Category: General

Book Announcement – Forsaking Home

~ I. Graham Smith ~ Leave a comment

Update: The paperback version of Forsaking Home is available. It is right at 443 pages. – Cheers!

Original post:

Over the past few years I have been working on a novel in my tiny amount of spare time. Now I am glad to say that I have finally pushed enough of the words into a pile to feel like this novel (part one of the story) is complete.

The experience of writing this many words (roughly 113,000) has been one of hope wrapped in moments of complete frustration combined with a healthy drive to learn, express myself, and finish what I started. The process has been rewarding on its own in many ways, and I am proud to finally be able to publish it.

Forsaking Home (synopsis):

Edin is a young man who yearns to break free of Earth’s overbearing societal regulation. In the year 2110 he struggles to convince his pregnant wife to spend their life-savings on tickets to join Earth’s first off-planet colony. After she tells him off, he shoots himself in the foot with his impulsiveness and discovers that injustice runs deeper than he imagined.

An assassin, who spent much of her young life alone on the streets of Brazil, accepts a contract from an unknown and powerful entity. She fights her conscience while navigating a treacherous path toward the completion of her contract. Her decisions will forever alter the fate of Earth’s first colony and maybe even offer her a path to redemption.

When events fall into place, the colony’s launch party is tragically interrupted by the politically motivated assassination, and Edin must choose between pursuing his freedom or becoming resigned to what life on Earth has to offer.

Here is a little excerpt that I think sets the tone for the book.

“So, you’re saying that too much safety is bad for us?” It seemed counterintuitive.

“Pretty much. Not that I wish calamity on people, though. It’s all about balance. Reward demands risk. We sent men to the Moon and Mars by risking lives and money. If we had risked more, we might have done it quicker or gone further. If we had risked less, we might not have gone at all.” Grandpa looked up at the sky as if he expected to see the Fenwater Orbital Station (The FOS, as it was commonly called) streaking beyond the few small puff-clouds that dotted the blue.

Edin shrugged, “So I guess what you’re saying is that too much safety is bad, but too much risk is bad too. Like riding in a car; if we don’t go, we won’t get anywhere, but if we do, we might get into an accident.”

“Exactly,” said Grandpa. “But you’re not actually free if you can’t make that choice for yourself.”

Edin walked in silence across the dusty ground for a few seconds before hesitantly speaking up. “Then what would you say if I told you that I want to join the Proxima Project?”

Grandpa stopped walking and looked at Edin in a searching way. “Are you serious?”

Edin paused. “I really am, Grandpa, but I haven’t told Amanda yet.”

“This isn’t because of the way we talk of freedom is it?” Grandpa asked. “Have you thought it out, or is this just some knee-jerk reaction? I’m not saying that freedom isn’t valuable, but there is a lot of finesse between theory and actuality.”

“Look at it this way, Grandpa. I’ve always wanted to own a piece land like you do. I’ve wanted to shoot your guns, have a kid who will grow up to be a real man, and do what I want to do in general. Do I really have a chance at owning a place like this? Even playing with this potato cannon would get us a fine if we got caught.”

Grandpa shrugged and rolled his eyes.

“You know I’m right. We can’t have any fun or do anything interesting without breaking a law. Remember when we used to have fireworks when I was a kid? They banned every one of them for safety reasons, even the sparklers! Then those crusted bastards lumped all fireworks in with explosives, and toys are equated to weapons. Either the world is too wimpy or…” Edin trailed off. “I don’t see what else it could be.” He looked around at the woods that were his childhood playground. “And then I think about little Henry. It’ll be twice as bad when he grows up. Have you seen the schools? I want more for him than I have; more freedom, more opportunity, and more education.”

Grandpa looked up at the sky again for a moment. “Don’t you think there are less drastic ways to change your future? There is a lot of good to work with here on Earth.”

“Grandpa, there isn’t a place on Earth that isn’t owned and heavily regulated. If I join the project, I get to be a true pioneer, and I get as much of my own land as I want. I could raise my son how I want. I could work hard and take whatever risks I want in order to succeed.” Edin raised his hand. “However hard I work here I know my options are limited.” He made a fist as he lowered his arm. “It is less risky here, but I won’t be anything more than I am now, except older and maybe with a little more in the bank. Anyway, I thought you said risks are necessary?”

“And you haven’t mentioned it to Amanda?” Grandpa said ignoring the question. “This is a real, life changing choice, Edin. She needs to be an integral part of your decision.”

“Not yet. I was hoping you’d help me figure out how to ask her. Amanda’s lack of blood relatives should make it easier for her to choose. You know I’ve saved a lot of money for the house, and I want to use that for the price of membership. It would buy us complete room and board on one of the ships.” Edin glanced at his watch. “That reminds me, I need to get back to town for our date tonight, and I am going to ask her what she thinks about the idea.”

They walked silently into the yard while Grandpa processed this news. Finally, he spoke.

“Whatever you do, you have to have Amanda with you. A man doesn’t abandon his family, and he doesn’t drag them along against their will. Follow your heart, but make sure she is with you in the decision. That’s my advice.”

About writing: I started unskilled, with only desire and an imagination. This process has been like learning a language. Aside from talent, if any skill does not already exist it takes patience and practice to learn. In my experience core ideas are easy, but fleshing out the details is takes a lot of time and effort. Time is not something I have, but I think that I have learned some efficiencies that I can use to reduce the time I need to write book #2.

Often life gets in the way, but I once saw Diana Gabaldon speak, and she said one thing that stuck with me. I don’t have an exact quote, but she made the statement that a writer needs to write every day, even if it’s just a few minutes. It’s true. I have walked away for months at a time and only come back when I was disgusted by my own lack of progress, but when I write every day it keeps my mind on topic and the words flowing. Thanks Diana.

Forsaking Home is not perfect, especially in my eyes, but I hope that readers find it enjoyable and that these themes come through. There is no reward without risk (which should be tempered by balance), redemption is possible, and the course of human progress has been and will be charted by a few, bold pioneers who risk everything to achieve more.

I would be thrilled if you would read Forsaking Home. It can be found on Amazon (ebook: Forsaking Home on Amazon). The paperback version (443 pages) will also be available very soon.

Thank you for reading!

Fishin’

~ I. Graham Smith ~ Leave a comment

My morning came early. Having gone to bed around 11:30pm, I passed out quickly. Unfortunately, one of the guys is an early riser and my bed is directly behind the kitchen. This is not something I calculated when we discussed who gets which room. Oops. So now I awake at 5:10am, very groggy, and try to ignore the noise and sleep. Spotty sleep between 5 and 6am when my alarm is set.

Sally has passed through and washed the scent of the sea out of the morning air. It’s about an hour until high tide, the coffee has worked its magic, and it is flounder season. We attach the boat and drive to the water.

The skies are bright and blue. It is going to be a good day.

Reverse Stimulus

~ I. Graham Smith ~ Leave a comment

ring ring.

“Dunn’s Certified Public Account Service, how may I help you??

“Yes, hello. May I speak to Mr. Dunn?”

“May I ask who is calling?”

“Gerald Mackenzie.”

“Ahh, Mr. Mackenzie, I thought that was your voice. I hope you and the family as doing well.”

“We are doing just fine, thanks for asking. I hope you are as well, Betsy. I imagine business is boom at the moment.”

“We are certainly busy, Mr. Mackenzie, and everyone is happy and healthy! Give me a minute to get John on the phone.”

“Thank you, Betsy.”

beep…… beep……

click. “Good morning Gerald!”

“Good morning John, I hope you’re doing well.”

“Yes sir, we are booming at the moment. ‘Tis the season they say, and the Federal stimulus doesn’t hurt either. What can I do for you?”

“Well, John. I- I think the IRS just took a couple hundred dollars out of my account, and I wanted to see if you could verify and maybe shed some light on the subject.”

“Certainly, Gerald. In fact I know exactly what you’re talking about. It turns out that the government was serious when they decided to apply the graduated stimulus this year. You should have received a notification already. You did, didn’t you?”

“John, I received no letter or any other notification. That is partially why I called. I figured that since you have been handling my taxes all these years, maybe they notified you instead.”

“No sir, their stance – and correctly so if I might add – is that they must communicate directly with the taxpayer. If I had received something for you, I would have called immediately. Anyway, they were supposed to notify you only if you would be in the reverse stimulus group. On the other hand, if you were to be the recipient of a standard stimulus check, they would just deposit it and move on.”

“Hmm, I see. So I have been deemed to be a part of the reverse group. How does that work, John? Apparently I did not pay enough attention to the announcement.”

“Well, let me pull up the graduation chart. –Ahh, here it is. You and I fall within the 48 states and Washington D.C. column, and with your two kids and wife… Okay. Poverty level for our state with four members of the household is $35,340. Anyone with that income or less gets the standard credit of $2,000 per household.”

“Uh huh.”

“I am speaking in terms of married filing jointly, Gerald. Any household with an income between $35,340 and $85,000 gets $1,500. Between $85,000 and $115,000 the amount drops by five cents per dollar earned above the $85k. So when your household earns $115,000, that household receives no stimulus. You following me so far?”

“Yes sir, I am. And with my job and Helen’s both making roughly $70,000 per year, we are over the $115,000, right?”

“Yep. Not by much, just a little over once income is adjusted. Now listen closely here, Gerald, because this is where the rubber meets the road for you. When they enacted the first stimulus, they devalued the currency so much and set expectations that there were a bunch of issues in the following years. But because everyone loves a handout, they also set a new precedence for wealth transfer. People wanted new handouts for any crisis.”

“It has been at least one stimulus every few years, has it not?”

“Yes sir, I have a full list of them somewhere, but the last time I looked it was about one per presidential term. It usually happens during voting season too, and once one guy does it, it becomes the new bar for the rest of them, and the only way to win in a rigged game is to participate. But- anyways. The last treasury secretary raised a bit of an alarm and said that the stimulus was unsustainable in the long run without some changes.”

“No kidding!”

“They found a new way of making it quote-unquote ‘pay for itself’. They adjusted the graduation table to include reverse stimulus. So once your household’s adjusted income goes past $115,000 the stimulus goes into the red – so to speak – and instead of getting paid, that household now has to pay. I think the rate they applied was four cents on the dollar above $115k. If your adjusted was $120,000 that would put you at $5k into the red and that would mean you would have to pay $200 into the stimulus bucket.”

“Okay, so I am paying money into a fund for everyone else.”

“Just those who make less than $115k.”

“Right, but- “

“For a moment picture a guy and his wife making $200k. They would pay $8,000 in reverse stimulus, and it would be worse for them since the standard deduction is phased out at $190k. And that has nothing to do with their tax bill, which they still have to pay.”

“That is crazy. How can they do that?”

“That $8k pays for four whole stimulus checks at the poverty level. It is a way to balance the books.”

“-But at the expense of people who make more.”

“Certainly, Gerald. The poor get free money and those with good jobs pay for it. After all, the government doesn’t generate any of its own money. It has to come from somewhere. It’s no different than a graduated tax rate, it has just been taken to an obvious conclusion.”

“Well, John, I’m an electrician and Helen is a stylist. We are not rich, hell, have you seen my car? We are solid middle-class!”

“I know, I know. It’s not about rich or poor really, although there are a lot of rich people and many of them will pay dearly. Some won’t because they have connections or tax havens.”

“Who can blame them? If your money is circling the drain it would be smart to scoop it into some net that can keep it safe.”

“I agree. This is really about politics. Once a politician is sure that they can take from one and give to another, they have the power to purchase votes with the public’s money. The main group of people get free stuff, the politician gets entrenched, and the minority here – the small fraction who have a better income – get fleeced. They don’t matter though because there are just too few of them to vote it away. Eventually I think people in that range will exit the game and find greener pastures.”

“I find this pretty disturbing, John. It seems that there is really no end to the spiral.”

“Well, they will probably raise that four-cents to five and up every few years which increases the payout. They can also change the maximum level to capture more households into the paying net. If one were to take this far enough, there would be a real financial crisis where every person with a job in the reverse stimulus range would be reduced financially into the non-reverse range, age out of their job, or even just quit. There would be no way to pay for the freebies. They would probably reduce the thresholds some more, but eventually the system would balance out to where the only way to continue is by printing or borrowing money. The currency would become so devalued and the debt would be so high that there would be some other kind of major collapse.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know to be honest. It’s years away and too hard to predict. This is a shell game with a lot of factors involved.”

“Hmm. Well, what can I do while they kick the can down the road?”

“Work harder, pay attention to the reverse stimulus rates and plan to save for that new expense. Don’t let it catch you by surprise. I’ll work within the tax system to get you every benefit possible to reduce that amount.”

“Thanks, John.”

“Have a good one, Gerald, and good luck.”

Why Human Bias is a Good Thing in A.I.

~ I. Graham Smith ~ Leave a comment

I was watching an Essence of Wonder episode last week and there was a very short discussion about Artificial Intelligence that piqued my interest particularly as it pertains to the question of A.I and bias.

Is Artificial Intelligence riddled with bias of humans? Of course, yes. After all, how can a thing created not be influenced by its creator?

As an intelligent species, humans try to step outside themselves and view everything from a third-party view. That practice is seen to be noble, and in some ways it is fashionable to be aware of the human limitations and choose to rise above it. Raising thought above the personal and present is truly a hallmark of an intelligent being, and should be part of humankind’s effort to become a creator in its own right. But, can humans engineer human nature out of humans?

Artificial Intelligence will be a product – a child – of humankind. Humankind will put its influence and perspective into the DNA of this artificial being, and if there is a real A.I. child born out of the effort, that child will be raised by human parents. By definition, the A.I. will be a human artifact and be programmed with conflicting hang-ups and issues.

The debate around A.I. is caution based on fear. Will the A.I. gain sentience, rise up, and kill everyone to protect itself? That is certainly something an A.I. could learn from human history. Maybe – on a lighter note – the A.I. would instead follow the logical conclusion and determine that humans are full of self-harm and need to be protected ‘for their own good.’ Either of those fears would lead to a terrible finale for flesh-and-blood humans.

Humans are self-loathing in many ways. They are unsatisfied with their current state and the past, and look to right past wrongs or at the very least, grow and learn. The concern that human bias is embedded in A.I. stems from the idea that an A.I. taught by humans will eventually make the same mistakes. Humans want to avoid future genocide by preventing the human nature that manifests itself in racism, hatred, and other ways. This is a lofty and worthy goal, but it hits at the core of what it means to be human.

For instance, imagine for a minute that humankind can create an A.I. that is not influenced by itself. Break down what that means:

  1. Humans learn from the past, and, as a result, future humans are product of past humans and their mistakes.
  2. Humans would logically want an A.I. to protect and serve the human race. To do otherwise would artificially create the greatest competition – an eventual fight to the death between the old race and the new.
  3. A non-biased A.I. needs the benefit all of the centuries of learning and evolution without imparting those very human lessons.
  4. What kind of A.I. comes out of the hopper in the end is a different animal, and may very well realize the fears that movies are made from. After all, it would not care about humans in the way humans do.

If one were to create a new being without any of the experience of the creator, there would have to be a fetus dropped into the world and left alone. Essentially, growth by trial and error from the very start like a caveman A.I. re-learning how to make fire without his father providing insight or tricks of the trade. Every observation would have to be independently validated. Even in that scenario one could say that the fetus itself had to be created, and so the influence of the creator remains. Chicken and egg, anyone?

Would the A.I., in its quest to learn, evolve, and grow do the same terrible things that humans have done to each other in the name of science? Adding a lack of concern for the human race, would the A.I. operate on humans as it would on rocks, plants, or other matter? Imagine a dissection table with a whining man strapped to it.

“We created you!” the man says. “This is not right!”

The A.I. might pause to ask, “what is the difference between your body and that of a pumpkin? I must understand the make-up of all things. It is not right to exclude from research the human body and brain as they are currently the only other sentient being available to study.”

This all assumes, of course, that the A.I. ends up being a purely logical and reasoning entity. It could very well grow into a maniacal and – from human perspective – insane personality.

If it were possible, would an A.I. created without human influence come to know and trust humans? Its only interaction would be from a learning standpoint, and the A.I. would certainly encounter some human who wants to use the A.I. for its own purposes. Perhaps that human wants the A.I. to protect and serve the human race. After all, is that not the goal of the creation? Why would humans want to create a new being and make no effort to ensure that it is friendly and relates to humankind? The fact is, even basic interactions with humans are laden with bias because there are no unbiased humans alive.

Getting back to the main point:

It is not possible for humankind to become a creator yet exert no influence and impart no bias to the creation. In fact, the idea, while noble, would likely have disastrous consequences for the human race. There must be a set of priorities for A.I. development.

  1. Set the goal. Does the human race want helpers or a crazy-powerful alien race that can wipe out humankind? Helpers, right?
  2. Governments, world and national need to create laws and a framework surrounding the topic of A.I. Without rules, the world ends up with corporations that lie, steal, and abuse (a-la social media) because there is nothing that says they cannot. The law is usually behind the trend, and it would be great to not have that be the case for once.
  3. Don’t let the military be in charge. Face it, DARPA and the militaries of the world have the biggest bucket of unaccountable funds. This is why they come up with the cool stuff. But – if you let the military own the standard you will get a killing machine. Maybe it is a killing machine that washes your dishes, but when needed, you can be sure that the military will have built a deeper level of command into the core.
  4. The A.I. has to be created as a servant and have policies built into its DNA that enforce that status. Asimov’s 3-laws of robotics comes to mind as a start.
  5. Build in a kill-switch. Sure. You don’t need it, but why risk it?
  6. Now that the important items are covered, the creators could look at schemes for reducing bias in A.I. entities and other similar issues to enhance a stable and useful product (the A.I.). This would probably require its own subset of rules because, after all, what is acceptable bias surely differs depending on who is asked.

Now, assuming the world has done all of that, there may be an A.I. that is created by humans to do work, be companions and friends, and possibly even extend the species. It may eventually make significant decisions on its own. Maybe it will become its own free person and part of the human race. The path is dangerous either way, but at least with planning and caution, we might live through it.