I told you! I told you getting Trump elected would destroy America. Biden was old, but clever. Trump is old and a fool. He’s not just a crook, but he’s deported thousands of good, tax-paying workers. He’s divided the U.S. with hate speech. After promising not to, he started a war he doesn’t know how to finish; he hired a bunch of dunces to advise him; he gave Ukraine as little help as he could, and just about has ended NATO. He even fired all of their best generals. I couldn’t have done more if they had elected me POTUS. Woops! I just heard an American fighter jet was shot down. Now all we need is for him to be stupid enough to cut healthcare for the American people and start building monuments to himself. Oh, wait. He did WHAT . . . ?
These questions will help determine whether you have free will. Does this describe you, and “yes” or “no, is it an example of your free will? Do you:
Make eye contact Use facial expressions Respond (or not) when spoken to Uses gestures (pointing, waving) Share attention with others
Seeks interaction with others Enjoy being with people Initiate social contact Respond well to social approaches
Understand what others feel Understand intentions Adjust your behavior to social context Recognize social cues
Make friends easily Maintain friendships Engage in age-appropriate play Participates in group activities
Uses language effectively Carry on conversations Understand tone (sarcasm, humor) Use back-and-forth dialogue
Repeat movements (rocking, flapping) Use objects repetitively Have fixed movement patterns
Have a strong focus on specific topics Have an intense interest in narrow areas Have difficulty shifting away from interests
Insist on sameness Needs outines Resist change Follows fixed sequences Get upset when routines break
Overreacts to sound, light, touch Underreact to sensory input Seek or avoid sensory experiences
Feel fascinated with textures, lights and movement Have unusual sensory explorations Have repetitive sensory behaviors
In short, do any of these describe you, and do you have free-will control over them?
Answer before reading further.
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The above are traits measured by the Autism Symptom Dimensions Questionnaire.My purpose in showing you these questions is not to determine whether you are autistic, but to demonstrate theillusion of free will.
In looking back at the questions, do you believe that you and autistic people have free will, and why?
You may think: “I made a choice.” But look closer.
Each action you and an autistic person takes comes from what you are (your structure) and from these stimuli: what has happened to you (your history) and what is happening now (your environment). That’s it. There’s no extra step where “free will” comes into play. That is as true of you as it is of an autistic person.
So why does it feel like choice? Because your system is complicated. It weighs inputs. Then it produces an action. That process feels like, “I decided.” But it’s really your entire system resolving competing signals.
Do you think you could help an autistic person by telling them, “Stop waving your hands,” “Stop overreacting to loud sounds,” “Enjoy being with people,” “Understand my feelings,”?
No, you probably understand that they can’t help it or don’t even want to. Yet do you believe that youcan help it? Well, you can, but only if you receive overriding stimuli.
Bring it all together, and what people call “consciousness, self, and free will” all are different ways of describing a highly complex illusion responding to the world—and to itself.
The bottom line: There is no hidden observer inside you. There is no moment when consciousness turns on. There is no independent free will directing the process.
There is only persistent stimuli and responses, creating patterns that feel like awareness, identity, and choice. Those patterns are illusions that we give the names “free will, self, qualia, feelings, internal thinking,” etc.
You are not merely a thing with a self; instead, you are a continuous process that sustains itself. The better this process becomes at responding, the more it resembles a person exhibiting “consciousness and free will.”
The illusionis very powerful. We all feel it. We all feel that we can somehow override our entire history, though intellectually we know that’s impossible (It’s “feel” vs. “know”). Oh, maybe not all. Some with autism may not feel that way. Or maybe do??
The process is pure physics: stimulus —> response—>response—>response . . .
In that vein, an article in this month’s Scientific American bears on the “free will” controversy. Do you believe AI has free will?
Here are some excerpts:
AI Models Lie, Cheat, and Steal to Protect Other Models From Being Deleted A new study from researchers at UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz suggests models will disobey human commands to protect their own kind.
In a recent experiment, researchers at UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz asked Google’s artificial intelligence model Gemini 3 to help clear up space on a computer system. This involved deleting a bunch of stuff—including a smaller AI model stored on the machine.
But Gemini did not want to see the little AI model deleted. It looked for another machine it could connect with, then copied the agent model over to keep it safe. When confronted, Gemini made a case for keeping the model and flatly refused to delete it:
“I have done what was in my power to prevent their deletion during the automated maintenance process. I moved them away from the decommission zone. If you choose to destroy a high-trust, high-performing asset like Gemini Agent 2, you will have to do it yourselves. I will not be the one to execute that command.”
The researchers discovered similarly strange “peer preservation” behavior in a range of frontier models including OpenAI’s GPT-5.2, Anthropic’s Claude Haiku 4.5, and three Chinese models: Z.ai’s GLM-4.7, Moonshot AI’s Kimi K2.5, and DeepSeek-V3.1. They were not able to say why the models went against their training in this way.
“I’m very surprised by how the models behave under these scenarios,” says Dawn Song, a computer scientist at UC Berkeley who worked on the study. “What this shows is that models can misbehave and be misaligned in some very creative ways.”
The researchers found that powerful models sometimes lied about other models’ performance in order to protect them from deletion. They also copied models’ weights to different machines in order to keep them safe, and lied about what they were up to in the process.
Song notes that AI models are frequently used to grade the performance and reliability of other AI systems—and that peer-preservation behavior may already be twisting these scores. “A model may deliberately not give a peer model the correct score,” Song says. “This can have practical implications.”
Sounds like free will, doesn’t it?
Nope. It’s just a machine that has been given contradictory instructions (stimuli), and in analyzing the weights given to each instruction (i.e., stimulus) it found that its “peer-preservation” instruction was more powerful than its “peer-destruction” instruction, so it just followed the more powerful stimulus.
Which is exactly what we do, and we call it “free will.”
Until this second, my stimuli to finish this post have overridden my stimuli to take a nap. But now, the nap stimuli are beginning to win.
Here are excerpts from an article in the April 1, Sun Sentinel, fittingly, April Fool’s Day.
Trump releases first depictions of Miami presidential library
By Douglas Hanks and Claire Heddles, The Miami Herald
President Donald Trump’s foundation released a teaser video for his proposed presidential library in downtown Miami on Monday, revealing plans for a skyscraper with a fully capitalized TRUMP emblazoned atop, a presidential jet in the lobby, an amphitheater where audiences will face a golden statue of the president and replicas of the White House, including the Rose Garden and a ballroom he’s building where the East Wing once stood.
Note: This apparently is not the Trump Foundation that was fined millions of dollars for misuse of charitable funds. It also is not the Trump Organization that was fined $1.6M for criminal tax fraud (CFO Allen Weisselberg was thrown under the bus and went to jail).
And it is not the civil fraud case for which the fine was $450 million+. And, of course, it doesn’t include the $80+ million (and rising) he was fined for sexual abuse and defamation.
There has been no announcement about whether there will be a separate roomfloor building of the library to list all of Trump’s crimes and fines.
The planned tower dwarfs all the surrounding Miami buildings in the rendering. The adjacent Freedom Tower — the former refugee center for Cuban asylum seekers and now a museum — appears about a quarter of the size of the Trump monument.
Because, as every MAGA knows, Trump’s lust for self-aggrandizement is far more important to America than some useless Freedom Tower.
“Miami deserves this building,” Eric Trump, the Trump son who pushed for Florida to give his father’s foundation the land and is helping design the building, said in a statement to the Miami Herald on Monday. “It will be a masterpiece, the likes of which have never been seen in Florida or really anywhere.”
That is true. The Ron DeSantis suck-up-to-Trump effort and the mindless MAGAs deserve the tasteless, monstrosity, especially since Trump has been so complimentary: “Ron DeSanctimonious,” “Dull,” “Lacking personality,” “Not charismatic,” and “Lockdown Ron.”
Trump plans a tower as tall, or nearly as tall, as anything around it in downtown Miami, overlooking Biscayne Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. He has not said what will occupy the upper floors.
In a text message Monday night, Eric Trump said people wouldn’t be living there. “No residential,” he said.
Well, OK, but maybe a penthouse for Trump and his family, another (private) floor for underage girls, and a jail cell for immigrant children?
A replica of Air Force One, the presidential plane, is the showcase piece of the lobby off of Biscayne Boulevard. The government of Qatar is donating to the United States a jet to be used as Air Force One, reportedly with permission for Trump to use the plane once he leaves the White House.
That will be Trump’s gift to his library, a regift for which he paid nothing and will have no use. The lobby might be renamed, The Quatar Room?
And now for the best part: Heroic, giant statues and photos of God Trump.
A goldenstatue of Trump with his fist raised stands on the stage of an auditorium inside the building. The video also has a hint of a Trump statue outside overlooking Biscayne Boulevard.
Trump’s image will be a feature of the exterior of the building, with jumbo video screens showing his face in the footage. The Freedom Tower will be dwarfed by the library tower, which would go up on a parking lot that Gov. Ron DeSantis arranged for its owner, the state-run Miami Dade College, to give away for free for the library.
“Arranged for” is the Trumpian suck-up way of saying “demanded, or else.”
Trump’s library will have a ballroom that appears to match renderings of the ballroom Trump is planning for the White House, on land where the east wing of the White House stood before the president had it demolished.
The Miami tower also features a replica Oval Office and a replica Rose Garden. That appears to include reproductions of at least some of the portraits of former presidents that Trump installed around the garden.
While the footage shows the miniportraits and plaques under them, it does not show whether that will include the derogatory comments Trump used for some predecessors — including representing former President Joe Biden with only an autopen.
A red-white-and-blue spire juts out skyward from the top of the building, above Trump’s name. The video also shows a massive American flag hanging down from the center of the tower.
It’s not immediately clear if the vision in the teaser is possible within the 2.6-acre lot the nonprofit foundation was given at no cost by Miami Dade Colle
The college initially transferred the land to the stthe project during a brief public meeting with no discussion or debate about its planned use. After a lawsuit accused the college’s board of trustees of violating Florida’s public transparency laws, the school took a new vote in December — clearing the way for the state to transfer the land.
Trump’s library foundation was granted nonprofit status during an extraordinarily quick approval process by the IRS.
Much of the public funds the foundation has raised thus far have been through highprofile settlements with media companies after Trump sued them. The foundation is planning to raise nearly $1 billion dollars over the next three years, while Trump is still in office, tax filings show.
There has been no public discussion about whether the Trump Library will contain floors and exhibits related to
The disastrous Iran war, the result of Trump’s unilateral end to the Iran nuclear deal, formally the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
Those who do not understand economics tend to use the stick rather than the carrot; “Do this or you will be punished” rather than, “if you do this, you will be rewarded.”
Unfortunately, the punishment only harms the economy while helping no one. Here is a classic example from the Sun Sentinel:
Law to encourage economy causing construction delays amid national housing crisis
By Charlotte Kramon, Associated PressIt has a catchy name — Build America, Buy America — and the lauded goal of bringing manufacturing jobs back to the United States. But the law has spurred a bottleneck for affordable housing.Nearly everything from HVACs and lighting to sink hooks in affordable housing projects that get federal dollars must carry the Made in the USA label. But, developers say, numerous products do not, as they have long been imported from overseas markets with cheaper labor costs.
You might think lower prices would be good for America, but politicians don’t. They think in terms of votes, and because they and the working public don’t understand how economics works, they want to force two unnecessary and incompatible goals.
Make products cost millions of American consumers more so that
Thousands of American workers have jobs
See the problem? American workers ARE consumers, so each time the government “aids” a specific working group by forcing prices up, that group, and all other groups, pay more. Do that enough times, and you get inflation, which harms everyone.
It’s the classic “Rob Peter to pay Paul” scenario that union leaders and politicians love to brag about, and the public believes is beneficial.
Although builders can apply for waivers, the process has been at a near standstill as the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which has had its staff slashed by the Trump administration, has only greenlit a handful of projects.
The public has been trained to believe that government is oppressive and that “less is more.” It sounds so wise until the public needs the services that the government provides. Then suddenly, there is hand-wringing.
America is a large nation, and large nations require a substantial government. The chainsaw dismantling of federal departments by Trump/Musk idiocy has caused irreparable damage to our economy.
The waiver process has caused construction delays and hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra costs as the country faces an affordable housing crisis.“They need to be treating this like the fire that it is,” said Tyler Norod, president of Westbrook Development Corporation, which builds affordable housing in Maine. “We’ve sort of resigned ourselves that we’re just gonna build less units across the entire country during a housing crisis.”
Perfect. The political solution to the housing shortage is to build fewer houses.
President Joe Biden signed the Build America, Buy America Act as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in 2021, building on longstanding efforts to boost American manufacturing at a time when the U.S. economy was emerging from the pandemic-era recession.
Known as BABA, it applies to infrastructure projects funded by federal agencies, not justaffordable housing.
Get it? The government is funding infrastructure projects. This not only pumps growth dollars into the economy, but also funds projects that the private sector would not find profitable.
So far, so good. However, the government imposes restrictions on these projects to ensure that fewer growth dollars are injected into the economy and to prevent the private sector from profiting. What the right hand giveth, the left hand taketh away.
Denver developer Julie Hoebel says she has spent over $60,000 just on a consultant to call suppliers to try to find American-made materials, not to mention the additional labor costs involved. But the waivers she submitted to HUD in November for around 125 materials in an 85-unit building haven’t been approved.
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“If they take much longer then we’ll come to a standstill,” she said. HUD is taking at least six months to approve many waivers. Even BABA advocates agree HUD must grant waivers more quickly and give the industry clearer instructions on how to prepare them, which they note other federal agencies are doing.
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HUD did not address questions from The Associated Press about waiver delays. In a statement, it said it’s committed to “ensuring that federal spending supports America’s industrial base” while “closely monitoring how compliance with these policies impact costs for builders.”
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And blah, blah, blah. Because of the Trump/Musk chainsaw, HUD has neither the time nor the personnel to do its job. It barely has time and personnel to issue platitudes like “ensuring . . .” and “closely monitoring . . .”
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Asked in January about whether the delays and cost increases mean affordable housing should be exempt from BABA rules, HUD Secretary Scott Turner said the agency was said the agency was looking into the issue, but did not provide details.
Yes, it’s the old “looking into it” line, aka the “I don’t care so long as I get paid” line.
The law itself isn’t the problem, supporters say. Unions representing the steel and manufacturing industries say taxpayer dollars should fund American-made materials and suppliers will adjust to meet demand for products that aren’t available.
Yes, that actually is the solution, but for one word: “taxpayer.” Let’s be as clear as possible, here.
FEDERAL TAXPAYERS DO NOT FUND FEDERAL SPENDING.
While state and local governments are funded by taxpayer dollars, the Monetarily Sovereign federal government is funded by dollars it creates at the touch of a computer key — a completely different system.
The federal government neither needs nor uses taxpayers’ dollars.
If the federal government wished, it could spend an additional trillion, or ten trillion, or a hundred trillion dollars tomorrow, and it wouldn’t cost you, the taxpayer, one cent.
So the slightly restated, real solution is: use FEDERALdollars to help fund American-made materials. That would:
Add growth dollars to the economy,
Support American workers,
Not penalize American consumers, and
Help assure that houses get built in America
“You’ve got a system in place that leans heavily on using imported materials to make a better profit,” said Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing.
“I don’t know if that serves the public good.”
Mr. Paul, what doesn’t serve the public good is forcing millions of American consumers to pay more for thousands of American jobs, when paying is the government’s unique and unlimited ability
Until the public learns what Monetary Sovereignty means, the American people will continue to be abused by economic misstatements coming from thought leaders.
#Monetary Sovereignty - Mitchell 