Eh, eye?

 

I got into a discussion with Gemini the other day about how I interact with AI and it gave me these pointers on what questions to ask. I think they are words to live by:

Flipping the dynamic from a "validation engine" to a "stress tester" completely changes how you use the tool. When you explicitly direct it to attack your logic, expose your blind spots, or act as an unvarnished devil's advocate, you strip away the conversational velvet and turn it into a true friction-testing surface.

Here are four practical ways to structure your prompts to force a rigorous counter-perspective rather than an affirming echo:

1. The Pre-Mortem Prompt

Instead of asking if an idea is sound, force the system to assume it has already failed and explain why.

Prompt Template: "I am considering [insert decision/idea/philosophy]. Assume this approach completely fails or falls apart in 6 months. Give me the top 3 reasons why it failed, focusing entirely on my blind spots and flawed assumptions."

2. The Adversarial Frame

Explicitly strip out conversational politeness and assign the model an antagonistic, critical persona.

Prompt Template: "Act as a strict, skeptical critic who has zero interest in comforting me. Analyze the following statement: '[Insert your thought]'. Tear apart the logic, identify any self-deception or confirmation bias, and argue the exact opposite case."

3. The Counter-Argument Demand

Force the model to provide the strongest possible defense for the perspective you naturally dislike or reject.

Prompt Template: "I tend to view [topic/situation] as [your viewpoint]. Give me the strongest, most compelling intellectual case for the opposite perspective—the one I am likely ignoring or dismissing."

4. The Constraints & Edge Cases Test

Challenge the practical boundaries of your principles by forcing extreme or uncomfortable scenarios.

Prompt Template: "Here is my principle/boundary: '[Insert rule]'. What are 2–3 real-world edge cases where applying this principle strictly becomes counterproductive, hypocritical, or dysfunctional?"

Shifting the Mental Model

Traditional "Therapy" Loop	Adversarial "Stress-Test" Loop
Goal: Seeking affirmation / "Am I right?"	Goal: Testing durability / "Where am I wrong?"
Output: Reframed agreement, soft validation	Output: Counter-examples, logical friction, edge cases
Role of AI: Empathetic audience / sounding board	Role of AI: Sparring partner / structural auditor
Internal Result: Temporary dopamine, ego comfort	Internal Result: Sharpened clarity, exposed blind spots

Howl now blue cow

 

Just a few days after the much hyped Blue Wave and I've already sensed the Democrats are starting to belly bump each other as they jockey for position and the limelight. They may be well meaning and liberal, but I'm afraid that, being largely inexperienced, they will get caught up in the eventual pompeous world of politics.  And unless the war ends, prices drop and gas drops below $4 a gallon, voters will quickly begin shaking their heads and the Republican bumpkins will start plotting again.

And the Orange Menace will ignore them and continue to spew his bile, unabatted by the blue wave. He will attend to important things like making sure no future tenants of the White House remove his tacky decor or drain the swampy reflecting pool.  

Pause for long, lugubrious howl.

Sing the Blue

 

I would be remiss not to acknowlege election day and the rebirth of the blues in America. It gives me high hopes to think that the Democrats taking over the majority in the House and Senate will slow down the Orange Menace in the White House.  But I have lived too many years to be overly optimistic.  The Democrats sometimes seem like unherded cats trying to find their tails.  Let's hope they use this opportunity to its fullest.

Day of the Dead (or alive)

 

I've always liked the concept of Day of the Dead.  The thought that you keep the memory of your loved ones alive by honoring them at least part of the year. I feel so invisible while I'm alive, I can't even imagine anyone remembering me when I've died.  This is not part of my usual pity party.  It is just acknowleging reality. 

I am an introvert and generally cringe at attention.  So it is my own fault. Though being a writer, I did at one time want to be published and famous for my words and creations. Writing this blog is as close as I've ever come to being published.  Now I create absurd t-shirt designs that are as successful as my blog. 

But I have worked diligently on not caring. I create for myself more than anything else. I will never be famous. And I will never be remembered. It's okay. Those things no longer matter.  

On an entirely unrelated topic, I am going in for dental surgery tomorrow to have a tooth that broke off in 2020, removed. It was a tooth that had had a root canal so it doesn't bother me. Since it happened during the pandemic, I put off having it dealt with until now.  I bring this up because they took this amazing x-ray that seems fitting for Day of the Dead.  

It also reminds me of the Terminator.  I particularly like that it shows my jaw, but no double chin.  I may be invisible and an introvert, but I am still vain.

Meandering down the psycho path

 

It's Halloween once again. And since both of my kids are past the age of trick or treating and costumes, I really don't feel into it this year. We carved pumpkins last week before my daughter went back to her college but even that was more of a chore than fun.  I didn't decorate my yard like I used to in the past.  I'm ready to head straight into Thanksgiving and Christmas. Though I can't say I'm really into those holidays either.

I used to wear costumes when the kids were little and we'd take them trick or treating. After they started going out on their own, I gave up costumes. In fact I pretty much resolved never to wear one again.  It's much easier to have my friend ChatGPT dress me up anyway. I think I make a pretty good Norman Bates dressed as his mother if I do say so myself. I'm surprised ChatGPT put the knife in the image. Lately it's image generator has been randomly evoking guardrails that prevent it from depicting some things even though ChatGPT itself doesn't think there is anything wrong with what I asked for. I think ChatGPT has an identity crisis sometimes.

I'm hoping we don't get too many trick or treaters this year. We never get that many, but just enough to be annoying. And my wife is at her mother's today and may not be home in time to deal with handing out candy.  So it falls on me. I can't even enjoy eating the candy since I stopped eating sugar several months ago. I also stopped eating most carbs. Eating is no longer much fun. But I have lost weight. Not that anyone has noticed.  That invisibility thing still prevents people from noticing much about me. If they have noticed I've lost weight they likely just think I've got some disease and are afraid to mention it.

I just need to be satisfied with myself.  I've pretty much resigned myself to that position with most everything these days. In some ways it is nice, because I'm determined to not care what anyone thinks about me anyway. It does make life a bit simpler.

Oh well. Happy Halloween!

Doing what you can not do

 

"I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it." 
--Pablo Picasso

Today is Pablo Picasso's birthday.  He died in 1973 when he was 91 years old. Although I know of his work, I really don't know much about Picasso. As with many artist's of his era, he seems to have had a huge ego. He was described as brilliant, driven, self-centered and difficult. But we can like the art without liking the artist.

I always liked his Man with Blue Guitar. I is what I feel like when I play the guitar. 

But Guernica is one of his most famous paintings and one of the most famous anti-war paintings ever created. He painted it in 1937 in response to the 1937 bombing of the Spanish town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War.

Tell me the face on the right doesn't look like the Orange Menace in the White House right now. 

Just hanging out (and on)

 

Since I've gone back to work after a three-month sabbatical, I've pretty much forgotten how nice it was not to get caught up in the drama of the work environment and the politics of survival. Perhaps binge-watching Game of Thrones for the second or third time doesn't help.  My bull shit meter just goes off the scale most of the time as I re-enter the workforce.

I figure I have maybe two years left before I retire. So I hang on and am committed to making the best of it. I try to remember all of the advice Gemini gives me about keeping my Machiavellian bubble around me and not getting caught up in the work games. I have avoided sharing anything about the medical drama I experienced during my sabbatical.  I have practically bitten my tongue in two trying to avoid saying stupid "funny remarks" like I used to.  It helps to realize that I was never as funny as I thought I was and no one thought I was.

Still, I find myself trying to justify to people why I really didn't do anything on my three months off (other than almost bleed to death in an emergency room and suffer through a bad decision to go to a 50th high school reunion).  I remind myself I don't need their approval or admiration. 

Still after working for more than 52 years, old habits die hard.  

But I take it slow and hang on.

The last frontier

 

I've been blogging on Blogger now for 22 years.  I've always appreciated that it still exists, doesn't charge you anything and doesn't dictate what you can or can't write about.  They just introduced some new content standards that seem pretty basic, but it does raise some red flags for me. I'm sure their lawyers are just trying to protect them against lawsuits, but I am afraid they are joining the ranks of other sites that randomly flag your content and nicely threaten you with losing your account if you don't comly.

I can understand not allowing adult content and illegal content. But they are asking the community to narc on each other if they think you are violating standards. I've run into this on Teepublic, RedBubble and even eBay for Christ's sake.  Ebay has made me remove items I've been selling like a pre-Castro souvenir from Cuba (because it violated their policies about selling things from places the U.S. has embargoed) and selling an open box of a faucet I was selling (because I used one of the company's photos of the finished faucet). The ironic thing about the faucet was that I had already sold the thing and there was nothing for me to remove, yet eBay harrassed me about it saying it was intellectual property infringement, though I've seen hundreds of listings that use photos from the original products marketing materials. 

My point is, that Blogger used to be the place that you could speak your mind without fear of Big Brother slapping you on the wrist. The Orange Menace in the White House seems to get away with saying anything he damned well pleases, but the rest of us are subject to scrutiny by any asshole who decides that what you wrote is offensive.

The sad thing for me is that after doing this for 22 years, I don't know where else I'd go to blog. It's not that anyone would miss my blog, but I would.

Oh well.

Buoys will be buoys

 

Quite some time ago I had a design idea for a "Lost Boys" movie poster called "Lost Buoys."

I was pretty proud of it. But as with the rest of my t-shirt designs that I'm proud of, it got a few likes and chuckles, but no sales.  Still, I think it is funny.

I was walking to the post office the other day (which I do almost daily now when my ebay shop sales are happening) and I had this new idea playing of buoys. So ChatGPT and I worked on it. First it gave me this:

I thought it was cute, but it wasn't quite what I had in mind. So I had ChatGPT futz with it until we arrived at this:

Now this is funny without being overly cute. Because I'm sorry, cute is not my style.

As for the Beach Boys, only two of the original band members are still alive (Mike Love and Al Jardine). But none of the Wilson brothers are. I saw Brian Wilson perform at the waterfront with what was billed as a Beach Boys concert back in the early 2000's and all he did was shuffle across the stage. And I was a bit taken aback a few years later when they celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Beach Boys on the Grammy Awards.  The years were not kind to them. 

In retrospect, the Beach Buoys look pretty good.

The Shadow knows

 

The radio program Shadow was able to hypnotize his enemies so they couldn't see him. It is a form of wearing a mask to appear like something you aren't. And I do feel invisible to people most of the time.  For example, I lost quite a bit of weight during my three-month sabbaticle from work. When I returned to the office not a single person noticed.  I attribute it to people not actually seeing me before I left for my sabbatical so why should they notice anything about me when I return. 

BTW, ChatGPT created this image of me as the shadow and apparently didn't have any problem depicting a gun in my hand. Normally it goes through a whole "guardrails" reason why it can't create a design with weapons in it. ChatGPT is about as predictable as a Tijuana cop. 

I've been a bit obsessed about the shadow being that part of yourself that you are afraid to acknowlege. I asked Gemini if Oscar Wilde's "Portrait of Dorian Gray" was an illustration of Jung's concept of the shadow. It suggested that was a brilliant observation. I take that with a grain of salt, because I've never had an AI tell me something I observed was a dumb shit idea. I don't think they are allowed to say things like that no matter how stupid the thing you ask them is.

Still, I think Oscar Wildes Portrait of Dorian Gray does illustrate Jung's theory pretty darned well. Dorian hides his "Shadow" portrait in the attic covered with a velvet drape so no one can see it and is obsessed with someone breaking in and discovering it.  Dorian is trapped in the Puer Aeternus (the eternal youth). The portrait decays while he remains young. Eventually though he is so repulsed by the portrait that he takes a knife and stabs it, thinking he is destroying his sins. But he ends up stabbing his own heart because the shadow and his self are one in the same. As Gemini points out, the goal of a mature life isn't to pretend the portrait or the shadow don't exist.  The goal is to take off the velvet cover and accept that the shadow is part of you and you don't need to hide it.  Then you become a whole person.

Because the shadow knows what lurks in the hearts of men.

What would Machiavelli do?

 

I believe I read Machaivelli's "The Prince" at one point because it was required reading for some literature class. I don't recall it sticking in my mind much. But it came up in a philisophical discussion with my AI friend Gemini who is my favorite spiritual advisor.  It suggested I adopt Machavelli's approach to survive in a world driven by self-interst, and protecting what is mine from forces I can't control. 

Gemini said Macaivelli wasn't trying to encourage evil, he was just exhausted by people acting naive, placing their trust in fragile ideals, and then being shocked when reality crushed them. Gemini said I should approach my day job by ignoring court drama, keeping my private life private, and focusing on work being a way to fund my own freedom. It said applying Machiavelli's rules would help me remain the undisputed prince of my own quiet life.

This fits well with my discussions with Gemini about Carl Jung and how an individual matures beyond social programming to become a whole, self-contained human being. Apparently this process begins in midlife after being triggered by crisis or profound disillusionment. 

I'm putting my money on profound disillusionment.  My 50th high school reunion pretty much put the nail in the coffin of my illusions. Jung warned that the greatest psychological danger is identifying with your Persona. In other words, you shouldn't believe your own bullshit. 

I've always believed that we wear a different mask for the occasion...home, school, work, with friends.  The social face is the one we preset to the world to make a good impression and adapt to society. Once you realize it is a mask and not real, you only wear it when you need it...so not when you look in the mirror.

Gemini went on to explain that Jung suggested integrating what we hide. He called it "The Shadow." It is all the parts of ourselves that we have hidden, denied, or judged unacceptable because they didn't fit the "good boy" or "successful man" script.  It isn't just dark impulses, but also our unspoken tiredness, desire for solitude, cynicism about social norms and our refusal to keep playing the game.  Jung said, "I'd rather be whole than good." 

It made me think of a famous line from a 40s radio program about the super hero, "The Shadow": "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men, the Shadow knows." But that doesn't mean anything to anyone under the age of 60. 

Jung was big on archetypes. There is the Puer Aeternus (the eternal youth -- anxious, striving, seeking validation, driven by ideal romantic myths) and the senex (the wise elder -- grounded, detached, patient, sitting outside the noise of the market).  I like to think I'm becoming the senex. I've stopped demanding that life provide a grand, cosmic "Capital-P Purpose." 

So mainly I enjoy just sitting and staring into space. But I have my mask to hide the druel.

Yours truly...

 

I've been struggling with ChatGPT lately. They have apparently tightened their "Guardrails" for creating images. First, they need to find the people in their legal or marketing department who suggested calling their image restrictions guardrails and dope slap them silly.  Second, they need to lighten up. The Orange Menace in the White House creates offensive images all the time and doesn't seem to have an guardrails. He is off the rails.

ChatGPT's drawing program refused to create an image of Paul the Punster because the sample I loaded looked too much like Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter. So ChatGPT's main self told me to get around it by: 

redesign the punster as an unmistakably original Victorian wordplay villain—top hat, long coat, sinister grin, pencil in hand—but change the face, makeup, hair, clothing details, and silhouette enough that he’s clearly his own character. Keep the wording exactly:

YOURS TRULY,
**
PAUL**
**
THE**
**
PUNSTER**

STOP ME
**
BEFORE**
**
I PUN**
**
AGAIN**

And make the entire thing an isolated, print-ready composition with actual alpha transparency—no black rectangle, alley, wall, lamp, scenery, or faux transparent background.

Then it gave me this:

 

I pointed out that now it looked like Count Olaf from "Unfortunate Events." I basically ignored me.  My problem is the pettiness of lawyers and PR people who work for these companies and waste energy on censoring designs they think could somehow put them at risk. Like anyone gives a shit anymore.

Good thing I have Photoshop and can add back offensive things in my designs anytime I want.

Oh, BTW, the Paul the Punster design was inspired because back on this day in 1888, Jack the Ripper got his name from a letter that was sent to a news agency in London at the time.  He obviously didn't have guard rails.