How Many Humans Are There?

June 5, 2023

Good morning! Back to 90-degree weather and drought-stricken Central Minnesota; who woulda guessed given the winter we had? The alfalfa fields have already dried up. It’s graduation season here in the upper Midwest as on nearly every block you’ll find garages cleaned right down to their floors, while directional balloons festoon mailboxes.

• Counterintuitive:  The number of humans being born in the United States has been at or greater than 3,700,000 annually since 1946 — with the exception of the decade of the 1970s when births averaged about 3,300,000 for those ten years.  (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2022)
• Resilience:  We seem to collectively have it in spite of efforts to plunge us into a recession.
  • According to the United States Department of Labor, the U.S. added 339,000 jobs in May 2023.
  • The most jobs were added in health care fields, with manufacturing and information (not sure what that is?) losing jobs.
  • Unemployment is at about 3.7% while inflation is not yet considering surrender.  Unprecedented times?
• “All dogs have a bad day sooner or later.”  (U.S. Postal Service)
• “The only difference is packages don’t complain.”  (Federal Express founder, Fred Smith)
• Upon whom rests the responsibility for determining truth and justice in all things?
  • And if we collectively fail in that responsibility, what then?
• We seem to be living in an age of cruel irony.
  • We are better connected with other humans than at any point in history,
  • while at the same time experiencing loneliness like never before.
  • It’s as if we are enjoying a never-ending diet of limitless cotton candy and nothing else.
• Here are a few miscellaneous reflections on the (last) frontier of Alaska, just one tiny little section of it near Prince William Sound and the Chugach Range.
  • In ways we’re no longer taught, environment determines economy;
  • No person who engages with the environment to make a living likes bad weather — indeed, could die from too much of it;
  • People who are strangers wave to each other and say, “good morning!”;
  • Groceries average about three times (3x$) what they are in the lower 48,
    • but for $9 you can have a real tasty homemade bean burrito from a 1960s-era surfin’ taco bus stand that will last you all day;
  • There are wonderful people all over the world, the vast majority playing fair, working hard, and doing the right thing;
  • You have more to fear from a pair of nesting Trumpeter Swans than from a bear;
  • A Sea Otter gives birth to just one pup and cares for it accordingly;
  • If you need help of any kind you will have a lonnnngg wait — and a long distance to travel;
  • Witness the Copper River and the multitude of ways in which it has impacted humans over the years — and humans, it;
  • The little village of Cordova has a $19,000,000 annual budget — about half of it from taxes;
    • The other half from sources too numerous to list;
  • It might be necessary, but diesel doesn’t mix well with the olfactory senses — and especially not when juxtaposed with majestic mountains and pristine waters;
  • Glaciers aren’t what they used to be — neither yet is there a vocabulary to match their majesty;
  • My kingdom for an oak — two kingdoms — for a single deciduous tree;
  • Sometimes life is cloudy and rainy for a lonnnnggg time;
  • I’m happiest when learning something new;
• “I fear the day technology will surpass our human interaction; the world will have a generation of idiots.”  (A. Einstein)
• “We should all be concerned about the future because we will have to spend the rest of our lives there.”  (Kettering)
• Mission Statement of the United States Forest Service:
  • “To sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the nation’s forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations.”
    • A good statement, do you think, or could it be better phrased?
• Three lessons from chatting about strategy with ChatGPT (Stadler/ Reeves, MIT Sloan, 2023)
  • ChatGPT doesn’t seem to have the capability to infer useful counterfactuals using analogical reasoning.
  • The tool seems unlikely to come up with ideas humans can’t, although it gets results faster and with less effort.
  • Could be useful in several ways assuming we apply our powers of judgment (and critical thinking)
    • Without A Vision’s summary:  Some human somewhere still has to be the primary source of information — and humans are flawed.