Here's what an AI chatbot thought on the topic (see previous post) in sonnet form. I am little concerned though about who is 'dining' on whom. If you are wondering about Dr Pangloss, he is a character from Voltaire's Candide, a philosopher who believed that we lived in the best of all possible worlds, irrespective of evidence to the contrary.

Oh, romance of technology and industry,

Eros of train, car, electric light, and more,

The skyscraper so tall, a sight to see,

And microchip, neural network, to explore.

The rocket soaring high, reaching the stars,

Split atom harnessing power divine,

Advancements made with the power to spar,

Conquering new heights, we shall dine.

For we are not victims, as some do claim,

Rather conquerors, we shall prevail,

Harness technology, let it take aim,

Humanity's future shall never derail.

Dr Pangloss spoke the truth so clear,

Our romance with technology, forever dear.

I sometimes make use of AI chatbots to amuse myself creating nonsense content such as sonnets on ridiculous themes or essays about absurd topics. And to be honest, they are not half bad at it, given they take less than a second to create what I asked for. Chatbots can only get better and better as programmers develop the software. They may, in fact become almost indistinguishable in terms of output from their human masters

AI is one of those divisive topics that has fanatical proponents in one corner, and naysayers in the other. The latter invariably trot out dystopian futures in which AI seizes control of the planet or decides to wipe out the human race. I suppose that both of those scenarios are within the realm of science-faction, as it were.

Silicon Valley tends towards the opposite with some genuinely Panglossian advocates of open-slather, let her rip positions. One such fellow, a billionaire who shall remain nameless, said in a recent paper ('The Techno-Optimist Manifesto', no less),

"We believe in the romance of technology, of industry. The eros of the train, the car, the electric light, the skyscraper. And the microchip, the neural network, the rocket, the split atom...we are not victims, we are conquerors."    

If this sounds a little familiar in tone, then it is. During and after WW1, a group who became known as Futurists advocated pretty much the same thing, faster cars, airplanes, technology, industry, youthfulness and so forth as a way forward for society. Futurists would be uber-excited about AI if they were around today. For them it was foot flat to the floor and hang the consequences.

I shouldn't need to point out to the writer of the above manifesto that the 'split atom', eros or otherwise, has lead to a point of human extinction unknown in the past and very real in the present. I suppose that billionaire's might be able to build extravagant bomb shelters to ride out the romance of radioactivity, or maybe not.

I do know that we are living in an age of extraordinary hubris, almost unrestrained by any sanction. And that makes it a very dangerous time indeed.

I rewatched Citizen Kane today, having recently bought the DVD. It is a long time between viewings, almost 40 years, but I had forgotten most of it (except the first impression made) and of course, the bits that get replayed whenever Welles or the the movie are topical. These days this is hardly ever, since a lot of time has passed and the huge influence the film made has become a part of the historic woodwork.

Still, it is extraordinary on so many levels that the moniker of the greatest movie of all time is well-earned and impervious, seemingly, to the march of the years and the huge improvements in technology. Theatrical it is, bold and inventive cinematically, and unravelled in a way that even Bertolt Brecht might have appreciated. 

And yet the story is fairly simple, and the conceit for telling it, who or what is 'rosebud', brilliantly direct, keeping the madness of Kane's life in perspective and within the bounds of narrative storytelling. I think that it will pay watching again soon and if the critics are correct, again and again.

We suppose, I think reasonably, that "way leads on to way", not because any poet or philosopher needs to tell us so, but because life demonstrates that it is so. It certainly seems to be the case, if we accept causation, say, or if we are simply keen observers of how things turn out for different people.

Ways, pathways, roads, tracks are inevitably the result of choices (although not always our own) that often as not take us into places that can be difficult to return from, or which alter things irrevocably. Sure, you can appear to go back and choose a way you should have taken, but something has changed.

If I choose, through poor effort, to do badly in my high school leaving exam I can never come back and replicate the experience exactly. If I repeat the year and do much better, or if I sit the exams years later in another place, something has still changed that cannot be altered. I am not the same person as I was and I am surrounded by different people. The job market or university vacancies and entry scores may be changed too. It is not the same road as before.

It is a subtle thing too, much like the will of God, which believers can sometimes discern  and other times not. Whichever path you tread, I hope it is a blessing.

 Ann and I went to Canberra over the weekend, staying in the adjacent township of Queanbeyan. The weather was lovely and the time passed quickly and pleasantly.

Our principal reason for going was to suss out the potential for moving one day to the ACT - selling in Hazelbrook and moving house. Being at the bottom end of the market tends to limit one's opportunities as a buyer, so we are firmly in the realm of the apartment or possibly the townhouse or villa.

Things have to go in the right direction for a move to transpire so its really only a proposal at this stage. But I'm happy to think about it and nudge things closer to its realisation if I can.

I have often told Tom that team sport is one of those places where one can learn to develop aspects of character and co-operation that are rarely learnt elsewhere, or in the same way. I played soccer for about ten seasons from the late 1960's, firstly for Forest, then Killarney Heights Soccer Club. The experience was important, indeed seminal for me, in many ways.

At best I was a very average team player and it took me a while to develop confidence, for which I can thank a couple of inspiring coaches. If you are lucky enough to have a good motivator as a coach, then you are lucky indeed. It can make the difference between being average and playing okay from week to week, or being average and turning in a blinder more often than your actual talent should permit.

My memories of at least part of my playing time are hazy at best but now and then I get a little shove and things hove into view again, as if just yesterday. And so it was that a photo posted on Australian Football History on FB, which showed a Manly-Warringah side from the late 60's and featuring none other than Gordon Nutt, came to my attention. Gordon was my coach somewhere in the '70's (I think the Under 16's), and he was one of those inspirations I mentioned as a coach. At the time I don't recall that we knew much about him, but he had played for Arsenal in the old English Division One before emigrating to Australia. Which is impressive.

Gordon is top row on the far left of the shot.

My mother rang this morning to tell me that I was born at St Luke's Hospital, Darlinghurst, at 3.20am, 65 years ago today. I invariably forget things like that. I've forgotten my blood type too, which my wife Ann says is a kind of capital crime. I think that if you squint hard enough, its possible to imagine that it might be so.

I am surprised to have made it thus far, for there was a time when I didn't think I would make it past thirty. But God had other plans for me and so, no matter how much time is left, I will try to unravel them as best I can.

Today Australians go to the polls to vote on a referendum, a First Nation's Voice to Parliament. The poll is likely to be heavily defeated in just about every state, unless a miracle is at hand. I do believe in miracles but don't know the Divine lie of the land on this one. I cannot project that far into the future, except by guessing.

It is sad that so much energy has been expended on misinformation. It is the age we live and some people are all too credulous. Sure, everyone has the right to vote yah or nay, but this should be on the basis of establish facts and not prejudiced fantasies.

Maybe some good will eventually come out of a no vote. It will not be clear in the short term, but perhaps it will increase activism in the longer term amongst First Nation's people and the determination to change things themselves. In the absence of a majority that is sympathetic and supportive, there may be no other way forward.

Scammers are getting better and better at what they do, for the most part. I come across them from time to time on Facebook, the only social media platform that I have any connection with. I have a lot of Asian 'friends' because of my wife, and its common to get requests from friends of acquaintances of family members, if you get my drift.

So it was a few days ago when a woman, fairly typical of those making FB requests, asked to be a friend. A mid-thirties Singaporean who lived in LA (and sometimes in Sydney, as it turned out) her profile seemed legit at first glance, though I didn't probe it deeply. 

But things took off from there rather too quickly, the first 'red flag', if you like. She was persistent about wanting to chat on FB Messenger. I took my time, suspecting a scammer. When we did engage, she gave a very plausible account of herself, seeming sincere and well-intentioned. Actually, quite likeable. But at the end of that first chat, she asked if I could go off FB to another social media app. Second red flag.

I politely refused the request, not being interested in having any more social media accounts and, to her credit, she accepted it graciously. But the second chat raised a third red flag, inconsistent English (a sign that a team was at work) and misnaming me 'Anthony' in one response.

She sent me a picture of her dinner later on, which was nice. I can't blame 'her' for trying. I just hope that that the dozens, perhaps hundreds of men out there she is chatting to are as cautious as I am.

 

Charles Sorely was a Scottish poet who died at the age of just 20 in 1915 during The Great War. He is less well known than other major poets like Wilfred Owen and Isaac Rosenberg, though Robert Graves considered him one of the three best poets of the war. His works were collected after his death in a volume called 'Marlborough and Other Poems.'

I print this poem today not only because it is a fine sonnet, but also because war is much in the news, and as ever, rarely resolves anything satisfactorily. Soldiers will tell you so and civilians invariably pay the price in modern conflicts. 

 XXVII

When you see millions of the mouthless dead
Across your dreams in pale battalions go,
Say not soft things as other men have said,
That you’ll remember. For you need not so.
Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know
It is not curses heaped on each gashed head?
Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.
Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.
Say only this, “They are dead.” Then add thereto,
“Yet many a better one has died before.”
Then, scanning all the o’ercrowded mass, should you
Perceive one face that you loved heretofore,
It is a spook. None wears the face you knew.
Great death has made all his for evermore.

The history of conflicts in the region of Palestine is as old as the oldest history records and comes down to the present day intact and with many unresolved issues. I saw a map that someone published this morning dating from 1947 and showing Palestine as a 'unified' state. Prior to that it had been a part of the Ottoman Empire - since the 16th Century - becoming a British protectorate only after WW1.

Any student of the history of this region will know that 'ownership' of the lands we know as Palestine has changed hands many times; at one stage or another being a part of Ancient Egypt, Ancient Israel and Judah, the Persian Empire, the Roman Empire, the Crusaders, a number of Muslim Caliphates, with the Ottomans bringing up the rear. It has rarely been in control of its own destiny.

So waving a map from 1947 is not going to cut it in terms of who should be doing what now. We are talking about the last five minutes after all, in a game of changed ownership and boundaries that is several thousand of years old.

I don't aim these remarks at the most recent Palestinian occupiers, who have a valid claim to live there, though hardly one that has a deep historical imprimatur. A two state solution seems like the only solution to me, but the current outbreak of war will set that back decades.

But I'd like everyone to truly give peace a chance.

The prevailing view is that humans are becoming more progressive, that practices, laws and relationships are now in a better state than at any time in the past. Modern medicine means we don't have to die from an infected cut, people aren't imprisoned for their beliefs or orientations, torture is not an aspect of capital punishment as once it was, psychiatry can explain a lot that was once just plain superstition, science can help us understand and even harness the natural world. You get the picture.

Sure, there is climate change and we still have nuclear weapons, but we will get around to doing something about that someday, as well as evening out the inequalities that we still see on planet earth. Its a rosy view all up, and certainly, partly true.

But the human condition remains the same, driven as it is by unseen impulses and desires. It would only take the collapse of the economic order, globalisation and whatever succeeds it, for old tribalism's to emerge again, for democracy to be swamped by the demand for strong, decisive leadership, for all the gains that progressives talk about to be swept away in a rush to meet the needs of survival.

I don't mean to be dystopian, but this awful prospect is not a fantasy novel. It is within the realm of the possible. As a Christian, however, I have faith that God knows the end from the beginning and is the best one to make sense of the human situation, with the best remedy. That doesn't mean the dystopia can't happen, and we all pray that it doesn't, but that we can only see the fragments, a few pieces, if you like, of the 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle. Those who can see more are often called prophets. The one who sees it all is God.

Yesterday I picked up a copy of Palgrave's, Golden Treasury, first published in 1861. Thomas Palgrave originally conceived of the volume as a 'little collection' differing from others in its attempt to include 'all the best lyrical pieces and songs...by writers not living, and none besides the best.' No tall order that.

Palgrave appears to have been remarkably successful in his selection, for the Golden Treasury has never been out of print, as best I can tell, and has gone through a series of new editions, where editors after Palgrave have continued to add poets of their own era.

The tiny volume I bought yesterday, however, is a facsimile of the original 1861 edition, brought out to celebrate Macmillan's 180th anniversary as a publisher. It's a wonder that it has survived the times, particularly the ascent of modernism, which might have consigned Palgrave and his little work to the dustbin of irrelevance.

But quality will always out, never mind the naysayers.

The first day of the middle month of Spring. Hot. Windy. Dry. For someone living in the Blue Mountains, those three words are sufficient to conjure the potential risk that the day entails. It's not necessarily a conscious condition, but one that's creeps out at the corner of the eye, from a shadow cast at midday, or a high cloud that seems somewhat too dark.

Yes, the prefect storm, as the cliché goes. All we need is the ignition of an errant lightning strike, a carelessly tossed cigarette butt, or an idiot bent on destruction. The rest is left to the prevailing elements.

And then the highway is a sea of sirens.