The SAT was once, perhaps, a way to move beyond wealth as a measure of merit. There might have been concern that geniuses would be left behind. Just now we are in the throes of a regime which believes itself a believer in merit, the chief exponent of which likely bought his way into college, paying others to take his tests and write his essays.
I only learned of Curtis Yarvin today, by accident, being generally dismissive of such obvious idiots who derive their definitions from tech, a retrograde maneuver if ever there was one. I've known the Peter Thiels, the rest of the PayPal mafioso, and many others whose entire world view seems built on technological progress in service of wealth concentration; essentially likening themselves to ever more advanced AI.
Of course my cosmology reinserts morality from the very beginning. Which puts me in mind of Catholic friend of mine whose visage is reminiscent of Yarvin's. These are believers in absolutes in all matters, who seem to hold the expectation that all will be revealed one day. Which is the basic definition for idiot.
Funny how standard issue intellectuals and scientists seem also to get caught up in the prospect if completed understanding. Honestly, please perish the thought.
Meritocracy is built on workaday cosmologies, which means simply that these ideologies extrapolate backwards from where we are. If you think the economy is the stupid all, then of course the wealthy are the ones with merit. Never mind that wealth is as often the product of sociopathy as of intellectual cleverness. I do wish all school-children would be told that all academic testing measures inherited social capital by proxy. There is no measure of what is inherent in those or any children. Love withheld reciprocates.
All success according to whatever cosmological assumptions is only relatable to whatever the cosmology is. Power structures reward affinity for power, and so forth.
My little itty bitty meritless cosmology builds luck in right along with God as the all and not as a being. Being for God could only be a put-down. People in power are by that definition always dangerous to the rest of us. That's the very meaning of democracy right there.
Without being, God is neither in power, nor interested in power, nor anything close to being a dictator. God is love, plain and simple, and Godly merit is evidenced only by how we treat the least among us. Which would include the most foul, dangerous, and ill-behaved.
By such measures, Trump and Yarvin and their ilk should be in jail and not in power. Treated well and loved by all, as likely or possible, but never allowed near any levers of power. All power must have government. A governor must be installed and replaceable. This is true in mechanics, in technology and in life generally. Things otherwise fall apart. AI represents the removal of any governor. That's it's only definition.
AI ipso facto sucks ass.
Whatever! It's not like anyone is listening to the likes of me.
And woe is me, I live in a big house, own a sailboat and a cool car. It's not like I ever wanted to live in a big house, but I like fixing things, especially houses and sailboats, and my peeps wanted me to live in a big house. I build value on the basis of taste and skill, according to values not my own. So I end up living in a house that doesn't feel like it's mine.
Not so long ago, I worked on what needed working on with relish and energy. I woke up knowing what I wanted to do, and I did it. Not so much any more. It hurts even to think about starting any projects. And the old sailboat I restored - wrecked my knees along the way.
So I have this difficult balance to navigate between and among desire, want and the myriad shoulds which creep in when your body ages. As in I should want to go sailing, but I don't.
I have no way to know if this stopping up of desire is based on a kind of depression or if it really is mostly physical. I do know that machines wear down and out with use, and require maintenance, respect and recalibration if you want to enjoy them.
I also know lots of people who consider their bodies as more like the machinery they run as opposed to they themselves and them. I just can't think of my body as other than myself. I don't run my body and more than I can run AI.
Now I do think there is something morally deficient in treating machines as something to be used up and tossed away. Funny thing about living things is that when you use them they get stronger, so long as you're judicious about it. But that equation changes as we age.
I get virtue-shamed all the time by people nearly my age who have an exercise regimen. Ditto by people who fix their pains with surgery. It sometimes feels like they simply don't want to hear my complaints, which I mostly suppress because of that, or don't know how to deal with the complaints of the old and unwell. They tell me I should see a doctor, which I would if there were anything very specific the doctor thought he could put his finger on.
The only specific is trouble sleeping, but I've had all the basic tests and beyond that it's about as attractive to treat as chronic fatigue syndrome for doctors, or so I imagine. I can solve my problem sometimes with Unisom or a weed gummy, but both of those wreck my next day. And those who urge such things on me are users, so don't know what I'm talking about. I have no desire to be high any significant part of any day.
Now if you think that AI is anything other than machinery, I've got a bridge to sell you. Sure AI gets "stronger" with use, except that it also eats its tail like ouroboros does. As deployed, AI is machinery for pumping wealth toward those who already have it. There are no morals involved in that sort of machinery. Turn it on and let it go! You have no responsibilty for the harm it might cause!
AI doesn't get old, depressed, or worn out. I suppose that you suppose that AI will be continuously developed and that the development will be in the direction of "progress." You might therefore suppose that it will make things better for us all, maybe because you don't think we living humans are up to the task.
I wonder what would make you think that we might relinquish our moral behaviors to AI. Well, for starters Donald Trump is a kind of AI who pretends to be human. Not having been prepared for that particular extreme of grandiosity, you might even think him worthy of making decisions on your behalf. Now we can watch and see how well that is going.
AI is not life, will never be life, though like a premature supernova it will consume human society as relentlessly as a wildfire fueled by bitcoin, the currency of techno-sociopaths. Sure, yeah, I once did think that Elon was kind of cute. I was an early visitor to the Tesla museum-shop in Seattle, which was rather like the home-town five and dime in Walmart's home town. I entered from the wrong direction, and had no idea what Walmart was, nor certainly what it would become.
We're all slow like that, but the beast does ultimately reveal itself, no? With sound and fury, signifying nothing.
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