Transcript of a talk by Cory Doctorow @… on the topic of AI and its near -term effects on society. Long. Summary of an upcoming book.
Many good thoughts in it, some I haven't found described so well before, some new to me. I'm quite aligned on his points about copyright, and he's tying this up better than I have seen in other places. I don…

This John Catsimatidis guy can just F right off. If he cared so much about the birds he could have sent trucks to have them taken away... of course.. good luck with US Border agents letting birds in that have been exposed to Avian Flu and have an active CFIA cull order on them.
I feel bad for the people who feel so connected to the birds themselves. Some people simply won't understand and I feel sympathy for them. But the owners of the ranch have always known better and they have used this to raise money and increase their profile.
And now we get the crocodile tears as the adults have finally taken over.
I hope this is the last we ever hear about Universal Ostrich.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/livestory/bc-ostrich-farm-decision-scoc-9.6968394

After #Trump finally crashes and burns (I'm still saying I don't think he makes it to the mid terms, and I think it's more than possible he won't make it to the end of the year) we'll hear a lot of people say, "the system worked!" Today people are already talking about "saving democracy" by fighting back. This will become a big rally cry to vote (for Democrats, specifically), and the complete failure of the system will be held up as the best evidence for even greater investment in it.
I just want to point out that American democracy gave nuclear weapons to a pedophile, who, before being elected was already a well known sexual predator, and who made the campaign promise to commit genocide. He then preceded to commit genocide. And like, I don't care that he's "only" kidnaped and disappeared a few thousand brown people. That's still genocide. Even if you don't kill every member of a targeted group, any attempt to do so is still "committing genocide." Trump said he would commit genocide, then he hired all the "let's go do a race war" guys he could find and *paid* them to go do a race war. And, even now as this deranged monster is crashing out, he is still authorized to use the world's largest nuclear arsenal.
He committed genocide during his first term when his administration separated migrant parents and children, then adopted those children out to other parents. That's technically genocide. The point was to destroy the very people been sending right wing terror squads after.
There was a peaceful hand over of power to a known Russian asset *twice*, and the second time he'd already committed *at least one* act of genocide *and* destroyed cultural heritage sites (oh yeah, he also destroyed indigenous grave sites, in case you forgot, during his first term).
All of this was allowed because the system is set up to protect exactly these types of people, because *exactly* these types of people are *the entire power structure*.
Going back to that system means going back to exactly the system that gave nuclear weapons to a pedophile *TWICE*.
I'm already seeing the attempts to pull people back, the congratulations as we enter the final phase, the belief that getting Trump out will let us all get back to normal. Normal. The normal that lead here in the first place. I can already see the brunch reservations being made. When Trump is over, we will be told we won. We will be told that it's time to go back to sleep.
When they tell you everything worked, everything is better, that we can stop because we won, tell them "fuck you! Never again means never again." Destroy every system that ever gave these people power, that ever protected them from consequences, that ever let them hide what they were doing.
These democrats funded a genocide abroad and laid the groundwork for genocide at home. They protected these predators, for years. The whole power structure is guilty. As these files implicate so many powerful people, they're trying to shove everything back in the box. After all the suffering, after we've finally made it clear that we are the once with the power, only now they're willing to sacrifice Trump to calm us all down.
No, that's a good start but it can't be the end.
Winning can't be enough to quench that rage. Keep it burning. When this is over, let victory fan that anger until every institution that made this possible lies in ashes. Burn it all down and salt the earth. Taking down Trump is a great start, but it's not time to give up until this isn't possible again.
#USPol

Health Stuff

Recovered somewhat from whatever that weird fit was at the end of last year.

NHS still has me on some sort of list I think, appointment might turn up next year. Last contact with them they were suggesting maybe November.
But the private treatment gave me the
MRI which
showed nothing weird and post-fit symptoms have been reducing.
Experimented with eating meat to see if that helped.
Tried eating meat for a month to see if it reduced the post-fit symptoms. Maybe it did? Tried vegetarian again and maybe it got worse?
Hard to tell with intermittent symptoms and a terrible memory.
Decided it's more likely to do good than harm (to me, entirely harm to the animals obviously), and eat meat till the end of the year.
While I'm better, I don't really feel fully recovered enough to want to change things so more meat next year I think.
One of those symptoms is that booze tolerance dropped to like zero. Very rarely had more than four pints in a day this year and very rarely more than one night a
week.
Much high number than the target there really.
Tripped over a guy-rope and fell onto the wrist.
Did two days of the festival and the drive home thinking it almost certainly wasn't broken and only confirmed it was when I got home and the hospital put it in a cast.

Series B, Episode 05 - Pressure Point
AVON: Frankly, I don't see how you can do it without me. Your strongest enemies are going to be the defence computers. I am the only one qualified to tackle them.
BLAKE: Yes, that had occurred to me. You better start getting kitted up. Do you want to tell me why?
https://blake.torpidit…

They have a great “big” point here about incrementalism but also: fiber, water, and even minimal activity specifically are great first steps towards feeling better.
I suspect that a lot of us 1st-worlders feel lousy in part because we’re each paving our own way to T2D, colon cancer, and heart disease. @…

Yea I can’t imagine why anyone thought this dipshit was defending rape…I mean aside from the over half a dozen posts where he defended rape as “not immoral”, literally said “No. In fact, the word "rape"…didn't even exist until the 1800s.” and arguing that being “owned”* wasn’t “horrific”
Complete mystery why people went after him, must be some weird BlueSky thing. 😂
JFC

I keep coming back to the mirror dualities of the oppressed and oppressor under authoritarianism.
The oppressed is portrayed as both weak and godlike. The stereotypes are always some variation on sloth and incompetence, but yet somehow also a menace capable of destroying the "pure" society. To use the most relevant current example, Antifa being both little femme soy boys who would always get beat up by "real men" while also being an international terrorist organization on the brink of overthrowing the US government, the unarmed presence of whom makes the heavily armed agents of ICE flee for their lives. Antifa is both having absolutely no impact on ICE, and also having such an impact on ICE that the military needs to come in to protect them. The contradiction is obvious but never seems to occur to those who hold both to be true at the same time.
But few talk about the duality of the oppressor. The sovereign throughout history has always been both a ruler above the law, sometimes even the representative or incarnation of a divine force. Yet, this same superhuman/god-man is also a baby who needs constant care. This is absolutely a through line from the very earliest records of sovereign cults to modern cult leaders, CEOs, and Trump today. Power, for these people, is expressed both as the ability to force others to enact their will and in the ability to compel others to care for them. Can any of these "men" cook? Can they fix anything themselves? They are driven everywhere, cooked for all the time, constantly protected from danger. Kings are still dressed, at least for rituals. I could dissect masculinity here, but that's a whole thing.
It is as though the drive to care for our children, who must be taught to behave within acceptable norms, is hijacked by "leaders" who demand our care and attention... even at the expense of our literal children. And recently we've seen some of those very CEOs, with LLMs and return to office demands, show that their judgment is also little better than children, making decisions while pretending to understand a subject.
The oppressed are portrayed as both god-like and impotent and are, in fact, neither. Meanwhile the rulers portray themselves only as invulnerable and are, in fact, childish in their ability to survive without constant support. Their greatest fear from the collapse of society is figuring out how to make sure people keep taking care of them.
It just keeps rattling around in my head.
#USPol

Paint samples arrived today and it was obvious which was gonna work better so I ordered a full 2.5l can.
Only to get an email back saying they can't make that colour in that varnish. Weird. That was literally the only actually blue they said they'd do last time they said they couldn't deliver what the website let me order.
After some discussion they have referred it to the Tainting Supervisor and it's apparently going to be here Monday.
Similarly for the wood, failed to arrive again today. They reckon Monday this time really for reals. Fingers crossed coz the carpenter can't do more until the wood arrives really and he's going on holiday this time next week.
So assuming the wood comes, four days to build the doors and finish off the walls of the closet and stuff.
Hopefully it can all be done in that time. Or at least the hard bits leaving the easy stuff for the less carpentery builder.