November, Day One!
Planning Out the Month, Podcast Release, and More Thoughts On AI
What’s In Store For November
No I don’t walk on water. One of my haunts during fall and winter seasons for hiking that’s relatively nearby is Seven Lakes State Park, located just east of Fenton Michigan. This photo above is from November of last year. Sitting on a peer, no one around but me and my dog. Many of the opening sequences in Severed Conscience are video I took on my hikes with Suki at Seven Lakes. This is my girl below, one of the headers that didn’t make it into last months issue of Cultural Courage. My wife and kids don’t want me sharing their photos, so Suki never seems to mind.
I always enjoy planning out the month for Cultural Courage, my process is to go through the photo library and see what I can recall what I was thinking when I was on an outing out and about. I surprise myself that I have quite a few sets of outdoor adventures with Scouts or family from November, with the kids in college now there is no organized event nor vacation that they have for us to venture out together.
I am going to share some of the candidates for the article headers. It’s sort of a preview for some of the things coming up.
When I camp, this is how I cook. This pic is from a November weekend in Hocking Hills, Ohio. Dual purpose fire for warmth and cooking. The Old Crows - that’s what the young bloods called us - had a great stew that night. Cast iron is the way to go.
I’m going to let you guess what this is for. Let me say that I get a bit carried away at holiday time, and it’s part of a tradition that we have. No, that bowl is not for drinking. I’ll let your imaginations work on that one.
Despite it being a holiday month, there are serious topics that Cultural Courage will also cover. Artificial Intelligence will be one, as there are many valid concerns that many have regarding AI emerging as the arbiter of truth and the guardian of our collective conscience.
This may seem duplicitous given the excitement I had for using AI in the production of the Halloween series Prague Macabre. AI is a tool, and the product is only as good as the person who wields that tool. If you have read our book Severed Conscience or seen the documentary series, you will know that I have a very skeptical view of concept of Artificial General Intelligence, referred to as AGI. I do not believe that it is possible for AI to be sentient. And I also do not think we are justified in our fear of Skynet suddenly emerging and overthrowing the human race.
I do fear that the technocrats - the Watchmakers as I have called them in the past - will continue to convince us that we should abdicate our thinking and responsibilities over to a superior way of analysis and expression of “The Science.” Some will use the claim of sentience as a way to convince us of our inferiority, others will merely say that AI, like calculators, is better at certain tasks and we should yield to AI’s inerrant nature.
Near the end of October, the White House issued a National Security Memorandum on the importance of AI to national security, and this amps up the need for the US government to step in, as AI’s impact is beyond a pure DEI context with respects to safety. The memorandum calls for the DoD to be involved with oversight of the technological progress of AI, as well as naming AI as the next weapon used by our adversaries. This goes beyond the cool factor of creating graphics to go with the narration of a Halloween story, but as one can surmise, it could be more horrific.
OZFest Recap
The Election has been the majority focus for this past week. In Michigan, we have had several revelations regarding the state of voter rolls, and a recalcitrant Secretary of State who is more concerned with tracking misinformation than ensuring that we have a secure election. Michigan has 500,000 excess registrants who will not be removed until 2027. Despite that, our Secretary of State insists there is no issue. This is a hollow assertion at best since a Chinese National registered as a student at University of Michigan was able to cast a vote. The discovery that he was not a citizen only occurred due to the fact that he asked for his ballot back.
Promoting liberty is why Cultural Courage exists - there are fundamental things that we ignore, and while whistling past the graveyard we hope the specter of tyranny doesn’t snag us as we pay no heed to preserving our rights. On the OZFest channel I will be running compilations of past podcasts where the election, charges of election fraud and the Dominion voting machines have been a focus. As a software developer I translate the tech into English.
https://rumble.com/v5khqut-ozfest-morning-mission-in-bed-with-the-nsm-and-militarized-ai.html
The OZFest Channel on Rumble is located here: https://rumble.com/ozfest/live
Severed Conscience Podcast Release
AI and the White House National Security Memorandum are the focus of the Severed Conscience podcast. This podcast is the start of a longer series of discussions and analysis, AI and supporting it’s use will be the justification for some surprising things.
Audio is up on Apple Podcast, Spreaker and Spotify.
Coming Up On Sunday Nights Radio
Normally I have a promo or trailer for Sunday Nights Radio, but I am going to honest and say I’m still trying to decide on what the next episode will be. I had hoped I would finish out the Prague Macabre series, but the time was working against me this week, and I am trying to locate the latest version of what I had wrote for Book 3. It’s sitting on the old laptop, I have to find it, I really do. If you missed those, here they are. They were a lot of fun to produce. I had hope to close out the series this weekend.
So far, no one has had a close guess who the narrator is. I’m going to let you guys keep guessing.
If you would like more of this type of production, please let me know. It’s a great outlet, and I am planning on sharing on the techniques I have been picking up along the way.
Since we are entering Thanksgiving month, I know there will be the topics of holiday festivities and more history related to the Puritans in 1600 Colonial Massachusetts.
Regardless, Sunday Nights Radio is at 930 PM Eastern. I’ll update everyone once the topic is firmly settled.
https://rumble.com/ozfest/live
