Unraveling Biases, Tragedies, and Historical Cycles

Dear Reader,

It's been a busy couple of weeks, with some major life changes afoot.

In the meantime, I've followed some of the rabbit holes that have appeared before me, and I'm starting to see a pattern emerging: the world is going through a dark period right now.

Here's a recap:

• I'm fascinated by the biases that exist in people and in our everyday world, particularly the ones that exist outside of our conscious and/or rational minds. As individuals, we seem to be riddled with them. Our culture is too. But what about AI? Is it biased, or have they managed to make it neutral? I did some exploration around this topic here.
• On Valentines Day, the United States suffered yet another mass shooting, along with the requisite renewed calls for action. But what exactly should we do? And would it make a difference? I enlisted ChatGPT to explore this topic here.
• The "Scroll Patrol" has emerged as a regular "column" on this blog. It consists of miscellaneous things I come across on the internet, and sometime a bit of commentary on the subject. Scroll Patrol, Issue #4: Live Peanuts, a 360 degree guitar, magnet fishing, and more. Scroll Patrol, Issue #5: Debates over Biden's fitness, Kelce's Super Bowl incident, bias in Google AI, DeSantis's meat ban, and entertainment's decline stir controversy.
• Have you seen the alarming images of groups of people standing around in our city streets on their feet but slouched over and motionless? It's a rapidly growing problem in our country. I did some investigation into this world and got a crash course on tranq walking and the zombie drug.
• There's a theory that is gaining popularity recently that has to do with patterns and cycles in history. It's called the Fourth Turning and I did some investigation on the subject here.
• Tucker Carlson conducted an interview with Vladimir Putin that lasted more than two hours. I took a closer look into the various dimensions of this dialogue here.
• If you're anything like me, you think you've got plenty to worry about. Well make some room, because there's something else! Welcome to the alarming world of devastating solar flares and adversarial Super EMP attacks. Learn all about it here!

Yes, as I mentioned, the world seems to be going through a dark time right now.

Don't shoot the messenger.

There's a lot of amazing, incredible, exciting stuff going on too, though.

I'll try to cover as much of it as I can.

It's a fascinating time to be alive.

See you next week.

Layng