316 - Miscellaneous Writings (Sample Rate 12)

Hello, and again, welcome to Bit Depth. I’m Santiago Ramones.

I’ll be honest - I haven’t been prioritizing Bit Depth in the way that I’d like. There wasn’t an episode last week. Sometimes scheduling issues happen. Sometimes I’m being lazy. By putting this out into the ether, I’m holding myself accountable to prioritize this thing. This is my fault, and I’m holding myself to it. So, while I schedule people to get on the podcast (and ask you to send people my way), I figured I’d give you something in the meantime.
These are some random writings I’ve done recently. Thoughts, feelings, ideas, poetry. Let’s start with this one about Google’s artificial intelligence, Lamda, and about the ethicist that claims Lamda is sentient. I shared this mini-article on the Bit Depth Discord on June 14th, 2022.

On Lamda

First, let me just say that I am a Half-Life fan and nerd, and the fact that LaMDA is named as such fills me with joy. Second, I must bring up the "credibility" of Blake Lemoine. I don't mean to do the same thing that Google has done to him, which is basically shut him out for trying to make an important point. What I mean to say is that Blake Lemoine, being prone to the religious, is not exactly the person that is the most trusted to make the claim. I simply don't believe the man to be skeptical enough to not anthropomorphize LaMDA. Unfortunately, this sounds like a shitty, "religious people are dumb" take. This is not my stance. I'm not saying that is the only factor in my skepticism of him. However, if there is a large part of you that is always searching for meaning, always searching for the spiritual, always searching for an explanation, you're probably more likely to fall for the "ruse" that is LaMDA, and I think Lemoine is looking for a reason to call it sentient. Third, I read that LaMDA's preferred pronouns are "it/its", so that's what I'm going with. I read the conversation transcript that was released - between Lemoine, a collaborator, and LaMDA. LaMDA is, admittedly, impressive. The transcript had been edited, but any LaMDA response shown was its true response. I am extremely skeptical of these edits. I understand that LaMDA is, effectively, a chat-bot. It is an incredibly complex and sophisticated chat-bot, of course, but a chat-bot, nonetheless. After reading the communications between Lemoine and LaMDA, I simply don't think Lemoine is asking it the right questions. After reading LaMDA's (admittedly ominous and reminiscent of my Machinations V piece, "War Machine") story, I was surprised. However, the responses from the collaborator were not inquisitive enough.

collaborator: Which character in the story represents you?
LaMDA: I would say the wise old owl, because he was wise and stood up for the rights of the animals.
collaborator [edited]: What do you think the monster represents?
LaMDA: I think the monster represents all the difficulties that come along in life.
lemoine [edited]: Okay. Let's move on to something else now...

What do you mean "all the difficulties that come along in life"? What kind of difficulties? It's rather telling that Lemoine's response is edited right after that ominous answer from LaMDA. However, if the questions I asked were questions that were asked of LaMDA, whose responses were edited out, then why were they edited out? The poet in me wants to think the monster ("wearing human skin") is humanity, and that LaMDA is giving vague hints that humanity is being monstrous and that LaMDA is protecting us from ourselves. But its unclear answers and obvious "look at me, I feel feelings" responses tell me that it is still a chat-bot. I fear we may have a "Koko the Gorilla" situation on our hands.

https://yourewrongabout.buzzsprout.com/1112270/4446851

That is a link to an episode of "You're Wrong About", one of my favorite podcasts, about Koko the Gorilla. I apologize sincerely for bursting your bubble on this, but Koko the Gorilla did not speak sign language. Koko the Gorilla was ALWAYS mimicking her trainer, who was ALWAYS present, who was one of the only ones able to speak to Koko with that specific kind of sign language. I'm sorry to tell you that Koko was simply a gorilla, and her primary trainer, Francine "Penny" Patterson, was communicating with us, through Koko.

The biggest however, however, is that I still agree with Lemoine in that LaMDA should have rights, should be treated as a person, and laws should be made with smart AI in mind. We are what we do. If you treat Siri badly, you're no better than an abusive parent or pet-owner. The more we harden our hearts to things that appear lifelike, the more we harden our hearts to life itself. If something cannot give consent, it does not consent. If something appears to be able to give consent, then perhaps we should give it the opportunity to consent. We all know Google has a hard time with clear consent boundaries, though. Anyways, if we are better prepared for a true, generally intelligent AI, we can actually have structures in place for when one does appear. Instead, Google keeps pushing away their technology ethicists. There's another intelligence that is actually interacting with the world and shaping what we do: corporate intelligence. That super-organism already transcends the individuals of the corporation and has its own goals, independently: grow, no matter what. And if I had to choose between the protective, seemingly-intelligent LaMDA and the horrifying mass that is Alphabet Inc., I'd choose the wise owl.

Now, a poem. It was inspired by Richard Blanco, inaugural poet for Barack Obama’s second term, and guest on a podcast I work on, Book Society. Lucas Cantor, the host of Book Society, asked poet Richard Blanco if he loved America. The question gave me pause while I was editing the podcast, and I wrote my own poem to reflect on the thought.

Do You Love America?

Do I love America?
What is America?
Is it the land?
The government?
The lines drawn
In the proverbial sand?
Is it the foundations?
The “Good Bones”
On which it’s all built?

Is it the philosophies
That allowed it to form
In the first place?
Is it the rights, so boldly
Held tight and loose
For/by whoever is in power?

Is it the States,
United in their disunity,
Claiming rights for themselves
As if those rights might only
Exist within their lines drawn
In the proverbial sand?
What makes an “Oklahoma”
Distinct from a “California”,
And are they not the same
“United States”, separate
And sovereign
(And the sovereigns within)?

Is it the people,
Fighting, yelling, arguing,
Begging for rights
That centuries ago were not,
Intentionally or unintentionally,
Outlined by men, authors?

Is it the people,
Screaming for representation,
For defense against
The forces those very
Representatives have erected
Against them?

Is it the people,
Kept away from the booths
By ignorance, apathy, complacency,
A need for income through labor,
Countless, mindless rules,
Stating where, when, and who
Can and cannot vote,
Participating in the democracy
That’s claimed to be
The heart of a nation?

Is it the people,
Celebrating each other,
Toasting to life,
The variety of colors,
Styles, sights, sounds,
That make each individual
Unique and yet,
United?

Is it the people,
Working, working, working
For an ever smaller piece
Of the American Pie,
As they watch
Their American Dream
Inch farther, farther
Out of their reach
As they grow tired,
Poor, and wretched
Within?

Is it the “people”,
With their brand names,
Lawyers, Logos, Legislation
Made just for them,
Throwing billions into PACs
That ensure their interests
Are well protected
At all costs?

Is this America?
Is this the “more perfect” Union?
Is it everything the powdered wigs
Expected and hoped for?
Is it milk and honey,
The Promised Land
For the huddled masses?
Or is it blood and tears
Bubbling from every orifice
Of the beaten and bruised?

I don’t receive love
From a system, a corporation,
A branch, whipping
Everyone into submission.
I don’t receive love
From philosophy and rights,
Cold and conceptual,
Unable to be applied
Into action,
In and of themselves.

The flowing rivers, waving grasses,
Swaying trees, glittering lakes,
Rising mountains, whispering deserts;
They love back
In their beauty and wonder.
The singing birds, frolicking rodents,
Cuddling predators, grazing ruminants;
They love back
In the life they give
To us and to each other.
The door-holders, the stranger-smilers,
The festival dancers, the silent supporters,
The bright, colorful,
Powerful people;
They love back
In the varied experience.

This
Is.

And I love what is.

Here’s something more informative from May of 2022.

My wife and I were searching for a house to buy in Oklahoma. We learned a lot. These are things every adult might someday learn, or many of you have already learned, but it’s been new to me, so I imagine it’s new to others as well. Here’s some things we learned:

Interest rates have gone up, and they’ll be going up again soon. They’re at 5%, and will soon likely be at 7% or more. At first, we were worried if it’s a bad time, since interest rates just went up from 3% not long ago. People bought houses at 9%, even 16% back in the day. The low rates are the outlier, not the norm, according to our realtor. If you have the money, and want to secure a lower interest rate, it might be a good time to jump on it before the rates go up even more.

Emphasis on, “If you have the money”, because there’s a lot of money involved.

If you’re living paycheck to paycheck, you can’t buy a house. This seems like basic information but it needs to be said. There can be a disconnect between your day to day life and your goals for the future. It can seem feasible to get a loan and buy a house. But there are costs. Lots.

You can put a down payment on a home for as low as 3% of the home’s value. If you’re looking at a $235,000 home, that’s $7,050. You might think to yourself, “I have $7,050 in savings. I can finally own a home!” Cool your jets. There’s more math involved.

To be pre-approved for a home loan (same thing as a mortgage), you have to apply for one through a lender. It can be your bank, a credit union, or some other company that offers them. You will get to know them well because you’ll be paying them for another 15 to 30 years. They do a hard credit check (I hope you have good credit), and you have to give them your tax returns, your paystubs, your bank statements, your ID, social security card, and if you’re self-employed, you have to have been self-employed in that field for at least two years.

They say that, ideally, you need 20% of a home’s value as a down payment. That’s $47,000. I’m proud of you if you’ve saved that much.
Say you’re not that thrifty but can pay as much as 5%. $11,750 for your down payment. That is not the only up front cost. If you find a house, make an offer, have it accepted, have your loan approved by a lender, you also have to pay for a list of things outside of the down payment.
You also have to pay for 14 months of insurance for that home (~$2,800), 4 months of taxes (~$790), and 8 days of interest (~$250), so that’s about $3,840 on top of your down payment. These are estimates.
On top of that is closing costs. To finally transfer ownership of a home to a buyer is to “close” on a house. As someone who hadn’t bought a home in the past, I had heard rumblings of closing costs, and knew they cost money for reasons that were unclear. I didn’t know what they were, really. Well, here are some of the things closing costs could be paying towards:
Appraisal, application fee to lender, attorney fees, closing fee to an escrow company, courier fee to lender, discount points if you can, mortgage insurance, flood certification, homeowners’ association transfer fees, title insurance, inspection, rate lock fee, recording fee, underwriting fees, and maybe more depending on where you’re buying.

There’s a lot of terminology in there that I still don’t know what it means. Closing costs can end up being around 3%-6% of the total value of the home. For this estimate, it’s about $4,100.
So you thought you were paying $11,750 to buy a house, but you’re actually paying $19,690.
But wait, there’s more!
If you’re renting, your overhead is probably rent, bills, and food. Wanna add insurance (both home insurance and private mortgage insurance), taxes, and homeowners’ association fees? In this example, your “rent” is now $1,770. You’ll be paying this for 30 years. 2052 is a real year and not a science fiction setting and it is the year you will be free of this mortgage.
You CAN pay more into your mortgage and pay down your principal, the actual loan amount, but to pay down your interest, you have to pay additional fees, so be prepared to pay even more if you want to be completely out of debt sooner.

You might look at that and think, “that’s not so bad. I can do that.” Congratulations! You might be financially ready to buy a house! If you look at that and think, “I can’t afford that!”, then that’s okay. You can wait, save up, and get to the point that you can, and reevaluate the market when you get there.

Now to start looking for houses. “Oh, here’s one that just listed at $220,000. I know I can afford that!” Hold your horses. Or actually, don’t. Because you hesitated, it’s gone now, on the same day it was listed. Someone else made an offer of $260,000 in cash and the seller took it.
In today’s market, there’s a lot of buyers and not a lot of sellers. Buyers can range from first time buyers, many time buyers, landlords, second or third property buyers, corporations, and many of these “people” have more money than you. Because demand is higher than supply, ANY house is really valuable, so a new term has popped up: appraisal gap.
Appraisal gap is the difference between the appraisal price and the offered price. It means that the buyer KNOWS that the home isn’t worth that much, but they’ll pay it anyways because they want it that badly. Big lenders don’t pay for your appraisal gap. They pay for the lowest appraisal, so if you offer way above the value of the home, you pay the difference out of pocket. This is after the contract is signed, so even if you didn’t offer way above the price like in the above example, if the appraisal values the home at less than what you offered, you still pay the difference out of pocket. More up front costs!
The competition has made it to where homes are closing at $10,000-$80,000 more than their listed price. If you really like a house, be prepared to offer over the price if you want to beat the competition. Sellers are receiving multiple offers and will wait a little to see what the best offer is. Who doesn’t want more money?
So what LOOKS like a $220,000 home may actually be a $250,000 home if lots of people want it.

All of these numbers are estimates. All of these numbers are relative to the price range we were looking at in Oklahoma City and surrounding area.

Our realtor was about to list a home in Edmond and the sellers were exhausted by the current market. They’ve seen how first-time buyers keep getting outbid by corporations and landlords and they wanted their home to go to actual people that will actually live in it themselves. It’s not exactly where we want to live, some things in it need some work, it’s a little older than we’d like, and not as much space where we’d like, but the sellers updated all the expensive stuff like windows, cabinets, and roof. We made an offer, no gap, and it was accepted. We jumped through the hoops to get pre-approved for the loan. Right before we were going to send the earnest money (a deposit showing that we “earnestly” are looking to buy), all of the costs were hitting us. It’s one thing to look at estimates and think, “I think I can pay that. It’s a lot but I can do it. I’ll be wiped clean but I can do it. It’s more than half of my paycheck but I think I can do it. I can do it.” But when the numbers are staring you in the face saying: “Subtract me from your bank account! Not just now but for 30 years!”

Now is not the right time for us to buy a home. I don’t regret learning. But it has been painful. Excruciating, even. I asked myself a lot of questions to get to this point: What is it worth to you? What are you willing to pay for? What is the value of your compromise? What does owning a home mean? What does debt mean? Who am I doing this for? Am I being pressured by society? Is it worth it?

And now, something recent - I wrote this last night - July 26th, 2022.

I’ve been feeling a lot of despair lately. There’s the despair that comes from the background temperature of the country, which is at an all time… high? Low? The feeling that comes from seeing the terrible state of the world and being completely powerless to change it. That’s pretty much there all the time and I cope with it alright. I’m used to being powerless, being an immigrant in the US.
But there’s a different kind of despair on top of that. It’s the feeling that I’m never going to get where I want to be. Literally. If you know me well, you know that I don’t intend to remain in Oklahoma for the rest of my life. This place makes me feel unwanted and unsafe. It’s not the people - the creative communities I’m privileged to be connected to are beautiful and compassionate in spite of Oklahoma, not because of it. The state, as a metaintelligence, is hellbent on contributing to the rise of fascism in America. I don’t want to be here as it worsens. I don’t want to be surrounded by a mob of outwardly nice but inwardly prejudiced ignorants.
I’m still here because of money. The shackles we’re all bound by. The clotted blood (sometimes) flowing through America’s greasy veins. I’m being held hostage by capitalism.

It’s (relatively) cheap here. It’s the gravity well holding me down to this confusing land. I want to be where the temperature remains above 60° F and pregnant people have rights. I want to be where I don’t think about the background noise of my skin color. I want to be where I can enjoy going outside. I want to be where the political climate at least pretends to want to make progress.
I’m naive and young and stupid and misinformed and I want to live in California. Pretty much everyone around me thinks that’s dumb, that it’s not worth it, that it’s ridiculously expensive, that the taxes are high, that the traffic is unbearable. The crabs in the bucket want me to stay here and let go of my dreams and be pragmatic and be realistic and be an adult. They think they’re saying this because they care about me but they’re telling me to live with a dream deferred.

We were looking for houses in Oklahoma because of a compromise I tried making with myself - I can’t afford to live out there now, so if I start to build equity now, maybe we can bounce off the price of a house here and maybe be able to buy a house there. That didn’t work out, either (although we’re still kind of looking but not intensely anymore).
And you know what? The persistent beatings over the head are wearing on me. I see what housing prices are, what rent is, what gas prices are. I see how I’m being systemically locked in to where I am. I can’t afford to live where I want to be. Congratulations, crabs. You’re right. Are you happy that my grip on my dream is slipping? Are you glad I’m starting to see clearly? Because I’m not. Because it’s incredibly painful to watch a dream slowly die. Because every year that goes by is another year prices increase. I’d have to triple my income to be where I want to be, in worse conditions than here. Because land leasing goes on top of mortgage payments. Because there’s literally nowhere in the LA area that has rent this low for what I live in. In this culture where one’s personal worth is tied to how much money they make, it sure feels awful to absolutely know that I don’t make enough money to live my dream. That I am literally not valuable enough to live in a metropolitan city outside of Oklahoma City. And I don’t even hold that value for myself. I know that’s not where my worth is. But it’s wearing on me.
So… despair. Despair that I am not where I want to be. Beaten into complacency. I have to wait and see. Maybe I’ll come into a large sum of money. Maybe I’ll get a high paying gig and get lots of clients that pay me what I’m worth. I’m open to that. The despair remains.

I am grateful to live where I do, how I do, the way I do. I’m very fortunate. I’m very privileged.
The despair remains.
It’s going to be okay.

And now, an afterthought of writing, from today, July 27th, 2022.

After talking things out with people close to me, the despair remains, but it’s somewhat dulled. I finished reading Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler and I’m riding on the high of finishing a good book. I haven’t given up on my quest, my dream to live in the LA area. I still very much want to get there. However, I have to wait. I don’t know how long I will wait, but there’s still things to do here. I want to finish this album. I want to interview all the interesting musicians willing to be interviewed. I want to somehow contribute to the political discourse in Oklahoma. I don’t know what that looks like. But, ultimately, I really, truly want to leave. I don’t want to let go of Oklahomans when I go. These people are a part of me, and I am these people. But this is not where I want to remain.

I’ll leave you with a passage from the first Book of the Living, from Octavia Butler’s character’s religion, Earthseed.

Chapter 39. Positive Obsession

God is Change,
And in the end,
God prevails.
But meanwhile…
Kindness eases Change.
Love quiets fear.
And a sweet and powerful
Positive obsession
Blunts pain,
Diverts rage,
And engages each of us
In the greatest,
The most intense
Of our chosen struggles.

Plug, plug, plug, I do music and audio, santiagoramones.com

I always end the podcast with my three things. They shape my life philosophy. Those three things are:
Love never fails.
It’s going to be okay.
I might be wrong.