Welcome

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Hello, all good people...

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Salutations, I am Craig Willms creator of the Protohuman blog. I really don't know what this 'space' is anymore. The idea of a weblog has been replaced by the podcast in the modern world. Reading words is so 2005. 

However, I own this space so to speak, and I have things I'd like to say in the form of essays, articles and personal notes simply as a record that I had these thoughts and sought to write them down before I lose myself. I'm under no illusion that anyone will read them - or care one wit. 

Still, there is a chance that someone will look me up after my death and find my online life. We live in the first era where we can preserve our thoughts indefinitely due to the way back machine, aka the Internet. Prior to the Internet you'd have to be published to have your writings preserved outside of your personal notebooks. Therefore, these essays and personal anecdotes that follow are my thoughts.

The articles/essays are in no particular order, relevant perhaps, but may have been superseded by events that followed.  

I maintain the right to be wrong about any of it...      que sera sera!

Take a minute to look at my art and listen to my music & my writings. 

 - please see the links in the Recommended Sites section on the right >>>>>>>> 

                     

America Love: Europeans open their eyes and their hearts

 by Craig Willms

I have been blown away by the sentiments coming from foreigners, especially Europeans upon visiting the USA for the first time. I can't be the only one scratching my head over this...

When the soccer (football) World Cup was slated to take place in North America I barely took notice. I'm not a soccer fan. I may be in the minority, but the generation born in America in the 1960s was not exposed to soccer at all. It just wasn't on the radar. Therefore I never understood the game nor the fanaticism for it. Fast forward to the 2020's and soccer is everywhere in the USA. Still, when the tournament started here 2026 I didn't care at all. The highlight reels didn't attract my attention - because - I didn't care at all. For me the World Cup could have come and gone with barely a thought. It was the hundreds of YouTube videos made by Europeans that made me take notice.

I began seeing these videos in my YouTube feed within weeks of the opening of the World Cup tournament. The titles would draw me in because I'm not used to ANY praise for America, especially in the Trump era. These videos showered high praise on some rather unremarkable aspects of American life. I began to wonder how "modern" Europe actually is. They constantly remarked about how huge America is. They marveled at how big our stores are and how beautiful the stadiums are.  They were amazed by the utter scale of our infrastructure. It was fun to see the things of our everyday lives through the eyes of strangers.

The constant refrain that revealed the biggest surprise of their American experience was our friendliness. It was genuine friendliness, they insisted, not a put on. Strangers would just strike up conversations and ask questions of the obvious foreigner. Offering advice or directions with a smile, Americans treated the visitor with respect and curiosity. Apparently Europeans were not expecting this. The folks from northern Europe were most surprised by this as they are unaccustomed to open public friendliness. They expressed some disbelief at first, but it happened all the time, day after day. Americans truly are friendly. In particular the visitors would comment on customer service, how great it was, how unexpected it was. The servers at the restaurants were attentive, genuinely friendly and helpful. Apparently you can expect a different experience in a European eatery. 

The reason any of this is surprising is because the picture painted of America in the eyes the the European media and intelligentsia was that America was an awful place, a dangerous place, a place to be avoided at all costs. Alas, the draw of football, World Cup football, was too great and Europeans came to America anyway. They were blown away. 

It is sickening to me that the media and the elites in these other countries would paint this awful picture of everyday life in America. But then, I thought, our own media and elites do the same thing everyday and in so many ways. America, like anywhere else, has it's dangerous places and should avoid areas, no argument there. To portray the whole country, every city and town as a wild west shoot'em up is unconscionable. Europeans visitors felt safe when they were here, often commenting on things they would do here that they would never do in their own countries for safety reasons. The fact that the 'news' media lives by the old adage that if it bleeds it leads can explain the perception of violence and disfunction in our streets, but it's far from the real everyday experience of life in the United States.

The likelihood that this brief encounter here in America by Europeans will have any lasting effect on perceptions overseas is low, but the real America will stick with these visitors as they watch their slanted news programs. I have already seen backlash by European podcasters (the ones who haven't moved to the U.S. already) that the friendliness of our servers in our restaurants is because they have to rely on tips for their wages. In oh so perfect Europe they pay the waitresses and waiters so much better than Americans do. Yeah, and they get terrible or indifferent, even unpleasant service every day. In the U.S. a good, attentive server can double their pay in many circumstances, and thanks to President Trump they are not taxed on their tip money - a secondary bonus. Not to mention most sit-down restaurant meals are a pleasant experience for us patrons. 

Across Europe there was also an expectation that millions of Americans were milling about the hospital doors because they didn't have universal health care. The the dying and indigent are piling up, wailing and gnashing, denied entry into hospitals, while the rest of us stepped over them to get inside. Yes, of course it's ridiculous, but that truly is the perception Europeans and Canadians (Australians too) have of American health care. The system here is far from perfect, I concede that, but no one is turned away at an American ER. Lost is the fact there are numerous systems and avenues for those uninsured through their employers to get publicly backed insurance, people are not dying on the hospital steps here. Canada is a perfect example of a great public health care system. Except for the fact that just over the border in the United States an entire health care system has been built to serve Canadians who need health care in a timely fashion because they can't get it in Canada. Not to mention - hell, I will mention it - the solution the Canadian government has for expensive public health care is to offer to kill its suffering citizens for free. MAID, medical assistance in dying is not just some end of life 'service' for the terminally ill, it is the first move suggested when someone calls a suicide prevention hotline. Oh you're depressed, let me connect you with MAID. Oh, I'm sure there are nuances I'm papering over but it is not far from the truth, and it's sickening. I'm assuming Europeans and Australians have some similar aspect of their wonderful health systems.  

All in all, it was a very pleasant surprise to watch hundreds of videos of Europeans singing the praises of their American experience. It was a rare feel good viewing window into our own country that we are not used to seeing. Maybe it will have some lasting effect in Europe on the false representation of America, it's hard to say. What is telling is the dozens of Europeans who declared that they didn't want to go back, that they wanted to stay in America. That should make us feel a little better about the country we live in.

Why Donald why? Bad Donald!

 

by Craig Willms

President Trump is 80 years old. At 80 years old can one be petulant? We usually pair that word with the word child; a petulant child. I want to be a supporter of the President because he opposes the socialists and the woke as much as I do. He does things that are designed to thwart the hard-core leftists, and because of that it's good for the country. You know what isn't good for the country? Trump's petulant mouth. He says stupid shit.

Even as millions of us think the same thing we know innately and wisely not to say every single thing that crosses our minds. Nothing good will come of it. Why doesn't President Trump know this? 

So, he gets in a tussle, rhetorically and substantively, with Mark Carney of Canada and the next thing he does is formally rename Lake Ontario to Lake America??? WTF. Why Donald why? It's just stupid. Even if it is some kind of psyop play it's stupid.

Mr. Trump, please think before you speak. Be just a little bit diplomatic. It's hard to defend a man who runs his mouth like a child. You can hit back at your detractors with some wit, some measured discipline. Anything but your impudence - all the time. 

Reflections on a choppy sea

 

by Craig Willms

What are we, and more importantly why are we? We are in fact an infinitesimal fragment of an infinite universe, a universe that is utterly incomprehensible. Each of us mill about in the space we occupy, struggling to carry on an existence that means something. Means something to whom? Good question.

Meaninglessness is a conundrum. If life, our life, is meaningless as so many clear-eyed materialists believe, then what is the point? If at the moment one discovers that his or her life is devoid of any meaning the real mystery is why they would carry on at all. Why bother? Why not just end it? Yet the enlightened, those who believe their life and the life of everyone who ever lived is ultimately pointless don't just kill themselves, do they? No, they succumb to a biological imperative despite their absolute certainty that nothing really matters - they marry and have children and live into old age. Why? Simple, they know deep down that life is not pointless, even as they preach to the unenlightened masses that nihilism is the ultimate truth. They are hypocrites.

The universe as far as we know is endless. Our scientists can speculate that the universe is a certain age and possibly even a certain size, but they do not know beyond their mathematical calculations. It's entirely possible "we" will never know. We speculate that the Earth is billions of years old, and it very well may be, and it will probably go on for billions more. In a billion years from now we will all be long gone. Did it mean anything?

Yes.

Yes, because we are one. We are the universe; we have been, we are and will always be one part of the whole. We are reflections on a choppy sea.

Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger is best known for his famous thought experiment known as Schrödinger's Cat. He designed this thought experiment to illustrate a paradox of quantum superposition wherein a hypothetical cat may be considered both alive and dead simultaneously because its fate is linked to a random event that may (or may not) occur. In this speculation he states if you seal a cat in a box with something that can eventually kill it, you won’t know if the cat is alive or dead until you open the box. So, until you open the box and observe the cat, the cat is simultaneously dead and alive. 

Schrödinger, besides being a Nobel Prize winning physicist was also a philosopher. His thinking went down to unusual depths about what the mathematical formalism of quantum theory was actually telling us about the nature of reality. He was not satisfied that science could explain with equations and calculations the depths of meaning, there needed to be a deeper interpretation. Quantum theory describes sub-atomic specifications like the mechanic rattles off the horsepower, displacement and the timing of a high-performance V8 engine, but he can't tell you with these specs what it feels like to sit behind the wheel and push the accelerator pedal to the floor.

Eventually Schrödinger concluded infinite consciousness is what underlies all of reality. It's not that your mind and the universe's mind are separate things. At the deepest level, the mind that looks out through your eyes and the mind that constitutes all being are one and the same. One mind. He came to find the concept of Brahman, the Indian notions of ultimate reality, the eternal, conscious, irreducible, infinite, omnipresent, and the spiritual core of the universe, to be the one truth. One consciousness, one Brahman.

This is, in a sense what dovetails with the Dao in the Far East and the Judeo/Christian God in the West? Clearly there is overlap. Each is a different aspect of the ultimate. 

There is one sun shining on the ocean, but we see a thousand points of light, each an individual reflection of the one light. It's a simple way to conceptualize the collective consciousness of the 'one' mind. 

What does this have to do with the meaning of our lives? Well, that is the ultimate question, isn't it? It's not even a what question, it's a why question. Why? Why are we here at all? Experience. We are here to experience the universe, to add our personal experiences to the whole. In that regard every single life is important and meaningful. Even those whose lives are short and brutal are ultimately meaningful. The why of it points to the one mind growing and evolving. There is no telling if we, our little piece of the whole, reincarnates again and again to experience again and again, but there is no reason it couldn't be possible. Think of being a tiny drop in the ocean being tossed above the waterline and existing apart from the ocean for a short time, eventually you will return to the depths.

Obviously, there are a million unanswered questions, ones that may never be answered in this incarnation. Maybe when the veil is lifted as this tiny slice of consciousness expires, we become enlightened, maybe we meet God? We will all find out, won't we.

Errata: July 2026

 

by Craig Willms

As the World Churns

The war, or whatever you want to call it, with Iran has been declared over. Everyone knows it's not over. This is meaningless to Israel. Israel, of course, will have no say in the outcome. Hence, they are still at war. 

Trump apparently wanted it over and made a "deal". That's what Trump does. He's a deal maker. The deal isn't done, but the shooting is, but is it, really? The things that didn't happen are as pivotal as the things that did.  Iran is in coming out of this conflict in poor shape. Militarily, Iran has been decimated, their ability to project power is limited to some missiles and a bunch of drones. Both are routinely shot out of the sky by the U.S. and Israeli defenses. Their defenses are gone. Despite Iran's meager effort to expand the conflict it did not spread to include any other major power. Neighboring states under fire were largely protected by the U.S. military. Even more important to Americans no ground troops are involved and thus no daily body count. Troops were lost, but few were lost to enemy fire. 

On the other side I don't have a clue as to how many Irani's were killed, but don't think it was massive. Civilians in Iran were mostly unscathed. A large part of the Iranian population was asking for, praying for Trump to do something. I'm not sure they got what they asked for, in fact I'm pretty sure they didn't. The "regime" is still holding the nation in a stranglehold.

In the end I fully understood the justification for Trump doing this, but why now? Iran has been waging a terrorist war on the West for 47 years, so President 47 wanted to put a stop to it? The timing of this is questionable. Why not secure the mid-terms for the Republicans and then strike Iran, why now? We can speculate all day, maybe there are geo-political movements in play that may have forced Trump's hand, who's to say?

All that said, he didn't stop them, he didn't take them out, he merely crippled them. Other positives will emerge as time passes, but it's still kicking the can down the road. Iran, if left unchecked will continue the Jihad.

Maybe it was a message to the rest of the world. A demonstration. Was it worth it? We'll have to let the future decide, at least it was not an atrocious bloodbath. 

DSA Test

We men have submit a PSA test as we age. It's used to see if we have a serious health crisis looming. The Democratic Party is enduring a DSA test as we speak. Depending on the outcome patient America may have a real serious health issue.

It is beyond me how anyone in their right mind would think that socialism/communism is an answer to anything. It's been a disaster everywhere it's been tried. Clearly these people and the people who vote for them are not in their right minds. So, are we supposed to accept mentally challenged crazy people inserting socialists into high office? 

Is the current big bank, private equity Wall Street paradigm some kind of nirvana? No, it is not. But socialism is not the cure to what ails us. Getting big money and its warped influence out of Washington and out of all politics is where it needs to start.

So, over the next few election cycles we'll see if the ridiculous Democratic Party succumbs to insanity. There is a cabal of dark money funding the socialist takeover of the Democratic party, Soros and other non-American billionaires along with China's CCP are funding these radicals. If they succeed the plan is to destroy the United States from within. Initially the uni-party Democrats and Republicans will be the losers. The center will not hold. MAGA or something like it will probably anchor the Republicans. Trumps supporters generally love him, but Trump's unhinged detractors hate him so much more. 

Democrats are a party of hate. I'm not going to sugarcoat it; they are self-destructive haters. They can cry and scream about the so-called Christian Nationalists and other ghosts threatening our democracy, but the DSA's hate knows no bounds. They hate America, they hate Americans, they hate just about everything except power.

We're All Gonna Die

It's summer in Minnesota and it will get hot. This is similar to winter which generally gets cold. Hearty Minnesotans have mostly learned to deal with it, hot in the summer and cold in the winter, pretty simple. You wouldn't be able to tell watching local or even national news these days. 

We were told our faces were going to melt this week. It was going to reach 90 degrees with high humidity. No, not 90 degrees!! Oh the humanity!!! It's outright dangerous to even venture outside. They have lists and pointers and advice on how to survive it. Thank God! In the winter we have similar scare stories. I, like most people have enough sense not to freeze my ass off - because it is truly dangerous in sub-zero weather. 

I'm glad to have a heads up, that is all well and good, but we don't need wall to wall, noon to midnight updates and tips on how to survive the heat.

Parallel Existence (or... no one really gives a shit)

 

by Craig Willms

A while back I read a comment on a YouTube video that struck me as actually being profound. When I thought about the underlying meaning of the comment, I said to myself 'well, that's me'. In short, the subject was about how we navigate the public world and where we prefer to see our place in it. His comment was - essentially - I go out from my comfortable home, out into the world and interact with others, sometimes compelled, sometimes to accompany my wife for something important to her. I talk and interact in a pleasant way, being perfectly polite, asking questions, smiling and nodding, but not really enjoying any of it. Ok, that's over, good... We return home and I'm instantly happy to be back living a parallel existence to everyone else again.

Parallel existence. Aren't we all living a parallel existence to some degree? Yes, I think so. But we all know people who are not really happy unless they are involved, interacting with others, engaged with another person towards some end. That's what makes them feel alive. For others it's a chore, a burden, all this dealing with people. Those like me are at one with ourselves and don't need people as much... 

I know it sounds bad. It sounds like these people, people like me, don't have relationships or close friends and are not neighborly. That's not it. That's not it at all. It's hard to describe, but it really comes down to the feeling that you have interacting with the people out in the world, you're doing just that, acting. Even that sounds bad. It's best described as that feeling you have when you are finally alone and can be yourself again, peeling off the chameleon skin, done with the show.

It's not that you don't like people. You love people, certain people... It's not that you don't care about the details of their lives, even when you know they don't really care about yours. It's the fact we all have our own shit to deal with and talking about certain things is just tedious or uncomfortable, and it's usually unproductive. It's down to fact that we know that no one really cares. The ones that do care, well, they know you and accept you as you are. The rest of them are going through the motions of polite company.

For a lot of us even in our personal relationships we tend to keep everyone at an arm's length. It's not that we never open up or act in a vulnerable way, but it's kept to a bare minimum. We don't want to be a burden, and we don't seek so-called emotional support - for better or worse. Those who constantly talk about themselves or keep a verbal dialogue running eventually bore the snot out of us and we secretly pray for their silence. We usually don't share unless asked directly. We may come off as snobs I guess, but honestly, does anyone out there truly care about inane details about us? 

There are always exceptions. Some people are so skilled at communication and at expressing what I'd call genuine empathy for you that you tend to open up without even realizing you're doing it. These people are rare and special, but it's not really you that's eliciting it in them, they can do it with just about anyone. You'll notice these types of people are usually quite successful in their chosen fields. Do we envy them, maybe a little. But only a little. 

I have a feeling that this sort of parallel existence phenomenon is largely male, maybe even old guy male. I think women and girls are far more social and actually need closeness in a way that makes men uncomfortable. I think men will be nodding their heads reading this.

I'm not really sure what point I'm trying to make, but I think almost anyone can relate to some degree. Those who are not like this, the ones who dive in headfirst into social situations or really love 'involvement' in groups or social activities might find us odd, but I suspect more people are like me than are like them. It takes all kinds; the world would be a dreadfully dull place if everyone acted like me.

Cynthia vs AI

 

by Craig Willms

A few years ago, there was an ad campaign for something or another that featured Cynthia, an HOA authority figure. Cynthia would walk past a homeowner's place and point out violation after violation. The homeowner would simply respond "Thank you, Cynthia." We always got a kick out of these spots and always say 'Thank you, Cynthia' whenever someone utters the word violation.

When I was watching a YT video on the dangers of AI and the notion that it wasn't being regulated properly or at all, it made me think of  Cynthia. We need an "HOA" for AI development. We need a Cynthia to spot the violations.

In my opinion all AI models need to be subjected to the scrutiny of Cynthia as they are released into the world. I have no idea how something like that would work. How you would regulate something like AI is a mystery to me, herding cats comes to mind. Considering that these AI models are often released to corporations and the general public without any vetting it could be a disaster waiting to happen. Many in-the-know people have warned about it and there's a rumor going around that the "tech bros" and billionaires are building bunkers. Yeah, you better believe it, and they are not putting AI into their new homes.

Currently AI is actually something called LLMs (large language models) that take the sum of human knowledge and apply it to the task/question at hand. The models are trained with myriads of data on any/all subjects, often skimming the Internet and vacuuming up the relevant information. In other words, it is drawing from what is already known, already human knowledge. AI is not necessarily visionary, yet.  

Right now, AI is being released into the world through art/music/entertainment/creative endeavors as well as many business and medical processes. For the creative arts AI models are trained on the music and such that humans have already created. It is not that much different than the way musicians trained themselves since the beginning of time. I learned to play songs by dropping the needle on the record over and over. Today we just create a loop in software so that we can learn to play a segment or passage. It's the same thing; one is just slick and easy... AI 'learns' in seconds, where human musicians spend hours and hours on one song. AI draws on the patterns human composers have designed and is able to make something new, no different than human songwriter always has. There is however something missing in AI music. It's hard to put your finger on it, but it is not inspiring and can sound disingenuous. It lacks the spark that often makes a song special. It lacks the humanity, whatever that means. I admit it is getting better all the time. I suspect that "live" music will have a renaissance even if the music they play out is "pumped out" by AI. People crave authenticity.

There's been plenty of focus on AI replacing humans and taking jobs. So far it hasn't hit the work force that hard - yet. When people have no job and rely on government for basic sustenance the end is in sight. Society suffers with crime and poverty spreading out from the cities and eventually blanketing the entire country. If we go back to being an industrial society to put people to work and get them off hand outs how long before AI ushers in advanced automation and kills those jobs too? 

Don't even think of what overzealous military contractors could unleash... It's spooky.

Honestly, it is the wild wild west out there in regards to AI. Put this potentially powerful tool in the hands of evil doers and we can't even imagine the damage that could be done. Try to imagine the entire electric grid going down because an AI program was slick enough to over ride all the controls preventing transformer overload. The U.S. doesn't even make transformers anymore. It would take years to replace them. That's just one scenario - it would be devastating and would probably destroy America all by itself. Is there any doubt we need Cynthia right now.

All kidding aside is it not clear by now that AI could destroy us? It really could. Believe it. What isn't clear is how to put controls on it. Let's hope something floats to the surface that will give us - humanity - some guidance on that. Hmmm, maybe we could put AI on that.