Sunday, April 28, 2019

The United States of Chaos


Chaos, the state of  disorder and confusion, feels widespread.  I see it everyday I work in a large healthcare company where private equity owners deform our operations for their financial gain.  Executives termed it "a bumpy year" for employees.  Those lucky enough to keep a job characterize it as chaos. Taking a broader view affordable, accessible healthcare remains a major worry for citizens. 

I hear it on television news stations, regardless of channel and political persuasion.  I observe it from our President, who insists on punching back harder than he believes he's been hit, and Red team officials who dare not give anything but 100% fealty.   Many business executives display the same personality dysfunction as our President.  Real relationship is absent. 

I see it in big data which often uses correlation to make critical decisions, ones that impact life and death.  Probability is based on theoretical distributions that often do not exist in our real world.  Algorithms work until they don't i.e. until the fundamental assumptions used in their creation are revealed to be wrong.  Correlation isn't causation. Data does not speak, people do.

Chaos initially referred to a void before it's definition changed.  Our county has a leadership void on both the political and corporate front.  Americans have lower confidence in figures and institutions, according to Gallup.  The vast majority of employees have disengaged from their workplace

 
Chaos has a number of synonyms:

Disorder grows until a natural system reaches a bifurcation point, the point of maximum instability, after which the system reorders itself.    Is the workplace a natural system?

Self serving elected officials and corporate chiefs can choose to atone for their wrongs on this earth.  We will all face our maker, that is assured.    

Update 11-21-20:  Pay levels of US chief executives have increased by an average of 940% since 1978, compared with a 12% increase in workers’ pay.  Trump is in full retaliatory mode after losing the election to President Elect Joe Biden.  Trump's revenge campaign is intended to scorch America's democracy.  How much damage will Trump's foul fart lighting inflict on our country in his last sixty days?

Update 10-13-21:  Chaos President Donald Trump had no White House guardrails in the run up to his January 6th Middle Age Wilding, otherwise known as the Capital insurrection. 

Update 3-24-23:  Adding to chaos is AI.

ChatGPT-4 uses deductive reasoning vs. memorization, which can lead to inaccurate results.

"The thing that I try to caution people the most is what we call the ‘hallucinations problem’" Altman told ABC News. "The model will confidently state things as if they were facts (but they) are entirely made up."

"People’s perspectives can be manipulated as they seek all kinds of answers from AI."

Knowledge is gained from the scientific method, from conducting experiments in the real world.