As I placed it next to her grave, I couldn’t shake the feeling that next year I wouldn’t remember at all.
supply and demand.
They would only bother to give me a barcode if I was going to be breeding stock instead of meat.
Like who the deadbeat was in debt to, how much he owed, and what they did when someone couldn’t pay.
Paris, France - 1786
We never had much, but mother tried to raise me right. She'd point to a vagabond or leper on the street and rail about how "God has no love for idlers, harlots, or tramps." But the worst of her vitriol was saved for pickpockets or thieves. Mother always said that stealing was the gravest sin. "You might think no one'll know," she'd say "But god is always watching. And he doesn't like sinners. Not one bit."
Father was a pickpocket until he got caught and killed for it, leaving her pregnant and even poorer than before they had met. I think she always worried his contumaciousness would fester within me and drown out her more devout blood. So she raised me according to the bible. She never spared the rod. And whenever there was an execution in the square she would bring me and make sure I watched. The looks on their faces bored themselves into my mind. Struggling and defiant, scared and confused, blank and defeated. The worst was a boy about my age who got caught stealing bread. He looked like a corpse when they dragged him up, and yet he bleed so much. I cried for days, wishing he had a mother who could have kept him out of trouble. However hard life was, I knew it would be so much harder without mother there to keep me on the straight and narrow.
It was maybe a few months later that the sickness came. Mother said it was a plague like the one in the bible, sent by god to punish all the sinners. But in the end it didn't spare us either. We huddled together in our room of the tenement as the fever came, then the coughing. Even when mother could barely breathe she spat out prayers alongside her blood. But in the end good took her anyway and I was all alone.
Mother was right to worry about me. I am my father's daughter in spite of all her efforts. Almost as soon as she was gone I turned to sin. Gluttony came first. As days passed without food, feasting became all I could think about. Then gluttony became envy. I wandered towards the stores in the better parts of the city and lusted after what they had. I remembered my mothers words. I knew I could not evade God's notice. I knew that He would not forgive my transgression. And yet I am my father's daughter.
Base, infernal want overcame me. I turned my back on that which I knew to be right. As I stepped forward I was filled by an overwhelming guiltiness and fear. But when I I plucked with shivering hand a loaf and tucked it beneath my shirt my fear was overcome. The feeling of its warmth on my flesh on that cold day was a bliss second only to that which I felt when I stumbled into a deserted alleyway and took a bite. Like Eve I rapaciously devoured that which was forbidden to me.
But pleasure is an ephemeral thing. The second the transgression was over, the pleasure faded leaving me feeling even emptier than before. Where once there was mortal hunger I now felt the profound emptiness of a lack of divine love. I felt the same feeling I felt every time mother was upset and I knew a beating was coming. It was my fault, I knew I deserved what came next. But still I started to cry, to plead for forgiveness. My body shaking I begged to be spared, promised I would never sin again. But of course if it never worked with mother, how could I hope to sway God?
It started first in my right hand. My sinful, stealing hand. I felt a terrible writhing within my fingers. I could only stare with wide eyes as they began to tremble and bulge. They swelled then, with a terrible pain, burst. Cockroaches, one then another, erupted. One by one from each of my fingers split like cocoons. Their dull brown carapace mixed with the red of my fathers unrepentant blood as more struggled from my palm. I screamed and clutched my mangled hand as they slipped silently into the filth of the alley. In my pain-addled state I dared to assume that the payment had been made. A hand as punishment for a thief. But that is the justice of men, not of God.
Soon I felt the onset of another terrible writhing, this time from the flesh where the bread had been tucked beneath my shirt. I wrenched off my shirt as if by seeing I could somehow defy His will. But His will shall not be trespassed. I could only scream as a dozen little forms crawled from my stomach, wriggling and writing and kicking with their little legs to free themself from my flesh. Over agonizing minutes my screams turned to whimpers until, finally, the last of them pattered away streaking the muddy grey snow red. But my reprieve only lasted a moment. With terrible horror I felt the writhing begin within my mouth, my tongue, beneath my teeth. This at last was too much for me to bear I sobbed to myself and prayed desperately for it to be over. Perhaps for the first time in my life, I truly prayed.
And it was then, at my moment of greatest need, that He answered my prayer. He had not forgotten me. He had created an answer for me. Just as I began to feel those terrible forms emerge I remembered my mother, and spat out a prayer with the blood. Proverbs 32:2. I felt around in the filth I was lying in praying for him to provide, and by his will my remaining hand gripped something metal and sharp. There was a sharp pain, then all was forgiven.
The gate of the abattoir
Rests at the end of the trottoir
Prodded and pushed
Threatened and shushed
We were herded and packed in tight
Just within there sat a man
In a uniform starched and tan
He scratched his chin
Then over the din
He signaled to the left or the right
We all of course sought to discern
Before it became our turn
Which line was good
For we understood
The alternative, of course, was grim
Left for a man strong and hale
Then right for an old widow frail
But just as it seemed
The truth could be gleaned
Right a youth bursting with vim
A mother of two was distraught
When left her daughter was brought
But right was she
And her son of three
Wrestled with much consternation
When time came for my mischance
He chose left with barely a glance
Of course in the end
It all was pretend
Both paths reached the same destination
Good day,
I am interested in if there are observable tradeoffs resulting from the recent surge in AI investment? Or is it genuine wealth creation?
With such a significant concentration of investment into AI related investments, I wonder if anyone is aware of observable trends indicating tradeoffs, or the alternative places capital would have been if it had not been directed into AI investment. I am aware such counterfactual work is never certain, but perhaps someone more knowledgeable than me on the topic could make an educated guess?
The following is my attempt at reasoning through the issue. Be aware it is American centric as that is the context I am most familiar with and a center of the AI boom. Please contribute if alternate contexts you are familiar with are different.
The simplest place for it to come from would be consumption, or choosing to invest in AI for a high potential reward rather than spending the money. However, consumption has consistently increased throughout the AI boom. While consumption has increased at lower rate than COVID era, my understanding is that overall consumption remains high compared to historic rates. I am seen research indicating that rising stock prices for AI associated firms has caused households with notable investment portfolios to feel wealthier, and these households have driven increases in consumption. (This pertains, I think, to the ‘K shaped’ economic trajectory.) This level of investment is not going to come primarily from household investment I suppose. Though perhaps the increases to consumption caused by the sentiment effect of a higher stock market is part of the equation?
The next most obvious place would be alternative investment options, or money being invested in AI is money that would have been invested in other assets. I am unsure how to test this theory or if it is even testable? It would be intersecting if certain trends could be interpreted to correlate negatively with AI investment.
So to summarize, is anyone aware of observable tradeoff costs of high AI investment? Or, again, is it just wealth creation? Or impossible to realistically identify?