It is time to bring the wild west mentality of capitalism under control

Lately, much has been said, written and protested about the potential evils lurking in the depths of artificial intelligence and its life source data centers.  Those opposed and leery of it clearly know very little about change throughout history.  Although change has always been an inevitable constant, nevertheless almost always the first reaction to it has been opposition.  The reactionaries act as thoroughly unaware that once a proverbial genie is out of the bottle it cannot be stuffed back into it.  Moreover, most reactionaries act thoroughly unaware that there is a vast difference between change and progress.  Change is constant, progress not so much.  To illustrate this important distinction, consider that we have vastly changed how we kill each other.  The weapons are exponentially more sophisticated each year than they were the year before. The fact that we are still killing each other in some 130 current armed conflicts globally is evidence that change in the weapons have no progress component to them. The change benefits only the few in control of the military industrial complex, we the people not at all.

Artificial intelligence and the data centers that feed them represent a genie out of the bottle change that is going to make a very small group of tech bros, we all know who they are, much richer than they already are.  How it will benefit us, the consumers remains to be seen. Does anyone, who reflects for just a second, believe this genie can be stuffed back into the bottle?  Such stuffing would be an unprecedented historical event.

To the credit of a precious few aware of the distinction between change and progress there is in our behaviour repertoire initiatives to regulate or otherwise control change and extricate from it progress.  While so far not very well, nevertheless such initiatives are in our historical repertoire.  This makes regulating change a far more doable albeit challenging objective than stuffing that proverbial genie back into the bottle.

So, protestors everywhere against artificial intelligence and its life source data centres, focus your energies on demanding real, sustained and transparent oversight of this change with so far little, if any, evidence that it includes progress from which all of humanity will benefit.  If there are people with the skills to create technological change, there also must be people with the skills to gleam from it progress through seriously sustained regulatory measures.

The difficult but doable objective is to find ways by which to compel our elected representatives to do what they are elected to do.  Not stuff genies back into bottles but to regulate, create relevant oversights with which to extract beneficial progress out of change. Change that greatly benefits only the few tech bros should no longer be acceptable.  Progress, that benefits most, if not all, of us, should be the new sheriff in town.

 

A Response to the “Need to Respond to Hate in Tangible Ways”

The following was written in response to an opinion piece published by the Hamilton Spectator Monday the 6^th of April 2026.  I urge you to read online what Professor Ameil J. Joseph wrote.  When I read it, it left me lost for words.  From an associate professor academic it would not be unreasonable to expect better.  I wonder what grade he would assign to the paper if it was submitted by a student. I also wonder what criteria was applied by the Spectator for publishing it.  I wonder even more what criteria was applied to reject my civil response that could have been, should have been harsher.  No one, especially an associate professor, should be given a pass for writing in such a way that contributes albeit inadvertently to the perpetuation of hate that has been and continues to be a horrible global problem.

 By definition hate is intense dislike and when it is felt toward another it can and often is lethal.  Professor Joseph rightfully identified this to be a critically worrisome phenomenon.  However, this treatise could benefit from a broader and actionable perspective..

Professor Joseph’s opinion piece is very academic, in fact too much so.  He spends three quarter of his words describing the problem.  After acknowledging the existence of organizations such as the Hamilton Anti-Racism Resource Centre he asserts “hate requires more than reaction,” but does not elaborate what that should be.

 A tangible response to people individually or in groups who promote the hate of some other, while not explicitly stated by professor Joseph, assumedly would be punitive.  We all know, or should know, the futility of trying to control thinking and behaving by means of punishment.  It does not work.  It drives behaviour out of sight but not out of sinister insidious occurrence.

 While we indeed must move beyond reactive responses to hate driven behaivours Professor Joseph’s plea to “invest in a sustained, city-wide strategy against hate, one that is properly resourced, institutionally supported and led with and for those most effected” is commendable but what does it mean. This assertion should be, must be operationally defined.  What observable and measurable actions are required to achieve equally well-defined objectives the achievement of which culminate in the reduction, perhaps even the eradication of hate.  Said differently, what needs to be done so that people can outgrow their stagnated tribal stage perspective at which no independent thinking is required.  All that is required for membership is abiding by prescribed beliefs, to hate, value membership in the tribe and act on both. 

 Continuing to do the same things, to “address hate” albeit better funded and coordinated, and expecting different results is said by some to be the definition of a not very admirable state of mind.  The doings , which are undefined in the opinion piece, have been done for decades.  The same “things” have produced only the dire need to continue to do the same “things”.

 An alternative perspective is provided by Walt Kelly’s lovable cartoon character Pogo.  He said: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”  Hate is an acquired taste.  No child is born with it.  It is learned and it is mostly prescribed by one’s reference group otherwise known as tribe.  Hamilton is not unique to have tribes that prescribe hating some other.  It is a global problem attributable to profound and pervasive developmental stagnation.  On a good day most of the world’s population is tribal.  Under the slightest duress people regress to even more primitive ways of thinking and behaving.

 The duress most families have always experienced and continue to do so is what prevents them from activating their children’s innate cognitive developmental potential.  The siege conditions perpetrated on educators since the beginning of recorded history similarly obstructs their task of activating the innate cognitive developmental potential of the children when they become students.

 There is nothing new nor recent about this.  This has been and continues to be the establishment’s desired status quo.  And we the people allow it to continue. 

 Well intentioned but inadequately conceptualized opinion pieces inadvertently contribute to perpetuating conditions that obstruct even the stirring of innate cognitive developmental potential let alone activating it.

 Improving conditions for families is essential for activating their children’s innate cognitive potential necessary for growing beyond tribalism. To improve conditions for families will require a multitude of “grown-ups”. We just do not have enough of them.  The Scandinavian countries however, are well on the way to producing such grown-ups through education and are already reaping the benefits of doing so.  The Hamilton Wentworth Board of Education slowly and steadily could introduce similar educational environmental conditions from grades one through twelve and reap the incremental benefits from each generation of growing up students.

 The good news therefore, imbedded in Pogo’s brilliant realization “… and he is us” is that since we the people are obstructing the activation of our children’s innate cognitive developmental potential and are allowing it to continue to be done we can also stop it.  It will not be easy.  It will not be fast.  It is, however, doable, measurable and the goal is crystal clear.  Reverse the proportion of real grown-ups with the cognitive developmentally stagnated who are taught to hate by their tribe.

ONCE UPON A TIME

 A very long time ago, the span of which defies description, two colleagues in a far away galaxy despite their humanly unimaginable powers, intellect and abilities still fancied themselves as curious grand experimenters.  Their quest was to discern if their own ascent to an optimally self actualized species could happen again on earth within the same period of time as theirs or even sooner.

 Their primary experimental intervention at their disposalwas their evolved understanding and ability to manipulate energy known to them as the universal force that has always been and always will be.  All that was required of them was accessing, at will, this energy through their physical organ commonly known by earth creatures as the brain. Having full access to their brain entailed their version of being fully self actualized.

 The brain, the grand experimenters knew first and foremost to be an enormous mass of potential.  As such its various attributes, before they can be used, have to be activated.  The question therefore, to be determined by the grand experimenters, was how long would it take and what would it take for earth’s sentient creatures to recognize,understand and act on this reality.  The impetus for the grand experimenters for their study was that sadly it took far too long for them.  They were on the brink of extinction when they finally saw the light.  A scary time that could be avoided on planet earth if they had any say in the matter.

 All around the universe, as well as for earth’s sentient creatures, examples for the need to activate developmental potential is everywhere.  They reasoned, not much innate cognitive intellect is required, as for example to observe and conclude that from a single small acorn, the product of a pollinated oak tree flower, a mightyoak tree can emerge.  To do so, however, the potential in that single lonely fertilized seed has to be activated.  While some conditions are more conducive than others for that to happen the law of the universe is always the same.  Potential is of no value unless activated.

 The grand experimenters based on their own history also knew about conditions contrary to activating innate developmental potential in all things living.  They knew the conditions to be overcome, eradicated, fall into two categories.  The first, begetting the second.

 Survival for the grand experimenter’s species and earth’s sentient beings first and foremost requires a two tiered reward consequence to action system.  The dopamine reward system, they concluded, a long time ago, is the primary culprit for developmental potential remaining almost entirely dormant.  It is too powerful, too pleasurable and too satisfying not to seek it everywhere all the time.  The endorphin reward system, not as intense, the product of significant sustainable achievements just takes too much time and effort to turn on.  As well, the insurmountable paradox, as the grand experiments concluded, based on their own experience, is that activated innate developmental potential is required to pursue the endorphin reward system.  For example, it just takes way too much time and effort for the developmentally stagnated to make a desirable object.  It is far easier to steal it.

 The second impediment the grand experimenters concluded is that when most sentient beings are in the pursuit of their own immediate need dopamine gratification, siege like environmental conditions prevail.  Life in a constant combat zone with virtual and real paths to destruction everywhere is not conducive to in-depthreflection nor to resolving, let alone recognizing, troublesome cognitive paradoxes in need of better, more comprehensive ways of reasoning.

 For the most part, the grand experimenters’ species had no one to show/tell them that there is a better life to be had nor the ways by which to achieve it.  Their history like that of planet earth was a steady relentless path to self inflicted destruction.  The universal law of entropy, all things dissolving into the undefined energy zone from which they came paled in comparison to their rapid destructive path.  To avoid the same fate for earth’s sentient beings the grand experimenters primary intervention was introducing into the mix one, and if necessary, several messengers of hope.  Given their difficult to imagine optimally activated developmental potential, the grand experimenters, with great confidence decided that with a little special energy nudging select earth beings developmental potential could be significantlyactivated.  One or more such “prophets” could then ignite the flames of progress leaving behind the darkness of developmental stagnation.  They settled on the strategy, hoping, not daring to expect, that teaching, providing information about the availability of a better life would be sufficient to alter that which obstructs the implementationof behaviours that activate the potential with which to achieve it.

 By earth’s standard metrics of time, numbers and magnitude of wisdom this was an unfathomable experimental intervention.  For the grand experimenters this was a very doable task full of intrigue and joyful anticipation.  

 To justify their expenditure of time and resources, finiteeven for them, the grand experimenters carefully chronicled the unique approaches of the various facilitated prophets and the various historically relevant manner in which each one delivered the same message:  The potential for a vastly better quality of life during the only one available to all creatures across the universe.

 A brief identification of the most noted prophets will serve as evidential proof that the grand experimenters fully applied themselves to the task.  There were no half measures or nothing shoddy about how well they nudged the activation energy of their chosen one’s developmental potential.  Because of their superior training as experimenters they included in their methodologyelaborate journaling the legacy of each.

 One of the first recognized prophet was Laozi.  His message was that living in harmony especially with nature is the path to a well-balanced better life.  No discernibleprogress.  Next, Confucius promoted being authentic and soon after Siddharta Gautama, otherwise known as the Buddha, promoted the need for enlightenment.  Still no discernible progress.  Then came Socrates who actually had a path to a better life by engaging the youth of Athens in vigorous discussion, primarily using well formulated questions. He threatened the status quo and suffered the dire consequences.  Hemlock. Some change, but no discernible progress.  Expressed in ways relevant to the times the message of the early prophets was the same.  This same message, however, was interpreted to prescribe the creation of rule defined tribal collectivesotherwise known as religions.  Socrates in particular was thwarted even before that could happen.  

 Jesus of Nazareth, was the first to set the standard for really threatening the status quo with his New Testament and an even better articulated description of a better life in the here and now.  His ideas got him executed.  Lots more change but no discernible progress.  Nevertheless his ideas were perceived as even more dangerous than previous ones and therefore in desperate need of taming.  At the Council of Niece in the year 325 that is exactly what happened.  The rule defined religion of Christianity emerged at the behest of Constantine the 1st.  Almost six hundred years after the birth of Jesus the Prophet Muhammad was born in Mecca, Arabia.  He lived almost twice as long as Jesus, challenging even more the status quo until he was forced to flee from his birth place to Medina.  By this time, not at all surprising to the grand experimenters, his message of a potential for a better life in the here and now also was turned into the rule prescribing religion of Islam. More change but sill no progress only continued misery.

 Each rule defined tribal religion, much to the bemusement of the grand experimenters, because their species did exactly the same, included a very specific element.  Earth’s sentient beings used their innate cognitive intellect to explain the unexplainable.  Central to their various religions each invented their specific version of a god.  Each god was imbued with infinite knowledge, wisdom, power, mercy, love and control of the entire universe.  Because they had insufficiently activated innate developmental potential the earth beings projected theirown qualities, but in a superior form, onto their invented version of god.  Some earth being tribes invented many gods, while others said there is only one, well perhaps with three parts, but nevertheless in only one entity.  The grand experimenters were particularly intrigued by the earth beings need to personify their invention as Michael Angelo did on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

 While amused, the grand experimenters also were perplexed and bewildered by the paradoxical notions earth’s sentient beings have of their invented version ofgod.  Some live in constant fear of their god, even calling themselves “god fearing’.  What a way to go through life so they though.  Some seem to forget or ignore that their invented god is infinitely wise, merciful and loving.  The grand experimenters mused; do they also believe their god is forgetful, does now know what they need and when they need it and has to be told and begged for it in prayer?  Even more troubling for the grand experimenters was that in the name of their specific god earth beings made war on each other, killed each other with escalating furry and efficiency.  This they concluded is the price earth beings are willing to pay for the falsely perceived benefits of being tribal because they are developmentally stagnated.

 As a function of the grand experimenters’ continued “expert” nudging there emerged different kinds of prophets who came to be known as philosopher scholars.  While they continued to embrace and disseminate the one same message they went a significant step further.  Consistent with their enlightenment they curiously went about discovering, classifying and quantifying methods that are optimally conducive to activating innate cognitive developmental potential in both children and developmentally stagnated adults.  To the delight of the grand experimenters deliberately activating innate cognitive developmental potential emerged as a doable, measurable possibility.  No longer was it just an observable evolving process.  The grand experimenters were exquisitely pleased with this select sentient being progress hoping, even expecting, it to alter the human trajectory to extinction.  Nevertheless, they were reluctant to formulate a conclusion about their experimental interventions.  Wars continued to occur in a number of locations along with genocide, racism and bigotry raged everywhere and humans suffered as much as they ever did, albeit very differently perhaps even more profoundly.

 Nevertheless, the grand experimenters remained stubbornly persistent spurred on by the emergence (with some more nudging) of a few earth beings who actually recognized and honoured the innate cognitive developmental potential with which they were born.  Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanual Kant were among the first and they greatly influenced Jean Piaget who observed and described the activation of developmental potential.  Soon after Lawrence Kohlberg elaborated on Piaget’s observations by describing a well defined invariant hierarchical sequence of cognitive progression through stages, each of which is accompanied by concomitant ways of behaving.  Advancing the axiom one step further and relying on the ideas of Wilhelm von Humbold, Kohlberg demonstrated the benefits of activating innate cognitive developmental potential through educational curriculum.  Fortunately, Kohlberg influenced many of his students such as Elliot Turiel who continued to deliver not only the message of a potential for a better life but also demonstrated the methods by which to achieve it.  During this same time in history the ideas were being incorporated into ways of thinking about social justice and human rights by jurisprudence scholars such as John Rawls.  Good reason for continued optimism about their efforts, so the grand experimenters mused.

 Much to their disappointment however, their very favouritecharismatic modern day non academic prophets, for only reiterating the same message, were murdered as those in the past.  Despite their beautifully inspiring prose; I Have a Dream and Imagine, Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lennon were gunned down in a supposedly advanced first nation civilization.  And despite their work while some change did occur progress remained undetectable.

 Despite that which comes from activated innate cognitive developmental potential the selected, by the grand experimenters, messengers of hope were too few in numbers.  They were far outnumbered by the sinfully proud tribal rabidly committed to preserving their pleasing fantasy created religions and fragmenting political ideologies.

 To their dismay the grand experimenters started to observe the emergence of a powerful newly configuredobstructing force for the activation of innate developmental potential.  Adding to the adverse siege like conditions, created by the relentless pursuit of an opioid rush, which most earthly sentient creatures live, emerged the rhetoric of platitudes.  Regardless of their cognitive intellect, education, literacy, experience and all that is more desirable than not the grand experimenters, started to observe prominent people on the world stage spewing foolish platitudes of greatness.  Not the potential for it but already in possession of it.  Such pleasing fantasies and their appeal the grand experiments also knew all too well to be robust evidence of continued global massdevelopmental stagnation.

 The grand experimenters were frantic.  They were running out of time to save their experiment (earth’s sentient beings).  Rapidly advancing global climate change and exponentially growing population which earthly resources were quickly losing the capacity to sustain all exacerbated by ongoing religious/territorial wars were rapidly accumulating to ending sentient life on planet earth!

 Nevertheless, the grand experimenters remained hopefulthat the ingredients for profound progress were still all there.  Nature and some very notable individuals served as evidence that potential can be activated.  Many, especially the prophets, and philosopher scholars were evidence of the power of possibilities when developmental potential is activated.  They also served as evidence of the acquired ability to pursue the endorphin instead of the dopamine reward system.  Most importantly, primarily through the written media, knowledge was being wide spread about the potential for a better life in the here and now and what actions are required to activate the potential cognitions and behaviour that come with it.

 As in most such powerful dynamic systems a catalyst, so the grand experiments reasoned, was required to make it all happen.

 While the grand experiments’ species eventually, but almost didn’t get there, there was no luxury of time to hope for that in earth’s case.  The challenge of their inquisitive minds, indeed of their profoundly advanced brain, was to discover or invent a catalyst that would finally ignite that which will bring progress to earth’s sentient beings.  They already knew that the catalyst was not going to be a thing of pleasure.  Only real, persistent and profound “pain” leads to sustainable progress which is then endorphin rewarded.  The grand experimenters often observed this especially among addicts, who experience great pain, before becoming abstinent.

 As is often the case, around the universe a series of reoccurring events provided the perfect storm the grand experimenters did not have to invent. No catalyst was needed.

 A multitude of worrisome events were again rising on the world stage and entering a state of perfect chaos for a structured, predetermined, four year period of time.  Real sustainable progress usually happens one of two ways; as a function of accumulative distress (as it did for the grand experimenters) or as a function of a singular significanthorrible event (as is often the case for addicts who get and stay abstinent).  The four year American presidency was going to be the perfect storm offering both conditions on a persistently continuous basis.  Not a singular event exploding like an atomic bomb but a continuous daily escalation of explosions and continuous singular significant horrible events.  And fortuitously the global media is there and all too eager to report every single hostile to human decency thought and action. Moreover, as the grand experimenters duly noted, this time in history a good number of earth’s self actualized beings had access to the same themed message of all the prophets as well as the empirically tested and proven ways of activating every child’s innate developmental potential.The primary path to a better life in the here and now.

 Since the passage of significant earth time for the grand experimenters is like a short documentary film they sat back to observe and document a unique galactic event.  Species extinction averted by sentient beings fed up with misery, knowing what to really do about it and finally doing it. Staring with, ignoring all purveyors of false hope,collaboratively eradicating platitudes, and collectively choosing and mandating those with demonstrated ability the activation of all children’s innate developmental potential.  The prospect of waiting five generations for optimal results of course was of little concern for a species who experience time differently than those on planet earth.  Just to see a whole scale shift from a focus on getting a dopamine rush to achieving endorphin rewards throughsustainable positive results and the peaceful conditions this creates, the grand experimenters decided is worth their short wait.

 Being defeated by an experimental design is not an option for any scholar regardless of where they live in the universe.  True to their discipline, the grand experimentersalso had a contingency plan.  If the collective epiphany of earth’s sentient beings was not emerging in a discernible way during the four year period the grand experimenters had another experimental intervention up their sleeve.  Before allowing human extinction to occur they devised a plan, based on the very fantasies earth beings created.  The devised plan involves house cleaning of planet earth and mindfully disposing the trash.

 Housekeeping, cleaning up a mess, the grand experimenters have had to do in the past.  That’s a story for another time. Consequently therefore they are skilled at it and have expert personnel and equipment with which to do it.  Simply, their plan is to simultaneously and with great speed round up each and every malevolent earthly being and then deposit them all on a barren and inhospitable planet that is worse than what they are in the process of creating on planet earth.  Let’s give them a hell not unlike, but worse, than what they conjured in their mind to terrify people into behaving certain ways, so the grand experimenters decided.  And to make it even more interesting lets observe and document how the collective of same minded badly behaved earth beings fare when there are absolutely no restrictions imposed on them.  And while at it, the grand experimenters decided to observe and document with the same precision how earth’s sentient beings fare when their numbers are culled of malevolent beings intent on maintaining the establishment imposed status quo life of misery.  Of course they hoped conditions would not revert to that from which earth was rescued by the intervention. A possibility but hopefully not.

 This then brings once upon a time to the here and now.  The past tense in the narrative shifting to the present signaled the transition but maintained the veracity of the tale.  The next four years in earth’s history will determine and define the future.  There will be no half measures.  The future will be either an escalating race to humanextinction or a long overdue awakening, of the innate developmental potential that has always been available to each and every child and each and every developmentally stagnated older person.

 Time will tell soon enough which it will be.  I only wish,grand experimenters really do exist in the universe and that they really are unwilling to give up on this planet and us its inhabitants.

 

 Alexander, T. Polgar, Ph.D.

Author of Because We Can, We Must.