The Mountain Man

+ An Anti-Robot Task Force Nighthawk

Volume 67, September 26th, 2023 Published a day early online

If you’d prefer the audio, here’s the podcast, or listen below.

The Mountain Man

Stories from a Rainy Morning

“We both looked around the hedge at the same moment, like a mirror. It wasn’t a person making the noise–it was a bear. He got a little fight in his eyes, so I said ‘alright, let’s do this.’ Chased him right up the hill. He stood for a minute, shaking his head, then vanished. That bear’s never been back to the hedge.” Nathan leaned back in his rocking chair, and resumed carving a wooden spoon, scattering oak shavings across the chestnut boards of Big Meadows Lodge.

The clink of silverware and clatter of plates mingled with breakfast conversation as the rain tapped the windows, all the bright sounds of another morning on the mountain.

With a “wowww”, I leaned forward to hear more stories. Nathan showed me how to carve a spoon from a branch.

“Makes you feel civilized if you’re trying to survive in the woods. It’s a mental game, too.”

His family has farmed the mountainside for generations, and he’s taught himself survival skills to live in the wilderness.

“I’ll take my hammock and vanish for a few weeks.”

The rain kept falling, and so did the oak chips as he whittled on. I sat and listened.

Keeper of the Flame

Nathan carves a spoon in the old style at the Big Meadows Lodge. He made his hat out of oak strips.

Quote of the Week

“We are trapped by language to such a degree that every attempt to formulate insight is a play on words.” - Niels Bohr, quantum physicist

Book of the Week: Common Sense

(Thomas Paine, 1776)

A smash hit, and a literary cannon to aid Washington’s revolutionary sword, Common Sense remains a vibrant and essential read for everyone.

Happy Birthday “Hollywood” Sign (1949)

Ground is broken for the current sign, replacing the old “Hollywoodland” lettering.

Down the Rabbit Hole

The famous stories of the stars are Greek, but have you read up on American Indian sky legends? I’m on the hunt myself. Drop a note if you find anything. Let’s confer!

Write to Us!

The Nighthawk is a new old-fashioned way to connect, published weekly. You’re invited to write back, or just enjoy reading. Let’s have some fun! It’s a social paper! Send stories, etc to: PO Box 783, Rustburg, VA 24588 or JoshUrban@protonmail.com

Letters from Josh

(A weekly update from Josh Urban’s adventures on the farm and in the city. #153)

Appearing in the Altavista Journal:

Late Night Radio–The Anti Robot Task Force

Howdy, folks, and welcome back to the show. “Whatcha think about that artificial intelligence stuff? It scares me” grandma said. I suggested leaning on the Lord. Poof! There went another missed opportunity to win the Soothing Grandson of the Year award. (She’s never heard me talk like that.)What’s the deal, man? Is it no biggie, or will the robots kill us all? Are you alarmed at what you see on TV? A friendly reminder: don’t let them wig you out. Look what happened last time.

When I’m not unsettling relatives, I’m talking with strangers. I’m a speaker, usually at retirement homes or libraries. We sit around, living room style, and discuss big ideas like Artificial Intelligence. Now, I may be a problem, but I’m no computer scientist. Artificial Intelligence (AI) confuses me, too, so I did some digging.

It’s a broad term, including self-driving cars, chess computers, and that mechanical voice on the bank’s phone service. You know, where you yell “one...one...ONE!!!” into the receiver, and then it says “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite get that. Please say one or two.” They talk about the robots taking over the world, but the texting auto-complete on my phone’s has nearly been the death of me–twice. That’s AI, too.

The thing that’s got everyone sitting up and paying attention is the new gizmo called Chat GPT (Generative Pretrained Transformer.) It does stuff with words.

The Josh description is: they fed it all the information on the Internet (the Bible, Shakespeare, the Altavista Journal...everything.) After countless random trials, and humans telling the computer “yes or no, hot or cold”, it “learned” how humans put words together. The “deep learning” ability is modeled after how our own brains work, and is based on something called a “neural network.”

Now, Chat GPT can crank out stories, recipes, poems, songs, and even pass the bar exam with flying colors. It’ll write anything on the spot, and do it well. Try it out on the Internet. It’s free. The developers of AI say it’ll either be the greatest thing ever, or the end of humanity.

Oh, great...

Am I worried? A bit. Am I hopeful? You bet. Humans have the ability to muddle themselves into a bad spot, and then muddle themselves out. The question bubbles up: what makes us human? (And how can we be better at it?)

“We’re the anti-robot task force, folks” I tell ‘em at my talks, only half-joking.

So, what’s the answer to our humanity? What makes us...us? Is it emotion, love, complexity, a spark of God, free will, a knack for cooking spaghetti?

There will always be mad scientists. There will always be something that blow us up. There will always be people who have the worst in mind, or more dangerous yet, nothing in mind at all.

But there’s the rest of us, working hard at living a good life, doing what’s right, and helping others. There’s more of us than we’d realize, and we “keep it real.” Remember how strange things got when we let the normal be outlawed during the COVID lockdown? There’s something to be said for the everyday.

Bottom line: it’s good to pay attention to what’s going on, but don’t forget–what do you do best? How do you “human” well? As Leslie Neilsen would say in Airplane:

“We’re all counting on you.”

Keep up the good work. –Josh