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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.
Ethan Zuckerman, Associate Professor of Public Policy, Information and Communication at the University of Massachusetts - Amherst. - Prospect
Stephan:
Here is a good exegetic essay on the current debate about AI and its effect on humanity. Well-reasoned and detailed but, like the entire AI debate based on materialism. It does not recognize that consciousness is causal and fundamental and that, as Max Planck the founder of quantum mechanics said in 1931, “spacetime arises from consciousness, not consciousness from spacetime.”
Illustration by Vincent Kilbride
Late last year, the technology world was captivated by stories of a fast-moving coup at OpenAI, the organisation that created the program that has provoked so much conversation about the future of artificial intelligence, ChatGPT. At the centre of this boardroom drama—which saw Sam Altman briefly ousted as CEO, only for him to return days later—appeared to be a debate between two rival schools of thought regarding the dangers of AI. It’s worth understanding the terms of this debate, if only to know what questions are dominating discussions within companies developing such transformative technology.
On the board of the nonprofit that owns OpenAI were a number of thinkers who believe AI could lead to the destruction of humanity. Such thinkers are known as “doomers”, and their concerns focus on the risk that advanced AIs could decide to eliminate humanity, either in order to gain more power or prevent further environmental degradation. Opposing the doomers are the accelerationists, who believe the AI-enabled future is one where rapid scientific achievement will help conquer […]
Here is where the Great Schism Trend I have been describing for years now is taking us. I find Marjorie Taylor Greene to be a loathsome person, but she tells me two things. First, she reveals a great deal about the people of Georgia. Who would vote for a person like this? Second, she says out loud and publically, what the Republican leadership says amongst themselves privately when they are together.
MAGAt Republican Representative of Georgia. Credit: Anna Moneymaker / Getty
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene called for a “national divorce” between red and blue states amid the escalating standoff over migration at the Texas border.
The Georgia congressman responded to a post on X listing Democratic-leaning states that have sided with the federal government in the dispute with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
“When I said we need a National Divorce this is exactly what I’m talking about and a serious example as to why,” Greene wrote.
Greene’s national divorce idea is not new — she has often suggested splitting up the United States along political lines— but it is divisive. It has drawn criticism even from fellow Republicans.
The dispute between Abbott and the federal government has been intensifying after the Lone Star state’s governor said he would continue to install razor wire at the border to deter migrants from entering from Mexico.
The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favor of the federal government this week, saying the US Border […]
For 17 years, cicadas do very little. They hang out in the ground, sucking sugar out of tree roots. Then, following this absurdly long hibernation, they emerge from the ground, sprout wings, make a ton of noise, have sex, and die within a few weeks. Then, their orphan progeny return to the ground and live the next 17 years in silence. Rarer are the 13-year cicadas, which do the same, but in a little more of a hurry — spending just 13 years underground.
Cicadas appear most years on the East Coast of the United States — sometimes ahead of schedule — but it’s a different 17- or 13-year crew that wakes up each time. (There are also, separately, some annual cicadas that emerge every year.)
This year, though, will be a rare event. Two groups — known as “broods” — are waking up during the same season. There will likely be billions, if not trillions, of the insects. According to NPR, the last time these two broods […]
Here is what I consider to be good news. I believe public utilities should be owned by the people they serve with wellbeing of those people their first priority, not maximum profit. And where it has been tried it always works better.
Credit: Metro Justice
Climate activists have set their sights on a new target in the fight to slow global warming: utilities.
Around a dozen communities across the country have launched campaigns to get rid of their investor-owned electric utilities — the for-profit companies that distribute electricity to three-quarters of U.S. households — and replace them with publicly owned ones. Calling their goal “public power,” advocates argue that existing utilities have saddled customers with high rates and frequent outages, while lobbying to delay rooftop solar and other climate policies. Advocates say local ownership of the power grid would lead to lower electric bills, a quicker transition to renewables, and greater accountability to customers.
In November, the movement for public power faced its biggest test yet in Maine. Residents voted on a referendum that would have replaced Maine’s two investor-owned utilities with a statewide public power company. Faced with an existential threat, the legacy utilities launched a $39 million advertising campaign to counter the initiative. The measure ultimately failed, with roughly 70 percent of voters opposed.
Small newspapers across the country are going out of business, so there is no one left to cover local news except, perhaps if there is one, a local television channel. Big national papers have been bought by oligarchs who, as this article lays out, are gutting staff, and restructuring the nature and kind of coverage the paper will do. Meanwhile the weaponization of misinformation, from tweets to fake AI-generated written or fake images is taking over how most Americans get information. Look at the Taylor Swift fake porn images or the phony Biden telephone message. We are already a country with low literacy so, I think, America is just a few steps from losing its democracy, and alarmingly close to civil violence between the federal and state governments.
20 percent of the Los Angeles Times’ newsroom was laid off in January. What does that mean for the future of journalism? Credit: Mario Tama / Getty
Journalists across the country burst into flames of panic this week, as bad news for the news business crested and erupted everywhere all at once.
The change in how divorce in viewed in the United States is a major social trend that is hardly discussed as a cultural transformation, but along with marriage occurring later in many people’s lives, and later pregnancies, and few children, it defines an enormous cultural restructuring in American society.
Illustration: Sarah Grillo / Axios
Divorce has become a major life milestone replete with specialized parties, large support networks and a whole industry ready to capitalize on the big change — just like weddings.
Why it matters: Cultural attitudes toward ending a marriage have become far less negative, and in the process divorce has gotten more commodified, from services marking the transition to digital culture that lightens the mood.
State of play: Companies like Evite and Paperless Post offer templates for hosts. (One reads: “I’m better off bein’ with my besties! IN MY DIVORCE ERA.”)
Evite saw a record number of divorce-related invitations last year, according to the company’s senior marketing director, Olivia Pollock. They’re up 22% since 2019, though they remain a small share of overall Evite events.
Fresh Starts Registry has generated buzz for recasting divorce as an occasion for support. With a split comes a list of new needed household items — or a desire to ditch the old ones.
U.S. nightclub chain Howl at the Moon has also seen reservations […]
Alex Kotlowitz, Contributing Writer - The Atlantic
Stephan:
Here is another dramatic change in American society that is occurring with almost no media coverage, the racial transformation of the country’s suburbs. This is part of what is causing the fear and resentment that infects MAGAt world. There are so many of these trends that get almost no attention from either politicians or the media. I read a paper in the academic literature and go looking for a general readership, and so many are so hard to find. This being an example, as was the previous story.
Credit: Venice Gordon
Nearly 25 years ago, I reported on the changing demographics of Cicero, a working-class suburb just west of Chicago. For years, the town, which was made up mostly of Italian and Eastern European American families, worked hard at keeping Black people from settling there. In 1951, when a Black family moved in, a mob entered their apartment, tore it up, and pushed a piano out a window. Police watched and did nothing. The governor had to call out the National Guard. By 2000, the nearby factories, which were the economic foundation of the community, had begun to close. White families moved out and left behind a distressed, struggling town to its new residents—Latinos, who now made up three-quarters of the population. It felt wrong. It felt like the white families got to enjoy the prosperity of the place, and then left it to these newcomers to figure out how to repair aging infrastructure and make up for the lost tax revenues.
After reading Benjamin Herold’s Disillusioned, I now realize I was witnessing something much larger: the steady unraveling of America’s suburbs. Herold, an education journalist, set out to […]
There is so much bad news in the United States, that I am always searching the world for some good news about a positive trend. And here is some good news from Germany. The Germans, in contrast to the American Congress, are taking climate change very seriously and will see great benefits from their proactivity in the future.
Image: Adobe
The climate crisis is the most serious challenge facing our globe, and it is natural to do some doom-scrolling about how we are failing to make the necessary changes fast enough to avoid catastrophe. But as climate scientist Michael E. Mann argues, concentrating on the negative actually promotes apathy and helps Big Oil. The fact is that tremendous strides are being made in green energy, which have the potential to change the face of the earth and to forestall the worst consequences of climate change. Today let me just review some of the good news items that came across my feed, provoking me to look into the reports on which they are based.
1. The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air reports that the European Union’s carbon dioxide emissions fell 8% in 2023, to a level not seen since John F. Kennedy told people that he was a Berliner in 1963.
The bulk of the decline — 56% — was driven by wind, water, solar and nuclear, all low-carbon sources of energy. […]
