He seems to be creating a new niche as a motivational speaker for the Men’s Rights Movement. I’m just surprised he’s gone for the plain black t-shirt instead of full camo. Shouldn’t he at least have an AR-15 slung over his shoulder?
More power to him. The world will be better off if he just goes around the country talking to incels about how to be a man than being a US Senator.
Democrats had better do this or we are well and truly screwed:
Democrats are rebuilding their strength in the “blue wall” states that former President Trump won in 2016, raising the party’s hopes in a region that will prove critical to races up and down the ballot next year.
The party is riding high after key victories in states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin over the past six months, signaling a newfound momentum after Trump’s win called into question the party’s standing in the rust belt.
But Democrats say they’re not taking the states for granted and still have more work to do as President Biden looks to clinch a second term and several senators in those states face reelection.
“It’s clear that the path to the White House, the path to retaining a Senate majority cuts through the Midwest,” said Kaitlin Fahey, a Democratic consultant who led the successful bid to host next year’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago and former chief of staff to Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.).
Meanwhile, Republicans clearly have their sights set on pummeling the “blue wall,” choosing to host the Republican National Convention in nearby Milwaukee next year.
“Both on the Republican and Democratic sides, it’s indicative of their choice how critical they view the path of the Midwest, the Rust Belt, some describe it as flyover states,” Fahey said. “Those are states and constituencies who cannot be forgotten about; who have been at times felt left behind, especially in previous administrations.”
The party made its focus on protecting the traditional “blue wall” clear earlier this month when Biden and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) selected Chicago to host the 2024 party convention. Governors of Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois and Minnesota each signed onto a letter supporting Chicago’s DNC bid in which they said the party “must do everything we can to ensure the blue wall becomes an impenetrable blue fortress.”
In addition to being swing presidential states, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin are also home to competitive Senate races this cycle.
While the nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates these Senate races as “lean Democratic,” that does not mean the party is complacent going into these elections — especially given the GOP primary fields are still solidifying over a year and a half out from Election Day.
“This is Pennsylvania, the work never stops,” said one Pennsylvania Democratic strategist. “We will not be abandoning any part of the state.”
In Pennsylvania, Democrats made gains up and down the ballot in 2022, winning the suburbs while making a play for rural areas usually dominated by Republicans.
“From a GOP perspective, those margins that Trump was able to do in 2016 are good, but it’s also [because] he was able to have much better margins in the suburbs,” the strategist said.
Michigan was also a major success story for Democrats at the ballot last year, but like Pennsylvania Democrats, Michigan Democrats say that’s a sign to keep going.
“Make no mistake, Michigan is still a purple state and if we turn our backs on it, if we get complacent, it can go in the wrong direction,” said Andrew Feldman, a Democratic strategist who works closely with Michigan Democrats. “Michigan Democrats across the board from the state Legislature all the way up to the top of the ticket in the state have done the work since Trump won in 2016 to rebuild the party and rebuild that infrastructure, and I think you’re going to continue to see them aggressively organize.”
Wisconsin Democrats saw a major statewide victory earlier this month when Milwaukee County Judge Janet Protasiewicz’s victory handed a majority to liberals on the state’s Supreme Court for the first time in 15 years. On top of that, Democrats also point to incumbent Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s (D-Wis.) reelection win in 2018, two years after Trump flipped the state in 2016.
Biden has to win all three of those states plus two of Arizona, Nevada and Georgia to win in 2024. I know it’s hard to believe, after everything we’ve been through, that it will come back to that but it will. Luckily the Democrats seem to understand that.
This from Michelle Goldberg is just chilling. DeSantis and his minions are monsters of a different kind. He cannot be president. He just can’t:
When I first met Matthew Lepinski, the faculty chair of New College of Florida, he was willing to give the right-wingers sent to remake his embattled progressive public school a chance.
This was in January, a few weeks after Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida appointed six activist conservatives, including the culture war strategist Chris Rufo, to New College’s board of trustees. Rufo, the ideological entrepreneur who made critical race theory a Republican boogeyman, was open about his ambition to turn the quirky, L.G.B.T.Q.-friendly liberal arts school into a public version of Hillsdale, a conservative Christian college in Michigan with close ties to both DeSantis and Donald Trump. He hoped the transformation would be proof of concept for his dream: a conservative takeover of higher education across the country.
So when Rufo and another new trustee, Eddie Speir, the co-founder of a private Christian school called Inspiration Academy, arrived at New College for meetings with students and faculty, they were received with skepticism and hostility. But Lepinski, a computer science professor and the faculty representative on the board of trustees, was hopeful that they might figure out a way to work together, and he urged the school community to hear them out.
In the ensuing months, there was concern among Lepinski’s colleagues that he wasn’t doing enough to stand up to their new overlords. “Some of us had been a little frustrated with his willingness to try and play nice,” Amy Reid, a French professor and the head of New College’s gender studies program, told me. But Lepinski believed in dialogue and compromise. “I thought maybe there was a path forward with this board where we could focus on the things that unite us instead of the things that divide us,” he said.
That’s why it was so striking when, at the end of a combative three-hour meeting on Wednesday in which the trustees rejected five tenure applications, Lepinski quit. He’s not just leaving the board, but New College altogether. “I can no longer see a way that I can be effective here, given the current board of trustees,” he said at an impromptu news conference afterward.
When I spoke to Rufo in early January, he said that New College would look very different in the following 120 days. Nearly four months later, that hasn’t entirely come to pass, but it’s clear where things are headed.
The new trustees fired the school’s president, replacing her with Richard Corcoran, the Republican former speaker of the Florida House. They fired its chief diversity officer and dismantled the diversity, equity and inclusion office. As I was writing this on Friday, several people sent me photographs of gender-neutral signage scraped off school bathrooms.
But day-to-day, students, parents, and professors told me, life at New College has been pretty much the same. Faculty have mostly been left alone to do their jobs. Corcoran, several professors said, was rarely on campus. Sam Sharf, who chose New College in part because she feels safe there as a trans woman, said that classroom discussions in her Politics of the African Diaspora and Alternatives to Capitalism classes haven’t changed, though she’s constantly aware that such subjects might soon be taboo, and is planning to transfer.
Whatever New College’s administration does, this will likely be the last year classes like the ones Sharf is taking are offered, because a bill making its way through the Florida Legislature requires the review of curriculums “based on theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States.” The sense of dread on campus, however, goes beyond what’s happening in Tallahassee.
Eliana Salzhauer, whose 17-year-old son is a New College economics student, compared the seemingly inexorable transformation of the school to Twitter under Elon Musk: It looked the same at first, even as it gradually degraded into a completely different experience. “They are turning a top-rated academic institution into a third-rate athletic facility,” she said.
Salzhauer was referring, in part, to the hiring of Mariano Jimenez, who previously worked at Speir’s Inspiration Academy, as athletic director and head baseball coach, even though there’s no baseball diamond on campus. In the past, New College hasn’t had traditional sports teams, but the administration is now recruiting student athletes, and Corcoran has said he wants to establish fraternities and sororities, likely creating a culture clash with New College’s artsy queer kids, activists and autodidacts. Before Wednesday’s board meeting, about 75 people held a protest outside. “We’re Nerds & Geeks, not Jocks & Greeks,” said one sign.
For many, the board of trustees meeting was the clearest sign yet that this is the last semester of New College as they know it. The pivot point was the trustees’ decision to override the typical tenure process. New College hired a large number of new faculty five years ago, and this year was the first that any of them could apply for tenure. Seven did, each going through the requisite hurdles, including getting a sign-off from New College’s former president. In the past, trustee approval had been a ceremonial matter, and tenure candidates would bring family and friends to celebrate.
Corcoran, however, had asked all the professors up for tenure this year to withdraw their applications because of the tumult at the school. Two of the seven agreed. The rest — three of them professors in the hard sciences — held out for the board’s vote. This was widely seen as a referendum not just on the individual candidates, but on faculty independence.
Fifty-four people registered to speak at the meeting. All but one of them either implored the trustees to grant the professors tenure or lambasted them for their designs on the school. Parents were particularly impassioned; many of them had been profoundly relieved to find an affordable school where their eccentric kids could thrive. Some tried to speak the language of conservatism: “You’re violating my parental rights regarding our school choice,” said Pam Pare, the mother of a biology major. One student, a second-year wrapped in a pink and blue trans flag, was escorted out of the meeting after cursing at Corcoran, but most tried to earnestly and calmly convey how much the professors up for tenure had taught them.
It was all futile. A majority of the trustees voted down each of the candidates in turn as the crowd chanted, “Shame on you!” That’s when Lepinski quit, walking out of the room to cheers.
The trustees framed their objections in terms of timing; the professors were applying after five years at New College instead of the more customary six, and would have the opportunity to reapply the next year. But, given Rufo’s plans, this explanation seemed like a pretext for an administration that wants to bring in its own, ideologically aligned faculty. And once denied tenure, it wasn’t clear how many of the professors were going to stick around to try again.
“Some faculty members have started to leave already, and obviously some students are thinking about what their future looks like,” Lepinski said right after quitting. A few days later, we spoke again. “There’s a grieving process for the New College that was, which is passing away,” he said. “I really loved the New College that was, but I am at peace that it’s gone now.”
Rufo couldn’t attend Wednesday’s meeting in person, because he’d been delayed coming home from Hungary, where he had a fellowship at a right-wing think tank closely tied to Viktor Orban’s government. (This seemed fitting, since Orban’s Hungary created the template for Rufo and Desantis’s educational crusade.) Instead, he Zoomed in, his face projected on a movie screen behind the other trustees.
After Lepinski quit, Rufo tweeted that “any faculty that prefer the old system unfettered left-wing activism and a rubber-stamp board are free to self-select out.” Turnover, he added, “is to be expected — even welcomed. But we are making rapid, significant progress.” He and his allies haven’t built anything new at New College yet. They are succeeding, however, in tearing something down.
This guy sprang out of nowhere to become powerful in the blink of an eye. And while DeSantis may very well flame out as a presidential candidate these ideas are now mainstream in the Republican party. It’s terrifying. If you think that teaching kids about America’s racist past or allowing teachers to talk about LGBTQ issues is the real problem in education today you aren’t paying attention.
They all got jail sentences. (Dean only did a few months in detention since he was testifying.) The former Attorney General of the United States did 19 months.
Will we see that kind of accountability with Trump and his minions for attempting a coup/ (And all the rest…) I honestly don’t know. I wish I was more optimistic about it.
Here’s a good analysis of the DeSantis flop (so far) from Harry Enten:
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has spent the past few months running to the right ahead of his expected entry into the 2024 Republican presidential primary campaign. From signing into law a six-week abortion ban to fighting with Disney, the governor has focused on satisfying his party’s conservative base.
So far at least, those efforts have not paid off in Republican primary polling, with DeSantis falling further behind the current front-runner, former President Donald Trump.
Things have gotten so bad for DeSantis that a recent Fox News poll shows him at 21% – comparable with the 19% that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has pushed debunked conspiracy theories about vaccine safety, is receiving on the Democratic side.
DeSantis was at 28% in Fox’s February poll, 15 points behind Trump. The Florida governor’s support has dropped in the two Fox polls published since, and he now trails the former president by 32 points.
Early polling problems
The Fox poll is not alone in showing DeSantis floundering. The latest average of national polls has him dropping from the low 30s into the low 20s.
This may not seem like a big deal, but early polling has long been an indicator of how well presidential candidates do in the primary the following year. Of all primary elections since 1972 without incumbents running, candidates at around 30% in early primary polls (like DeSantis was in February) have gone on to become their parties’ nominees about 40% of the time. Candidates polling the way DeSantis is now have gone on to win about 20% of the time.
I will, of course, point out that 20% is not nothing. DeSantis most certainly still has a chance of winning. The comparison with Kennedy is not a remark on Kennedy’s strength but on DeSantis’ weakness.
There is no historical example of an incumbent in President Joe Biden’s current position (over 60% in the latest Fox poll) losing a primary. At this point in 1995, Bill Clinton was polling roughly where Biden is now, and he had no problem winning the Democratic nomination the following year.
In that same campaign, Jesse Jackson was polling near 20% in a number of early surveys against Clinton. So what we’re seeing from Kennedy now is not, as of yet, a historical anomaly.
‘His people skills are very, very bad’: Hear what Billionaire GOP donor thinks about DeSantis
Jackson didn’t run in that 1996 race. The power of incumbency is strong enough to deter most challengers.
The last three incumbents to either lose state primary elections (when on the ballot) or drop out of the race – Lyndon Johnson in 1968, Gerald Ford in 1976 and Jimmy Carter in 1980 – were at less than 40% of the vote or up by fewer than 10 points at this point in primary polling.
The good news for DeSantis is that he doesn’t need to beat an incumbent, though one could make the case that Trump is polling like one.
In fact, DeSantis’ decline is at least in part because of Trump’s rise. The former president, who has been indicted on felony criminal charges in New York, has gone from the low to mid-40s to above 50% in the average 2024 polling. (Trump has pleaded not guilty to the charges.)
DeSantis missteps
But one could also argue that DeSantis isn’t helping his cause. He has yet to formally announce his 2024 campaign – most past nominees had already done so or had filed with the Federal Election Commission at this point in the race. And the governor’s play to the right doesn’t line up with where the anti-Trump forces are within the Republican Party.
Trump has continually been weakest among party moderates. A Quinnipiac University poll released at the end of March found that he was pulling in 61% among very conservative Republicans, while garnering a mere 30% from moderate and liberal Republicans.
This moderate wing is the part of the party that is least likely to want a ban on abortion after six weeks. A KFF poll taken late last year showed moderate and liberal Republicans split 50/50 on whether they wanted a six-week abortion ban.
This group isn’t small. Moderates and liberals made up about 30% of potential Republican primary voters in the Quinnipiac poll.
Indeed, DeSantis’ other big newsmaking action (his fight with Disney) has managed to split the GOP as well, a Reuters/Ipsos poll from last week found. Although a clear majority sided with the governor (64%), 36% of Republicans do not.
For reference, over 80% of Republicans said in a Fox poll last month that Trump had not done anything illegal, with regard to the criminal charges against him in New York.
DeSantis, at the moment, is not building a base. He’s dividing Republicans and allowing Trump to claim an electability mantle. The general electorate remains opposed to a six-week abortion ban and his position on Disney.
We’ll see if that changes should his polling position improve after an official campaign launch. If it doesn’t, this may end up being one of the most boring presidential primary seasons in the modern era, given Biden’s and Trump’s significant advantages.
There’s a lot of historical evidence that someone in DeSantis’ position a year out isn’t going to do very well in the primary. On the other hand he polls much better than anyone but Trump so if something were to happen to Dear Leader it stands to reason that he would be in the best position to pick up the pieces. I have a feeling that’s the bet — Trump being arrested on federal charges or passing away in his sleep would be Ron’s best chance.
But I don’t know if that’s even true. Trump would probably run even if he’s under indictment so that’s not a given. The way it’s going DeSantis is rapidly turning himself into a joke and it’s not as if there aren’t others waiting in the wings. Depending on the timing, Someone like Christie or Youngkin could throw their hats in and there’s Haley, Scott, Hutchinson and probably a few more whose names will probably be on the ballot. Even if Trump shuffles off his mortal coil it’s not a shoo-in. He’s this guy now:
This is what we’ve come to in the era of Donald Trump. It’s not just that his criminal behavior is overlooked by his idiotic followers. It’s a plus:
During E. Jean Carroll’s first day on the witness stand, her lawyer asked what had brought her to a federal courtroom in Manhattan.
“I am here because Donald Trump raped me and when I wrote about it, he said it didn’t happen,” Ms. Carroll replied. “He lied and shattered my reputation, and I am here to try to get my life back.”
A day later, Mr. Trump, who has denied the attack and called Ms. Carroll a liar, campaigned in New Hampshire, joking to a crowd about his changing nicknames for Hillary Clinton and President Biden. He did not mention Ms. Carroll’s testimony, or the civil trial going on 250 miles away. But he remarked cheerfully on a poll released that day, which showed him far and away leading the 2024 Republican primary field.
Since Mr. Trump was indicted last month in a criminal case brought by the Manhattan district attorney’s office, his legal travails and his third presidential campaign have played out on a split screen. The courtroom dramas have taken place without news cameras present, even as the race has returned Mr. Trump to the spotlight that briefly dimmed after he left the Oval Office.
Ms. Carroll’s harrowing testimony, a visceral demonstration of Mr. Trump’s legal peril, has emphasized the surreal nature of the divide. Mr. Trump is the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. But he has also been indicted on 34 felony false records charges, and in Ms. Carroll’s case faces a nine-person jury that will determine whether he committed rape decades ago. And then there are the other investigations: for election interference, mishandling sensitive documents and his role in the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“To see a former and potential future president of the United States confront all these legal issues at once is bizarre,” said Jennifer Horn, a former chairwoman of the New Hampshire Republican Party and a vocal opponent of Mr. Trump. “But what’s really disturbing about it is that he’s the front-runner for a major political party in this country. And you can’t just blame that on him. You have to blame that on the leaders of the party and their primary base.”
The past week brought the former president a steady stream of setbacks. Ms. Carroll gave detailed and graphic testimony about the encounter with Mr. Trump. The judge in the case sought to limit Mr. Trump’s posts on social media, as did the Manhattan district attorney’s office in its own case. And former Vice President Mike Pence testified before a grand jury hearing evidence about Mr. Trump’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Mike Murphy, a Republican political strategist who advised John McCain and Jeb Bush, said that trials and investigations of Mr. Trump often create “a psychological roller coaster for Trump-hating Democrats,” giving them hope that he will be taken down, only to leave them disappointed. Mr. Trump’s legal problems have yet to create significant political problems given the unflinching loyalty of his core supporters.
Since Mr. Trump was indicted, his poll numbers have risen. Criminal investigations against him, in Georgia and Washington, as well as Ms. Carroll’s trial and a civil fraud lawsuit brought by the New York attorney general’s office, have done little to hamper him with his supporters. The poll he mentioned Thursday predicted that he would receive 62 percent of the vote in the Republican primary. His closest opponent, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who has not yet declared that he is running, was polling at 16 percent.
Tens of millions of our fellow Americans are totally stupid and/or immoral. It’s not really on him. He’s a hustler taking advantage of the opportunity to cover his wrongdoing. It’s them.
It’s so easy to see how 1930s Germany happened now.
Pointy-headed intellectuals in their ivory towers oppose Uhmurica! These librul college professors oppose mandating even one course in U.S. history for graduating from the UNC system, alleges Fox’s Pete Hegseth. Never mind that a high school course in United States history is a prerequisite for admission to the system’s colleges.
“They think learning about America is, and this is their words, ‘indoctrination’, ” Hegseth tells viewers his network indoctrinates 24-7-365.
I’m having trouble even finding indoctrination among “their words.” You’re not surprised, I know. And even less surprised that Fox does not find room for a link to the actual letter in its four-paragraph story.
The actual letter is here:
We, the undersigned UNC-Chapel Hill faculty, are alarmed by the interference and overreach of the North Carolina legislature, the UNC System Board of Governors, and the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees whose actions violate the principles of academic freedom and shared governance that undergird higher education in N.C. and the U.S. If enacted, we believe that these measures will further damage the reputation of UNC and the state of North Carolina and will likely bring critical scrutiny from accrediting agencies that know undue interference in university affairs when they see it. Among the disturbing recent developments:
Unfortunately, these threats are familiar. In 2022, the national American Association of University Professors did a thorough investigation of the problems of shared governance, academic freedom, and institutional racism at UNC since 2010, concluding that UNC needs leadership that “respects faculty expertise, that observes widely accepted principles of academic governance, that protects academic inquiry from political pressures and constraints, and that is willing to do more than simply pay lip service to the idea of equity.”
Instead of heeding this warning, our leaders continue to disregard campus autonomy, attack the expertise and independence of world-class faculty, and seek to force students’ educations into pre-approved ideological containers. We must protect the principles of academic freedom and shared governance which have long made UNC a leader in public education.
– Jay M. Smith, Professor of History
Maxine Eichner, Professor of Law
The GOP-controlled NC state legislature proposes to set the course of study for this required history that degreed professionals will teach, as well as how much weight the final exam will have on students’ final grade.
How many behind this bill have degrees in history or education?
Let’s see, sponsors include Rep. Keith Kidwell who knows something vaguely about business management and whose name appears on the Oath Keeper’s roster. Majority Whip Rep. John Hardister has a B.A. in Political Science and worked in marketing for his family’s mortgage firm. And Rep. Ray Pickett who seems to have no higher education and can barely manage a web or Facebook page; he’s the primary sponsor. Where’d he get his expertise in American History? They all propose to dictate to tenured faculty at a world-recognised university system what they should teach.
MAGA-lous. Just MAGA-lous.
Danielle Allen was still at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study in 2008 when she raised red flags about anonymous viral emails attacking then-presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama.
“I started thinking, ‘How does one stop it?’ ” Allen told the Washington Post:
Allen set her sights on dissecting the modern version of a whisper campaign, even though experts told her it would be impossible to trace the chain e-mail to its origin. Along the way, even as her hunt grew cold, she gained valuable insight into the way political information circulates, mutates and sometimes devastates in the digital age.
Now at Harvard, Allen is still warning about digital mayhem. Only now, her concern extends to “generative artificial intelligence, a tool that will help bad actors further accelerate the spread of misinformation.”
She’s signed onto an open letter with technologists, academics, and others calling for a six-month pause in “the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4.”
Email spam was bad enough. A.I.-generated disinformation could be worse, with “all kinds of unpredictable emergent properties and powers” spawned by the technology. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates disagrees that we’re there yet, but Allen’s research suggests that the latest machine-learning models show “sparks” of artificial general intelligence. Microsoft Research teams concur (Washington Post):
But regardless of which side of the debate one comes down on, and whether the time has indeed come (as I think it has) to figure out how to regulate an intelligence that functions in ways we cannot predict, it is also the case that the near-term benefits and potential harms of this breakthrough are already clear, and attention must be paid. Numerous human activities — including many white-collar jobs — can now be automated. We used to worry about the impacts of AI on truck drivers; now it’s also the effects on lawyers, coders and anyone who depends on intellectual property for their livelihood. This advance will increase productivity but also supercharge dislocation.
The Industrial Revolution was just a foretaste. People relocated en masse from farms to factory jobs in cities. We are still living with the social, economic, and political fallout from automation, globalization, and vaporware promises of how there would be, in the end, more winners than losers. MAGA, anyone?
Allen offers a breathless selection of potential misuses of OpenAI that the technology recognizes and prohibits:
Illegal activity. Child sexual-abuse material. Generation of hateful, harassing or violent content. Generation of malware. Activity that has high risk of physical harm, including: weapons development; military and warfare; management or operation of critical infrastructure in energy, transportation and water; content that promotes, encourages or depicts acts of self-harm. Activity that has a high risk of economic harm, including: multilevel marketing, gambling, payday lending, automated determinations of eligibility for credit, employment, educational institutions or public assistance services. Fraudulent or deceptive activity, including: scams, coordinated inauthentic behavior, plagiarism, astroturfing, disinformation, pseudo-pharmaceuticals. Adult content. Political campaigning or lobbying by generating high volumes of campaign materials. Activities that violate privacy. Unauthorized practice of law or medicine or provision of financial advice.
Allen and other signatories on the letter are not Luddites. But they pose a classic question underlying gothic horror and science fiction and dating back to Mary Shelley: just because we can invent a new technology does not mean we should. At the very least, not without first planning to head off the fallout. They write:
Contemporary AI systems are now becoming human-competitive at general tasks,[3] and we must ask ourselves: Should we let machines flood our information channels with propaganda and untruth? Should we automate away all the jobs, including the fulfilling ones? Should we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete and replace us? Should we risk loss of control of our civilization? Such decisions must not be delegated to unelected tech leaders. Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable. This confidence must be well justified and increase with the magnitude of a system’s potential effects. OpenAI’s recent statement regarding artificial general intelligence, states that “At some point, it may be important to get independent review before starting to train future systems, and for the most advanced efforts to agree to limit the rate of growth of compute used for creating new models.” We agree. That point is now.
“What’s the hurry?” Allen asks in the Post:
We are simply ill-prepared for the impact of yet another massive social transformation. We should avoid rushing into all of this with only a few engineers at a small number of labs setting the direction for all of humanity. We need a breather for some collective learning about what humanity has created, how to govern it, and how to ensure that there will be accountability for the creation and use of new tools.
There are already many things we can and should do. We should be making scaled-up public-sector investments into third-party auditing, so we can actually know what models are capable of and what data they’re ingesting. We need to accelerate a standards-setting process that builds on work by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. We must investigate and pursue “compute governance,” which means regulation of the use of the massive amounts of energy necessary for the computing power that drives the new models. This would be akin to regulating access to uranium for the production of nuclear technologies.
More than that, we need to strengthen the tools of democracy itself. A pause in further training of generative AI could give our democracy the chance both to govern technology and to experiment with using some of these new tools to improve governance. The Commerce Department recently solicited input on potential regulation for the new AI models; what if we used some of the tools the AI field is generating to make that public comment process even more robust and meaningful?
I’ve literally watched this movie before, time and time again. As have you.
I traded notes with Allen in 2008 about my growing collection of right-wing spam. I speculated at the time that there might be a boiler room somewhere generating chain emails. After social media spread disinformation during the 2016 presidential campaign, we found out there was one: in St. Petersburg.
Allen’s take on 2008’s e-rumors was this:
“What I’ve come to realize is, the labor of generating an e-mail smear is divided and distributed amongst parties whose identities are secret even to each other,” she says. A first group of people published articles that created the basis for the attack. A second group recirculated the claims from those articles without ever having been asked to do so. “No one coordinates the roles,” Allen said. Instead the participants swim toward their goal like a school of fish — moving on their own, but also in unison.
Now we face the prospect of A.I. destabilizing society, swimming in unison, untouched by human hands.
With luck, maybe climate change will take out humanity first.
It should be obvious to anyone following my weekly scribbles at Hullabaloo (great googly moogly…have I been doing this for 17 years?!) that I primarily write about film. I love writing about film. But my first love (we never forget our first love) was music. My first published piece ever was a review of King Crimson’s A Lark’s Tongue in Aspic, in 1973. Granted, it was for my high school newspaper and upwards of dozens read it, but for that brief shining moment…I was Lester Bangs (in my mind). Now that I think about it…Digby was the editor of that paper (that’s how we originally became friends-Journalism class in our senior year).
That was 50 years ago. And Digby’s still my editor. I don’t understand what’s happening.
And you run, and you run to catch up with the sun but it’s sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way but you’re older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death
Oh. Thanks for clearing that up.
Speaking of 50-year anniversaries-1973 was an outstanding year for music. Distilling a “top 10” was crazy making (if I hadn’t allowed myself the “next 10” at the bottom , my head would have exploded). If I have “overlooked” one of your favorites…it’s duly noted. In alphabetical order:
Alladin Sane-David Bowie
How does one follow a stone classic like Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars? Just a walk in the park for David Bowie…swinging an old bouquet. A very strong set, bolstered by Mick Ronson’s distinctive guitar pyrotechnics and some of pianist Mike Garson’s finest work (particularly on the more ethereal numbers like “Lady Grinning Soul” and the title cut). While Bowie’s so-called “Berlin period” was still several years down the road, there is a Weimar cabaret energy to the self-reflective “Time”, which is one of the album’s showstoppers.
Choice cuts: “The Jean Genie”, “Time”, “Panic in Detroit”, “Alladin Sane”, “Lady Grinning Soul”, “Cracked Actor”.
Catch a Fire-Bob Marley and the Wailers
While this was their fifth studio effort, Catch a Fire (their debut on Chris Blackwell’s Island Records) arguably marked the first awareness of Bob Marley and the Wailers for many music fans in the U.S. (they were already well-known in Jamaica and gaining popularity in the U.K.). The original sessions were recorded in Kingston in 1972; Blackwell remixed the 8-track masters and had session players add clavinet and additional guitar parts to several tracks. The songs are some of the best in their catalog. It’s a true group effort, with Peter Tosh taking lead vocals on the two songs he composed – “400 Years” and “Stop That Train”. If you haven’t heard them, I recommend seeking out the original mixes, which I think are more compelling.
Choice cuts: “Concrete Jungle”, “Kinky Reggae”, “Stop That Train”, “Slave Driver”, “400 Years”, “Stir it Up”.
Dark Side of the Moon – Pink Floyd
Talk about a shoo-in (I’d probably have to hire a 24-hour security detail if I failed to include this one). The now-iconic prism design that adorns the album’s cover is apt; there is something elemental about this set that (obviously) captured the imaginations of millions of listeners (to date, the album has sold over 45 million copies). Pink Floyd may not have invented prog-rock, but they unarguably raised the bar for the genre with this entry.
Choice cuts: All of them?
Montrose-Montrose
Clocking in at just over 30 minutes, this self-titled debut comes in like a lion and goes out like…a lion. Led by guitarist extraordinaire Ronnie Montrose (formerly of the Edgar Winter Group), the hard-rocking quartet was propelled by a tight rhythm section (Denny Carmassi on drums and Bill Church on bass) and a young up-and-coming lead vocalist named Sammy Hagar. The album benefits from dynamic production by Ted Templeman, who also worked with Van Halen, the Doobie Brothers, and Van Morrison (prior to forming Montrose, Ronnie Montrose played on Morrison’s Tupelo Honey album, and the songs “Listen to the Lion” and “St. Dominic’s Preview”).
I had the pleasure of seeing Ronnie Montrose perform twice; circa 1981 in San Francisco with Gamma, and 2011 in Seattle. Sadly, in 2012, he took his own life. He had beat prostate cancer but battled chronic depression. That last time I saw him perform, he was in an ebullient mood; graciously chatting with fans afterwards and clearly having a great time rocking some classics from the first album (with a young vocalist who sounded uncannily like Sammy Hagar). He was an astonishing player and an inspiration to me as a guitarist.
Choice cuts: “Rock the Nation”, “Bad Motor Scooter”, “Space Station #5”, “Good Rockin’ Tonight”, “Rock Candy”, “Make it Last”.
The New York Dolls– The New York Dolls
In a new Showtime documentary about former New York Dolls lead singer David Johansen by Martin Scorsese and David Tedeschi called Personality Crisis: One Night Only (recommended!), Dolls super-fan Morrissey observes, “They only made two studio albums; and for a group that did so little really, and existed for such a short amount of time, their impact has been extraordinary. And the music, because it was such fantastic pop music, it just seemed to me like the absolute answer to everything. Which of course…too dangerous.”
What did he mean by “too dangerous”? For one, the Dolls were a bit too much, too soon for many rock music fans, likely befuddled by the band’s Frankenstein construct of fey posturing, campy attire, New Yawk attitude, and garage band sound. To be sure, Bolan and Bowie had already injected androgyny into the zeitgeist, but the Dolls were still pretty over the top for 1973. In hindsight, their descendants are legion, ranging from The Ramones to Måneskin.
Musically, they were pop-punk before “punk” was a known quantity. Their eponymous debut album (produced by Todd Rundgren) has held up remarkably well; songs that, while rooted in R&B, 50s rock, and 60s pop, are most decidedly not your father’s R&B, 50s rock and 60s pop.
Choice cuts: “Personality Crisis”, “Looking for a Kiss”, “Lonely Planet Boy”, “Trash”, “Bad Girl”, “Private World”, “Jet Boy”.
Quadrophenia-The Who
Never content to rest on his laurels, Peter Townshend set out to compose yet another rock opera in 1973-and pulled it off with this epic double album, the Who’s follow-up to the excellent Who’s Next (which itself rose from the ashes of a fizzled Tommy-like project called Lifehouse). A musical love letter to the band’s first g-g-generation of rabid British fans (aka the “Mods”), Quadrophenia gets inside the head of Mod Jimmy (embodied by Roger Daltrey’s powerful and emotive vocals). Lavishly produced, with all band members in fine form. The album spawned a 1979 film version directed by Franc Roddam, with a Who soundtrack.
Choice cuts: “The Real Me”, “Cut My Hair”, “The Punk and the Godfather”, “I’m One”, “I’ve Had Enough”, “5:15”, “Bell-Boy”, “Dr. Jimmy”, “Love, Reign o’er Me”.
Suzi Quatro-Suzi Quatro
Detroit native Suzi Quatro didn’t consciously set out to be the groundbreaking and influential artist that she turned out to be. She just wanted to rock…and “rock” she does on this high-energy debut album. Music was in her blood…her first gig was playing bongos in her dad’s jazz band at age 8. She formed her first band at 15, an all-female outfit (eventually called Cradle) that included her three sisters. British producer Mickie Most happened to catch a performance and instantly saw her star potential, helping Suzi sign with a UK label. Not unlike the New York Dolls, her influence was ultimately more impactful than her albums (she is most famously lauded by Joan Jett as her chief inspiration). This album still sounds fresh and fun, chockablock with straight-ahead rockers and catchy power-pop (many written by Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman, who also composed a number of songs for The Sweet).
Choice cuts: “48 Crash”, “Glycerine Queen”, “Can the Can”, “Shine My Machine”, “Primitive Love”. “I Wanna Be Your Man”.
Solid Air-John Martyn
A near-masterpiece of (mostly) acoustic guitar-based jazz-folk by a gifted singer-songwriter. Martyn is accompanied by bassist Danny Thompson (formerly of Pentangle). I had a chance to see the late Scottish musician perform at a now-defunct club called The Backstage in Seattle back in the mid-90s. It was just Martyn and a stand-up bass player; Martyn primarily accompanied himself on acoustic, but played a Les Paul through a delay unit on several tunes. A minimal setup, but it was easily the best live performance I have ever seen by any solo artist or band. Not only was Martyn’s playing and singing superlative, but he was an absolute riot in between songs (he had a lot of Scottish jokes). Quite an experience-like this album.
Choice cuts: “Solid Air”, “Over the Hill”, “May You Never”, “Don’t Wanna Know”.
Spectrum-Billy Cobham
In the wake of Miles Davis’ groundbreaking 1970s album Bitches Brew, a new musical sub-genre emerged. “Fusion” (as it came to be labeled) had one foot in rock and the other in jazz. The Bitches Brew roster is legend: including future members of Weather Report (Wayne Shorter, Joe Zawinul), Return to Forever (Chick Corea, Lenny White) and The Mahavishnu Orchestra (John McLaughlin and Billy Cobham). Drummer Billy Cobham’s first solo project turned out to be influential in its own right (most famously cited by Jeff Beck as the chief catalyst for his lauded 1975 release Blow by Blow). Cobham recruited some heavyweight players for Spectrum, including guitarist Tommy Bolin, fellow Mahavishnu Orchestra alum Jan Hammer on keys, and veteran session bassist Leland Sklar. Crisp production by Ken Scott.
Choice cuts: “Quadrant 4”, “Stratus”, “To the Women in My Life”.
Twice Removed From Yesterday-Robin Trower
After a 4-year stint with Procol Harum (1967-1971), guitarist Robin Trower left so that he could fully realize the expansive soundscapes he hinted at in the ethereal “Song For a Dreamer”, which appeared the final album he did with the band, Broken Barricades. Recruiting bassist/vocalist James DeWar and drummer Reg Isadore, he released this compelling set in 1973. Unfairly dismissed by some as a Hendrix clone, Trower not only developed a distinctive texture and tone, but has proven himself as one of the greatest players ever (well, in my book). Granted, the album does feature Hendrix-ish riff-driven numbers, but evenly balances the mix with beautiful, transporting ballads, carried along by DeWar’s sublime, whiskey-soaked vocals. One of those albums I still listen to on a regular basis.
Choice cuts: “I Can’t Wait Much Longer”, “Daydream”, “Hannah”, “I Can’t Stand It”, “Twice Removed from Yesterday”.
Bonus Tracks!
Here are 10 more gems from 1973 worth a spin:
3+3-The Isley Brothers
Abandoned Luncheonette-Hall & Oates
Band on the Run-Paul McCartney & Wings
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road-Elton John
Houses of the Holy-Led Zeppelin
Lark’s Tongue in Aspic-King Crimson
Mott-Mott the Hoople
Raw Power-The Stooges
Selling England by the Pound-Genesis
Witness-Spooky Tooth
Remember-it’s only rock ‘n’ roll. Now get on your bad motor scooter and RIDE!
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— Dennis Hartley
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