The Costs of Reducing Human Contact

Sometimes, we, as PTSD survivors, have difficulties with different things. These are as varied as the experiences that caused the condition in the first place. For too many of us, those traumatic events are prolonged or repeated again and again. It makes no difference how much time has passed between events, nor how prolonged such things were. We are usually affected considerably for the rest of our lives. Treatment is essential; it can not be avoided. Going through life without help is to live in hell, and I don’t care how many victims or “experts” say otherwise.

Sure, you can get by, but there will always be symptoms that cause problems, and that is true with patients in treatment or not in treatment. Those who seek help and can afford it are likely to experience relief. Dialing in the right medications is important. The wrong ones can make you worse, while the best ones for you should have you telling your doctor about your feeling better. The process is sometimes hard, but it can be done.

Therapy is a subject I’m personally exceptionally bitter about. It’s difficult enough to find one that you’re comfortable with, and covid made everything worse. During the worst part of the initial outbreak, many left the occupation or moved away from their patients’ areas. The shutdown caused the necessity for telehealth sessions, which I detest. You have to pay, but there’s no contact, and that’s unreasonable and unrealistic.

AI: Already A Problem

AI has replaced even triage for certain physicians. Everything from height and weight to blood pressure is monitored by a computer, and I find that to be an expensive startup for medical groups, but an attempt at eliminating jobs. You see this elimination everywhere, especially when you go shopping.

You know exactly what I mean: self-checout at supermarkets, the CVS, Walmart, and more. And it is a real problem, too. First, because it costs jobs. The Harris Teeter supermarket I go to always had this but recently renovated the section to accommodate more registers. There are a bunch of cashier registers, and I’ve forgotten how many. That’s because I have never seen all of them open. Sixty percent of the time, only one is open. I’ve seen this store decrease its employees over the years, and it’s sad. Ones hired as cashiers can often be seen picking orders for customer pickup. They may be seen stocking shelves and even going out to the parking lot to bring in carts.

Those employees may be thankful to have their jobs, but may also resent their use as utility workers. There are employees who work shopping cart detail. The store does a lot of business, so when the cart detail lags behind or takes unscheduled breaks around the corner, it becomes a pain that customers have to get used to. Go inside, and you may not see any carts at all. Seeing workers not hired for cart detail doing it reflects low employee morale and store mismanagement.

The second problem is much worse: theft, or “skip-scanning”. This is when self-checkout customers properly scan and bag some items but not others, stealing expensive ones like steaks and prepackaged deli meats, or ring one donut or bagel when the paper bag really has five. Shrimp and even staples like condiments or butter can also be tucked into a bag without being scanned. One employee watches this section but is rarely attentive. It’s boring, tedious work, and often, they have to leave the section to go to the customer service counter.

There is, to make it all worse, no security except for cameras. A room with tinted windows marked “Security” is obviously empty. Nobody goes in or comes out, and in ten years of shopping at various times of the day or night, I have never seen anyone detained for theft. It may happen, but you’d think that a decade should never have passed without me seeing an HCPD cruiser out front. A woman managing the customer service desk once told me when I reported a panhandling offender outside of the store, “I live in Baltimore City. You think I really care about who be outside?”

Except the fucker in question who once told me his name was “Travis” when he asked for a dollar, is a problem. He knows that most people carry no cash. He also knows that, should he ask anyone who does carry cash, he will be unlikely to get one dollar. More likely, it will be at least a five dollar note or maybe more, and he constantly lurks from one end of the shopping center to the Harris Teeter. Last week, before Christmas, he was back. He asked me for a cigarette and I said no. As soon as I finished my coffee and put the cup in the trash can near a letterbox, I turned around and he was urinating on a brick pillar under the overhead in plain view of the store’s doors. I guess nobody from Baltimore City would even blink at that shit. But it’s indecent exposure, urinating in front of a minor, and you can probably add a couple more misdemeanors to that. I didn’t have anyone to tell, either. That lady behind the counter would likely have said, “Come back when you catch him usin his junk for somethin a lil worser, honey.”

And I couldn’t call 911 for an imbecile that brazen who’s left behind no evidence except piss that will be dry before cops get there, and yet the act might have been visible on a security camera if they had it active and if they had security, and if anyone in the store gave a shit.

I suppose I could have kicked him in the balls for it, but that’s no misdemeanor. That’s assault. It goes too far against my sense of right, wrong, and my code of honor. But he will be back. He’s no stranger to the justice system, and they always come back. And nobody will report jack shit. And, his mental health is off, so no judge really wants to see his name on a district court docket. There’s no law to force anyone to get help and take meds.

The indifference of underpaid, overstressed employees notwithstanding, underpaid managers are worse. Why go out of the way for a wage like that in a store whose corporate fatcats have a strict opposal to having employees organize or to have too big a payroll? It is a mistake. It makes investors orgasmic, according to UBS securities, which recommends stocks to portfolio holders. Parent company Kroger has some stores that are unionized but that has no bearing on Harris Teeter, a subsidiary. Those were, in September 2023, “determined to remain union-free” in a Q&A session of corporate dickheads and securities cocksuckers. Therefore, the stores have high turnover and newer employees making lower wages. That guarantees cash savings. This is important because stores operate with bank loans. To buy inventory, they secure loans. But there’s one drawback, and most chains will need another loan before the interest is paid and the principal amount can begin to be paid. To keep up, major chains keep costs low, from payroll to overhead to transportation.

But…

Between inventory and gross income, I’d wager that if the store doesn’t lose money, it is because of price gouging. In other words, they’re jacked up, passing the costs to consumers, earning fat profits. To do this, the variety of available brands keep getting eliminated, leaving customers less items to choose from. It’s efficient and very effective.

In Maryland, Giant and Harris Teeter are two of the most expensive of chains. Covid and supply problems made prices on things like coffee double. But the same can of Folgers may be 12 bucks or perhaps 14, and if you wait two days, that changes. Maxwell House Columbian could be high, but Folgers is down half on sale. That’s to turn over inventory to keep customers and nothing more. People may avoid items and let them sit until they’re on sale. As a result, taking a look at sell by dates on a ribeye on sale can be stressful. You see today’s date. It has to go right to the freezer when you get home.

Customers, therefore, steal. So do employees, some of which are caught, and you never see them again.

Or, getting back to self checking, they may skip-scan. So, saving money on payroll has a price. I can’t see how this store isn’t hemorrhaging cash. And if not for being union-free, it would have to be.

Bodycam footage on YouTube is enlightening. I’ve seen a few where Walmart security called in police who arrived before the thief could get away. If I were you, I wouldn’t steal from Walmart. I can’t bear the thought of stealing, and I don’t even like getting gifts. It makes me feel dishonest. Guilty. And those caught at Walmart are Brazen. Their cart is full. They were observed getting a purse, duffel bag, or the like, stuffing smaller items into it, then scanning the bag alone but with other items so as not to call attention to the bag. The alarms at the doors? If they still have those, thieves know how to evade them. For every person caught, though, who knows how many get away?

And this ain’t no joke: people are caught with $900.00 USD in merchandise they have not scanned. You may hate Walmart, but it is, on the whole, efficient, because of real people always on the floor, stocking inventory but watching everything. And they aren’t union, either. And real human beings man the security office as well.

This brings us back to the loss of human contact during medical care. Patients with trauma or serious somatic conditions like hypertension and heart disease can not be assessed by machines alone. First, how do you know they are calibrated and properly maintained? Or even sterilized? Answer: You don’t.

Telehealth was necessary during the pandemic, but even now, with it spreading again, it should only be occasionally used. Mask requirements have largely been lifted. Antivaxxers should be kept to ER visits or telehealth. Otherwise, we’re still better off wearing them in close-quarter settings and in large stores. It’s just safer.

Loss of contact during the shutdown traumatized people who had been stuck without their spouses, children, or friends. I’ll never forget talk shows aired from the host’s homes. They couldn’t even go to their place of business and do a show without an audience. Of them all, John Oliver seemed to weather the crises best. Colbert was never the same. He has turned into a real dick. Once you’ve turned into a dick, you have to be deprogrammed like a Moonie. Odds of that happening aren’t very good.

Most of all, trauma patients suffered in helpless silence. And that, folks, caused more trauma. No one but these patients know what it’s like. Because trauma patients are far easier to be traumatized again. And again. That’s the nature of the beast.

How to Help Yourself

One therapy you can do by yourself that I find to be fun and helpful is to get out of the house. Take a walk, get a bit of exercise and some fresh air. You can get your blood flowing, decrease your blood sugar level, help reduce blood pressure, and relieve sore, stiff muscles. It’s a big help, though, not to let your mind wander. As PTSD patients, we know how unhealthy that is. You can avoid some of your visual and audio triggers by keeping your eyes busy. Look around, focusing and trying to spot things you missed while driving past them. Seeing something new is amazing once you spot it. This is something I call the “Sherlock Holmes” game. You can not fall into dissociative thinking when walking, driving, or almost anything else. It’s dangerous and fouls the mood with memories that are distressing. I’ve read pages of books, only to not remember what was written. I’ve crossed bridges and not remembered it. Accidents happened, and I got to my destination depressed, stressed out, and never known why.

This morning, as the sun was low but brilliant, I couldn’t face east. But I looked west and was surprised at the view. Tomorrow, the sun will rise at a slightly different angle. I will not see exactly what I saw today. The light and shadows allowed me to see some details in the background in beautiful relief, seeing depth that I normally can’t. Seeing at a longer distance with more clarity than normal. That’s magical. A gift.

Try to see new things, little details. Keep your eyes moving. Don’t stare because that’s when you fade out of the present. Focus, but keep the eyes moving. You’ll get better at it, so don’t give up. This is part of cognitive behavior therapy. Look that up. Study it on your own or ask your doctor about it. A counselor is the best coach for this. Avoid “life coaches” because they’re a scam like all of the self-help books from the 80s and 90s. They cost money and make you believe that you’re going to get better when the mere suggestion itself is an attempt to condition you to keep writing checks.

Between a good doctor, a licensed therapist, and a bit of work on your part, you can find peace of mind and a measure of recovery that you may not otherwise get to enjoy.

That’s if you can find the professionals that will see you. Because most of the cashier lanes… are closed.

AI is Full of Gorilla Shit

You might think that AI is useful. Maybe you’re right. Or maybe you have already been conditioned to a predisposed assumption, even a conviction, that AI is the solution to some, perhaps even all, of our problems. That it’s just a matter of time and tweaks.

In that case, I’d have to break Rule #1 of my own (revised) list of no-no things to do in blogging: “Don’t Insult Your Own Audience”.

What I’m trying to say is that you’re an idiot.

First off, I’m going to repeat myself: no machine can ever gain self-awareness or magically just have a soul.

It is not possible, however much you wish it, no matter how many movies you’ve seen, no matter what you’ve read, and no matter who says what on YouTube, for truly intelligent and aware machines to ever exist.

Does this upset you, this outlandish absolutist statement from a lowly layperson who once thought a motherboard was a reference to equipment for middle-aged female surfers?

Or perhaps you, like I do, have the advantage of distance and uninvolved perspective, and can see what developers do not? Do we share some measure, you and I, of trepidation, even fear, of what horrors can, and even have already, come from AI usage?

Then you may be even more widely read than myself about the subject.

If so, I offer you this praise: you’re nobody’s fool.

You maintain perspective and cannot be swayed by leading articles which hail artificial intelligence as the greatest invention of all time, humanity’s pinnacle of accomplishment. Because you know that’s not true. And you know, more than most, that like everything else humans have “created” or discovered, it will be used for evil, exploitation, war, greed and the ruin of countries by other countries.

It has already been in development for all of these things, and hackers, traffickers and spies are, and have been, calling for more of this deadly tech.

As it stands right now, I contend that beyond rudimentary applications, AI is useless or worse, especially when it produces anything that is released to the public or a community such as certain science disciplines, most notably without oversight.

Already misinformation has been disseminated by AI, and at present we cannot determine how much material is out there. In 2020, during the height of the pandemic and attendant lockdown, Microsoft and others laid off or fired thousands of workers. Working from home was great, but the articles and testimonials about and by people allowed that luxury eclipsed an ugly truth: millions lost their jobs. Some, we knew, were in the service or hospitality industry: waiters had no one to serve in closed restaurants. Bartenders, line cooks, master chefs, store owners and employees not deemed “critical”, and scores of others watched helplessly their way of life and their careers vanish forever. Businesses failed. Did they know, that last night they locked up and turned out the lights, that it was the end?

In the quiet that followed, late night talk shows broadcast from the host’s homes in a surreal spot of history that too many have already forgotten, so traumatized were they. Buried memories, covered over by whatever was convenient or necessary until now, a mere three years later, it might never have happened at all.

Except it did.

Millions died. A camera facing Times Square showed traffic sawhorses and nothing else, an image of post-apocalyptic, dystopian emptiness none should ever forget.

Empty chairs at the dinner table, in the living room, the nursing homes…and the empty beds to match.

Traffic, non-existent on rural and suburban streets: at night, so quiet that one felt, not peace, but only a creepiness, a sadness, despair: was this the end? Or how the end starts?

No one knew.

In places, the deniers: restaurants remained open. Spring Break in Florida. Reports of outbreaks squelched, or at least padded, by denial specialists and some news outlets who would go on to scoff at or darkly warn against vaccinations. None of it stopped people from dying, or from surviving, but with long-term effects.

Amid this horrific and tragic setting: MSNBC’s Morning Joe. Every day, the death count. Always there, on the right side of the screen. Every morning, a new total. You couldn’t look away. That intrepid crew never was known for pulling punches. Creds for that.

And then there was Trump, who, after screwing up and making psychotic statements, or, more exactly, spewing shit that got people killed because they trusted him, managed a fait accompli:

With most of his damage already done, with enough disinformation and confusion among the people, he “tried to be helpful”, but merely showed his deplorable ignorance and his need to control his team of experts, whom he often contradicted or even berated in press conferences. He actually, without any refinement attempted, suggested that bodies be opened to accommodate UV light devices and, worse, that products like Mr. Clean be used for clearing lung infections. No one in modern history has ever heard a US president say anything quite like that, but no matter. People apparently tried his “cure” suggestions. How many is not known. That even one person tried it is sickening.

And this is exactly where today’s post becomes relevant.

In the midst of Covid-19, Microsoft — MSN– got rid of its reporting staff, or most of it.

What stood in their shoes?

This did. And it isn’t funny. Imagine why; if you’re human, it shouldn’t be hard.

The article in the link is scary, but humans have been replaced by machines for decades, so this is nothing new. In Baltimore at the General Motors plant, there had been steady news reports since at least the 70s of robots on the assembly line. It wasn’t a unique case. Welders, painters, it didn’t matter; one by one, the jobs were no longer for humans. People flooded unemployment offices carrying their pink slips, held as delicately as calloused hands could have done, and another Maryland unemployment rate hike hit the news with ice-cold numbers that could never tell newspaper readers or local TV news viewers what it really meant. Not to those who had once earned a good income and were suddenly facing default on their mortgages. Feeding hungry children who were used to Christmas presents and hot meals faced an abruptly horrible reality of hunger gnawing on stale bread and cut-rate bologna. Marriages ended. There were homicides and suicides. Desperation turned quickly to despair and after despair, there was nothing.

AI is the new assembly line robot. Who dreamed, back in the 60s, that the major changes that happened could even be possible? That then, at the beginning of a career, that Westinghouse, the Bell system, General Electric, General Motors and other giants would fail, automate, or break up?

Jobs were never guaranteed for life unless you were a Supreme Court Justice. But most offered steady, union represented, honorable work. And if that’s been torn down over the decades since, mainly because of politics and its dirty-secret bed companion, the economy, then there is much more to follow. This is compounded by AI, which has its unshakable place cemented in the future like global warming has.

And both are deeply complicated subjects, which works well for tech corporations and politicians, but not for us, whether you once thought motherboards were oceanic wave gliders for MILFs or not. While the rich, powerful owners of this world think we’re still down here dropping simian feces, we’re still the only ones who get the final say, and we’re dangerously close to giving it up. We vote. We pay. We decide which is real, and which is gorilla shit.

When an AI writes about places to visit, and includes an entry on a food bank and suggests visiting it on an empty stomach, that is gorilla shit. It begs the question of how much more gorilla shit is out there, and has been since 2020.

It’s your move.

But know this:

Generations alive now have lived in some kind of terror all our lives.

The Cold War paralyzed us with daily fear that at any second, all that we know and love could be vaporized.

The AIDS epidemic made sexual contact a haunting thing. It could somehow go undetected for years. Nobody knew if they had it or not, despite early perception that it was a “gay” disease only “degenerate men” got. Then the truth was discovered. It was an everyone disease, and it killed.

9/11/01 brought a new kind of terror to the United States: there was no target, no place, no building anywhere that could truly be protected, and the world had become more sinister and dangerous than we ever dreamed.

Mass shootings haven’t let up. Kids who should be worrying about nothing more scary than report cards or being rejected by a crush have to go to school not knowing if they’ll live to see home again.

Covid-19 has shown us true terror of the unknown and the unseen. We lost so much. Grieve so many. There’s PTSD that’s real, damage we cannot repair. We went from using wipes on our groceries to wearing improvised face masks to getting all of the recommended vaccinations and we got rid of Trump. Quietly, President Biden helped us get away from the edge of an abyss. He does not get his due, not even grudgingly.

A call has gone forth from the political right: we don’t deserve a democracy so let’s find a dictator.

A dictator. What a pile of simian feces.

It has all numbed us. Injured us. It’s too much.

And yet, you must hold onto hope that we as a species can overcome. And, Americans, how it all plays out?

That’s entirely up to you.

Time To Bend Over And Kiss Your Ass Goobye?

I’m not an expert. On anything. I make clear once again that I don’t know what I know, nor do I know what I think.

My feelings however, those I get. Well. Most of the time anyway.

I’m scared right now. Not for me. When Death comes for me I will spread my arms wide and greet him, because he won’t be coming for yet another person that I love. He will be coming for me.

It is the human condition for which I fear. If you think things are bad, that it might be a stretch to predict worse to come, congratulations, you’re an optimist. Good for you.

Enjoy that sentiment while you can. I don’t believe you’ll have it for long. And this is not the time for sentiment and dreams.

This is the time for fighting and for nightmares with more sure to follow. This 60 Minutes segment is nightmare fuel with no ice, served neat.

I won’t say much about it now. I want you to watch it. And think, really think, of the ramifications when all is taken into account.

Death From Above: The New World Order

Sometime in the mid-1960s I went with my parents to a Washington D.C. airport. My father occasionally flew for business, usually on Allegheny Airlines, but that’s all I can remember.

Except one clear memory of a Greyhound bus sign. My father even bought me a miniature bus from the gift shop. These were the busses that they called something-liners, with an upper windscreen tinted green. Yes, I’m old.

What nobody knew at the time: in 1965 biological and chemical agents were used in those two locations by the U.S. military to “test” how biochemical weapons would spread if “used in aerial or ground-based attacks”.

Did it work? Did it happen at all?

It is fact.

And it didn’t happen only once.

The most infamous among these “tests” was perhaps Operation Sea Spray which seemed to have not just involved the United States, but also the United Kingdom. Elements of naval and air groups actually dispersed a bacterium of the yersenia genus, and if that name seems familiar to you, let’s add a name after it: yersenia pestis. Heard of it now? Of course I had to look it up to see why it was ringing a bell. It’s the bacterium respsible for the disease Bubonic plague in humans. There was another agent involved as well. From 20 September to 27 September 1950, in the San Francisco Bay area, these agents were released. Scientists from the US and UK both studied dispersal rates and distances, and there is no reason to believe that they hoped or believed that no one would get sick.

The suspected casualties checked into Stanford Hospital in early October, eleven total, and one died. The infections were linked to common UT infections which can happen when catheters are used, and all were “reported” to have had recent surgeries, leaving them open to post-op infections. What’s more, that bacteria is crawling all over hospital walls, and the government was never found responsible, because of this, for the man’s death.

Well, what about him? He’s just one guy, right? And his family didn’t sue until decades later. No proof. Too bad.

But there’s more. Minnesota was hit by chemicals, carcinogenic chemicals. New York City was hit an innumerable amount of times including light bulbs they dropped in the subway. Loaded light bulbs. It spread pretty far, estimated as miles. That could place in any of one or even two buroughs. It was Bacillus Subtilis Niger, an extremely hard to kill, spore producer. Current uses include testing disinfectant efficiency. It is not known whether there were casualties, but who can say by this point whether the books were cooked. But seriously, dropping light bulbs onto the tracks? That is rather covert, and damn sleazy.

Why fear other countries using biological and chemical agents against us when our own government does it?

They were tests.

But for what? Because hospitals were monitored. The dispersal was always tracked.

Given my loathing for conspiracy theories, why am I bringing this up? Seems silly that I would jump from Sherwood Schwartz TV conspiracy theories (Gilligan’s Island, The Brady Bunch) to this, right?

But I did warn you that more was coming. And this is where it all leads: the granddaddy of all conspiracy theories: depopulation, plagues, the Illuminati and the New World Order.

I have scoffed in the past about the chemtrail story. Only to look back and find, there’s some real history there. And if that’s true, I have no reason to be convinced that it is not an ongoing method of research. No matter what the government denies, do I have any way of telling whether they are being truthful?

Not exactly, no.

Now, do I trust the government?

Mostly, I do.

But I have serious doubts about serious things.

Several video game analyses follow this article. I hope that you will carefully consider what they have to offer. I have played both games mentioned and truly, they slammed me in the gut. You never see the end coming in any well-written show, film or game. But in the case of Deus Ex:The Conspiracy and Metal Gear Solid 2: The Sons of Liberty, the conclusions were bleak, disturbing and left me feeling hopelessly depressed. And that is not my expectation when gaming.

Well, not back in 2000 and 2001. Maybe now I’m a bit more of an edge-of-my-seat gamer, but only because of those two games.

They outline a future in which secret societies and artificial intelligence rob people of freedom in the name of civilization and rule humanity. That’s way too much for one sentence, and I apologize for that. The premises are that AI deems humanity incapable of avoiding self-destruction and seizes control of key military and government facilities. In each game, the AI explains to the protagonist why it is doing this. One AI is belligerent, antagonistic and insulting while the other is more sneaky, but the end results are the same: no one seems able to stop them.

Of the three possible endings in Deus Ex, one has the main character destroy the AI, causing a dark age where the world is deprived of power to the grids, communications and everything we know and count on. Canonically all three endings are partly correct, which doesn’t make me feel any better.

The Illuminati, Majestic 12, and others are used to great effect as antagonistic elements, but the main point I want to get across is that the AI in both games want to stop the flow of misinformation to the people. Fake news, slander on social media, chaos, vengeful killings over words and ideas. It must stop, and the AI is the only way.

A new world order.

Currently the world population cannot be fed or given adequate health care given limited supplies, corporate greed, government tribalism, and, of course, failed crops due to global warming and freak weather. Inflation is impossible to distinguish from price gouging, with glaring examples of some products doubling in price in one or two weeks.

Fake news makes the whole thing worse, and the blame is always leveled at the wrong people, or, if not, those people face no consequences. How many times was a truth discovered but we were not informed?

There is no way to answer that. That, by the way, makes me mistrustful of government. And for the most part, I trust our democracy when it works, when good people do good things. I don’t like conspiracy theories or the hysteria they cause. They’re chaos.

However, I can’t help wondering: given our history, what pieces of truth might lie within some of them.

The Tuskegee infections were real. A conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy was almost certainly real. The secret bombings of Cambodia did happen. Even the ridiculous plot by the CIA to make Fidel Castro’s beard fall out was real.

What I encourage you to do, as always, is, to the extent that you are able, is to think for yourself. The truth is out there, but you are the final arbiter, and once you have found something sound, reliable, stand up for what’s right.

Because one person–you–can make a big difference. On which side of history will you stand?