To the Editor:
Re “Battle the Highly effective Forces Stealing Our Consideration,” by D. Graham Burnett, Alyssa Loh and Peter Schmidt (Opinion visitor essay, Nov. 27):
In 2010, annoyed that I needed to admonish the scholars in my massive sophomore lecture course to show off their cellphones firstly of every class, solely to see them return to them instantly on the finish, I informed them a narrative.
After I went to school, I defined, there have been no cellphones. After class, we thought of what we had simply realized, typically discussing it with our associates. Why not strive an experiment: for one week, no cellphones for 10 minutes after each class? Solely three of the 80 college students accepted the problem, and never surprisingly, they reported again that they had been thrilled to search out themselves studying extra and having fun with it extra totally.
So, hats off to the authors of this essay who’re educating attentiveness. I concern, although, that they’re making an attempt to empty the ocean with a teaspoon. Would that they show me flawed.
Richard Etlin
New York
The author is distinguished college professor emeritus on the Faculty of Structure, Planning & Preservation, College of Maryland, Faculty Park.
To the Editor:
In fact, now we have misplaced a great deal of our means to focus and focus with the persistence of digital data gnawing at our consideration spans. Whereas this isn’t a brand new drawback, it has been grossly intensified.
The reply previously, and the reply now, is libraries: locations of quiet studying, contemplation, research, pondering, even daydreaming.
To place away digital media for a time and benefit from the silence of a library is a present for private stability and tranquillity.
Bonnie Collier
Branford, Conn.
The author is a retired affiliate director for administration, Yale Legislation Library.
To the Editor:
Some years in the past I returned to the tiny Greek island my household left in 1910. “There’s nothing there,” everyone stated. However the nothing that was there was absolutely the antidote to a lot of the malaise of contemporary life, or, as my daughter calls it, “the digital hellscape.”
The impact was instant. No bank cards, no taxi apps, no alarm programs, none of it. Simply the sounds of the goat bells on the hills and other people consuming espresso and staring on the water and speaking to one another. And it wasn’t boring in any respect.
Jane Warden
Malibu, Calif.
A Social gathering Pooper’s View of the New Local weather Deal
To the Editor:
Re “In Local weather First, Pact Seeks Shift on Fossil Fuels” (entrance web page, Dec. 14):
I hate to be a local weather summit get together pooper, however the backside line is that the brand new deal being celebrated is just not legally binding and may’t, by itself, drive any nation to behave. Historical past has proven that if a rustic isn’t pressured to behave, it normally received’t.
How do I do know that? We simply had the most popular yr on file, with world fossil-fuel emissions hovering to file highs. We had agreed to not go there. Right here we’re.
Douglas G. Williams
Minneapolis
The Biden Impeachment Inquiry: ‘Republicans, Have You No Disgrace?’
To the Editor:
Re “Impeachment Inquiry Authorised, Regardless of No Proof of Biden Crime” (entrance web page, Dec. 14):
This can be a unhappy day for our nation. Republicans voted to have an impeachment inquiry into President Biden with out having any foundation on which to proceed. Why did they take this unprecedented step? They had been responding to the needs of Donald Trump.
The constitutional energy of the Home of Representatives to question is a solemn obligation reserved for cases the place a president has dedicated “excessive crimes or misdemeanors.” On this case, there’s not a shred of proof of any wrongdoing, solely a father’s love for his surviving son.
Republicans, have you ever no disgrace? You’ll rue the day you voted in such an unethical method. To make use of impeachment as a political software within the 2024 election is a humiliation for the entire world to see.
I’m afraid that now we have reached the purpose the place retribution is one get together’s focus as a substitute of the myriad wants of the individuals of this nation.
Ellen Silverman Popper
Queens
The 1968 and 2024 Elections
To the Editor:
Studying about how President Biden is dropping assist amongst younger pro-Palestinian school children takes me again to my youth. I’m a child boomer, and this jogs my memory of the 1968 presidential election between Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey.
So lots of my technology had been so offended concerning the Vietnam Conflict and the way Vice President Humphrey had backed President Lyndon B. Johnson’s dealing with of the warfare that many people refused to vote for Humphrey. Nixon was elected, and the warfare continued.
As President Biden typically says, an election is a alternative. Nonetheless, one can even select to not vote. These of us who refused to vote for Humphrey could nicely have tipped the election to Nixon, and with it all the penalties that adopted.
It’s a cliché that the right is the enemy of the nice, however there’s loads of fact to it. I fervently hope we don’t make that mistake in 2024.
Stuart Math
New York
The A.I. Stakes
To the Editor:
Re “How Cash, Ego and Concern Lit A.I.’s Fuse” (“The A.I. Race” sequence, entrance web page, Dec. 4):
Though the historical past of synthetic intelligence could learn like a battle between these favoring cautious growth and people intent on advancing the know-how quickly with fewer restrictions, it was inevitable that the latter would come out on prime.
Given the sources required to scale the know-how, it might be developed solely with the assist of events with monumental computing energy and really deep pockets (in different phrases, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Meta).
And in return for his or her investments of billions of {dollars}, it’s hardly stunning that these competing events would demand fast development with fewer restrictions within the hope of controlling the way forward for an business that holds the promise of spectacular revenue.
Looking back, the proponents of a cautious strategy to the event of A.I. by no means stood an opportunity.
Michael Silk
Laguna Woods, Calif.
Veterans’ Suicides by Firearm
New knowledge from the U.S. Division of Veterans Affairs presents a glimmer of hope: New York State is bucking the development. It noticed a 13 % lower in firearm-related suicides by veterans in 2021. That conforms with analysis findings that states with stricter gun management insurance policies expertise fewer firearm-related suicides.
Saving lives means lowering entry to deadly means.
Derek Coy
New York
The author, an Iraq veteran, is senior program officer for veterans’ well being on the New York Well being Basis.
