AZ School to Use All AI (No Teachers) & Large Demonstration Planned for Trump Inauguration
What I’m Discussing Today:
Kareem’s Daily Quote: There’s a lot more to knowing thyself than meets the eye (or meets the I).
New Arizona charter school will use AI in place of human teachers: This is an example of sacrificing our children for profit under the guise of progress.
New Research Shows AI Strategically Lying: This is truly frightening. If AI can lie to protect itself, then all our fears of Skynet domination are possible.
Kareem’s Video Break: You are about to see something you’ve probably never seen before. It will make you smile.
Thousands expected for 'People's March on Washington' in January: With all the evidence of Trump’s (and President Musk’s) plans to damage the economy as well as our freedoms, protest is one of the best ways to let those in Congress know they are being watched.
Kareem’s Sports Moments: This will make you dig out that old badminton set and start whacking the birdie.
What I’m Watching on TV: Suspense & Mystery: Three suspenseful and entertaining shows to make the new year more fun: Carry-On, Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, and Paris Has Fallen.
Bob Dylan Sings “Subterranean Homesick Blues”: This song is just as relevant today as it was 60 years ago.
Kareem’s Daily Quote
Know thyself.
Inscribed upon the Temple of Apollo in the ancient Greek precinct of Delphi, popularly attributed to Socrates
I don’t make New Year’s resolutions anymore. I don’t start a new diet plan or exercise regimen. I don’t promise myself I’ll finally read War and Peace instead of telling people I have. With age, you come to know thyself pretty damn well.
There’s a companion quote from Miguel de Cervantes (the author of Don Quixote) that I like, “The knowledge of yourself will preserve you from vanity.” That means knowing the dark and petty side of yourself keeps you from romanticizing who you really are. Actually, it’s a relief to admit to myself who I am and accept that flawed guy the way you accept a friend who always borrows money and never pays you back, but you’re happy every time you see him.
I no longer cling to grandiose ideas about myself that I had when I was younger: I used to think I was a good judge of character. I’m not. People fool me all the time. I tend to think they’re better than they are, more honest, more trustworthy. I’m okay with that because I’m happier giving people the benefit of the doubt. I used to think that, given any situation, I would always make a rational choice. I don’t. I try, but sometimes I let sentiment influence me too much.
The largest part of knowing thyself is a willingness to reject ideas, opinions, and influences that you’ve held dearly in the past. Growing up, I was fascinated by the story of the Alamo. I’d seen the John Wayne movie where he played Davy Crockett and Richard Widmark played Jim Bowie. I was roused to patriotic fervor by the idea of a handful of people sacrificing themselves for a greater good. Even today, when I see a photo of the Alamo, something inside stirs. I remember the lyrics of a popular Donovan song, “Remember the Alamo”:
A hundred and 80 were challenged by Travis to die
By a line that he drew with his sword as the battle drew nigh
A man that crossed over the line was for glory
And he that was left better fly
And over the line crossed a hundred and 79…Fear not little darling of dying
If the world be sovereign and free
For we'll fight to the last for as long as liberty be
I knew right then that I would have crossed over that line and made it 180. Let’s go kick Santa Ana’s ass!
Until I actually found out the facts about the Alamo. Texas wasn’t an official state, but largely a collection of immigrants, mostly illegal, from the U.S. These unofficial Texans were mad because Mexico was trying to slow immigration (you know, like Texas is doing now) and because Mexico banned slavery. Of this population of 38,470 chiefly illegal immigrants, 5,000 were slaves. That’s what they were fighting for at the Alamo: their right to own slaves. Hell, no!
Knowing thyself also means knowing whether you’re the kind of person who wants to know the facts before forming an opinion or whether you’re content to cling to the misguided, uninformed opinions of those around you. A 2024 poll found that the top place Texans would want their ashes scattered was the Alamo. Even though that would make them pro-illegal immigration and pro-slavery? My guess is most Texans don’t know the facts about the Alamo, just the pop culture legends. Fact: Davy Crockett probably didn’t die fighting but rather surrendered and was executed. Fact: Toward the end of the battle, half of the defenders ran away and were chased down and killed by Mexican lancers. The belief that the battle of the Alamo had any military effect is a myth. It delayed the Mexican army by four days, which meant that they took San Antonia on March 6 rather than March 2. The Alamo incident was inconsequential. The deaths for nothing except as a myth to rouse the misinformed.
If the person I am today were at the Alamo and Col. Travis drew his famous line in the dirt (which historians agree probably didn’t happen), I’d turn around and leave along with the hundreds of others. Aside from detesting what they were fighting for—slavery and stealing land from Mexico—I’d realize that the slaughter of a couple hundred people would serve no practical purpose. Sure, they’d use those deaths to rally emotion to attack Mexico, but that was inevitable with or without the Alamo. They were always going to steal the land.
As I grew older, I began to embrace a quote I first read in The Catcher in the Rye, but was originally said by psychoanalyst Wilhelm Stekel, “The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.” Knowing myself meant admitting that the Alamo was merely a romanticized ideal of sacrificing myself for a noble cause because that’s a lot easier than working a lifetime in the trenches, in the frustrating and unglamorous world of changing minds and laws to do away with injustice.
There’s way more to knowing oneself than I can cover in this brief commentary, but one important part is to ask yourself whether you actually are following the simple, romanticized path of an uninformed teen version of yourself, the brain forever petrified in amber at high school graduation. Or, are you following the bumpier, twisting path of a wiser more worldly version of yourself, the brain forever changing, adapting, exploring?