The right to move, to disobey, to reshape society

My Sunday movie was Choco Milk Shake. It’s a South Korean Boys Love story of 11 short episodes that fit into 2½ hours. I learned of this series through the Boys Love articles written by Krotor on Daily Kos. Jungwoo is a young man feeling quite sad and lonely. He works for his uncle in a coffee shop (which seems to rarely have customers – saves on hiring extras?). The uncle appears to be not much older. One day as Jungwoo is walking home two young men greet him with bright smiles. When the strangers have a chance to explain themselves they say they are the reincarnation of Jungwoo’s pet dog Choco and pet cat Milk. They were given bodies not of infants but of young men. Choco has a bright smile and follows Jungwoo around. Milk is more reserved. Both want their owner to pet them when they’ve been good (which is most of the time). Over the course of the show we learn that Jungwoo rescued Choco, which explains the devotion. Since Krotor writes about Boys Love stories one quickly wonders where this is going. Hopefully not a threesome. We are quickly shown through a blind date that Jungwoo is gay. And that Choco can be jealous. But where does that leave Milk? The acting is excellent (Krotor agrees). The story is cute and fun. I enjoyed it. If you watch be aware there is always one more scene after the episode credits roll. I finished the book The Dawn of Everything, a New History of Humanity, by David Graeber and David Wengrow. I read the paperback edition of the book and it begins by Wengrow announcing that Graeber died three weeks after they finished writing the book. The book had taken ten years to write, first as a way to bounce ideas off each other, then in earnest once they saw they had an important story to tell. That story examines human history since the end of the Ice Age (10,000 BCE). And their central questions are: Where did inequality come from? Is a social hierarchy the natural and default human condition? Seeing that focus I thought, yep, I’m in. These are questions I’ve been exploring. So I want to hear what these guys say about it. Alas, they don’t quite answer them. That doesn’t mean reading the book was a waste – there’s a lot of good and hopeful information here. Yeah, it’s long – 525 pages with another 165 pages of notes (worth reading), bibliography, and index. And, yeah, towards the middle as they reviewed yet another society, it got to be a bit of a slog. There has been a standard way of archaeologists to understand what they saw as they excavated ancient sites. Humans progressed from hunter-gather bands, to tribes, to cities, to states. Each one is declared more advanced than the previous. Along with that was the assumption that as agriculture took hold, which made cities possible, the social complexity of a city required a social hierarchy in which administrators and eventually kings organized the work and a worker class did it. The authors used 500 pages to show that view is contradicted by the evidence. The authors examined evidence of ancient sites from around the world – North and South America, Africa, Asia, and Europe. The earliest sites were inhabited in 8,000 BCE, the latest in 1800 AD. These late ones were on the Pacific coast of North America as Europeans arrived, so they were documented directly by Europeans. Some of these places developed hierarchies. Many did not. Some developed hierarchies and later abandoned them. Over and over the authors looked over the evidence and saw previous researchers, in explaining what they found, projected the standard model as well as their own thoughts and understanding onto the evidence. A man steeped in patriarchy would project patriarchy onto an ancient society. A researcher who had been schooled in the social hierarchy would interpret findings as evidence of a social hierarchy. Places where the evidence didn’t fit that was seen as an outlier or was about to develop into a society that fit the pattern. The authors said the older researchers assumed too much. Why is this society – and that, and that – an “outlier?” Why must this place develop in this way to fit the model? Perhaps your model is wrong. A lot of this book seemed like an indictment of how archaeology had been done over the last couple of centuries. Some of the things I learned in those 500 pages: We must assume that throughout human history people were as smart as we are, even if they didn’t know all we know now. They could figure things out. In the 12,000 years since the Ice Age the standard model assumed all of the ancient cultures of a particular size did the same thing. 120 centuries is a long time for societies to try different ways of organizing themselves. That organization does not require an administrative staff. In some situations involving more people than previously believed the people are quite capable of administering and organizing themselves. The authors discussed places, one if them in Florida, where the society was hunter-gatherer, yet was ruled by a brutal king. If I remember right, the Spaniards took him out. The shift from hunting to farming didn’t happen all at once. In many societies it happened over centuries. Many times they farmed small amounts when they had good weather and hunted at other times. A big influence in the Enlightenment in Europe was native tribes of North America facing their first contact with Europeans. Jesuits learned native languages in hopes of converting the natives, but the natives were good at pushing back. The native societies were not hierarchical. Leaders could not give commands because the rest of the community refused to follow commands because that would place one person over another. Jesuits wrote about what they learned and their books became widely read (by those who could read) across Europe. Wendat chief Kandiaronk traveled extensively around Europe describing native life. The idea of a society not based on hierarchy caused a stir and lead to the American and French Revolutions. Kandiaronk was good at arguing that native life was better than the European hierarchical life, though Europeans tried to argue the reverse. One argument in Kandiaronk’s favor was that many Europeans who were raised by natives and later offered the chance to return to European style life chose to stay with the natives. The native life was more concerned with the person. European life was boring – a person had to do the same thing every day. My family is well acquainted with the story of Frances Slocum. There is a Frances Slocum State Park in Indiana. She was abducted by natives at age 5. Her siblings found her when she was in her 70s (I think). She refused to go with her siblings, saying her life was with the natives now. We has always assumed the reason was she felt she was one of them now – well, she had married a prominent member of the tribe and produced two children. This book suggests another reason – she thought the native way of life was better. So the assumption that natives would prefer the European lifestyle once they got to know it, was hubris. Europeans said they had the right to take land from the natives because natives didn’t use the land (as in farm it) and were lazy. Natives countered they managed the land, such as burning out the undergrowth in a forest or reshaping a river bottom to improve fish spawning. Also, their hunting and gathering took less time than farming so they had time to be lazy. Natives were amused by the European belief that natives had dispersed across the North and South American continents by overland routes. They said they had spread down the coasts and up the rivers. The authors talk about basic freedoms and rights. And they aren’t what we have in our Declaration of Independence. The freedoms are: (1) The right to move, to leave this community and join a different one. (2) The right to disobey an order. (3) The right to reshape their social connections, to work out a different way to manage the community. They also listed ways one person or group is able to control another. The methods are: (1) Violence. (2) controlling information. (3) Charisma. I wasn’t able to get a clear sense of whether this last one referred to individuals, such as Hitler, or to a group of people, such as a warrior or hero class. Maybe both. The authors discussed the Cahokia society centered east of St. Louis. They had extensive influence across the Mississippi watershed. After thriving for centuries the leadership turned tyrannical. The society collapsed for what appears to be a simple reason. People objected to being ruled by tyrants. They exercised their first right and moved away. (One thing I feel this book lacked is a timeline, showing when many of these cultures were active. The only thing I remember of when the Cahokia society was active was that it collapsed before Europeans arrived yet the natives were still reacting to it.) Though I feel the authors didn’t quite answer their important question. A great deal of the world today is stuck in a social hierarchy where a government or oligarchs control or oppress those under them. There are many examples in human history where the people threw off the control and oppression. Since they did it so can we. There is hope.

Ten years since the Pulse massacre

Walter Einenkel of Daily Kos marked that last Friday was the tenth anniversary of the gay Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida. The gunman killed 49 people and wounded 58 others. At the time it was the worst mass shooting in the country and was passed by the Las Vegas shooting the following year. It was, of course, a hate crime and an act of terrorism. In 2023 the city of Orlando bought the property. Just three months ago the building was torn down and the location is being turned into a memorial park, to open in 2027. The Wikipedia entry on the shooting likely has much more detail than most people would want to know. As a war is in urgent need of diplomats Max Burns of Kos discussed the current condition of the State Department. Since the nasty guy retook the Oval Office more than 2,000 career diplomats have left, either retired (sometimes early), voluntary departures, or fired for perceived disloyalty. That includes 195 people with skills in crisis management and important language skills. Secretary Mark Rubio seems very good at not showing up at important times, such as for talks to end the war in Ukraine hosted by Britain. Naturally, morale is low. These departures mean there are a lot of places where the US is not responding to economic and security threats. And China is stepping in to fill the void. This is happening in Latin America and in Africa. When US diplomacy is reduced trade deals are too. American companies and farmers lose out. Iran is enjoying that there are no confirmed ambassadors to Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Iraq, or Kuwait, countries that are the war’s front lines. A crippled State Department also means Iran can easily surprise Rubio and the nasty guy.

Trump’s mismanagement and Rubio’s yes-man complicity will take more than a generation to repair—if it can ever be fully repaired at all. In the meantime, the United States will continue its accelerating decline into a second-tier power less likely to control events and more likely to be controlled by them. Our adversaries couldn’t ask for more.

Clytemnestra of the Kos community went out quite early this morning to get a prime viewing spot to see workers come to the Kennedy Center and take the nasty guy’s name off the side of the building. A judge had ruled since Congress had named the Center only Congress could change its name and his name had to come off yesterday. A lot of people wanted to witness the name coming off. But before the workmen began their work heavy tarps went up, blocking view of the removal. The crew was all done by 3:15am. But at 11:48am the tarps were still in place. So if no one can see that the letters came down how can we verify the judge’s order was followed? Was the tarp put up to spare the nasty guy’s feeling? This all gets so old. Joey Garrison, Susan Page, Michael Loria, and Aysha Bagchi of USA TODAY posted a full article about the removal at 3:00pm today. They did not include a photo of the wall with the name gone and without the tarp. Emily Singer of Kos reported:

President Donald Trump is reportedly trying to expunge his two impeachments—his latest attempt to rewrite history from his disastrous first term. “It should be done because I did nothing wrong,” Trump told the Wall Street Journal. “It was a rigged deal—it was a whole rigged situation.” But forcing Republicans to pass a meaningless resolution just to soothe Dear Leader’s fragile ego would be politically disastrous for the GOP. First, the majority of Americans want Trump to be impeached again—not see his first two impeachments erased.

Second, voting to expunge would remind voters why he was impeached the first two times and that Republicans failed to convict him then. That would not be good for Republicans in November. Now that Bill Pulte has been replaced with Jay Clayton to be Director of National Intelligence please do not assume we dodged a problem. Lisa Needham of Kos reported he’s just as vile and still doesn’t have Intelligence experience as required by law. To get appointed to big jobs by the nasty guy a candidate must audition. Clayton passed the audition by hopping on TV to spread election conspiracy theories about the California primary election. He has no experience in election law either and the new gig is supposed to prohibit him from participating in domestic affairs (not that such a thing stopped Tulsi Gabbard, his predecessor – see Fulton County, Georgia).

So, Clayton’s pick violates the law just as much as Pulte’s would have, but enforcing that law requires a Congress willing to do so. GOP senators have the power to force Trump to pick someone who meets the legal requirements for the job. But if they won’t, then it is going to be Jay Clayton—and it is going to be just as bad as you think.

AI described as heaven

Lisa Needham of Daily Kos wrote about the initial public offering of Elon Musk’s company SpaceX. That happened today and the economic news said the price of the stock went up nearly 20% and the public offering fattened Musk’s net worth enough he is now a trillionaire (so it went up by at least $100 billion). Needham wrote about an annoying aspect of the public offering. The major stock indices, such as S&P 500 have rules for which companies are allowed in their index and which aren’t. The reason is to assure the company is stable and profitable and the offering isn’t overhyped. They usually require waiting a year and Musk’s Tesla waited ten years. The S&P 500 rejected Musk’s request that SpaceX be added to its index immediately. But Nasdaq said sure, welcome in. That means if you own shares in an index fund linked to the Nasdaq that fund is required to buy shares in SpaceX. Which means Musk is requiring you to own shares of SpaceX. Whether you want to or not. While the SpaceX Dragon is a reliable way to get to the International Space Station, the company’s much larger Starliner has frequently exploded and has not yet achieved orbit. News reports say that the nasty guy has nominated Jay Clayton to be Director of National Intelligence. That means the job isn’t going to Bill Pulte, the guy who had no intelligence experience but was nominated to the job in an “acting” capacity to avoid Senate confirmation. The Senate was not pleased with the choice or with being frozen out. At least Clayton has actual intelligence experience, as required for the job. Before Pulte was replaced Max Burns of Kos discusses why the nasty guy keeps nominating temporary flunkies. He’s done it several times, such as with Todd Blanche for Attorney General.

Under normal circumstances, Blanche would be required to leave the acting attorney general role on Oct. 29, which would set up a heated confirmation fight just five days before voters head to the polls. But if Trump “nominates” Blanche for the permanent job without ever moving his confirmation forward, the countdown clock would effectively stop. That also explains why Trump has failed to nominate any permanent successors for the multiple roles currently being held by his hand-picked acting appointees. Trump is wagering that Senate Republicans, already beaten down by months of brutal polling and the prospect of losing both chambers of Congress in November, will be in no rush to have hearings for Trump’s nominees. He’s probably right. In place of the transparency and accountability of public hearings, the American people will get only silence and excuses from a White House that long ago stopped caring about any opinion other than Trump’s.

Pope Leo recently was in the news because he released a teaching on AI, calling it “colonialism,” exploiting people’s data and resources similar to empires. NPR’s Steve Inskeep wasn’t able to discuss it with the Pope, but did talk to Karen Hao, who wrote Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI. That certainly puts it in colonialism terms. Hao also says the AI bros use religious terms to describe their work. To me that’s also scary. The AI guys describe their product as trying to benefit all of humanity. Hao says “Essentially, what they're describing is a heaven.” They promise utopian outcomes – cure cancer, end poverty, stabilize the climate – while saying if we don’t act we’re heading to catastrophe. Hao says that is similar to the missionary logic behind colonialism. I add that AI might be a help in curing cancer or other diseases. But ending poverty and stabilizing the climate depend on things AI cannot control – they depend on rich ending their effort to oppress those lower in the social hierarchy. Hao says data centers reflect a concentration of wealth at a time when more people are struggling with basic costs. That’s one reason for the massive protests against them. The idea of building public information can be seen as growing the economic pie for everyone. But the economic pie is shrinking for most people. As for some tech leaders...

“They just admit they do believe that the way that they are currently developing these AI technologies will, in fact, inflame inequality,” Hao said.

Last weekend while Brother was visiting we heard a portion of the NPR show This American Life that prompted us to wait a few minute in a parking lot to listen. The episode is not yet up on the show’s website, but I did see a corresponding article in last Sunday’s Detroit Free Press and Brother found other online sources. I found the article on the USA Today website (USA Today owns the Freep). The story is features Jeremiah Schofield. He was an employee (perhaps a mid level manager) at the Social Security Administration and is now a whistleblower talking to Congress. According to the portrayal on This American Life people from the Department of Government Efficiency (now well known as DOGE) came to him with a list of 6000 people they wanted assigned a death date and added to the Death Master File. The DMF is a list of all the people that have ever been issued a Social Security number and have died. There are a high level of internal controls to making changes to it because when you are added your financial life is frozen. Bank accounts, credit cards all frozen. Other areas of a person’s life become a serious mess and if the change was made when it isn’t true a person can spend days to a year getting it all straightened out. Schofield was assured they 6000 people were all illegal immigrants. Schofield did some searching and testing of 25 of the names. A large number (23?) were citizens are lawful residents. But the changes for the 6000 were put through. And the next day people started showing up at SSA offices to declare they were still alive. Then DOGE gave a demand to add death dates to 2.7 million people. According to the radio show Schofield went to his boss with the suspected reason for the demand. The boss said that couldn’t be right. Schofield said call them. The boss did and was surprised at how casual and candid the DOGE person was. From the news article:

Schofield, according to their letter, alleged a DOGE staffer said “the lives of these individuals would be ruined... and they would be driven to ‘self-deport’” or “they would have to go to a local Social Security office, at which point SSA field office staff would send them to DHS offices” where officials would “detain them for deportation.”

Shortly after that Schofield resigned, so he doesn’t know the details of what happened to the 2.7 million people. I suspect the SSA refused the demand, otherwise 2.7 million people showing up at SSA offices would have been in the news. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos quoted late night commentary. The first is in response to the nasty guy declaring there was cheating in the Los Angeles primary because the Republican didn’t go on to the general election:

Wow, that is remarkable. Somehow, the Democrats rigged the ballots but only for the parts where people voted for [L.A.] mayor [in which the top two winning candidates were Democrats]. The votes for governor they left untouched. It’s diabolical. It’s a miracle that people who are so stupid can be so incredibly smart at the same time. In a sane world, that statement would’ve been the moment where the nurse came in and put him to bed. —Jimmy Kimmel Live Republicans calling [James] Talarico dangerous while nominating Ken Paxton is like warning people about the health risks of blueberries while smoking meth through a leaf blower. —John Fugelsang on BlueSky

In the comments of yesterday’s pundit roundup for Kos exlrrp posted a meme using the words of Rep. Robert Garcia:

If you think California is taking a while to count votes, wait until you hear how long the Trump administration is taking to release the Epstein files...”

In the comments of today’s roundup Acyn posted a tweet with words from Robert Pape, Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago.

We’re about to enter the period of maximum leverage for Iran. When we hit the oil inventory cliff, as we’re going to do in the middle of July, end of July, that means when our inventories go down, Iran’s leverage goes up and will stay up through the midterms. So that is why there’s no chance, very little chance Iran is going to cut a deal right now. Why would it cut a deal when its leverage is about to grow? Everybody know it’s going to grow. President Trump can talk down oil prices only for so long. Once that oil inventory dries up here at the end of the first week of August, as all the world’s experts, the actual experts are predicting...

Hmm. I have plane tickets for overseas travel starting at the end of July. If oil inventories dry up, rather than just become hugely expensive, will I be able to get home? Then again, extending a foreign trip might be rather nice. At least for a while.