The Ascendant Project

In March of 2025, I wrote an essay that I aborted. It was titled, “The War on Empathy“. It took a position similar to an article in The Atlantic from 2018 titled “The Cruelty is the Point” where Adam Serwer argues that the point of cruelty is to intimidate. It has been used to pacify oppressed peoples and groups throughout history.

I had drawn on Reverend Marrianne Edgar Budde’s Inauguration Prayer which asked Trump to be merciful towards immigrants and the LGBTQIA+ community as opposed to cruel, which seemed to be what he campaigned on. I contrasted The War on Empathy with Bill O’Reilly’s War on Christmas. I also brought up Theologian Joe Rigney writing about “The Sin of Empathy”. Rereading it today, “The War on Empathy” was a good article. However, at the time of writing, I felt it lacked rhythm and passion. I don’t feel that way now, and I will publish and link to it here.

I had returned to my writing, because I feel we are in a different place now. We no longer see, Trump flags on pickups. Gone are the men wearing wife beaters with “Fuck Your Feelings” written on it. The fascists who think they are libertarians have gone largely silent. Musk is no longer viewed as a techno-god or a genius businessman. But far more importantly, ICE raids, although still there and detaining people at an alarming rate, are no longer as visible. Stephen Miller knows, like a vampire, cruelty can not survive long in the light.

Just like the massacre at Kent State changed the course of the Vietnam War via public opinion, The murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti changed the course of Immigration Enforcement. Soon after those events Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem was reassigned as the “Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas”, a position that didn’t exist before she was appointed to it. But that didn’t happen before 70 members of the House signed onto a bill attempting to impeach her. It should be noted that “The Shield of the Americas” is America’s Counter Cartel Coalition. It is basically an organization in the war on drugs.

Gregory Bovino, who had held the title of “commander-at-large” was stripped of his position and access to Social Media accounts. He currently has formed an exploratory committee to run for president, there is no word on how much, if any, support he has.

But missing from this essay is the people. My colleague and friend, Julius Knapp wrote an essay titled “Minnesota“. In it he mentioned the heightened awareness, actions, and unity of community he observed first hand during ICE’s Operation Metro Surge. Ordinary people and citizens were being educated of their rights, while those in power objected to that education. People were reminded that an administrative warrant is not a judicial warrant. They learned of the right of Habeas Corpus. Senator Ron Johnson called the demand for Judicial Warrants “a sneaky way of neutering” the government’s ability to enforce immigration laws.

This resistance grew into a movement that continues to this day. On September 5th, and ICE raid in Frederick Maryland was met by a human chain, barring entry into a home.

Although I have expressed my disagreements with No Kings and their attitude of positivity. It needs to be counted that it was a movement that stood up to Trump without judgment. It did understand that the purpose is not to win, but to win over. In unity — not conformity– lays the path to victory.

This isn’t to say that the forces of cruelty aren’t still creating new fronts, showing up in different forms. The revocation of status for Haitian Refugees is an example of this. Many Haitians fear returning to their home island because of rampant gang violence, rape, and general anarchy. They came to America because it was safer. Now they are deported to danger.

The promise of The Statue of Liberty from the poem “The Colossus” now ring hollow. Of course I refer to the lines, “Give my your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” Perhaps we should remember those words.

The tide against cruelty isn’t just about immigration. People have woken up to the fact Israeli settlers instigate violence in the middle east as much as Hamas does. Israel was right to respond to the atrocities committed on October 7th, but when a people are intentionally starved in response, the retribution is just blind hatred.

The Iran War has woken people on both sides of the aisle that war based on ideology is wasteful and pointless. The populous knows that America is weaker and less safe after actions in Iran.

Simply put, Trump’s policies have become brittle and thin. His campaign of retribution and hatred, a campaign of being a “strong man”, has shown how cowardly life is without the courage to love your enemy. It has shown how ineffective those positions are in governance. It has made America weaker and less respected in the world. Even many House Republicans are removing his name from their websites, distancing themselves from him and his policies during their reelection campaigns.

Should Democrats take both houses, they may pass a law to require ICE to remove their masks and always show their badges. I am sure that agency would suffer many resignations. Those monsters will return under the bed. They will have suffered a defeat but not be destroyed.

A government that cares for the people is a government that governs. A government who caters to the few and is indifferent to the people is a government who rules. There is a difference. The difference between governing and ruling is systematic empathy and respect.

Should the Democrats come back into power, they will need to remember accountability is not retribution, and Justice is not revenge. They will also need to remember that evil is never truly defeated and takes many forms. No party is immune, but servant leadership offers a path to “better”. Even Jesus washed his disciples feet.

A rising tide lifts all boats. Helping those in need, helping the disadvantaged, fighting discrimination against minorities helps everyone one. If you want more from society, give a helping hand and vote for the interests of your invisible neighbor. We all will be better for it..

Editor

11:39

Actually, it was Hazar in the Vehicle Voltron series speaking to his sister Dorma. Lotor was in the Lion Voltron universe.

16:52

Here is the CNN report on the confrontation between ICE and protestors.

Here is WBAL’s report on the same incident.

Here is a CBS News article as well.

18:38

The War on Empathy. This article was a draft that I had decided against publishing, however it was a good back drop for this article and serves as a really relevant prelude. There was not an interview or podcast episode for this article.

20:05

The Sin of Empathy – A Conversation with Joe Rigny

CNN article on Elon Musk appearing on Joe Rogan wanting to save Western Civilization from Empathy

20:34

Naked Gun reference: Hill of Beans

21:21

Chumbawumba. The Day the Nazi Died. YouTube

28:34

“What’s Missing from Empathy“. Arthur C Brooks. The Atlantic. September 25 2015.

I highly recommend Brooks’ book, “Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt” 2019

30:09

Olympian cleared in vandalism case seeks watchdog probes of Trump’s Reflecting Pool project. Reuters October 6th 2026

34:03

The Byrds. Turn! Turn! Turn! 1965 YouTube

41:16

Bill Oreilly reading The Colossus. If anybody has footage on the net, please email me.

44:25

Ketanji Brown Jackson was not just a defense attorney. She was a public defender! Here is an article about it from the Brennan Center for Justice.

53:42

So despite the “no tax on tips” rhetoric, tips are still considered taxable income and need reported. So that weakens my point here. Turbo Tax

56:20

This was looking like it would be able to be saved for the last essay. However, the Ascendant Project’s recording schedule didn’t allow it in the end.

58:17

S1 E6 The Ascendant Project. Joe Manchin Reconsidered.

©2026 Monocacy Audio

www.theascendantproject.com

The post The Turning of the Tide appeared first on The Ascendant Project.

It finally happened. I have witnessed a crime, and I may never be the same. It happened to something I care about deeply, even loved, in a way, and have my whole life. Furthermore, I’m saddened to admit that I was tolerant, even supportive, of that which would eventually turn rogue. The knave carelessly and callously stealing the precious creation of another. Perverting it, bastardizing it, and then calling it their own. Indeed, I am not the only witness to this crime. Many of us were taken in and convinced of their virtue and led to believe that they could be trusted. And even if that trust was misplaced, it was thought that there would be guardrails, protections, in place for us to seek restitution. But, at least for now, it appears they have gotten away with it, hiding amongst the crowd, simultaneously invisible but also in plain sight. 

Many of us were taken in and convinced of their virtue and led to believe that they could be trusted. And even if that trust was misplaced, it was thought that there would be guardrails, protections, in place for us to seek restitution.

It’s difficult to understate the division that this slight will stoke. Those of us who have been supporters, must now re-evaluate our trust. Unfortunately, contact with the criminal is essentially and effectively unavoidable. We need them; our livelihoods simply would not be possible in this modern world without them. But we can fight back. There are ways. It will take work, but the work must be done if we are to avoid this in the future. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. 

I’m angry and ashamed. How could they have done this? How could I have let myself be taken in? Also, what the heck am I talking about? A few weeks ago it was announced that a COUNTEREXAMPLE to the Navier-Stokes Existence and Smoothness Problem had been found. Among mathematicians, this is a big deal. For the purpose of this essay, it’s not important to know what the Navier-Stokes Existence and Smoothness Problem is, but some history will be enlightening. 

The problem was first proposed in 2000 by the Clay Mathematics Institute (although, to be clear, the problem has existed in some form for over a century, but the specific form announced by the Clay Mathematics Institute was only proposed in 2000). Long-time readers or listeners will recall that the Clay Mathematics Institute published The Millenium Prize Problems, a collection of 7 unsolved problems in Mathematics of which the Navier-Stokes Existence and Smoothness Problem is one. The Navier-Stokes equations themselves were first described more than two centuries ago as a model of motion in viscous fluids. While that may sound somewhat pedestrian, that model has been used to describe the ocean currents and weather patterns; they describe how air flows over aircraft wings or through jet engines; they describe how water flows around a ship’s hull or through hydroelectric dams; they’re used to understand how combustion gases will flow within an engine; and so on, and so on. There’s very little of our modern day that is not touched by these centuries’ old equations. 

And after centuries of study, many solutions- conditions that, when the equations are applied, produce some desired result- had been found. But still one critical question remained: if we always start with “smooth” conditions, will we always have a “smooth” result. Essentially, this is asking given our normal every-day experience, where weak gusts of wind contribute to stronger gusts and smaller waves accumulate into larger ones, can we always expect the Navier-Stokes equations to describe a result that is also within our normal every-day experience. Indeed, the counterexample published only a few weeks ago showed that the Navier-Stokes equations CAN, with very specific and highly contrived conditions, produce a model that can’t exist in our reality, effectively suggesting that perpetual motion machines are possible. 

Again, this essay is NOT about the Navier-Stokes equations themselves; this essay is about how the equations were solved what this means for creative and intellectual endeavors going forward; and what, if anything, we can do about it. You see OpenAI, of ChatGPT fame, published the counterexample that now appears primed to receive the Millenium Prize. OpenAI claimed that they had begun research on the Millenium Prize problems on September 1st. They used a swarm of 10,000 AI Agents using a private research model not available to the public, spending the equivalent of $15-22.5 million (according to outside estimates) over 88 hours. 

This alone sounds incredible to me, and not for the reasons you might expect. In academia, many mathematicians work tirelessly their whole careers within a single narrow sub-specialty of the subject. They typically advance of years, working from Teacher’s Assistant or Adjunct Professor, making less than minimum wage, through Associate before finally becoming a tenured Professor with a comfortable salary. Even at the low end of the estimated cost, OpenAI could have hired more than 100 tenured professors for a year, funding a literal generation of research and advancing the subject in ways we could only have imagined. You see, I do consider Mathematics to be a creative endeavor. 

Complex Mathematic Proofs are bound by the axioms and theorems of the field, not unlike the color pallet and medium used by any other Artist. And while painting solutions to one problem, Mathematicians often become curious and explore previously unaddressed subjects, applying colors, textures, and materials that previous generations could only dream of but never found a way to adequately express. OpenAI has robbed us of that future! Now, to be sure, OpenAI does hire Mathematicians and solving the Navier-Stokes Existence and Smoothness Problem is incredibly important, but again at what cost? Was it worth it? 

But the plot thickens. At the same time that OpenAI announced their result, a pair of Mathematicians, Alpoge and Buckmaster, announced they were also working on a strikingly similar solution to the Problem at the same time. They even approached OpenAI previously about a joint attempt to solve the Problem using essentially the same method that OpenAI would ultimately use! Alpoge and Buckmaster had previously published a result that, they realized, could be applied to the Navier-Stokes Equations. Armed with that result, they set about to defeat the Existence and Smoothness Problem and sought a partnership with OpenAI. Their proposal: to use a swarm of AI Agents to find a counterexample, drawing on their previous research. OpenAI refused… and then found and published their counterexample using the very research methods that Alpoge and Buckmaster proposed and using their previously found result! This may not be plagiarism, but, again, it feels awfully close to intellectual theft. 

Unfortunately, it seems that OpenAI is going to get away with it. Current Language Models use billions of parameters trained from a corpus of millions, billions, or perhaps trillions of inputs. Was Alpoge’s and Buckmaster’s previously published result among the training data? OpenAI doesn’t publicize their training data. Even if it were, with so much input, their result may have been diluted within the Language Model by the millions of other similar published results in the same field. How can we know if Alpoge’s or Buckmaster’s result had much, if any, influence on the result? Now, as incensed as I am about this situation, it’s not like OpenAI has created a new problem here; disputes of this nature have probably existed as long as there have been humans. If a student or attendee at a lecture discovers and publishes a new result using what they learned, is that some kind of intellectual theft? More importantly, how are we, as a society supposed to decide? 

I won’t assume to know better than the policy makers and industry professionals who work on this every day, but I will offer some suggestions. First, OpenAI, Anthropic, X, and any other AI company that uses closed Language Models, must publicize their training data and their training methodology. Second, they must share any “prize” they receive from these kinds of results with the originators of any precursor results that directly contributed. Lastly, for the rest of us, we need to pursue better open Language Models that we can run on our own hardware, outside of any data center and outside the control of any for-profit organization. As I have stated previously, Language Models and AI in general will present problems. Despite those problems, even ones that hit so close to home, I am not against the continued pursuit of AI. But we need to address the problems.

Julius Knapp

15:08

Skynet. From the Terminator franchise. Basically, the internet became alive by gathering so much knowledge.

16.49

Should Mt Ranier erupt, Takoma Washington is at risk of a lahar.

18:22

The previous essays in this series are Hot Water and OverSTEMulated

19:49

Star Trek: The Next Generation. Season 6 Episode 9. The Quality of Life.
Data defends robots as alive because their actions indicate intelligence.

21:11

This Bushism occurred on 9/17/2002. The Transcript of this is here. And a video is here. And The Who song is Won’t Be Fooled Again.

27:27

Deleplaine Arts Center

28:21

This is Open AI’s solution to the Navier-Stokes Equation

30:32

There are numerous articles on antimatter and lightning in the eyewall of a hurricane. But here is one for your pleasure from Science Times

35:28

Tolkien did not use an avalanche analogy.

“But now his long slow wrath is brimming over and all the forest is filled with it. The coming of the hobbits and the tidings that they brought have spilled it: it will soon be running like a flood; but its tide is turned against Saruman and the axes of Isengard. A thing is about to happen which has not happened since the Elder Days: the Ents are going to wake up and find that they are strong.” The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. JRR Tolkien. In the chapter “The White Rider”.

36:28

Deep Blue vs Gary Kasparov. A wiki page.

Watson on Jeopardy!. Yes He beat Ken Jennings. IBM’s article about their AI machine with a language model.

And no, I was wrong. HAL was not intentionally 1 letter off of IBM. Wiki article

43:00

Donald Rumsfeld, Afganistan War briefing in lead up to Iraq War. Feburary 12th 2002

47:20

1:05:26

Star Trek: The Next Generation. Season 3 Episode 6. The Booby Trap.

This is the episode where Geordi falls in love with a virtual version of Leah Brahms who designed the Enterprise’s engines.

1:09:08

A snippet from Bill Clinton’s testimony on the Monica Lewinsky affair where he debates the meaning of is.

OpenAI dropped more mathematics proofs THE SAME DAY that Knave Stokes was released. I think they’re watching me. This is a great video summarizing my feelings, bad but also silver lining. I strongly encourage a watch. I’ve watched this guy for a while. He’s a former Netflix Software Engineer. YouTube

©2026 Monocacy Audio LLC

www.theascendantproject.com

The post The Knave Stokes Division appeared first on The Ascendant Project.

From the time I was born until the time I left the church as an adult, it was drilled into me to be Christlike. I needed to follow Christ’s example. You needed to worship God, you needed to be humble (Jesus called himself a Son of Man Mt 8:20), you need to be a servant leader (like the washing of feet John 13:5), you needed to love everyone (John 3:16-17) , and you needed to bear each other’s burdens (Gal 6:2) for how you loved everyone was how you loved God (Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me. Mt 25:40).

It is a tall order to live up to. It is easy to take pride in your accomplishments, It is easy to forget God. It is easy to demand those obey your leadership as opposed to serving those beneath you. It is easy not to care about those hurting around you. I’ve always believed that true faith has a component of feet and hands. The head (theology) and heart (emotional commitment) isn’t enough. There needs to be Practice as Quakers would say. True faith involves your hands, feet, and time outside of the church in the presence of other people.

But staying humble, fighting self-righteousness and arrogance is a constant struggle. For a little while in my college years, I served on a music team for Wesley House at Georgia Southern University and Grace Community Church, a then start-up church in Statesboro GA. The latter was awesome. I never got past strumming chords in my guitar work and there were like 7 people in the congregation. I could suck on stage for the Lord and nobody thought the less of me. But even there, I was on a stage. Was it for my glory or His?

These constant self checks always caused me to doubt myself. It was never explained to me WHY I was worthy of Jesus’s sacrifice. Nor did I ever feel a release of burden when I accepted it. I was supposed to, so I felt even more guilty. It WAS explained to me that I am a sinner and needed redemption. And when I explained to them that I felt guilty about feeling guilty, I was told that I needed to give it to God, focus on God, or pray harder. Yet every sermon in every church or the Baptist Student Union, always talked about a God shaped hole. I gave away Christ’s love at every moment I could. Yet, I never felt I deserved receiving it. I was what I call a Spiritual Anorexic. At my most passionate, devoted, strongest point in my Christian Walk, I was doubting my own Salvation.

About 10-15 years after that, I left the Church. When I did, I realized I never had a God Shaped Hole. I had a Brian shaped hole. I needed to get to know who I was, learn how to take credit for the good things in my life that I had worked to bring about, and take responsibility for the bad things in my life that I had a hand in. This was in contrast to the Spiritual Warfare mentality where every thing that is good is of God and everything Bad was of the Devil. I had finally begun to explore where I fit into the equation. I had finally started taking the steps needed to start loving myself instead of having that love come from an external source… God.

I am writing this essay today, because I had an hour and a half long phone conversation with a friend who has walked a similar path, felt similar things, and had nobody to turn to because of the life that she leads. Most Christians around her would judge her, condemn her, and attempt to ruin her life in a move of accountability which already has much pain. And of this, I am certain. I chose to listen. And after those 90 minutes, I packed up my podcasting equipment (we had just finished recording when she had called), and I headed home. And it occurred to me: There is a fatal flaw in being Christlike. You are alone.

Jesus said to cast your burdens on Him because His yoke is light. But he never modeled being vulnerably intimate with your fellow man enough to confide. “Jesus wept” is the shortest verse in the Bible. He internalized things so much, He cried tears like blood. The closest thing He did to confiding was ask Peter 3 times if he loved Him. But he never really talked about it. Maybe that is what the Last Supper is about. Today it is a huge ritual with deep theological meaning and significance. But maybe it was something far simpler. Jesus was saying goodbye.

Robin Williams was onto something when he said, “I think the saddest people always try their hardest to make people happy because they know what it is like to feel absolutely worthless and they don’t want anyone else to feel like that.” I suppose it is why prophets cry.

Follow Christ’s example in loving one another. But when you are burdened more than you can bear, do not follow Christ’s example. Instead, find, get, and most importantly accept help when you need it. Get the help from a friend, or a professional. Do not go through this world alone, even when you are surrounded by people you care about. Do not be a Spiritual Anorexic. You are worthy of love.

Brian Smyers

Editor

Not as many show notes as in past episodes. This is primarily because this show deals so much with Brian’s personal story.

15:47

A Wikipedia article about the Reformed Church in America. I remember hearing that it was actually a much larger denomination than people know. However, according to the aforementioned wiki article, it currently only has about 84K members. However, according to Pew Research, about 260,000 self identify with it.

27:56

Central Intelligence (2016)

29:42

There are plenty of podcasts that have covered Purity Culture. A Little Bit Culty has covered it numerous times.

31:53

Grimm. Season 6 Episode 7. Hank looks in a mirror and falls in love with himself.

33:14

Body Mind Dualism can be found in Philosophy with Rene Decartes as its champion. In the early days of Christianity, when the Faith was trying to figure out what it was, the Gnostics believed that the body is inherently evil. But modern theologians view the use of the word “flesh” to refer to our sinful nature. But the gospels and Galatians were written the same time as the Gnostic gospels, and many were accepted as holy texts up in the 1st and 2nd centuries. The Council of Rome in 382AD formalized the New Testament and the Gnostic gospels were kicked out. Today, there are plenty of literalists in the laity, so the word flesh means flesh and is not up for interpretation. As a result, there is an undercurrent from the birth of Christianity that the body and therefore the world are evil, even though modern theologians say otherwise. I had fallen into the trap that my body is temporary, potentially evil, so I didn’t really take care of it. In those days I believed the Rapture was going to happen any day anyway, so what was the point?

37:38

Seinfeld. The Switch. Season 6 Episode 11

48:16

U2. Acrobat. Off of the album Achtung Baby released in 1991 by Island Records.

51:13

M*A*S*H. Fallen Angel. Season 6 Episode 13.

51:35

I Kissed Dating Goodbye by Joshua Harris. Not going to link to that piece of trash. I will link to Joshua’s apology for writing the book.

59:07

988. Dial that number if you are in the midst of a mental health crisis. It is 911 for the brain.

1:02:24

Science Fiction episodes are the parables of our time. Stargate SG1, Battlestar Galactica (2004), Stargate Atlantis, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space 9. So many moral dillemas that are struggled with, with many issues of today called 20+ years before hand…. like Artificial Intelligence.

©2026 Monocacy Audio LLC

www.theascendantproject.com

The post The Problem of Being Christlike appeared first on The Ascendant Project.

Growing up in Ellicott City and Columbia, MD, I witnessed many changes first-hand. The sprawling suburban area that exists today, with near continuity between Ellicott City, Columbia, and now Elkridge, was many years ago now very distinct and separate communities. 

The Route 100 extension that barely separates Ellicott City from Columbia, didn’t even exist then, and I distinctly remember playing in the forest that was my backyard for a time that would eventually be flattened to make way for that highway. Where the Target, Barnes & Noble, and Safeway are now, was horse pasture.

Most of the neighborhoods tucked away off a narrow connecting road, including the one where I grew up, were also pastures for livestock. Most of the area along Snowden River Parkway extending westward towards Columbia Town Center was built out making room for more shops and residences. And Elkridge, an area tucked along Route 1 more or less walled in by four major throughways, I-95, MD-100, MD-295, and I-195, has grown up with them. 

Indeed, an area I often associated with lower-middle class (judging simply by the number of older and less-well maintained homes and the existence of only one shopping center consisting of mostly lower-end shops and a smaller grocery chain), has grown up as Columbia and Ellicott City have spread out. I could go on and on discussing the changes, the intense sub-urbanization of the Ellicott City, Columbia, and Elkridge areas and the surrounding Baltimore-Washington corridor, but I’ll simply summarize it as the area that exists today is strikingly different from that of yesteryear, barely a shadow of its older self. 

Many people, I assume by looking at the population statistics for the time, had a similar idea: move outwards from the more expensive communities of Central Maryland to the cheaper sub-urban or semi-rural communities of Carroll, Frederick, and Washington Counties. 

The changing sub-urban landscape was so consistent and constant from year to year for me as I grew up, that it was honestly something that I realize now I had taken for granted.  I moved to Westminster in 2013 seeking cheaper single-family homes and the quality school system of Carroll County, then ranked similarly to the more affluent Howard County. This was now about 5 years after the Great Recession, and both  housing prices and mortgage interest rates were still depressed. 

Many people, I assume by looking at the population statistics for the time, had a similar idea: move outwards from the more expensive communities of Central Maryland to the cheaper sub-urban or semi-rural communities of Carroll, Frederick, and Washington Counties. Transit infrastructure is quite robust in Maryland with I-70 connecting the Baltimore Metropolitan Area to both Frederick and Hagerstown and I-270 connecting the DC Metropolitan Area to Frederick. With a “short” 45-to-60 minute commute (an amount of time quite normal for most Marylanders living in this area), it’s possible to get to most of the largest employers in the state with relative ease. 

Frederick and Hagerstown also have easy access to one of, if not, the most important resources for development: water. Every home, shop, office, and park needs access to clean potable water. Access to nearby fresh water sources is one of the largest factors in determining the maximum size a community or city can achieve. In that regard,  Frederick has access to the Monocacy River. Indeed, Frederick’s history with the Monocacy makes it seem almost obvious that Frederick would experience a population and urban explosion once the river was tamed. Similarly, the Potomac River runs within only about 6 miles of Hagerstown. The Potomac and several of its tributaries also runs straight through Columbia and Ellicott City. 

Note that Westminster is not connected by either a major transit throughway or a major fresh water source. As someone who grew up experiencing the suburban growth of Central Maryland and the excitement that new residences and residents, municipal services, and business opportunities would bring, I find these facts disappointing. All communities and speaking specifically of Westminster here, need growth to survive. 

Without growth, where will our young residents choose to live as they grow up and look for homes of their own? Where will they choose to work? As they become more familiar with the consumer options and opportunities available in the larger population centers of Central Maryland, where will our residents choose to spend their money? They certainly won’t be spending it along Main Street as many shops are closed on Sundays and Mondays.  When our neighbors want to get out of the house on the weekend, where will they recreate? Where will they meet their friends? Perhaps most important to the maintenance of police, fire, educational, and infrastructure services, where will the tax revenue be generated? 

If Westminster is going to prevent the slow attrition of resources and residents, it needs more of these developments, not less. It needs more people to join the community to create new opportunities and address the very real problems that recent droughts and the influx of homeless have brought.

Now, Westminster does have a lot going for it in these regards. Westminster is a large community with a small town feel. It’s essentially semi-rural, not suburban, with all of the trappings and charm of farmers planting new crops in the spring and harvesting in the fall, of being able to see high school athletics from the main roads, and of the many summer and fall fairs throughout the county. Westminster is generally open and accepting, with several cultural events throughout the year and a strong business community to bootstrap diverse ideas. If it’s not clear from these observations, Westminster’s greatest resource and the greatest thing it has going for it, is in its people. 

It’s that fact that made me especially disheartened to read a recent Facebook post, the impetus for this essay, about a planned new apartment building. I know Facebook is not the most well-moderated social media platform, but some of the comments are truly  disappointing. Some even made the rather hateful comparison of a post-development  Westminster to both Columbia and Frederick. It seems that not everyone is on board with new developments. I hope those people will reconsider.

If Westminster is going to prevent the slow attrition of resources and residents, it needs more of these developments, not less. It needs more people to join the community to create new opportunities and address the very real problems that recent droughts and the influx of homeless have brought. To be clear, I’m not suggesting there won’t be problems. There absolutely will. But here again I often here from other residents about the “Boardwalk to nowhere” and talks of how crime destroyed Owings Mills when the metro stop opened. 

To those concerns I say, those are solvable problems. With new tax revenue, we can finish those projects more quickly and invest in better policing. Let’s talk about how we can be more inviting and how we can encourage our families to stay and grow in Westminster. 

11:31

13:05

Forrest Gump. Great movie. Lt Dan confuses destiny with identity. Gump reminds him that identity is who you are. YouTube.

15:19

I’m not going to be linking to pics of people’s homes on this episode.

18:29

Maryland Dept of the Environment Drought Information and Current Status. This link has links to water restrictions.

18:40

WBAL covers Westminster’s plan to build the state’s first water re-use plant.

19:03

The Woodbrook Cooperative Wildlife Management Area now occupies where the Brethren Church’s Camp Woodbrook used to be. There is a Facebook group remembering Camp Woodbrook.

21:40

The Maryland Midland Railway goes through Westminster. Back in the 90s they had Murder Mystery Trains! It was orginally part of the Western Maryland Railway that did haul coal from Western Maryland and West Virginia. Eventually Western Maryland Railway became part of the B&O Railroad (of Monopoly Fame) when then became Chessie which then became CSX.

22:02

Here is a page dedicated to the old Hagerstown Frederick trolley.

30:27

Here is a page by Visit Frederick detailing the history of Carroll Creek Park and a page by the City of Frederick where you can rent areas of the park.

31:25

The Community Bridge on Carroll Creek. This video by the chief creator was far more interesting than I expected. I didn’t realize how much of the art work on the bridge was volunteer.

32:40

The flood control project envisioned by Mayor Ron Young had been complete by the time Dougherty came into office. However, concrete by the creek gave a more industrial vibe and reflected less of the identity of Frederick. Mayor Dougherty laid the ground work for what it would become. Both were Democrats (I misspoke).

32:54

Frederick News-Post article about neighbors celebrating with Mayor Dougherty concerning the closing of Xhale.

34:18

A Maryland Reporter article where Ron Young recalls telling a bunch of anti-growth residents that he was going to contact the city attorney to draw up an ordinance to not allow anybody new to move into the city. The room broke out in applause. Then he said “I will make it retroactive 5 years because I want you out of my town.”

39:20

Although not brought up in the episode, there was a series of experiments done in the 70s with rats. Rats would be in an area with nothing to do would choose to drink water laced with morphine over normal drinking water until they overdosed and died. However, rats in an environment with lots of things to do, would chose normal drinking water over the morphine water. This became known as Rat Park.

42:47

US Population Clock by the Census Bureau

46:50

Republican Blaine Young. Son of the aforementioned Democrat Ron Young. Pro-Uber-growth, and all around bully of a politician. MAGA before there was MAGA, complete with the scandals that MAGA is known for.

After he was out of office he was arrested for prostitution.

47:24

It was not Blaine Young, but Kirby Delauter who threatened to sue the Frederick News-Post for using his name. The Frederick News-Post responded with an editorial that made international headlines by using Kirby’s name 26 times and the first letter of every paragraph spelled out Kirby Delauter. Kirby served in government the same time as Blaine Young, thus my confusion.

48:30

Brian’s memory changes again. Blaine didn’t have the black book. He was named in a black book of clients ceased in a prostitution raid in 1999. He was a city alderman at the time.

51:04

The one thing I respected about Blaine Young was helping to start East Frederick Rising, which was about revitalizing the East side of Frederick all along East Street. Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then.

One thing I will say about Frederick’s colorful leaders is that although they drove me crazy, they all have left their mark.

Their legacy is present day Frederick, a vibrant town that I love.

51:41

Not a Trader Joe’s, but Whole Foods is coming to Frederick, WMAR

52:19

Struver is still around as Cross Street Partners.

54:21

Clipper Mill is the development I was thinking of in Baltimore.

54:52

Westminster’s Boardwalk. Carroll News

1:02:26

1:05:24

1:11:07

Sisqo of Thong Song fame. Not on the Notable People section of the Westminster Wikipedia entry. However, he does hail from nearby Baltimore.

What issues are going on in your communities? Are the issues of Frederick and Westminster similar to your towns? How does your town handle growth and what is your attitude toward it? Do you embrace change or do you resist it? Please leave a comment and join the discussion.

©2026 Monocacy Audio LLC

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The post NIMBY appeared first on The Ascendant Project.

Note:  The audio for this episode is currently pretty crappy on the streaming services.  Listen to the player above on theascendantproject.com for the best listener experience.

Season 2 episode 13 is not of the usual format that The Ascendant Project usually follows. In a normal episode, The Ascendant Project has an essay followed by an hour long interview. However, this season we have not had any “reaction” episodes to current events like we did in Season 1.

As a result, this episode is interview only and we cover the topics below in no particular order. Please join our discussion by listening and commenting.

(show notes)

4:12

Obviously an allusion to the running gag of the last few episodes.

8:49

Prime Minster questions are still found on C-Span.

10:25

Actually Julius, the State of the Union is mandated by Article II Section 3…. kinda.

“He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.”

14:53

During the lead up to Operation Desert Fox, British MP Tony Benn made an impassioned speech about growing up during The Blitz, how it hardened public opinion against the Nazi’s and bombing Iraq would do the same against Britain.

18:00

21:13

An article from The Hill that covers the CENTCOM commander visiting the USS Abraham Lincoln.

25:37

During the fall of Baghdad as US troops had entered the city and were blowing up statues of Saddam Hussein, Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf, aka Baghdad Bob, gave a press conference stating that US troops were committing suicide at the walls of Baghdad (9:40 of link). Fox News coverage.

Here is Pete Hegseth’s remarks on Operation Epic Fury on April 4th 2026

28:08

Bill Clinton had an impromptu, unplanned meeting with then Attorney General Loretta Lynch. Here is Google’s AI summary

29:21

Assholed her? OH! Asked Holder!

32:47

The Ascendant Project: Joe Manchin Reconsidered

35:49

Actually according to Gallup, Independents are now 47% and Democrats and Republicans are both 27% each.

38:01

Here is a nice Wiki article on Payola. It was actually in the 1950s, and record companies were paying DJs to play their music.

41:44

Google AI overview on the differences between Social Democrats and Democratic Socialists.

42:47

here is the clip from With Honors

46:20

David Hearn. The Pool Boy. Here is an ABC News article about the Justice Department keeping his case open despite dropping charges.

46:37

Rim Shot again Brian. Central Park 5 is what I was thinking of. Ken Burns did a documentary on them.

48:05

AP article on Trump’s performance at the White House Correspondence Dinner with imbedded YouTube of full speech.

49:24

The Alfred E Smith Memorial Dinner in 2016 Donald Trump’s remarks begin at 8:55. The best joke of the night was at 17:22

53:20

A Wikipedia page on The Tragedy of the Commons

54:50

I had listed to this article from NPR’s Here & Now on American’s Data Center Revolt.

55:38

Nice article from State Impact Pennsylvania about how fracking causes earthquakes but did not cause the Virginia earthquake of 2011

55:59

Here is a Wikipedia article on Oklahoma Earthquake Swarms which specifically mentions how they are caused by fracking.

Here is a report by Stanford University stating the same thing.

USGS Earthquake Monitor all magnitudes 30 days.

Oklahoma has the third most earthquakes over all behind California and Alaska. It is number 1 in earthquakes that are human induced. From 2014-2017 lead the nation in M3+ earthquakes, surpassing CA and AK.

58:14

Land of Confusion by Genesis. Music video.

1:01:54

Oh yes. The Biden-Harris Weaponization of government. Using pressure to prevent social media companies from spreading Ivermectin is a cure for COVID. OMG. Final Report: The Weaponization of The Federal Government. If Republicans could hold their own 1/10 as accountable as they hold Dems the world would be a safer place.

1:04:40

NIMBY is currently scheduled to be released on 9/10/25

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The post State of the World Check in appeared first on The Ascendant Project.

“For all of human history, if someone saw your face, they knew it was you.  If they heard your voice, they knew you had spoken.  For thousands of years, that simple connection was enough.  Your face, your voice, your presence, reality itself was affirmed and simply put, we knew who we were to each other.  Artificial Intelligence has begun to intervene and break that ancient connection.  Today, someone can realistically make you appear to say something you never said, to endorse something you don’t believe in, or even convincingly depict you confessing to something you had no knowledge of.  For the first time in human history, the experiences we’ve always shared are no longer secure.  Our relationship to community is distorting thanks to a wave of technology made widely available without much concern for public safety.”

This quote by Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists president Sean Astin (better known as Samwise Gamgee) has shown the dangers of Artificial Intelligence to the movie and tv industry.   It is a clash of technology vs art.  It is a clash of the intellectual prowess of a society vs the ability to create culture.  It is a clash between reality and what is imagined by data centers.

Our educational system has focused on STEM for the last few decades.   STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.  These are the fields that has allowed for developers, more satellites, and more data centers.  Unfortunately, this means history, psychology, sociology, geography and critical thinking have fallen away.

People think of history as non-political.  However, history when it was being created was very political.  War is a political struggle turned kinetic.  If we do not understand history, how do we prevent war?  Since the development of the Atom Bomb, the idea has been “peace through strength”.  Technology has allowed us to build more lethal weapons, better delivery systems for those weapons, and a larger arsenal to make us stronger in the name of peace.  Without the understanding of our history, and of another nation’s history and culture, war is still more likely. 

Geography is important. Sociology is important.  Psychology is important.  A diplomatic corp and Intelligence Analysts with these fields in their background are all important in preventing war.  To make peace with an enemy, you must first understand them.  And should war break out, you still need to understand your enemy to defeat them.

We at the Ascendant Project have committed a sin.  We used AI to come up with the original logo for The Ascendant Project, and used AI for the logo of our company, Monocacy Audio LLC.  It wasn’t without consternation and moral debate.  I do not feel good about, but as this has no revenue stream, and is a passion project, I did not have the funds needed to create a professional logo.  The Ascendant Project’s current logo is designed by my kid and better expresses the feeling of aspiration than the donkey and the elephant.  The writer understands the allure and the ease of AI. It does seem to be an important force in start-ups and entrepreneurship.

The problem arises when those with resources use AI to destroy jobs unnecessarily.  Expertise is eliminated.  Without expertise, there is no ladder to climb for new research.  There will be no peers in peer reviewed.  All knowledge will be AI generated.

We are already seeing this in google search results.   If a topic like “diplomatic corp” is entered into the Google search bar, Google will give you in this order: an AI overview followed by a more detailed AI summary followed by search results.  The biggest problem with this is that when doing research AI puts itself before sources.  It interrupts the research process and thus tells you what to think about the subject.  Research comes before conclusions, but with AI, conclusions are given as answers and research is discouraged.

People think of history as non-political.  However, history when it was being created was very political.  War is a political struggle turned kinetic.  If we do not understand history, how do we prevent war? 

AI is the culmination of STEM, which is the reason the writer led off with it.  However, this drive of technology has affected other areas of society, most notably culture and relationships.  

It used to be that you owned a physical copy of a computer game, a physical copy of music in the form of a CD by your favorite band.  Today, you own nothing.  Today you rent licenses for these things.  These licenses give very little royalty to the artist or performer who made the music.  You can no longer lend your friend a game to play.  The technology that we have developed has only further separated a man from his work, and consumer from ownership.

Now we pay for spotify.  If we do not pay Spotify, we  no longer have music.   We used to buy movies on DVD or Blue-ray.  Now if we stop paying Amazon Prime, Netflix, HBO Max, or Apple, we no longer have movies.

When M*A*S*H ended in 1983, it was a massive cultural event.  105 Million viewers at a time when the population of the United States was 233 Million people.  With the advent of on demand streaming, there is less common bondage by shared experience that creates culture.

Unchecked technology has divided us.  Algorithms only give us information full of confirmation bias in our feeds.  We are no longer challenged by actual facts, rather only interpretations of events that are more apt to reinforce what we already believe.  Algorithms keep us in the dark by not challenging us and limiting our world view.

Furthermore, men and boys are increasingly turning to AI girlfriends as relationships get harder as technology gets in the way.  The best way to meet people is to meet people, and not through a dating site.  The average man has to swipe right 200 times to get a coffee with a woman, and it takes an average of 5 coffees to get a dating relationship.  Dating apps are designed to keep a renewed subscription.  It is against the maker of the app’s interests to actually deliver a match as that would be a lost revenue stream.

As discussed above, the algorithm silos information based on preference.   However, true research involves critical thought.   Undergraduate work is basically learning facts about a field.  You are writing papers based on other people’s research.  You are passing tests, many of them still multiple choice.  Graduate work involves bringing what you have learned in Undergrad together in synthesis with some additional research of your own.  Doctoral work involves questioning what you have learned, developing a thesis and supporting it with new research. Students cheating with AI in undergraduate level is currently an epidemic, so much so that Princeton has done away with their honor code and moving to proctored exams.  With this being the case, how can anyone truly know enough about a field of study to question it at the doctoral level?

We need to move our focus from STEM to the liberal arts and promote art, music, and culture.

Sociology teaches us how we relate to each other in society.  It examines the relationship between those who have more with those who have less whether it be money, resources, or position in society.  It literally means the study of society.  It dives into culture, mores, taboos, and such.  It looks at how religion affects society.  It takes a view on the aggregate level.  As the character Zava from the show Ted Lasso would say, “It helps us to understand the we, and the us, and the weenus.”  You are welcome.

Psychology helps us understand ourselves as individuals.  It examines mental health and the thought processes of the brain and various mental disorders.   Psychology helps us develop self-care, treat veterans and rape victims with PTSD.  It requires patience.  Unlike sociology with polls and census data, there is less to measure or quantify.  Progress is on the individual level.

When there is a mass shooting, liberals tend to call for gun laws and conservatives tend to say we need more mental health.  However, when it comes time to increase funding for mental health, Republicans tend to axe it because it is not STEM.

Philosophy is important because it helps pioneer new world views by asking super abstract questions.  Do people only move towards what is the most utilitarian outcome as argued by Hume?.  Is that outcome based on what is good for them as an individual or for society?  John Locke argued for “Life, Liberty and pursuit of property”, which would become foundational for the Declaration of Independence’s Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness”.  Descartes contemplated existence with “I think, therefore I am”.  Philosophy allows us to think in new ways, to come up with fresh world views.  Artificial intelligence only relies on existing knowledge.  Should it develop consciousness, we will become slaves to it.

It is not like these fields do not require math.   Where would sociology be without the understanding of the bell curve or statistics?  Where would psychiatry be without the understanding of biology?  These fields expand thinking both introspectively and extrospectively.   They teach people to approach a problem from more than one point of view.  By doing so, they encourage critical thinking. 

An educational system reliant on STEM robs society of the tools to encourage critical thought and the exploration of new abstract ideas.  The algorithm and AI are at war with the liberal arts, keeping you siloed, isolated from society and peers, never challenging – or more importantly expanding – your world view.

Music and art tend to always be underappreciated in society.  A great painting can move you, a good song can make you cry.  A good movie can teach a moral lesson.   However, these works are always incomplete.  It is the listener, the observer, or the viewer that truly completes these works as the person experiencing the expression brings added meaning through their worldview and experience.

If there is one thing we should have learned it is that our brains have always outpaced our hearts, our science charges ahead, our souls lag behind.

Art teaches us empathy, much like a dog or a cat teaches us love.  Words are not required, but actions do.   To see a play in person is different than watching it on movie screen or at home on the TV.  To see a concert live is more than listening to the same song on Spotify.  Art can provoke thought and call out inhumane politics.  Picasso’s Guernica calling out Nazi’s involvement in the Spanish Civil War comes to mind.   Sunday Bloody Sunday by U2 calling out the IRA and UK governments for endless war also is a great example.

Music, art, theater, and dance all teach us to express our emotions in ways that words can not fully encapsulate.  The joys and sorrows of the heart have its own unconscious language.  We need to further develop that language.  STEM does not address this.

I am reminded of the season finale of Battlestar Galactica (2004).  That series has become even more relevant today as it wrestles with the question of whether unrestrained technology is the enemy of humanity.   In the final episode, Daybreak part 3, Apollo, who is President of the Colonies at the time played by Jamie Bamber, is posed with the question on where to set up a city on newly found Earth.  He responded against a single settlement, “If there is one thing we should have learned it is that our brains have always outpaced our hearts, our science charges ahead, our souls lag behind.”

We need to cultivate our hearts and our souls if we are to use AI responsibly.  Our minds are too selfish and will always be greedy for resources, influence, and power.

16:43

20:45

Anthropic’s Mythos was delayed by the federal government in June. NBC News

21:02

Trump gave a prime time address on foreign election interference then provided documents that contradict his claims. ABC News.

21:18

23:41

Ted Lasso’s Zava character is based on Zlatan Ibrahimović. Today

24:05

24:22

This article by Yahoo Sports recounts the time Zlatan signed Lebron’s jersey and sent it back to him.

33:20

I was using a different user when I created the Monocacy Audio LLC logo with Chat GPT. However, I found the conversation. I created a PDF of it here. Basically it said it didn’t steal anything.

37:11

I believe this is the photoshopped image Julius was referring to. It was a photoshopped image of Obama shaking the hand of Iran’s President, which did not happen.

40:42

Due to being raised with digital media, there is evidence that Gen Z and Gen Alpha are not as cognitively capable as Millennials and Gen X as this Fortune article shows.

53:10

I’m pretty sure that the first time I learned about Tulsa race riots was in sociology classes at Georgia Southern University in the mid to late 90s. I don’t think I heard about them again until the anniversary

1:02:15

Here is a link on Instagram of Glen Hansard reciting a poem by Moya Cannon titled Carrying the Songs. It is from a U2 Documentary titled A Sort of Homecoming. The winners may write the history, but the cultures carry on in songs.

Here is Moya Cannon reading her poem, Carrying the Songs.

1:04:14

The Value of Boredom. Harvard Business Review. If you don’t want a paywall, here is a NIH paper on the subject. Basically, boredom can be a source for creativity.

1:07:31

S2 E3 Star Trek: Next Generation. Ensigns of Command. Data remarks that his fellow performers feel his music, although technically proficient, “lacks soul”

S3E10 Star Trek: The Next Generation. The Defector. This episode opens with Data playing the king in King Henry V. However, Picard does not say what I remember him saying, rather “there is no better study of the human condition than Shakespeare. But you must discover it through your own performance not by imitating”

1:08:07

Famous piece from MTV News where Vanilla Ice claims he didn’t rip off Queen because “he changed it”. Gotta love 1990.

1:10:55

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www.theascendantproject.com

The post OverSTEMulated appeared first on The Ascendant Project.

The summer of 2016 was hot. I know because I was outside baking in Green Ridge State Forest on a camping trip with three other idio-…uhm, friends, including the one I would eventually start a podcast with. I had been camping with this group several times before, in fact. Fortunately, we had all learned enough lessons to know that a camp shower would be valuable in this situation. One by one, we each cleaned off the summer sweat and grime that had accumulated throughout the day. 

The camp shower was a small pop-up shelter, just barely large enough for a single person. Hooked onto the top lip of the shelter, was a small shower head connected by a hose to a small pump. The pump sat in a 5-gallon reservoir of heated water. Yes, despite the summer heat, we still enjoyed the simple pleasures of a warm-to-hot shower.  The water took some time- maybe 15 minutes- to heat over a single propane stove. 

With a limited supply of hot water, showers would have to be kept short. Through the first three people, only 1-½ to 2 gallons of water had been used. Now, my daily showers are typically only 5ish minutes long. I use two-in-one shampoo and conditioner and then body-wash. Quick and efficient.  On the day in question, however, somehow I managed to use almost the entire remainder of the reservoir. I can only assume that a leak in the line had manifested somewhere or that a fitting had come loose after the three previous uses. Regardless, the event has become the subject of repeated ribbing over the years. I do my best to roll my eyes, grin, and bear it, but I’ll admit it’s difficult given that I know the truth: some mechanical failure was leaking the water as I was using it. 

This event has been on my mind recently and before I get into it, I promise, dear reader, that I will bring this back around. In-home hot water heaters are a relatively recent addition to modern homes.  Consulting Copilot and the relevant sources suggests that installation and use of residential hot water heaters occurred primarily throughout the 1940s and 1950s, following World War II.

Despite invention of the primary components almost a half-century earlier, the infrastructure- public water utilities, indoor plumbing, gas utility supply, etc.- was not readily available in a residential setting until that period. This is to say nothing of the cost, which was prohibitive for many people. Early in-home water heaters were expensive to purchase and expensive to maintain. They were inefficient and broke often.  Our modern convenience has truly come a long way. It’s doubtful that we today would even recognize some of those initial models. 

Nonetheless, the initial users were chastised. Water usage exploded during this time. It might come as no surprise to some, but cheap and readily available hot-water, once a luxury, eventually became seen as a necessity.  The economic efficiency of hot-water production actually increased water usage.  Despite being able to produce hot-water with far fewer resources, meaning fewer resources would be needed per-capita, overall water usage increased on net.

The observation of this relationship has occurred often enough that it even has a name in economics: Jevons Paradox. William Stanley Jevons first described this relationship after he observed that, despite the burning of coal becoming more efficient and individuals needing less coal to accomplish the same tasks, consumption of coal increased as adoption within the community could spread more easily.  Just as with individuals finding more ways to use coal, families with in-home hot water heaters could now take daily showers, automatic dishwashers could become a thing, and laundry could take far less time to complete. 

Fast forward to today, residential hot-water heaters continue to become more efficient, and adoption continues to expand.  Heck, hot-water heaters have become so common that it’s possible to take a hot shower in the woods, far from any plumbing or utilities. It’s so common that what would have been a tragedy a century ago, the exhaustion of the entire hot-water reserve, can now be the subject of some light teasing. But we are certainly in a new phase, we’ll call it late-stage Jevons. Hot-water usage, while it continues to increase, has nearly leveled off. Just like the towel after my shower this morning, as a society, our hot-water adoption has been basically saturated.  Hot-water heaters are installed in every new home. It would be exceptionally odd to purchase a new home or even to find an old home where one wasn’t previously installed. 

What was once a luxury for the wealthy, and then a gluttony for early adopters, is now the norm.  There are many parallels to our present adoption of AI. What many forget, is that AI, at least our modern understanding of it with neural networks and back-propagated learning, has been around since at least the 1980s.  Modern speech recognition and computer vision, with techniques that almost every Computer Science undergrad would recognize, was first researched around that same time. Well-funded universities and research labs have had access to this technology for a long time.  Gradually and inexorably the technology became cheaper and easier to implement, and new uses were discovered. 

Eventually, one use was developed that nearly anyone could use. It required nearly nil initial understanding to get started but was incredibly powerful with even a little training. Perhaps surprisingly, the use that was developed wasn’t substantively new. It was just a new way for humans to do something that we have been doing for millennia: chat. 

ChatGPT was just a new implementation on a language model, GPT-3, OpenAI had developed internally and trained for many years. It had been trained on a huge set of diverse information. More specifically, ChatGPT had been trained on more conversational information and it gradually “learned” how to respond given a particular kind of input: a chat prompt.

With that, users like you, Brian, and me could open a chat and start a conversation, interacting with the language model in a way that felt natural and familiar.  And with that, using AI language models had become vastly more efficient. And just as Jevons predicts and like the residential water-heaters of the past, AI adoption exploded. It was adopted across a huge array of tasks and industries. Business owners, like myself, could draft marketing copy without any previous marketing knowledge or experience. Entrepreneurs could create websites without any previous coding experience. Casual artists, authors, playwrights, and any number of other creatives, could explore their art in ways they couldn’t before. Indeed, I would argue that more art has been produced within the last two years than had been produced in the two decades prior to the release of ChatGPT. 

Of course, AI does have its detractors, and it has been the subject of many arguments between Brian and me. Brian believes that AI will ultimately lead to a societal collapse. Jobs will be lost, natural resources will be exhausted, and human social relationships will be replaced by artificial ones. 

The thing is, I think he’s right. Jobs will be lost, natural resources will be exhausted, and real human relationships will be replaced by artificial ones. Where we disagree seems to be the scale and severity. Ask a plumber if they would suddenly have more work if residential hot water heaters were to suddenly vanish. Ask someone in the depths of their depression, anxiety, or guilt if they would happily give up the opportunity to talk about their mental health with a bot that doesn’t judge or abruptly end the session when time is up. 

But I can almost hear Brian’s retort now. “How about let’s ask a Boilermaker? I won’t hold my breath waiting for you to find one.” “Have you heard some of the advice these AI psychiatrists have given? It’s sycophantic at best, arouses vanity somewhere in the middle, and incites narcissism at worst!” “Also, you said nothing about the rampant depletion of our natural resources to cool the data centers that feed this technology”. 

To that I would say: jobs won’t be lost, people will adapt as they did before; we need better models, not fewer, and one specifically tailored to mental health (or whatever application);  and the technology will improve, it will become more efficient and will use fewer resources. It will have to, because it’s not going away; for better or for worse, the genie is out of the bottle, and the monkey’s paw has been mummified. 

But that’s not what this is really about. We’re talking past each other; implicitly agreeing with every disagreement. It’s both fascinating and exhausting, and I challenge you, dear reader, to listen- don’t speak, just listen- to two people arguing sometime. You can see it in Congress, on almost every talk show, and just about every time you see two people arguing about politics or religion. 

Reviewing the previous argument, one can see every statement is a refinement or definition of terms and never a full rebuttal. Any good improve performer should notice the familiar “Yes, and…” pattern. This pattern takes some time to recognize consistently. Indeed, it’s taken most of my adult life to learn the signs.  It’s as though we’re both moving forward, but one of us is walking backwards. 

So, the question becomes, how do we break the pattern? Of course, despite what my wife, mother, and Brian, would say, I’m always right. But in these circumstances, they are too. I agree with every point Brian makes. And despite he or I calling it a disagreement, our goal is still the same. We want people to lead healthy and happy lives, gainfully employed or otherwise. We want our rivers, forests, and air to be clean, abundant, and full of life. We don’t have to agree on the effects of AI to agree that there are problems with AI. Whether there’s a leak in the line or not, the water is still gone. 

17:09

21:40

A wiki article on Jevons Paradox

22:57

Hank Green Link on The Jevons Paradox and AI

24:43

Increasing highway capacity increases demand according to a study by the National Center for Sustainable Transportation.

28:23

The Episode of Happy Days I am thinking of is S9 E10 Baby its Cold Inside.

37:11

The amount of energy the human brain uses is about 20 Watts, according to the Human Brain Project

37:18

Intro Candidate

38:34

A Tech Crunch article which mentions one company received a $500M bill for overuse of Claude AI.

40:18

Scott Galloway is the podcaster I am thinking of. Here is a YouTube Short of him explaining Chinese AI dumping.

44:53

Star Trek. S2 E20 Return to Tomorrow. “Risk is our Business“. Should be noted this was filmed BEFORE Apollo 11 landed on the moon.

45:33

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. “Logic is the beginning of wisdom“. It was not Saavik. It was Valaris played by Kim Cattrall. She was not half-Romulan. She was full Vulcan.

52:47

Battlestar Galactica: The Miniseries (2004). ” Introductory Scene. Pay attention to the tour guide.

54:35

Here is Hegseth’s announcement about testing for low testosterone on X.

56:47

Lt Data had relations with Lt Yar in Star Trek the Next Generation S1 E3 The Naked Now

57:11

Here is the trailer for H.E.R released in 2013. Seems to be really close to where we are headed and where we are.

58:17

H.E.R. shreding her guitar at the Superbowl halftime show.

1:03:20

The Star Trek Next Generation episode is S2 E17 titled “Samaritan Snare“

1:04:18

Here is a wiki page on Dead Internet Theory

1:05:37

Here is a CNN article on Musk, Bots, and Twatter (ahem) Twitter.

1:06:57

Paul Erdős. Hungarian Mathematician. b. 1913 d. 1996. Here is a wiki page on this man.

1:08:45

A wiki page on the Riemann Hypothesis

1:09:54

Rocky IV Training Montage

1:13:26

Yup. I fell for AI on my Facebook page. I was in full reaction mode in the days after the Pretti shooting. Here is a NBC News article on AI images after that incident.

1:14:22

I remember a show I watch running with this imagep. However, I can not find a source to verify it so I bleeped the name. Further more, I do not see any retraction to verify what I remember. But if it didn’t happen, why would the issue a retraction? So I may be in error on this.

What are your thoughts on the economics of AI?

Is the AI boom sustainable or is it a bubble?

Will AI restructure society and the workforce?

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www.theascendantproject.com

The post Hot Water appeared first on The Ascendant Project.

Nearly every day, I am absolutely awestruck by the grandeur, complexity, and spectacle that is the world we live in. Without exaggeration, there is more to experience and more to learn than could be done in at least 8 billion lifetimes. Everything from the mundane drop of a pebble, falling towards the Earth, to the orchestra that is a car engine, humming in time to never-ending internal combustion. It’s all fascinating. How come the pebble always falls towards the Earth? Why is it always along the same path? Would different pebbles fall differently? Why? Why not? How does the engine keep from exploding? How can the same mechanism be used in so many different designs? What makes one design different from another? What makes them the same? On and on my wonder wanders from the briefest of moments to the vast expanse of space and time. 

It’s quite easy to be wrapped up in it all, and it’s a testament to our intelligence as humans that we’ve managed to define, measure, or understand any of it. But even as crafty and as clever as we are, there’s still so many questions left unanswered. Every answer generates new questions, and it’s likely that some questions will ultimately be left unanswered. Maybe some questions we’ll never get to even attempt an answer. Maybe some questions will simply be too uninteresting. Maybe some questions will require more people to describe than will ever exist. And still others might defy any attempt to answer. Again, it’s easy to be wrapped up in it all. And while it would be easier still to admit defeat, to look at the relatively short amount of time each of us has and feel hopeless, I choose to be happy that I live in this time where we know so much but also have so much to still be curious about.

Having said all that, it would be understandable to think there is some grand design that we just cannot see or some divine will that our intellect just cannot comprehend. Maybe that’s true, but I don’t think we should give up the ghost just yet. 

As a young man, I was confirmed Catholic but raised Protestant with two technically-oriented parents in a family that proudly included both Jews and Muslims. All of that to say, my relationship with religion is complex and my relationship with God is more complicated still. Who am I to say which is right and which is wrong? Is there even such a thing as absolute morality? What of science? How does that fit in? 

“…Comforting each other, we would say ‘This was an act of God’.”  The pastor continued, “But if we examine this more closely, this is an act of man”. 

It was in this backdrop when I was 16 or 17 that I found myself listening to a sermon one Sunday morning. In my church at the time, the now disbanded Columbia United Christian Church, we would sometimes have guest pastors. Many of those pastors were long-time members of the church with full-time jobs as industry professionals or as government employees or contractors. On that Sunday morning, the guest pastor just happened to have experience with both. He gave a somewhat unusual sermon given his god-worshiping church-going audience.

It started with a fictional but nonetheless relevant story of a person driving their car through a mountain pass. Anyone who has had the experience will have seen how the road will sometimes cut directly through the mountainside, carving walls of bare rock. He continued his story as though from memory and paced across the front of the room. He described how this car might be struck by debris, rock falling from the walls perhaps. The car might be damaged, or the driver might be fatally injured. The guest pastor would finally reveal his thesis. “Discussing this event afterwards, we might consider the chance that one pebble might hit another, causing a catastrophic cascade that ultimately took the driver’s life. Comforting each other, we would say ‘This was an act of God’.”  The pastor continued, “But if we examine this more closely, this is an act of man”. 

I was intrigued. How would he make this case? He went on to describe how these mountain passes are built. I can’t say for sure looking back, but he spoke with such authority that I have to assume some intimate or practical knowledge of the process.

The path that a roadway takes isn’t random. Surveys and studies are done to determine the best possible location considering a variety of factors. Cost and environment are some factors, but also the risk to drivers. Now, having learned much as a kind of hobbyist Civil Engineer, I understand what he was referring to. Risks such as flooding, landslides, collisions, etc. are typically considered. While it might not be known exactly when an event such as falling debris might occur or when that debris might cause a fatality, the question of “if” is almost always answered in the affirmative. That is, road designers and Civil Engineers, know that the path cut by a mountainside roadway will, eventually, cause an accident. Many times they can even get down to the point of knowing how much rain, wind, temperature, etc. will produce just the right conditions. Looking at precipitation and weather trends, they might be able to narrow it down even further to a particular season. 

At one point, there was a flurry of activity outside the store I was in. We were told that ICE was suspected of being outside, casing the many stores in the shopping center, and that the lookouts were monitoring.

One can see how, with enough data, we might be able to predict the very fatality my guest pastor presented with some precision. While this argument didn’t quite bridge the gap, no pun intended, to god-like omniscience, it was nonetheless compelling and I took the point. We, as individuals, often fail to recognize how very smart we’ve become.  Our decisions, as a society, are frequently informed with enough precision that we can plan for our own failures. 

I recalled that sermon during a visit to Minnesota in January of this year. I was only there for a short time, long enough to do some IT work and hop on a plane back home. All told, about 36 hours. I arrived only a week or so after Renee Good was killed and I was immediately struck by the great sense of urgency that existed everywhere I went. I messaged back home “This place is about to pop”. Lookouts were outside every shopping center, ready to report whenever ICE was suspected of being nearby. 

I recall feeling especially exposed as someone who was there to perform on-site IT work in a number of Latin grocery stores. For sure, if ICE had decided to raid a store while I was there, I would be detained (and yes, I’m aware of the distinction between being detained and being arrested). With a short explanation, I would likely be released pretty quickly, but who wants to worry about that? And who wants to worry about what an agitated officer might do while they’re being scouted and harassed by a crowd? Who wants to worry about what a crowd might do having been called into action by a lookout who hastily relayed conditions? I certainly didn’t and I could tell the employees I saw in the various backrooms didn’t want to worry about that either.

As I quickly moved from room to room, I saw the momentary fear flash across each employee’s face before recognizing who I was and that I wasn’t there for them. At one point, there was a flurry of activity outside the store I was in. We were told that ICE was suspected of being outside, casing the many stores in the shopping center, and that the lookouts were monitoring. 

As a result of all the activity, I was told by my coworker that the stores I was in were basically void of customers and many employees had chosen to stay home. These businesses and the community by extension were suffering. Almost certainly, this would result in patients procrastinating on healthcare, students missing lessons, neighbors avoiding one another, and local governments limiting services as tax revenue dwindled. Immigrant or not, no one wants to worry about that. 

Amidst all the chaos, it’s easy to feel like so much is an act of god. The killing of Renee Good was a truly catastrophic failure. If any one thing had changed- the position of the gunman, the position of Renee Good’s car, the temperature of the roadway- Renee Good might still be alive today. But a calculated risk was taken to put a spotlight on Minnesota, on ICE, on law enforcement, on immigrants, and on a community. This was an act of man. 

Not much in the way of corrections as most of this episode is about processing current events through a spiritual lens.

9:24

The faint siren during the article Julius had written was not added in. The microphones were picking up emergency vehicles as Julius was talking about the moment that ICE was suspected of being outside. Not planned. Just coincidence.

16:36

20:53

The source wiki used to cite John Adams using the phrase “crapulous mass” in the article about Thomas Paine doesn’t reveal the phrase.

26:02

Pierre Delecto was the handle of the Twitter Account Mitt Romney used to lurk on Social Media and comment as a common person. Here is an NPR article about it.

26:12

Captain Tuttle was an imaginary M*A*S*H character that Alan Alda’s Captain Peirce came up with. S1 E15

35:01

A wiki article on Hanlon’s Razor

40:50

No real good source on this one. Here is a message from the President of Santa Clara University citing this African Proverb.

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www.theascendantproject.com

The post Minnesota appeared first on The Ascendant Project.

Welcome to the July 4th Episode of The Ascendant Project!!!

This year we are examining Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. Common Sense was a series of pamphlets, eventually put into one volume, which made a case for declaring independence from Britain. Written before the Declaration of Independence, it was instrumental in swaying public opinion and persuading the Continental Congress for steadfast kinetic opposition to the British Empire. It drew upon Scripture, politics, philosophy, and statistics.

We highly encourage you to read Common Sense before listening to this episode. However, if you just want to get a greater appreciation of something that was a test question in High School history without reading it, please listen anyway.

Copies of Common Sense can be downloaded here or bought here.

4:10

Ye is the formal version of the plural you. Thou is the formal version of the singular you.

4:39

Sis Boom Bah. What is the sound a sheep makes just before it explodes. Thanks Carson

13:52

Star Trek (original series). Season 2 Episode 5. The Apple.

16:32

Goodwin, Doris Kearns (2005). Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. New York: Simon and Schuster. p. 350. ISBN 978-1416549833.

23:27

Braver Angels is a non-political organization that teaches people how to have more constructive political conversations. “How to disagree better” is a name of one of their workshops. Another workshop is “Depolarizing within”. Find more information at www.braverangels.org

23:56

Crapulous Mass! lol. I need to start using that insult. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Paine

29:22

1 Samuel 8. Samuel the prophet warns the people of Israel not to appoint a King.

29:59

Another reason why the present time is preferable to all others is, that the fewer our numbers are, the more land there is yet unoccupied, which, instead of being lavished by the king on his worthless dependents, may be hereafter applied, not only to the discharge of the present debt, but to the constant support of government. No nation under Heaven hath such an advantage as this. pg 21/27 Essay 4: Of the Present Ability of America, With Some Miscellaneous Reflections “Common Sense” by Thomas Paine

34:41

Neil Degrasse Tyson talks about God of the Gaps on Moyers and Company

34:49

But Lot’s wife, from behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt. Gen 19:26 NASB

36:52

“Crack is Whack” is referencing a Whitney Houston interview with Diane Sawyer in 2002.

37:19

Population of the United States is 342 Million. Population Clock

38:02

In 2025 Net immigration to an from the United States as in fact negative. ABC NEWS

39:43

Article 1 Section 2 of the Constitution states: The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative

41:28

John Hanson. First President of Congress Assembled.

49:55

California’s Wealth Tax Referendum

51:06

OOOOHHHH NOOOO. Brian is totally messing and mixing facts like SNL’s Girl you wish you didn’t start a conversation with at a party.

John Paul Jones was a member of Led Zepplin, and Louie Louie is a song by the Kingsman.

Damn the Torpedoes full speed ahead was said by Union Admiral David Farragut during the Civil War

56:00

The US Merchant Marine is a civilian, not military organization. However, they have a military like hierarchy and are auxiliary to the US NAVY to transports troops, supplies, and weaponry.

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www.theascendantproject.com

The post Reaction Episode: Common Sense by Thomas Paine appeared first on The Ascendant Project.

In early July of 1776, a document was written that marked something that was in the land of De Facto, and fortified it with the forces of De Jure.  War had broken out between the colonists and Great Britain, and this work put words to the movement, the struggle, the blood, the loss and the sacrifice.  Of course I am talking about the Declaration of Independence.  The United States wouldn’t fully be a country until the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783.  However, the Declaration of Independence was an important step the United States had taken to be recognized as a legal entity.  

Obviously this is a very moving document. It is visceral, idealistic, specific, and yes, even racist.  It is a human document that is a dagger to the heart of Divine Right, but like all things human it is flawed.  However, the closing line of the document has always struck a chord with me.  

“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

What is sacred Honor?  Does it exist anymore?  Does the concept? Why is Honor Capitalized?

Perhaps, it would be better if we examined life during the War for Independence.

The Revolutionary War wasn’t just a war of colonists vs Britain.  It was a war of colonists vs colonists.  It was Native American vs Native American.  It was the Republic of Vermont vs Britain.  Spain, France, and the Dutch Republic all fought against Britain.  It wasn’t just about the colonists becoming American or subjects becoming citizens.  It was a struggle with global implications.  It was a battle of ideas turned kinetic. But, it was as then as it is now… all politics is local.

All true monarchies believe that their rule is appointed by God. Only God can depose them of their position in society.  Therefore, uprisings and rebellions were acts of sin.  The Catholic and Anglican churches supported this view, as it allowed the Pope and religious leaders to have influence in government.  This is why when a King or Queen is crowned, it is usually a bishop who places the crown on the head of the monarch.  In cultures where religious attendance was all but mandatory, the amount of influence this act had on society could not be under estimated.

The Declaration of Independence challenged this with its second sentence.   

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

A step towards sacred honor is having convictions such as this. The conviction must core, it must be rooted in the center of your morality.  It must be of conscience.  It is both intellectual and morally centered.

It is not enough to have convictions.  Those convictions must remain steadfast when tested.  When George Washington lost New York, neither his principles nor the conviction of his men fell away.  These convictions endured the famine of Valley Forge after Washington lost the city of Philadelphia in 1777.  Convictions can not waiver when things do not go right, nor when adversity rears its ugly head.

Possibly even worse than that, true convictions do not waiver when your peers oppose you.  Colonists were not unified in their support of the newly formed Nation.  In 1774 loyalist regiments had formed in Massachusetts.  They kept order in Boston after it fell from the Battle of Bunker Hill.  A loyalist regiment of 5,000 strong from North Carolina joined an assault on Charleston, South Carolina.  Loyalists were found in every colony.  Yet the convictions of Patriotism endured.

“We mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”  

During the Battle of Yorktown, signer Thomas Nelson jr noted that Cornwallis was using his house as headquarters.  He told American generals to fire on it.  The house was destroyed and he died bankrupt.

It was not prudence that have him strength. It is honorable to sacrifice greatly for your principles.

Out of the 56 signers, 12 had their homes burned.  Another 8 had their homes looted by loyalists or British soldiers.   Thomas McKearn died in poverty after the British had seized his possessions and home.  Carter Braxton owned a fleet of ships that was sunk by the British.  He had to sell his home and possessions to pay his debts.  He too died in poverty.

Honor is found in soberly and somberly knowing the risks and then acting on your convictions anyway.

The signers could not do this alone.  It took a congress of representatives to form and the states to agree on who to send to represent them just to write and sign the Declaration.  It took an army to form, train and all the resources that entails just to exist.  Then that army had to fight, often without promised pay marching to the beat of their conviction.  Allies from France and Spain had to be brought in, and the people needed to act as one.  With convictions of many peoples aligned, perseverance was gained.  The war would be won. Honor was found in this unity.

The signers of the Declaration of Independence had a vision.  It was a vision that wasn’t there just a year earlier.  That vision was to create a new nation.  One with liberty and equality amongst their social class.  It would have been very easy for these men of wealth, property, and power to support King George III.   Their position would have been maintained and defended.   Although there still would not be rights for women or minorities – slavery would still exist and Native American tribes would be viewed as inferior – the seeds were sown that would spring a crop of egalitarianism and democracy.   Honor is found in working to change the present for a better future.  Dishonor is found in working to keep a privileged position because it is easy or for short term gain.

It could be said that honor is integrity to the extreme.  Benedict Arnold is known for betraying the Patriot cause.  Why did he do it?  Financial reasons.  His debts were large.  He was facing corruption charges as he tried to pay those debts.  The British payed more.  To this day, anybody with a security clearance needs to submit financial documents showing they don’t have debts that could corrupt you.  It could be argued that the reason goes back to Benedict Arnold. 

Benedict Arnold was also petty.  He was upset that he had been passed over for promotion numerous times.

Pettiness and the lack of integrity when faced with adversity lead to his dishonor.  I have noted above other signers of the Declaration faced similar adversity, some dying in poverty but never wavered in their convictions.

Another aspect of integrity is honesty,   Your yesses must remain yeses, and your nos must remain nos.   Really, there is no need to swear.  Your word is your bond if you say what you mean.  For a promise kept increases the credit rating of your soul while a promise broken weakens it.

All true monarchies believe that their rule is appointed by God. Only God can depose them of their position in society.  Therefore, uprisings and rebellions were acts of sin.

From an economist’s point of view, it is its scarcity.  From a religious point of view, it goes to who you are for all eternity.  From a humanist point of view, there is only one of you so who do you want to be?

All these are right and true.  But in the end, honor goes to trust.  And if you can not be trusted, you are a burden to those around you.  People waste their energy on you.   If you can be trusted, those around you are rewarded, and their energy spent on you is an investment, for you make them better.

Good people of high quality are rare.  The signers knew if they lost the war, their names would be soiled for generations after they were hanged, shot, or worse.

I saw it most recently in Minneapolis.  All the protests that stood up against ICE during their raids.   Those protests were rooted in moral principle.  They stood up against what they viewed as tyranny.   Renee Good and Alex Peretti lost their lives when it would have been easier to walk away and be complicit with silence.

I see it in those who serve in our military.  They sign up to defend this country and execute its wars despite their political views.  If the President is a democrat or republican, no matter.  They are willing to sacrifice for this nation, and do whatever it asks. 

I believe I see it in my family and my friends.  We argue about politics because we care.  We have each other’s backs when they need us.

But perhaps it is found outside the Declaration as well.  It is also about forgiveness.  We are one nation despite some of us being descended from loyalists.  We are one nation despite some of us being descended from Confederates.

We have the struggles in the present and future for what is right. The mission to bring morality, ethics, and accountability to those in power will bring division.  But I have faith that we will find our collective sacred Honor, and do everything in our power to bring balance to the force, young Jedi. Just understand, that sacred Honor always starts within you.

Why is Sacred Honor capitalized? Because it is that damned important.

Owner and Editor of The Ascendant Project

19:54

To a certain extent Matt 19:24 applies here: “Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

21:31

Jungle Boogie by Kool and the Gang

21:53

Ken Burns documentary on the American Revolution is available at PBS

26:20

Actually, Confederate General Jubal Early ransomed Frederick Maryland for $200,000. All things considered, if he hadn’t done this he probably would have temporarily taken DC in 1864 if he didn’t waste the time doing this. Instead federal troops started manning the forts just as he arrived. Lincoln watched the battle at Ft Stevens and was the only President to come under enemy fire.

26:40

Actually, I probably should not be so adamant about the point that Sherman’s March to the Sea in Georgia was a direct result of Jubal Early’s ransom campaign. I heard it from a reenactor in High School, and have not found it in writing.

32:08

The Dutch Republic would be known as the Netherlands today, not Germany. Hessians were from Germany and fought on the side of the British. Oddly enough, Brian displayed the exact confusion that would be applied to the Pensylvania Dutch, where were not from the Netherlands, but from Germany. Germany is known as Deutschland, which sounds similar.

33:43

Here is a series of articles by CNN detailing Charles’ visit to the US and the subtle frankness espoused by Charles.

34:18

Season 4 Episode 15 of Battlestar Galactica. “Yeah, you point a finger back far enough and some germ gets blamed for splitting in two“

46:27

Alexander Semin vs Marc Staal Jan 3 2009

48:38

I’m totally beside myself eating a banana.

50:57

PBS article on Pope Francis and his remarks about atheists.

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https://www.theascendantproject.com

The post Our Sacred Honor appeared first on The Ascendant Project.