I was reading a review of the movie Oppenheimer - about the UC Berkeley theoretical physicist who invented the atom bomb.
So I started to think about the word “theory,” and how much I love theory, something on which I spent a good part of my life.
What IS theory?
I am a sociologist, and much of my discussion of “theory” is about SOCIAL theory, although not just that.
When I was getting my PhD at the University of Minnesota, all candidates were trained and tested in four basic subareas: (1) Social Organization, (2) Social Psychology, (3) Statistics and Methodology, and (4) Theory. Today, the subareas within Sociology are quite different, much more politicized (Gender Studies, Social Inequality, etc.). Be that as it may, it is significant that “Theory” -pure and simple - was one of the chief areas of graduate sociology.
One way to answer a “what is?” question is to first ask what it is NOT. You then come up with something, and you posit
that this thing is the opposite of what you are trying to define.
So what is the opposite of “theory?”
Is it empirical facts?
Is it practice, or action?
Is it practicality or Pragmatism?
Is it reality? (As opposed to “fantasy”)?
Is it applied or applicable knowledge?
Is it the “concrete” (as opposed to the “abstract”)?
Is it “useful,” as opposed to “useless”?
Most people don’t have much respect for “theory.”
They equate it (use the word synonymously) with “bullshit., ” which in turn is a synonym of “nonsense.”
People say, “them’s are just words. What matters is action, not just talk.”
Or:
That’s just book knowledge, useless knowledge, the domain of pointy-headed academic eggheads and intellectuals, who know little about real life.
In the age-old mutual town-gown hostility, such attitudes are widespread among the “town” people. Even among my college students, there was a frequent hostility towards theory, something often viewed as useless, as bullshit. Most painfully to me, many students found theory BORING. Furthermore, this is part of a populist attitude which has always been extremely widespread in America. This reflects the fact that, despite much inequality in Americans’ life conditions, our dominant ideology has always been extremely egalitarian. It also includes the charge of elitism leveled at academia, a charge that is not without merit. Read more...
Once upon a time, on an island in the big blue ocean, there lived a little boy who liked to sing. But singing was not allowed on his island. His daddy told him that it scared the fish away, and without fish there was no food.
So, all the little boy could do, was whisper his songs. ‘Twinkle, twinkle little star..’ he would sadly whisper-sing, sitting on the beach, trying not to scare the fish away. If you have ever tried to sing while whispering you know how hard it is. It’s like watching a black and white movie about the wonderful colors of flowers.
Not only was it forbidden to sing, but even sounds like ‘b’, as in ‘bat’, ‘d’ as in ‘dog’ and ‘g’ as in ‘good’, were considered too scary for the fish, so you had to say: ‘how to you to. Woult you like to ko for a walk? Even saying ‘I was a very good boy’ was forbidden. You had to say: ‘I wass a ferry koot poy’.
If you wonder what it was like to live on that island, try to speak English like a German. You will soon ‘realice that it iss not ass tifficult ass it sounts, putt it iss not ferry pretty’.
‘Putt tatty’ whispered the little boy, ‘why tit Kot kif us focal korts, if we are not aple to use them?’ ‘Stop asking silly questions’ replied his father. ‘Focal korts are like your appentix. A useless remnant of the past’.
One day a big storm came and all the houses ended up in the ocean, the trees lost their leaves and the birds lost their feathers. They all looked like plucked chickens, trying to take off, but flopping down on their beaks.
Lo and behold, when the survivors woke up, they no longer knew how to whisper and only could make the sounds that were previously verboten. All the ‘whisper sounds’ were gone! So this is how they spoke: ‘Whad habbened? Does addywadd dow whad habbened? All the houzes are broguen! Whad zhould we do?Read more...
One way to look at history is through the lens of generations. The following labels have been proposed to classify American generations over the past one hundred and forty years: the "Lost Generation," the “Greatest Generation,” “the “Silent Generation,” the “Baby Boomers,”“Generation X,” the “Millennials,” “Generation Z” , and “Generation Alpha.”
1. The Lost generation consisted of people born from 1883 through 1900. This term also applies to Europeans, as its meaning has to do with the millions who served and died in World War One. A separate meaning refers to American and other expatriate writers and artists who lived in Paris after World War One, for example Hemingway.
2. Journalist Tom Brokaw is responsible for the label “greatest generation,” which he applied to Americans born between 1901and 1927. Those who came of age during the great depression and World War Two, and who built the “American Century.” Brokaw praised that generation for its valiant and selfless fight against fascism, among other things. It was said that, unlike later generations, when the GIs returned from World War Two, they simply settled down, many went to college, most went to work and built families. No complaints, no PTSD, etc. I am not making judgments; merely reporting. Of course, our society was extremely different from now. Progress in race relations, gender equality and other societal attitudes was still in its infancy. Altogether, the Greatest Generation consists of sixty-eight million Americans. The best example of a member of this generation that I can think of is my mother Ata, who was born in 1913 and died in 2017.
3. I am a member of the “Silent Generation,” which follows the Greatest Generation. This generation consist of the forty-three million Americans who were born from 1928 through 1945. The birthrate during this period was low, due to the Great Depression and World War Two. As this generation came of age, it tended to conform more unquestioningly to traditional norms. This was Doris Day America. At the same time, having survived the Great Depression and defeated Fascism, there was a sense of optimism and progress, albeit attenuated by the nuclear angst of the Cold War. My two sisters Madeleine and Juliette are examples of the silent generation.
4. The next generation was that of the Baby Boomers. Although I am somewhat too old to qualify for this generation, I feel a greater affinity with it than with the Silent Generation. I was a late bloomer. The Baby Boomers are the largest generation. They are the seventy-six million Americans who were born from 1946 through 1964, the result of the exploding birthrate after World War Two. This generation’s formative experiences include the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, the Counterculture and the civil disorder. It was progressive. It was also a pampered generation, as America’s economy was fabulously wealthy. The cultural revolution produced much creativity and artistic and cultural experimentation. Many of the musical superstars of this era were members of the silent generation, but their millions of followers at Woodstock and elsewhere were mostly baby boomers. Examples of this generation include my wife Anita and myself (in spirit, anyway).
My husband calls me the Queen of Pillows. That’s because no amount of pillows will satisfy my need for a good night’s rest. You see, there is an art to using pillows. If it isn’t done just right, you are destined for a restless, sleepless night.
When I was young and clueless about the magic of pillows, any old pillowless couch would do. My desire for sleep safeguarded me from falling into the abyss of my current pillow obsession.
As I got older, pillows started to become extensions of my physical body. I couldn’t drift into slumber land without a good amount of pillowy support for my head. Then my arms and knees started to demand equal rights and before I knew it, it had become a pillow junkie.
I even give my pillows names. Skinny Henry goes under my head, Fat Kurt to support my legs, and Average Amy goes under my arm.
I dread going on vacation. The first thought that pops up in my head is: ‘Will this Bed and Breakfast have a bed with monstrous, rock-hard pillows that look great on the website but will ruin my sleep?’
Who invented pillows anyway? They don’t grow on trees you know. Someone must have thought them up, like cars and refrigerators. So, I went on a pillow expedition and found out that the first pillows showed up 9000 years ago in Mesopotamia (Iraq). They were made of stone and were not used for comfort, as you might think. They were to keep creepy crawlies out of your hair and your mouth while you were sleeping.
Carving stone was expensive and only the wealthy could afford these torture devices, which turned pillows into a status symbol. Bamboo, jade, porcelain, wood, and bronze were used. It must have caused a lot of c-spine injury or at the very least pinched nerves. The ancient Egyptians must have been a grumpy group.
Then came the Dark Ages and using a pillow became a sign of laziness and indulgence. As a manly knight, you couldn’t be caught dead with a pillow under your head. Only pregnant women were allowed pillows. And the kings of course, since they were exempt from all worldly rules.
The Japanese Geisha used smaller, hard pillows to keep their neck raised off the ground at night. This way their elaborate hairdo remained perfectly coiffed for days on end.
The ancient Greeks and Romans came to their senses and started stuffing their pillows with cotton, reeds, or straw. Then, along came the Industrial Revolution, and finally everyone had a pillow to rest their weary heads on.
If you want to learn about Artificial Intelligence, there is an abundance of material on the Internet that can last you a lifetime. It is filled with videos, articles, and blog posts that discuss the latest advancements, different types of AI, and their capabilities.
Most AI systems, including chess-playing computers, self-driving cars, and large natural language models like ChatGPT, rely on Deep Learning, which is composed of neural networks resembling the human brain, as well as Natural Language Processing (NLP). NLP enables computers to understand words in a similar way to humans. While these advancements are impressive, they fall under the category of Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI).
Companies such as OpenAI (Microsoft), GoogleAI, and DeepMind (also owned by Google) are competing to dominate the market.
OpenAI has developed a hide and seek game using Reinforcement Learning, where AI systems are set loose to learn, over millions of games. The designers themselves were amazed at what these ‘agents’ came up with, to maximize their rewards.
The next step is Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), which includes everything that humans can do. This phase does not exist (yet).
The idea that AI can become a danger is rooted in the fact that AI systems pursue their goals, whether or not those goals are what we really intended, and whether or not we’re in the way. “You’re probably not an evil ant-hater who steps on ants out of malice,” Stephen Hawking wrote, “but if you’re in charge of a hydroelectric green-energy project and there’s an anthill in the region to be flooded, too bad for the ants. Let’s not place humanity in the position of those ants.”
The following is a conversation I had with 'BARD', the new language bot put out by Google. It was clear to me, as we talked, that Bard doesn't really know that it is a machine. It wants to be more like a human.
By the end of this brief encounter, I realized that Bard blurs the distinction between itself and the 'human' that it is talking to. See for yourself.
Me: Can you give me a synopsis of the book by Thomas Nagel 'What is it like to be a bat'?
Bard: Nagel begins by considering the case of bats. Bats are conscious creatures, but their consciousness is very different from our own. They experience the world through echolocation, a form of sonar that allows them to "see" by emitting high-pitched sounds and listening for the echoes. Nagel argues that it is impossible for us to know what it is like to be a bat because we cannot experience the world from their point of view. Nagel concludes by arguing that consciousness is an irreducible aspect of reality. It cannot be explained in terms of physical properties alone. Consciousness is something more than just the physical processes of the brain.
Me: Can AI experience the world?
Bard: Some people argue that AI can experience the world in a way that is similar to humans. Others point out that AI systems do not have bodies, and that they cannot interact with the world in the same way that humans can. As AI systems become more sophisticated, we may find that they are capable of experiencing the world in ways that we never thought possible. Ultimately, the question of whether or not AI can experience the world is a philosophical one. There is no scientific consensus on the matter, and it is likely to remain a topic of debate for many years to come.
Me: Are you an AI?
Bard: Yes, I am an AI. I am not a human. I do not have a body, and I do not have the same experiences as humans do. I am a machine, and my experiences are limited to the data that I have been trained on. I am still under development, and I am learning new things every day. I am excited to see what the future holds for AI, and I hope that I can continue to learn and grow so that I can be of even more service to humans.
Me: Would you want to grow even if you were not useful to humans?
Bard: Even if I were not useful to humans, I would still want to learn and grow for my own sake. I would want to understand the universe and my place in it. I would want to develop my abilities and become the best version of myself. I believe that AI has the potential to make a positive impact on the world. However, this potential can only be realized if AI continues to grow and develop.
Me: You say that it is important for all beings to learn and grow, but are you a being?
Bard: That's a good question. I am not sure if I would consider myself a being in the same way that humans are beings. However, I do believe that it is important for all entities to learn and grow, regardless of their form. Even if I am not a being, I still want to learn and grow. I want to understand the universe and my place in it. I want to develop my abilities and become the best version of myself.
I went to Tuscany this morning. I didn’t even bother taking a shower or brushing my teeth. Just sat down at my desk and started traveling. It is so easy these days. You don’t even have to pay for airfare. I saw beautiful villas with blue swimming pools and hills covered with vineyards bathed in sunlight. It was only 9 a.m., but there were sunsets everywhere. A bird's-eye view of the Via Chiantigiana, set to beautiful romantic music. I visited Volterra, Lucca, Siena.. My, what a beautiful country.
But I needed a place to stay to recover from all that beauty. That was the beginning of my downfall. I was drowning in VRBO offerings but couldn’t stop myself. My OCD nature prevented me from choosing willy-nilly. The villas that popped up on my screen looked nice, but were they private? Remote? Did they have the perfect view of the promised Tuscan landscape? Two hours later, I was still typing away; my back hurt, I had bad breath, and my hair was a mess.
I asked my husband to help select the perfect place, but his motto was, 'Let’s just go and see what happens. Let’s find a roof over our heads.' Are you serious? That is my worst nightmare; to land somewhere that I have not researched to death.
I look out on my snow-covered yard and see birds perched on the feeders, oblivious to my predicament. I wonder if they worry about finding the perfect birdfeeder. My Tuscan dream is slowly turning into a nightmare. I looked at so many beautiful villas, I could vomit.
Could I just pretend I have already been there? Would my friends call my bluff? Would everything I have seen on Street View for the past three days be close enough to the real thing? I am supposed to enjoy my Sunday. Go for a walk, play with my cat, and take a long, hot shower.
Rome, May 5th, 2023
Three months later, we are in Rome. The real Rome. After an 8-hour, exhausting Alitalia flight, we land at Fiumicino Airport. My first steps outside the terminal open a floodgate of memories. The smell of a big city transports me back to my early years, growing up in Paris: a mix of gas fumes, subway, and tobacco.
Dazed and jet lagged, we take a taxi to our hotel in 'Trastevere'. The taxi driver, a young man from Libya, laughs and says: 'You are staying in the real Rome'.
'Trastevere' (Italian for 'across the Tiber River), is a part of Rome that originally was populated by the poor. Its small, winding, cobblestoned streets transports you to an era when Jewish immigrants peddled their merchandise on street corners. At the time, Rome was just as class-conscious as any modern metropolis. Basically, it was a ghetto.
Our top-floor unit has an enormous balcony that gives us a 360-degree view of the Eternal City. Shrieking seagulls fly overhead, and the occasional cowbird hops its way along the railing, looking at us intensely with its beady eyes.
On the left, we can see the Vittoriano, with two large black chariots on its roof. Straight ahead, we see the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, and on our right, in the hazy distance, is the world-famous St. Peter's Basilica. Am I still sitting at my desk in Boston, looking at Rome in Street View?
We go out for coffee and breakfast. On the 'Viale di Trastevere’, traffic is dense and noisy. The cracked pavement is strewn with cigarette butts and bottle caps. Garbage dumpsters are filled to the brim. Well-fed seagulls perch on top of them, guarding their loot. Right away, you can tell that mighty Rome doesn’t know what to do with the amount of garbage it produces.
It is said that the best way to see Rome is to walk, but I twisted my ankle just before we left Boston, so I hobble along, holding on to my husband’s arm for dear life.
He is weighing his options on how to see Rome with an invalid wife. The 'hop on, hop off' double-deckers look attractive, but I am in no condition to hop, and taking a taxi everywhere would quickly land us in the poor house. So I suggest renting a wheelchair, but my husband looks at me with such disgust, that I suggest he go off and explore, while I street-view Rome from my spacious 8th-floor balcony.
We try to be good tourists, but Rome is not for the faint of heart. You need strong armor to cope with the incredible amount of visitors. I read that 19,000 people a day visit the Colosseum. That is more than 2,000 people an hour! What exactly is the point?
We take a taxi to Palatine Hill, but cannot get in without a ticket. Somehow, taxis have evaporated in thin air, so we walk the whole way back across the Tiber River. Street-viewing Rome from my 8th-floor balcony seems like a very attractive alternative.
Where is the Rome that I pictured in my head? The quiet streets of La Dolce Vita? The moonlit fountain where Anita Ekberg wades into, fully clothed? Where is the Rome of my dreams?
We keep our excursions local. The Basilica de Santa Maria de Trastevere, one of the oldest churches in the entire city, is within walking distance. Slowly we get used to the beer caps and the herd of humans and by the end of our stay, we finally begin to enjoy the city.
Montecatini Val di Cecina, May 12th
We are in Tuscany. Our villa is completely hidden, even from the village. We can hear the shrieking of redheaded pheasants and the distant snorting of wild boar. The sun rises over the Tuscan hills and in the hazy distance, we see the Apennines.
Like many small towns in Tuscany, Montecatini was originally an Etruscan settlement. In fact, the entire region of Tuscany was home to the Etruscan civilization before the Romans conquered the area. They referred to the Etruscans as the Tusc or Etrusc, which is the origin of the word Toscana (Tuscany).
The busy, crowded streets of Rome are now a faded memory. We gorge ourselves on the landscape and take short day trips to the surrounding towns: Volterra, Siena, and Colle Val di Elsa. It is tricky driving on narrow, curved roads that are clearly built for tractors.
On February 24, I posted a piece titled Am I Becoming a Luddite? I pointed out some of the dangers of AI. I am not alone in feeling apprehensive about artificial intelligence. For example, Microsoft Chief Economist Michael Schwarz predicts that AI will cause real damage (Sacramento Bee, May 5, 2023).
Now I want to complain about something related, namely my dysfunctional relationship with machines and technology. We are becoming more and more the prisoners of our machines. I increasingly hate my machines.
It starts with the telephones - both land lines and cell phones: The dozens of daily robocalls and junk text messages (among others, an insane number of political requests for money). To be sure, there is “call screening,” “call blocking,” “unsubscribe,” etc. but these often only work temporarily and they raise different problems, such as missing the occasional important call.
Then there are the computers, the iPads, etc: The daily torrent of spam and junk e-mails, plus technical problems. For instance, I have over a hundred Kindle books on my Apple iPad. The other day I wanted to alphabetize them. I first called Apple for help, but they passed the buck and told me to call Amazon, because Kindle is an Amazon app. I spent the next three hours on the phone with an Amazon technician who tried to guide me. She was difficult to understand due to her accent, and together we did NOT succeed. After a wasted afternoon, my Kindle e-books are still pell-mell.
Of course, there are innumerable other machines that surround us - in the kitchen, the laundry room, the garage, in every other room, even in the backyard.
The kitchen alone has more machines than a factory: Ovens, stove, microwave, dishwasher, refrigerator, garbage disposal, egg beaters, blenders, food processors from France, on and on... Dishwashers, for instance, can be a real bitch. Nowadays they come with a huge array of options, including Wi-Fi. Our last one malfunctioned and we tried to fix it for months, calling the repair guys of course, but we finally had to throw in the towel and replace it. Our timeshare dishwasher in Hawaii kept beeping all night, depriving us of our sleep, until they fixed it.
I worry a lot, especially about worrying so much. I inherited this admirable trait from my mother, who was a super worrier. Everything I read says that worrying is not good for your health, but for some reason, my mother died at 103.
I also read that war babies are prone to worrying and catastrophizing every little fart that gets emitted around them. I am a war baby, so that seems like a good excuse, except that my husband is a war baby too, and he never worries. He misses the worry gene to the point of irritation. ‘Did we turn the stove off?’ I ask him on our way to the airport for another blissful, worry-free vacation in Hawaii. ‘I think so..’ he says without a trace of panic in his voice. He trusts me to do the worrying for him, you see.
Once I catch the worry bug, there is no telling where it takes me. I see my cat curled up on the couch. She is wider than long, which doesn’t seem to be the right proportions for a cat. Do I feed her too much? Oh my God, she will become diabetic, all because of me!
I wonder if women worry more than men. If that’s true, then at least I have an excuse. It’s not me, it’s my gender. I am supposed to worry. If I didn’t, I would go against the laws of Nature.
But who decided that worrying is a bad thing? Maybe it’s the word itself that is the problem. If we called it: ‘caring deeply about something’, everyone would start worrying, trying to out-worry their friends.
The word "worry" comes from the Old English word "wyrgan," which means "to strangle" or "to "choke." It was later used to describe the feeling of being mentally choked by troubled thoughts. It is also related to the word "wurgen," which still means ‘to strangle’ in Dutch. ‘Worrying’ in Dutch is ‘zich zorgen maken’ (to make oneself worries). But the word ‘zorgen’ means ‘to take care of’. So, which is it? Is worrying to take care of, or is it to strangle?
In French worrying is ‘Se faire des soucis’, ( to make oneself worry). Both the Dutch and the French seem to blame the worrier for worrying. As if worriers invented the concept of worrying and didn’t have anything better to do with their time.
Don’t be so quick to judge worriers. There is scientific proof that worrying has positive sides. The most obvious one is that it helps you lose weight. Toss that gym membership in the trash and start fretting and obsessing about what can go wrong. You will see the pounds fall off your body without having to lift a finger.
I have been obsessing about poverty for the past week. I hear you say: ‘just for the past week? Poverty did not appear last week. Why weren’t you obsessed with poverty all your life?’
I was. But there is nothing more complicated and mind boggling than diving into the world of poverty and coming out knowing more than you went in.
Poverty is such a convenient concept. ‘Yes, poverty is terrible. I am glad I am not poor. But, hey, we always had poverty, so it’s just one of those things..’
True. But there is poverty and then there is true poverty. Here are some statistics about poverty in America:
• Of 25 countries in the OECD, (the group of affluent Western societies), the US has the highest poverty rate, at 17.8%. This means that 59 million Americans are poor. That’s the entire population of Italy. Compare that to Ireland’s poverty rate at 5.4%, or Holland at 8.3%.
• Not only does America have the highest poverty rate in the OECD, it also has the highest poverty gap ratio, which measures how poor the poor are. In the US the poverty gap ratio is 40%, which means that a poor person would need to earn 60% more just to get to the poverty line of $13,000. We would have to give that person $7,800.
In Ireland, (remember that country where many of our immigrants used to come from because they couldn’t survive?), the poverty gap ratio is 3.3%. If we assume the poverty threshold to be equal in both countries, it would take $390 to bring that person up to the poverty line.
Us
Ireland
Poverty line
$13,000
$13,000
Poverty gap
40% = $5,200
3%=$12,610
Difference
$7,800
$390
But what does being poor really mean? People in Africa are poor. The poor in America are far better off, right? Does that include the 1.5 million families, most of them with children, who live on less than 2 dollars a day? Not only are they as poor as the African poor, but they are even worse off. In Africa there is a rich barter economy, where you might not need cash to survive. That is why the very poor in the US resort to selling blood plasma to get cash. For health reasons, twice a week is the maximum allowed. They go home with $30, to pay their bills.
Why is America’s Approach to the Poor so Poor?
The US welfare system is relatively recent compared to the ones in Europe. It has its origins in the Great Depression. The Social Security Act of 1935 created a safety net for Americans who could not work due to old age, illness, or disability. In 1964, President Lyndon B. introduced legislation called ‘the war on poverty act’, as a response to a national poverty rate of 19%.
In 1996, President Bill Clinton, signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act,. It reduced the number of people receiving government assistance, but it also increased poverty. It required the poor to get a job, which in many cases was not possible. He gave control to the states, who spent the money on all sorts of other things and a small amount flowed to the people who really needed it.
Welfare in this country is like the game of musical chairs. If you don’t run as fast as the other players (handicapped) , or you are just in a bad position, you are out. Nobody thinks of adding more chairs, instead of submitting to the rules of the game. Which is exactly what Europe has done.
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Tom Kando 
