Pete's Log: A System of Holes, Dug by One or More Leporidae

Entry #2711, (Politics, Random Crap)
(posted when I was 46 years old.)

Join me on the meandering path I must take to empty my brain. At least for a moment. And hopefully close some browser tabs along the way.

404 Media showed up on my radar a while ago, and quickly impressed me with the quality of their journalism at the intersection of technology and politics. I was already considering becoming a supporter when I learned that supporters get access to an RSS feed of all their articles. What more could I want?

As it turns out, it was not what I wanted. My RSS reader is a sensitive ecosystem, and adding a feed that contributed more than a dozen long (and heavy) articles per week was not conducive to me keeping on top of things. But I learned some clever things about FreshRSS, my feed reader of choice. The first was inspired by James, who taught me I can have my feed update only once a day. This removes the impetus to refresh frequently.

The other trick is a side effect of the FreshRSS UI. I can configure each feed I subscribe to to appear on my main page or not. And as luck would have it, the mobile view of FreshRSS does not show any hint of unread articles outside my main feed. So I can remain subscribed to 404 Media and only be reminded of its backlog when reading from a desktop. And somehow on desktop the backlog feels more manageable.

404 Media joined this meandering adventure by bringing to my attention Roy Lee's Cluely, 'a new startup that aims to allow users to similarly “cheat on everything.”' Lee told 404 that "Every single thing that is rote memorization, that relies on facts that you don’t need in the moment, that are not intrinsically necessary for a human to learn, you won’t need that anymore."

Everything I wrote so far has been a multi-paragraph aside to disagree with that premise. The initial spark of this log entry led my brain to think of Monty Python's Life of Brian. Specifically, this scene about the People's Front of Judea. And maybe some AI cheater glasses would cast a wide enough net to reference a 45 year old movie I haven't watched in 20ish years. But to me being human means letting those neural connections play out as they may.

Since the 404 Media link I shared seems to be supporters-only, let me include one last piece of praise for them. They are well aware of how negative most of their feed can be sometimes, so they offer a weekly consolation prize called The Abstract that is always a neat round-up of cool science. This feature is not restricted to supporters, so it feels appropriate to share the latest edition with you. It is titled "This Sicko Caterpillar Wears the Bones of Its Victims" and is also a bit bleaker than usual.

As we consider the bones of my victims, it should come to no surprise to long-time readers of this journal that my political beliefs fall left of the center. But also that I see much nuance in our world. The 45-year old "People's Front of Judea" bit comes to mind any time I think of all the ideological purity tests the American Left likes to shoot itself in the foot (and torso and head) with.

So now our meandering brings us to where this particular journey started for me: On the left-right political spectrum, Cory Doctorow falls to my left, while Alan Jacobs falls well to my right. But two recent pieces of theirs (Machina economicus by Cory Doctorow and on humanism: the big picture by Alan Jacobs) remind me of just how unhelpful this left-right concept can be sometimes. For there are those of us who see the dignity in other humans and those who see others merely as tools to be exploited. I think Doctorow and Jacobs (and I) have much in common on this front.

I wish I had more time to explore where I'm trying to get with this. But it's bed time, so for now I'm going to go ahead and close some browser tabs. Yet my brain still feels full. Of AI and politics and the psychology of being human.