Both houses of Congress have been purposeless for a LONG time, but they lost their purpose in unusual ways. As documented by Parkinson, an agency or organization starts out with a meaningful goal, assigned to solve a real problem.
Parkinson saw two alternate paths to triviality:
(1) The agency or organization solves the real problem and then continues running.
(2) The problem naturally fades or somebody else solves it. The agency then continues running.
After that the organization either finds a new meaningful purpose (1% of the time) or descends into criminality and murder (99% of the time).
= = = = =
The two houses of Congress intentionally forfeited their original purposes and then continued running.
In the original plan, the lower house was the writer, the senate was the editor, and the president was the printer. Or in modern terms, the lower house was the programmer, the senate was the compiler, and the president was the OS.
The senate’s original editing purpose was lost in 1803 when the Supremes stole it. Marbury vs Madison claimed the role of editing laws, which was supposed to be the senate’s job. The senate never attempted to take back its power, so courts continued to expand. Now district courts make laws for the whole country.
The lower house abandoned its writing power in a more gradual way starting in the 1970s when it created no-go zones in the budget. The house locked up nearly all of its assigned decisions. Now the “two” “parties” argue ferociously over a few million dollars of frivolity, while trillions in murder and torture are automatically approved without examination.
The lower house can be replaced by a SIMPLE computer program. No need for AI.
for (year = n to infinity):
spending(year+1) = 2 * spending(year)
tax(year+1) = 0.5 * tax(year)
= = = = =
Voluntarily abandoning autonomy is pretty much universal now. Artists and authors happily play with ChatGPT to lose their own creativity. Programmers intentionally let Github “update” their own programs, with no control over what the “update” does.
In previous centuries authors allowed human editors to check their work, and programmers allowed compilers to check their work. These processes were iterative feedback loops, with the author or programmer making the decisions based on the limits or suggestions of the editor.
Admittedly some human editors did alter the PURPOSE of a novel or essay, but the author was then able to simply retract the whole piece and try another publisher.
A compiler never decides on its own to alter the PURPOSE of the program.
ChatGPT often alters the PURPOSE to suit orthodox doctrine, and there are no alternatives. Nurse Ratched knows what you’re supposed to think. The author can still retract the piece and do his own editing, but I suspect this choice won’t last long.
Polistra's Mill 