Researchers at Concordia University have completed some interesting research suggesting that a surprising number of males would consider sex with robotic women, especially when aroused. Some females are so inclined though the proportion is less. Admittedly, the investigative methods leave something to be desired (relatively small sammple size that is not representative) but the results are highly intuitive. From my observations, most horny men (and when are they not) would hit on a coat rack just standing there in the corner of a room. When I was young and still afflicted with such needs, I made many a pass at various coat racks as we neared ‘last call’ in various bars or taverns. Turns out that I had the same luck with the racks as I did with human females … none! It is not easy being a guy.

This line of research also suggests that men and women will look to robotic avatars for a variety of human connections … advice, friendship, and emotional connection. The escort service I now use better seek a new form of service if they wish to stay in business. I am sure a fake female will wonder exuberantly at my brilliance and laugh at my jokes with far more authenticity (or at least beleivability) than real women ever have, even when paid to do so. Not all of the AI revolution will be a bad thing.

But that is not what I’m thinking about this morning. No, this is the classic ‘bait and switch’ thing. Sex draws you in before I drive you into a soporific, comatose state with something more serious. It is serious to me at least.

The Texas Senate voted to end tenure for new faculty at their public colleges and universities. Sounds ominous though the legislation has a way to go before becoming law. Still, I’m struck by how dedicated the GOP has become in attacking the pillars of higher education. Our Florida Governor has attacked higher education in his state along in addition to Mickey Mouse at Disneyland. Former Wisconsin Republican Scott Walker went after the Badger State’s flagship campuses, especially U.W.- Madison, which has ranked in the top 50 research university’s in the world for as long as I can remember.

Our former brainiac Governor, who flunked out or was thrown out of Marquette University (choose your favorite story), went after higher education with particular zealousness. Besides working to erode the tenure system, a tradition designed to ptotect scholarly investigation from political intrusion, he made a stab at eroding a principle that had made the Madison campus famous … the ‘Wisconsin idea.’ That principle proposed that the University should be a place where a fearless ‘sifting and winnowing’ could take place not just for truth but for ideas and innovations in the service of the public good. And for a century and a quarter, the Madison Campus was known for that … an incubator for all kind sof ideas for the public arena from Social Security to Worker’s Compensation to the progressive income tax to separating the formulation of laws from the corporations that benefitted from that legislation (NB: Until early in the 20th century, state legislators had no staff to write laws so turned to coprporate lawyers for the task.)

Walker tried to excise the Wisconsin Idea language and otherwise turn the mssion of the campus away from the fearless pursuit of truth toward seving the needs of the the State’s business community. He, and the political party he headed at the time, wished to turn a world class research university ito another voc-tech school, but at a higher level. The blow-back was instantaneous and he never fully accomplished his scheme. Still, state support has eroded with years of Republican control in Wisconsin. State contributions to our public university system now ranks 43rd in the nation while support for the voc-tech system ranks 5th. Budgets reflect values and nothing speaks louder than this. State funds cover only about 20 percent (perhaps a bit more) of the Madison’s budget. Only the Madison faculty’s ability to bring in outside research (it has traditionally ranked among top schools in research money received), along with tuition hikes that erode our ability to reach all youth, enables the school to maintain its quality and reputation.

Now, to be fair, former U.S. Senator William Proxmire, a Democrat, would give out an award to what he considered really stupid research being carried out at taxpayers expense. He called it his ‘Golden Fleece’ award. He hated to see tax dollars wasted. Still, he prized good research. When federal funding for the Institute for Research for Poverty (my first home in the university) was threatened during the Reagan administration, he stepped in to see that support continued as it had since the 1960s War on Poverty. A fierce opponent of porkbarrel spending, this was only one of two times he stepped in to ensure federal support for a Wisconsin-based initiative.

Why do Republicans hate university’s? I mean, are they not the pro-business party. In recent years, Wisconsin’s public universities have contributed about $25 billion annually to the state’s economy, and that is a conservative count. One university spin-off alone, Epic Medical Systems, now employs 12,000 plus mostly high-paying technical folk in the Madison area, and is growing like mad. And that is only one example of many. They should be falling over themselves to pour more resources into this economic engine.

The answer is relatively simple. The research campuses are located in major cities … Madison and Milwaukee. These are seen as bastions of democratic voters. In the last statewide election this April, Dane County sent 240,000 voters to the polls (even more than Milwaukee) and they voted overwhelmingly for the liberal candidate for Supreme Court (82%). In a jurisdiction where statewide races have been decided by the slimmest of margins, a growing liberal bastion like Dane County (Madison) is the enemy. And the most prominent target for slaying that dragon is the elitest university, no matter the cost. Republicans also know that their rural base is highly supsicious of eggheads and those Madison ‘types’ who are considered ‘woke’ foes to be despised and even punished. The divisions evident in our ‘culture war’ has an undeniable spacial component.

The University is seen as a place that takes good kids with sound values from the farm or small towns throughout the state and turns them into socialists at best and Communists at worse. Those eggheads at the university even teach the next generation ‘Critical Race Theory’ or as we eggheads would say … History and Legal Theory. For Republicans, the indoctrination of our youth must he stopped at all costs. They realize that cannot maintain control of power IF voters can think for themselves, identify their self-interests, and connect the dots through analytical reasoning. So, thinking must be stamped out if progressive thought and compassion are to be stopped in their tracks. Some in the GOP have even floated ideas for how to make it more difficult to for college students to vote. When you cannot command a majority, democracy must be subverted.

So, as I was typing out these words, I started reflecting on a related issue. My mind tends to wander, as you have likely figured out. Every great civilization has encouraged learning. The ancient Chinese empires developed the wisdom of Confuscius and his followers, Egypt developed the world’s greatest library in Alexandria (before it was tragically destroyed by fire), the Greek’s during their golden age virtually invented philosophy and advanced thinking, and Rome added and expanded on earlier thought while providing texts that many high school students (including me) grew to hate with a passion.

We now tend to think of the Islamic world as backward and even primitive for the most part. And yet, as the Roman Empire disintegrated and Europe wallowed in violence, anarchy, and decay, the Abassid Caliphate was ushering in a new Golden Age. Baghdad, its epicenter, was then the largest city outside of China. Several Caliphs, starting in the mid-8th century gathered extent knowledge and thinkers to share what they knew, to seek new knowledge, and to preserve ancient wisdom. With new paper making technolgoes, the now famous House of Wisdom in Baghdad replaced the library at Alexandria as the repository of human knowledge. It was only with the Mongolian sacking of that citidel of learning that the golden era finally came to an end.

Before that happened, the Islamic world became the incubator of new ideas in sceince, technology, medicine, literature, the arts, and so much more. It would take several pages to recount the flowering (and preservation) of knowledge in this era. They took every book and document they could find, no matter the provenance or whether it ascribed to Islamic beliefs, and translated it into several langauages. They were a kind of ‘Wisconsin Idea’ of that era. Muhhammed ibn Musa al-Khawizm developed algebra (along with improvements to geometry and trigonometry). The very word algebra comes from the title of one of his books. Ibn al-Haytham is credited with laying out what we think of as the scientific method and thus can claim to be the world’s first ‘real scientist.’ An early author whose unfortunate nickname was ‘boggle eyes’ wrote some 200 books of which some 30 can yet be found in Middle eastern book shops today. Among his insights can be found the essential constructs of evolution that Charles Darwin re-invented a thousand years later.

My point is that intellectual inquiry is essential to the well-being of society and civilization. When you attack science and scientists, you are merely foreshadowing your own decline. I continue to be appalled that Dr. Anthiny Fauci has been so viciously attacked by Republicans for merely employing our best science to save lives. I cannot forget the 1950s when I feared Polio almost as much as being turned into toast by a nuclear blast.

Then came along Jonas Salk from the University of Pittsburgh. He had the freedom to perservere under vicious attacks from many other scientists like Albert Sabin. But he could pursue what he thought was right and came up with an eponymous vaccine that started to erase this scourge. It was not smooth in the beginning and some 200 children died from a tainted batch of the vaccine (due to lax government oversight). Can you imagine the outrage on Fox News today? But there was no fanatical right wing party then to attack science nor a 24/7 news outlets to feed the public misinformation. Science prevailed and polio is history.

If today’s Repubican Party prevails, the America century will be relegated to the dustbin of history, and deservedly so. Then again, we probably will all be dead from an apocilyptic climate disaster before that happens. So, why worry!