[ExI] ai is the easy road

[Keith Henson]

Dear [Recipient Name],

I recognize that I may not change your perspective on this, but I feel it
is important to share these points so that others might be fully informed.

Best regards,

Keith Henson

On Thu, Oct 15, 2026 at 5:15 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

>
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> *From:* Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Thursday, 15 October, 2026 4:13 PM
> *To:* spike at rainier66.com
> *Cc:* ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] ai is the easy road
>
>
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> On Wed, Oct 14, 2026 at 10:29 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
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> snip
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>
> I visited some of the poorest areas of the country, if measured in
> dollars.
>
> >…You *really* do not groik EP.
>
>
>
> >…The trip in our psychological traits depends on *relative* changes.
> Absolute poverty does not trip social unrest. Declining income or even the
> prospect of it does….
>
>
>
> OK that is another triumph for EP.  The areas I visited are seeing very
> little change over time, but the future looks pretty good.
>

Remember that your ancestors (and mine) left that part of the country for
places with more promise.

  As I understand it, demand for coal is expected to rise.  I didn’t detect
> a trace of pessimism in the places I visited.
>
>
> The prospects for coal are dismal. True or not, rising CO2 will be blamed
for rising temperatures. As we have recently discussed here, we are one
multi day blackout in an Arizona heat wave from a million casualties. After
that, or a world wide crop failure from excess heat, there will be massive
pressure to reduce burning coal. Or do you think disasters of this class
will not affect coal mining?

> But even in their poverty, they have a lot of room.  A lot of their food
> is homegrown, and they produce more than they consume.  So if food prices
> go up, so does the value of their crops.  Their quality of life is better
> than their urban counterparts who make twice as much money.
>
> >…I was not aware that WV grew a lot of crops…
>
>
>
> They don’t grow a lot.  Their land is chopped up, so the emphasis is on
> higher yield crops that don’t take up much land, such as apples,
> strawberries, marijuana.  But the population is sparse, so in general they
> are not living beyond
>
>
>
> >…Where do they ship them?
>
>
>
> My impression is that they trade them more than sell or ship them.  My 90
> yr old cousin had some corn, not a lot, beans, especially tomatoes.
>
>
>
> >…  We need to make triple the amount of electric power as we do now.
>
>
>
> >…That's not obvious. The AI hunger for power may dry up as fast as it
> came about. Musk moved really fast with low efficiency used aircraft
> turbines and may make his money back. For the rest, it is not so certain.
> One wild card is the Chinese giving away AI for free….
>


> Always a risk, agreed.  If the Chinese give AI away free, what’s in it for
> them?
>

Prestige, proof that their system is better, influence. And who knows what
Chinese AIs are reporting back? That could be worth more to them than the
cost of training an AI.

Why wouldn’t they charge as much as the cappies will pay?  I predict they
> will charge whatever the market will bear, regardless of who gets it first.
>

So far, that is not the case.

> Around 2010, the federal government was busy making rules that shut down
> coal mines.  When asked what the unemployed miners should do, they were
> told to learn to code.  Now AI is shutting down a lot of what coders used
> to do, but fortunately they can now learn to mine coal.
>
> >…More likely program coal minin machines….
>
>
>
> No doubt about that.
>
>
>
> >…The push is on to get humans out of underground mining….
>
>
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> As I understand it, that has already happened.
>

No. Black lung is still rampant among coal miners. I think hard rock mining
is ahead of coal automation. Probably a reasoned cost decision by
management.

  It was very controversial back in the 1990s because coal miners were
> always given as many pain killers as they requested
>

Access to opiates was widespread, not just coal miners. And chopping off
medical drugs opened the market for fentanyl. Working in a coal mine on
opiates makes a dangerous job even worse.

.  They sold them to supplement to their paltry pay.
>

Can you cite any sources for this statement? Not saying you are wrong, I
just don't have the background. Underground miners I knew in Arizona, the
same Union, made decent pay. I knew some of them.

In the 1990s, coal mining went from what they had been doing to not that
> different from any other office job: they were on the surface operating
> machines underground.
>
>
>
> >…Have you ever worked at a job similar to coal mining? Have you ever been
> down in a mine?
>
>
>
> Never have.  Most modern coal miners haven’t either.
>

Cite please?

>
>
> >…Hard, dangerous work….
>
>
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> Until it became safe.
>

Actually working underground, and someone has to repair the machines at
least, is dangerous. Not as bad as it was
*Modern U.S. Miners:* For deceased U.S. coal miners who filed for federal
benefits (spanning cohorts up through recent decades), the average age at
the time of death is typically around *72 years*, though specific
subsets—particularly in Central Appalachia (Kentucky, Virginia, and West
Virginia)—suffer dramatically higher rates of fatal nonmalignant
respiratory diseases like black lung and COPD.
<https://publichealth.uic.edu/news-stories/modern-coal-miners-suffering-higher-fatality-rates/>

To my surprise, younger coal miners are doing worse.
https://publichealth.uic.edu/news-stories/modern-coal-miners-suffering-higher-fatality-rates/


https://www.minesafetycenter.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/100-yrs.png
>
>
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> >…Would your typical programmer last a day? I doubt it.
>
>
>
> I don’t see why not.  It would be similar to operating a video game I
> suppose.
>

Underground. That's where the work still is. I have been underground in a
working mine and many times explored abandoned ones, though it has been a
long time. I worked for a number of years in conditions that were closer to
mining than programming. The percentage of programmers who could deal with
the physical challenges of underground mining is, in my estimation,
vanishingly small. If you want to try it, let me know how it goes.

> >>>…Mob lynching are out iof favor _at the moment_.
>
> >>…Ja.  Modern day lynchings require the victim to hire the mob.
>
>
>
> >…This is not understandable, can you explain?
>
>
>
> The movie actor Jussie Smollett was the victim of a modern day lynching,
> according to prominent politicians.  The comedians such as Dave Cheppelle
> had a field day with it.  Turns out he hired a coupla goons to beat him up
> so he could claim to be the victim.
>
>
>
Whatever it was, it was not a linching. He lived. If the Jan 6 mob had
grabbed Pense, do ;you think they would have hanged him? The knot was tied
correctly. A black guy, I don't think he was ever identified, cut it down.
Blacks are sensitive on that subject for some reason.

>…Ask the AI of your choice about this. MAGA and the other "conservative"
> organizations are quite specific about the people they want to get rid of.
> Ever heard of White Christian nationalism?
>
>
>
> I have.  What I don’t see are concentration camps, mass murder, sweeping
> takeover of Canada, Mexico and everything to the south.  None of that
> happened.
>

Things certainly moved in that direction. And if you look into it, the ICE
"detention centers' housing conditions are worse than the Nazi
concentration camps which had bunks. A lot of ICE detains are sleeping on
the floor.. Don't believe me? Go visit one. Take several people along, even
congressional representatives visit in groups for fear they will not get
out.

> We struggle too hard to explain why an unpopular guy
>
> >…He is now, but he was popular enough to get elected….
>
>
>
> Sure, and I am making the case that he was not particularly popular when
> he was first elected.  He was elected the first time because the mainstream
> candidate was even more unlikeable and distrusted.
>

An awful lot of that "unlikeable and distrusted" was manufactured by people
using the internet tools we (the technical people) generated. It is my
opinion that Hillery would have been at least a decent president. Consider
who she could ask for advice. One of the things you harp on is the
financial disaster facing the US. Do you remember who was president the
last time the US had a balanced budget?

>…There are still people (should I include you?) who consider him the
> greatest president ever…
>
>
>
> You should not include me.  I consider him about middle of the pack,
> ranked around low 20s.  It could be 1 being the best or 1 being the worst,
> it doesn’t matter which way you number them in this case.  I don’t think
> there are many who consider him the greatest president ever.  There might
> be I suppose, but how would we know?  Have you ever met anyone who thought
> that?
>

Yes. I have a hard time believing that you lead such a cloistered life even
in California. On the other hand, some of those people have, in the last
year, regretted being involved with MAGA.


  Neither have I.  I notice the approval ratings confirm: about middle of
> the pack.
>

Please cite a reputable poll. I don't follow them, but I notice in passing
that they are the lowests in history.

The second time (2024) was about an opposition party deeply divided.  In
> our lifetimes we saw third party candidates arise twice: once in 1968 with
> George Wallace in 1992 with Ross Perot the third guy on the debate stage.
> I liked Perot, voted for him twice (clarification: in two different
> elections.)
>
> >>…won two of the last three elections by equating him with Hitler, when
> an easier explanation suffices: his opposition is divided against itself.
> This is having a bigger impact than the opposition party wishes to admit.
> But it is a coalition of increasingly incompatible elements.  EP works
> fine.
>
>
>
> >…And I make the case that you do not understand it.  Keith
>
>
>
> I will grant I am not an expert on it.  However, to continue to argue the
> current POTUS won twice because he is popular
>

That is not the EP related point. The EP point is *why*. Bad economic
prospects leads to xenophobia memes spreading well, and while I can't make
a solid EP argument yet, I think the lead up to war or movement in that
direction makes unstable leaders more attractive. Selecting an unstable,
perhaps delusional, leader is what you need for a war. And consider the war
ideas he has floated,
Anexating Canada through military force, taking over Greenland, kidnapping
Venezuela's.leader, threats against  Cuba. And, of course, he did go to war
with Iran, disrupting the world economy. I suspect that he did that mostly
to negate the Obama enrichment deal.

Do you think the war with Iran is Constitutional? Presidents do not have
that power in the Constitution last time I looked. Does that make the Iran
war illegal? Could the relatives for those killed sue Trump on wrongful
death grounds because it was not a legal war?

is being used as an excuse for his opposition party to avoid facing a hard
> truth: they are their own enemy.  We heard things we never thought we would
> hear:
>
>
>
Were they real? Or Twitter quality?

> https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5YxSjohE45I
>
>
>
> And when one has lost Bill Maher…
>

I can't say I am aware of Bill Maher, but stick his name in any search
engine. I don't think he is someone I would point to.


>
> https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7oFrfCKK6WI
>
>
>
> I think Maher is right on.  Invest the two minutes to listen to a very
> astute observer, or at least that comment at about 1.42.  Did you eeeeever
> think?
>
>
>
> Keith, it isn’t about EP this time.
>

If human social interactions are in play, it is always about EP.

It is all about a deeply divided opposition.  The democrats will be OK in
> 26.  I predict they will take both houses of congress.  But if they don’t
> repudiate the socialists, they will get spanked in 28, with a good republic
> candidate this time, clearly a smart, talented guy.
>

I might vote for a smart talented guy even if he is a Republican. It will
be interesting to see if they can find such a guy. My bet is no.

  For that matter, the second-runner Rubio is a much stronger opponent than
> the democrat party has faced the last three cycles.
>

As you have pointed out, humans may not be in charge after the next
election. Good or bad? It is hard to say but the current crop of
authoritarian leaders, Putin and his buddy Trump set a low standard. The
most recent event was beyond what even a lot of Trump supporters could
stand. Selling out Ukraine to Putin for the amount of diesel the US burns
in half a day is delusional if not just plain nuts.

Keith

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> spike
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