Dita Parker

Thursday, February 29, 2024

Sapere aude

Temperature: a bone-cracking cold came in from Siberia and parked over us, so we experienced winter as we haven’t experienced it in a while. It's gone now with warmer winds and rains coming in from the south. ‘Zat you, spring?

Eating: a simple and savory feijão.

Drinking: tea, Maracanã-sized kettles of it. (Yes, Maracanã can also be used as an adjective, e.g. a Maracanã-sized pizza is a big-ass pizza, as in big and ass-widening, if you’re unwilling to share. Then again, there are greater tragedies in this world than having a big butt.)

Listening: to Tucker Carlson “interview” Putin would have been hilarious if it weren’t another horrific example of the Russian propaganda machine in vigorous action. No one interviews Putin in any conventional meaning of the word; it’s a manuscript carefully curated by the government so that there are no surprises, nothing inconvenient or embarrassing. If Carlson’s aim was to get the so-called other side of the story, he succeeded, and the story is whatever the Kremlin says it is at any given moment, because the truth may change at any given moment, the truth being whatever the Kremlin says it is. (These people have a black belt in gaslighting and subterfuge.) Carlson got his doe-eyed “interview.” He should visit Ukraine next and see and hear for himself, and show to his followers, what happens when Russia sets its sights on something, and how going along or looking the other way hasn’t made the world a safer, more peaceful and stable place. Go along or look away, Russia latches on to every concession made and immediately or over time makes new demands, asks for more concessions to see where you draw the line, to see if there is one, is it movable, by force if necessary, and before you know it, your borders and your sovereignty and your national security are somehow their business; you find yourself under coercive control. Give an inch and they'll take a mile. Why? They acted with impunity in WWII, and they’ve acted with impunity ever since, because too many countries go along or look away. It’s all about maximizing power and reach, using violence if necessary, because who's gonna stop them? Unlike Germany, they've never come to terms with or been held accountable for war crimes committed in any theater of war in any decade, so why would they stop? Unable to change or evolve, they are at it again, forcing their will on others. If Ukraine (and Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and other once-occupied parts of the former Soviet Union) wanted to be a part of Russia, they would still be a part of Russia. They got out of Dodge the first chance they got. Given a choice, people tend to choose freedom over oppression.

[An American who still doesn’t get it? I know that looking from afar things don't always seem so very bad, but if you're not concerned, I'm afraid you don't understand how serious a situation this is. And seriously, the world doesn't expect you to pay for everything and police everything, but it is in your best interest to take an interest. As a European much closer to the thick of things, let me paint you a picture. Imagine (a nuclear weapon state) Mexico falling into the hands of a tyrant and this tyrant deciding they want Texas back. They had it at one point so it is actually still theirs and now they want it back. They start claiming America mistreats Mexican citizens so they have no choice but to intervene on their behalf. Without presenting tangible evidence, fabricating proof and spreading lies instead, they insist America is governed by fascists. There are neo-Nazis all over the place. In the name of regional peace and stability, Mexico has to act. Won’t give up Texas voluntarily? Okay then, you leave us no choice but to take it by force. You could have avoided all the death and destruction raining on you if you’d simply handed over Texas as asked, but no, you declined, so you brought this on yourself. You wouldn’t listen, now look what you made us do. Once they're in Texas, they start eyeing Alta California, and you're wondering where does it end, how dare they, what gives them the right. They will spout nonsense nonstop, and they will keep attacking you, unless you put a stop to it before it even begins. (Russia = Mexico and America = Ukraine in this analogy.) If you don’t think that’s absurd, if you believe Mexico has a legitimate claim, if in your world big trumps small every time and needs but a cock-and-bull excuse for its aggression, then go along, look the other way. Just don’t think you won’t pay the price one day, somewhere along the way. Enabling a criminal, undemocratic, ruthless regime, in any way, will come back to haunt you. And I know Biden v. Trump is the rematch no one wants, but a Trump presidency is a risk without reward to the free, rules-based world. Autocrats and dictators don’t care for rules and they sure as heck don’t care for freedom and free thinking, and you bet Putin’s bots, trolls and minions will be working overtime to ensure a Trump victory because there’s a man they’ll be able to steer by simply stroking his ego. And you really have to wonder and worry about Trump's adulation of Putin, a man who is the antithesis of freedom, justice and equality. America, you deserve better, and so do the rest of us. Sorry, but what you do still echoes in the world and right back at you despite how much you might prefer isolation and a hands-off approach. The Kremlin desperately wants you to choose Trump, isolation and a hands-off approach because in their books that gives them wiggle room. That's what it's all about.]

Watching: The Lazarus Project.

Reading: how 80 years ago, in February 1944, Stalin decided to make Finns suffer by bombing Helsinki to the ground. Thanks to Soviet ineptitude, and a tight ring of barrage fire, despite three attempts, they failed, but there are visible scars around the city if you know where to look. Finns haven't forgotten; how could they, and why would they, all things considered. Oh, you wanted a book! For a chilling, start-them-young look into the Putinjugend: Z Generation: Into the Heart of Russia’s Fascist Youth by Ian Garner.

Writing: all manner of things.

Thinking: Not a single word about Gaza? (Or Yemen, Sudan, Syria; whatever happened to the Rohingya, or the Uighur...) Not sure what to think? Books to the rescue once more: Étoile errante by J. M. G. Le Clézio, available in several languages. No, it won’t tell you what to think, but it will take you places, and you'll get there by walking in shoes other than your own. What do I think? This is overkill, pure and simple.

Feeling: all manner of things.

Thursday, December 21, 2023

A Christmas Carol ✨

In the bleak mid-winter
A ray of light,
A spark of joy
A burst so bright;
Love, remembrance, and grief,
Love and grief,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long yet brief.

See you on the other side of whatever reinventing and reimagining ourselves looks like. Until then, be well, sweetie darlings, be good, dearest denizens, and if you can't be good, be bad for all the right reasons.

Monday, November 20, 2023

Heart of darkness

Children are innocent. Everywhere. Always.

I don't want to see another blood-speckled bundle. I don't want to hear that yet another child has been killed. And another. And another. And another. Because of adult hatred. Adult problems. Adult decisions. Adult impulses.

I don't want anyone's child to be terrorized or traumatized. I don't want a single child to die from our mistakes and failures. Our failure to talk, our failure to listen, our failure to sympathize and compromise.

Children are dying from ecocide, genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, from our inaptitude as human beings. Again and again and again.

It's the 20th of November in the year 2023, World Children's Day, and it's as if we haven't learned a goddamned thing.

Monday, October 2, 2023

That escalated quickly

Someone took time out of their precious weekend to email me just to tell me...well, I'm not going to post misinformation or disinformation on my blog, that's what Elon's X is for.

Firstly, thank you for writing, although since we don't know each other, your words didn't sting quite as much as you perhaps hoped they would. Anonymous + disposable email = zero fucks given. Secondly, if you disagree but can't/won't converse in an articulate and polite manner, scroll on to topics/opinions more to your liking. It's the World Wide Web, full of nooks and crannies for all tastes and occasions. Thirdly, insults reveal nothing about what you are so vehemently opposed to, so I don't know what to tell ya. Come back with an articulate argument and present it in a polite manner? Because things I care about = all fucks given, so shall we continue our discussion on AI? Despite popular demand, I'm about to.

I speak from a viewpoint of a writer (fiction) and translator (non-fiction), but know all manner of people in the arts, from music through photography to theater. Oh, and a game developer. I also know people in business, so I know the reasoning behind both sides of the isle, so to speak; what creatives fear they are losing, what entrepreneurs hope to gain. And it's not that clear-cut, that black-and-white; not at all. There is plenty artists can do with AI. If we could only agree on some rules. But as things stand, it's almost single-handedly up to the boards of AI/tech companies to make these rules and regulate themselves. Which translates to: No laws = no restrictions.

I also know several teachers, and herein lies my greatest worry: every single one of them has a bad feeling about the digitalization of education and the effects of mobile phones and social media on children and teens. These have been studied and proven to exist, the detrimental effects, I mean. Something else often mentioned: Why do we have to learn these things when we can just look this up if we want to or need to.

What these teachers are trying to hammer home with varying success: Without a baseline, a touchstone, without any accumulated, internalized knowledge, without media literacy and tools to spot misinformation and combat disinformation, facts become a matter of opinion, and the adults of tomorrow easily fooled and led. You don't know what you don't know.

AI doesn't know what it doesn't know, it has to be taught. But it learns in such a different way from humans that it gets things wrong all the time, makes guesses, talks like a confused individual suffering from memory loss, makes things up as it goes, or just confidently gives you an answer that on the surface looks perfect but turns out to be BS. AI also already knows plenty, serves several functions quite admirably, gathers and arranges data super fast, and keeps on learning.

But Pinocchio has a long way to go in order to become a real boy. It will need everything it can get its hands on; even that which we haven't volunteered to give. It will have to wade in a cesspool and enjoy the pinnacles of human achievement alike. What will it present to us as its findings, its truth about things, now that is the question. If we start going to these programs as we would an oracle, if they become omnipresent, a verb, like Google, but we don't know the first thing about what we don't know and have no idea where else to look, we're bound to be fooled and led, inadvertently or intentionally. (Because not everyone knows what they are doing. And just imagine what oppressive regimes could do with a Truth Machine all their own; China and Russia already have a government-curated internet.)

You may not care, but many do. You may gladly volunteer your stuff, but not everyone wants to, so please try to understand, respect, and sympathize with their point of view. A rising tide lifts all boats, they say. As a friend noted, this feels like a tsunami, and many of us will simply drown.

We need a cheering anecdote to cap things off, don't we? I can't recall it verbatim, but you'll find it in This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race by Nicole Perlroth. Picture a roomful of tech leaders. When asked to please raise a hand if they liked living in this world they've created, not a single hand came up.

(Another book recommendation, this one re: the reading brain in a digital world: Reader, Come Home by Maryanne Wolf. Every parent, teacher, tech leader, tech follower, AI developer, and human being should read this book.)