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When I began Schwartzreport my purpose was to produce an entirely fact-based daily publication in favor of the earth, the inter-connectedness and interdependence of all life, democracy, equality for all, liberty, and things that are life-affirming. Also, to warn my readers about actions, events, and trends that threaten those values. Our country now stands at a crossroads, indeed, the world stands at a crossroads where those values are very much at risk and it is up to each of us who care about wellbeing to do what we can to defend those principles. I want to thank all of you who have contributed to SR, particularly those of you who have scheduled an ongoing monthly contribution. It makes a big difference and is much appreciated. It is one thing to put in the hours each day and to do the work for free, but another to have to cover the rising out-of-pocket costs. For those of you who haven’t done so, but read SR regularly, I ask that you consider supporting it.
I don’t care for some of the language in this article, but the point it is making is correct and very alarming. Today I listened to interviews at a Trump rally and was appalled at the ignorance, hate, and resentment of the White men and women, mostly middle-aged or older. When asked what shaped their opinion they cited the Fox propaganda network, similar sources, and what I recognized as phony AI-generated misinformation.
Illustration by Alexander NaughtonArt for The Intrinsic Perspective
The amount of AI-generated content is beginning to overwhelm the internet. Or maybe a better term is pollute. Pollute its searches, its pages, its feeds, everywhere you look. I’ve been predicting that generative AI would have pernicious effects on our culture since 2019, but now everyone can feel it. Back then I called it the coming “semantic apocalypse.” Well, the semantic apocalypse is here, and you’re being affected by it, even if you don’t know it. A minor personal example: last year I published a nonfiction book, The World Behind the World, and now on Amazon I find this.
What, exactly, are these “workbooks” for my book? AI pollution. Synthetic trash heaps floating in the online ocean. The authors aren’t real people, some asshole just fed the manuscript into an AI and didn’t check when it spit out nonsensical summaries. But it doesn’t matter, does it? A poor sod will click on the $9.99 purchase one day, and that’s all that’s needed for this scam to be profitable […]
Several times in the recent past I have told you about emails I have received from mothers who are SR readers, and who wrote to tell me their daughters, one 15, the other 16 had been the victims of AI-generated porn using their faces widely circulated by boys who hit on them and that they had rejected. I have a daughter and could well imagine the effect, but I confess I had no idea how large this evil trend has become. According to an analysis by independent researcher Genevieve Oh that was shared with The Associated Press, more than 143,000 new deepfake videos were posted online this year, which surpasses every other year combined. What is particularly appaling is that, as this story describes this isn’t just adult men, it is also middle school boys — that is 12, 13, 14 years of age doing this about girls in their middle school. Twelve, thirteen, fourteen, what kind of country have we become? And what is our Congress doing? Nothing.
Beverly Vista Middle School, Beverly Hills, California
Nude images of middle school students created by classmates using artificial intelligence are roiling the Beverly Hills school district, the latest in an emerging trend that’s prompting calls for legislation.
Officials in California’s Beverly Hills Unified School District are working with the Beverly Hills Police Department to identify both the victims and perpetrators of an undisclosed number of nude images reported by students at Beverly Vista Middle School last week.
“On Wednesday, the BVMS Administration received reports from students about the creation and dissemination by other students of Artificial Intelligence generated images that superimposed the faces of our students onto AI-generated nude bodies,” district officials wrote to parents in an email cited by Fox 11. “As the investigation is progressing … more victims are being identified. We are taking every measure to support those affected and to prevent any further incidents.”
Jackie Kruger, mother of an eighth grader at the middle school, described the situation to KCAL as “frightening and terrible.”
“I can imagine how devastating that would be,” Kruger said.
America as a national society does not value or care about its children. Oh sure, individual families love their kids, but as a society we are a humiliating disaster. Am I exaggerating? What are the facts? Try this. The main cause of death for children is a bullet in their bodies, and the Republican cult and right-wing Democrats consistently block decent child care and child family support, as this article describes. We desperately need to completely restructure our policies and culture to make wellbeing the culture’s top priority. Right now it is not.
A sign in St. Paul, Minnesota advertising for bus drivers and bring your child to work with you. Credit: Michael Siluk / UCG / Universal Images Group / Getty
“If we can afford to spend over $1 trillion on tax breaks for the top 1% and large corporations making record-breaking profits, we can afford to provide working class families with the childcare they desperately need.”
A survey of early childhood educators and caregivers released Sunday shows the post-pandemic collapse of federal funding is fueling a national crisis for young children and their families as centers suffer and out-of-pocket costs soar.
The findings of the survey—titled “We Are NOT OK” and put out by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC)—resulted from questions posed to over 10,000 professionals in the early childhood education sector.
Of those polled, more than 50% reported staffing shortages in the various kinds of centers they own or operate, including faith-based programs, family child care homes, Head Start facilities, and childcare centers. Those shortages, according to respondents, stem […]
Paul Krugman, Nobel Laureate, Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center, and Columnist - The New York Times
Stephan:
As usual, Paul Krugman has done an essay on a trend that is getting almost no attention from corporate media, electronic or print. If you watch or listen to interviews with White rural men and women, particularly middle-aged or older, but young as well, you hear the points Krugman is making. Rural America is coming unglued and is resentful, angry, and feeling victimized. Krugman says he has no suggestions as to how to solve the rural crisis. I do. Create public governance at every level that makes fostering wellbeing its first priority. Other countries have done it, why can’t we? Because we are a culture of greed.
Credit: Gregory Halpern. / Magnum Photos
Will technological progress lead to mass unemployment? People have been asking that question for two centuries, and the actual answer has always ended up being no. Technology eliminates some jobs, but it has always generated enough new jobs to offset these losses, and there’s every reason to believe that it will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
But progress isn’t painless. Business types and some economists may talk glowingly about the virtues of creative destruction, but the process can be devastating economically and socially for those who find themselves on the destruction side of the equation. This is especially true when technological change undermines not just individual workers but whole communities.
This isn’t a hypothetical proposition. It’s a big part of what has happened to rural America.
Here is some good news about Europe. While the Republican cult in the American Congress blocks laws and regulations that might reduce the profits of the carbon industries that rent them. Europe is leaving the carbon era behind, while Republicans are protecting its continuance and trying to dismantle our democracy.
Herrenhausen Power Plant, a gas-fired power station in Hanover, Germany. Credit: Christian A. Schroder
In the two years since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, European demand for natural gas has dropped by 20 percent.
European gas demand is now at its lowest point in a decade, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, as Germany, Italy, and other countries ramp up renewable power and cut energy use to cope with a shrinking supply of Russian gas. Last year, pipeline imports from Russia dropped in half, as Europe, for the first time, drew more power from wind than from natural gas.
To help disentangle itself from Russia, Europe has also begun building new terminals to import liquefied natural gas from overseas, though falling demand may render much of this new infrastructure unnecessary, analysts say. Eight import terminals have come online since Russia invaded Ukraine, and another 13 are expected to enter into service by 2030, but demand for liquefied natural gas is set to peak next year.
“In the last two years, Europe has transformed its energy system,” said Ana […]
Here is some good news about the U.S. In spite of what the Republican cult is doing to protect the carbon industries, private citizens see the business opportunities are pushing a conversion. We are making progress despite our politics.
Solar panel installation at the Gemini solar project in Las Vegas, Nevada on Jan. 23, 2023. Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
According to a recent analysis by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), solar and battery storage is expected to dominate new electricity generation capacity for this year.
In 2024, there are currently plans to add 62.8 gigawatts of utility-scale electric generating capacity, about 55% higher than the 40.4 gigawatts of capacity added last year.
New solar electric generating capacity is predicted to make up most of the share of new capacity added in 2024 at around 58%, and battery storage is expected to make up about 23%, according to EIA’s Preliminary Monthly Electric Generator Inventory.
Solar growth could nearly double last year’s numbers, reaching an added 36.4 gigawatts of new utility-scale electric generating capacity in 2024 compared to the 18.4 gigawatts of solar electric generating capacity added in 2023. Initially, there were 29.1 gigawatts of planned solar development for 2023. Solar had been on the rise from 2010 to 2021, but then […]
You remember, I assume, the horrible fires in 2020 that did such damage to the redwood forest in California, trees as much as 1,500 years old were thought to be lost. If you have ever been in the Big Basin Redwoods State Park you know what I have experienced several times; you are in a sacred place of nature unlike anywhere else on earth. Well, here is some wonderful good news. The redwoods are coming back.
It was feared the redwoods would never recover, but many of the trees began sprouting tiny leaf needles from blackened trunks. Credit: Edgar/Alamy
In August 2020, wildfire burned almost the entire Big Basin Redwoods state park in California, scorching ancient redwood trees, some dating back more than 1,500 years and among the tallest living things on Earth.
Redwoods are naturally fire resistant thanks to their thick bark, but the wildfire was so intense and flames so high the trees’ foliage was destroyed, even in tree canopies more than 300ft high.
It was feared the redwoods would never recover, but a few months later something incredible happened – many of the trees began sprouting tiny leaf needles from blackened trunks and branches, and two years later the forest had turned green.
Much of this fresh growth sprouted from buds under the bark and also deep inside the trees, some buds having lain dormant for more than 1,000 years.
Here is some good news about blocking the ability of utility companies to use your money to lobby state and federal legislators to protect their corporate profits. The states are Arizona, California, Illinois, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Utah, and Virginia. What I consider particularly good news in this report is that both Red and Bue states are on this list.
Credit: Patrick Semansky / AP
When households in the United States pay their gas and electric bills, they’re paying for energy, the wires and pipelines it takes to get that energy into their home, and the costs of maintaining that infrastructure. But those monthly payments could also be funding efforts by utilities to lobby against climate policies.
While federal law prohibits utilities from recovering lobbying expenses from customers, consumer advocates say that those rules lack teeth and aren’t sufficiently enforced. Now, states are taking the lead to ban the practice. According to the utility watchdog group Energy and Policy Institute, lawmakers in eight states, including California and Maryland, have introduced bills this year that would block utilities from charging customers for the costs of lobbying, advertising, trade association dues, and other political activities. The measures build on a growing trend in state policy: Last year, Colorado, Connecticut, and Maine became the first states in the nation to pass comprehensive laws preventing utilities from passing on the costs of lobbying […]
