Discombobulated

[Zeedman]

I was reading an article about virtual training for empathy. Ain't that something?!

Both mind-boggling, and scary. Virtual empathy training strikes me as a contradiction in terms. Such training might improve communication skills (and a good communication class will accomplish the same goals); but IMO empathy is an inherent part of personality, and one either has it, or doesn't. Our upbringing & life experiences teach us empathy (or lack thereof); I doubt that a few hours in front of a computer screen could seriously influence such deep-seated personality traits one way or the other. It would actually scare me if that were possible, because it would open the door to brainwashing (and perhaps cross over into our "gaslighting" discussion).

Maybe it comes down to the difference between sympathy, and empathy. To me, sympathy is going to a friend's funeral. Empathy is being heart broken for the survivors. False expressions of "sympathy" can be taught; empathy is genuine. We've probably all dealt with people over the phone... who vocally express their sympathy for your situation, then demonstrate a total lack of empathy by their subsequent actions.

What's scary is that AI training may - and probably will - increasingly replace one-on-one human instruction. That may be OK for technical training (I've had some of that, no complaints) but I would question its use for anything dealing with social interaction. Like all simulations, the responses would be limited by programming (which is itself restricted by the limitations & biases of its programmer) so the trainee would be tutored only within those limitations. Real life, and real people, are not that predictable. I'd be very curious to observe how employees who interact with the public are given the "virtual" training to deal with angry, abusive, emotionally distraught, or irrational clients.

When an AI can simulate another human being to the point where it can evoke empathy in others, and is indistinguishable from the real thing, it's time to be afraid.

 

[digitS']

Steve, when we temporarily relocated to Houston after Hurricane Katrina we had 10 different electric power suppliers to choose from.

I didn't even know that options for electricity and natural gas existed. Wow, deregulated much?

And, now:

NBC 5 Responds: North Texans Seeing Thousands in Electricity Charges Following Winter Storm

Following this week’s winter storm and power crisis, North Texans are telling NBC 5 Responds about thousands of dollars in electricity charges.

www.nbcdfw.com

Steve
giving some thought to how scary artificial intelligence might be. dang it!

 

[Artichoke Lover]

I didn't even know that options for electricity and natural gas existed. Wow, deregulated much?

And, now:

NBC 5 Responds: North Texans Seeing Thousands in Electricity Charges Following Winter Storm

Following this week’s winter storm and power crisis, North Texans are telling NBC 5 Responds about thousands of dollars in electricity charges.

www.nbcdfw.com

Steve
giving some thought to how scary artificial intelligence might be. dang it!

I watched the show Person of Interest a few years ago. It does a good job of showing just how terrifying AI’s could be. Technology has two sides to it. It has saved millions of lives when it comes to medical equipment but it has also given us things like nuclear weapons the H-bomb and biological weapons that could kill millions in an instant. I try not to dwell on those kinds of things to much.

 

[Rhodie Ranch]

In the old days, when an employee couldn't get along with the peers or the bosses, we'd call it "sending them to Charm School".
Digit's comment: My 15 yr old GD is afraid to go to high school in a week in a half. Why? She's been holed up in her bedroom for over a year. Yes, has had friends but only in the last few months could to outside to bike ride with them. This lovely loving GD of mine is now slightly adverse to outside contact. They had open basketball gym last week, and my DD drug her there. Miss S barely participated. Of course, my DD and SIL are taking this seriously.

OTOH, the 11 yr old went to school on Friday for the first time and came back super enthused and excited!

 

[Marie2020]

Ninth grade might have been rather tough for me, certainly the few years prior so I have empathy for that middle school kid. By the 10th and beyond, adjustments were easier.

That's me, I don't know about the girls and what they might have to adjust to, @Rhodie Ranch .

For a kid who lived on a farm for more than half of my childhood, I had the rather unusual experience of going to 4 different schools with different classmates before I graduated from high school. In college, I had the absolutely surreal experience of meeting someone that I went to high school with 1,000 miles away. We met in a hallway. Totally unexpected and I didn't really know either him (younger than me) or his older brother (older than me). So many years around kids that I didn't know and then going home a mile from town probably set me up to be something of a recluse. And, that I am.

Steve

There's nothing wrong with being a recluse, all the people I've met that keep to their selves, have had depth have been wiser and are a heck of a lot more intelligent.

 

[Marie2020]

I watched the show Person of Interest a few years ago. It does a good job of showing just how terrifying AI’s could be. Technology has two sides to it. It has saved millions of lives when it comes to medical equipment but it has also given us things like nuclear weapons the H-bomb and biological weapons that could kill millions in an instant. I try not to dwell on those kinds of things to much.

Good idea, there's nothing can be done with these matters, we can only live the best we can and not let such things make us paranoid.

I can honestly say that I can relate to those thoughts. I will not let myself waste my precious energy and have sleepless nights anymore.

 

[digitS']

Perhaps, it is a good time to return to comparisons, now that this pandemic just might be fading a bit.

Polio, there weren't all that many deaths. Does that surprise you? I have already mentioned how few people even showed symptoms. CDC says that only about 1 out 200 suffered paralysis, so - a half of 1%. Of those .5%, somewhere around 5 or 6 out of 100 died. That's 5 people out of the .5%!

Now of course, paralysis is a dang serious condition to have to live with. ( I have already mentioned my friend's mother who had polio and walked only with braces and then was stuck with a wheelchair before dying in her 60's.)

Did you know?

"Most people who get infected with poliovirus (about 72 out of 100) will not have any visible symptoms."

What is Polio?

Polio, a viral disease, spreads person-to-person & can cause paralysis

www.cdc.gov

Varicella, dang - I didn't know that word but my spell chequer does! This disease continues. So, how many people die of varicella (chicken pox)? Oxford University says One out of 10,000. LINK

Coronavirus. John Hopkins says 1.8% of confirmed cases in the US, die. That is pretty good compared to some countries. LINK Still, that is 2 out of 100 ... and we suspect that "confirmed" cases are a low guess, especially early in the pandemic.

Yes, there are non-contagious diseases that kill more people. There are contagious and non-contagious.

Steve
sorry i referenced 3 sources but i sorta had trouble following the breadcrumbs back this page.

 

[flowerbug]

our family friend who passed away last fall at the age of 95 or so had a bad case of polio and was always having a hard time walking or getting around. he did not have braces and rarely used a cane or a walker but he was not a fast walker and it was never easy. i'm not sure at what age he got polio.

i keep learning more and more each day about how things are going with the vaccine rollouts and the stats are promising even for a single dose protection so for those who've gotten one shot already they are not being hospitalized or killed by the virus.

MI is still clipping along at vaccinating people, this past week over 60,000 people a day rate was reached a few times. still not getting to my age group yet. not sure when. that's ok, i'm not going places much anyways.

the MI "pause" has been gradually being lifted as cases go down, but the past few days has seen a rise in new cases as would be expected when the restrictions come off and people go nuts for a while. the hope is that though that more vulnerable people are vaccinated and so they won't die even if everyone else around them gets sick. we'll see... overall hospitalisation rates are still falling and fewer people are dying, that is what we hope to see continue. again, we'll see...

 

[digitS']

”We will not see diseases like the coronavirus come here ..."

White House press secretary, one year ago today.

 

[Zeedman]

Plenty of mistakes back then to go around.

WHO on Jan 14, 2020:
"Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China,"

Feb 29, 2020, Dr. Fauci on NBC Today show:
"Right now, at this moment, there is no need to change anything you are doing on a daily basis."

Early local responses here were not much better. One of the early U.S. outbreaks occurred close to this date last year, in a city about 15 miles from me. I remember that at the time, the authorities thought that all those cases could be traced back to cruise ships, and that contact tracing would slow the spread (remember all the cruise ship quarantines?). The problem was they wouldn't give you a Covid test unless you met their "exposure parameters" (cruise ship or exposed to one) regardless of symptoms. Subsequent events revealed that the disease was already community spread via other pathways (such as air travel of both U.S. and Chinese nationals from Wuhan); and since people outside the "cruise ship" category were not tested or identified, the spread continued. In retrospect, very much could have been done better, at all levels of authority from Federal to local.

Fortunately, there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel, now that vaccines are moving us closer to herd immunity, more treatments are available for those infected, and hospitalizations are declining.