Tag: Kevin Drum

the heat this summer is a different kind of heat

I’ve been very alarmed by weather trends this summer. It’s been really, really hot. Alarmingly so. Even here in Oklahoma, where long, hot, humid summers are the norm, the difference has been noticeable. I’ve had to limit the amount of times my kids are spending outdoors, and I worry every time they climb on or off the trampoline, that the metal frame is going to burn them. Watching the news is equally alarming, with talk of record high averages worldwide, extreme temperature streaks across the American southwest, and wildfires increasingly common. Its really hard to look at the weather and come to the conclusion that things aren’t different than they used to be. To deny this is the case is to stick ones head in the sand. Kevin Drum is consistently good on climate issues, and this is him Tuesday:

In the 1960s, we could expect maybe two heat waves of three days each in a typical year. Today we can expect six heat waves of four days each. The overall summer heat wave season has tripled from 20 days to 70 days.

If you wish, you’re welcome to pretend this is just the normal variability of climate. Sometimes it’s hot, sometimes it’s cold.

But that would make you an idiot. This is all due to global warming, and it’s an excellent example of how a smallish change in average temperature can produce massive extremes at the edges. The same phenomenon is at work with sea level changes, where a modest change of just a few inches can produce killer storm surges.

A dozen years ago I wrote:

The fact of climate change will become undeniable [by 2024]. The effects of global warming, discernible today mostly in scary charts and mathematical models, will start to become obvious enough in the real world that even the rightest of right wingers will be forced to acknowledge what’s happening.

I got the first sentence dead on. But I’m still not sure about the second. Right wingers have turned out to be far more stubborn than anyone could have imagined.

This heat is not normal, and we shouldn’t act like it is. Its scary, especially as a parent. And it comes with an added layer of fury, that so many could just continue to deny reality and not care. Their indifference is driving a new extreme reality for the rest of us, one we didn’t ask for and knew could be prevented.

From a theological perspective, this kind of indifference and intentional refusal to act is very obviously sinful, especially because those who will be most effected will be the least among us, those who cannot afford or don’t live in places with high-powered AC units or the ability to relocate. We are, once again, abandoning the vulnerable among us. And, as Rowan Williams points out, this is due to an ill-formed view of what Creation is for:

“Our present ecological crisis, the biggest single practical threat to our human existence in the middle to long term, has, religious people would say, a great deal to do with our failure to think of the world as existing in relation to the mystery of God, not just as a huge warehouse of stuff to be used for our conveinence.”

Earth is, in the common capitalist, modern worldview, a giant container of resources meant to be exploited for economic growth. But that’s not what Scripture tells us. Creation belongs to God, and we are stewards of it. And we have a really, really bad track record of stewardship.

All of this ties to much of the emphasis I gleaned from Wendell Berry, about our proper relation to nature and agriculture and how we use our natural resources. We certainly aren’t called to leave nature untouched, but neither are we too destroy and build over. There are sustainable, holy ways to make use of this wonderful planet and the life on it, to live in peace and coexistence with Creation. Berry often describes this way of living in his writings, some of which I tried to bring here in recent weeks. But, again, despite knowing what must be done, we just refuse to do so. And so, we burn this summer, and in all future summers (and winters, and springs, and autumns) in my life, at least, and probably in the lives of my kids as well. Hopefully that won’t be the case; hopefully they’ll do better than us. But we left them a hell of a house on fire to deal with.

I shouldn’t be completely doom and gloom. Kevin also points out that, on the carbon front, net-zero is now an achievable reality by 2050. But that doesn’t help us this summer, or the next, or anytime soon. Stay cool, stay hydrated, and help those who are suffering in this heat. Pray for fall to arrive soon.

opting out of AI

AI has been in the news a lot lately, and I have a lot of thoughts about the topic, many of which are still amorphous and uncertain. One thing I know for sure is that my tentative attitude towards AI is wary and pessimistic, in line with a more recent turn away from technology and what Kingsnorth is calling “The Machine.” I’m sure I’ll have more to say on the topic in the near future, especially in my essay series developing on my newsletter, but for now, this piece by Kevin Drum (who generally is more optimistic about AI) caught my eye:

Starting in November, Clarkesworld began to receive a torrent of stories written by ChatGTP—which has apparently been touted to aspiring writers as a sure-thing moneymaker by an array of scam artists. This has now gotten so out of hand that Clarkesworld is no longer accepting unsolicited submissions—for now, at least.

In other news, ChatGTP is being used to write cover letters for job hunters. Is this kosher? Or a fraudulent attempt to appear as something you’re not?

https://jabberwocking.com/chatbots-are-taking-over-a-part-of-the-world/

This is one of the biggest issues I have with this new AI-driven world of creation: its entirely utilitarian and capitalist in the worst way possible. So many are embracing AI because of what Kevin says here, because it’s seen “as a sure-thing moneymaker.” The only goal is to fulfill a task, to eliminate as much friction in life as possible, and to profit as quickly and as shortsightedly as possible. There is no incentive to create art or write a story in order to become a better artist; there is no thought given to the idea that writing bad cover letters over and over again eventually helps you develop the skill to write better cover letters – and in the process, to become a better, more well-rounded human being who can communicate about your strengths and weaknesses. No, the end goal is all that’s in mind, the drive to get yours as fast and as painlessly as you can. Yeah, the cut-throat and immoral greed of capitalism is partly to blame here, and so it makes this path rational for a lot of people, in purely economic terms. But at what long term, societal and ethical cost?

As someone who spends my days teaching teenagers the art of becoming good writers, I try to communicate this message all the time: sure, you can use ChatGPT to generate your essays and answers for you. But, at the end of the day, you haven’t gained a skill, you haven’t bettered yourself, and you haven’t made it any more likely that you’ll achieve the success you want in life. In fact, you’ve done the opposite. By getting AI to do the work for you, you are well on your way to being the kind of human envisioned in a movie like WALL-E:

We should want more than life than just to acquire. And the development of skills like writing, like making art, like telling stories, like interacting with other people: these are good in and of themselves. We don’t all have to be utilitarians. We shouldn’t just think of all these things as merely means to the end of amassing stuff. The good of writing a story isn’t the money you can make off of it; the good is in practicing the ancient and deeply human art of writing, for itself.

This is why I am taking an early stand on my refusal to use AI, in any way, as far as I can avoid it (I am sure there are situations where the demands of corporate global capitalism will force me to use AI, whether I want to or not, in order to exist in this modern world.) I don’t want AI to write for me, I don’t want art created by it, I don’t want it to make my life “easier” (whatever that means.) Being human means exercising my mind for myself, not having a computer do it for me. It’s not a worry about AI plugging us all into the Matrix or something; it’s a regard for human dignity and creativity. Will you join me in this stand against AI?

conservative-liberal-socialist-democrat-leftist-anglican-anabaptist-christian

I’m working on a longer piece for my newsletter (which you should subscribe to!) in which I try to account for my political and ideological wanderings over the last couple of years. But, a couple of shorter pieces have come across the radar in recent weeks that I identify strongly with. First, as pointed out by Kevin Drum, is this piece by Ruy Teixeira at Politico. Teixeira is formerly of the progressive Center for American Progressive, but is moving to the conservative American Enterprise Institute, mostly because of his disillusionment with the identarian left and its illiberal proclivities. Drum highlighted the line that really hits home for me:

I’m just a social democrat, man. Trying to make the world a better place.

Ain’t that the truth. Progressives would be a lot better off if we remembered what kinds of policies put food on the table for most people (and thus what policies most voters actually care about.) It points me back to Alan Jacobs’ short and helpful reminder from a couple months back:

Your periodic reminder from Leszek Kołakowski: It’s possible to be a conservative-liberal-socialist. 

I resemble that remark. It feels nice to be seen, amidst a progressive left that seems in many ways to have left me and some of my fellow travelers behind. Its for that very reason that I don’t really claim the term “progressive” anymore, but instead float somewhere between “leftist” and “classical liberal”, with a smattering of social democrat sprinkled in, and floating above it all (and really, superseding it all), “Christian.”