Tootfinder

TL;DR: what if nationalism, not anarchy, is futile?
Since I had the pleasure of seeing the "what would anarchists do against a warlord?" argument again in my timeline, I'll present again my extremely simple proposed solution:
Convince the followers of the warlord that they're better off joining you in freedom, then kill or exile the warlord once they're alone or vastly outnumbered.
Remember that even in our own historical moment where nothing close to large-scale free society has existed in living memory, the warlord's promise of "help me oppress others and you'll be richly rewarded" is a lie that many understand is historically a bad bet. Many, many people currently take that bet, for a variety of reasons, and they're enough to coerce through fear an even larger number of others. But although we imagine, just as the medieval peasants might have imagined of monarchy, that such a structure is both the natural order of things and much too strong to possibly fail, in reality it takes an enormous amount of energy, coordination, and luck for these structures to persist! Nations crumble every day, and none has survived more than a couple *hundred* years, compared to pre-nation societies which persisted for *tends of thousands of years* if not more. I'm this bubbling froth of hierarchies, the notion that hierarchy is inevitable is certainly popular, but since there's clearly a bit of an ulterior motive to make (and teach) that claim, I'm not sure we should trust it.
So what I believe could form the preconditions for future anarchist societies to avoid the "warlord problem" is merely: a widespread common sense belief that letting anyone else have authority over you is morally suspect. Given such a belief, a warlord will have a hard time building any following at all, and their opponents will have an easy time getting their supporters to defect. In fact, we're already partway there, relative to the situation a couple hundred years ago. At that time, someone could claim "you need to obey my orders and fight and die for me because the Queen was my mother" and that was actually a quite successful strategy. Nowadays, this strategy is only still working in a few isolated places, and the idea that one could *start a new monarchy* or even resurrect a defunct one seems absurd. So why can't that same transformation from "this is just how the world works" to "haha, how did anyone ever believe *that*? also happen to nationalism in general? I don't see an obvious reason why not.
Now I think one popular counterargument to this is: if you think non-state societies can win out with these tactics, why didn't they work for American tribes in the face of the European colonizers? (Or insert your favorite example of colonialism here.) I think I can imagine a variety of reasons, from the fact that many of those societies didn't try this tactic (and/or were hierarchical themselves), to the impacts of disease weakening those societies pre-contact, to the fact that with much-greater communication and education possibilities it might work better now, to the fact that most of those tribes are *still* around, and a future in which they persist longer than the colonist ideologies actually seems likely to me, despite the fact that so much cultural destruction has taken place. In fact, if the modern day descendants of the colonized tribes sow the seeds of a future society free of colonialism, that's the ultimate demonstration of the futility of hierarchical domination (I just read "Theory of Water" by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson).
I guess the TL;DR on this is: what if nationalism is actually as futile as monarchy, and we're just unfortunately living in the brief period during which it is ascendant?

Beginning to wonder about moving to a new instance in the indefinite vaguely near future, since IOCX admins seem to be a bit behind the curve (we're still on mastodon 4.3.7).
I poked them but havent heard back or even seen any posts from them in a while, which makes me wonder if I'm living on a ghost ship.
Anyone have suggestions on one that's generally friendly to cool EE research, OSS/OSH, infosec, etc stuff?

"Look again at this small world. This is home. The only home we’ve ever known.
Every person who has ever lived. Every story ever told. Every love, every war, every sacrifice – it has all happened here on this tiny, drifting world.
And yet, we act as if there is another waiting for us. We carve borders into the land and fight over them. We build towers of wealth while others are left to starve.
We poison the water we drink, scorch the air we breathe and tear apart the very foundation of life, driven by the hunger for more, by the illusion of control.
We hold power over each other but not over the forces that could erase us in an instant. A rock adrift in space could end it all. A wave of fire from deep within the earth could rewrite the world in a single eruption. A burst of radiation from a distant sun could silence everything we’ve built.
In the face of the universe we are fragile beyond measure. Mere passengers on a planet that owes us nothing. And yet, we fight, we kill, we burn our home as if it were replaceable.
We act as though our time here is infinite. Though history has shown us otherwise. But for now this is all we have. Out there among the countless stars, there may be other worlds. Planets where life has taken root. Where others look up and wonder if they too are alone. But they are distant beyond our reach, beyond our time.
For the foreseeable future there is no second earth, no distant rescue. This is where we stand. This is where we make our living. What happens here, what we choose to destroy, what we choose to protect will echo long after we’re gone.
Think again how small we are. how brief our time is, how easily we could vanish. A fraction of a second in the lifespan of the universe, a blink in the endless dark. And yet in this fleeting moment we are here.
We love, we create, we shape the world around us. What we do with our time matters. Because in the end everything we leave behind is what we chose to built and who we chose to be. But for now we stand together on a mote of dust."
#Trance
#Techno
#AmbientTechno
#EnlusionLabel

The #Japan #media #cooperative, @…, I've been working with for 2 y…

Not sure what he is smoking. But he should stop doing so.
Jeff Bezos Says He Doesn't Understand Why Anybody Alive Now Would Be 'Discouraged'—Because Soon, 'Millions Of People Will Be Living In Space' https://tech.yahoo.com/science/article

Living Off the LLM: How LLMs Will Change Adversary Tactics
Sean Oesch, Jack Hutchins, Luke Koch, Kevin Kurian
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.11398 https://arxi…

Living Off the LLM: How LLMs Will Change Adversary Tactics
In living off the land attacks, malicious actors use legitimate tools and processes already present on a system to avoid detection. In this paper, we explore how the on-device LLMs of the future will become a security concern as threat actors integrate LLMs into their living off the land attack pipeline and ways the security community may mitigate this threat.

ReGen Homes offers eco-conscious townhomes in BC with sustainable features and urban amenities. #climatechange #climatesolutions #climate

Couple shares unique home offering incredibly high standard of living: 'An urban lifestyle without the urban density'
ReGen Homes is building eco-conscious townhomes in British Columbia that promote sustainable living while meeting future homeowners' needs, reported the Vancouver Sun.

Open Questions about Time and Self-reference in Living Systems
Samson Abramsky, Wolfgang Banzhaf, Leo S. D. Caves, Michael Levin, Penousal Machado, Charles Ofria, Susan Stepney, Roger White
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.11423

Open Questions about Time and Self-reference in Living Systems
Living systems exhibit a range of fundamental characteristics: they are active, self-referential, self-modifying systems. This paper explores how these characteristics create challenges for conventional scientific approaches and why they require new theoretical and formal frameworks. We introduce a distinction between 'natural time', the continuing present of physical processes, and 'representational time', with its framework of past, present and future that emerges with life itself. Representa…

Not clear on the definition of Fascism?
Benito Mussolini 1932
#TeaParty #MAGA
"Fascism was not the nursling of a doctrine previously drafted at a desk; it was born of the need of action, and was action; it was not a party but, in the first two years, an anti-party and a movement.”
#Democracy #Freedom #Autocracy
“[Fascism] is opposed to classical liberalism which arose as a reaction to absolutism and exhausted its historical function when the State became the expression of the conscience and will of the people. Liberalism denied the State in the name of the individual; Fascism reasserts the rights of the State”
#PersonalIdentity
"Anti-individualistic, the Fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with those of the State..”
#WorkersRights #Corporate #Billionnaires
"Fascism is likewise opposed to trade unionism as a class weapon. But when brought within the orbit of the State, Fascism recognizes the real needs which gave rise to socialism and trade unionism, giving them due weight in the guild or corporative system in which divergent interests are coordinated and harmonized in the unity of the State.
#SelfExpression #Trans #LGBTQ
"if liberty is to he the attribute of living men and not of abstract dummies invented by individualistic liberalism…”
#totalitarianism
"Fascism, is totalitarian, and the Fascist State - a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values - interprets, develops, and potentates the whole life of a people”
#austerity
"life, as conceived of by the Fascist, is serious, austere, and religious; The Fascist disdains an “easy " life.”
#environment #climatechange #peace #war
"[Fascism] does not believe in the possibility of "happiness" on earth … it therefore rejects the theological notion that at some future time the human family will secure a final settlement of all its difficulties.”