PAST EVENTS

 PLANETARY CYCLES: CAN PAST RETROGRADES TELL US ANYTHING ABOUT THE FUTURE? ENQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW
Retrogrades occur at regular and predictable intervals and have been tracked for millenia. Some say that they are correlated with life on earth; others scoff at such a notion. In this research-based presentation, Friday Night Light examines the historical evidence going back through key moments in time and even suggests ways that you can take advantage of history to guide your future. What you make of the indisputable astronomical facts is up to you.  

 CAN WE PLEASE TAKE EINSTEIN SERIOUSLY? WHY THE SO-CALLED "GENIUS" WASN'T CRAZY
Chosen by Time Magazine as the "Person of the Century" in 2000, Albert Einstein is widely regarded as a genius whose ideas are still proving themselves today. Yet modern physics rejects his view of how the world works. He saw law and order in nature where others see randomness and chance. As he said in 1929, "Everything is determined ... by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust - we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by invisible piper." He also famously declared, "I do not believe in Free Will."
Was Einstein simply crazy? Or was he crazy like a fox?
Does any of this matter? If so, what does it mean for you and your life? 

 EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS WRONG: THE MUST-HEAR COMIC GENIUS OF THE FIRESIGN THEATRE
The Firesign Theatre, best known as a 4-man 1970's Los Angeles comedy troupe, was one of the most important artistic groups to come along in decades. Far more than providing simple laughs and word-play, they explored universal themes of self-discovery and personal development in ways that can accelerate your journey to transcendence. Find out why they are behind the most serious comedy you are ever likely to experience. 

 UNLOCKING MORRISON-ELIOT-EINSTEIN DOORS TO THE DIVINE DANCE
Over the past several months, we've looked at many ways of "making sense in the world," a major activity of laypeople and professionals alike. Each day we make decisions, both small and large, that are based on our perception of reality. Humanity has slowly graduated from the dark ages of fanciful beliefs, but we now find ourselves mired in a world of probability and statistics. Unfortunately, both are based on the superstition that reality could be otherwise.
It's time to WAKE UP and see the world as it is, not as we imagine it to be. Jim Morrison, T. S. Eliot, Albert Einstein, and The Doors are portals to Certainty and Simplicity. When you get inside, your life will never be the same. Guaranteed. 

 STILL HAVEN'T FOUND WHAT YOU'RE LOOKING FOR? MAYBE WE CAN HELP. ANNIHILATE STRESS AND ANXIETY NOW.
According to pundits all over the world, stress and anxiety are two of the biggest problems facing humanity today. Whether it's climate change, women's rights, the November election, or continued mass shootings, fear and uncertainty are at all-time highs and are causing more personal and collective havoc than ever. Finding your center and rising above the chaos isn't easy, but it can be done. We'll show you time-tested tools for achieving the stillness and the peace of mind you really want. (And luck has nothing to do with it.) 

 EPISODE 22. WHEN LOGICIANS TELL US THAT TWO WRONGS MAKE A RIGHT, WE'RE ALL IN TROUBLE.
The more you examine formal symbolic logic, the way of thinking that underlies the modern world, including AI, decision theory, and probability, the more absurd it becomes. It may seem preposterous that some of our greatest minds, including Gottfried Leibniz, George Boole, and Claude Shannon were unscientific and superstitious at the core, but it is what it is. Find out one of the major reasons for the massive confusion we find ourselves in and how to spot pretend and make believe fantasies posing as logic and rationality. 2+2=4 and 2+2=5 are not both right, but believe it or not, logicicians say they are. Note: this week is a deeper dive into topics raised in earlier episodes and promises to clear away ghosts, goblins, and hallucinations taking up precious space in your mind. 

 PROGNOSTICATIONS FOR KAMAMA HARRIS, DONALD TRUMP, AND OTHERS IN THE MIX.
What do current, past, and future planetary motions tell us about the upcoming election? Astronomy and astrology are built on the same foundation, although they have little to do with each other today. But let's not throw the "mystical" insights of Kepler, Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle out the window because of our modern insistence on observable cause and effect. On Friday, AstroTracker Andrea will open our minds in more ways than one. Expect the Unexpected! 

 DO PLANETARY CYCLES AFFECT THE LIVES OF HUMANS? ENQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW
For thousands of years, people all over the world have wondered about the role that planetary movements have on life on Earth. Although some deny any relationship whatsoever, others from the Greek tradition such as Aristotle, Ptolemy, and Kepler were convinced that "As Above, So Below" had great significance for each individual. Tonight we will delve into the mystery by looking at the broad historical evidence as well as the way individual lives have played out. Prepare yourself to be surprised if not fascinated - as long as you have an open mind. 

HOW BIG A PUBLIC ENEMY WAS SIR RONALD FISHER ANYWAY? HOW HIS ROLE IN GETTING AMERICANS TO SMOKE DELAYED THE DOWNTURN IN CANCER DEATHS, LEADING TO UNTOLD SUFFERING

Sir Ronald Fisher (1890-1962) of the UK is widely known for his seminal contributions to statistics and experimental design. What is less known is it he also argued quite seriously that contracting lung cancer can cause you to smoke. He was hired by American Big Tobacco companies to defend themselves against lawsuits, successfully winning the first 200 cases. He even claimed from the grave that the cigarette cancer link was bunk. One scholar tells us that his position was eventually seen as "ridiculous," which people increasingly knew from the 30's onward. Fisher's involvement was reprehensible and has had repercussions across multiple domains that are still being felt today. I will remove the wool from your eyes. 

EVER WONDER ABOUT WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN? NOW YOU CAN ANNIHILATE COUNTER-FACTUAL CONFUSION AND SEE THE WORLD AS IT REALLY IS. NO JOKE, PER EINSTEIN 

Scientists are quite superstitious in that they believe the world could be otherwise from what is. Of course there is no evidence to support Murray Gell-Mann's or Richard Feynman's belief that things could have turned out differently. The deification of the counter-factual is everywhere. I will show you in 5 Simple Steps how to annihilate 63/64ths of the illusions that cloud your mind-brain (or brain-mind), whichever you prefer. Free yourself from mental pain (and various assorted ailments) now and forever in 1 Simple Step a la Einstein and others in the know. 

MR. WHIPPLE SAVES THE DAY: HOW A TV PITCHMAN'S FETISH PROVIDES THE SOLUTION ...

 Mr Whipple, a TV staple from a bygone era, was at one time more recognizable than the President. A loveable and self-aware hypocrite, he admonished shoppers while furtively engaging in the very practice he decried. What does his fetish for softness have to do with Evolutionary Theory, Probability, and the work of Richard Dawkins, Paul Davies, Ronald Fisher, David Hand, Pierre Simon de Laplace, and countless others across diverse fields? Plenty. Be prepared for a barrel of laughs on Friday. The ultimate irony may be at hand. 

 ONE-LINER BOOK REVIEW: IF POST-IT TRUTH IS YOUR BEST, YOUR BEST WON'T DO

Tonight's focus is on a book published by the MIT Press called Post-Truth, from the Essential Knowledge series. Written to help us navigate the treacherous world of obfuscation (intentional and unintentional), confusion about what to believe, and blatant misinformation, we examine how well the book measures up. Upon careful analysis, accompanied by a comedy of errors, it turns out that the book has major shortcomings that undermine its important message. Find out why Post-Truth is better called Post-It Truth.

(A shout-out to Twisted Sister for their help with the title.)

EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS WRONG? HOW TO DECODE THE MORRISON-ELIOT-EINSTEIN DOORWAYS

Tonight we will dissect the main picture of the Meetup Group and summarize the year-long program of the same title that will be launched in Sept 2024. The three main subject areas shown are Jim Morrision-The Doors; T. S. Eliot; and Albert Einstein. Each shares a very similar worldview, and all provide doorways that align you with the hidden order of the universe, or what I call the "divine dance." If you are seeking Peace of Mind, Enlightenment, Stillness, Cosmic Consciousness, Final Answers, or the goal of meditation or mindfulness, you can find them all here. Find out what the fuss is all about. Your life will change for the better now and forever. Guaranteed.

The title of tonight's presentation is a variant of The Firesign Theatre's Everything You Know is Wrong, a 1974 LP that also contains the line "Your brain is no longer the boss." The picture shows the motto for the Santa Fe Energy Lab: "Classified Top Secret Under the Department of Redundancy Department." The second part is taken from the Firesign Theatre's album Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers (1970).

A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything.)
- T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets

 HOW ANNIE THE DUKE OF HAZARDS REINVENTED THE MEANING OF RIGHT AND WRONG.

Tonight's focus is on how statistical thinking allows you to never be wrong. What a feeling of power and invincibility!

Drawing on the work of Jordan Peterson (How Not To Be Wrong), David Salzburg (The Lady Tasting Tea: How Statistics Revolutionized Science in the Twentieth Century), and Annie Duke (Thinking In Bets, How To Decide), The MIT Deviant, aka the Wizard of West Cambridge, deconstructs the entire statistical enterprise (dating back to 1654 and earlier). He exposes the incontrovertible fact that the underlying nature of probability and statistics is based on nothing but untestable assumption. The vast majority of scientists and mathematicians are convinced that they have proven statistics to be true (Cf. Salsburg), but they are in for a very rude awakening. Their mathematical formalism will eventually be recognized as a bad joke (Cf. Einstein), although it may take a bit of time for such clear-headedness to take hold.

Find out what is really going on at the foundations of science, math, and AI. Now you can extricate yourself from superstition and wishful thinking (if you buy into the prevailing world view) and ground yourself in reality. As Bill Belichick says, "it is what it is."

THE PROS AND CONS OF ARTICIAL INTELLIGENCE- A BRIEF ASSESSMENT

Unless you've been living in a cave for the past year, you have undoubtedly heard how Artificial Intelligence, automation, and robots are transforming society at a dizzying pace. It is far too early to understand exactly where all this is headed, but there is no turning back.

Having attended classes on AI at MIT beginning in 1970 and more recently been offered the position as the Director of AI, Analytics, and Data Strategy for the State of Pennsylvania by the 2020 Michael Bloomberg Presidential Campaign, the MIT Deviant will present the results of his multi-year assessment on Artificial Intelligence. Do the promises live up to the hype? Is AI dehumanizing us or making us smarter, or both? Are we threatened by extinction, as some claim? How efficient is the prevailing AI Operating System Model of randomness? Is the massive investment in technology worth the cost?

Tune in for an informed look at where we are, how we got here, and where it looks like we're going. No one can orient you better.

ARE YOU HERE BY CHANCE AND ACCIDENT? SCIENTISTS SAY YES, BUT I DON'T BUY IT Luminaries from Richard Dawkins (The Blind Watchmaker) to David Hand (The Improbability Principle) to Brian Greene (Until the End of Time) argue that your being here is due to chance and randomness. "You might not have been born," claims Dawkins, saying that "the thread by which your existence hangs is wincingly tenuous." They have even created fancy mathematical statistics to support their belief system.

You are free to believe whatever you want, of course, but the fact is that you were born at a certain time and place. The idea that your birth was the culmination of a long chain of random accidents dating back generations is entirely subjective.

Tonight we will unravel the complex and convoluted thinking behind the modern world view and see why Einstein called it "the system of delusions of an exceedingly intelligent paranoic, concocted of incoherent elements of thoughts."

Free yourself of the counter-factual world of "it could be otherwise" and achieve alignment and grounding in the here and now. There is "something going on" behind the scenes, and we can help you find it.

 HOW ANNIE THE DUKE OF HAZARDS REINVENTED THE MEANING OF RIGHT AND WRONG.

Tonight's focus is on how statistical thinking allows you to never be wrong. What a feeling of power and invincibility!

Drawing on the work of Jordan Peterson (How Not To Be Wrong), David Salzburg (The Lady Tasting Tea: How Statistics Revolutionized Science in the Twentieth Century), and Annie Duke (Thinking In Bets, How To Decide), The MIT Deviant, aka the Wizard of West Cambridge, deconstructs the entire statistical enterprise (dating back to 1654 and earlier). He exposes the incontrovertible fact that the underlying nature of probability and statistics is based on nothing but untestable assumption. The vast majority of scientists and mathematicians are convinced that they have proven statistics to be true (Cf. Salsburg), but they are in for a very rude awakening. Their mathematical formalism will eventually be recognized as a bad joke (Cf. Einstein), although it may take a bit of time for such clear-headedness to take hold.

Find out what is really going on at the foundations of science, math, and AI. Now you can extricate yourself from superstition and wishful thinking (if you buy into the prevailing world view) and ground yourself in reality. As Bill Belichick says, "it is what it is."

KNOW THYSELF NOW! with DAVID the MIT Deviant and ANDREA the AstroTracker. Join our weekly interactive community hangout aimed at helping you live a better, more fulfilling, and LESS CHAOTIC life. Align yourself with the order, harmony, and natural forces of the universe. No joke. No bullshit. No nonsense. No stupidity. No holds barred. 

TONIGHT'S FOCUS IS ON THE ADVERTISING SERIAL IN THE SANTA FE REPORTER SOON TO BE IN BOOK FORM: CLASSIFIED ADVERTISEMENTS FOR MYSELF AND OTHER ORDERLY OBSERVATIONS FROM INSIDE THE MIND OF GOD.

RUNNING CONTINUOUSLY SINCE 11/9/22, THE ANNIHILATOR'S ADS CAN BE FOUND AT THE FOLLOWING SITE, WHICH CONTAINS ALL PAST ISSUES OF THE REPORTER DATING BACK TO 2016.

issuu.com/santafereporter7

Paying homage to Norman Mailer, T. S. Eliot, Claude Shannon, James Joyce. Albert Einstein, and Stephen Hawking, The Annihilator takes you inside his classified advertising campaign on the Back Page of the Santa Fe Reporter that has been running continuously for 80 issues (and counting), the Annihilator explains the logic (occasionally twisted) behind ads with headlines such as:

• DOORS REOPENING SOON
• INANNABARBIELAZARUS
• STOCHASTICS=ILLUSION
• WE DON'T EVEN BOTHER TO IGNORE YOU
• GOT METAMORPHOSIS?
• COMPLETE SIMPLICITY
• THE LAST TIME C PAUL
• RELAX, ENTROPY = 0
• SAY NYET TO CHAOS

Get ready for a wild ride through vast regions of time and space, always grounded in the actual of the here and now (No pie-in-the-sky counterfactual Multiverses or Alternative Realities here.) Your merriment guaranteed or your money back.

Brought to you by the Albuquerque Center for Chaos Annihilation and the Santa Fe Energy Lab: Classified Top Secret Under the Department of Redundancy Department.

 Tonight will Center around PLAYTIME WITH THE SHANNONS IN THE 60'S, EXPOSING THE FALLACY OF INFORMATION IN THE 70'S, AND TAKING ON CLAUDE IN THE 20'S.

The MIT Deviant had the good fortune of growing up a mile from the Claude Shannon family residence in Massachusetts. Robert Shannon was one of his close friends at the time. They occasionally met when the elder Shannon, now called "the architect of the information age," was at home. In 1979, the Deviant showed that the assumption underlying Information Theory (cf, Shannon, 1949) has no basis in experiment. Fast forward to the 2020's, an entropy-soaked world of uncertainty and confusion that Shannon cautioned against in 1956. Upon close examination, it turns out probability, based upon the counter-factual "What Might Have Been" and the foundation of AI, is entirely unscientific.

THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING.

A CONDITION OF COMPLETE SIMPLICITY (COSTING ...) THE STILL POINT OF T. S. ELIOT. TS. Eliot is one of the most under-rated figures in English literature, despite his having been awarded a Nobel Prize. Traditional interpretations of his trajectory have him going from despair to faith. The Annihilator will suggest that his journey is quite different and begins in extraordinary knowledge, not doubt or uncertainty. In 2022, the 100th Anniversary of The Wast T. S. Eliot, an American who emigrated to England after graduating from Harvarde Land, one reviewer said that Eliot saw all the present chaos and insanity coming in 1922. But Eliot is much more than a keen observer of the human condition. He has a solution that takes us out of our present state. "And there is only the dance"
- T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets

"WE DON'T EVEN BOTHER TO IGNORE YOU." DRINKING THROUGH A FIREHOSE IN 21B AT MIT Tonight The Annihilator takes you back to the '70s at MIT and what it was like to receive an education there. Said to be like drinking out of a firehose, the atmosphere can be summarized by "If you don't do numbers, you don't count."

"We don't even bother to ignore you" is what a physicist said to a philosopher at the MIT Faculty Club in 1972. Find out how it all went down.

Join us before Doors Close and stay as long as you like - we'll leave the lights on for you.

"Not known, because not looked for.
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea."
- T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets

[The photo is from the MIT Deviant's hilltop hideaway in the high desert showing the core content of his year-long edutainment extravaganza EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS WRONG? HOW TO DECODE THE MORRISON-ELIOT-EINSTEIN DOORWAYS TO THE DIVINE DANCE. ]

THE HOUSE THAT JAC BUILT:  Tonight's focus is on the music of The Doors, a rock group in the global spotlight from July 1967 to July 1971. Vilified by commentators like George Will, trivialized as "missionaries of apocalyptic sex" by Joan Didion, and dismissed as "mock Dioynesian frenzy" and "maniacal nihilism" by Theodore Roszak, The Doors are undervalued, underappreciated, and far from understood. Find out why the group has outperformed all expectations and what Jim Morrison meant by "the only solution."

"I love the friends I have gathered together on this thin raft. We have constructed pyramids in honor of our escaping."
- Jim Morrison, The WASP (Texas Radio and the Big Beat)

Tonight we will continue with WHEN MATHEMATICIANS FOOLED THEMSELVES AND THEN MADE FOOLS OF THEMSELVES. Last time, we touched upon the "national disgrace" known as the Marilyn Vos Savant - Let's Make a Deal Affair (1990) and its vast implications for education and how our world has been constructed.

In case you missed it, here is an excerpt from the July 21, 1991 front page of The New York Times.

"Since she gave her answer, Ms. vos Savant estimates she has received 10,000 letters, the great majority disagreeing with her. The most vehement criticism has come from mathematicians and scientists, who have alternated between gloating at her ("You are the goat!") and lamenting the nation's innumeracy.

Her answer -- that the contestant should switch doors -- has been debated in the halls of the Central Intelligence Agency and the barracks of fighter pilots in the Persian Gulf. It has been analyzed by mathematicians at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and computer programmers at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. It has been tested in classes from second grade to graduate level at more than 1,000 schools across the country."

[Note: when 2/3 of the math professionals got it wrong and only 1/2 of them later changed their minds despite all the evidence from the nation's classrooms, we've got a big math literacy problem, America. Cf. Mark Twain, "Never let the truth get in the way of a good story."]

Tonight we will begin with WHEN MATHEMATICIANS FOOLED THEMSELVES AND THEN MADE FOOLS OF THEMSELVES, the MIT Deviant's very brief history of the 1990 Marilyn Vos Savant - Let's Make a Deal Affair and why the aftermath of this "national disgrace" is more important today than ever.

Here is an excerpt from the July 21, 1991 front page of The New York Times.

"Since she gave her answer, Ms. vos Savant estimates she has received 10,000 letters, the great majority disagreeing with her. The most vehement criticism has come from mathematicians and scientists, who have alternated between gloating at her ("You are the goat!") and lamenting the nation's innumeracy.

Her answer -- that the contestant should switch doors -- has been debated in the halls of the Central Intelligence Agency and the barracks of fighter pilots in the Persian Gulf. It has been analyzed by mathematicians at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and computer programmers at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. It has been tested in classes from second grade to graduate level at more than 1,000 schools across the country."

[Note: when 2/3 of the math professionals got it wrong and only 1/2 of them later changed their minds despite all the evidence from the nation's classrooms, we've got a big math literacy problem, America. Cf. Mark Twain, "Never let the truth get in the way of a good story."]