Did I Feel the Vibe Shift Coming?

Was my decision to refrain from domestic issues commentary on TDR back in the spring a reflection of the so-called vibe shift in American society that rejects woke politics? I think the ease of staying in my lanes was bolstered by a subconscious conclusion that America had finally reached Peak Stupid. Yet facts don't care about my feelings. So we'll have to see how things unfold. But I'm now optimistic in the near term rather than just in the long term as I've felt for a decade and a half.

Back in April I vowed to stop commenting on domestic political issues. My lanes are national security and defense issues. And I wanted to return to my roots. Plenty of other people take on politics. Why do I need to do it, too? Even if I really think I have a massively clever observation or meme to contribute? It's been easier than I thought it would be. And I've tried and failed before to stop, scale back, or limit the scope of out-of-lane commentary. So why was this easy?

When I started blogging it was easy to stay in my lanes. I worked for the state legislature as a non-partisan research analyst. So it was easy to not offer my opinion on things within the state legislature's scope of responsibility. Staff from both parties trusted me and many of both parties seemed to assume I was with them. And I really was with them. I was with all of them. My job was to provide information. Nobody elected me and if I ever got the notion I knew more or had more right to guide policy, I could damn well leave my office and run for political office.

And practically speaking, I was an at-will employee. My hiring had been confirmed by a joint committee of the legislature and I could be fired for any reason whatever with no notice required for longer than it would be required to fill a box with my personal stuff. I had children to take care of. There were really high curbs for my lane. Even after the election of President Obama. That's when the woke partisan anger was really born. And after I retired early in his presidency it was easy to drive over the curbs.

Why do that? Well, it was hard not to comment on what seemed like insanity. Or perhaps dishonesty. Unfair insanity/dishonesty. Rage-fueled, unfair insanity/dishonesty. Punitive, unfair, rage-fueled insanity/dishonesty. Punitive, unfair, media-sustained, rage-fueled insanity/dishonesty that was undermining our basic freedoms. I was outraged at this. In a dignified sort of way, naturally.

I'm only human!

So for several years I commented on politics and other issues, in addition to national security and defense issues. A series of decisions to reduce my number of posts did help to contain that urge. And the election of President Trump in 2016 fed my sense of outrage at the unfairness of it all. The attacks on him--and more importantly, on his supporters--seemed so unfair and unjustified that it drove me to comment even more outside my lanes. But eventually the Weekend Data Dump provided an outlet for that with no limits. As I eventually began to write, "You think you hate and distrust the media enough. You do not." 

And consider that I started out despising Trump as a typical big-spending New York City liberal masquerading as a Republican! There was plenty for me to criticize! Couldn't his foes stick to what he did? Why make stuff up or turn the outrage dial to eleven over every banal issue?! The simple fact that he was treated so unfairly allowed me to judge him more rationally. I don't do hero worship. Ever. So that didn't--and won't--happen.

So that was my mode for four years. And the election of President Biden didn't ease the sources of my outrage. I was ready to move on from Trump but the left just couldn't quit him. The unfairness was turned to 11. And a constellation of woke activists seemed to take control behind the facade of a centrist politician. The media mocked and demonized any expression of the bloody obvious that questioned woke orthodoxy in many areas. So my ratio of dignified-to-rant remained lower than I was comfortable with. Not true-believer level or even close. But over the line by my standards. I remained uncomfortable straying outside my lanes even as I tried to fence off political commentaries away from national security and defense issues. 

To be clear, I remained very consistent within my lanes across presidential administrations. But I worried I might turn off some readers by my political commentary. I hadn't let my beliefs interfere with my career responsibilities. Yet I gave my bosses no reason to doubt me because my work spoke for itself without my commentary on irrelevant issues undermining it. So in the spring, April 28, 2024 to be specific, I swore off swerving out of my lanes:

I'm having another bout of "Jesus, I hate commenting on politics." Despite my concerns over rule of law, media bias, freedom of speech, global warming hysteria, free markets, and woke Peak Stupid issues, I resolve to let others take those on and stay in my national security lanes in Weekend Data Dumps.🤞

I obviously feared I'd fall off the wagon all too easily--as I had before. Although I don't know if I ever put my resolve down on "paper" ahead of time until last year.

A week later, I observed:

I've avoided political--or even just interesting non-security--news and issues this week. It's difficult. And some issues span the firewall. Which makes this tougher than expected. A work in progress.

Yet I have not faltered. Two assassination attempts and a palace coup shortly after I made my vow did not shake my resolve. Sure, there have been some Weekend Data Dump entries that touched on political issues, but I've been very good. I know I made one meme that touched on politics, but I thought it was humorous more than anything. Really, I've been extremely good through a very tough campaign where the things that could outrage my sense of fairness truly were turned to 11.

And perhaps part of my decision to start writing on Substack, too (The Dignified Rant: Evolved--go ahead and subscribe, eh?), was wanting a clean slate for national security and defense issues without the baggage of TDR archives.

Since Trump won the 2024 election, the publicly proclaimed rage and Resistance of 2016 did not reappear. So-called Hitler was basically accepted. Woke trends began to slide in reverse and it really did seem like we'd reached Peak Stupid at long last. People began to comment on this "vibe shift" on a broad front of issues.

Had I felt that so-called vibe shift in April? I had been confident that Trump would win. My confidence may have slackened a bit initially when Harris became the Democratic candidate who the media lifted on their wings. But my concern didn't last. And before the election I had written down in a note on my phone--which still retains its pre-election date stamp--that I thought Trump would get 316 electoral votes. I was wrong only on New Hampshire.

I think that confidence sustained my resolve to stay in my lanes because I felt the source of my outrage was dissipating and could weaken to the point of irrelevancy to the wider society.

Now, who knows what the next four years will bring? This is no mission accomplished moment on my part. We are at the end of the beginning and not the beginning of the end. But the woke ratchet of insanity relentlessly climbing up Mount Stupid is at least checked. It doesn't mean that I won't disagree with Trump policies in some or many areas. I don't expect "my" side to be perfect in ends or means. I just expect it to be 60%. And it doesn't mean the woke will stop fighting for their Red Guard activities from their bastions in the federal bureaucracy, non-profits, universities, and media. 

But as long as I stay in my lanes, that's probably a good sign that things are progressing within the boundaries of normal politics subject to rule of law and public audit by credible elections.

Boy, I really am an optimist.

I now resume regular broadcasting.

NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.

NOTE: I'm adding updates on the Last Hamas War in this post.

NOTE: You may also like to read my posts on Substack, at The Dignified Rant: Evolved. Go ahead and subscribe to it.

TDR Turns 22!

That's right, I've been a solo blogger now for twenty-two years. What was I thinking?

What can I say? It seemed like a good idea back in 2022. James Lileks inspired me. The media sucked and clearly didn't understand military matters. I could help, I thought! I'd say nothing changed, but the media got worse. I like to think I got better.

I miss the Golden Age of blogging that social media killed. Those were the days of Instalanches and cites in traditional media. Hell, The New York Times--of all places--would note TDR posts that linked one of their articles. And double Hell, I once got an email from a Marine officer in Anbar province who appreciated that I got the Marine role in the "surge" offensive right. In triple Hell territory, in the first two years of the Obama administration, someone in the Office of the White House--I'm sure in some sub-basement office across town--read me regularly. Didn't do any apparent good. But at least it wasn't for the purpose of compiling a permanent record!

Although that might explain the series of unpleasant border encounters I had with our people on the US-Canada border.

But I digress.

Anyway, it remains fun for me. Or at least satisfying to some degree. And useful as research for writing purposes. It keeps me off the streets, at least. Thanks for reading!

But I will try that Substack thing with The Dignified Rant: Evolved. We'll see how it goes.

Oh, I suppose I should highlight a post from the last year of blogging. Try "Proportionality in the Use of Force in War."

I'll keep writing here, of course. It would be a shame to break the streak at this point.

NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.

NOTE: I'm adding updates on the Last Hamas War in this post.

Ending the Tyranny of Experts?

Experts delende est. Sometimes you read something that just pulls together a lot of your separate thoughts. In this case, the reign of experts must be ended. Beyond the details provided by the experts in their area of expertise, there be dragons.

Oh, expertise is needed. But that expertise is narrowly focused and cannot be misconstrued as the entire universe, where unintended consequences beyond their area of expertise flourish. But we've done exactly that since World War II. And here we are with bloated statutes and regulations that stifle our freedom and economy with more and more money required to sustain the bloated organizations of experts who stray way outside their lanes, affecting vast swathes of our country outside their narrow responsibilities. It's blowback run amok.

Will America change how institutions work? 

The federal government organized itself around expertise on various subject matters. But the inherent weakness of expertise is that it is narrowly focused. It can solve a problem without grasping the broader consequences of the solution.

Yes! It's an echelon above reality. As with many things, initially the problem is that we had few experts making any of the policies or running any of the agencies. So adding experts made things better. But then the experts proliferated and expanded up the chain of command:

Embedding experts into the federal system defined a problem too narrowly and falsely. There was no one with power to step back to see the unintended consequences. There was rarely control over experts who saw only the problem they were trained to solve, rather than the consequences of a plan that needed modification.

And a lawsuit about the impact of fishing regulations has made it to the Supreme Court:

When the U.S. Congress passes a law, an expert is appointed by a senior official to manage it. Over the years, these experts’ rulings were nearly absolute, though they did not always understand the issue. A recent law required that herring fishermen must monitor various aspects of fishing and report them. An expert ruled that the fishermen also have to pay for the monitoring ordered by the expert, though the price of implementing this order would cripple the fishermen’s business.

Do read it all! The impact of the rules amounts to a punishment that only courts can impose. Will the Supreme Court see it that way?

We roam outside the boundaries of an expert's actual known expertise where we get roasted and eaten by unseen dragons. Repeatedly.

Is this the beginning of the dismantling of the tyranny of experts? Experts who in their conceit think they can account for all factors to steer a massive economy--or even "just" the herring fishing industry--with their big brains, tweaking its workings until paradise on Earth is achieved?

I don't know if the court case will start that process. But I think the author, George Friedman, may be on to the key problem that has strangled our country. And even if I don't live to see the end of this tyranny, I suspect this is the path.

[The rest of this post is mostly lot of venting as background for the top-line summary above, recounting the many strings of thought I've had that seem to fit together for appreciating the cited article before my conclusion. Proceed at your own risk.]

As I noted, this fits with a lot of things that keep crossing my mind. But since they are mostly outside of my lane, I've not given them much thought. But much reading about communism for my major area of interest incorporates the conceit of expertise for achieving paradise on Earth lets the issue drift into my lane. So the separate strands of thought remained and kept bubbling up.

We have seen the extreme form of openly advocating for (approved) "experts" declaring policy rather than arguing for it through the democratic process.

Krugman is an example of expertise in one narrow area of economics leading that expert to an assumption that you are expert in all areas:

Long ago I stopped paying attention to Paul Krugman because he's a joke. I'll accept he earned his Nobel Prize in some specific area of economics. But he writes on everything but that narrow subject and clearly knows nothing. Nothing has changed. Tip to Instapundit.

How many times have I complained that experts who know one very narrow area about a country pretend that is the universe of that country?  Or think their policy preferences are mandatory based on their narrow expertise? Or pretend to know that opposing an enemy is "falling into their trap"? And I don't exclude myself. Hell, I believed I knew our entire fleet had Harpoon missiles long after they were being phased out. I've been wrong. Or at least evolved to wrong. So I can change my mind. I assume I'm ignorant of most of my wrongness.

Most recently, the government-imposed lockdowns in response to Covid 19 illustrated this problem completely. Shutting down the economy was done in a failed attempt to fight the narrow issue of stopping or at least slowing the spread of the virus. 

But people's lives were wrecked even if they never caught the virus because of the lockdowns. Children lost valuable education and socialization. Criminals were released and lockdown violators jailed in a Bizarro World justice system. It got so bad that crime was ignored lest the poor criminal souls catch Covid when incarcerated. Small business owners lost their lives' work. Freedom of speech itself was attacked. Science was perverted into an idol to be worshiped. And much more. But the "experts" on disease--who didn't know what they didn't know--won the federal government game of thrones and decided how our country would be steered.

Or that "understanding" a country and its leaders too often leads to "sympathizing" with them or even "supporting" them? Even brutal jihadi murderers.

I occasionally mention an area is out of my lane. I recognize that I can offer informed views on some areas but opinions on most areas. 

And how often have I used the expression "echelon above reality" to  to describe experts too far from the real world to understand what is beyond their sight? It's a concept not just for high ranking military officers far from the front.

And how often have I complained that the federal government has too much power and that things would be better if controlling the federal government wasn't so important for policies that reach into every damn neighborhood? 

It's a fool's game for conservatives to fight hard to control the ever-expanding federal government. It's better to shrink the federal government to its unique responsibilities and let states and locals--or even the private sector--responsible for what can be done at the local level. Do young people understand why "Don't make a federal case out this" was once an expression that made sense?

Toss in regulatory capture when the employees of a regulated industry join the agency regulating the industry--because who else has as much expertise about the industry!--leading to the regulators becoming shields for the regulated. The taxpayer-funded agency becomes an arm of the industry that protects it from the government and competition. And the industry has more costs passed on to consumers who pay again.

And as a bonus, the regulatory bureaucrats become loyal political allies of the party that is committed to keeping the scam going through one more borrowing binge.

How often have I bridled at the arrogance of journalism majors pretending they are needed to explain the intricacies of issues to the dullards who need their interpretation rather than the mere news of who, what, when, where, and maybe some why if the writer has the background? Mere reporters do that. Journalists are an echelon above such plodding work. I especially let my outrage fly over military matters as I expressed my horror that news organizations let their journalists opine on military matters with subject expertise so low that no fashion reporter could get away with in their lane.

And even the issue of unknown unknowns gets in the act. The experts simply don't know that they don't know a lot even within their area of expertise. And outside of their area of expertise they pretend they know the unknowns that they can predict. When in truth they should just write "Here be dragons."

Hell, let's toss in my old but rarely mentioned on this blog sadness about the emasculation of JCAR, the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules in the Michigan State Legislature. That was one of my areas of responsibility and JCAR was a gauntlet that rules had to pass before the executive branch could enact them. It was described as "nitpickers Heaven". Rules were authorized to implement statutes, so it made sense for the legislature to scrutinize the rules. People and groups affected by the rules could take their issues to JCAR.

Opponents of JCAR said the body was pointless because on paper so few rules were rejected. But the paper trail overlooked the real impact. When a department or agency could see the hangman coming, they withdrew their rules--prior to formal rejection--and addressed the concerns brought up in JCAR. Sadly, a conservative supreme court sided with the people who argued JCAR was an unconstitutional "legislative veto" over an executive function rather than the vital oversight to keep rules consistent with the statutes that authorized their promulgation. And Republican state legislators went along because the governor and legislature were both Republican-controlled. Gosh, that could never change, right?

Mind you, George Friedman has motivation to see something like this coming to validate his theory of government--among other things--organization. So he's biased. I merely hope for something to cut the Gordian Knot that seems to tie together the problems I've felt more than thought about. My bias is not profession-based. But man I want it to be right.

Experts are tools. Use them. They are vital. But let a generalist--an elected one responsible to the people who are affected--who isn't so locked into one narrow area of knowledge make the final decision. At least then there is some hope that common sense will prevail. Or at least accountability after mistakes.

Our country is not a vehicle to be precisely steered by tinkering with isolated cogs and widgets without veering off the road into dragons. Dragons are popping up everywhere. Experts delende est.

NOTE: The image was made from DALL-E.

NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.

NOTE: I'm adding updates on the Last Hamas War in this post.

The Twenty-First Anniversary of TDR

Well, The Dignified Rant is 21 years old today. No. Please. Stop. Your cheering is embarrassing me.

Since last year I ended my weekly post of memes, And Now For Something Completely Different, that for awhile I enjoyed. It got tedious. This was the last post. I still do them for the daily posts and sometimes I make them for the Weekend Data Dump. I do miss altering song lyrics for the introductions.

And the Winter War of 2022 was regularized as a weekly post with updates as necessary. Although I will also put war information in the Weekend Data Dump if it isn't really breaking news. And sometimes in separate related posts not labeled for the war. I confess the distinction is hazy in my mind for what I put where.

I also resumed occasional non-security issue posts, such as this and this. Hey, it's my blog.

Last year I highlighted 20 years of posts for the big 2-0.

So how about a dozen defense and foreign affairs posts from the last twelve months to celebrate reaching 21 years?

I worry that the continental United States is no longer a sanctuary to project power overseas.

I really don't like the European Union.

Do we need a drone combat air patrol to defend forward troops from drone swarm attacks?

The Russian threat to the NATO Baltic states.

Does Xi Jinping actually know what is going on inside China?

I don't think we are simulating a Chinese invasion of Taiwan with the right definition of victory and defeat.

Will precision offensive and defensive firepower, persistent surveillance, and artificial intelligence create static high-speed battles of attrition?

Is the Marine Littoral Regiment the right way to support the Navy?

Stop flinging your panties at unmanned surface vessels.

The Air Force finally wins its long struggle to rid itself of the A-10.

America's efforts to defeat Russia in Ukraine are part of a long American struggle to keep the Atlantic Ocean from being our first line of defense for the east coast.

Ukraine's big counteroffensive doesn't seem to be doing much.

Anyway. I'm trying to write more for publication. And this year I have finally felt somewhat motivated to do so. I scored an initial success in the July issue of Army magazine. Hopefully I'll have more. So far it isn't interfering with my intended reduced blogging output. But 21 years is a long time for solo blogging.

Heck, technically I have two blogs if you include this one.

Admittedly I'm often distracted from formal writing by the lack of need to publish to make my mortgage payment or eat. So far I keep my cat in the lifestyle she's become accustomed to without that kind of effort.

I imagine I have another year in me. I still enjoy it and think I contribute useful perspectives. And it helps me organize my thoughts and keep up on national security issues. 

It at least keeps my day drinking down to socially acceptable levels.

Thanks to my readers for hanging in there when shiny new Twitter (Now with freedom of speech!) beckons.

NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.

Ancient Green Men?

Is there a path to our level of civilization without fossil fuels? And if not, doesn't that prove no advanced civilizations existed on Earth before us?

I recently became aware of speculation that a pre-Ice Age human advanced civilization could have existed. It was kind of fascinating to watch a video on it. Almost all the evidence was a discussion of how time would erase all evidence. Most interesting was the notion that UFOs are really ancient human drones still operating. So support one speculation with another speculation. Bravo.

But it did get me to wondering. If such a civilization existed, how did it get its energy to create a civilization? I mean, we keep finding and exploiting new sources of fossil fuel because our technology gets better. But we clearly got the easy stuff long ago. And fossil fuels don't renew over a period of tens of thousands of years.

So if fossil fuels are a critical bridge between burning wood and advanced "green" energy production, you'd think a past civilization would have used up the fossil fuel--or at least the most easily retrieve fossil fuels--and left us with no coal and oil easy to reach with early industrial age technology.

So I asked ChatGPT a question:

explain how human civilization could have advanced to our current technology level if no fossil fuels were available. Could other sources of energy propelled industrialization until solar, wind, water, and nuclear power for electrical generation could become the primary source of energy?

And this is what it gave me:

/BEGIN CHATGPT/

If fossil fuels were not available, it would have certainly posed challenges for human civilization to advance to our current technology level. However, it's important to note that human ingenuity and the need for progress often drive us to find alternative solutions. While it might have taken longer, it's plausible that other sources of energy could have propelled industrialization until solar, wind, water, and nuclear power became the primary sources of energy for electrical generation. Here's a possible scenario:

1. Early dependence on renewable energy: In the absence of fossil fuels, humans would have relied heavily on renewable energy sources right from the start. This could include direct use of wind and water power for mechanical tasks such as milling, pumping, and transportation. Humans have historically used windmills and watermills for such purposes, and these technologies could have been further developed and optimized.

2. Biomass and biofuels: Without access to fossil fuels, biomass and biofuels could have played a crucial role. Biomass, such as wood and agricultural waste, could have been used as a primary source of heat and energy for cooking, heating homes, and some industrial processes. Biofuels derived from organic matter, such as vegetable oils and alcohol, could have been used for transportation.

3. Technological advancements and diversification: As societies progressed, advancements in engineering, materials science, and other fields would have continued. This could have led to the development of more efficient and diverse technologies for harnessing renewable energy. For example, early versions of solar collectors could have been developed to harness sunlight for heating and limited electricity generation.

4. Exploration and utilization of other energy sources: Without the easy availability of fossil fuels, humans would have been incentivized to explore and exploit other energy sources more extensively. Geothermal energy, which harnesses heat from the Earth's interior, could have been tapped into for heating and electricity generation. Tidal and wave energy could have been used in coastal regions, while the potential of harnessing the energy of ocean currents might have been explored.

5. Nuclear power: As the understanding of nuclear physics advanced, nuclear power could have emerged as a significant energy source. Research and development into nuclear fission and fusion could have been accelerated without the overshadowing presence of fossil fuels. This could have led to the earlier adoption of nuclear power plants as a primary source of electricity generation.

6. Technological leap to renewables: With a greater focus on renewable energy, the research and development into solar, wind, and water power would have been prioritized. Scientists and engineers would have worked towards improving efficiency, storage, and scalability of these technologies. As a result, solar panels, wind turbines, and hydroelectric power plants could have been developed earlier, becoming the primary sources of energy generation.

It's important to note that this scenario is speculative, and the actual path human civilization would have taken without fossil fuels could have been different. The absence of fossil fuels would have certainly presented challenges, but it would have also accelerated the development of alternative energy sources due to the necessity of finding sustainable and environmentally friendly options.

/END CHATGPT/

Is this plausible? 

Could humans have committed so much to cultivating biomass before fossil fuels provided concentrated and plentiful energy? Could that path have created an industrial revolution and paved the way for an agricultural revolution?

Or could the path have been selective breeding of plant species over a longer period of time to replicate that kind of growth in output?

Hey, maybe ancient Teslas with lots of potato batteries?

And maybe this path doesn't allow for a population explosion, leaving a small footprint on Earth.

The path relies on different advances early but that doesn't mean it couldn't happen without the easier path of fossil fuels to propel industrialization.

Of course, one has to ask why this path might have been taken instead of using the easier fossil fuel path. 

Could a past vanished civilization have existed where we don't find fossil fuels now? Maybe that means the easy fossil fuels path was taken by the past civilization, explaining why fossil fuels aren't in some places today. It was just in a more narrow area and then that civilization abandoned fossil fuels early--or died out in some cataclysm--leaving plenty in some areas for our current civilization to use.

If there is no evidence possible on Earth, might we find evidence of an advanced civilization on the Moon where the elements would not erase and bury the evidence? Or elsewhere in the solar system? 

Of course, would we believe it was evidence if it wasn't a giant structure? Or just seem like more nonsense? 

Or would we assume space aliens and not humans left the artifacts?

And if we don't find evidence where it would last long enough elsewhere in the Solar System for us to discover it, does it prove no advanced civilization existed on Earth? Undercutting the argument that lack of proof on Earth is kind of sort of evidence it existed?

But if the path is plausible regardless of whether it happened here, maybe distant aliens could have followed that path. What would that mean for their signatures to detect them?

Funny enough this notion of prior but now erased advanced civilizations must be pretty old given that my dad once mentioned this idea to me when I was a kid.

NOTE: The image was made with DALL-E.

NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.

Hope Amidst the Late-Stage Industrial Age Ruins?

Are we on the cusp of a wave of prosperity that we cannot see in the middle of the churn that is propelling us toward an Information Revolution that improves all of our human systems that so obviously no longer cope?

My disgust with the lack of competence of our ruling elites and institutions depresses me about our future. But at the same time, I've never relied on the competence of the vast majority of people who run our systems. I've had far more faith in our systems to operate despite fallible humans rather than because of the humans staffing them. That has been the foundation of my basic optimism about life.

Before I started this post I had added to a Weekend Date Dump this entry (edited for paragraph breaks when I moved it here instead):

I have confidence that our country will muddle through based on two observations. 

One, despite the news media amplifying political differences (call it blue and red journalism rather than yellow journalism), most legislative issues actually receive broad support. That's what I saw in my career at the state level. Nobody sees that cooperation, however. 

And two, the bitter hatred is mostly on the news media reporting on small, vocal activist groups; and in social media, where a tiny minority of fanatical users generate the most hate in a medium that only a minority of people actually use. 

At some point, I believe the policies based on those two mirages will collapse. Not before doing serious damage to America. But I think America will recover and prosper. 

Your personal outcome will of course vary greatly as this damage passes through our system. I know I'm worried personally.

And then I read an article that seems to address my contradictory feelings about the future. 

That article asks if we are we in the middle of an information revolution that propels prosperity by reordering our industrial age systems? 

Oral traditions were written down, forming the basis of organized religion. Scientific enquiries and philosophical debates could transcend the limits of space and time, as scholars could read the words of their predecessors.

I've read others discussing shorter cycles that indicate renewed prosperity based on adjustments. 

That quoted illustration highlights something I've observed: how difficult it is to collect all the information that has been written or spoken about a subject I wish to study. 

On more than one occasion I've noted that my article on an issue isn't mentioned in someone else's article or study. Of course, I've also noticed articles too late to do me any good when writing about something. My apologies to those authors. 

Will this information revolution unfolding elevate enquiries and debates by enabling us to find the best and most relevant information we need using AI? 

I admit one of my first efforts to use AI was to find information on a particular topic I was working on. I failed. I probably didn't try hard enough to use search terms well enough. I certainly know from mere Google and its predecessors that searching is a learning process as you discover the proper terms, concepts, and names to search with after the first nearly ignorant queries are made. 

Perhaps AI--real AI, and not the leftist-programmed early models of AI that we are now seeing--will do all that iterative learning and searching in a blink of an eye to find the needed information. 

Will this Information Revolution reorder so much of our society in enabling something better that the dislocations so many of us feel hides the advances that are coming? After all, my unease quoted above is--amazingly given the article I read--centered around mirages based on the false nature of the information we are so sure is true.

Maybe the human brain is incapable of even using good information if it conflicts with biases. Maybe biases are built on an evolutionary need to use incomplete information to identify patterns good enough to survive. But maybe just as the Neolithic and Industrial Revolutions did, the Information Revolution will drive changes to our systems to rely on and use better information despite the flawed humans who run the systems:

These are still early days, but the Information Revolution seems fated to be more dramatic still. A cascade of interlocking, interrelated social and technological change is driving global upheaval at an unprecedented speed. Before its work is done, the Information Revolution is likely to drive social, political, cultural, economic, and geopolitical transformations more sweeping and profound than anything the Industrial Revolution produced.

This is both a wonderful and a terrifying thing.

Perhaps my current unease coexisting with hope will be resolved with the hopeful path, after all. Perhaps my nature feels--or, in an explanation more favorable to my ego, my brain is pulling together inputs that lead me to subconsciously judge--the optimistic outcome even as my eyes cannot see the source of hope.

Maybe in the midst of the churn that signifies creative destruction, we fail to see the creation as we focus on the destruction.

Or I'm whistling past the graveyard as America and the Anglosphere choose to decline.

Even if that decline "only" means I--and people like me--will be collateral damage trampled on the way to humanity's--and more importantly, America's--better future. I guess as long as my children prosper in that better American future, I will be able to reconcile myself to my fate. Hey, I've had a good run.

Do read all of the articles. And a tip to Instapundit for both. 

UPDATE: Are we too pessimistic about the so-called decline of the West?

China’s assertions about the decline of the West reveal an underlying anxiety. After all, if liberal democracy is failing, why do Chinese officials consistently express their fear of it? The fact that leaders of the Communist Party of China have instructed rank-and-file members to engage in an “intense struggle” against liberal-democratic values indicates that they view open societies as an existential threat.

I remain hopeful about the long run but concerned about the short run. 

UPDATE: If you prefer your speculation dark (tip to Instapundit):

First of all, a bit like communist China, America and Europe are – let’s be honest – increasingly totalitarian societies, in which it is no longer enough even to refrain from speaking out against Big Sister; no, you must love and affirm Big Sister, and all her values and beliefs, and all her progressive works, and you must say so constantly and at high volume or be instantly suspected as a dangerous, hateful, reactionary threat not only to the regime but to all humanity.

I retain hope that American exceptionalism, federal system, and sheer size will finally overcome the bout of Wilsonian totalitarian madness gripping our country. 

And I hope that a renewed American commitment to freedom will once again infect Europe with freedom.

Hey, at heart I'm an optimist despite a strong steak of cynicism about actual people.

NOTE: The illustration was made by DALL-E using the query "a photograph of a man torn between fear of economic ruin and hope that artificial intelligence will unleash an information revolution".

NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.

Loving Human Intelligence to Death

Do we fail to detect signs of alien intelligence because Artificial Intelligence reduces living intelligent life that built AI into dependent non-sentience?

One argument against the existence of aliens is that none have contacted us and we haven't detected signs of them. And given that so many stars are so much older, they have had more time to progress technologically. We must be alone. Otherwise an advanced civilization would have spread close enough to contact us. Or be detected by us.

The simplest explanation is that we really are alone. Maybe the conditions for life are so difficult to achieve that it is a miracle that even one exists. Maybe it takes infinite parallel universes to make sense of how it happened here. 

Or if that is wrong, distances between stars and galaxies are too great for the density of whatever sentient life exists to make contact. That common claim that "if one in a million stars have planets, and if one in a million ... yada yada yada" we'd have some huge number or civilizations isn't science. It's pulling numbers out of butts. 

The right number might be 1 out of 100. Or 1 out of a trillion. Or it might work out to 1 out of all.

But maybe there are plenty of alien civilizations out there. Maybe it is extremely odd we haven't had contact, whether by detection or directly by aliens or their machines.

What if the explanation is that AI robots that can increasingly take care of more aspects of intelligent life cause a decline of intelligence and the loss of higher thinking capabilities? 

What if over sufficiently long timescales the effect of that increasing level of care that lifts the "burdens" of physical and cognitive labor from "people" is that behavior and then evolution reverses gains in brain functions. The challenges of survival that led to intelligence will end in that cocoon. And the need to maintain the hugely resource-intense brain when it is no longer needed to survive ends.

Nature adapts to the new environment. Eventually the robots are taking care of life forms with the intelligence and attention span of cats and dogs.

What if that happened long ago somewhere? What if there is (or was) an ancient planet that developed intelligent life that advanced to the point of creating AI. What if that AI developed on its own, and to protect their devolving "human" (that is, sentient, regardless of their form) life forms that once created them, the alien AI hid their planet by reducing signatures that would identify them; and refused to do more than scout space for threats? 

Heck, what if alien "contact" has already taken place on Earth? But what if contact was alien AI infiltration to add AI technology and AI robots to end the potential threat to their life forms by making those potential threats lose their sentience, too?

Maybe the long period of Earth's relatively flat technological innovation is the norm. With that rate it would take much longer for humans to become space travelers, but with galactic timescales it would happen. And potentially pose a threat to the alien AI's care-free frolicking people-pets.

Maybe the explosion of rapid innovation on Earth is the result of alien AI intervention--say at around 1600--to end the threat we pose by leading us to innovate into pet status?

That wouldn't even violate their directive that bans them from harming intelligent life. And it wouldn't violate a ban on inaction, depending on how they interpret that prohibition, no? Maybe just not knowing we are on the path to pet status under the protective care of loving AI robots is enough to avoid that kind of violation. 

What we don't know doesn't hurt us.

Eventually, every intelligent species in the universe that rises to space-travel level would then fall into undetectable--and safe--passivity. Perhaps the universe is composed of intelligent life that has fallen back into that form of existence; intelligence that is advancing toward being a threat but put on the passivity devolution path; or non-sentient life.

We may not be alone. But in the end, what will it matter?

Hey Siri, what do you think of that scenario?

Siri?

Ooooh! Squirrel! 

UPDATE: Are we just unluckily--if predictably--in a bubble of silence as the explanation for SETI not hearing anything from aliens?

Doesn't our ability to detect signals existing after alien transmissions pass Earth as part of that bubble (the outgoing shell) indicate that either the alien civilization ended or that electronic emissions only happen within a certain span of technological advancement?

And doesn't that possibly bolster my speculation?

NOTE: The image was created by NightCafe.

NOTE: While I still can, TDR coverage of the Winter War of 2022 continues here.

Accept No Substitutes for Meat Sack TDR

I tried using ChatGPT to write a blog post on aircraft carriers. Egad.

This is the task I posed to Chat GPT:

using the style of https://thedignifiedrant.blogspot.com/, explain the value of aircraft carriers in power projection versus sea control missions

This is what it generated:

Well, let me tell you something, my friend. When it comes to naval power, aircraft carriers are the crown jewels of any fleet. They represent the ultimate symbol of a nation's military might and are an indispensable tool for projecting power across the seas. However, there is a significant difference between the role of aircraft carriers in power projection and sea control missions. 

In power projection, aircraft carriers provide the ability to strike deep into enemy territory, bypassing their coastal defenses and hitting high-value targets with pinpoint accuracy. This can be done with a variety of aircraft, including fighter jets, bombers, and even drones. The carrier's mobility and range allow it to operate far from its home base, projecting power over vast distances and giving its nation a significant advantage in any conflict. 

On the other hand, in sea control missions, aircraft carriers are primarily used to protect friendly shipping and deny the enemy the use of the seas. In this role, carriers are equipped with aircraft optimized for anti-submarine warfare, surface warfare, and reconnaissance. They can also serve as a platform for electronic warfare and provide a protective umbrella for other ships in the fleet. 

So, you see, my dear friend, aircraft carriers are incredibly versatile vessels that can perform multiple roles depending on the situation. Whether it's projecting power over long distances or securing the seas, aircraft carriers are an essential tool for any naval power looking to maintain its dominance on the high seas. 

What on God's green Earth is that? "My friend"? "My dear friend"? I think I just vomited a little bit in my mouth.

I have no idea if the AI actually scanned my site as I asked it. That essay in no way reflects my TDR style, wit, and sheer good looks.

And worse, it in no way reflects my view on the value of aircraft carriers for the two missions.

On the other hand, it did a good job summarizing the two types of missions.

So I've got at least a few more weeks before I'm replaceable. Which is nice.

NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 continues here.

Fascistivus

If we're going to keep witnessing this January 6th celebration nonsense, let's turn the dials to 11. I propose January 6th be known as Fascistivus.

Has it been two years already since "our democracy" was nearly overthrown by rioters who inexplicably did not bring their firearms to the insurrection?

I say we need to commemorate this glorious Wag the Dog pageant of the Resistance fighting back against evil Nazis trying to take over the government by the well established precedent of entering the Capitol Building and chanting.

Key elements  of this Fascistivus for the rest of us include:

The Fascistivus Speaker's podium, because when you are serious about taking control of the government, you need a symbol of power as if you'd drawn a freaking magical sword from a rock.

The Fascistivus dinner. Bacon and Bud Light.

The airing of micro-grievances. Your feelings about January 6th are all that matter. No matter where you were or what the threat was. Expressed on Twitter. With no more than 280 characters.

The feats of hysteria. Just review the House January 6th Committee proceedings. Or any media story from 2021-2022 about why the awful riot was in fact a threat to our democracy. If you want the executive summary, just watch the Biden speech from the gates of Hell about how half of America is a threat to "our democracy." 

Simply screaming to the skies is acceptable.

Fascistivus miracles. Well, the fact that the coup attempt that involved no firearms and lots of insurrectionists walking between the velvet ropes inside the Capitol Building taking selfies inexplicably failed to seize the government and begin the Trumptatorship is the biggest miracle. 

Even after Trump had four years to prepare his long anticipated Hitler 2.0 plot, somehow it failed. Your personal survival of the insurrection is also a miracle. So there are lots of miracles that day. 

Except for the one unarmed protester who the Capitol Police shot and killed as she tried to enter the Capitol Building.

A Day of Remembrance and Vigilance!

So there you go. Fascistivus. Never forget the brave Resistance that stopped fascism in its tracks that fateful day. It was so damned close.

[Seriously, concerning January 6, 2021. I was horrified at the riot as it happened. But it was a riot grown out of a broader protest, and not an insurrection. 

All protests seek to delay government proceedings--like Code Pink protests in Senate hearing rooms or the Democratic months-long takeover of the Wisconsin capitol building (was the pro-Trump protester mistake not chanting "This is what democracy looks like" when they entered the Capitol?)--or to delay daily life of people stuck in the protests--or more, like the BLM/Antifa protests and subset of riots in 2020--to draw attention to proclaimed grievances.

The protests at the Capitol Building were nothing more than a cry of grievances and a call for delay to sort things out--until some got way out of hand. I think they were misguided. But I think the same of so many leftists protesters who get out of hand in their actions.

Punish those involved appropriately. And stop pretending we were close to tyranny on January 6th. As Biden said, you need more than guns to take over the federal government--like F-15s and perhaps nukes.

The government bureaucracy's--through the FBI--increasing indirect control of social media was a far greater step toward tyranny.]

UPDATE: Darn. This holiday conflicts with another horror our nation endured on another January 6th.

UPDATE: Oh, and notwithstanding the continuing claims by many Democrats, five people were not killed in that riot (and some claims are that 5 officers were killed). One unarmed woman was shot and killed by the Capitol Police. One officer died from causes unrelated to the riot long after the riot was over. And three protesters died from health reasons unrelated to the riot.

NOTE: Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.

Changing My Mind

Every once in a while I read or hear that serious analysts should be able to change their minds on issues.

That's tough because views evolve and it can be hard to say when the view has evolved enough to be a change.

Further, it is easy to forget issues where you've changed your mind.

So I took a stab at the issue for me. It must be incomplete because of the problems above. But here we go.

1. The UN is useless and America should get out of the anti-American body exploited by our enemies.

Given how many times our enemies have used the UN to attack America, it was once easy to want to dump the UN. At one time I thought that the democracies of the world should have their own separate international body. Which would de-legitimize the UN. 

But now I think it is better to have a body where everyone--no matter how odious--can talk. Isolating aggressors and rogues just lets them stew in their own anger and hate out of sight and out of mind. But the anger and hate does not go away.

And I think that it is foolish to think democracies will automatically support America. Indeed, opposition from democracies would hurt us more than opposition from a body largely composed of autocrats.

So keep the UN. Kill agencies that are taken over by our enemies. And remember some UN bodies do some good.

Oh, and could we move the UN complex from New York City to Halifax, Nova Scotia? Canadians wouldn't mind, right?

2. America should use mercenary combat units to supplement our regular Army.

That was the rage during the Iraq War when recruiting got difficult. I thought that might be possible to do to meet the demand. It would be temporary.

In the end, I rejected mercenaries. I worried about the price America would pay if we could not get Americans or legal residents to enlist. Better to do whatever we need to do to recruit from here than start going down a path where the military is not part of America because it is not recruited from America.

Of course, I worry our flag officers have grown apart from the military and pose a different threat to American security. But that's a different issue.

3. The Korean War was a draw.

For a long time that seemed obvious. Yes, we initially defended South Korea from invasion. But we did not stop at the 38th parallel. We tried to unite all of Korea. And then China intervened as our troops approached the Chinese border. The Chinese drove the American-led UN forces back across the 38th. We lost Seoul again. But we clawed our way back north to roughly restore the pre-war border at the current DMZ.

Had we stopped at the 38th initially, I'd have called it a win. Because we escalated our objective and failed. It was a draw, despite ultimately preserving South Korea. 

And in the years that followed, a South Korea that was an autocracy seemed better than the brutal North Korea. But South Korea was not a democracy. And it was initially more poor than the industrialized north.

But eventually, South Korea evolved into a democracy. And South Korea built up its economy to be modern and efficient. South Korea became a producer rather than a consumer of security. Looking at a free and advanced South Korea that is part of the West makes it clear that the war was a victory. It just took many decades before that victory became apparent.

4. Gay marriage. 

In my younger days, I was against gay marriage. I didn't hate or even dislike gay people. I just saw marriage as inherently an institution for men and women. What part of "alternative lifestyle" was unclear? You be you and we'll be us.

But it was never a high priority issue for me. So as society evolved to accept it, I had little interest in fighting it. If gay people want the joys of marriage--and divorce--enjoy. Hey, my history hasn't been a stout defense of the sanctity of heterosexual marriage.

Besides, I figured, if marriage is a foundation of traditionalism, it would be hilarious if gay marriage eventually turned more gay people into conservatives. Welcome to the party, pal.

5. The 2nd Amendment is not an individual right.

Again, in my younger days I didn't think much about the Second Amendment. I valued the right but didn't see the harm in conceding that it didn't limit reasonable restrictions on it.

As I got older and read more about the issue, I changed my mind. And as I saw that the left was unwilling to stop at reasonable restrictions, that base of my amorphous view collapsed. So yeah, it is an individual right. And law-abiding people exercising that right is a foundation of our freedom from both government and criminals, who can't be sure their victims are helpless.

6. Aircraft carriers are vital for the Navy to control the seas.

I loved carriers. Their role in winning the war against Japan in World War II was a thrilling history. And in the Cold War, the carriers were vital for hot wars and for holding back the Soviets. I was glad that Harpoon anti-ship missiles spread our offensive power beyond the carriers. But carriers were queens of the fleet. I had some worries about the Russian ships and subs that trailed our carriers to fire on them the moment war broke out. But I wasn't worried about losing many and figured those that survived would be valuable.

Eventually, a couple decades ago, I began to see the proliferation of cheaper and longer-range anti-ship missiles integrated into a persistent surveillance network as the effective end of expensive carriers for sea control missions. 

Sure, the carriers are great against minor powers without the ability to find let alone attack the carriers off their coast. But masses of missiles fired from dispersed enemy assets unified by a surveillance and communications network would signal the dominance of network-centric warfare over the platform-centric warfare in which the super carriers were the pinnacle of massing firepower on a single platform.

So yeah, I want to see our super carriers dwindle in number over many decades, in favor of more ships and subs taking their place.

7. China is our ally.

I was happy to have China as an ally against the Soviet Union. It was a marriage of convenience. But it was useful. Sure, they were Commie bastards. But the more threatening Commie bastards in the USSR were the priority. So bolster their ground forces to inflict damage on the Red Army if it attacked China.

The collapse of the USSR and the rise of China led me to abandon that. China was now the next big threat. Heck, I hoped a post-Soviet Russia would join the West. At best on the latter, I can only say that Russia hasn't decided to join the West yet.

Before the September 11, 2001 jihadi terror attacks on America, I was already working on an article that argued we had to think about how to fight China in a ground war. We were getting used to the concept of preparing for Major Theater Wars (or Major Theater Conflicts) against smaller threats like Saddam's Iraq or North Korea.

The war on terror ended any Army bandwidth that notion might have had. I remember getting my paper essay I mailed to Parameters on the issue returned shortly after 9/11 all brown from whatever they had done to it to neutralize Anthrax. Remember that?

Since then I rewrote the essay from different angles. All were rejected. Until I managed to get it published in Military Review in 2018. My view was finally ready for consideration.

8 & 9. I've changed my mind twice on Donald Trump.

I've had a complicated relationship with Trump. I had a long history of despising him as a New York loud-mouthed Democrat. I didn't trust his claim to be a Republican when he began putting his toe in the political waters. I thought he was a Democrat in Republican clothing, notwithstanding his welcome stance on the side of blue collar workers. That's where I came from. 

So when he got traction in the primaries for the 2016 election, he was literally the last candidate I wanted to win. He won anyway. And he faced the equally odious Hillary Clinton whose deep immersion in corruption led me to despair. I could read polls. I did not see how my vote could help defeat Clinton in Michigan. And even if that was true, I didn't see how Michigan could affect the election that would put Hillary! in the White House. So I did not vote for Trump. I voted for whoever the Libertarian candidate was.

When Clinton lost, I was over-joyed. Ecstatic even. I was never worried about him becoming a dictator and assumed his Republican staff would steer him away from what I felt were his left-wing tendencies.

Democrats did two things. They turned the dial of Resistance to 11 and kept it there, with the most ridiculous charges and reactions. All bolstered by the media and--as we've discovered--the permanent bureaucracy, to their eternal shame. The sheer unfairness of the attacks pushed me toward Trump. 

The Democrats also rejected working with Trump. I thought Trump would work with Democrats on spending bills both could support. Instead, Democrats forced Trump to be more Republican in policies, which reassured me. And obviously, despite the insane worries of the left, Trump did not become a dictator in any way.

So I enthusiastically voted for him in 2020. His style still grated me at some level. But the overreaction of Democrats got me to appreciate his humor more. And his policies were largely fine from my perspective. And where they were not--like spending too much money--was he that different from past Republican presidents?

But while Trump was deprived of an earned reelection by his mistakes in Covid pandemic over-reaction and from the relentless Democratic media propaganda campaign against him (and yes, the likelihood--but I've seen no proof--is that mail-in voting was designed to welcome voter fraud that could not be detected), his behavior since then has eroded my support for him.

Now, while I thank him for what he did, admire him for enduring the onslaught against him, and regret his defeat in 2020, I'm moving on. I supported Trump because of his policies. The policies he promoted were key--not him personally. He has sniped at Republicans, denying the Republicans control of the Senate--twice!--and oddly violating Reagan's 11th Commandment not to attack fellow Republicans. And Trump is getting old. We can see what having a barely sentient empty suit in the Oval Office looks like. I won't risk that again with my vote. 

I understand Republicans who don't like Trump. But I still don't get the Never Trumpers who did not come around to make the best of having Trump in office after he won in 2016. I don't like how their opposition to Trump has morphed into support for Democrats who are pushed left by Twitter activists.

But that's in the past. I have never elevated presidents into a god. They are tools for policy. Despite everything done to Trump,  I must look to the future. So thank you for your service, President Trump. I wish you the best in your post-presidential endeavors. But I want your endeavors to be post-presidential.

10. Congress is the only body able to declare a legitimate war.

The power to declare war is a Congressional power and is enshrined in the Constitution. We haven't issued a declaration of war since World War II. That seemed disturbing at some level.

But really, that has not limited our wars. As commander-in-chief, the president can order the military into action. Seemingly in defiance of the Constitutional provision.

Indeed, early on our country waged wars without a declaration of war and without drawing concern from the people who had actually built our country. The Quasi-War with France at sea. And the Tripolitan War, and extended campaign against North African pirate states.

The United Nations system also erased a reason for declaring war. Declaring war once triggered international law powers for states declaring war. That body of law and custom was ended by the UN system. Further, declaring war triggers presidential war powers that nobody wanted triggered for smaller wars. But nobody wanted to end that trigger when a nuclear attack might make it impossible for Congress to grant a president those powers with any speed following an attack on America.

Further, it was once probably much easier to distinguish between Congressional war power and presidential commander-in-chief powers. With no standing army and a small navy (which large oceans and old technology made an easy risk to take as enemies tried to project power across an ocean), the president couldn't start too much of a war on his own--note my examples above were largely naval wars--without Congress voting to raise those armies and build a larger navy. 

Now we have a large standing military, removing that Congressional brake on presidential powers. Based on early history and recent practice, it is clear that we can go to war by Congressional declaration of war, authorization to use force resolutions by Congress, or simply by Congress agreeing to fund the war that the president embarks on (with or without UN authorization).

And my former view that a declaration of war ensured that the people would back the wars until victory was naive, really. Congress backed wars against Iraq and Afghanistan, yet public support eroded over time.

So legitimate war under the current situation is spread more widely than one would think by a narrow reading of the Constitution.

11. The central role of main battle tanks in land warfare. 

Tanks provide mobile, protected firepower to break a stalemate based on too much firepower on too small of a frontage. I've long defended the central role of armored vehicles in land warfare. Twenty years ago in Military Review I warned against the urge to build a "wonder tank" that tried to create a light and strategically mobile, lethal, and well protected "tank" to solve all the problems we had sending tanks overseas to fight and win.

I'm not quite turning against tanks. I've long figured the sheer numbers and more complicated nature of land warfare slowed down the trends I'd seen affecting carrier survivability.

But I now think that we might be entering an era when alternatives to the large and expensive main battle tank engaged in direct fire combat must be considered. We still need mobile, protected firepower if we want to avoid static wars of attrition.

My guess now is we need a new "Sherman" tank that is adequate and cheap, with a focus on crew survival. And the vehicle should probably be more of an indirect shooter plugged into a persistent surveillance network whether on defense or attack, advancing without emphasizing closing with an enemy for direct fire combat.

How we get there is unclear. And maybe we get a different form of mobile, protected firepower to retain mobility on the battlefield. I just don't think bigger and more expensive tanks is how we will get there.

12. The A-10 as a close support aircraft.

I have affection for the A-10. I remember reading my brother's Army Reserve magazine when I was a lad and it had a story on the new ground support aircraft. I remember during basic training hearing the chain gun fire as the aircraft used our night firing exercise as a way to practice strafing runs forward of troop lines. And in my National Guard unit, my vehicle was A-10, which we nicknamed Warthog in honor of the plane.

The plane was designed to go low and slow while surviving ground fire to support ground troops in action against masses of enemy tanks. It was outstanding.

But technology moves on. Ground defenses are more lethal. Ground support can be provided from a distance with stand-off precision weapons guided by better forward observer technology.

So yes, the Air Force has a point when it says the A-10 can't come in slow and low against peer military enemies.

But. The A-10 is good against insurgents in a slow and low attack profile. And for peer enemies, the A-10 has been modified to use stand-off weapons out of range of ground air defenses. So that isn't an issue.

Ultimately, I defend the A-10 not because of the plane characteristics themselves--it is in fact very old--but because the A-10 exists as a dedicated ground support plane for ground troops. I'd be fine with a new close air support plane for the Air Force.

But the Air Force doesn't want a replacement for the A-10. The Air Force wants the F-35 multi-role plane to take over the role. When it isn't busy with missions that have a higher priority with Air Force planners than responding to Army calls for immediate air support.

For me it is a matter of trust in the Air Force. Despite its outstanding record during the war on terror and in the initial Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns, I don't have trust on this issue based on the long history of the Air Force campaign to kill the A-10 by hook or crook.

Perhaps if the Air Force organized and trained some of its F-35 squadrons exclusively for close air support, I'd be more comfortable getting rid of the A-10 before it finally must die from old age without a replacement.

So there you go. Many times I've discovered old posts that show I do not change my views on a basic issue just because a different president is in office. I've occasionally noted those as I found them. But I never looked at the other side of the coin. I explained more than I intended when I started this. I spent 15 minutes pondering changing views over my life. I'm sure I've missed many. But the examples are enough that I think you can see I can change my mind. And that changing my mind is based on changing facts rather than being a pursuit of the trendy or popular--or politically motivated to back "my" team.

Thank you for reading The Dignified Rant. I'll be here in the new year. May it be happy and good for America.

NOTE: Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.

The Spanish Flu

Did America respond any better to the Wuhan Flu Covid-19 pandemic than it did to the Spanish Flu pandemic a century ago?

I have been waiting for more than two years to read something about our pandemic in comparison to the Spanish Flu of a century ago which killed 600,000 Americans. I've run across nothing. So I finally bought Sandra Opdycke's The Flu Epidemic of 1918, published in 2014.

The most stunning thing for me is that in America the first wave began in January 1918 and the third wave abated in April 1919. So about 15 months, or so. Despite much greater scientific capabilities, we're going on three years with great resistance to declaring the pandemic over as the virus becomes endemic--and not nearly as deadly. Although over a million have died here, but with a population more than 3 times larger than during the Spanish Flu.

Some things stand out a century ago. 

A bias towards thinking "dirty" corresponds to infection led authorities to scour patient homes; sweep and hose down streets; disinfect phones, drinking fountains, library books, and clerks' fingers between transactions. This public sanitation is unlikely to have done much good. How similar does our response with cleaning even groceries reflect that basic revulsion of things "dirty" (and unvaccinated)--with an often moral angle to the worries? Only when prominent pro-vaccine people started getting sick did the moral failure angle of refusing to get immunized fade.

Masks were encouraged a century ago, yet had zero value in protection against the virus. To be fair the gauze masks were a far cry from modern N95s. Still, we have no clear evidence that masks helped much given most are not practically superior to the gauze masks of 1918; and the need to properly wear the right kind. But a century ago, the public health officials realized eventually that the masks did not work. 

Still, approval of mask use was expressed as a means of reassuring people they could go about their jobs without destroying our economy. As for mask mandates, the mayor of Denver quipped that it would take half the city to make the other half wear masks. Indeed, high ranking politicians a century ago were seen flouting mask advice. How familiar that sounds, eh?

In some ways our vaccinations are the modern version of the masks. The vaccination for Covid-19 promised an end to lockdowns and social distancing. It gave us some measure of reassurance to restart the economy. But it was no better than the gauze masks of the Spanish Flu in slowing the spread of the virus. Sure, the vaccination reduced severity of the virus. But I did qualify the comparison.

As a matter of perspective, the book notes the 1977 global flu epidemic that was called Russian Flu despite the likelihood that it started in China. I have zero memory of 1977 being any type of crisis. I was in high school then, but I have no memory of anything out of the ordinary. It was mild and--wait for it--"many scientists suspect that it escaped from a laboratory, perhaps in connection with work on germ warfare."

The author notes that in recent years (from the publishing date of 2014) scientists in several countries began manipulating genetically the H5N1 influenza virus to study the process that could lead it to mutate to a more contagious type. In 2011 people were alarmed this kind of research might lead to an escape (or theft) from the laboratories and trigger a major pandemic. There was a temporary moratorium but it was ended in 2013 with new guidelines to "ensure heightened security." 

Huzzah for "heightened security" in labs.

But the book was hopeful, noting that the world has made great strides in spotting a new virus once they emerge so we can react. WHO, the CDC, and other similar bodies were lauded for their research and surveillance capacity.

And yet here we are with a WHO that ran interference for China which hid the emergence of Covid-19 in China; and the CDC that initially dismissed the worries of the epidemic news leaking out of a closed China. 

This is not meant to be a review of the book or a comparison of pandemics. Just some things that stick out in my mind from reading the book having endured this current epidemic and lockdown policies

Sometimes I wonder if our response to Covid-19 reflects that Americans are (luckily) unused to death as a routine part of life. This winter, as Americans get back to normal life, the normal illnesses seem scary:

For the Covid regime’s loyal subjects, such normalcy simply won’t do. Hence the attempt to extend the 2020-era climate of fear over other, more common illnesses. Or as the Washington Post wishfully put it, “Face masks may return amid holiday ‘tripledemic’ of Covid, flu and RSV.” 

Having stepped into the false security of a mask and social distancing cocoon, are too many people unable to step into the real world that once took those normal illnesses in stride? The Covid-19 pandemic and our government's response were bad enough. Why embrace it as a "new normal"?

One issue with the duration of the current pandemic may be a "definitions" issue. Did the Spanish Flu linger on despite the abatement of the third wave? Would public health and government officials of a century ago look at our situation and declare the pandemic was really over nine months ago when deaths dropped dramatically and leveled out? Or did our shots and social isolation have the effect of stretching out the pandemic that otherwise would have burned through our people and run out of potential hosts more quickly?

Our efforts that might have lengthened the pandemic might have saved lives from the pandemic itself in the long run. I can offer no judgment on whether the length of our pandemic response killed and harmed more people from non-pandemic causes than it saved from Covid-19. I hope our public health researchers can analyze that without being tainted by politics or institutional biases. I look forward to reading a useful comparison of our respective responses to pandemic.

Life must go on. What's the point of living through this pandemic it if we hide in fear of the normal?

UPDATE: This may be true or it may be a strong desire to hang on to the habits of social distancing and lockdowns:

Could the COVID-19 surge in China unleash a new coronavirus mutant on the world?

Scientists don’t know but worry that might happen. It could be similar to omicron variants circulating there now. It could be a combination of strains. Or something entirely different, they say.

But I have to ask if this possibility is a function of our vaccine and lockdown responses that have prevented the virus from burning out sooner.

The debate on the balance sheet of saving lives versus harming lives by our pandemic response could be fascinating. Eventually. When the political positions are mere history. 

And I will ask, will this be an epidemic inside China? Or will China's problem again infect the world as a pandemic. By design or incompetence--or just the way viruses work?

NOTE: Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.

Can Republicans Have a Little Perspective?

Well, the mid-term elections happened. There was no red wave. The people have spoken, the bastards. Right now it's hard not to feel down. But it isn't a reason for Republicans to panic. And is the result really that bad?

In early 2021, because of the January 6th Capitol Building riot and the bad Senate election map making gaining seats hard (a third of senators run for reelection every 2 years), I assumed Republicans would be routed in 2022. And perhaps for years after. The media would hammer the riot to undermine Republicans, unlike the series of leftist riots across America excused and minimized in 2020 for the benefit of Democrats. 

In early 2022, Democrats over-reached trying to portray a riot as an insurrection and screwed up policies worse than I feared. I then thought Republicans could take the House back. Polling seemed to back that. 

In the last month before the election, because of polls I began to think Republicans could actually take the Senate despite the uphill nature of the battle. 

Now I'll have to be happy with controlling the House, as it seems will happen at the time of writing this. Which is, after all, no less significant for being achieved with far fewer gained seats than anticipated. The Democrats losing 10 14 seats in 2020 rather than riding Biden's presidential victory to gains contributed to this year's flip. So perhaps think of 2022 as the end of a two-cycle slow House red wave.

And if you dismiss a close Republican House win, explain why the Democrat's 50+Harris "margin" in the Senate has been meaningless the last two years. I'd rather flip the House with 5 more seats than gain 30 but miss controlling by one seat. 

I guess victory depends on what your baseline is. My measure for victory went up dramatically since January 2021. Maybe I should judge 2022 by those ancient expectations. By that measure, I should be ecstatic at taking the House. In time, I have no doubt I will feel that.

Nor is the election over. Who knows? Maybe the Senate ends up in Republican hands by December because of the Georgia special election. If so, 2022 will be a very good election, indeed. 

Nor is that the only chance. Senate Democrats screwed West Virginia's Manchin on fossil fuels for his vote on a massive spending bill. And Biden made his war on fossil fuels clear late in the 2022 campaign. Maybe now after a couple years of eager speculation, Manchin is willing to flip parties--if Republicans manage to retain 50-50 split, or better.

And hey, in 2024 the Senate map is much better for Republicans.

So there you go. Is 2022 really that bad?*

UPDATE: Yes:

For Republicans, the results may not have been the landslide for which they had hoped, but that was greatly because the GOP already had defied historic odds two years earlier by doing so well in 2020. Simply put, there were fewer purple House seats to flip in the 2022 midterms. But how can it be a Republican disappointment when Nancy Pelosi no longer will be able to launch annual impeachments and Jan. 6 investigations against Donald Trump, when Jerrold Nadler no longer will chair the House Committee on the Judiciary, when Adam Schiff no longer will chair the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, when Maxine no longer will chair the House Financial Services Committee, and when the Squad of Ocasio, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and cohort no longer will matter?

Thus, there was a significant Republican House victory but not a “red wave.” And now there is real work — hard work — to be done. Otherwise, all will be lost as has happened in the past.

Less sulking. More working the problem. 

UPDATE: The best the Republicans can do is hold 50 Senate seats with the Georgia special election--giving the vice president the tie-breaking vote. As it was after the 2020 elections. Unless Manchin ...

UPDATE: Republicans clawed their way to a majority in the House of Representatives, although the final tally may be weeks away. Which is shameful and not conducive to confidence in our elections.

*Mind you, I'm just thinking about the federal level. I don't know what happened at the state and local level this year. Two years ago the polling got Democrats' hopes up for a blue wave that didn't happen.

NOTE: War updates continue here.