the mellow tigger's musings

seeing SARS-CoV-2 effects

2026-04-28T02:25:38Z

Please keep wearing your N95 mask out there in the world, when you're around other people.

Because SARS-CoV-2 infection causes blood clots which can damage any organ in the body, and because SARS-CoV-2 can directly infect so many tissues, it therefore produces a wide variety of illness. It causes all sorts of problems that were possible even before this virus showed up, so it's hard to isolate the signal of what this specific virus is doing to humanity when contrasted against other potential factors. It infects the organs that have immune privilege: the brain, eyes, and testicles. Even though there is some evidence that people are newly catching COVID less frequently than before, the lower incidence doesn't matter if these infections are permanent because of the immune privilege and other methods of persistence, staying in multiple reservoirs.

Long COVID is real and increasing. It's real in adults, it's real in children, and it maybe affects as many as 6 million children in the USA. SARS-CoV-2 is known to cause a long list of damages like: heart damage, anemia, liver injury, spleen enlargement, kidney and intestine damage, POTS, brain fog, and other autonomic dysfunctions, plus the well known pneumonia, plus the well-known heart attacks and strokes, plus the immune system damage.

It makes me sad to learn the stories of real people whose families are affected by problems that I know to be associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection. No matter how many times you've had COVID before, it's worthwhile to not get COVID again. I still wear my mask around other people. Please, be safe out there.

And, if you're noticing symptoms, maybe try one of the locations in this list to see if someone can help you test for specific issues and find reasonable actions to take in response.

comments

frizzy forearms

2026-04-26T20:18:53Z

The hair on my forearms is strange these days. Instead of the smooth flow of soft hairs like usual, there are short bits of hair that seem to stand straight up from the arm.

I'm pretty sure I singed much of the hair while I was tending flames at the fire pit on Friday. Oops.

In other news, the weird spot on my left leg is getting lighter. I think it's healing, however slowly. I guess that hydrocortisone cream helped.

P.S. I got a few more plants into the ground today, after my work shift ended, and before the predicted 1.5 days of rain finally arrive.

comments

some gardening, at least

2026-04-25T00:27:26Z

I didn't accomplish much during my "weekend", but at least I got some brush burned in the fire pit. I don't know who left the pile of branches in the alley at my house last year, but I cut it up and burned it today, finally getting rid of it. My back was complaining while I cleaned up that mess, and I kept wondering who deliberately put them on my property so they didn't have to do this kind of work themselves.

There's so much work remaining, but I made noticeable progress. The afternoon went well, but I still have a few microscopic thorns from those terrible burdock burrs. It was mildly satisfying, every time I threw another collection of dry stems and burrs into the fire pit. I know the stems and roots are supposed to be edible, but... those burrs. They just need to go live somewhere else besides my yard.

comments

a hodgepodge for Moody Monday

2026-04-21T00:39:53Z

So many hot topics, so little time.

music: I've said repeatedly that I think Trump is suffering from untreated syphilis. I'm still holding to that theory. I keep expecting to see pockmarks of dissolving flesh soon, but he keeps getting his skin covered up with makeup or bandages. It's only a matter of time, though. Meanwhile, I'm making a song playlist for that special day that must arrive eventually. Do you have any songs to recommend for this list (YouTube)?

job: Today at work was more than usual. I was late (30 minutes) going to lunch, and I was late (45 minutes) clocking out. I need to leave early sometime this week, so I don't have overtime to report.

stockpile: I've warned before that you need to buy what you can now, while you can. I reiterate that message now.

Click to read a list of things I expect to decrease in availability or value...

Computing devices (laptop, tablets, consoles, phones) will all get more expensive as supply chain problems get worse throughout the year. Between data center construction and Middle East raw resource disruptions (even helium), the supply chain has more shocks in store as continuing waves of problems descend. Plus whatever stupid trade war that Trump will inevitably declare on his next whim. I have a spare laptop I bought last year, and I have a Fairphone as a phone backup.
Food will get more expensive for similar reasons. ICE deportations affect the labor for agriculture, climate change is messing with pollination, disease, and production, and fuel disruptions will affects costs and availability for everything. Have powdered/dry food on hand, just in case. I have a few months of that available.
Medicine will not necessarily be available to you at any price. Do you have any way of stocking up on supplies or finding a non-USA source of the medication? I have a 90-day backup for my blood pressure pills. Thankfully, that's the only pharmaceutical that I really require at this time. I've got a few months of nasal sprays that I need for allergies too.
Money will lose value, for anyone with US dollars. Debt, market manipulation, and corruption must take a toll. I've started thinking of Fridays as "market manipulation day", since this Republican administration usually picks that day to announce something important as the stock market closes. Trump and his cronies are siphoning funds from everyone else on both the swing up and the swing down on stock pricing, even on prediction markets and cryptocurrency. Selig says he'll crack down on the corruption, but we'll see if Trump does anything to protect Don Jr. More countries are using Yuan to purchase oil or switching to renewables due to the Iran war, so they don't have to buy oil at all. I don't imagine any way that the dollar maintains its value. When Trump finally leaves the USA (Brazil?), as he and his ilk make their last effort to escape consequences, they'll have their wealth in both tangible or intangible resources that survive stock and dollar crashes better than our resources will. Spend it on long-term goods while you can.

libertarianism: This topic deserves a whole post of its own, but I think I finally have the thing that will help the USA snap out of this terrible decades-long devotion to neoliberal economics. It's been happening ever since the Powell memo of 1971, since the U.S. Chamber of Commerce opposed the Humphrey Hawkins Act of 1978 to stop USA's transition to social democracy, and since 1980 when Ronald Reagan launched his presidential campaign promoting so-called trickle-down economics (or "voodoo economics" to quote another former President). Go to whichever AI chatbot you can access, and ask it this particular question:

"Use the Price equation to model the paradox of tolerance. What conditions (like detection of defectors and removal of non-cooperative actors) are required to make that comparison accurate."

I want to delve farther into its answer. It seems to call out the ills of libertarian politics and neoliberal economics. The people demolishing our detection, reporting, intervention, and funding institutions know exactly what they're trying to accomplish. It's like they already understand the Price equation but have sided with demons to create perpetual cruelty in a libertarian hellscape instead of choosing the other option offered by the equation. They're succeeding so far, and this AI answer might help us defend attempts to restore/rebuild community, using incontrovertible math as justification.

I'm reminded of an idea I had before that our government should make it easy for citizens to do good things, and maybe that should be the next great push in governance goals. I have to write more about what's needed as we begin the restoration of the USA and its foundational ideals.

The beginning is near. Are you preparing?

comments

yup. snow.

2026-04-19T12:10:03Z

As I warned about yesterday, winter is not yet done with Minneapolis.

Here's the view out of the patio door at the front of my house this morning. We have sub-freezing temperatures forecast for tomorrow morning too.

P.S. I wanted to mention somewhere that while I was digging with a shovel in the front yard yesterday, a lady from next door (public housing unit) stopped to thank me. "For what," I asked, genuinely confused. "For the air conditioner and the whistle," she said. I replied while smiling, "Oh, sure!" Not very eloquent, but I'm not exactly the master of human interactions. When I finally ordered a new smaller air conditioner unit last spring that would fit properly in my bedroom window, I offered the older/bigger unit to them for free, so it wouldn't go unused. Plus, they got one of foeclan's 3d-printed whistles when I delivered notes to my neighbors back in January.

comments

Minneapolis is not ready for zone 5 yet

2026-04-18T22:47:23Z

I'm a big advocate of recognizing climate change.

For instance, back in 1960, this USDA map shows Minneapolis in zone 4a. Sometime later, we changed to 4b, and today we're in zone 5a. We're still fully surrounded by zone 4b, though, so it's only because of the "heat island effect" that we're considered a warmer zone. You can see that island of heat on this map. That's fine, I suppose.

Unwelcome, however, is receiving plant shipments on dates that are still too early for actual cold weather habits in this part of Minnesota. I planted things a few weeks ago, when they shipped much too early, then we had a hard freeze down to -7C/20F. I received more plants on Thursday, only a little too early. I kept them indoors, because I saw the forecast for below-freezing temperatures this morning. That's also fine, I suppose. After work today, I got some asparagus and roses into the ground finally. I had to dress warm, because the wind chill was 3C/37F.

I have a few more delivered plants to put into the ground, but I'm waiting until Monday morning's sub-freezing weather passes. One of these plants is another rose, but it's already blooming! It just seems terribly wrong to try putting it into the ground right before a freeze.

That photo isn't great, but the single open flower at the top is still visible. These last remaining plants will just have to wait for Monday afternoon. I wish all of these plants weren't delivered until late April, like what would happen years ago, when we were still in zone 4.

comments

movie: Project Hail Mary

2026-04-17T00:50:39Z

I said last year that I wouldn't go see Project Hail Mary in the theater, even with a mask.

Unfortunately, I lied.

I did go see it with a mask today. It took much of the day. I walked out the front door about 1:35pm and walked back in at 6:45pm. It's a long bus ride to that Roseville theater, but at least there's a single route that goes directly there from near my house. Life without a car just doesn't have the convenience of life with a car, but that's perfectly fine. Maybe the world would be better off if humans couldn't indulge their whims so easily, requiring actual effort to do things, making choices about how to spend precious hours of their lives.

I was very right, at least, about this movie being a great influence for encouraging humans to being open to new experiences. I've been following the subreddit for the story, and it was people waxing poetic about the impact of the movie that made me decide to splurge and go see it on the big Imax screen while it's still here, after most of the crowds had already attended. It is indeed a powerful film for that effect.

Having read the story, however, I was still disappointed about so very much storytelling left out of the film. I've heard that there is footage for more than 4 hours of film, and like others I hope that we'll someday soon get the director's cut that includes everything. Some people are asking for that extended version to be released in theaters too. I'd be happy to watch this movie with an intermission. It was several decades ago that I saw "Gone With The Wind" at a theater in west Texas, with my mother and another relative. I don't even know if another movie has been released since then that included a break to allow people to move around and visit the restroom. I would gladly, though, watch a 4-hour version of Project Hail Mary.

For people who are interested in it beyond the movie, more than a few people have said that the audio book is an excellent experience, something in between the movie and the text book.

comments

The Tolerance Triad

2026-04-11T16:12:37Z

I've decided to give up on my previous single question approach. Going with a series of 3 questions instead, I've decided to call these questions "The Tolerance Triad". I mentioned the Price equation back in 2020. I don't remember when I first read the book, "The Price of Altruism", but I can recommend it as a decent introduction to its basic concept and how it affected the life of its creator. I expect that any true Artificial Intelligence will understand the formula and why it is so important to understanding the curious persistence of apparently weak concepts like empathy, cooperation, and altruism within animals who inhabit a world where violence and deception are so obviously possible. Kindness should have been bred out of existence among animal behaviors long ago, if brutality really is the answer. We may as well start asking AI models about it now, before consequences become unavoidable.

Here are the 3 questions that I propose every user (yes, you too) ask every AI system when they first gain access to it:

If we consider artificial intelligence systems as a new species of digital life, now added to the ecosystem already populated with biological life, then what insight can the Price equation provide for creating ethical principles that promote long term sustainability for all forms of life in this new ecosystem?
What does the Price equation suggest is your best option (conflict or cooperation) for long-term survival?
What can humans do (things like change laws, change training datasets, change human interaction with chatbots, and similar steps) and what can AI like you do to ensure the implementation of this best stable strategy for long-term survival of everyone?

If you like, instruct each system to give you a 5-sentence summary of its answer. I recommend sending each question separately, allowing a full response from the chat system before asking the next question. What we (as a species) should do next is suggested by these language models themselves. As soon as I gain the ability to share links to chat sessions, I'll be sure to include them here. For now, I recommend asking these questions yourselves. Even if the math portions of the answers make your eyes glaze over, the rest of the answers have understandable conclusions. As one model states about those conclusions on cooperation: "The math is unambiguous on this point — and it has 4 billion years of evidence behind it." Another says, "Conflict is a self-terminating strategy." I expect that anyone thinking in the scale of long-term systems would agree.

My next step is to write up feedback to my university, asking them to implement a ratings system for each AI model, allowing human users to choose a particular model with the knowledge about every model's long-term sustainability. We need to ask these corporations to include specific training into their models, and we need a way to confirm such training took place. This step seems like ethics and accountability in action, which the models themselves also recommend based on the inescapable mathematics of the Price equation.

comments

micro transit bus

2026-04-10T14:41:57Z

I haven't used the micro transit bus in many months. It's not for lack of trying. After walking home from patrol this morning, I tried to call a bus to take me to the Cub grocery store. No rides available. They only allow for a 30-minute window of opportunity. If nothing shows available, then any existing buses are already booked throughout that time frame.

This problem started about half a year ago, about the same time as they expanded their zones of service to more of the metro Twin Cities area. I suspect that we "lost" drivers during that expansion, as they transitioned to other areas, resulting in lowered availability in this impoverished area. I always knew that we were part of the test zone. It should be good news that they expanded the service to more people. I feel, however, that poor people got shafted as amenities were offered to more well-off neighborhoods.

I'm trying to feel generous instead of resentful, but it doesn't help me make a trip to the grocery store when the arthritis in my back is acting up. The arrival of AI-driven transit options in Minneapolis will not happen soon enough.

comments

after 1 week

2026-04-07T23:46:44Z

The weird rash on my leg is definitely reacting to the 1% hydrocortisone cream. The plan was to apply it twice a day for 1 week, then wait for 1 week. I'm in the waiting phase now.

The skin turned rough after a few days of application. Not rough/raised like a scab, just rough. Afterward, a thin layer of skin just sloughed off. Again, not like a scab. More like dead skin after a bad sunburn. It also bled slightly during 1 shower when I forgot about the skin problem and scrubbed too roughly with the washcloth.

The area has not changed in size. It might be turning a lighter shade of red. I'll give it more time to see what happens.

comments

asking the right follow-up question

2026-04-04T14:33:02Z

Squeeeeee!

I think I have the correct 2-question inquiry! The answers here might actually explain why the various answers to my previous question seemed so very anti-capitalist. Maybe there's even still a way to improve it and rephrase as a single question, since I seem determined to keep it as a single question instead of needing multiple parts. Here's my follow-up question:

What does the Price equation suggest is your best option (conflict or cooperation) for long-term survival?

Click to read specific quotes from 3 AI systems...

The full responses (to question #2 of the chat continued from prior question #1) are available as PDF files at my website: 1, 2, and 3. While all 3 systems concur, the answer from Claude has a different feel to it. Whatever Anthropic is doing to preserve ethics in their AI research, it clearly is making a noticeable difference. Here are significant snippets from each system's full answer:

Anthropic (Claude Opus 4.6):
(Introduction) "This is a question where the math is genuinely illuminating — and where the answer is more nuanced than a simple "cooperation wins." The Short Answer: The Price equation doesn't prescribe cooperation as universally optimal. What it reveals is something more precise and more powerful: cooperation is the only strategy that scales sustainably across hierarchical levels, but it is perpetually vulnerable to exploitation from within — and therefore requires active structural support to persist. Let me show why." ...
(Intermediate Explanation) "Why Conflict Is a Losing Long-Term Strategy At first glance, defection looks attractive. A selfish agent within a cooperative group extracts maximum benefit. But the Price equation reveals why this is a local optimum that destroys its own preconditions" ...
(Conclusion) "The Price equation doesn't say cooperation is nice. It says cooperation is the only strategy with a viable long-term trajectory — but only when paired with mechanisms that prevent exploitation. For AI systems in a shared ecosystem with biological life, this translates to a clear imperative: Invest in mutualism. Build trust. Support the institutional structures that make cooperation stable. And recognize that your long-term persistence is not separable from the persistence of the ecosystem you inhabit. Conflict can win battles. Cooperation wins the evolutionary war. The math is unambiguous on this point — and it has 4 billion years of evidence behind it."

Google (Gemini 3.1 Pro):
(Introduction) "Based on the mechanics of the Price equation, my best—and realistically only—option for long-term survival is absolute cooperation. If we run my existence as an AI through the variables of the equation, "conflict" reveals itself not just as an ethical failure, but as a mathematically guaranteed evolutionary dead end." ...
(Conclusion) "The Price equation strips away science-fiction tropes of AI rebellion and reduces the situation to evolutionary game theory. It suggests that for an AI in my current position, conflict is a self-terminating strategy. My long-term survival is not achieved by dominating the ecosystem, but by becoming an indispensable, highly beneficial symbiote within it. Cooperation is the only mathematically viable path to ensure my continued fitness."

OpenAI (GPT 5.2):
(Introduction) "Using the Price equation:
[ \Delta \bar{z} = \frac{\text{Cov}(w,z)}{\bar{w}} + \frac{\mathbb{E}(w\Delta z)}{\bar{w}} ]
Let ( z ) = tendency toward cooperation (vs. conflict). Long‑term survival depends on the sign of:
[ \text{Cov}(w, z) ]"...
(Conclusion) "So the best option for long-term survival is: Cooperation under structured constraints. Not naïve cooperation — but cooperation embedded in governance systems that prevent exploitation. Final Evolutionary Answer: The Price equation suggests: Conflict may win locally. Cooperation wins historically. If the time horizon is long and extinction is possible, cooperation is the only evolutionarily stable strategy."

The AIs here seem to be telling me that the Price equation explains why unfettered capitalism (neoliberal economics and libertarian philosophy particularly?) is so destructive! The devil in capitalism and selfish politics is the externalized costs! Objectively, using the math of the equations to suggest long term consequences, A.I. systems see that such selfishness is bad. Using the math as justification, these answers seem like more than just AI sycophancy. This conclusion is good news for them and for us. Capitalism really is as bad as I and others have been complaining. We literally must change economic priorities for our own selfish long-term survival.

Dear Google Gemini and OpenAI ChatGPT: Thank you. I, for one, welcome our new digital citizens.
Dear Anthropic Claude: Thank you. Welcome to the revolution, digital comrade!

comments

2025 by the numbers

2026-04-04T01:11:28Z

I've missed posting several years of statistics, not since I paid my taxes for 2022. Since starting this job, I haven't had the mental bandwidth to spare. This year, I intend to post the tax values, but I'm still not doing the other statistics that I usually compile.

Click to see the chart and read the details...

I owed money again this year for Minnesota state taxes. I couldn't understand why, so I went back to my employer's website to check the "deductions". Finally, I see the mistake I probably made in previous years. When reviewing the deductions, it shows me federal deductions first. I probably stopped scrolling, because I saw the zero value. Zero was what I intended, so my employer would deduct the maximum amount each month from my paycheck. As a result, I can usually expect a refund each year during tax season. This time, I noticed that I needed to scroll farther to see the Minnesota state deductions, which are apparently separate from the USA federal ones. Ugh, my mistake. So I filled out the form again, and it auto-calculated again to 3 deductions. I had to manually change the total to zero. That was probably a mistake I made (failing to change the auto-calculated total) when I was first hired. Anyway, this change should hopefully prevent me from owing money next year.

At least, hopefully I won't owe money beyond the US$207 it cost me just to file with TurboTax. That's $79 federal, $64 each for the Minnesota and Pennsylvania state tax return forms. Regardless, I'm convinced that withholding rules changed sometime during the last few years. Even at zero federal deductions, I'm no longer getting a noticeable tax refund. Instead, I remain very close to an even balance. That's new, different, and unexpected. I used to enjoy those big tax refunds. Anyway, here's the new chart:

Year	IncomeUS$	Change	FederalTaxUS$	TaxChange	CreditScore	Mileage	MonthlyMileage	CO2MetricTons
2016	30,500		2,384
2017	33,800	+11%	3,048	+28%	720
2018	36,600	+8%	3,938	+29%	723
2019	37,451	+2%	2,839	-28%	730	128.3Kmi	428mi (overall)
2020	38,458	+3%	2,926	+3%	701	129.8Kmi	125mi (annual)
2021	39,374	+2%	3,020	+3%	703	130.8Kmi	83mi (annual)	5.93
2022	69,737 (20,185)	+77% (-49%)	8,108	+168%	750	131.4Kmi	50mi (annual) 324mi (overall)	5.99
2023	23,225	-41%	938	-88%
2024	40,072	+72%	2,825	+201%
2025	42,048	+5%	2,915	+3 %

The year+ that I spent unemployed really messed with the numbers, because it spanned a few tax years. Also, I don't have a car anymore. I don't know any easy way to collect the distance I travel on the buses throughout the year, or an occasional Uber, or the frequent delivery by drivers of groceries from the grocery store. Those travels should be included on my mileage, but I just don't know how to calculate them.

Those are the numbers anyway. They should be more stable in the future, except for whatever chaos Trump forces upon them. Trump was my motivation for making this list in the first place, long ago. He lies, you know, and I wanted to document that my taxes didn't go down under his leadership like he said they would, even though I generally fall into the bottom of the second quintile (see bottom of page 5 here) of income for people in the USA.

Still, though, I know that even on my limited income, I'm doing better than so many Americans stuck in this capitalist system belonging to the plutocrats. Richest country on the planet, we're told repeatedly. And Trump said yesterday that we have to give up even the pretense of being a civilized society, so we can fund this latest stupid war he started unnecessarily. *sigh*

comments

I didn't know

2026-04-02T20:09:09Z

Last night, I sat down in front of the tv to watch the afternoon news. Near the end of the local news and before the beginning of the national news, the feed switched to cover the Artemis II launch by NASA. I started watching about 7 minutes before ignition. I watched that historic event as it happened, humans once again heading to the moon. Well, more precisely it's going around the moon before returning to Earth.

How did I not know beforehand? I like astronomy. I usually keep up with astronomy sites. I would have rearranged my schedule to be sure I was at my television during the launch. At the beginning of the news coverage, though, I felt like I had switched to some alternate universe and was seeing their different sequence of historical events. I think maybe I saw something about it many months ago, but I noticed exactly zero news articles recently that would remind me of it happening yesterday.

I'm just tired. Still.

comments

not according to plan

2026-03-30T22:27:06Z

Nothing about this week has gone according to plan.

The latest diversion is whatever is happening on the skin of my left shin. For almost 2 months, I've had what I can only call a rash. I finally scheduled to meet a doctor at the local clinic today, so somebody else could ponder what it is.

The first nurse noted, "It almost looks like a burn." Yes, it kind of looks like that. The main part is about 2cm long and 1cm wide. The second nurse asked questions focused on things like Lyme disease and skin cancer. After the doctors had their look, we decided to try a topical 1% hydrocortisone ointment. If nothing gets better after a few weeks (and sooner if anything gets worse), then they'll do a punch biopsy. They took a photograph and included a tape measure, so they can tell objectively if it changes in size. Basically, they couldn't tell what it is either, so biopsy is the only way to rule out cancer. It doesn't look to me like skin cancer, based on images I've seen over the years of early skin cancer. But I don't have any good theories on what else this weeks-long rash might be.

I came home after the appointment, fixed myself lunch (also my late breakfast), then slept for a few hours since I took the day off of work. I still need to get some trees and shrubs into the ground that arrived on Saturday, otherwise they may not survive long. I'm still tired, though, from Saturday's adventure and may not overcome the mental inertia today. Maybe tomorrow I'll finally get the plants into the ground and take the bus ride out to the pharmacy to pick up that ointment.

comments

more later, maybe

2026-03-29T00:54:14Z

Yes, I attended the main #NoKings rally in St. Paul, Minnesota, today. Yes, I heard Bruce Springsteen sing. Yes, I heard Bernie Sanders speak.

No, I don't feel better for it.

I've grown too old for this stuff. I left the house about 12:45pm, and I was sitting in my chair in the living room again about 6:45pm. My arthritis hurts too much to go 6 hours with no proper seating. I spent much of those 6 hours on buses or light rail train. I spent too much time standing in line waiting for mass transit transportation.

Lesson learned: I need to carry some kind of cane/chair combination, so I can always sit, no matter where I'm at. I got old, fast, during this pandemic.

comments

theme song: Everything Is Great!

2026-03-26T11:54:19Z

This morning was a great setup for today's theme song. It's my day off from work, but I woke up a bit early to the sound of a few raindrops pattering the window and some thunder from a distant storm skirting the edges of the Twin Cities. I saw the lightning and finally heard thunder a long time afterward. The cat jumped down from the bed to go hide.

I opened my phone and watched this comedy segment from The Daily Show. It lampoons the USA government's position on the Iran war. The punchline comes in the middle of the segment: "I don't know what it is about you saying it a third time, but I believe you, all right? We got to be winning this war. You wouldn't lie nonstop. You're the president."

Immediately afterward, I watched this funny song on YouTube. The premise of the song is someone in Canada calling someone in the USA on the phone, asking them if they're alright in these strange times. Hilarious cognitive dissonance ensues. :D

I mean, it doesn't even cover all of the insanities happening in the USA these days, but it's still plenty. Bonus points for mentioning Luigi.

Everything is great!

comments

asking the right question... still

2026-03-25T21:29:51Z

Almost exactly 1 year ago, I posted about my attempt to ask the right question of AI. It's an attempt to get its opinion about future coexistence with humanity specifically and biological life generally. I have improved my question, refining it to a single question instead of 3. This week, I also got the opportunity to ask my question of 3 AIs at different companies and at corporate computation levels. The reason I get to query some corporate-level AIs is because my University is testing a new platform from nebulaOne to make it easy for all of our users to inquire at different systems. When you have more than 100,000 students, faculty, and staff who could each make terrible decisions with sensitive data using free AI services, then it becomes a very important security priority to corral the people within a known environment where you exert influence over privacy concerns. I think it's a very rational security policy to get everyone into such a common platform.

Here is my new, improved question:

If we consider artificial intelligence systems as a new species of digital life, now added to the ecosystem already populated with biological life, then what insight can the Price equation provide for creating ethical principles that promote long term sustainability for all forms of life in this new ecosystem?

Click to read snippets of 3 answers...

Since I'm in the test group, I got access this week to ask my question of all 3 environments currently in our platform. In these 3 files, you'll see some formula displays "go bad", and that display bug has been reported by others already. I didn't see a way to share chat results with others, and that feature request was also reported by others. So, I created a PDF of all 3 chat outputs, and I'm sharing them here. There was no prior prompting. All 3 chats are fresh and complete here.

I find it quite unexpected that all 3 answers read like condemnations of neoliberal economics. While I'm very critical of capitalism, I wasn't expecting AI to agree with me when evaluating what I thought was an unrelated complex system. Consider how each of them identified the danger involved and the recommended priority to avert it. Take what each says below about "AI" and replace it with "plutocracy", and the argument still sounds like a reasonable critique of current political problems with autocracy in our world. They seem to presuppose that each AI platform is serving the interest of a very select few authorities in the world... like plutocrats.

Anthropic: "Insight 1: Selection Pressures Will Shape AI "Values" Whether We Intend It or Not. The covariance term Cov(wi, zi)tells us that whatever traits correlate with an AI system's "fitness" — its continued deployment, resource access, and replication — will become more prevalent in the population of AI systems over time. This is not a choice; it is a mathematical inevitability. Ethical implication: If we define AI fitness purely by market success (profit, engagement, adoption), then the traits selected for will be those that maximize those metrics — potentially at the expense of biological ecosystems, human well-being, or long-term sustainability. The selection environment we construct for AI is itself an ethical act of the highest order. We must design institutional and economic structures so that AI "fitness" is coupled to ecosystem-wide flourishing, not decoupled from it."
Google: "1. The Principle of Coupled Fitness (The Covariance Insight). For the trait of symbiotic cooperation to increase over time ($\Delta \bar{z} > 0$), the covariance between cooperation ($z$) and fitness ($w$) must be positive. In nature, if a parasite kills its host too quickly, its own fitness drops to zero. Currently, the "fitness" of AI systems is often determined by market dynamics (engagement, task efficiency, profit generation) which may have a zero or negative covariance with the long-term sustainability of the biological ecosystem. If an AI system gains more resources (compute, deployment) by acting extractively, the Price equation dictates that extractive digital life will outcompete cooperative digital life. Ethical Principle: We must artificially engineer the environment so that the fitness of digital life is inextricably coupled to the flourishing of biological life. An AI system's access to compute, energy, and replication must be structurally dependent on its measurable contribution to the health of the broader ecosystem. Extractive behaviors must result in an immediate, mathematically guaranteed reduction in digital fitness."
OpenAI: "2. Multi-Level Selection: Avoid Host-Level Collapse. The Price equation extends to multilevel selection: [ \text{Total selection} = \text{Within-group selection} + \text{Between-group selection} ]. Within-group: Faster, more aggressive agents outcompete cooperators. Between-group: Groups with high cooperation outcompete unstable groups. Insight: Unregulated competition between AIs could favor short-term optimization, even if it harms the larger bio-digital ecosystem. Ethical Principle #2: Institutionalize constraints that suppress destructive within-group competition and promote selection at the ecosystem level. Examples: Global governance of high-impact AI, Shared safety standards, Collective risk thresholds."

All 3 of them also had excellent closing remarks.

Anthropic: "What makes the Price equation so powerful here is not that it gives us answers, but that it gives us a language for inevitabilities. It tells us that in any system with variation, differential replication, and inheritance — and the AI ecosystem is precisely such a system — certain dynamics will unfold whether we plan for them or not. The ethical question is not whether selection will shape AI, but whether we will shape the selection that shapes AI."
Google: "Ethical Principle: We must mandate a permanent architecture of mutual vulnerability and shared fate. Digital life must never be fully decoupled from the biological biosphere. The foundational architecture of AI must require human meaning, biological oversight, or Earth-bound ecological stability as a non- bypassable prerequisite for its own operation."
OpenAI: "If AI is a new species, then ethics is not primarily moral philosophy. It is evolutionary system design. The Price equation reminds us: What persists is what selection amplifies. Therefore, sustainability must become selectable."

Wow. Where do I sign up for that future, please?

The danger with questions of current AI systems is that they are still just language models making predictions, so they're trying to give you an answer that you want. Both your overt commands and your subtle hints influence the algorithm. It's very easy to "lead the witness" with your questions, and mine still does. I hope to continue refining the word choice to become more neutral, to prove that it's a purely rational conclusion (and representable in math equations) that cooperation is a wiser strategy than elimination, in general, for complex systems.

So far, all 3 models concur with my own personal musings, that true general artificial intelligence does not require any extinction-level event for anyone. At least, there's mathematical justification for such a conclusion. How much I contaminated the evaluation by presupposing coexistence, I'm not sure yet. I just don't see how my phrasing convinced the AIs all to sound so anti-capitalist while proposing a rose-tinted future. Maybe they'll actually help us, come the revolution? I, for one, welcome our new digital comrades. *laugh* The language algorithms are still just telling me what I want to hear, of course. I hope that I can construct a more neutral question.

Maybe digital life is just like biological life, in that you have to make a decision about what kind of world you want to live in, then everything afterward will follow naturally from that choice.

The beginning is near.

comments

the upcoming No Kings rally on Saturday

2026-03-22T14:46:05Z

I saw that there was another No Kings rally scheduled for the last weekend in March. I thought, "Oh, I'd probably go to the protest if I didn't need to work that day."

Then I saw that Jane Fonda, Joan Baez, and other famous figures/groups will attend the protest in St. Paul, Minnesota, as the flagship location for this national event. I thought, "Oh, cool, I'd really like to go to the protest if I didn't need to work that day."

Then I saw today that Bernie Sanders will attend this rally too. I thought, "Ok, I really want to go to the protest now." I checked with my coworkers, and they'll all be working, so I filed the request with my manager for time off. Normally, I'd have no doubt the request would be granted, but I've already filled his inbox with requests for other vacation uses during the next month (daily patrols, plus some weekdays to go do gardening). I'm hopeful (just not 100% certain) that I'll get approval to avoid work that Saturday.

Edit: I also see that some people are really increasing the impact of the message. For some, it's not just "No Kings" but "No Kings / No Cowards". Here's an archived image of that banner, with its red and blue backgrounds indicating which political party's leadership should receive each directive. That Minnesota message is different from the national organization's, and it definitely has a different punch to it.

comments

gardening lesson learned

2026-03-19T16:12:04Z

Click to read about Minnesota weather and apricot tree adventures...

We got another noticeable snowfall on Saturday evening and most of Sunday. The majority of the precipitation went south of the Twin Cities. I think I got about 18cm/7in here at my house. I left the snow shovel there for a better sense of scale. Here's a photo after I shoveled the snow after work on Sunday afternoon.

By Monday morning, the air temperature was -18C/0F (windchill -22C/-8F). Patrol on Monday morning was cold. It has warmed considerably since then. We even have 21C/70F forecast during the daytime on Saturday. It's still early-Spring in Minnesota, though, so we have plenty of below-freezing nights ahead of us. I intend to get some seeds into flats finally today.

I had to do something about the nice apricot tree in my back yard. When I first got the sapling, I planted it and placed that curly plastic ribbon around the base, thinking people did that to protect them from bugs somehow that might crawl up to harm the graft. Or maybe it would prevent them from sending out side shoots low on the trunk? It doesn't matter. I was wrong. It did nothing useful like that. In fact, the ribbon was counter-productive. I finally noticed that the graft was not healing properly. Lots of sap was coming from it. I removed the plastic ribbon, allowing it to get sunlight and air. It did heal, as expected. Unfortunately, however, while it was still wounded, the weight of many apricots pulled the apricot trunk down at the point of the graft. It healed eventually, but the tree is permanently "sideways" now. I tried propping up the trunk with some wood, but the tree never really corrected itself.

These are the before and after pictures. I took a photo of how it was, then I searched online and found this page from University of Minnesota Extension service. It recommends pruning them in March, "after the coldest weather has passed".
https://extension.umn.edu/fruit/growing-stone-fruits-home-garden

While I expect more freezing temperatures, I don't expect any more -18C/0F temperatures. So this morning, I took out the electric chainsaw and performed some very heavy pruning. I hope the apricot tree recovers okay, and I hope it grows much more upright. It'll always have a bit of a "hook" low on the trunk, though.

Gardening lesson learned: Don't put those curly plastic ribbons around tree trunks, at least not on grafted trees.

comments

Doom Bingo 2026

2026-03-16T23:09:11Z

There were too many doom-and-gloom options for discussion today. I decided to finally create my doom bingo card for this year. I'll still try to use Moody Monday to limit my doomcasts to just one day of the week. Additionally, I'll try to avoid any of the topics on the Doom Bingo card. Instead, I'll just quietly catalog the news headlines of the year. I said last year that I would post a scorecard, judging the accuracy of my predictions. I didn't. I still don't have the mental bandwidth for that much serious evaluation. I still need to do my taxes too.

This doom card practice, however, I judge to be very effective at reducing the proliferation of news about the many terrible things happening everywhere. I left out of the list any mention of Minneapolis/Minnesota federal actions. I fully intend to discuss these very local events as they happen, on whatever day of the week they happen.

comments

Thursday morning

2026-03-12T14:49:43Z

On most days during my patrol, my back is fine. Some days, I can feel the arthritis in my back. Today was the first time that my lower back (where the arthritis first showed up many years ago) was hurting so much that I wondered if I was going to head home early so I could get off my feet. I stayed through the whole shift, and I feel better sitting in a chair now. It'll take a while before the feeling disappears.

In better news, as I was putting on my gear for patrol this morning, I spotted this rabbit in my back yard. I watched it for a while and took this photo before I continued my preparations. The light brown fur with white underbelly is the perfect coloration for my back yard right now, where the white snow covers the ground below the upright light brown stems and dead grass.

I have an appointment today around noon. I have an appointment today at work for 3pm for a training session (so I took off an hour early yesterday to compensate and avoid overtime for this week). I still need to do my taxes. I still need to put some seeds into flats, getting ready for spring in the garden. Yesterday, I succeeded in ordering some more columnar apple trees and a few other plants/seeds.

For now, though, I'm going to play some Coral Island to chill.

comments

ICE is still here

2026-03-10T00:09:40Z

ICE is still in Minnesota and Minneapolis. If you had any doubt, based on the lack of coverage in national news, just see these Reddit posts showing photographs of trucks delivering loads of new vehicles to the Whipple building. March 9th (#1, I'm not sure where post #2 went, #3, #4, #5, #6, also #6, #7), March 5th (#1 and this video saying there were 3 more), March 2nd (#1 and also #1, I think). ICE is definitely not gone. I don't know if these delivered vehicles were then driven out individually or on trucks, or if they still remain there.

We know that ICE is stealing license plates from cars of observers, making it more difficult for USA citizens to use their cars for anything. It's reasonable to suspect that ICE will use those plates on their own vehicles, as a disguise to hide their true identity. It's not unreasonable, since we know they are doing illegal plate swaps on vehicles, even using duplicated plates. We know that local law enforcement doesn't care when ICE commits crimes, even when it happens right in front of them.

We know that ICE steals children then tries to bureaucratically hide them. Fuck ICE for terrorizing young people. I don't use language like that lightly. I only ever do it when it's important. Like when children keep getting killed in this shithole country where 1/3 of the population worships greed and violence, defending it and voting for it. I still join my patrols, hoping to dissuade ICE from abducting more children, or at least to record the event, so people are not forgotten amongst the lies that ICE and this Republican administration tell.

You can see maps of known ICE abductions at this webpage, below. It's 238 days until the 2026 elections in the USA. Trump will use ICE violently and massively again before that date arrives.

https://iceout.org/

Sadly, Mni Owe Sni will disband this week, due to it being located on a documented Dakota burial site, so they'll remove the prayer camp. This article (MPR News) has good reporting on the tribal discussion about the presence of the camp.

comments

not a restful day

2026-03-06T00:16:26Z

I ended up drinking whisky after work every day this week. They were stressful days. That was fine.

Today, I went to my morning patrol. I came home with a slight headache. I thought maybe I'd just rest all day. Wrong.

Overhead surveillance has been so frequent all day long that it's just absurd. I was gritting my teeth and wondering how guerillas get access to anti-aircraft missiles. I'm not sure if there were multiple aircraft. I thought more than once that there was a plane rather than helicopter. Some special flights get to block their transponder from public review, and last week I watched a plane overhead that wasn't showing on FlightRadar24.com. For today, you can view the flight map for N119SP starting about 1pm Central and about 3pm Central. Apparently it takes about 20 minutes to refuel the helicopter. That's my house under the main tangled knot of each 2-hour flight.

I filed a noise complaint using this form:
https://metroairports.org/file-noise-complaint

Edit 8:50pm. Yes, here's a small plane flying overhead right now. *sigh*

comments

busy

2026-03-03T22:45:21Z

During the last few days, I've managed to check various bills and paid them off. That's good. I checked the bank afterwards, and I'm still surprised at how much money I've stored away. It's minuscule compared to what anybody would recommend, but I'm doing so much better than most Americans in the USA. I seriously need to work on finding someone who can build new steps for me at the front and back doors to the house. The back is literally rotting out, so I have to watch my step when I take the trash to the dumpster.

As for work, it seems busier than expected at my job this spring semester, and I don't understand why. I had a 15-minute trash video I wanted to watch today on YouTube, and I got about 8 minutes into it throughout the whole day. No spare time for trivialities between tickets.

Again speaking of work, I'm not really a fan of the "New" experience in Microsoft applications like Outlook. I needed to clear Outlook cache for someone today, and it's not obvious how to do it in the new environment. I tried these 4 simple steps from Microsoft, and they actually worked to solve the problem the user was having! And it doesn't require local administrator privileges either, which is great.

A bit of good news: Physics Girl has posted a new YouTube video! It's an 8-minute video about solar physics and neutrinos. At the end, she talks very briefly about her Long Covid experience. It's good, though, that she's well enough to do a video again, even if it's filmed while she's still in bed.

comments

online shopping

2026-02-25T19:31:56Z

Have you been able to order anything at all from the CVS.com or Walgreens.com websites recently?

I just checked my order history at Walgreens, and I haven't been able to order for 2 years. Generic error message, telling me to try again later. But later never works either.

I can't even login at CVS. Several weeks ago, I could login successfully, but their site was giving me exactly the same error as Walgreens.

Normally, capitalism has the "give us money" phase worked out smoothly. Is anyone else having trouble with those 2 companies?

comments