mainstream much that needs saying and is ever less likely to be said within its bounds these days--not least at his paper, the New York Times. Indeed, remarking the Republic's list Salon, in its worthwhile contemporary comment, characterizes the inclusion of Rich as a cheap piece of hippie-punching, which seems to me a very plausible reading of that item.

Selective Coverage, Fake Facts and the Conditioning of the Public

In his criticism of the media's coverage of current events in The Brass Check Upton Sinclair stressed its treatment of labor, discussing in particular its coverage of labor strikes. Discussing at particular length the strikes in the West Virginia and Colorado coal fields, and the Michigan copper mines, in the 1912-1914 period, he stressed how the press never missed a chance to associate strikes with violence in the public mind, with the strikers invariably the cause and perpetrators of the violence, rather than the victims they principally were (for, in the terms of the Herman-Chomsky analysis, strikers were "unworthy victims").

In cases this had to do with selective reporting, following the "simple and elemental rule--if strikers are violent, they get on the wires, while if strikers are not violent, they stay off the wires," even when it is a question of a very large strike going on for months. One may add that if there was no violence of the kind they wanted to report they were often prepared to say there was, as Sinclair showed when comparing side by side the Associated Press' coverage with the facts as reported in sworn affidavits vindicated by Congressional investigation in the case of the Michigan strike. The result was "that nine-tenths of the telegraphic news you read about strikes is news of violence," conduct which "irrevocably" engraved "the idea-association: Strikes--violence! Violence--strike!" in the public's imagination.

Looking at the news we see today that the same filthy practice is alive and well, if mainly deployed to malign groups other than strikers these days, with very few batting an eye at any of it.

Convenient Social Virtue and the Supply of Engineers

John Kenneth Galbraith introduced the term "convenient social virtue" in his 1973 book Economics and the Public Purpose. In that book he defined the term as the willingness of society's less powerful members to let themselves be exploited by the more powerful in the name of social good.

Galbraith raised the concept for, among other purposes, consideration of how differently society tends to treat people in different jobs, doctors as against nurses, for example. The conventional think it entirely acceptable that doctors should drive a very hard bargain where their monetary compensation is concerned--but should nurses receiving much, much less ask for a cost-of-living increase this is seen as unseemly, the nurse expected to be fobbed off with praise for her "service to the community" instead.

Other areas where one sees this kind of combination of exploitation with shabby moralizing include, of course, the teaching profession (resistance to which exploitation has led to the unhinged degree of demonization of the teacher seen in contemporary America).

Conventionally we do not think of society as making such demands on members of the far more respected engineering profession. Yet consider the eternal whining about the number of engineering graduates the country produces. As it happens the economy, especially in its current deindustrialized, hollowed-out state, offers plenty of careers that seem far, far more likely to be lucrative to those who have the potential to be engineers--like finance (to say nothing of those old standards, law and medicine)--and indeed is always recommending those careers to them.

In overlooking this they seem to simply think that in spite of the material rewards appearing to lie elsewhere young people will flock to engineering simply because business wants them to, never mind whether it is prepared to compete with other sectors for able young graduates--expecting, instead, that young people will choose engineering out of "convenient social virtue."

Ignoring Status Politics

As I have remarked in the past, the "consensus historians" remain important to American political discourse today. Not the least of the reasons for that is that consensus historians such as Arthur Schlesinger Jr., and Louis Hartz, and Daniel Boorstin, were the theoreticians of what we today call "centrism."

One of these, Richard Hofstadter, comes in for mention from time to time because of his interest in the ever topical subject of right-wing populism. As with all the historians of that group his work had significant shortcomings that only seem the more glaring with time.* Still, for all those shortcomings, much of their output did have its interesting aspects, which predictably get overlooked. One is Hofstadter's discussion of what he called "status politics"--a politics that, having to do with perceptions of a group's standing in American society, trafficks in the bitterness, paranoia and vindictiveness of groups toward each other. Hofstadter's discussion, arguably, underestimates just how preponderant such politics can become. (Hofstadter thought it a luxury of good times. Today we see how prominent it can be even in bad.) It also seems that he was inattentive to how such politics can be cultivated and exploited for the sake of other agendas--for instance, whipping up part of the public against this group or that to get it to sign on to an economic agenda unsalable in itself. All the same, he at least understood that what the country's culture wars really amount to is politicians telling the public "I can't make your life better, but I can make their life worse. Vote for me!"

In a political milieu of very limited choices it is possible that this works for at least some of the people, some of the time--or at least, that it is sufficiently hard to prove that it does not that they go on playing the game as a matter of course, all day long, all year long, bringing us to where we are today.

* Thus is it the case that Schlesinger Jr. in that early work so important to this current, his six hundred page epic The Age of Jackson, "makes only three passing references to Indians," completely eliding the 1830 Indian Removal Act and all that followed from it in its rather appalling attempt to paint Jackson as some hero of the common man.

From Red Lobsters to Pizzaburgers: Cory Doctorow's Pluralistic in May

Having written quite a bit just now about the absolute dreck to which The New York Times subjects its readership, let us discuss journalism of which we can say something more positive--Cory Doctorow's Pluralistic.

As I have remarked in the past, I consider pretty much every post Doctorow publishes there to be worth reading. (Not skimming, but proper, word-for-word reading.)

Still, sometimes it seems to me that a particular piece of Doctorow's merits special mention, and that the past month had more than its usual share of them.

There was Doctorow's item on the real story behind the bankruptcy of the Red Lobster restaurant chain. In its combination of "shareholder activism" and real estate trafficking, the death of antitrust and the death of the middle class, Doctorow makes clear how the decline of this restaurant chain has been a history of neoliberalism in miniature.

There was Doctorow's discussion of the Democratic Party's "Pizzaburger" politics--as well as the enormous risks those politics entail for the party in these fraught times that testify to what might politely be called the party's extreme dysfunction. (For how else can one speak of a party that so often demands that the electorate ""Hold your nose and vote" even as this approach fails again and again?)

And there is, of course, Doctorow's discussion of progress in climate technology and the expansion of electricity production from renewable energy sources--which apart from being worth reporting on itself, especially given the short shrift that the mainstream media tends to give it, he contrasts usefully with the technological hucksterism of Silicon Valley as a matter of real innovation against the fake kind that the "courtiers" of the press so love to slobber over.

Four years ago I concluded that as the techno-hype of the 2010s about self-driving cars and the rest disappointed very badly we had a real technological revolution in the area of renewable energy--in spite of the press coverage. I am more convinced of that now than ever, even as the hucksters of northern California's Bay Area continue to get all the press.