Memorable Stuff I Read This Week

The sky is a century with no windows.
I say things like that. Sorry.
You have more rights than the undocumented:
I need a permit to uproot you.
Ofelia believes only rain can touch all of you.
My mother is my favorite immigrant.
After her? The sonnet.

— Eduardo C. Corral / “To a Blossoming Saguaro”

This will be the greatest, most rapid accelerant of wealth and prosperity in human history. It will also be one of the most chaotic. If everyone has access to more capability, that clearly also includes those who wish to cause harm. With technology evolving faster than defensive measures, bad actors, from Mexican drug cartels to North Korean hackers, are given a shot in the arm. Democratizing access necessarily means democratizing risk.

We are about to cross a critical threshold in the history of our species. This is what the nation-state will have to contend with over the next decade … fragility amplification stemming from the coming wave.

…

Now imagine robots equipped with facial recognition, DNA sequencing, and automatic weapons. Future robots may not take the form of scampering dogs. Miniaturized even further, they will be the size of a bird or a bee, armed with a small firearm or a vial of anthrax. They might soon be accessible to anyone who wants them. This is what bad actor empowerment looks like.

— Mustafa Suleyman with Michael Bhaskan / The Coming Wave: AI, Power, and Our Future

Write a poem that binds you and your reader as tightly as the zip ties
encircling protestors’ wrists. Use empathy, compassion, complicity.
Include the all reasons why you have not placed your body in the
streets or the courts to protect the person you love who is most
vulnerable to the state. Address that person. End with a line that
moans like gas entering your tank or end with a line that divides
nothing.

— Susan Briante / “Further Exercises”

I asked the senator how he had learned to stop worrying and love SAI. His answer was sobering:

“I haven’t. I’m every bit as worried as I was five years ago, if not more so. But where we are now, asking ‘Should we create super intelligent Als?’ is like asking if we should be using protection while we’re going into labor. The question is pretty moot. The baby is here. China has uncorked the bottle and let the genie out and the results speak for themselves. If we do not move quickly to create an American Confucius, we are done as a global power. It’s that simple.”

— Neil Sharpson / When The Sparrow Falls

… in your dreams you have sullied and murdered,
and dreams do not lie.

— Mary Oliver / “Rage”

“If you see hate speech online, take it almost as your duty to disagree,” says psychologist Mirta Galesic. “Just say ‘I disagree’. Don’t feel pressured to have an elaborate argument.” The goal, she says, is to highlight widespread, moderate social norms— so ask your friends to chime in and disagree, too. That advice is the result of research including an analysis of more than a million Twitter/X posts made between 2015 and 2018. It found that excessive arguing, getting hostile, or using ‘us-versus-them’ rhetoric only drives toxicity.

— Flora Graham / “How to counter hate without fuelling it” / Nature Brief

I am not your God. Or if I am, I’m no God you can seek out for deliverance or explanation. I’m the kind of God who would eat you without compunction if I were hungry.

— Ron Currie, Jr. / God Is Dead

What I’m Listening To:

There’s a long road
At night alone
I drive down to find me sleeping
Headlights on a new head of mine
My twin gets in the car
Two lives right on time, hold tight
The sound is on

— Julia Holter / “My Twin”