Mr. Gelernter, a professor of computer science at Yale,
ruminates on humans, consciousness and artificial intelligence in an excellent Saturday
essay for the WSJ:
“Most scientists and
philosophers identify human thought with rationality, reasoning, logic. Even if
they see emotion as important, they rarely see it as central—and even if they
do that, they seldom grasp the remarkably simple way that it relates to
rational thought and the mind at large. Filling in
this gap in our knowledge is dangerous: It moves us a step closer to superhuman
robots. But learning is our fate. It’s impossible to stop. Our best bet is to
discover all that we can and to move forward with our eyes wide open.”
Adam Davidson’s excellent piece on rentier states and
modern economies –
“Many economists
and political scientists now think that the United States economy has shifted,
over the past few decades, toward one in which a higher proportion of the
economy comes from so-called rents: Wall Street’s maneuvering through the
regulatory process, ‘‘free-trade’’ deals whose thousands of pages of rules wind
up proscribing winners and losers. The left, right and center of the economics
profession all agree that reducing rent-seeking behavior, and improving overall
growth, is essential if we want to ‘‘make America great again.’’
But this descent
into a rentier economy would only accelerate with a mentality like Trump’s in
the White House. The native-born population of the United States is aging
rapidly; without immigrants the nation would quickly face a disastrous level of
debt. Middle-class workers may be struggling now in a changing economy, but a
clampdown on global trade would only make that worse. Any health care reform
that revolved around the president’s ability to ‘‘deal’’ would inherently be
one more prone to corruption.”
American Media and the Rise of Trump
Der Spiegel
observes:
“Lots of American
media outlets, especially large TV stations, have viewed Trump so far as
entertainment. No word is too dirty to be put on the air somewhere, and Trump
has a screen presence unlike any other candidate. Former Republican House
speaker Newt Gingrich described the mechanics of this election to the hosts of
"Fox & Friends," a show on the arch-conservative Fox News channel
thusly: "Donald Trump gets up in the morning, tweets to the entire planet
at no cost, picks up the phone, calls you, has a great conversation for about
eight minutes, which would have cost him a ton in commercial money, and
meanwhile his opponents are all out there trying to raise the money to run an
ad." Of the show, which long offered Trump a regular platform, Gingrich
said: "You could say that Trump is the candidate 'Fox & Friends'
invented."
A power dynamic of
superiority and subordination has emerged with Trump and some journalists that
should not exist in a democracy.”
Kevin D. Williamson’s controversial take on the American working-class
angst [published in conservative magazine National Review]
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/432876/donald-trump-white-working-class-dysfunction-real-opportunity-needed-not-trump
