There have been too many grieving mothers giving heartbreaking testimony before Congressional committees, or in TV news interviews, telling about how their children have been killed. We cry with them because their children or other loved ones are gone … needlessly. Their bedrooms are empty, their friends no longer visit filling homes with the joy of living, and their children will not be at the table - won’t be home for dinner.
It is time that we try harder to end it. It has gone on too long. It will not stop, however, until we are willing to work together to get it done.
Those of us who are “old school” view AI with a good deal of caution. Although we hope that the US Congress will be proactive and keep up with the changing times, and we hope that they can cause the developers to build enough “guardrails” into AI to keep it safe, past experience does not fill us with a lot of confidence.
Yet, AI is showing itself to be a handy tool in small ways. There are times when the exact definition of a familiar word eludes recall. To be sure that the word is being used correctly, the definition needs to be verified. Then, the easy way is to type the word as a search word into a search engine. Recently, Google Chrome has been providing an “AI Overview” of such words in addition to the usual dictionary definitions.
The Google AI Overview of multivariate analysis provided when you Google it is:
Multivariate analysis (MVA) is a statistical procedure used to analyze data sets containing more than two variables simultaneously to understand the relationships, patterns, and structure among them. It helps determine the unique contribution of various factors to an outcome, often reducing complex data dimensionality while controlling for confounding factors. Common techniques include regression analysis, factor analysis, and clustering.
Why is this important? It shows that science supports Sigmund Freud’s theory that behavior usually has more than one reason for occurring. The principle is so self-evident that it is amazing that it is so often ignored.
If we are going to make America a safe place for our children to grow up in, we must stop trying to place the blame on just one thing. It has more than one cause. The heart rendering pleas of our grieving mothers are being used at congressional hearings and by the broadcast news to put the blame for the deaths of our children on whatever that group is trying to make a case against. If legislators or news anchors oppose open borders, they call these poor women, or men, whose children have been killed by criminal illegal migrants to testify. Perhaps the cause célèbre that is being advocated is the need for more gun control. Then witnesses are called who have lost children to gun violence. How about fentanyl, criminal gangs, the schools, lax parenting, media violence, or social media? Those with a particular axe to grind will use the testimony of grieving parents to make their point. They can’t see the forest for the trees.
The real point is that our children are being killed by all of these things, and more. Furthermore, the grief of their parents is being exploited.
Karen Horney was a German psychoanalyst and author who was influenced by Freudian theory. One of the ideas that has been ascribed to her is that when faced with a conflict people react in three ways: they avoid, they move toward, or they move against. It seems that many of us want to avoid (ignore, deny) things that are killing our kids, while others want to move against them aggressively – and against those persons who disagree with them.
What is being suggested
here is that we quit hiding from our problems, or fighting each other, and move
toward our fellow Americans in good faith to work together to save our kids.
