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Maggie's FarmWe are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for. |
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Saturday, July 5. 2025Saturday morning links The Decline and Fall of Our So-Called Degreed Experts AI’s great brain robbery — and how universities can fight back/ ChatGPT 454 Hints That a Chatbot Wrote Part of a Biomedical Researcher’s Paper - Scientists US Patriotism Among Democrats Crashes As Marxist Demands Grow Louder Saturday Miscellany Black New Yorkers rage over Zohran Mamdani’s ‘African American’ claim: ‘He’s a fraud’ Republicans talk, Trump does Trump 2.0 is a Wrecking Ball Trump Seeks to Remake the World, He wants as much executive power as possible and the U.S. the top global player. Trump Extends His Political Power With 'Big, Beautiful' Win in Congress We Can’t Pay Everyone - It is a global phenomenon: more and more people are dependent, in one way or another, on government. Trackbacks
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QUOTE: The Decline and Fall of Our So-Called Degreed Experts ... Most economists lectured that trade deficits did not really matter. Misleading. While most economists say that some deficit spending is necessary to increase the money supply as the economy grows, or to respond to emergencies, few believe that very high deficits are economically healthy. Very high deficits undermine the value of U.S. debt holdings, mean increasingly large portions of the budget have to go for debt service, reduce funds available for old age benefits as the population ages, and make it harder to borrow in the event of a real emergency. QUOTE: So, the result of Trump's foolhardy tariff talk would be an impending recession. Misleading. It was draconian tariffs that most economists thought would lead to a recession. However, Trump backed away, at least temporarily, from his tariff threats. The talk, as if you could believe the American president to tell the truth, rattled markets, but they quickly adjusted once Trump delayed the tariffs. QUOTE: After all, if tariffs were so toxic and surpluses irrelevant, why did our affluent European and Asian trading rivals insist on both surpluses and protective tariffs? Misleading. The average EU tariff on US goods was about 3%. You ignore the European Vat Tax effects.
It was always free trade versus fair trade. The 'woke' economists never did understand the 'giant sucking sound' resulting from free trade. The middle class sure did. The credentialed class loved the export of anything even remotely 'dirty' to save the 'not in my back yard environment'. Maniac: Keep arguing with the bot
For the record, posting by Zachriel on Maggie's Farm long predates the advent of human-devised Large Language Model Artificial Intelligence. ... but that's the thing: the made-up Angel is a collective effort (loosely speaking) so it HAS no real identity. LULZ, y'know.
#1.1.1.1.1
Jeff Allen
on
2025-07-05 14:54
(Reply)
It is the Borg. Like the MSM Borg, the academic Borg or the progressive Borg.
#1.1.1.1.1.1
indyjonesouthere
on
2025-07-05 17:21
(Reply)
QUOTE: Saturday Miscellany ... Now, in the latest news, the family has lost its appeal and a judge has allowed the deportation to proceed. The government had threatened the Soliman family with immediate deportation. The case was moved to the immigration system for regular deportation proceedings, which allows the family due process, so the judge dropped the emergency order. The family has argued the deportation is intended to unconstitutionally punish them for Soliman's actions. QUOTE: Mamdani’s anti-Semitism resonates with today’s Democratic Party. Mamdani's has condemned anti-Semitism, the Oct 7 attacks on Israel as a war crime, and the right of Israel to exist with equal rights for all. It is possible to be against Israel's actions and not be anti-Semitic. QUOTE: In America, 92% of Republicans and 24% of Democrats are proud to be Americans. Gallup: 92% of Republicans, 53% of Independents, and 32% of Democrats are extremely or very proud of America. Democratic and Independent pride in America has slipped since Trump's election, many decrying his constant lying, seeing his actions as bullying other nations including friends and allies, and seeing his concentration of executive power as dangerous to liberty. Republican pride has increased over the same period. If they're not here legally, then they can be deported.
If they ARE here legally, there's no guarantee they're immune from deportation. Visas and green cards can be revoked. jlawson: If they're not here legally, then they can be deported.
Yes, and that's what deportations proceedings establish. jlawson: Visas and green cards can be revoked. Sure, but assuming a rule-of-law system, revocation isn't arbitrary, but governed by law and constitution. That's as opposed to a president threatening whether to deport, prosecute, or otherwise use the power of the government to go after someone because they opposed him politically or personally got on his bad side. Your narrative is misleading... Found on Breitbart today.
Judge allows family of accused Colorado terrorist to be deported. "a federal court dismissed a lawsuit to release the family of the terrorist responsible for an anti-Semitic firebombing attack in Boulder, Colorado last month, from ICE custody." The President is not involved... you are back to using MSM talking points again. So sad. 'many decrying his constant lying'
Poor thing. Poor, poor, thing. https://youtu.be/-Sq-g-UXuMk?t=123 LW pride in the USA has been significantly lower than the RW's prior to the 2016 elections. Your excuse doesn't really make sense.
It's also quite an admission that if the left doesn't get its way, it reacts by hating the country it lives in. Be honest. You and other progressives just hate the country, period. And want to destroy it. James: LW pride in the USA has been significantly lower than the RW's prior to the 2016 elections.
Generally correct, but it’s also important to note that the political Left and the political Right are not necessarily homogeneous groups. Just as someone might argue that the Left tends to find fault, it can also be said that the Right tends to turn a blind eye to those faults. One might consider the country as having fallen short of its ideals, or one might take pride in the long struggle towards those ideals no matter how imperfectly achieved. As the political Left tends towards the betterment of society (in their view), they are more likely to dwell on what needs perfecting than on what has already been perfected. Consider Dr. King finding fault: “America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked ‘insufficient funds’.” James: You and other progressives just hate the country, period. And want to destroy it. The story of America is one of constant struggle towards greater freedom, often against the dark forces of tyranny. As such, America has long been a beacon of freedom in an imperfect world. America still has a lot to contribute, but bullying friends and allies who share America’s democratic ideals hurts the cause of liberty, while concentrating so much power in the executive risks undermining republican governance. The story of the progressive is the story of class warfare and all the other iterations of communism including Gramsci's race modification and the other gender modifications pointed out by Lindsay. The communists are class, race, and gender obsessed and all funneled through academia. In the US that started at the Columbia 'Frankfort School.'
John Carter has something much more intelligent to say about the effects of AI on the universities than does Niall Ferguson:
https://barsoom.substack.com/p/the-class-of-2026 I agree with John Carter that AI is helping to destroy institutions that have decayed beyond any possibility of reform. I say let AI drive the final nail in the coffin of academia. John Carter's view on AI is much more optimistic than Niall Ferguson's, and I agree with it. The invention of the calculator will mean people's arithmetic skills will atrophy. And you may not always have a calculator on hand.
Socrates was skeptical of writing. As his student, Plato, related:
QUOTE: If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks. What you have discovered is a recipe not for memory, but for reminder. And it is no true wisdom that you offer your disciples, but only its semblance, for by telling them of many things without teaching them you will make them seem to know much, while for the most part they know nothing, and as men filled, not with wisdom, but with the conceit of wisdom, they will be a burden to their fellows. Before the printing press was invented, literate people had knowledge of just a few texts, from which they could often recite, and which others would easily recognize. These include the Bible, Homer's Iliad, and the Arthurian legends.
After the printing press, people might have shelves and shelves of books. An avid reader might scan their collection and take down something that appears interesting, but the wealth of books being so great, they can't quite remember whether they've read it before or not. Did any of you actually read the John Carter piece?
Abelard Lindsey: Did any of you actually read the John Carter piece?
Yes. QUOTE: Thus the venerable proverb among students that “C’s and D’s get degrees”. That the proverb is old and venerable means that this is not a new phenomenon. The white, rich, connected, children of alumni could always advance with a "gentleman's C"—systemic discrimination. It just means credentialism has always had an asterisk. QUOTE: Almost overnight undergraduate students began using it to write their essays for them. Very much true. And while the Old Guard might fearfully argue AI will atrophy people's skills, or make them cease to exercise their memory, or even forget which texts they read, it doesn't mean intellectual progress will stop. Rather, these young people, for whom AI is native, will use the new technology to further advance knowledge in ways that can only be imagined at this point. QUOTE: There is no organic market demand for ‘researchers’ specializing in queering the depictions of gendered masculinities in third century Roman lyric poetry. As if history and literature have no value. The writer exaggerates certain trends that do not support his argument about AI, but do show his biases. Consider that he could have just as well written, "There is no organic market demand for researchers studying the Roman Republic or Shakespeare." Will there be change? Of course. Will universities disappear. It's possible. Some certainly will. But other universities will adapt, especially research universities, such as Harvard Medical (unless destroyed by the mob). QUOTE: Socrates: If men learn {writing}, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls Socratoid: "Artificial Intelligence promises to rot our brains in the same way that automobiles and labour-saving appliances rotted our bodies." It's not that the writer doesn't make a few good points. It's just that he doesn't bother to consider aspects which countervail his position. And he didn't even have to use AI to get lazy about it. You're missing his point. We all know the universities have become completely FUBAR over the past three decades. That means they have to go away and people start new institutions to replace them. That is the whole point of the John Carter article.
Call it creative destruction in action. The purpose of any human institution is to empower people to accomplish, whether it be the development of fusion power, curing aging, or getting us out into space in a big way. People who seek to accomplish these things will find ways to do them, with or without the universities in their current form. You seem obsessed with the existence of institutions as having value in their own right, independent of self-empowerment. This is irrational.
#3.3.1.1.1
Abelard Lindsey
on
2025-07-06 12:10
(Reply)
Abelard Lindsey: We all know the universities have become completely FUBAR over the past three decades.
That's a common source of poor reasoning: assuming your conclusion, or petītiō principiī. You don't even question it. Sure. Universities have had problems. What else is new? Something that has supposedly been going on for "the past three decades" (or in the case of credentialism, centuries) can't be traced to AI. The other problems are exaggerations or overgeneralizations. Consider Harvard, which has produced 161 Nobel Prize winners. In the last three decades that includes Amartya Sen, Claudia Goldin, Oliver Hart, Michael Kremer, Robert C. Merton, Alvin Roth for Economics; Carolyn Bertozzi, Martin Karplus for Chemistry; Gary Ruvkun for Medicine; Roy Glauber, Jack Szostak for Physics. Perhaps in the future, robots will make scientific breakthroughs unassisted, but that is not yet. More likely, scientists will work with AI. Now, consider how Harvard will decide which student to accept into their research colleges. There has to be a way to sift through the applicants. Currently, they look at their records in undergraduate studies. Abelard Lindsey: The purpose of any human institution is to empower people to accomplish, whether it be the development of fusion power, curing aging, or getting us out into space in a big way. And currently, it's clear universities continue to produce some of the most advanced research. While one may speculate that AI will radically change universities, or even lead to their demise, the argument was weakened by not addressing countervailing influences. In other words, the writer should have adopted the position, arguendo, that universities will adapt. Then he might see where his original thesis could be improved, or discarded. Instead, he used partisan exaggeration to clue you in: It's all a bunch of gender benders! With purple hair! Abelard Lindsey: You seem obsessed with the existence of institutions as having value in their own right, independent of self-empowerment. That IS the heart of actual conservatism, to not dispense with long-established institutions without aforethought, and that reform is preferred when reform is possible. However, we didn't claim that universities will survive AI, just that the argument was speculative at best. In fact, AI will become not just common, but expected, even taught as a methodology—probably at universities.
#3.3.1.1.2
Zachriel
on
2025-07-06 14:21
(Reply)
This is the finest explanation of the true and original meaning of the 4th and what was intended to be celebrated. What is celebrated since 1865 is not how it was supposed to go.
https://tinyurl.com/274a673k |