Presidential Debate + AI-Assisted Research + Drug Gummies

This week hasn't been bad, but it's been long for some reason. I can't believe it's only been five days since the debate where Donald Trump got curb-stomped by a woman twenty years younger than him who isn't completely detached from reality. Oh, what a delightful change it was from the first debate. I'll readily admit Biden's obvious cognitive decline. If only Trump's worshipers would do the same. At this point, I find it very difficult to muster up a shred of respect for anyone who still thinks, even if they're willing to overlook his gargantuan moral deficiencies, that he's competent to run... well, anything. They're simultaneously saying that he won the debate and that Harris only won the debate because the moderators were biased, because she had the questions in advance, because her earrings were actually earpieces, and because she used witchcraft. Yes, really. It is most unfortunate that people who believe in witchcraft in 2024 have any political influence whatsoever, but here we are. Anyway, enough has been said about the debate that I don't feel a need to rehash all the reasons why Trump sucks. But wow, I feel so energized. I had little hope for my country's future a few months ago. Now I do. Harris isn't perfect, but compared to Trump, she's Jesus. The people who still think Trump is the lesser of two evils are the same people who think Zelenskyy is the aggressor in Putin's war.

Oh yeah, there is one other thing I wanted to say. I wanted to kiss both of the moderators, especially David, for actually fact-checking some of Trump's deranged bullshit. I didn't know that was allowed. Of course this made idiots think he was being persecuted, even though they also let him speak five and a half minutes longer than Harris and get the last word on EVERY SINGLE TOPIC. I'm not mad, though, because the more he talks, the more he sabotages his campaign. I was going to say "shoots himself in the foot," but that's too soon, right?

I don't want to write a long post because I'm still working on my book. Today or tomorrow I'll have my rough draft, and then I'll try to find some beta readers on reddit. I want feedback before I do a substantial revision because although this book is about my spiritual journey, I'm writing it to bless others' lives, so I need to know if I'm on the right track to do that. And since my journey is ongoing, I'm open to anything I haven't considered yet, and I want to know if I've made any glaring logical errors. Now let me say something in defense of AI. It's fashionable to criticize AI, and a lot of those criticisms are valid, but it's not going to go away, so we should focus on figuring out how to use it constructively and minimize its negative impacts. Here's how ChatGPT helped me with my book today. I gave it a prompt that would have been all but useless in a traditional search engine, and it gave me my answer within seconds.

Yes, I thanked this mindless machine. I feel comfortable interacting with AI as if it were conscious, because it acts like it's conscious, and besides, this way its algorithms might tell it to be nice to me if it does take over the world.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. In June I wrote about my experience with a mushroom gummy that, unlike the first brand of mushroom gummies I tried, actually did something. But it seems I had a miscommunication with the friend who gave it to me, because when I asked her about it so I could get more (after waiting a couple months to make sure I'm not turning into a junkie), I learned it was actually a Kush Kube that contained Delta 9 THC and CBD. And I ate the whole gummy, but the recommended dosage, as I found out when I got more, was a quarter of a gummy. So yeah, I should have been more careful, but I survived. And the recommended dosage does almost nothing for me, so I'm back to full gummies. My second experience didn't last as long or contain any out-of-body stuff, so that was a disappointment, but it helped me sleep, and I'm desperate to fall asleep before two a.m. without taking melatonin or NyQuil every single night of my life, so that was great.