Holy Hell God Damn

I’m still here! It’s been a pretty difficult couple of months. I’ve been really going through the ringer with my mental health and watching the world, quite literally, burn before my very eyes. I wanted to reach out because I feel like I stopped writing out of despair, so maybe writing again can help reconnect me with the joy I know exists in expressing myself with the written word. Come with me, won’t you?

Main Story: My Cup Floweth Over Because I Broke The Tap

I’ve been doing too much.

I have this nasty habit of volunteering for lots of things, trying to read lots of things, and getting into a lot of different groups and projects because, if I’m being perfectly honest, I get a bit too excited about the possibility opportunities afford me.

Case in point: I volunteered to help do research on students perception, satisfaction, and use of our university’s self-access center (SALC). My office is on the second floor of this building, it aligned perfectly with the research I was doing with Ramon at TIU, and I would have a big team who believed in the dream. That one project turned into three projects, two papers, one presentation, and more forthcoming.

I’ve also been trying to get people to be more aware of the negatives and ethical debates in the AI realm. That lead to a workshop I lead at the university but it nearly drove me crazy in the process. Seriously, this AI stuff is absolutely fucked. If you are like “Adam, what are you talking about? AI is the future!” then I would like to forward you to reporting by 404 Media and Futurism, as well as the books Atlas of AI and Empire of AI, and the continued scholarship and efforts of researchers like Emily M. Bender and Abeba Birhane. But yes, I continue to stay informed because I love the pain, apparently.

This has lead me to just… crash when I get home. I’m too tired to do anything I really like to do; I feel like my life has been consumed by things that upset me. I can't watch much on YouTube without being recommended something about Palestine, Trump, AI, or the insane social and economic disparities across the globe. I just wanted to watch a man beat Baldur’s Gate 3 using salami, is that so much to ask?

(That style of gameplay, I just learned, is called being a Salamimancer. This is what the internet is really for and I refuse to believe otherwise.)

I’m trying to unplug and get away from things. My commitments with work are very slowly starting to wind down, so that’s good. I’m also trying to increase the amount of time I do things just for the sake of doing them: Not to help my career, not to help other people, but to help myself. I’m going to try and get my creative writing group going again in the Fall, because yes, it is another thing on my plate, but it’s something that let me surround myself with people who like to just muck about and try things with their writing. It was great!

So that’s pretty much why I’ve been just sitting at home, staring at the ceiling for longer than I intended. There have been some intense personal issues as well but there’s not much to do but identify what I can have influence over and start pulling those levers, yeah?

Good Thing: …The Catholic Church…?

Just kidding! It’s really just the very specific actions of three popes that have really started giving me hope recently: Pope Leo XIII, Pope Francis, and the new pope, Leo XIV.

First, Pope Francis. Yes, I know that most popes are very conservative and the slight glimmers of a more liberal leaning are couched in a hierarchy and history of oppression. I am aware of all the terrible things the church did and will continue to do. With that in mind, Francis gave me some hope because he started to stand up to big tech companies in his final years. He looked at the genocide of the Rohingas in Myanmar (perpetrated by unmoderated fake information disseminated on Facebook with Facebook shrugging off responsibility… the heinous details are in the book Careless People which, yes, I did read this year) and thought to himself “Huh, this shit is kinda fucked, right homies?”

Via the Wallstreet Journal:

Emphasis mine. I feel like tech bros have lost the plot, truly, and to see the mother-fucking Catholic Church of all institutions putting its foot down really shows to me how insane of a world we are living in.

Going back in time, there was Leo XIII, who Leo XIV, our new American pope, named himself after. This is all linked, I assure you. To make it short, Leo XIII was pope during the era of the Robber Baron and some of the greatest wealth inequality ever seen in our more modern era. He put out an encyclical entitled Rerum Novarum (On Capital and Labor) calling for things such as living wages, workplace safety, and labor unions while still acknowledging the need for private ownership and trade. He essentially fought for the working man and rallied against the gross ills of the Robber Barons.

Now, Leos XIV is doing very much the same, except he’s taking aim at Silicon Valley and the insanity that is the generative AI industry. Yes, there is good AI out there, but that gets completely blocked out of the popular conception of AI because people like Sam Altman and Sundar Pichai have decided that AI is a great way to market their LLMs. Leo XIV is holding conferences on AI and laying down moral frameworks for responsible AI use, which don’t get enough press compared to the more technical news around AI and LLMs.

Seeing that there are people with power trying to use that power to hold others with power accountable to protect people without power, no matter how small or messy it may turn out to be, gives me a faint feeling of hope. I’ve been sorely lacking in this department for a variety of reasons, and to see the Catholic Church taking a stand that I’ve been trying to push myself is just… a bit mind-blowing, if I’m being honest.

Miscellaneous Media

I played through and beat Baldur’s Gate 3, one of the best role-playing games I think I’ve ever encountered in my life. It’s very good, even if I haven’t tried being a Salamimancer qutie yet.

I’ve also been watching Taskmaster Series 19 with Halee, which has Jason Mantzoukas on. It’s been a good group and best of all, they put it for free on YouTube! They’re nearly at the end, so give it a watch when you have time.

Otherwise, media has really been burning me out. I am excited at the announcement of a Final Fantasy Tactics remaster. I remember finding this game for PS1 at a no-name local video rental shop on US41 back in Port Charlotte and renting it over and over again just to play it. It holds many great memories, and with some quality of life upgrades in the new version, I’m pretty stoked to give it a play when it comes out!

That’s all. Peace ✌️