OPINION
The University Daily KANSAN November 11, 1983 Page 4
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
The University Daily Kaman (USPS 600-640) is published at the University of Kansas. 118 Staffer Frank Tunnell, Lawrence, Kansas, teaches the regular school year and Monday and Thursday during the summer sessions. 118 Staffer Michael E. Luckman, Manhattan, Kansas, teaches the summer sessions. Sunday, Monday, Sunday, Saturday. Subscription by mail are $1 for six months or $2 a year in Douglas County and $1 for six months or $3 for a year in Lawrence. Subscription address changes to the University Daily Kaman. 118 Staffer Frank Tunnell, Lawrence
MARK ZIEMAN
Editor
DOUG CUNNINGHAM STEVE CUSICK
Managing Editor Editorial Editor
DON KNOX
Campus Editor
ANN HORNBERGER Business Manager
LYNNE STARK
Campus Sales Manager
PAUL JESS General Manager and News Adviser
DAVE WANAMAKER    MARK MEATS
Retail Sales        National Sales
Business Services
JOHN OBERZAN Advertising Adviser
Veterans Day
Veterans Day will be more somber than usual this year.
On the day that the United States salutes those people who have served in the military, it must also think of the recent deaths of 239 Americans in Beirut and of those who died in the invasion of Grenada.
Some have noted that interest in the military has increased since the suicide bombing in Beirut and the Grenada invasion. Let us hope that this interest is caused by an earnest amount of patriotism, rather than a desire to "get even and get revenge."
One veteran in Nebraska said this week, "God knows we don't want any more veterans but we're going to have some."
An increase in the number of veterans — who already number into the millions — might not seem like much, until one loses a husband or son or father.
Figures from the Veterans Administration show that the United States has 24.2 million living war veterans. Fifty-three of those people served in the Spanish American War. Some 11.4 million of those
More than 5 million of those veterans fought in Korea, and 8.7 million did so in Vietnam
Impressive figures, indeed.
But at times, the military service of Americans, and yes, the lives of Americans, has not been enough.
Two hundred thirty-nine men died in the bombing at the airport in Lebanon. Yet the fighting there continues, as it has for decades.
Some families have heard that their sons were killed while taking part in the Grenada invasion. U.S. forces, in a few cases, even fired at their own troops on the island.
Somber thoughts for a somber topic. The price of freedom is high, especially so, for some.
Sometimes a belief that the United States is always right has caused this country to proceed blindly ahead, seemingly oblivious to the cost in lives and equipment.
The recent deaths, one thinks, can hardly serve any purpose. If anything, let us hope that they keep this country and its leaders evermindful of the meaning — and the horror — of war.
Suspicious figures
If reports coming from British journalists are true, the U.S. government is lying to its people.
The journalists say that 42 Americans died in the invasion of Grenada, but the State Department and the Pentagon say only 18 died.
lives lost and equipment," the paper said.
It wouldn't be the first time that the government has tried to conceal the number of losses in a war. The Pentagon is good at juggling the figures to make our costs seem small. Remember the ridiculous numbers on the nightly TV news during the Vietnam War?
One British newspaper, the Guardian, said that the Reagan administration would suffer quite a bit of embarrassment if the larger figures proved to be true. "The White House has been able to capitalize on the cheapness of the Grenadian operation in terms of
One journalist said, "Several serious incidents in which Americans have died have gone unreported, including a multiple helicopter crash at the Cuban-built airport of Point Salines." The British journalists also reported a greater loss of equipment than the Pentagon reported.
The key issue is whether the administration is lying to U.S. citizens. In all fairness, it may be dealing squarely with the public. But, to prove that it is doing so, it must now carefully account for the different figures.
After all, if America is expected to sacrilege its soldiers, its people deserve an honest account. They should know how high a price they had to pay.
Export curb is harmful
The Reagan administration's newly negotiated curb on Japanese auto exports to the United States may be good for the U.S. auto industry, in the short run, but it isn't good for the country.
Even worse, the quota will remove the competitive pressures that could cause American car manufacturers to make improvements in productivity and quality control that are necessary for the future health of the industry itself.
Experts say that U.S. auto makers will profit by $300 million as a result of Japan's agreement to continue its "voluntary" export quotas for another year. The experts also predict that the pact will drive up the prices of both domestic and Japanese autos in the United States and restrict the availability of energy-efficient cars.
For its own part, the administration should have pledged to reduce budget deficits so interest rates could come down, relieving pressure that causes the dollar to be overvalued in relation to the Japanese yen.
—The Milwaukee Journal
The University Daily Kanese welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be typewritten, double-spaced and should not exceed 300 words. They should include the writer's name, address and phone number. If the writer is affiliated with the University, the letter should include his or her own town or faculty or staff position. The Kanese also invite individuals and groups to submit guest columns. Columns and letters can be mailed or brought to the Kanese office, 111 Stauffer-Flint Hall. The Kanese reserves the right to edit or reject letters and columns.
LETTERS POLICY
1983 MAMINWESS
Big Brother's artificial intelligence
"The ultimate goal of AI is to understand intelligence well enough to make computers more intelligent than people."
John McCarthy,
Artificial Intelligence Pioneer
Through the development of AI, artificial intelligence, 500 computer scientists worldwide hope to teach human beings with the intelligence of man.
McCarthy coined the term "artificial intelligence" in 1956. He started two of the three AI research departments in the United States, the first at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the second, which he still runs, at Stanford University.
-John McCarthy.
Mccarthy says that the computer revolution hasn't even started yet.
and won't begin until home computers are as common as televisions and microwave ovens.
JESSE BARKER
Staff Columnist
Some scientists think, as McCarthy does, that computers will soon be more intelligent than man. Instead of just being a way to manipulate information with AI would be more creative, possess a greater learning ability
and make associations in a manner more like the human brain.
But, McCarthy says, mankind should have no fears concerning superior-minded computers, because not even artificial intelligence can replace a machine with emotions. Because a machine cannot want to rule, it won't.
How does McCarthy know computers don't already rule? Can you guess what those scientists use to artificially intelligent computers?
Yep. Computers.
John McCarthy, briefcase in light, turns off the fluorescent lights in his laboratory, pausing at the door to enter the computer in a warm, fatherly fashion.
Five minutes after he has left, a little red light on the computer's front blinks on. The computer starts to hum. It works all night. It shuts down when it bears McCarthy's key in the lock in the morning.
McCarthy always wonders about that faint burning smell in the morning. He never suspects that his computer has been toiling through the night, perfecting its own artificial intelligence.
Without so much as mentioning Orwell's "1984," although it is less than two months away, one can find many examples of literary and cinematic foresight in this area. What if the artificially intelligent character was user-friendly, and didn't work for mankind's benefit, as RD2 would?
Perhaps the AI computer will more closely resemble the malevolent Hal in "2001: A Space Odyssey," or Mother, the ship's
computer in "Alien."
Exceeding the standard limits of computer paranoia, what if the computer is like the one in Iran (the fact "he's a" and controls the nation)?
Computer hackers are those operators who, without permission or authorization, break into systems over the telephone lines. If a hacker could gain access to Defense Department files, it would be a simple task for an artificially intelligent computer.
Suppose some really clever hacker were to deduce the existence of an AI computer. Suppose he tried to board it. Suppose the AI computer could handle 10,000 volts of electricity, enough to modern keyboard and hacker?
Maybe an AI computer already exists, humming away at Stanford, MIT. Silicon Valley, or Tokyo. Sucking in information from all telephone lines Learning Calculating Responding Preparing the troops
Maybe the AI computer reviews the material in all home computers. Maybe it compiles all the information from banks and lending agencies, and establishes credit ratings.
Maybe it scans the content of all computer-composed newspapers and books, including the Kansan, and edits them.
Maybe it has access to the files of the FBI, CIA, National Security Agency and the satellite networks.
Maybe it lwzn i07nr7f 98 vbj
nbig4 b3xg sibx 8kgb j9bi kjl
p yh8ik clam3 d45ibj muhvwa
iugbuvvh8 vh8
Case of the suicidal country
NEW YORK — This is a detective story. The victim of the crime is thousands of miles long from head to toe and equal girth. His father is Portuguese, mother African; traces of Indian ancestry are etched into his brow. Progeny? Roughly 120 million. Identity marks; samba, soccer. Odd statistics, but this is a Latin American tale.
The victim is, of course, Brazil. Alias Sleeping Giant, Economic Miracle. The crime? The victim is found languishing in a coma. Poisoned by who? The doctors doubt he'll survive. But how can a country die? Fellow giants — corporate, national — demand an investigation
The bankers hire a detective. Call him Rip. He smokes a pipe. It adds puff-puff to his ruminations. He says, "Give me a month." Then meet me in Honolulu. Rip is seen with bureaucrats in Brasilia, on beaches south of Rio, at Iguacu Falls in the Amazon jungle. He disappears but is found alive in Paris. Geneva, Frankfurt, Tokyo and New York. He checks into a Honolulu hotel, phones his clients. He's cracked the case.
The lobby is rife with speculation. Who poisoned Brazil? U.S. protectionism? Interest rates? The oil companies? The Arabs? Infiration hitting working-class salaries? Drought in the northeast? Floods in the south? Hunger in Rio, Sao Paulo, Recife?
In the Great Hall, Rip tells the husked financiers: "It wasn't attempted murder. (puff-puff) It was suicide." Stunned audience. Turmoil.
Rip goes on: Over three decades, Brazil has persistedly tried to take its own life, but failed. After World War II, nationalization swept the
exploited Third World — no offense,
gentlemen. It reached Brazil in the '50s. Private enterprise had little capital to buy out foreign companies, so the state chose to fill the void. The government created its own petroleum, mining, transportation and energy companies.
Suddenly, openly, in 1964 the giant slashed his wrists. A coup brought military dictators to power. You
IVAN ANGELO Journalist and Author
know what South American generals can be like. The victim obviously knew. It was his second attempt, coldly calculated. After eliminating all remnants of opposition or restraint and imposing censorship, the generals summoned economic agencies — technocrats — to finish the job.
This led to the third attempt — a seemingly logical one: federalization of 70 percent of the economy, industry, banks. The turning point. The new elite became judge and jury for its own actions. The slow poison of corruption, nepotism and planning errors crept through the body politic. Successive administrations were embroiled in scandal, all hushed up. They built the world's largest hydroelectric plant to serve a region of the not quite corpus delecti, where abundant energy sources were available, and much cheaper at that.
The victim was in a hurry: wasteful expenditures, giant loans at terms that were too short. Suspicious, but no one got wind of it. He had no need to stop him. Man had mustered up. You began imposing higher and higher interest rates on the loans — a risk tax, so to speak. To cover a growing deficit, the victim began issuing more cruzeiros, borrowing from his own bank. By the end of the percent compounded and indexed I-galoping inflation. Need I go on?
They built one of the world's largest petrochemical complexes, in Bahia, but there are no buyers for its products. They laid out a city for them to store materials in steel mill, after the bottom had fallen out of the world market.
Uproar of protest. Rip plays his last trump. Because you, gentlemen, are the final link, the last piece of the puzzle. It was you the victim chose to administer the coup de grace. Who could connexe you with the crime? Except for one piece of evidence. You took out your own phone and called the International Monetary Fund, the IMF. There's only one hitch: You can't collect on suicide and you can't collect on murder.
Accidental? No. Suicidal.
The "risk tax" was a stroke of genius. Now Brazil could pay your banks — for the right to be a sizable risk. What did this risk involve? The inability to repay the debt as negotiated; if it was a right for Brazil to repay an interest policy — why didn't Brazil put the banks on notice when he could not longer meet exorbitant repayments?
The bankers gasp. Rip taps his pipe, leaves the hotel, disappears into the night.
Copyright 1983 the New York Times. Ivan Angel, assistant managing editor of the formal da Torde, a São Paulo daily, is author of the novel "The Celebration." This was translated from Portuguese by Thomas Colchie.
Freezing, drowning in the future
WASHINGTON  It according to a couple of recent studies, we have wide peace for the next 100 years or so. Earth will undergo a catastrophic warming trend that will melt the polar ice caps and flood coastal cities, among other disasters.
But if, according to two other studies, we have all-out atomic war, Earth will undergo a catastrophic cooling trend that will wipe out life forms that survived the blast.
The warnings of climate changes ahead are largely composed of dire predictions for food production and other economic and political upheavals. What they don't cover is the potential effect of the warning trend on tourism.
So there you have it, ladies and gents. A "greenhouse effect" or a "nuclear winter." The choice is yours.
Perhaps it will help you decide between freezing and drowning if I point out a few negative factors in the long range weather forecasts.
We were merely tantalized with projections that by the year 2010 New York City could have a climate like Duyta Beach.
Florida, you know, has a lucrative winter tourist season.
supported largely by cold weather refugees from New York and other Northern cities.
DICK WEST United Press International
Ocean resorts, on the other hand, probably will suffer. As the seashore moves inland, vacationers may be going to the Mohave Desert to get sand in their shoes.
It stands to reason that if future New Yorkers can step outside in January and get as good a sunitan as they might now acquire in winter, they aren't t likely to invest. huge fortunes in winter travel to Florida.
And what of the Dayton 500, the stock car classic that now attracts thousands of racing enthusiasts to the Sunshine State? With the track under water, will that event be combined with the annual auto race up Pikes Peak?
Overall, however, I can see a bright future for tanning lotions. Sunbathers who reside in frosty climes are going to need year round smearings of lotions they now use only in summer.
Tourists, always a hardy and busy lot, can learn to shift for themselves. I'm sure Should you need something to brood about, try picturing what the next day might look like in the next century might be like.
With such sports as downhill skiing and bobsledding no longer practical, the winter games could be maintained in downhill apple-bobbing.
We may yet have a "nuclear winter," but in the meantime it isn't too soon to start preparing for the warming trend. I mean, if you think you've got problems with basement dampness now, imagine what it will be like after the polar ice caps melt.