The Election.

Various news organizations have declared Trump to be victorious.  Given recent history, I expect that now we will enter a period dominated by challenges to various State election results, but it would appear that The Donald’s electoral victory may well be solid enough to withstand legal challenge.  I presume that his political opponents will resort to the same kind of contrarian activity that they did during his first term and the public discourse will remain in the gutter.  I sincerely hope that I am wrong here, but I fear that I am not.  I voted for Trump because I feared Harris more, not because I liked the man.  Hopefully, he will restore our ailing economy, strengthen our defense posture, reduce international tensions, and close the border.  All of that is well and good, but I fear that he will be unable to restore unity here at home and I do not expect him to initiate the kind of economic outreach to the rest of the world that is so badly needed.  In order for that to happen you and I will have to change our ways and I see absolutely no evidence that we are smart enough to understand that need.  In my view, we have dodged an immediate political catastrophe by not electing another sham president, and we have a shot at improving our short term economic situation,  reducing international tensions, and slowing the drift away from the societal traditions that made America the greatest nation in the world, but I see no evidence that we, you and I, will wake to the need to improve the standard of living of all peoples, not just those that live inside our non-existent borders.  In a nuclear world, that remains a serious problem.

Generative Artificial Intelligence

 Generative Artificial Intelligence is not really changing photography so much as adding to the ways in which photography is manipulated.  It is the logical extension of a process started long ago when photographers dodged and burned prints in a very dark room.  I presume that the process will continue to evolve and continue to amaze, but I don’t believe that it will ever replace the role of the photographer or the artist. Their fundamental role is to see and then create.  AI can not do that.  It is but one more very powerful tool in the human’s creative tool box.  How it is used is still the purview of the human.  I fully expect most of what is produced through the use of AI to be banal, just as most of our other efforts at expressing ourselves and describing our world are less than exhilarating.  The complexity that it adds to the task of understanding what we see is, however, going to be an interesting challenge.  My guess is that it will take time for us to fully adapt to it and I see the possibility that it might actually be beyond the ability of a significant proportion of us.  The underlying question in my mind is whether humans can ever fully adapt to having invented computers.  I admit to being extremely skeptical, but I also understand that I am too old to be relevant.

Is Musk talking to Putin?

There is a growing suspicion within anti-Trump political circles that Elon Musk is collaborating with Vladimir Putin to undermine democracy here in the United States, and the concern is not just among left-leaning activists.  Some of the loudest voices are within anti-Trump conservative circles.  I am not a legal expert, but, because Musk is not a government official, I see no legal bar to his talking to whomever he wants - inside or outside this country.  Given the ongoing back and forth over Twitter and free speech, I presume that Musk does not see any legal bar to it either.  I leave the legalities to the lawyers, but I side with Musk on the issue of free speech, and I see no reason in the world for him to not talk with Putin, if the two men decide it is in their interest to chat.  I hasten to add that I am not here necessarily agreeing with what either man is saying.  I, of course, have no way of knowing what that might be, or for that matter, whether a conversation is, in fact, even going on.

I see the hoopla that is being stirred up to be an updated version of the anti-Trump rhetoric that led to the earlier Russian collusion charges.  I see absolutely no evidence that Trump or Musk are in Putin’s pocket, nor that they are attempting to subvert democracy here in this country.  In my view, those charges have been thoroughly debunked.  This is not to say that I necessarily agree with what either man is saying to Putin, or anybody else for that matter.  My point here is that we, you and I, should be focused on the substance at issue, rather than the personality of the individuals engaged in the conversation, or the form of that conversation.  Specifically, I don’t give a rat’s posterior how we talk to Putin about Ukraine or anything else, but I do care about what we say in those conversations and I am thoroughly disappointed with what various American and foreign leaders have said to one another recently.  The conversation, in my opinion, is leading us in the absolute wrong direction everywhere in the world and I blame you and me for not insisting that the substance of the conversation be improved.

We continue to insist on being number one, but we fail to understand that position can only be maintained if the rest of humanity sees it to be in their interest to follow our lead.  Good hearted Americans on the left side of our internal conversation believe that we can welcome the rest of the world to come live with us, but we are not strong enough to solve the world’s problems that way, even if the other half of us agreed to it.  Rightly or wrongly, the other half of us believe that we deserve to be number one and the rest of the world will just have to accept it.  That used to be a viable thought, but the proliferation of nuclear weapons puts paid to that line of reasoning.  Now look at what you and I are arguing about and how we will move forward.  We are going to elect our next leader based on how he or she makes us feel.  We care not about any substantive issue, except as it impacts our feelings.

Musk talking to Putin is not the issue.  The issue is that you and I are not only not talking to each other - we are not even thinking.  This is still a democracy, so our foreign policy reflects our stupidity.  We just argue about which side of our inane, internal argument will represent us for the next four years, while too many humans argue with each other about how they will feed themselves.