Crazy east coasters stayed away long past midnight to endure frighteningly cold temperatures to see a blood moon total eclipse.. the breathtaking sights–for those who could 1) see it and 2) bear the wind chill of negative 25 degrees–was memorable..
Images are being shared today on Twitter and Facebook.. the first thing that is noticeable is how awful our phone cameras our despite the prices we paid for the devices.. Grainy images past dark of a red dot blurry as could be in the winter night sky..
Including me.
But the images prove we are all still glad to be a part of something tribal in our instinct–the reminder that we are on this planet, in this universe, and a part of a mystery of life that we will never quite understand even when we think we do..
There is something majestic about a blood moon with negative 14 degree wind chills.. it somehow binds you to history and connects you to the time and place you inhabit..
The Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles shared an image of the rusty-colored moon — which was to be the last total lunar eclipse visible in the United States until 2022.
And we survived to die another day ..
A sampling of headlines are in order to provide perspective on the devastating effects this blood moon was set to have!
- One prediction was for the blood moon to cause a major earthquake on the planet!
- Some said that it proved Bible prophecies about the end times were upon us!
- Some feared that the blood moon would create the scenario for the end of the world to begin.
While perusing daily headlines of war, racial tensions, and government shutdowns could amplify high degrees of anxiety in the modern world, we are all still here living our collective lives, along with experiencing our collective problems. Yes, the blood moon put a perspective on how small our crises could be.. but it sure didn’t end that spate of crises. As before, so it is today..
There may be one thing, however, the blood moon also affected without explanation: Artificial intelligence?
A few days ago, people on YouTube began to notice a strange glitch in the matrix built by the platform: Earlier this month, a two-hour newscast from CNN on the morning of the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks started showing up in the recommended section of many users’ feeds, prompting people to question, “What did I watch for this to be recommended to me?”
The video itself was uploaded more than five years ago by an account exclusively full of other videos from Sept. 11, 2001 and news coverage of the attacks from that day.
YouTube had a statement about the oddity: “Just confirming that YouTube is aware of this thread and looking into it—we do think something weird is up.” The manager confirmed that the issue was “fixed.” According to reporting from The Verge, YouTube declined to provide more information about what caused the issue.
What if AI, the ever increasing form of modern intelligence we rely on, is now predicting a future based on the past? Predicting coming events after analyzing collective fears that people express online? The worries that blood moons cause?
….with society’s constant flow of 24/7 disasterpiece theaters on cable snooze stations, it’s no wonder that AI feels we would love to go back in history and watch disasters from the yesterday as well.
Just wait until April 2024 when the great American total eclipse of the sun grazes through the United States of fear..
