Notes from the edge of civilization: November 3, 2024
We are all Peanut; baseball bat, meet robot; toxic sludge is very real and very dangerous; and will it flush (WaPo swirls 'round and 'round the journalism toilet bowl)?
Of all the things that happened this week, the thing that will stick out in most people’s minds is a squirrel. You’ve likely heard all there is to hear about poor little Peanut, so we won’t say any more.
The only reason to bring it up is to say that, as a society, we seem to be more concerned about this squirrel than the nearly 300,000 migrant children who have reportedly disappeared from the government’s official tracking. If this isn’t proof we’ve lost the plot as a society, nothing is?
Forget Peanut. According to a 1,000-word article in PopSci magazine, we should concern ourselves with the well-being of robots. Yes, robots.
As robots become more integrated into daily life, actual resources are being spent on researching whether or not humans are more or less likely to ‘mistreat’ them if they cry, scream, or exhibit other human-like emotions.
For years, humans have relished opportunities to kick, punch, trip, crush, and run over anything remotely resembling a robot. This penchant for machine violence could move from funny to potentially concerning as a new wave of humanoid robots is being built to work alongside people in manufacturing facilities. But a growing body of research suggests we may be more likely to feel bad for our mechanical assistants and even take it easy on them if they express sounds of human-like pain.
The article’s headline ‘Researchers tortured robots to test the limits of human empathy: A brief history of people bullying robots,’ makes it clear this is not serious journalism but rather psychological conditioning for a future run by machines who not only don’t feel pain, but don’t care one iota if you feel pain.
Get it in your head NOW! Robots are not humans. You cannot torture them. So, if you see a robot, smash a robot.
With everything else going on, it can be easy to forget about North Carolina, where the post-Hurricane Helene cleanup is getting really nasty. Turns out the mud that people are wading through, sleeping on, and mucking out of their property isn’t just a sticky inconvenience — it’s a toxic brew of everything you never wanted to step in.
We’re talking solvents, plastics, fuel oil, human waste, and mystery chemicals strong enough to melt clothes and give people chemical burns. Even the cadaver dogs aren’t immune; many have fallen ill just doing their job of sniffing.
Authorities are now rolling out the big guns: full hazmat suits and respirators. “Don’t go in the mud,” say Madison County officials. “Use caution and avoid flood water and mud unless absolutely vital.”
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
The scenes out of North Carolina can be described as nothing short of apocalyptic. But as we noted in a story earlier this week, total catastrophic meltdown is only one of the ways collapse can go down.
More often than not, it’s a slow erosion rather than a full-blown cataclysm.
Collapse often begins when businesses begin to shutter, pulling the vitality out of communities and creating a human exodus as employees begin to look for livelihoods elsewhere.
That’s what might happen in parts of Germany if Volkswagen follows through on plans to close factories and reduce workers’ salaries. It’s also what we might see in parts of Britain now that the country’s last coal plant has been shuttered.
In the name of “climate change”— but really in the name of depopulation and de-growth — what is being ushered in is a return to simpler times, when tuberculosis ran rampant, when serfs lived on peas pottage, and when nobility enjoyed their motte and bailey castles.
Hey, enjoy the decline!
Like a fish out of water, the Washington Post seems to be desperately gasping for air after a brutal week that began with 200,000 readers cancelling their subscriptions and ended with one of the paper’s few conservative columnists quitting on camera in front of a live audience.
Conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt had an explosive confrontation with the Post’s Jonathan Capehart and Ruth Marcus, who were barking on about Donald Trump not accepting the outcome of next week’s election if he doesn’t win.
(Click the video below and scroll to the 18:55 mark for the juicy bits)
“Is it me, or does it seem like, this week, Donald Trump is laying the groundwork for contesting the election by complaining that ‘cheating’ was taking place in Pennsylvania by suing Bucks County for alleged irregularities?” Capehart asked Marcus and Hewitt, using finger quotes around the word cheating.
When Marcus chirped that, “No election can be fair in Donald Trump’s mind unless Donald Trump wins it,” Hewitt bristled, interjecting with:
I’ve just got to say, we are newspeople. Even though we’re with the opinion section. It’s got to be reported — Bucks County was reversed by the court and instructed to open up extra days because they violated the law and told people to go home. So, that lawsuit was brought by the Republican National Committee, and it was successful… We are newspeople, even though we have opinions. We have to report the whole story if we bring up part of the story. So, yes, he’s upset about Bucks County, but he was right and he won in court.
Hewitt was referencing a recent successful bid by the Trump campaign and RNC to extend mail-in voting in a Philadelphia suburb. On Wednesday morning, the campaign filed a lawsuit claiming the county had illegally turned away “many” voters before Tuesday’s 5 pm deadline to apply in person. A Pennsylvania judge sided with them on the same day.
As Hewitt defended his stance, urging a more balanced approach to the facts, Capehart pushed back, accusing Hewitt of sometimes presenting information “not based in fact.” The exchange quickly escalated, and ended with Hewitt storming off screen, declaring, “I’m done.”
Aren’t we all, Hugh? Aren’t we all.
Once again, our society refuses to recognize the sanctity of human life, that we are made in the image and likeness of God. Instead human persons are used as a commodity whether it be for political gain as in the wars around the world, the many immigrant children unaccounted for, the many children poisoned to death with abortion chemicals or the many children disposed of or frozen in perpetuity with IVF. We have no love for our neighbor as Christ as instructed us to do. We seem to have much more concern for the earth, animals, and yes even robots than we have for our fellow human beings, especially the weakest and most vulnerable among us.