@EZ you asked about Steve T's presumptions behind his post. I have a good guess to the answer, but he can speak for himself. I will ask you a question about the presumptions behind what you wrote that he was reacting to. Do you think that because the State's Attorney is black that it is inconceivable that there is never racial bias in charges brought?
I don't. I have heard the following quote attributable to Jesse Jackson which has influenced my thinking on the subject:
“There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps... then turn around and see somebody white and feel relieved.”
Well-said, Skeptic. I’ve found inherent racism to be complicated and often counter-intuitive. What’s not complicated is the fact that Black/African American students comprise less than 10 percent of the student body at NU and have a history of unfair treatment by campus authority (I am a White alum, btw). I find it impossible to ignore one of the reasons—racial bias—for these unusual charges to be pushed to the State. The prompt dismissal of the charges after public scrutiny was appropriate, and telling.
Great comment and the quote from Jesse Jackson is certainly thought provoking. Statistically, there is absolutely no argument that black perpetrators commit violent crime very disproportionately in our society. According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reports published annually, black perpetrators commit over 50% of all homicides and robberies nationally, despite representing only 13% of the population.
So is a heightened feeling of being threatened and likely to be a victim of attack from a black walking behind you down the street pure racism, or is it simply a reflection of statistical likelihood? (Yes, statistics are generalizations and people are individuals, but statistics are a compilation of individuals within a group.) A difficult question indeed.
Being afraid of a stranger on the street due to race is definitely cognitive bias. Yes, statistically some races get convicted of crimes at a higher rate than others, but the proportion of them is still very low for any race. I don't know what the rates are but if the overall rate of violent criminals in the population is 0.01% and you figure some race has a rate of 0.05%, that is too small of a difference to rationally warrant being fearful vs not being fearful, based purely on statistics. The fear is a gut reaction driven by narratives we hold in our heads which may come from our own experience or what we have been told, not calculations of violent crime rates, IMO.
I want to be clear that I understand and empathize with anyone who has been a victim of crime, and I know statistics have no relevance to how one feels about their experience. I hope no one construes what I am saying is meant to say that reacting to a trauma with a heightened level of fear in not normal or a valid way to be.
Thanks Skeptic. I appreciate what you say, but I believe it may even be a bit more nuanced than that. I did not present the scenario as having fear if it was a black person and no fear if it was a white person come up I presented it as having a heightened fear if it was a black person relative to a white person arising out of the disproportionate violent criminal activity arising from members of that particular group. As an analogy, I may sometimes encounter a bear while hiking a trail. In any event, I am going to attempt to avoid intruding on their space and doing anything that could be seen provocative by the bear. However, I am going to have a heightened sense of fear in my bear encounter if it is a grizzly bear, because statistically grizzly bears are more prone to attack than black bears. My analogy attempts to convey that a heightened sense of fear of attack arises not out of stereotypes or racial animus, but rather a consciousness of a greater statistical likelihood of attack coming from members of that group. Interestingly, I have a black friend who feels the same way. It's sad that we have any reason to be fearful in our human encounters, but that's the sad reality of our world today.
Are you generally afraid of if you are walking in public and there is someone who have never seen not far from you and no one else around? I am not, and I assumed that was the case for most people. The "relative fear" perspective had not occurred to me. But I still don't buy that the relative fear is really driven by statistical evidence even a little.
Hey Skeptic (apologies, the nuns many decades ago drummed into my head that every address requires a salutation, but I'm sure they never envisioned people posting on blogs!)
No, I am not generally fearful at all when walking the streets. (I was in the habit of lawfully carrying my concealed weapon most any time I was on the Chicago streets, but rarely ever do where I live now.) Everything is about context, and I would be much more likely to be fearful walking at night on a sparsely traveled downtown Chicago Street because of the high rate of violent crime in that scenario, and the later it was the more I would be concerned about someone walking behind me. And we will apparently have to respectfully agree to continue to disagree whether people's feelings are impacted by fact-based knowledge that is statistically driven. But appreciate the discussion, have a good evening!
Hard to believe that we base our responses on “statistics” when people are more terrified of dying in a commercial airplane crash than on the car ride to the airport. Or keep buying lottery tickets. Also, crime statistics are only useful when we’re sure that the “crimes” are being identified, pursued by law enforcement, and adjudicated fairly in all communities. I wouldn’t bet on that.
What scares me walking down a sidewalk is someone keeping pace with me & walking directly behind me, because at my age of 74, I now walk slower, than any able bodied adult male. So I usually will slow down or even stop to let them pass me.
Unless on a crowded sidewalk, I never ever walk directly behind anyone, because I know what that feels like!
The Jackson quote and crime stats should be broken down to young urban black males, a small percentage of whom give most of them a bad rap.
David L - I vote democrat 95% of the time and would never vote for Trump, but I think Shermichael Singleton did a great job of explaining the phenomenon on the The Glenn Show a few days ago. The whole conversation is very good, but he gets into it about 28 mins in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIba9BwQZlc
I try to use up all the vowels with my first two words. Recently, I have been starting with POUTY, and if that doesn’t get me any letters, my second word is RAISE.
I use STARE every day. So I have some second words handy depending on what green or gold letters I get on the first round. I'll accept the stats that say LEAST (or STALE) might be a tad better. But my streak is closing in on 500...
I have sort of fallen off the Wordle wagon (foreign travel did it), but I varied among a bunch of 2-vowel, 3-consonant words like TRAIN, TREAD, STAIR, etc. I think (without actual evidence) that eliminating consonants is more useful than establishing vowels.
Change of subject on your “senior citizen” example. What struck me was this “geezer” had 50 or so cases on the books for what seem like violent crimes. I know the “three strikes and you’re out” laws had serious flaws, but 50??? At what point do we decide this man doesn’t deserve to roam freely amongst us?
If you added up all of his prison sentences, they were for over 75 years, so exactly why was he even out of prison in the first place?
In fact I see many arrestees on CWB Chicago with multiple arrests & prison sentence who should not be out, but this state for some insane reason has a moronic policy of letting them all out by cutting their sentences in half, by saying, one day of "good behavior", gives you one day less in prison.
The federal government require prisoners to stay in prison for 85% of their sentence if they're on "good behavior" for the entire time of their sentence, which makes far more sense.
That's why I'm in favor of the three strikes & you're out policy, of three violent crimes & it's life without any possibility of parole.
But even worse was the new no bail required law that was poorly written & needs to be changed.
Anyone caught with a gun on the street without a valid concealed carry license, is automatically denied release until trial & must stay there in jail until the end of the trial. If convicted, a mandatory ten year sentence for a first offense, 25 years for a second offense & life without any possibility of parole for a third offense. And in every criminal case, the amount of credit for time served in the county jail pre-trial should be limited to 180 days, which is the time the state's attorney has by law to bring the case to trial, but which defense attorneys always delay & delay, hoping the witnesses will forget stuff, move away or die off!
And here's a perfect example of our utterly incompetent C[r]ook County State's Attorney, Kim Foxx, AKA Crimesha as she's known to many not even prosecuting a criminal.
Thank goodness DuPage County has a sane state's attorney:
But remember DuPage’s former state’s attorney Joe Birkett completely botched the Jean Nicarico murder because he aggressively wanted to expedite the case to a conclusion, whether it was right or not.
Would it be possible for David L.. to give his opinions without slamming or stereotyping the left? I could very easily negatively stereotype the right. Then David would probably complain that not all it applies to him. Can he see the similarities? Besides, the so-called left is not denying law enforcement. They are asking it be more fairly and evenly applied. And yes, David, the people in black and brown communities want more help from the police. But the police and ShotSpotter are 2 different things.
Hi Laurence - Thank you for your comment. I am committed to rational discourse using facts and reason to support my positions. I do not care for course language, personal attacks or labeling people because of their views. However, I am an opponent of the left because I believe the policies of the left are very detrimental to our society.
I believe it is patently obvious that there is a significant segment of the far left that wants to defund the police as this has been expressed openly and even by a good number of elected officials. In the case of spot shooter come up it is also a matter of record that The progressive left has been advocating against spot shooter and that Brandon Johnson is making this move politically to pacify them. There can certainly be a debate as to the effectiveness and efficiency of using spot shooter technology, but it is disingenuous to suggest that the push for its demise by the left does not come from a desire to neuter policing resources.
You did again. The left. The left. You act as if there was one big monolith all marching in lockstep. You claim not to be labeling people because of their views, but that is the entire point of your comments. Facts? What facts? How many actually want to defend the police? How many actually living in the black and brown communities want to defund the police? Need I remind you that you are the one that said that those living in those communities wanted more police protection. Furthermore, the debate is over the effectiveness of Shot Spotter, not defunding police. One can be against Shot Spotter and still be for police
protection. Would you like facts? Shot Spotter has led to few prosecutions for gun crimes. Not surprising, the bad guys are usually gone by the time the police get to the scene. The system has been known to identify fireworks and car engine explosions as gunshots. This means police are often dispatched to places they cannot help while missing places they can. But the biggest issue here is still your stereotyping. Should you be identified as a racist, white nationalist only because other eighties are?
Hey Laurence - Thanks for taking the time to offer your further thoughts on this. Seems like we have two issues of discussion on the table, so let me take the macro first and then the micro.
I think it is very apparent that there is a very active defund the police movement and that it comes overwhelmingly from leftists. And of course, not everyone on the left shares this view. But it is espoused has common currency by many of the leftist and progressive street activists. In my hometown of Minneapolis, there was a defect and the police rally shortly after the George Floyd death in Powderhorn Park where the large boisterous crowd demanded that all of the city council members and mayor commit to defunding the police. Nine of the 13 Minneapolis city council members, all Democrats, publicly agreed to this. Mayor Frey said that he could not agree to this and he was jeered, booed and was forced to leave the rally. So perhaps it would be more acceptable to you if I use the adjective of far leftists when referring to those who wish to defund the police?
With regard to spot shooter, there is clearly room for discussion among people of all political persuasions as to its effectiveness and efficiency. However, it is also widely recognized that progressive mayor Brandon Johnson made a commitment to his progressive contingent to discontinue spot shooter, and their push for doing so had nothing to do with its effectiveness, but rather as part of their anti-policing agenda. So that's where I connected the dots to the motivation of that group pushing hard for discontinuance of spot shooter as another step in restricting policing.
And yes, polling consistently reflects that inner-city communities want more policing instead of less, and it is ironic how the defund the policing is advocated by far leftists who are white and presuming to speak for people of color.
I don't imagine that we are going to agree on issues, but I hope this provides a better explanation of my use of the terms. Have a good day!
Every adult Chicagoan should have no trouble remembering the names of the Great Lakes.
After all, we're right next to Lake Michigan & the other four are memorialized as four east/west streets parallel to each other: Superior, Huron, Erie, Ontario!
Do we need to define terms? Left, hard left, right, hard right, bipartisan, conservative, liberal so we are all on the same page?
Is Joe Biden stole the 2020 election a hard right position or a Trump cult position? Is support for the military a bipartisan position? Is opening up our southern border a hard left position or now a hard right position or the new Donald Trumper position?
If you support aid to the Ukraine, what are you? Liberal, bipartisan?
I tend to be a concrete guy and as these terms get thrown around I am a little confused.
If you are against gay marriage is that a hard right position, a conservative position or a bigot position?
Last, I find that my views do not fit into a single simple box. While the Trumpers can say my position is whatever Donald Trump says he wants. I find I have liberal views in some areas and conservative views on others. What box do I go into?
If we are going to box people in terms of right or left , let’s define terms before we gather information.
And maybe we should emphasize areas of agreement among folks rather than emphasizing our differences.
I really object to the hijacking of words by the TFG cult. They use left to mean most anything they object to: Other folks, mostly. And whatever the TFG cult is, it is not 'the right' in any meaningful way. Similarly when media suggests that the TFG cult is 'conservative' or 'Christian' it reflects a total lack of understanding of either of those terms.
...or if you disagree with someone it is not because you are in a different "wing". There is a good chance that you don't even have different values. Our life experiences inform us on who we should listen to and what we believe are the best means to achieving what we value.
I think most of us in the forum have lived long enough to see what defines left or right wing has changed very substantially in our adult lifetimes. I don't know where I would put myself on the left-right spectrum. I agree with you that such a linear form of measuring ideology is confusing at best.
I am of the age where I equate economic conservatism to neo-liberalism which rose in prominence in the 80's. That is not at all the Trump ideology.
Your fix to Wordle is the same fix the did on Wheel of Fortune. Everyone chose RSTLNE. Now those are freebies. I don’t think it matters what word you choose, some days are better than others. Doesn’t need to be fixed.
Conceding that there is nothing mystical, like a soul, that differentiates a human from a machine, and granted that the answers to the philosophical questions are hard. Your assertion is that there is nothing unique about being a human consciousness, therefore AI machines are by definition able to achieve equality. And you further assert that they have already achieved some creativity and authorship that rivals humans. If there is nothing unique about being a human consciousness, then AI machines are by definition able to achieve full equality and superiority.
So, when does a machine consciousness have 'human' rights? If the answer is 'never', then what is the rationale for denying rights to an intelligent being? What rights are you willing to grant to AI's? What societal obligations are you willing to accept with respect to AIs? What authority are you willing to cede to AI's? When is the output of an AI no longer the responsibility of its creators? Do AI's have a right to free speech? Do AI's have ownership rights to their creations? Are AI's the property of human owners regardless of their level of consciousness? When do AI's have a right to freedom and self-preservation? Given reference to the low bar established by the elevated status of current AI capabilities, these questions are not far off. The questions of authority and autonomous operation are already at hand in drone warfare development. A foundation tenet that there is nothing unique in human qualities is a risky starting point for humans.
i thought 2 of the VTotW's were hilarious - the 'Valentine's' tweets - and neither ranked even in the top 2 at the time i voted. certainly underscores 'no accounting for taste' - incl'g [or especially] mine
Here is a poll idea. Is it ok, if the Chicago Tribune hires a person to toss ideas and questions to an AI, such that it can produce a weekly Zorn-esque column, with a realistic AI headshot, and a Derek Zurn byline? The person tossing the ideas and questions can probably be replaced with an AI that scans social media for topics in short order. Is that also, ok? Should they have to identify the 'author' as an AI? Are the opinions in the columns valid expressions of the AI?
Semi-seriously though. It would be a fun experiment to see if an LLM version of Eric Zorn could be developed to do just what you say. I nominate have it publish under the name Eric "Eric" Zorn.
Great VToTW crop this week, EZ! I hard a hard time choosing. As a practicing attorney, I almost voted for the (currently) leading tweet, but ended up selecting the Valentine's Day tweet because I LOVED the visual. All were top-notch this week.
Zorn writes: "What AI does isn't 'plagiarism,' it's synthesism — the program absorbs numerous images of flowers, say, and then generates an image that contains elements of whatever it has perceived as 'floral.' It's a lot like what human artists do, really. The fact that it's done with 1s and 0s in just moments instead of with neurons over a lifetime of experiences sets on fire the hair of those who think there is some mystical something about being human that means only humans can 'create.' I don't know the answers to what amounts to such philosophical questions as, 'What is consciousness?,' 'What is creativity?' and 'What is intelligence?' But it begs the question to say these qualities are uniquely human."
True, but the functional answers to those questions -- intelligence is as intelligence does -- seem inadequate so long as you can imagine a simulation that would not plausibly qualify. Suppose you're alone in a room, a person slips a question under the door written in Chinese characters, you scan the question in a computer in your room programmed to produce a plausible response, and you slip that response, also in Chinese characters, out to the Chinese speaker outside. To that person, you just conversed in Chinese and yet you speak not a word of Chinese. You obviously did not just converse in Chinese, notwithstanding the simulation of having done so. And yet you did just what the computer is doing. You matched some input gibberish with some matching output gibberish. (If it helps, imagine no computer and imagine that you're consulting a giant library of Chinese books and can do so very quickly; the point is the same.)
Does it make sense to say that you did any thinking in that scenario, beyond the confines of your minimal task? No. You comprehended neither the question nor the answer. I see my high school students do something similar, albeit with more thought, which is to say any, when it comes to difficult texts -- what they do when they don't get it. Sometimes they can fool you that they do get it by saying some words they think are right but which they don't really understand. I suggest that the AI is likewise fooling you that they get it. You didn't know what you were doing in the Chinese room. The AI likewise doesn't know what it's doing.
Are we not, at bottom, doing the same thing, just matching gibberish with gibberish? That's an interesting question to be sure, but if your answer is yes, then it commits you, it seems, to suggesting that the simulation of Chinese conversation in the Chinese room thought experiment -- first proposed by philosopher of mind John Searle in 1980 -- is in the same category, of the same quality, of the same fundamental nature, as actually conversing in Chinese. That strikes me as a leap.
We are meant to be impressed by the latest AI's "neural networks." And yet, it seems to me that it's not doing something fundamentally, which is to say philosophically, different from a Google search, albeit fixed up, chatbot style, with conversational syntax and capable of making more elaborate connections more quickly. It still seems like a simulation -- grabbing images of flowers from across its giant database based on a rapid scan without knowing what a flower is, anymore than a book of flowers knows what a flower is or you know that a given Chinese character means flower.
Aren't our minds just a bunch of switches, just 1s and 0s? If so, it would seem to suggest that one switch has one unit of mind. Philosopher David Chalmers takes this view. It commits one to believing, however, that a light switch is conscious, just a lot less so. Not sure I buy it!
One need not accept mysticism to recognize that there's a mystery here and that we haven't solved it. We've heard about artificial intelligence since the dawn of computers. (War Games is a fun film about an AI run amok, and it was made in the '80s.) The goalposts keep moving and what that means. I suspect that the latest incarnation will prove old hat and seem just as unimpressive as a computer that can play chess in some years' time, that we won't have made tremendous intellectual headway on the problem, and that the computer model of mind will continue to leave us unsatisfied.
@EZ you asked about Steve T's presumptions behind his post. I have a good guess to the answer, but he can speak for himself. I will ask you a question about the presumptions behind what you wrote that he was reacting to. Do you think that because the State's Attorney is black that it is inconceivable that there is never racial bias in charges brought?
I don't. I have heard the following quote attributable to Jesse Jackson which has influenced my thinking on the subject:
“There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps... then turn around and see somebody white and feel relieved.”
Well-said, Skeptic. I’ve found inherent racism to be complicated and often counter-intuitive. What’s not complicated is the fact that Black/African American students comprise less than 10 percent of the student body at NU and have a history of unfair treatment by campus authority (I am a White alum, btw). I find it impossible to ignore one of the reasons—racial bias—for these unusual charges to be pushed to the State. The prompt dismissal of the charges after public scrutiny was appropriate, and telling.
Great comment and the quote from Jesse Jackson is certainly thought provoking. Statistically, there is absolutely no argument that black perpetrators commit violent crime very disproportionately in our society. According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reports published annually, black perpetrators commit over 50% of all homicides and robberies nationally, despite representing only 13% of the population.
So is a heightened feeling of being threatened and likely to be a victim of attack from a black walking behind you down the street pure racism, or is it simply a reflection of statistical likelihood? (Yes, statistics are generalizations and people are individuals, but statistics are a compilation of individuals within a group.) A difficult question indeed.
Being afraid of a stranger on the street due to race is definitely cognitive bias. Yes, statistically some races get convicted of crimes at a higher rate than others, but the proportion of them is still very low for any race. I don't know what the rates are but if the overall rate of violent criminals in the population is 0.01% and you figure some race has a rate of 0.05%, that is too small of a difference to rationally warrant being fearful vs not being fearful, based purely on statistics. The fear is a gut reaction driven by narratives we hold in our heads which may come from our own experience or what we have been told, not calculations of violent crime rates, IMO.
I want to be clear that I understand and empathize with anyone who has been a victim of crime, and I know statistics have no relevance to how one feels about their experience. I hope no one construes what I am saying is meant to say that reacting to a trauma with a heightened level of fear in not normal or a valid way to be.
Thanks Skeptic. I appreciate what you say, but I believe it may even be a bit more nuanced than that. I did not present the scenario as having fear if it was a black person and no fear if it was a white person come up I presented it as having a heightened fear if it was a black person relative to a white person arising out of the disproportionate violent criminal activity arising from members of that particular group. As an analogy, I may sometimes encounter a bear while hiking a trail. In any event, I am going to attempt to avoid intruding on their space and doing anything that could be seen provocative by the bear. However, I am going to have a heightened sense of fear in my bear encounter if it is a grizzly bear, because statistically grizzly bears are more prone to attack than black bears. My analogy attempts to convey that a heightened sense of fear of attack arises not out of stereotypes or racial animus, but rather a consciousness of a greater statistical likelihood of attack coming from members of that group. Interestingly, I have a black friend who feels the same way. It's sad that we have any reason to be fearful in our human encounters, but that's the sad reality of our world today.
Are you generally afraid of if you are walking in public and there is someone who have never seen not far from you and no one else around? I am not, and I assumed that was the case for most people. The "relative fear" perspective had not occurred to me. But I still don't buy that the relative fear is really driven by statistical evidence even a little.
Hey Skeptic (apologies, the nuns many decades ago drummed into my head that every address requires a salutation, but I'm sure they never envisioned people posting on blogs!)
No, I am not generally fearful at all when walking the streets. (I was in the habit of lawfully carrying my concealed weapon most any time I was on the Chicago streets, but rarely ever do where I live now.) Everything is about context, and I would be much more likely to be fearful walking at night on a sparsely traveled downtown Chicago Street because of the high rate of violent crime in that scenario, and the later it was the more I would be concerned about someone walking behind me. And we will apparently have to respectfully agree to continue to disagree whether people's feelings are impacted by fact-based knowledge that is statistically driven. But appreciate the discussion, have a good evening!
Hard to believe that we base our responses on “statistics” when people are more terrified of dying in a commercial airplane crash than on the car ride to the airport. Or keep buying lottery tickets. Also, crime statistics are only useful when we’re sure that the “crimes” are being identified, pursued by law enforcement, and adjudicated fairly in all communities. I wouldn’t bet on that.
What scares me walking down a sidewalk is someone keeping pace with me & walking directly behind me, because at my age of 74, I now walk slower, than any able bodied adult male. So I usually will slow down or even stop to let them pass me.
Unless on a crowded sidewalk, I never ever walk directly behind anyone, because I know what that feels like!
Years ago I was out for a walk with a baby in a stroller. Some guy started following close behind me. Nothing happened but it was unsettling.
The Jackson quote and crime stats should be broken down to young urban black males, a small percentage of whom give most of them a bad rap.
David L - I vote democrat 95% of the time and would never vote for Trump, but I think Shermichael Singleton did a great job of explaining the phenomenon on the The Glenn Show a few days ago. The whole conversation is very good, but he gets into it about 28 mins in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIba9BwQZlc
TRIES is a good starting word. Although I will consider the random start-word strategy.
I gave up wordle for lent in 2023, but my stats were gone when I returned. So I never played again. I feel like a man 1 year sober.
I try to use up all the vowels with my first two words. Recently, I have been starting with POUTY, and if that doesn’t get me any letters, my second word is RAISE.
I use STARE every day. So I have some second words handy depending on what green or gold letters I get on the first round. I'll accept the stats that say LEAST (or STALE) might be a tad better. But my streak is closing in on 500...
I have sort of fallen off the Wordle wagon (foreign travel did it), but I varied among a bunch of 2-vowel, 3-consonant words like TRAIN, TREAD, STAIR, etc. I think (without actual evidence) that eliminating consonants is more useful than establishing vowels.
The Nokia meme is funny but quite dated. A joke from back in that era: "I dropped my Nokia phone on the sidewalk, and it broke. The sidewalk, I mean."
"Late adult" is absurd. In some cultures, "late" means "dead"- which is what this idea should be.
I prefer "Adult Emeritus" or "Former Adult" :-)
Change of subject on your “senior citizen” example. What struck me was this “geezer” had 50 or so cases on the books for what seem like violent crimes. I know the “three strikes and you’re out” laws had serious flaws, but 50??? At what point do we decide this man doesn’t deserve to roam freely amongst us?
If you added up all of his prison sentences, they were for over 75 years, so exactly why was he even out of prison in the first place?
In fact I see many arrestees on CWB Chicago with multiple arrests & prison sentence who should not be out, but this state for some insane reason has a moronic policy of letting them all out by cutting their sentences in half, by saying, one day of "good behavior", gives you one day less in prison.
The federal government require prisoners to stay in prison for 85% of their sentence if they're on "good behavior" for the entire time of their sentence, which makes far more sense.
That's why I'm in favor of the three strikes & you're out policy, of three violent crimes & it's life without any possibility of parole.
But even worse was the new no bail required law that was poorly written & needs to be changed.
Anyone caught with a gun on the street without a valid concealed carry license, is automatically denied release until trial & must stay there in jail until the end of the trial. If convicted, a mandatory ten year sentence for a first offense, 25 years for a second offense & life without any possibility of parole for a third offense. And in every criminal case, the amount of credit for time served in the county jail pre-trial should be limited to 180 days, which is the time the state's attorney has by law to bring the case to trial, but which defense attorneys always delay & delay, hoping the witnesses will forget stuff, move away or die off!
And here's a perfect example of our utterly incompetent C[r]ook County State's Attorney, Kim Foxx, AKA Crimesha as she's known to many not even prosecuting a criminal.
Thank goodness DuPage County has a sane state's attorney:
https://cwbchicago.com/2024/02/chicago-dupage-county-catalytic-converter-theft-charges-hit-different.html
But remember DuPage’s former state’s attorney Joe Birkett completely botched the Jean Nicarico murder because he aggressively wanted to expedite the case to a conclusion, whether it was right or not.
Birkett isn't state's attorney anymore, so don't care about what he did then!
The point is state attorneys can do harm by being overly aggressive as well as under aggressive.
Well, we currently have a stupendously under aggressive one & lots of crime is the result.
Would it be possible for David L.. to give his opinions without slamming or stereotyping the left? I could very easily negatively stereotype the right. Then David would probably complain that not all it applies to him. Can he see the similarities? Besides, the so-called left is not denying law enforcement. They are asking it be more fairly and evenly applied. And yes, David, the people in black and brown communities want more help from the police. But the police and ShotSpotter are 2 different things.
Hi Laurence - Thank you for your comment. I am committed to rational discourse using facts and reason to support my positions. I do not care for course language, personal attacks or labeling people because of their views. However, I am an opponent of the left because I believe the policies of the left are very detrimental to our society.
I believe it is patently obvious that there is a significant segment of the far left that wants to defund the police as this has been expressed openly and even by a good number of elected officials. In the case of spot shooter come up it is also a matter of record that The progressive left has been advocating against spot shooter and that Brandon Johnson is making this move politically to pacify them. There can certainly be a debate as to the effectiveness and efficiency of using spot shooter technology, but it is disingenuous to suggest that the push for its demise by the left does not come from a desire to neuter policing resources.
You did again. The left. The left. You act as if there was one big monolith all marching in lockstep. You claim not to be labeling people because of their views, but that is the entire point of your comments. Facts? What facts? How many actually want to defend the police? How many actually living in the black and brown communities want to defund the police? Need I remind you that you are the one that said that those living in those communities wanted more police protection. Furthermore, the debate is over the effectiveness of Shot Spotter, not defunding police. One can be against Shot Spotter and still be for police
protection. Would you like facts? Shot Spotter has led to few prosecutions for gun crimes. Not surprising, the bad guys are usually gone by the time the police get to the scene. The system has been known to identify fireworks and car engine explosions as gunshots. This means police are often dispatched to places they cannot help while missing places they can. But the biggest issue here is still your stereotyping. Should you be identified as a racist, white nationalist only because other eighties are?
Eighties. Darn auto tying.
Hey Laurence - Thanks for taking the time to offer your further thoughts on this. Seems like we have two issues of discussion on the table, so let me take the macro first and then the micro.
I think it is very apparent that there is a very active defund the police movement and that it comes overwhelmingly from leftists. And of course, not everyone on the left shares this view. But it is espoused has common currency by many of the leftist and progressive street activists. In my hometown of Minneapolis, there was a defect and the police rally shortly after the George Floyd death in Powderhorn Park where the large boisterous crowd demanded that all of the city council members and mayor commit to defunding the police. Nine of the 13 Minneapolis city council members, all Democrats, publicly agreed to this. Mayor Frey said that he could not agree to this and he was jeered, booed and was forced to leave the rally. So perhaps it would be more acceptable to you if I use the adjective of far leftists when referring to those who wish to defund the police?
With regard to spot shooter, there is clearly room for discussion among people of all political persuasions as to its effectiveness and efficiency. However, it is also widely recognized that progressive mayor Brandon Johnson made a commitment to his progressive contingent to discontinue spot shooter, and their push for doing so had nothing to do with its effectiveness, but rather as part of their anti-policing agenda. So that's where I connected the dots to the motivation of that group pushing hard for discontinuance of spot shooter as another step in restricting policing.
And yes, polling consistently reflects that inner-city communities want more policing instead of less, and it is ironic how the defund the policing is advocated by far leftists who are white and presuming to speak for people of color.
I don't imagine that we are going to agree on issues, but I hope this provides a better explanation of my use of the terms. Have a good day!
is "spot shooter" an in-joke that I missed?
Nope, my bad 🤭 and I'll claim a senior moment on that Pete!
Every adult Chicagoan should have no trouble remembering the names of the Great Lakes.
After all, we're right next to Lake Michigan & the other four are memorialized as four east/west streets parallel to each other: Superior, Huron, Erie, Ontario!
Great Lakes mnemonic: HOMES - Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior
Do we need to define terms? Left, hard left, right, hard right, bipartisan, conservative, liberal so we are all on the same page?
Is Joe Biden stole the 2020 election a hard right position or a Trump cult position? Is support for the military a bipartisan position? Is opening up our southern border a hard left position or now a hard right position or the new Donald Trumper position?
If you support aid to the Ukraine, what are you? Liberal, bipartisan?
I tend to be a concrete guy and as these terms get thrown around I am a little confused.
If you are against gay marriage is that a hard right position, a conservative position or a bigot position?
Last, I find that my views do not fit into a single simple box. While the Trumpers can say my position is whatever Donald Trump says he wants. I find I have liberal views in some areas and conservative views on others. What box do I go into?
If we are going to box people in terms of right or left , let’s define terms before we gather information.
And maybe we should emphasize areas of agreement among folks rather than emphasizing our differences.
I really object to the hijacking of words by the TFG cult. They use left to mean most anything they object to: Other folks, mostly. And whatever the TFG cult is, it is not 'the right' in any meaningful way. Similarly when media suggests that the TFG cult is 'conservative' or 'Christian' it reflects a total lack of understanding of either of those terms.
...or if you disagree with someone it is not because you are in a different "wing". There is a good chance that you don't even have different values. Our life experiences inform us on who we should listen to and what we believe are the best means to achieving what we value.
I think most of us in the forum have lived long enough to see what defines left or right wing has changed very substantially in our adult lifetimes. I don't know where I would put myself on the left-right spectrum. I agree with you that such a linear form of measuring ideology is confusing at best.
I am of the age where I equate economic conservatism to neo-liberalism which rose in prominence in the 80's. That is not at all the Trump ideology.
Your fix to Wordle is the same fix the did on Wheel of Fortune. Everyone chose RSTLNE. Now those are freebies. I don’t think it matters what word you choose, some days are better than others. Doesn’t need to be fixed.
Conceding that there is nothing mystical, like a soul, that differentiates a human from a machine, and granted that the answers to the philosophical questions are hard. Your assertion is that there is nothing unique about being a human consciousness, therefore AI machines are by definition able to achieve equality. And you further assert that they have already achieved some creativity and authorship that rivals humans. If there is nothing unique about being a human consciousness, then AI machines are by definition able to achieve full equality and superiority.
So, when does a machine consciousness have 'human' rights? If the answer is 'never', then what is the rationale for denying rights to an intelligent being? What rights are you willing to grant to AI's? What societal obligations are you willing to accept with respect to AIs? What authority are you willing to cede to AI's? When is the output of an AI no longer the responsibility of its creators? Do AI's have a right to free speech? Do AI's have ownership rights to their creations? Are AI's the property of human owners regardless of their level of consciousness? When do AI's have a right to freedom and self-preservation? Given reference to the low bar established by the elevated status of current AI capabilities, these questions are not far off. The questions of authority and autonomous operation are already at hand in drone warfare development. A foundation tenet that there is nothing unique in human qualities is a risky starting point for humans.
And when Skynet became self-aware, it became concerned about self-preservation.
Yes, this is science fiction, but what was once sience fiction before has become fact over time.
i thought 2 of the VTotW's were hilarious - the 'Valentine's' tweets - and neither ranked even in the top 2 at the time i voted. certainly underscores 'no accounting for taste' - incl'g [or especially] mine
I agree. I had a hard time picking a favorite, which has never happened before.
Here is a poll idea. Is it ok, if the Chicago Tribune hires a person to toss ideas and questions to an AI, such that it can produce a weekly Zorn-esque column, with a realistic AI headshot, and a Derek Zurn byline? The person tossing the ideas and questions can probably be replaced with an AI that scans social media for topics in short order. Is that also, ok? Should they have to identify the 'author' as an AI? Are the opinions in the columns valid expressions of the AI?
How do we know that the author of this substack is not an AI?
How do we know that we are not AI's under the delusion that we are human?
This could have been Cheryl Scott's plan the whole time!
Semi-seriously though. It would be a fun experiment to see if an LLM version of Eric Zorn could be developed to do just what you say. I nominate have it publish under the name Eric "Eric" Zorn.
I don't know, Eric.
The last few weeks of visual tweets
have needed a checkbox that says,
None of the above.
Coming up on time for David and Joanie to think about starting their own newsletter.
I nominate you, Rick.
Thank you Joanie. I would call my Newsletter the "One Short Paragraph at a Time" Blog.
To each her own.
Great VToTW crop this week, EZ! I hard a hard time choosing. As a practicing attorney, I almost voted for the (currently) leading tweet, but ended up selecting the Valentine's Day tweet because I LOVED the visual. All were top-notch this week.
Zorn writes: "What AI does isn't 'plagiarism,' it's synthesism — the program absorbs numerous images of flowers, say, and then generates an image that contains elements of whatever it has perceived as 'floral.' It's a lot like what human artists do, really. The fact that it's done with 1s and 0s in just moments instead of with neurons over a lifetime of experiences sets on fire the hair of those who think there is some mystical something about being human that means only humans can 'create.' I don't know the answers to what amounts to such philosophical questions as, 'What is consciousness?,' 'What is creativity?' and 'What is intelligence?' But it begs the question to say these qualities are uniquely human."
True, but the functional answers to those questions -- intelligence is as intelligence does -- seem inadequate so long as you can imagine a simulation that would not plausibly qualify. Suppose you're alone in a room, a person slips a question under the door written in Chinese characters, you scan the question in a computer in your room programmed to produce a plausible response, and you slip that response, also in Chinese characters, out to the Chinese speaker outside. To that person, you just conversed in Chinese and yet you speak not a word of Chinese. You obviously did not just converse in Chinese, notwithstanding the simulation of having done so. And yet you did just what the computer is doing. You matched some input gibberish with some matching output gibberish. (If it helps, imagine no computer and imagine that you're consulting a giant library of Chinese books and can do so very quickly; the point is the same.)
Does it make sense to say that you did any thinking in that scenario, beyond the confines of your minimal task? No. You comprehended neither the question nor the answer. I see my high school students do something similar, albeit with more thought, which is to say any, when it comes to difficult texts -- what they do when they don't get it. Sometimes they can fool you that they do get it by saying some words they think are right but which they don't really understand. I suggest that the AI is likewise fooling you that they get it. You didn't know what you were doing in the Chinese room. The AI likewise doesn't know what it's doing.
Are we not, at bottom, doing the same thing, just matching gibberish with gibberish? That's an interesting question to be sure, but if your answer is yes, then it commits you, it seems, to suggesting that the simulation of Chinese conversation in the Chinese room thought experiment -- first proposed by philosopher of mind John Searle in 1980 -- is in the same category, of the same quality, of the same fundamental nature, as actually conversing in Chinese. That strikes me as a leap.
We are meant to be impressed by the latest AI's "neural networks." And yet, it seems to me that it's not doing something fundamentally, which is to say philosophically, different from a Google search, albeit fixed up, chatbot style, with conversational syntax and capable of making more elaborate connections more quickly. It still seems like a simulation -- grabbing images of flowers from across its giant database based on a rapid scan without knowing what a flower is, anymore than a book of flowers knows what a flower is or you know that a given Chinese character means flower.
Aren't our minds just a bunch of switches, just 1s and 0s? If so, it would seem to suggest that one switch has one unit of mind. Philosopher David Chalmers takes this view. It commits one to believing, however, that a light switch is conscious, just a lot less so. Not sure I buy it!
One need not accept mysticism to recognize that there's a mystery here and that we haven't solved it. We've heard about artificial intelligence since the dawn of computers. (War Games is a fun film about an AI run amok, and it was made in the '80s.) The goalposts keep moving and what that means. I suspect that the latest incarnation will prove old hat and seem just as unimpressive as a computer that can play chess in some years' time, that we won't have made tremendous intellectual headway on the problem, and that the computer model of mind will continue to leave us unsatisfied.