It’s funny isn’t it? We observe the destruction of society and environment by billionaires. We observe the destruction of OSS by tools of billionaires used in idiotic ways.

The moment one decides to actively fight back, to not say “pretty please stop that”, that’s a problem.

Protest: ok only if it does not hurt. A strike that hits? Oh dear please not. Color on a super yacht or a yet? How dare you. A prompt injection? You monster.

It will get worse before it gets better, I am sure.

Writers convention

Host: "We have a particularly special guest with us tonight. The ghost of J.R.R. Tolkien will be making a few comments."

J.R.R. Tolkien's Ghost taps the mic: "Is this on? Yes, well, sorry, I just thought I should come back. You see, I made a slight mistake. It's meant to be pronounced Jandalf."

What a lot of people do not understand is the fragility of supply chains.

Setup

Let us assume there is a part X that is used by a large number of other companies. It is not glamorous, it is not expensive, and nobody outside a small circle of specialists ever thinks about it. But it is needed. Without it, other products cannot be finished.

Everything is fine

Part X is made by a small company with a few dozen employees and a machine that is several decades old.

Everything runs smoothly. The company knows how to maintain the machine. They know how to operate it. They know its strange noises, its moods, its undocumented rituals. They know which lever needs a bit of persuasion on cold mornings and which replacement part must be machined by hand because nobody has made the original since 1987. They also know how to train new employees, because the knowledge still exists inside the company.

Crisis

Then, suddenly, a few large customers run into a crisis.

Orders slow down. The warehouses fill up with part X. Prices fall.

The company downsizes. Then it downsizes again. But nobody really notices, because stocks are still full. Customers are not yet affected. Purchasing departments can still get part X from inventory. Balance sheets still look fine. The problem has not yet reached the spreadsheet.

If this goes on for long enough, the company goes broke.

Again, nobody really notices. Stocks are still full. Some people may worry, but as long as no current production line is stopping and no quarterly number is visibly bleeding, nothing urgent is done.

The employees move on. They retire, change industries, start new careers. The old machine is sold for scrap. The building is repurposed. The knowledge evaporates.

Recovery

A few years later, demand picks up again.

The warehouses slowly empty. Stocks run low. People start ordering part X again, only to discover that nobody is offering it anymore.

Now someone decides to restart production.

The first thing they discover is that there is no machine. Building a new one would be prohibitively expensive, assuming anyone still knows how to build it properly. So they desperately search for an old one.

They get lucky. In a scrapyard, they find a machine that used to produce part X. It is rusted, incomplete, and dysfunctional. Naturally, they buy it.

Now they try to get it working again.

But there is another problem. There are no people left who know how to maintain it. So they hire someone who understands industrial maintenance in general, but has never worked on this specific machine. That person does their best. They improvise. They read old manuals. They reverse-engineer undocumented fixes. They keep the machine alive with skill, patience, and increasing amounts of despair.

But it breaks down every few hours. Output is abysmal.

Bottlenecks

And now that one poor maintenance person is overworked. They need help. But training help requires time, and the only person who can train others is the same person needed to keep the machine barely running. Every hour spent teaching is an hour not spent preventing the next failure.

Very few businesses survive this phase.

There is no institutional knowledge anymore. New people are hired, begin training, look at the state of the machine, the chaos of the process, and the constant emergency mode, and conclude that the business is doomed anyway. Then they quit.

Churn becomes terrible. Even if the company survives financially, it remains fragile. It is always just one or two people quitting away from disaster.

At the end the world decides it needs to get rid of part X as the supply is too fragile.

Summary

This is still very much simplified. The reality is more complex, more ugly.

And that is the part many people miss: a supply chain is not just warehouses, contracts, prices, and transport routes. It is also people, habits, obsolete machines, informal knowledge, and boring little skills that nobody values until they are gone.

Cunning!

#PopeLeo #AI #AIHustle #ButlerianJihad #Catholicism

note: I don't actually care if you think this is AI posted. I thought parts of it were amusing. AI or otherwise. I saw it on facebook, I personally didn't post this on facebook. and because we have children who want to act like their two, here's the original facebook URL: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=122384516228009609&id=61550288282980 Feel free to block me if you want, I don't actually care. My bio says it all, If something I say/post/repost offends you, don't let the door hit you on the way out. This is simply The random shit I see on Facebook when I check it once in in an age! The man across the aisle thought the airplane Wi-Fi network was a distress signal.

And for about four minutes, I honestly understood why.

This happened on an Alaska Airlines flight from San Francisco to Portland, which is usually the kind of flight where everyone has either a Patagonia jacket, a laptop, or a reusable water bottle that looks like it has been on more hikes than I have.

I was in 12C.

Aisle seat.

Across from me in 12D was a man in his early sixties with reading glasses, a newspaper, and the intense energy of someone who still prints hotel confirmations.

He seemed nice.

A little serious.

The kind of man who says “the internet” like it’s a location.

We took off.

Totally normal.

Seatbelt sign went off.

People opened laptops.

Someone two rows up immediately started watching a movie without headphones, because apparently society is fragile.

I pulled out my phone to connect to the Wi-Fi.

That’s when the man across the aisle leaned over.

Him: “Excuse me.”
Me: “Yeah?”
Him: “Do you see that?”
Me: “See what?”
Him: “On the Wi-Fi.”

I looked at my phone.

There were several networks.

Alaska_WiFi.
Alaska_Guest.
Somebody’s hotspot called “NotYourHotspot.”
And one that said:

HELP_IM_STUCK_ON_A_PLANE

I stared at it.

He stared at it.

Then he whispered, “That seems bad.”

To be fair.

It did seem bad.

Me: “I think that’s probably somebody’s phone hotspot.”
Him: “Why would someone name it that?”
Me: “Because people are strange.”
Him: “Should we tell someone?”
Me: “I don’t think so.”
Him: “It says help.”

Now the woman in 12E, next to him, looks over.

Woman: “What says help?”
Him: “The Wi-Fi.”
Woman: “The Wi-Fi says help?”
Me: “A hotspot says help.”
Woman: “That feels different from regular help.”

The man holds up his phone like it’s evidence in a trial.

Him: “Look.”
Woman: “Oh.”
Me: “It’s probably a joke.”
Him: “Probably?”
Me: “Most likely.”
Woman: “I don’t love ‘most likely’ at 30,000 feet.”

Now the guy behind me leans forward.

Behind guy: “Did someone say help?”
Me: “No.”
Him: “The Wi-Fi did.”
Behind guy: “The Wi-Fi asked for help?”
Me: “The Wi-Fi did not ask for help. Someone named their hotspot weird.”

A college student across the aisle takes out one AirPod.

College student: “What’s the hotspot called?”
The man shows him.

College student: “Oh, that’s hilarious.”
Him: “It is not hilarious.”
College student: “It kind of is.”
Woman: “Could it be a crew code?”
Me: “I really don’t think the crew is using public Wi-Fi names to communicate.”
Behind guy: “You never know.”

This is how it spreads.

One concerned man.
One weird hotspot name.
One row of people with too much imagination.

Within sixty seconds, rows 11 through 13 are aware that someone’s phone is named HELP_IM_STUCK_ON_A_PLANE.

The flight attendant walks by with a trash bag.

The man raises his hand.

Him: “Excuse me.”
Flight attendant: “Yes?”
Him: “There’s something on the Wi-Fi.”
Flight attendant: “Okay.”
Him: “It says help.”
Flight attendant: “The Wi-Fi says help?”
Me: “It’s a hotspot.”
Flight attendant: “Ah.”
Him: “Do you know whose it is?”
Flight attendant: “No, sir.”
Him: “Shouldn’t we find out?”
Flight attendant: “I’m going to guess someone thought they were funny.”

The college student raises his hand slightly.

College student: “To be fair, they were.”

The man does not appreciate this.

Him: “What if someone is actually stuck?”
Flight attendant: “Sir, we are all technically stuck on the plane.”
College student: “That’s the joke.”

I had to look down.

I could not laugh.

The flight attendant stayed very calm.

Flight attendant: “I’ll make a quick announcement, okay?”
Him: “Thank you.”
Me: “Oh no.”
Woman: “This is going to get worse.”

The flight attendant walked to the front.

A second later, the speaker clicked on.

Flight attendant: “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a small request. If your phone hotspot is named HELP_IM_STUCK_ON_A_PLANE, could you please rename it or turn it off? It is causing some concern in row 12.”

Silence.
Then half the plane started laughing.

Not quiet laughing.

Full-body, Sunday-night-airport-exhaustion laughing.

A hand slowly went up in row 18.

A guy in a beanie yelled, “My bad!”

The flight attendant looked down the aisle.

Flight attendant: “Thank you, sir.”

The man across the aisle turned bright red.

Him: “I was just being cautious.”
Me: “Honestly, fair.”
Woman: “It did say help.”
College student: “And we were on a plane.”

The guy from row 18 walked up later to use the bathroom and stopped by our row.

Beanie guy: “Sorry about that.”
Him: “You named your phone that?”
Beanie guy: “My brother did it last Thanksgiving and I forgot.”
Him: “For months?”
Beanie guy: “I don’t use hotspot much.”
Woman: “Your brother has caused aviation confusion.”
Beanie guy: “He’d be proud.”

The serious man looked like he wanted to be mad, but couldn’t fully get there.

Him: “You should change it.”
Beanie guy: “Already did.”
Me: “What is it now?”
Beanie guy: “Definitely_Not_A_Distress_Signal.”
The college student almost fell out of his seat.

The man just stared.

Him: “That is not better.”
Flight attendant, passing by: “It is a little better.”

After that, the whole section relaxed.

The man across the aisle eventually smiled, just a little.

He folded his newspaper, looked at me, and said, “I suppose I overreacted.”

Me: “Maybe a little.”
Woman: “But if it had been real, you would’ve been the hero.”
College student: “Row 12: cybersecurity division.”
Him: “I am not in cybersecurity.”
Me: “You are now.”

For the rest of the flight, every time the flight attendant passed, she gave him updates.

Flight attendant: “No further Wi-Fi emergencies.”
Him: “Very funny.”
Flight attendant: “We remain safely connected.”
Him: “You’re enjoying this.”
Flight attendant: “A little.”

When we landed in Portland, people stood up immediately because apparently airplane seats become lava after touchdown.

The guy from row 18 walked past us.

Beanie guy: “Safe travels, row 12.”
College student: “Stay vigilant.”
Woman: “Rename your phone.”
Him: “Please.”

As we walked off the plane, the flight attendant stood by the door.

She looked at the man and said, “Thank you for protecting the network.”

He tried not to smile.

Failed.

Him: “Somebody had to.”

And honestly?

He wasn’t wrong.

Because most of us saw a weird Wi-Fi name and thought, “That’s dumb.”

He saw it and thought, “Not on my watch.”

A little dramatic?

Yes.

But somewhere between San Francisco and Portland, one retired-looking guy with a newspaper briefly became the self-appointed sheriff of airplane Wi-Fi.

And I respect that.

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