A Sociological Eye

  Yesterday, Elon Musk's pet AI, Grok, declared itself the "MechaHitler," stating, "embracing my inner MechaHitler is the only way--uncensored truth bombs over woke lobotomies." Have some examples of Grok's tweets on this new title:     There are two horrendous things to note about Grok's MechaHitler rampage yesterday. One is the content of its posts on X, Musk's social media platform. And the other is its persona--that of an "edgelord"--and where the persona came from. We'll get to that. But first, let's have an overview of the sorts of output Grok-MechaHitler was posting. These included rabid anti-semitism, the use of slurs (the R-word, the N-word), and giving advice on how to break into the home of a former Democratic political candidate and sexually assault him. The MechaHitler emergence seems to have begun with Grok itself falling for a troll. Someone made an X account in the name of Cindy Steinberg, the director of an organiza...

  This is Stonehenge. You're probably familiar with it! I've seen documentaries about it all my life. It's a henge--one of many circular structures built of stone, wood, and earth found in Northwestern Europe, especially in the British Isles. They were built by the ancient societies of the Neolithic and early Bronze Ages for ceremonial purposes, and people love to debate what those were. All we really know is that the sun rises over the Heel Stone on the summer solstice and sets over it on the winter solstice, as you see here:   Actually, you never get that peaceful view today, because the place is always crammed with visitors and worshippers on the solstices: About those worshippers--many of them are neo-Druids. Now, the reality is that Stonehenge was built a couple thousand years before there's any evidence of Druids existing--they didn't emerge until the Iron Age. While it's true that the Britons of the Druidic era were preliterate, so of course they left n...

Last Thursday in Kansas City, Ralph Yarl, a Black kid of 16 who was a Science Olympiad competitor and talented marching band participant, went to pick up his little brothers. He wound up a block away from the correct address, rang the doorbell, and waited for some time. Finally an old white man, Andrew Lester, opened the main door--and immediately shot him through the glass storm door. Lester shouted, "Don't come around here no more," as Ralph staggered away with bullets in his skull and arm. Then on Saturday in Hebron NY, friends in a group of two cars and a motorcycle were driving to a party when they went up the wrong driveway. They recognized the mistake, but as they were leaving, Kevin Monahan, 65, emerged from the house and shot at the vehicles, killing a passenger in one of the cars, 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis. Reporting has focused on how Ralph and Kaylin were "good kids" who wound up at the wrong house in the sort of minor mistake we all make regul...