Pun Salad

I read Kevin D. Williamson automatically, but even if I didn't, his not-too-subtle Hayekian headline would suck me in: The Road to Smurfdom.

Taking out Iranian nuke-producing sites was great, sure. But…

Ah, there's the Smurf reference, right at the end.

KDW's "Wanderland" essay for this week is long and wonderful. Let me, for the nth time, recommend that you subscribe.

Also of note:

• An even less subtle Hayek reference. Seen in today's WSJ, a burning question from Gary Saul Morson and Julio M. Ottino: What Would Hayek Think of AI? (WSJ gifted link)

  It keeps happening—some shiny new idea or technology promises to solve all our problems. Give power to experts to arrange affairs “scientifically,” and poverty, oppression, disease, war and all human ills will disappear. Today, we are asked to trust artificial intelligence.

  The International Monetary Fund promises that “AI can enhance democratic institutions by ensuring citizens’ voices are truly heard.” Power wielded by a few experts can enhance democracy? Isn’t that what the early 20th-century Progressive movement promised? For that matter, isn’t that the thinking behind Soviet “scientific socialism”?

  Although the authors' queries are good, I have to say that the IMF's insertion of "truly" in front of "heard", is a major needle-scratch for me. I can't read it any other way than "Let's figure out a way to dupe the masses into thinking they've been listened to."

  Maybe what we really need is an AI that tells people: "That's the dumbest idea I've truly heard today."

  (Related link: ChatGPT Wasn’t Supposed to Kiss Your Ass This Hard.)

  (By the way, the IMF-published essay to which Morson and Ottino refer is from 2023, by Yale Poli Sci Prof Hélène Landemore: Fostering More Inclusive Democracy with AI. Let me know if you trudge through it and find anything substantive.)

  Morson and Ottino make the Hayekian connection:

  Hayek called this “the fatal conceit”—the assumption that central authority can gather and use all relevant knowledge. Just as Soviet planners couldn’t capture the distributed knowledge embedded in economic decisions, today’s AI systems can’t aggregate and optimize all relevant social knowledge. Human behavior is too complex. Cultural context is too important and can’t be formalized.

  This isn’t an argument against AI, but rather for humility about its limits. AI works best as a tool that enhances rather than replaces human judgment. It can help us process information, identify patterns and generate options. But it can’t substitute for the irreducibly human work of navigating competing values, managing trade-offs and living with uncertainty.

• "Human sacrifice! Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria!" Jonathan Turley notes the Ghostbusters-style predictions from the "liberal" SCOTUS ladies: The End is Nigh: Liberal Justices Predict “Chaos” and the Demise of Public Education Without Mandatory LGBTQ Material.

  The decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor was a roaring victory for parents in public schools. The Montgomery County, Md. school system fought to require the reading of 13 “LGBTQ+-inclusive” texts in the English and Language Arts curriculum for kids from pre-K through 12th grade. That covers children just 5-11 years old.

  The children are required to read or listen to stories like “Prince & Knight” about two male knights who marry each other, and “Love Violet” about two young girls falling in love. Another, “Born Ready: The True Story of a Boy Named Penelope,” discusses a biological girl who begins a transition to being a boy.

  Teachers were informed that this was mandatory reading, which must be assigned, and that families would not be allowed to opt out. The guidelines for teachers made clear that students had to be corrected if they expressed errant or opposing views of gender. If a child questions how someone born a boy could become a girl, teachers were encouraged to correct the child and declare, “That comment is hurtful!”

  Hey, at least the child was "truly heard" before being told to STFU.

• So would repealing mandatory attendance laws. For more on Mahmoud, here's J.D. Tuccille, making the obvious point: School Choice Could Fix the Conflicts That Led to the Supreme Court's Mahmoud Decision. His bottom line:

  Importantly, the philosopher John Stuart Mill, who believed parents should be required to educate their children, nevertheless rejected government-run schools because they create such conflicts. "That the whole or any large part of the education of the people should be in State hands, I go as far as any one in deprecating," he objected in On Liberty. That's because arguments "about what the State should teach, and how it should teach…convert the subject into a mere battle-field for sects and parties."

  And that's what we see in endless arguments and court cases over school officials trying to inculcate students with ideas that are offensive to those students and their parents.

  Mahmoud was a win for parents' right to guide their kids' education. But the best outcome is to get government out of the business of running schools. Then families can choose learning environments that suit them without fighting others over what and how the state should teach.

• A vindication of "Horseshoe Theory". I was scanning through the Political Platform of the "Democratic Socialists of America".

  Executive summary: it's pretty bad.

  But my eye caught on this plank:

  • Abolish USAID, NED, Voice of America, and other governmental agencies that cynically disguise capitalist control as aid and journalism.

  You probably know about USAID and Voice of America. I had to look up "NED"; it is the "National Endowment for Democracy".

  And, yes, all three were targeted by DOGE for elimination a few months back. Relevant articles here (USAID), here (NED), and here (VOA).

  Here's Wikipedia on Horseshoe theory.