• AGI – ARTIFICIAL GENERAL INTELLIGENCE – refers to the “ability of an intelligent agent to understand or learn any intellectual task that human beingsor other animals can; the hypothetical future moment at which machines become capable of completing intellectual tasks at the level of a human, or higher.” Given the rapidity with which ChatGPT has entered mainstream usage, many experts are now questioning whether technology may be coming too powerful; Some 1,100 experts/ CEOs/ Researchers (including Elon Musk) have now called for a Moratorium on ‘AI Experiments’; some have argued that advanced AI should be outlawed. The CEO of OpenAI, controlled by Microsoft, has likened its risks and rewards to U.S. development of the atomic bomb, with potential “to bring a huge amount of wealth to the people, but may end up ushering in the apocalypse.” Sidenote: a study by Goldman Sachs estimated that two-thirds of jobs in America and Europe could be affected by AGI with 7% of workers losing their jobs.  [FUTURISM – 4/5/23]
  • LOS ANGELES SCHOOL UNIONS WEREN’T SATISFIED WITH JUST PANDEMIC DAMAGE TO CHILDREN – “permanently setting back their education and lives, stunting their development and ruining their future prospects.” Last week they opted to strike and force public schools to shut down, claiming dissatisfaction with a mere 23% pay increase offer… LA residents pay some of the highest taxes in the nation and get some of the worst governmental services: besides the damage to children, police no longer fight crime, and formerly beautiful public places are filled with squalid & trash-strewn homeless/drug encampments. The state is dysfunctional, with public sector labor unions having a stranglehold to get whatever special exemptions they want from whatever laws they want, with some 600,000 net residents having moved away during the past few years.”  [WASHINGTON EXAMINER – 3/28/23]
  • THE OUTGROWTH OF 2020 BLM RIOTS AND PRESSURE CAMPAIGNS WERE THE MOST SUCCESSFUL SHAKEDOWN IN AMERICAN HISTORY. Initiated in the name of ‘racial justice,’ some $340 billion in wealth transfer (calculated by McKinsey) was extorted by claims against White Supremacy, of which a quarter went to Black Lives Matter (BLM) and its related causes.  Funding for ‘Racial Equity’ was rationalized as “reparations in cash or pledges to achieve race-based initiatives for discriminatory hiring programs, sub-prime lending, scholarships, and partisan voter programs – collectively marketed as Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI) – all implemented via cultural revolution against meritocracy, the rule of law, freedom of speech and individual rights… By caving to BLM, American companies not only became the tools of radicals, but also laid the groundwork for future violence and extortion.”  [CLAREMONT INSTITUTE CENTER – 3/30/23] 
  • AMERICAN SOCIETY IS AT AN ABSOLUTE TURNING POINT with Trump’s Indictment “a blunder of historic proportions… And the terrible irony is that those who ushered these last decades of ongoing tragedies will still cling to their belief that it was all worth it… Half the country is now enraged by what they feel is a system overtly tilted against them: (1) with their businesses shut down during Covid lockdowns by authorities who urged others to go out and protest en masse in support of BLM; (2) from media relentlessly ridiculing their lifestyles, beliefs & faith, while told that racism is the worst form of evil and that ‘white’ people are to blame for all the world’s ill;  (3) seeing their livelihoods decimated by people who assured that inflation was ‘transitory’ and that more government spending is the remedy…   Additionally, for nearly ten years, the media/ security state/ intelligence community/ and professional bureaucracy have bent every law, flouted every norm, and concocted conspiracies so ludicrous as to defy belief – all in an effort to prosecute Donald Trump. In their zeal, they have corrupted myriad institutions and destroyed Americans’ trust in them. The latest New York establishment’s political persecution demonstrates the astounding length to which these actors are willing to go to achieve their singular anti-Trump goal…  But S. society as a whole will suffer the consequences of this blunder of historic proportions – a moment that most will look back upon as a societal turning point.”  [NEWSWEEK – 4/3/23]
  •  THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK:

Workplace bacteria contaminates 92% of Office phones and 400 times more on a typical desk than on an average toilet seat, contributing to as many as six days yearly missed due to illness. Infected co-workers spread viruses to 50% of workplace surfaces within four hours of arriving at work by touching doorknobs/ elevator & vending machine buttons/ breakroom coffee pots, microwaves, refrigerators. Research finds that handwashing with disinfectant soap can reduce infection risk up to 77%.  [WEB MD]

What makes a country? Borders, language and culture – all of which are dissipating in front of our eyes. American focus has shifted inward towards finding the ‘wrongs’ in our society, with ‘elite; and media exploiting those issues (even where irrelevant to the vast majority) for political and/or selfish economic gain, through fake news, misinformation, and particularly social media via bots & trolls. When are we past the point of no return?

89% of Parisians voted last week to ban electric rental scooters on their streets after September 1st, based on the scooters being a traffic menace, involved in hundreds of accidents, and environmental cost-benefit grounds.