Author: p_c_neary@hotmail.com

In many previous posts, I focused on the problems of anger and resentment in today’s political discourse. Some may respond it’s okay to be angry when the other side is so evil, and there is a point there. But even in those cases, being against something is not the same thing as solving the problem. In fact, it often leads to more, even worse problems. How so?

Exhibit one is the Biden administration and immigration. Remember how incensed people-on-the-left became over what they called the “Muslim ban” and the effort to “build the wall” during Trump I? It all seems so quaint now, doesn’t it? They were so secure in what they were against (i.e., Trump’s racism), they ignored the problem, which was increasing levels of illegal immigration at a time of economic and social insecurity. Democratic strategists, including some who were pro-massive immigration, warned the incoming Biden administration that there was a huge wave of people waiting to enter the United States one way or another. But being seen as “against” Trump’s policies was more important. Biden figuratively opened the flood-gates, and when the threatened wave materialized, he temporized. Biden and others first claimed those objecting were simply racists, and when the numbers kept increasing (and the videos becoming more and more disturbing), they suggested there was no problem. Remember Secretary Mayorkas assuring us the border “was secure?”

Then they tried to redefine the issue, to one about processing illegal immigrants. They tried to pass a bill which mainly meant to create more immigration judges to address the backlog, and then an app to regulate the flow of people to eliminate the crowds surging across the border. It was only after everything else failed that they enacted policies which largely stemmed the flow: an option always available to them, but one which they ignored because it admitted that perhaps Trump had correctly identified the problem. And they suffered an ignominious electoral defeat as a result. I still contend that even Biden’s disastrous debate performance was not as important as the complete loss of credibility around the immigration issue. What he (or later, she–Kamala Harris) said didn’t matter, because they clearly had no clue.

Lest you think this is a partisan affair, consider exhibit two: the Trump administration and prices. Trump attacked the inflation which the Biden administration tried to downplay, going a step further and claiming he would reduce prices. This was an impossibility, but played very well, especially when the Biden administration was claiming (again) things were going much better. I don’t know what Trump was thinking, perhaps he reasoned that “drill, baby, drill” would result in very low oil prices which in turn would reduce the Producer Price Index (PPI) and make things cheaper. Oil prices do have a strong effect on the PPI, but so much of the US economy is in services and not related to products it was unlikely to drive down prices overall. Trump was so against Biden’s inflationary initiatives that he made promises he couldn’t keep!

And that was before he attacked Iran, which he (and everybody else) knew would increase oil prices, at least in the near term. Now the Trump administration is reduced to various ridiculous claims: citing some products which are less expensive, or highlighting the stock market (which is booming due to Artificial Intelligence), or claiming it’s not even a war. These feeble excuses will garner the same electoral effect, I imagine.

Nor is the “anti” problem strictly American; it’s gone global! You may have heard that the Alternativ für Deutschland (AfD) Partei in Germany recently won a state-level election. AfD is a right-wing party, which is automatically suspect in Germany due to its history (i.e., the National Socialist or Nazi Party took power democratically–mostly–which made postwar Germany virulently suspicious of right-wing movements). AfD began in the former East German (Communist) states as an anti-Euro (the currency) movement. If you know one thing about history, recall this: nothing is more certainly anti-Nazi than a Communist. Despite this historical fact, all the other German political parties and the government bureaucracy joined together to shun the AfD as a neo-Nazi threat. The intelligence services labelled the AfD as extremists. All the other parties, including those on the right, agreed to create what they call the Brandmauer, or firewall. No one will cooperate with the AfD regardless of policy or situation.

For years this kept the AfD on the political fringes of power, even in the former eastern German states. Funny thing about that “anti” Brandmauer: it meant the AfD was outside the system, the power structure, which made them the only political movement untainted by the system, and therefore, an alternative in name and reality. As Germany went through the convulsions of Merkel’s “Wir shaffen das” (we can do this) welcome of seven million immigrants, then economic dislocation due to Germany’s reliance on cheap Russian natural gas, then the ongoing China shock of massive automobile imports, an alternative is exactly what Germans are looking for.

Now is the AfD a neo-Nazi party? There are neo-Nazis who support it. It is anti-immigrant, in much the same way the Trump administration is, as AfD supports re-migration. It is much cozier to Putin’s Russia than any other German party. But Nazi? Not even close. By way of analogy for those who don’t follow German politics, there are avowed Communists in the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), who are welcomed in the Democratic Party. Is the Democratic Party therefore a Communist party? There are white-supremacists who support the Republican party stances on immigration: is the GOP therefore white supremacist?

Setting aside those arguments, the Brandmauer has made the AfD more outside the mainstream and therefore more successful. Instead, the Germans should have looked south to how Italy handled the Brothers of Italy movement. That group had similar right-wing positions and tenuous ties to earlier Italian fascist groups. But there was no firewall, as Italian politics admits no permanent friends or enemies. Brothers came to power, and found that running government is a moderating influence. I recall a visit to Italy no long after Giorgia Meloni became Prime Minister. A gypsy-cab driver in Naples regaled my wife and me on a drive up Vesuvius with a textbook, MSNBC view on the dangers of “the female Mussolini” (i.e., Ms. Meloni). According to him, it was only a matter of time until the brown shirts were goose-stepping past the Colosseum. Today, Meloni is the longest (continuous) serving Italian Prime Minister in postwar history, and widely considered one of the shrewdest, most successful European leaders. Brown shirts were optional, apparently.

My final exhibit is trivial, but shows just how ridiculous an “anti” mindset can become: witness the Trump Ballroom. I worked in Washington, DC, for thirty-straight years. I had a few occasions to visit the White House, and I always had the same two impressions. First, a sense of awe at what had transpired there, from Roosevelt to Reagan. And second, a feeling of disappointment because the place was, frankly, a little shabby. Nobody wanted to change or fix anything because “LBJ may have pissed in that urinal” (hypothetically) or because any change would be opposed bureaucratically (endlessly) or it could open the incumbent to charges they were tinkering with history or self-aggrandizing. Imagine that.

I never attended one, but I knew several people who did go to White House banquets, and they all had a consistent opinion: it was equal-parts memorable and embarrassing. Anything larger than a small dinner party had to be moved into tents on the White House lawn, with porta-potties (not kidding). Now these were very nice porta-potties, but seriously, for the British Royal family? Everybody knew it was a problem, but nobody was willing to fix it. Along comes Trump, a man so shameless and uninhibited by the rules he literally tears down the East Wing and builds a ballroom. I tend to agree with Chief Justice Roberts who characterized the entire effort as “likely unlawful.” If I said it, that would be one thing; it’s another thing altogether coming from the mouth of the Chief Justice, even in a minority opinion.

What’s this got to do with an “anti” mentality? Trump was able to pull off this so-called renovation through a series of maneuvers. He started demolition/construction without approvals, claiming he had the authority. When challenged, he stacked the deck of the various boards to post-facto approve his moves. There really was no way to stop him, which is what Chief Justice Roberts was referring to. Here’s the truly crazy part: The National Historic Trust sued to stop him, but to have standing, they had to show a “concrete” damage they suffered. They offered on the grounds that it damaged one woman board member’s “concrete and particularized interest in physically viewing, appreciating, and studying a historic building as it is.” There are some precedents along this line, but the Supreme Court was unwilling to buy it (neither did a lower court). The 5-4 decision found the plaintiffs had no standing, that is, no right to bring a case. Think about this, for a moment. To stop a ballroom which was necessary and was already well underway, and to which all other obstructions had been dismissed (even though those dismissals were dubious-but-legal), the “anti” crowd was willing to ask the US Supreme Court to establish a precedent that anybody could sue anybody else if it changed how they viewed a physical object. Living somewhere that law is more capricious and lawsuits infinitely less frequent, it is stunning such an argument was even put forward.

“Anti” politics is not even politics, which is the art for the possible. “Anti” politics is simply vengeance, mindless of the consequences. The good news is the punishment often fits the crime. It can usually be avoided. Biden had control of both Houses of Congress and could have put forward comprehensive immigration reform; he decided to posture instead. Trump could have relied on experts to develop policies (beyond more oil) to reduce inflation, but who needs experts? German political parties could have cooperated and moderated the AfD (they still might). And the ballroom? Let it be built, and after Trump is gone, name it for Obama. Problem solved.

Most politicians and pundits characterize the US-Chinese relationship as some sort of rivalry, with both sides seeking to dominate the other. You’ll hear references to the Thucydides trap, the notion that when there is one great power falling and another rising, there is often war between them. Some argue the US is falling and China rising, hence the trap; meanwhile, China-watchers point out China may have peaked, which is even more dangerous. There is undoubtedly a rivalry between China and the United States, but too many are keen to fall back on the Cold War as the paradigm to explain it.

For some time at the start of this century, America and its allies sought to integrate China into the global economy, based on the notion that such economic integration would inevitably lead to political liberalization. Most of the proponents of that policy now admit it was a dismal failure. China accepted the invitation, ignored the rules, and won convincingly. Why was the policy wrong, and how did China pull this off at a moment of US dominance? You can’t understand the Sino-American relationship without first understanding of few historical facts about China.

Start with the obvious: among nations, China has a unique combination of strong culture, vast territory, huge population, and plentiful resources. If you surveyed the world circa 1000 CE (Christian Era), the Song Dynasty was by far the greatest power, and you might have assumed the coming millennium belonged to them. They had a functioning central government, great schools, advanced technology (gunpowder, printing press, magnetic compass, printed money) and had surrounded themselves with client states that could not threaten them. This established the first lesson in Chinese history: when China is united, it is strong and respected.

The coming millennium was not theirs, however. They went through periods of internal disunity and external hubris which weakened them greatly. In the first decade of the 1400s, the Ming dynasty sent huge so-called treasure fleets to visit Africa, the Persian Gulf, the Indian Ocean and throughout Southeast Asia. When Columbus was desperately seeking to build and man a three-ship voyage to America, Chinese admiral Zheng He took 250 ships out in the treasure fleet. His ships were six-times longer, nine-times wider, and carried ten-times the load! Filled with precious gifts and thousands of emissaries (doctors, teachers, envoys, etc.), the fleet was designed to show the world that China needed nothing, but would deign to give the rest of the planet a taste of China’s superiority! Unsurprisingly, when money got tight, China simply stopped showing any interest at all in the rest of the world (lesson #2)

By the end of the millennium, the last Chinese dynasty was a large, sick empire picked over by small, distant, and powerful European states. To the Chinese, this was the Century of Humiliation, with foreign nations occupying important ports and setting up trading outposts, dictating to the Chinese the terms of peace and trade. This developed the third lesson for China: the world envies China, and will always try to minimize and weaken it.

Finally, the end of the Century of Humiliation only happened with the arrival of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which is the sole authority of China (final lesson). Mao Zedong may have initiated the CCP’s authority with his statement that “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun” but the CCP has only increased its credibility since then. While the CCP inflicted severe pain on the populace (the Cultural Revolution, the Tienanmen Square massacre), it also moved the largest number of desperately poor peasantry out of poverty in human history, and made China into a scientific and industrial powerhouse. That goes a long way in the minds of the Chinese people.

What does China want? China believes there is always a great country which is the center of power in the world. It seeks to be that power. It recognizes the United States is currently that power, but China believes America is gradually fading from the scene, and China wants to replace it, not necessarily fight it. China’s ascent ignored previous attempts by countries like Hitler’s Germany or Stalin’s Russia to become preeminent. Instead, China chose the American model: become powerful by competing using the resources (personal and national) available to it, not militarily dominating your rivals. Mind you, under a Communist government, that includes subversion (TikTok), intellectual property theft, currency manipulation, massive espionage, and economic strong-arming.

There is one other Chinese desire: to re-take the rebel island of Taiwan. China has reclaimed all the other territorial possessions lost during the Century of Humiliation (Manchuria, Macau, Hong Kong, etc.), but the anti-communist forces remain free on Taiwan. It is hard to explain the depth of this desire to Westerners, but here’s an analogy. Imagine the last Confederate hold-outs retreated to Texas, and refused to surrender. Washington decided it was best to leave them to their own devices, and so a rival “America” existed in Texas, constantly claiming to be the real America. The discovery of oil would only have exacerbated the relationship, much like Taiwan’s earlier economic growth and subsequent mastery of advanced microchips worsens the China-Taiwan feud. For the CCP especially, Taiwan is one last domino that must fall, or remain a reminder of an alternative the Party simply cannot stomach.

Unlike the Soviet communists, China does not have a model to export to the rest of the world. Rather, they prefer a world remade to accommodate China’s preeminence. There is a native Mandarin phrase which best describes this, and it is one which has entered into the English language, too: kau-tau, or more familiarly, kowtow. It means “head-banging” literally, but figuratively applies to the deep bow (forehead to the floor), which in ancient China represented an extreme form of submission before a superior. In such a world, China would not care what happened in New York, or London, or Paris, as long as it did not interfere with China’s wishes. China would control the world’s currencies, its means of production, its world governing bodies, its scientific and medical advances. It would all be for the best, as Beijing decides. After all, China has always been the “middle Kingdom.”

China would argue that its ascent as a great power has been within the rules of international law, as it were. They were invited into the World Trade Organization, and their massive exports, initially of low-value consumer goods, were welcomed as a cheap alternative to domestic production throughout the developed world. But they learned how to produce things, and there is a unique value in developing a chain-of-production (think cars, for example) where they master each step, innovating along the way, and eventually producing high quality products at competitive prices. Add into that the ability to ignore pricing or profit (it’s a command economy, after all), and China can simply rout entire industries in foreign markets. They did this to the US in the 2000-2010 period (the “China shock”), but now President Trump’s tariffs have turned China’s sights on Europe, with the same result.

In addition to unfair trade practices, China engages in rampant intellectual property theft. China invited the world’s best leading companies to build facilities in China, if they wanted to sell in China. Those companies (like Tesla, Volkswagen, Apple) trained Chinese managers and workers. Then those same people left the firms and started new companies with heavy government investment, eventually besting those who trained them, based on their insider knowledge. There is no such thing as a non-compete agreement in China. This is also evident in the race for Artificial Intelligence (AI). China has several AI start-ups that produce new models just slightly less capable (but much less expensive) than the leading American ones. How do the Chinese stay just behind but never get ahead? They engage in “distillation,” a practice where they secretly use the public-facing side of US models to train new Chinese ones. It’s almost as effective, but much cheaper.

Chinese President Xi can see the finish line of China’s quest to be the preeminent power. But he knows that China is rapidly aging (demographically), and its population is shrinking, so the youth dividend period of economic development is over. China has vast resources, but it did not become rich before it grew old. And he must purge his military leadership regularly due to rampant corruption, while they have not fought a war since 1979. Because he has total control over the Party and the State, he also knows China has enormous economic dysfunctions (ghost cities, no social safety net, huge government debts and a necessity to export due to poor domestic consumption) that must eventually be addressed.

Unlike those who worry about China surpassing the US, I’m more concerned with how the US manages the beginning of Chinese decline. This is the most dangerous period, when China’s leaders realize they might not ever achieve their goals. Decline has already started, and only a system-wide reset (i.e., the end of the CCP) can arrest it. Sino-American military rivalry boils down to one spot on the globe (Taiwan), and recent events in Ukraine and Iran suggest China is nowhere near prepared to fight its way onto the island. Some form of Chinese intimidation or blockade could work, so the issue is not settled. But all the rest of the issues between Beijing and Washington can be negotiated.

The initial western policy of normalizing China failed, but that does not mean war is inevitable. China has developed into a major economic force, and can still be normalized. You saw some of what that looks like at the May summit between Trump and Xi. There was no significant development: just two leaders talking. Why? Xi feels he has backed off Trump’s worst tariff threats, and made it known he is willing to use his dominance of the Rare Earth minerals as his own “Trump” card. This leaves him free to focus on Taiwan and the other domestic issues he needs to tend to.

American policy must deter the Chinese from invading or blockading Taiwan, while securing allies and resources in the global economy for the long-haul competition. America and Europe must resist succumbing to the siren song of inexpensive Chinese production, even when it is better, for it is the result of unfair competition, and will only lead to inevitable dependence. China is not a reliable partner, nor is it the new “Evil Empire.” It is a long-term economic and diplomatic rival, and the West has the means necessary to best it. If we find the will.

The phrase “at sea” connotes deep confusion, where someone or something is completely lost. The USS Abraham Lincoln is literally at sea, but many choosing to voice opinions about it are figuratively at sea, too. It seems that aircraft carrier has been deployed for 250+ days, and now tales of stress, poor rations, and unsanitary conditions have reached the home front, along with at least one attempted overboard. I say attempted, as I am not sure what the point of jumping off a ship is: is it successful if you just hit water, or it failed if they simply pluck you back up and put you in the brig?

Let’s start with those who leap from these conditions (more on that, you betcha’) to alleging the President is mismanaging the war with Iran. Now there is a briefcase load of evidence of mismanagement in this war, but this is hardly the piece of evidence you want to settle on before the court of public opinion. Let’s review the facts.

Accepting that the allegations about food and sanitation are true, why is this happening? The main US supply base for operations in the region is in Bahrain; it opened in 1995. Look at the map.

Why our most important supply base is so close to our biggest regional threat is, frankly, a question I would love to hear the CNO (Chief of Naval Operations) answer. There’s hubris, then there’s, well, this. The Iranians bombed and destroyed the base at the start of this phase of the war, but the Navy was smart enough to relocate the Headquarters and the sailors beforehand, so there were almost no casualties, but the facilities were lost. Meaning our resupply efforts have been ad hoc since. So there’s a good reason there might be supply problems. And our replacement depot is at Diego Garcia, a long way away. Funny thing, that: Iran fired two IRBMs (Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles) at Diego Garcia . . . you know, the missiles it claimed it didn’t have, like its nuclear program.

But why are the problems only on the Honest Abe? There have been two other carriers deployed, and numerous smaller ships. Seems like we should hear more than just one set of voices. Unless, of course, the issue is the command climate on the Abraham Lincoln. So question number two is: Why is this specific ship having the problems it is experiencing?

Now to the specific complaints. Here are social media (alleged) pics of the offending food:

Show me an army in the field (or a navy at sea), and I’ll show you a soldier griping about the chow. That doesn’t mean the gripes are illegitimate, but they better be pretty strong before you get excited about them (the gripes, that is). I was an Army officer in 1983 in West Germany, during the Able Archer period (for those unfamiliar, this was when the Russians became convinced Reagan was about to unleash a nuclear blitzkrieg). I was in the field for more than 200 days that year, mostly living in tents attached to the back of my tracked vehicle. We had a guaranteed hot breakfast, C-rations after that. As an officer, I ate last, and I often got a scoop of (cold) green scrambled eggs, a single strip of bacon., and unlimited (cold) toast. It is what it is. And that was just near wartime. Those plates don’t show me anything at all. As to that gray mystery meat on the right, it’s practically a right of passage in the military. If you don’t believe me, believe Chef from Apocalypse Now:

“It was turning gray!”

Now the complaint about sewage backing up is more serious. Ships are complex systems-of-systems, and a breakdown in something as fundamental as waste removal can indicate even more serious problems. But it still happens all the time, even on cruise lines that depend on providing total comfort to their passengers. Given the length of this deployment, systems failing is a probability, not a possibility.

What about that deployment length? 250+ days sounds impressive, and in some ways, it is. But the carrier that was first on the scene during the air war, the USS Gerald R. Ford, completed 326 days deployed, with no such problems. The Lincoln has had about 60 days of actual combat operations during that period, much less than the carriers that supported Operation Desert Storm. Now it’s not like the non-combat days are days-off. Any stray missile or drone can send the ship to General Quarters (or “man your battle stations” as they say in the movies). But the Lincoln is far out in the Indian Ocean, and true strikes against it are rare.

Lack of mail service? Unfortunate but not really surprising. How about the Navy wife who complained she can’t reach her sailor husband on the internet? Does this mean sailors have ready access to the internet at sea during combat operations, and why? It’s not a “small ship, big ocean” challenge to find a carrier if it’s broadcasting its location. I marveled at the Russian soldiers who live-streamed their deployments prior to the invasion of Ukraine. “How unprofessional!” I thought. Question three: should someone check what constitutes professionalism in today’s Navy, at least with respect to EMCON (Emissions Control)?

The chief gripe seems to be the total length of deployment, with all the stress of combat operations (however long), without a port call. All military leaders understand the necessity of giving the troops a break, whether it’s a three-day pass in the Army or shore-leave for a port call in the Navy. The Marines prefer to continue their sadomasochistic ways and refuse leave, while the Air Force isn’t sure how it is different from, say, everything else.

Now I want to say something truly contentious: there is nothing inherently stressful about being at sea board an aircraft carrier. I’ve toured a Nimitz class carrier (The USS John C. Stennis). There’s a separate Officer’s Mess. There’s a gymnasium. There’s a library, a hospital (and a dentist), a barber shop, a laundry, and a chapel. There’s rudimentary climate control (mostly for the computers, but if you keep the hatches closed, even in the bunks). There’s a multipurpose room which can show movies or host ping-pong tournaments. There’s unlimited power provided by a nuclear reactor. You can go outside and take deep breaths of the sea air. It will never be confused with even a bargain cruise ship, but it’s very different from a submarine, a tank, an aircraft, or even a spacecraft. They’re called floating cities for a reason. Their very purpose is to provide sustained aerial combat power in the absence of land bases. And they do that very well.

So yes, the war is being mismanaged. And maybe the USS Abraham Lincoln is too. But let’s keep our opinions within the bounds of reason, shall we? A good friend recently gifted me a copy of Bill Mauldin’s Up Front. For those too young to know, Mauldin drew comics about and for front line soldiers in World War II. He lived with them and captured their dark sense of humor, publishing his works in spite of many complaints from the brass (higher-up officers).

The conditions he witnessed are incomparably worse than those discussed here. I’m not arguing we should accept those conditions, just that our complaints say more about us than about anyone else. Or how we might use something to score political points.

If there is a deep rumbling beneath the soil near Oak Ridge Cemetary in Springfield, Illinois, it might just be ol’ Honest Abe turning in his grave.

The Holy Father Pope Leo XIV just published his first encyclical, entitled Magnificent Humanity (in Latin, above). It’s a long read, coming in at 42,000 words, so here’s a few things I’ve gleaned from my initial study of the document.

It is worth noting the provenance of both the Pope’s choice of Leo as his Papal name, and the subject of this encyclical. Robert Francis Prevost has confirmed he chose the name Leo in part to recall the last Pope so-named, Leo XIII. That Pope published a very important encyclical entitled Rerum Novarum (“On New Things”) in 1891. That document decried the atheistic, inhumane end-states of socialism, communism, and laissez-faire capitalism. It demanded a living wage for the working class, humane working conditions, and support for families, while decrying all forms of exploitation. For those wondering what effects a Papal encyclical can have, the modern concerns for the working class can largely be tied back to his authoritative document.

In his encyclical, Leo XIV consciously cites his predecessor’s work, and calls out the technological challenges facing humanity today, much as the industrial revolution challenged the earlier world. To illustrate the challenge, Leo offers twin biblical analogies: the tower of Babel and the restoration of Jerusalem. In the first circumstance, men chose to honor themselves and become self-sufficient, masters of their own destiny, resulting in division and disorder. In the second, the Jews returning to the ruins of Jerusalem worked together to jointly rebuild their city in a display of common good. Technology is only a tool, to be used for good or evil: what type of future do we want to build with AI?

Pope Leo begins with a review of Catholic Social Doctrine from Rerum Novarum to the present. Those who see Catholicism as a set of cultural “don’ts” will find this part of the encyclical an eye-opening list of Popes, documents, and teachings that directly affect the lives of the common man and woman: the absolute necessity to freely associate (ie., unionize), to keep one’s earnings (private property), to care for those less fortunate, to be treated fairly and not simply as a consumer or producer, but as a human being. While the Church explicity rejects socialism or communism, it likewise counsels that unregulated markets or simple majoritarian democracy can produce their own evils.

From this review, the encyclical recalls five principles of Catholic Social Doctrine which must drive our approach to the AI technological challenge:

• The common good, that is rules and actions which allow all to flourish
• The universal destination of goods, to be shared by all
• Subsidiarity, described as solving issues at the lowest, or most local, level first
• Solidarity, or the responsibility for all to be involved
• Social justice, allowing all to lead dignified lives.

Only after all this does the Pope begin to address how this well-developed set of doctrines apply to the artificial intelligence revolution.

“So-called artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships and do not know from within what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean. Nor do they have a moral conscience, since they do not judge good and evil, grasp the ultimate meaning of situations, or bear responsibility for consequences. They may imitate language, behavior and analytical skills, or even simulate empathy and understanding, but they do not understand what they produce, for they lack the affective, relational and spiritual perspective through which human beings grow in wisdom.” –Chapter III, Section 99

Pope Leo specifies that AI and the larger technological revolution must be harnessed for the good of mankind, not exploited for the few at the risk to the many. Here he highlights:

• the search for truth in public life. Everyone must commit to the development of shared truth, since truth is the basis for community. Truth is neither relative nor personal, but a basis for communication and communion.
• education in the digital environment. Youth must come to understand education is not a series of tests or qualifications to pass, but an extended period of hard work and experience leading to knowledge. Families, schools, and communities must work together to ensure the real education of our youth.
• the transformation of work. Work is not a necessary evil, but a fundamental aspect of human life necessary for dignity. Charity to the less fortunate is a necessary but insufficient response; work is the path to maturity and dignity.
• the fragility of families. The family is the first and foremost common good. Technology must not undermine the family or it will damage the social fabric of the community.
• new forms of slavery. The digital age poses new challenges where technology is directly optimized to enslave its users, or the system itself demands slave-like conditions for the materials necessary for its maintenance.

“More gravely, the pervasive technocratic paradigm in which we are immersed, and that is amplified by the digital revolution and AI, threatens to normalize an anti-human vision. In that vision, the fullness of life is equated with having more, reducing weakness, eliminating uncertainty and exerting total control. When efficiency becomes the ultimate measure of value, human beings are tempted to see themselves as a project to be optimized rather than as persons called to relationship and communion.” –Chapter III, section 112

In the final section, the Pope turns to the issue of international relations in the AI era. He criticizes the return of “political realism” in the notion that power, not charity, is the ultimate determinant between peoples and states. He insists human beings must not pass along the immense power of life-or-death decisions to autonomous systems. In a seemingly throw-away line that has received much attention, he states, “Today, more than ever, without prejudice to the right to self-defense in the strictest sense, it is important to reaffirm that the ‘just war’ theory, which has all too often been used to justify any kind of war, is now outdated.” Leo is not rejecting the Just War theory first promulgated by Saint Augustine; Leo is an Augustinian, for Heaven’s sake. He is decrying the manipulation of Just War doctrine to provide a justification for any war. To further the point, he just put Just War theory on the table as a discussion topic at an extraordinary consistory of the College of Cardinals later this month, so stay tuned!

This encyclical does not contain specific policy proposals for the topics it covers. Those proposals are rightfully the realm of our elected representatives; in Catholic terms, they are prudential, not theological issues. Rather, it introduces the principals all should invoke in developing our policies and rules for artificial intelligence. Like Rerum Novarum so many years ago, it is clear-eyed look at the promises and dangers of technology in a rapidly changing global environment.

Let’s pray Magnifica Humanitas has as great and lasting effect as its predecessor.