Ok, yeah, I'm not done processing my anger over liberals doing shit like this. So this historian sees a rise in right wing violence, sees the US government carrying out ethnic cleansing, sees a rise in white supremacist terrorism, and then says, "oh yeah... this reminds me of a time right around the 1920s. Hum... yeah, ANARCHISTS fighting the government! Yeah, that's the same thing."
FFS, IT'S THE RED SUMMER! If you want a parallel between today and some horrible time in US history, TALK ABOUT THE RED SUMMER. The point of the language of dehumanization that the right uses, the point of all the anti-black and anti-emigrant rhetoric, is that it leads to genocide. Trump already carried out an act of genocide (#USPol
Glen Gordon’s departure is a loss for JAWS (and Freedom Scientific / Vispero):
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/glen-gordon-13a625133_today-is-a-very-sad-day-for-me-since-after-activity-7392923860024614912-B9tr
En Nombre del Progreso (In the Name of Progress)
2017 by Alfonso "Piloto" Nieves Ruiz, active in the United States, born Querétaro, Mexico. at Intuit Art Museum, West Town, #Chicago
This has allowed me to make clear something that's been at the back of my mind. Something that is at the heart of so much blind stupidity in big tech.
It's the assumption that we will change one thing and all else will be the same.
In this case, we will fire lots and lots of employees all over the world and we will make lots of profit. We're smart enough to make the AI, and we're dumb enough to think that there will only be one consequence. 1/n
US supreme court hears arguments in case that tests Trump’s ability to fire officials
The Trump administration argues that the 90 year old precedent decision stopping president from removing officers must be overruled
Arguments in the case that will decide whether Donald Trump can fire officials from independent agencies have started.
First up is solicitor general D John Sauer, arguing on behalf of the Trump administration.
He kicks off his opening remarks by arguing …
Picture the human body. Zoom in on a single cell. It lives for a while, then splits or dies, as part of a community of cells that make up a particular tissue. This community lives together for many many cell-lifetimes, each performing their own favorite function and reproducing as much as necessary to maintain their community, consuming the essential resources they need and contributing back what they can so that the whole body can live for decades. Each community of cells is interdependent on the whole body, but also stable and sustainable over long periods of time.
Now imagine a cancer cell. It has lost its ability to harmonize with the whole and prioritize balance, instead consuming and reproducing as quickly as it can. As neighboring tissues start to die from its excess, it metastasizes, always spreading to new territory to fuel its unbalanced appetite. The inevitable result is death of the whole body, although through birth, that body can create a new fresh branch of tissues that may continue their stable existence free of cancer. Alternatively, radiation or chemotherapy might be able to kill off the cancer, at great cost to the other tissues, but permitting long-term survival.
To the cancer cell, the idea of decades-long survival of a tissue community is unbelievable. When your natural state is unbounded consumption, growth, and competition, the idea of interdependent cooperation (with tissues all around the body you're not even touching, no less) seems impossible, and the idea that a tissue might survive in a stable form for decades is ludicrous.
"Perhaps if conditions were bleak enough to perfectly balance incessant unrestrained growth against the depredations of a hostile environment it might be possible? I guess the past must have been horribly brutal, so that despite each tissue trying to grow as much as possible they each barely survived? Yes, a stable and sustainable population is probably only possible under conditions of perfectly extreme hardship, and in our current era of unfettered growth, we should rejoice that we live in much easier times!"
You can probably already see where I'm going with this metaphor, but did you know that there are human communities, alive today, that have been living sustainably for *tens, if not hundreds of thousands of years*?
#anarchy #colonialism #civilization
P.S. if you're someone who likes to think about past populations and historical population growth, I cannot recommend the (short, free) game Opera Omnia by Stephen Lavelle enough: https://www.increpare.com/2009/02/opera-omnia/
The thing about the headlong dash to AI is that it makes very clear that there is just SO MUCH money just sloshing around waiting for an opportunity.
Money that was made by tightening the screws on the labour force another turn, that they didn't even know what to do with.
Money ground of an increasingly oppressive system that they didn't even have anything to spend it on.
Money that could have been making the world a better place all along, except that wasn't…
Trump EPA Nearly Doubles Amount of Formaldehyde Considered Safe to Inhale
The chemical industry finally got its wish.
Industry lobbyists have long pushed the federal government to adopt a less stringent approach to gauging the
💥cancer risk 💥from chemicals,
one that would help ease regulations on companies that make or use them.
Last week, in a highly unusual move,
👉the Environmental Protection Agency embraced that approach
in announcing that it is revi…