Iran Demonstrates: The 'Best' Tech - Isn't Always the Best Tech
The monster comedian Jerry Seinfeld has a great observation about how lots of money can sometimes lead to lazy thinking - and even non-thinking.
My fairly exhaustive Internet search failed to locate the video I saw containing said observation. So I must paraphrase.
Seinfeld said when he and his fellow comedians were broke? Every little thing they tried to do had to be thoroughly thought out. To ensure it worked - and worked funny.
Seinfeld said he has subsequently been on some big budget projects where attention to comedy detail disappears. They just throw money at everything. Over and over again. And the money - loses the funny.
It ain’t just comedy flicks. You can think of all sorts of big budget blockbusters that have lots of Big Tech production - and very low-wattage plots and character development. (Hello, Marvel.)
And it ain’t just flicks.
The West’s prevailing Cold War narrative is the US - as a free market economy - could afford to spend into oblivion the communist economy Soviet Union.
(Never mind that the KGB today still runs Russia. And the US has for decades been infiltrated by Communists. And is now drowning in $39+ trillion in debt - much of it accrued via all sorts of Cold War hyper-activity.)
The United States throwing trillions at the problem? Often resulted in some pretty silly outcomes.
To wit: A great West Wing anecdote:
“We spent millions of dollars developing a pen for the astronauts that would work in zero gravity. You know what the Russians did? They used a pencil.”
I know this happened? Because one Christmas as a kid I received as a gift - one of those astronaut zero-gravity pens. A monument to Cold War Big Money, Big Tech stupidity.
Let us now turn to the Iran war. In which the United States is now thoroughly mired. Despite its obvious Big Money and Big Tech superiorities.
Almost two months in, we have learned at least one thing for certain:
Short of full-on, fully successful land invasion, regime change and perpetual occupation? Iran has total control of the Strait of Hormuz. Which is a choke point for the entire planet’s entire economy.
And Iran has this domination? Thanks to the Strait’s geography - and low-cost, relatively low-tech.
Iran’s Shahed Drone: How ‘The Poor Man’s Cruise Missile’ Is Shaping Tehran’s Retaliation
How Iran’s Cheap, Low-Tech Drones Have Cost the U.S.
How Iran Is Using Cheap Drones to Cause Chaos Across the Middle East
Why Iran’s Grip on the Hormuz Strait Will Be Hard to Break:
“Nor can (the US) control Iran’s coastline without sending in ground forces. Even then, Iran can launch its Shahed drones from any location in the country and strike a ship going through the strait….
“There’s also the threat of Iranian mines in the Strait of Hormuz. A U.S. Defense official told Congress that removing the existing mines could take six months, an operation that can only begin when the war is over….”
Mines are decades-older tech than are drones.
President Trump’s response to all of this? Let’s just say he hasn’t learned the Seinfeld-West Wing-Iran lesson.
Trump Calls for Record $1.5 Trillion Defense Budget, a 50 Percent Jump
Trump Says US Can’t Afford Medicaid, Medicare, and Day Care: ‘We’re Fighting Wars’
Which brings us to Artificial Intelligence (AI).
AI is going to absolutely be many quantum leaps forward for Big Tech. And that certainly will benefit Big Tech.
But what of the rest of us?
The purpose of an economy - and a society? Should be to best benefit its people.
As mentioned: It’s why capitalism is better than collectivism - because the former benefits the people way more than the latter.
But here comes a CRUCIAL caveat: There are times when capitalism finds itself at odds with what is best for the people.
In these circumstances - in a humane society? You scrap capitalist purity - and do what’s better for the people.
It certainly looks like AI is a bottomless geyser of these caveats.
AI Could Wipe Out 100 Million US Jobs Over the Next Decade
Stop right there. There are currently ~158 million jobs in the US.
Murdering 100 million? 60+% of ALL jobs? Is a HUGE AI downside for the people - all by itself.
And NO ONE has articulated any upside even remotely close to equivalent.
It’s all been a South Park Gnomes’ Underpants skit:
“Step 1: Collect underpants. Step 2: …. Step 3: Profit.”
We need a MUCH more detailed AI Step 2, please. The problem being? There probably isn’t one.
AI isn’t “the car replacing the horse and buggy”-level disruption - as some AI defenders claim. Not even remotely close. Heck, most of the jobs lost there - were for the horses.
Nowhere in the AI discussions currently underway - is the welfare of the people even the minutest of considerations.
The AI discussion is about the Wall Street bubble…oops, I mean boon.
AI-Related Stocks Driving Most Market Gains
You can pretend that helps the people. Except the poorest half of the people own less than 1% of Wall Street stock.
And the rest of the AI discussion? Manic, frenzied variations of….
America Must Win the AI Race Against China
The US always needs its boogymen. China is also a bank shot boogyman in the Iran war.
The War Over Iran Is Really About China
Except here’s a thought:
Instead of launching wars and destroying our economy in the name of China competition?
How about we stop sending China trillions of dollars per annum? How about we find other places to make the cheap crap we buy?
Like, say, the US?
If we stop feeding the hands that bite US? They become less able to bite US.
And less able to develop AI.
No wars and national suicide necessary.