First an announcement:
TASAT is here! Are you a sci fi nerd who remembers lots of old stories, plot twists and such? Ever wish you could apply all that expertise to something useful?
How about a project that leverages your memory bank of old stories, toward a slim but real chance of saving the world?
"What if this particular strange thing ever happens? (Maybe something like it is happening now!) Has anyone ever thought it through, in a story, across the last century of science fiction tales?"
We've designed TASAT with that question in mind. Want to see how it works? Visit TASAT.org... and maybe sign on to be one of the beta members. (We've designed it to be a minimal use of time!) And maybe - just maybe - your recollection of that obscure Andre Norton or Pohl or Vance twist might someday save the world!
== Can we defeat the defeatist cult against modernity? ==
Okay let's get back to our politically-fraught year, starting first with something fundamental.
Ensure your basic rights! Check your voter registration, especially if you live in a red state, where lots of suppression and cheat-schemes to purge voter rolls are already going on. Check several times!
And yes, in Polemical Judo I have a further recommendation: Because the Grand Cheat of gerrymandering has rendered the General Election moot in many congressional districts, the smart move is to re-register into whichever party rules the district you live in! That lets you vote in the primary, the only election that matters anymore, when it comes to Congress or the Statehouse.
Even if it means holding your nose and accepting a label that you loathe, you'll reclaim at least a part of what was robbed from you. Moreover it will protect your registration from being purged! Word to the wise?
== Seriously? This flies with... anybody? ==
Former U.S. President Donald Trump blasted the scale of U.S. support for Ukraine and said that if he is reelected in November he would immediately "have that settled."
Sure, big boy. Pretty much everyone by now can see: there are zero differences on overall agenda between today’s Foxite/MAGAs and Vladimir Putin -- who, along with his Kremlin staffed by 5000 “ex” commissars -- grew up reciting Leninist catechisms, five times a day. Only then they swapped their hammer-sickle pins for czarist symbols -- and suddenly the U.S. right fell in love with them! (Like Don and Kim.)
Dig it. Putin called the fall of the USSR ‘history’s worst tragedy.’ He openly swore revenge vs. all US fact using professions, from science and teaching, medicine and law and civil service …
…to the heroes of the FBI/Intel/Military officer corps who won the Cold War and the War on terror… the heroes who are now raged against by Kremlin stooges in the USA. Putin’s quisling Fifth Column in America. Today’s commies.
Again. Today's 'conservatives' rail against... the FBI? The Intel agencies and military? Now, who would want this situation more than giggling Putin? Tell me how the MAGA enemies list differs, even slightly from that of the slightly relabeled KGB?
Today's GOP is Vlad's dream come true. And we know who the real commies are.
== Immature speculation? ==
Though one wonders about competence when the recent Trump rally shooter climbed to a roof in plain sight of shouting onlookers. Never mind that. From initial appearances (“he was bullied every day”) the fellow is most likely just another white weasel with a gun and desperation to be somebody.
Which is one more argument for my longtime suggestion: that dopey, attention seeking monsters should be punished in the best way, by name-erasure. See my "Erastratos Effect" proposal.
Bill Maher also riffed on this, less informatively but with wider circulation.
(In comments I will cite a scenario for the barely-touching 'graze' wound suffered by Donald Trump. Physically this alternative is vastly more plausible than such a grazing bullet wound would be. But is it more plausible as a real-life theory? No, I think not. Still, a close examination of the wound...?)
== A Sunflower for Ukraine! ==
== What’s fundamental about the treason alliance against the Enlightenment Experiment… and hence America ==
The confederate coalition against everything the Enlightenment West stands for has two components. The oligarchs who own the movement … and the masses of what we now call 'MAGAs' and who Robert Heinlein described as ‘know nothings.’
The first component consists of the elites who control – or who think they control - today’s undead monster that’s taken over the Party of Lincoln. These elites are a mélange of inheritance brats, casino mafiosi, hedge lords, incest CEOs, "ex" commissars and openly avowed commissars (differing only in their lapel pins) and murder sheiks. All of them are united in one goal: restoring 6000 years of dismal feudalism. They’ve had a lot of victories along this path. For example, the chief outcome of “Supply Side” never-ever-once-correct “voodoo economics” has been skyrocketing wealth disparities around the globe. Now surging past French Revolution levels. (Learn the word 'tumbrels,' guys.)
Despite their many victories, these elites know that world citizens could wake up, at any moment. They must complete their conversion of the globe back to inheritance status before all the world’s young people fully acculturate with rambunctious individualism. Moreover, the oligarchs know there is one major obstacle blocking their full takeover.
Rule of law, enforced equally and governed by facts. Hence, in order to achieve their goal, they must suppress the defenders of fact-based rule-of-law. The nerd castes.
They must stir all-out war vs ALL fact using professions, from science and teaching, medicine and law and civil service to the heroes of the FBI/Intel/Military officer corps who won the Cold War and the War on Terror. (All the western strengths who Vlad Putin openly blames for the fall of the USSR.)
Same goals, in slightly different order.
I just explained for you the devil’s bargain between our would-be lords and their vassals. It is exactly the same as in 1778 when Cornwallis went South to find more tories who supported the King… or in the 1860s when a million poor whites marched off to fight and die for their plantation lord class oppressors. Or when Appalachians - who owe FDR and the Democrats absolutely freaking everything - now spit in the eyes of those who helped them out of Deliverance hell.
As Heinlein describes, it's a cultural thing. And yes, you nerds out there simply cannot grasp why – using facts and logic and appeals to common decency and progress – you can accomplish nothing against this devil’s alliance.
== Notes from Civil War Phase 8 ==
Miscellaneous addendum to the first part of this missive... another of my wager challenges. This one demanding MAGA support their incessant jeremiads against universities. And wow, on social media that campaign is at full throttle!
Sean T. Smith's novel Tears of Abraham is a terrific and scary novel about a US civil war, far better than the recent movie Civil War, by Alex Garland. I touted it before and will again.
== Want even deeper fundamentals? ==
My general political essay in four parts is about - among many things -- the insipid/lobotomizing left-right “axis”- how history betrayed competitive creativity...
...and what libertarianism might look like, if it ever grew up.
Political Totemism and the Danger of Metaphors:
Part 1 followed by....
Part 2. and Part 3. and Part 4.
== A script for a killer advert ==
Hey Lincoln Project! Want a script for a potentially powerful ad vs. Mafia Don?
2014 – He promised proof – “Next week!” - that Obama was born in Kenya. Week after week, for years. Then stopped. Did any of you ever ask… “Well?”
2016 – He promised “great financials!” and tax returns “as soon as the audit is done!” There was no audit. And it’s been 8 years.
2017 – He vowed to end terrible Obamacare and replace it with “wonderful, perfect healthcare!” A plan that he promised to reveal “in a couple of weeks.” He repeated that promise every month for years… then went silent when Obamacare proved popular and worked! Have YOU ever seen Trump’s Great New Healthcare Plan? Has anyone? Maybe ask for it now?
2017 - He promised to “Build the Wall!” Republicans controlled Congress, the Supreme Court, the Executive Branch… every lever of power! They could have built the wall. They didn’t. Did you ever ask why?
2018 – He ‘fell in love!’ with murder commie tyrant Kim Jong Un. (We want those love letters; they’re public documents!) All the remaining communist despots on Earth support him, along with all the “ex” commissars and “ex” KGB agents in today’s Kremlin, who grew up reciting Lenin and working for America’s downfall… who then changed a few lapel pins and took over the Republican Party.
2020 – He pooh-poohed Covid 19, predicting it would not come to America… and later that it would ‘pass naturally in a little bit’ … then bragged when scientists and civil servants delivered vaccines! … then swerved to anti-vax and back and forth amid calls for swallowing bleach and lasers… while the economy tanked and a million Americans died.
2021 – “I wuz robbed!!” Oh, the whining about losing by 8 million votes! Especially in six Red States that had Republican governors and officials running the election. Always promising ‘evidence’ of a ‘steal’ but never ever delivering any. No real evidence at all! Not to a single judge, jury or grand jury across the nation… while refusing to cooperate with independent investigation panels.
The biggest single tantrum in the history of our Republic… until 2024, that is.
2016-to-now – A firehose, a tsunami, a supernova of lies! Over 100,000 of them, according to one ongoing list. Naturally, he won’t revisit or explain even one of them. And his followers are fine with that, fleeing or distracting, when you bring up any of the lies.
(Let’s pick a dozen from that list and bet $$$ on them! Got guts?)
And now… - almost without exception, Republicans wage all-out war vs all fact using professions, from science and teaching, medicine and law and civil service to the heroes of the FBI/Intel/Military officer corps who won the Cold War and the War on terror.
Now who (*cough-Vladimir*) would want Americans to do that?
We could go on with more examples, you know we could.
Only here’s the deal. If any one of these are true, then many of our neighbors are in a mad cult.
And gently - with malice toward none - we need to wrest power from what Heinlein called the worst, dark streak in American nature.
64 comments:
Your "incessant jeremiads against universities" link is broken.
Mostly the jeremiads are on social media. But I am sure some of you will offer links I'll use. Too hungry and lazy right now.
Dr Brin in the main post:
And yes, in Polemical Judo I have a further recommendation: Because the Grand Cheat of gerrymandering has rendered the General Election moot in many congressional districts, the smart move is to re-register into whichever party rules the district you live in! That lets you vote in the primary, the only election that matters anymore, when it comes to Congress or the Statehouse.
...
Moreover it will protect your registration from being purged! Word to the wise?
Not arguing against any of that, but I'll point out that the last part pertains overwhelmingly to Republican-run states. Illinois is admittedly a freak of nature where Democrats have gerrymandered themselves a supermajority in the state house, but we're not doing stuff like purging Republicans from the rolls or making it difficult for white Christians to vote or anything of that sort.
As for my 'side- hypothesis' about the Trump assassination attempt. Most of you here have seen it. Watch the actual footage, Head-turned aside, Trump SLAPS the side of his head hard! Now that could be because he reflewxively thought a bee had stung. And that'd make sense. Sure.
But consider the incredible unlikelihood of a 'bullet graze' that's JUST in contact enough to release those two tiny trickles of blood and leave no noticable mark? WHY has no one commented on the SLAP? Which could have been - physically much more plausible than such a perfect graze - meant at the sound of a gunshot to open a barely glued-shut slice in the rim of his ear?
Physically, it is vastly more plausible than a miracle bullet graze. But... is it REAL LIFE plausible? Recquiring Trump to go along with a very weird and somewhat dangerous 'scheme.' One reliant on the shooter being reliable to aim to miss by a fair margin while still ballpark enough not to raise suspicions? And at least a few guards would have to be in on it.
Naw. Still, I want the wound examined. And someone must have tracked the fired bullets, by now. And might photos of DT BEFORE the shots reveal anything... but no. Physically very plausible. But not very real world likely.
Hmm! Need to re-add the Tripods.
The 2020 part of the Lincoln ad could be made much worse: Trump's 'pivot' to anti-vax and hydroxychloroquinone matched with news reports that Covid cases were surging in Democrat strongholds. It was a dimwitted attempt at political genocide that didn't stop to think that those 'Democrat strongholds' were port cities giving early warning signals.
Ah well...
I've just finished "The Invisible Doctrine: (The Secret History of Neoliberalism)" by George Monbiot and Peter Hutchison. Worth a read, if only to show a few 'lefties' also get it.
Concerning oligarch support of the (Formerly) GOP, it might be well to distinguish between those who're hedging their bets in the event that "Drumph!" wins and those who would be hopeless at the "Marshmallow test"*.
*They see theirselves as apex predators, if lions, tigers & bears had words, they'd likely say they liked prey abundant and well fed. Oligarchs who are at war with labor might justifiably be termed class betrayers.
Signed up.
TASAT sounds fun.
In other news: Musk enters the "Find Out" phase in Brazil; two bleak-looking state elections over here.
Signed up as Duncan
I'm there as well. The robot seems to think I'm a complete computer illiterate.
Tony Fisk: The robot seems to think I'm a complete computer illiterate
Welcome to my world. Sometimes I could swear these transistors and automata are laughing at me. Feels like I'm in a Rudy Rucker novel.
I am hoping the TASAT system works well, is understandable, easy to use... and fun!
It'd likely be a good match for our old resident grouch.
"May you live in a Rudy Rucker world" is a pretty fine curse. Better than a Lovecraft world, but.... At least we're the ones messing ourselves up - no other species need apply.
Pappenheimer
Imagine being a progressive and praising the Military Industrial Complex
Imagine regarding the the vast shadow world of spooks, spies, assassins, agitators and saboteurs as anything other than a barely tolerable evil that has slipped its leash and rules through blackmail and chaos.
Imagine looking at the Ukraine mess and not seeing that the real betrayers of Ukraine were the corrupt foreign policy establishment who pushed Ukraine into an unwinnable war in order to advance the interests of the American Empire and its ruling oligarchy of plutocrats and managerial technocrats.
I hope that you're not only posting here but also reaching out to, for example, the Lincoln Project with your ideas.
re Ukraine, a few items: 1: the Russian incremental advances in Pokrovsk area and AFU advances in Kursk share one common feature: massive disparities in personel losses, which I believe is Ukraine's core, coldblooded aim in this phase. (Well, other than morale and buffer zones and the rest of the things publicly discussed.) Both defense and offense can be managed so the enemy feels by far the most pain. Only David Petraeus talks about these things.
2: Current attacks on RF oil infrastructure and rail systems are effective. But when winter comes, expect gas & electricity to cities to be cut. The other aspect of fall and winter will be fog. I predicted it would be a huge factor LAST winter. I was wrong. But I'll double down on it, this round.
I generally don't 'reach out.' I have never found it to do any good.
I am "Matthew" at TASAT. Boring, l know but I am blessed to have an un-Google-able name.
dirtnapper lives in a world where ALL of the smartest people who spent their lives expertly appraising the world and fighting for this new civilization... ALL of them... are united, without leaks or defections... in common cause to oppose dirtynappy's lords. And yes, that description is completely right! ALL (almost) of the smartest and most expert public servants... maybe a million in the FBI, CIA, military officers, diplomats, etc. ... ARE pretty much united in this, in common cause.
Frustrated a bit, Kremlin boy? Of course, he portrays this as an evil cabal, instead of what it is, consensus among the world's smartest, savviest and most knowledgable. Consensus that the enlightenment is worth defending against troglodytic, cruel, evil feudalism that disguised itself for 70 years as idealistic Marxism but now openly pushes the spectre portrayed by Sorokin's chilling DAY OF THE OPRICHNIK.
These folks who filthdiaper denounces are not monsters and storm troopers. They are Americans and Westerners who WOULD blow the whistle, if they saw evil being done by us. Their unity to oppose monstrous putinism is not just based on their jobs and obedience to authority. It is genuine consensus to oppose Hitler-level evil.
Oh, one final note. Putin's TOP justification (other than utterly made up notions of "Ukrainian Nazism") has been that his invasions were pre-emptive strikes to prevent a looming attack by NATO. Um. Because of him, NATO is stronger than ever, Finland and Sweden firmed the alliance, and Vlad has stripped every border of men, to bolster his utterly trashed RF military in Ukraine. Right now a pack of Finnish girl scouts could march in and take St. Petersburg.
There are absolutely zero possible writhing excuses to claim that 'fear of NATO attack' justified Vlad's vicious invasion. Only Rule of Law prevents NATO from entering Moscow within hours. Vlad utterly depends upon the Rule of Law that he openly despises.
Final note: um, you want to convince Ukrainians they are Russian? Seriously? What's your endgame, here? If you conquer the whole country, Ukrainians will hate and kill any Russian they can, for 100 years. ASK Poles, Finns, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Romanians... ASK THEM what they think of Russians. Go ahead. ask.
I'll wait.
Winner of the 2024 state elections in Saxony and Thuringia: Vladimir Putin.
"Only Rule of Law prevents NATO from entering Moscow within hours." Well... even if only 10% of RF nukes work, that's a pretty strong reason to let Russians deal with their own monsters, internally.
Rucker wrote "Enlightenment Rabies" almost 50 years ago. It fits well into several TASAT slots - I intend to spend some time on that excellent new platform - kudos to OGH and his programmers.
https://www.rudyrucker.com/blog/2020/04/01/enlightenment-rabies-1977/
@Dr. Brin
Is it encouraged for others to link to TASAT (from SF groups & discussions) or would you rather control the promo yourself? I always ask because I find authors/creators on both sides of that issue.
scidata, as long as folks enter normally, after reading the introductory material at TASAT.org and sign up normally, fine!
Signed up as Larry H. Fair warning to others--the activation e-mail it sent me ended up in my Spam folder. I did think to look there.
Then demand a wager with your MAGA, whether his side only spews violent yowlings ten times as much, as opposed to (actually) 100x, than democrats or even ANTIFA. And bet over compared death rates wrought by their cult vs those few (any?) actually caused by US leftists.
Firstly, this assertion is a false dichotomy as militant Islamic terrorists actually hold the 25 year US terrorist murder record, killing almost 3000 at one go on 9/11, 16 (plus another 30 wounded) in 2009 at Fort Hood, 16 (plus 24 wounded) at the 2015 San Bernadine massacre and 48 (plus another 53 wounded) during the 2016 Pulse Night Club massacre.
Second, the official DHS website states that Between 2000 and 2013, the vast majority of attacks (in which named organizations were identified) were carried out by environmental and animal rights violent extremist groups (leftists all), whereas those attacks which are most often attributed to rightwing 'white supremacists' were most frequently carried out by individuals not known to be affiliated with a perpetrator group..
Read it yourself at https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/OPSR_TP_TEVUS_Terrorist-Attacks-US_1970-2013_Overview-508.pdf
This data is collaborated by the ADL's website on 'Murder and Extremism in the United States 2023' which alleges a total rightwing 'white supremacist' body count of 17 killing in 2023, 27 in 2022 and 35 in 2021, while admitting that that the majority of ideologically 'white supremacist' attacks involve the actions of individuals who were UNAFFILIATED with any known terrorist group.
https://www.adl.org/resources/report/murder-and-extremism-united-states-2023
Most conspicuous is the total absence of any ADL data involving murders or killing perpetrated by any other non-white ethnicity, race or religion, a fact that reduces the laundry list of 'white supremacist' killings to mere anecdote, one made minuscule in comparison with the extremely bloody body counts perpetuated by non-whites in a city like Chicago (which has had 284 murdered & 1335 shot by left-leaning black perpetrators in the first 9 months of 2024 so far).
And, what of the much celebrated anti-MAGA 'Lincoln Project' ?
They're frauds & posers, seen here in 2021, LARPing as multiracial 'white supremacists' in a transparently ridiculous attempt to discredit a popular Republican political candidate:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/30/lincoln-project-glenn-youngkin-virginia-event
Best
Utter crap, old son. The dichotomy is between the major sides in this phase of the US Civil War. And you confederates are VASTLY more murderous and criminal and hate-drenched in al ways and at all levels.
But as for Islamist terror, well, sure. And the US experts and brave soldiers and intel folks who effectively and mostly WON the War on Terror are now declared enemies hated on by you jibbering, Kremlin-shill, utin-serving, Kim-loving traitors.
But still, one of your saving graces was your avid memory of old timey sci fi. TASAT could make you happy. Go in peace. Waddle off...
I still hate some aspects of the new comment threading system. But being able to snark a brief snort at locum without imposing on the rest of you is a plus.
Someone look into and report back on this fellow who is running a blog consisting of 'warning messages from a future' in which Project 2025 was implemented and then some? Of course it's polemic, but any good? Of course an actual time message guy would prove his bona fides by describing news events for the following week (our time) and reveal technologies that labs are keeping secret right now, but are known in his time. Also, the time shift thing would parse much finer than just the outcome of an election. ANY interference in the past would send ripples downstream that... oops.
Now, I've done this myself, by channeling what might be said NOT by time message guys, but by alien probes in the solar system linking into our Internet and using guy like me to front for them! Vernor did something similar in A DEEPNESS IN THE SKY.
Heck, a recitation of the next week's minor earthquakes would be ideal!
No way anyone BUT a time-guy would be able to do that!
Here's an Isaac Arthur riff on retrocausality https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QukHMCmY7h8
Loc,
Left-leaning black murderers, the first nine months? There have only been eight months so far this year—we only started on month nine today. Or do you count Dec 2023 as the first?
And how do you know that the black perps are leftists? Perhaps they are merely hotheads motivated by only inchoate ideology.
Sweden didn't just join NATO and strengthen it. They've been sending arms to Ukraine. That is a breach with their history of neutrality. There is NO way they would have changed that without good reason.
It's a seriously strange world to see Sweden arming a belligerent.
Sure. There is a history of them doing it, but that history is OLD.
next week's minor earthquakes
A genius suggestion!!
No way that any "foreknowledge" could change the outcome
This is why I only do psychohistory models for past events. You need solid priors to make Bayesian methods work iteratively, and you can't get those from the future. Also, anthropology is fun.
The Symposium for NASA’s Innovative & Advanced Concepts program is September 10-12 in Pasadena CA. A hugely fun, nerd-fest! (I was a nit-picker physicist/advisor for 12 years.)
nasa.gov: https://www.nasa.gov/niac-symposium/
livestreaming those days: https://vimeo.com/showcase/niac-2024
Good to see realism and practicality overcome smugness. Now to work on the %#@ Swiss.
And now, some inspiring TASAT courtesy of today's uplifting DW News headlines.
TASAT 1
"Israel announces 3 day Gaza cease fire to allow the UN to immunize +600,000 at-risk children against Polio"
Reference to storyline from Stargate TV series, 2010, when the Stargate team encounters the technologically advanced Aschen who offer the people of Earth a cancer-curing & life-extending serum, a treatment which the Earth gleefully accepts, until the Stargate team discovers an old archived newspaper headline that declares 'Vaccine causes Sterility'.
TASAT2
"German leaders react to far-right surge in Thuringia, Saxony and hold meeting to prevent further AfD far-right democratic gains"
Reference to storyline in 'Apocalypse Now', 1979, when US military leadership explains that, in order to save Vietnamese village democracy from itself, they must first destroy Vietnamese village democracy.
Of course, these same lessons apply to the contemporary US as well, especially in terms of [TASAT1] the unforeseen (?) side effects of the untested Covid vaccine and [TASAT2] the left's insistence that the US Supreme Court, Electoral Process, the Bill of Rights & the political opposition must be destroyed in order to save the US from democracy itself.
JOY is the only word I can think of that tells you how inspired I am.
Best
I give up. I thought locum would get into the spirit of TASAT, but should have known better. His polemical masturbation has nothing to do with the program and only shows that the last residual admirable quality - his love of classic sci fi - is spoiled by festering grudge jism. Off with you.
Seen on Stonekette's Threads:
https://www.threads.net/@stonekettle
I understand the conservative backlash against Star Wars. In the old days the hero was from a backwater patch of dirt, jealous of his friends that joined the army, shot small animals for fun while racing his beater in the sticks, had no idea who his dad was and kissed his own sister.
In the new shows / movies they just can't relate to the characters anymore.
Luke: "If there's a bright center to the universe, you're on the planet that it's farthest from."
Nevertheless, this planet does seem to be the centre of everything.
Perhaps the bright thing is a donut?
... Elysium?? Maybe this should go into TASAT/wild_speculations
Both Amidala and Anekin's mom wound up on Tatooine because it is a vital nexus point between Coruscant and Naboo. Why else would anyone live there?
Both women and Palpatine are from the same mutant line of Naboo aristocrats whose (gene-spliced?) midichlorian counts terrified the true villain of it all, Yoda. That's why the evil oven mitt didn't use petty cash to buy Annie's mom and set her up in a nice apartment to help keep the boy calm.
Saw a funny today at my grocery store. Actual oven mitts... with baby Yoda on them. Close. I'm pretty sure the folks around me didn't get joke, but my wife did.
A picture of them I acquired.
"dirtnapper lives in a world where ALL of the smartest people who spent their lives expertly appraising the world and fighting for this new civilization... ALL of them... are united, without leaks or defections... in common cause to oppose dirtynappy's lords. And yes, that description is completely right! ALL (almost) of the smartest and most expert public servants... maybe a million in the FBI, CIA, military officers, diplomats, etc. ... ARE pretty much united in this, in common cause."
My lords? huh?
How come these best and brightest people cant even keep the straits of hormuz open? Build an airliner that doesnt fall from the sky anymore? Or win wars against goat herders? Or even appreciably increase production of basic munitions in a reasonable time? These neural savants are of such brobdingnagian sagacity they sanctioned the two countries that produce most of the worlds nitrocellulose and then scratched their vast macroencephalic craniums in confusion, wondering why its so hard to increase shell production.
The Best and brightest are so smart, they actually brought Russia together with two of its natural historical rivals and induced a vassal state to commit economic suicide by destroying its energy pipeline.
Such lambent genius.
"Frustrated a bit, Kremlin boy? Of course, he portrays this as an evil cabal, instead of what it is, consensus among the world's smartest, savviest and most knowledgable. Consensus that the enlightenment is worth defending against troglodytic, cruel, evil feudalism that disguised itself for 70 years as idealistic Marxism but now openly pushes the spectre portrayed by Sorokin's chilling DAY OF THE OPRICHNIK."
Im sure there is consensus in North Korea too.
Its easy to have a 'consensus' when you exclude, imprison, or cancel anyone who disagrees with you, dismiss them as foreign agents or deny they are experts. In the managerial state the only thing that establishes if one is an expert is whether or not you agree with the elite consensus.
"These folks who filthdiaper denounces are not monsters and storm troopers. They are Americans and Westerners who WOULD blow the whistle, if they saw evil being done by us. Their unity to oppose monstrous putinism is not just based on their jobs and obedience to authority. It is genuine consensus to oppose Hitler-level evil."
No, no, the ones who actually blow the whistle like Snowdon or Assange knows what happens when you stand against the Intel Complex.
" Right now a pack of Finnish girl scouts could march in and take St. Petersburg."
Suuuuure. Can you give me a detailed force TOE along with logistics projections and terrain forensic analysis to back up your silly assertions? No?
"Only Rule of Law prevents NATO from entering Moscow within hours. Vlad utterly depends upon the Rule of Law that he openly despises."
Let me get something straight
1) Russia has nothing to fear from a Ukraine aligned with NATO
2) NATO could march into Moscow in a few hours
So which is it?
I could explain to you why Ukraine is so important, but it would take up many words. So I will let someone who is trained as staff officer explain it to you. You know, an actual expert, unlike the people who write for the ISW
https://youtu.be/TOCzz_DKS-I?t=924
Something not immediately political :
https://news.mit.edu/2022/quaise-energy-geothermal-0628
Quaise Energy should, barring surprises drill a test hole next year, success may bring positive surprises, because it's difficult to foment a hateful revolution in the midst of prosperity.
Alfred... need that picture, I do! ;-)
Not a single 'response' from dirty was even remotely logical. I did a scan. Every single one of them was playground faux-'logic'. Moreover every person here could see that. Just citing one:
"Let me get something straight
1) Russia has nothing to fear from a Ukraine aligned with NATO
2) NATO could march into Moscow in a few hours
So which is it?"
Um...both! Duh? Putin has stripped his NATO borders bare because he knows NATO won't invade. Never had any intention to invade. CAN'T invade because of rule-oflaw and mass citizen-power... and a total lack of consensus to do so.
Meaning he NEVER had that as a reason to do anything except yammer about a nonexistent threat, to excuse bald aggression agains a people who will now hate (and kill whenever possible) any Russians on their soil for 100 years.
THing is, this kind of shrill illogic is the thing to fear most about the Know-Nothing cult. It's like A CANTICLE FOR LIEBOWITZ won't have to await a nuclear war. These twerps want the university burning mobs NOW Hunting down all the fact nerds!
On behalf of the crime bosses and would be New Lords.
Way cool, Tim. Geothermal has long been THE way to go. Viz Iceland!
(With a side benefit of lots of minerals like lithium.) And no reliance on fickle sunlight or wind.
These guys hope to save a lot of infrastructure costs by drilling next to now-dormant former coal power plants, using existing generators, power lines & permits, with plenty of love from the locals.
Won't such sites be less than ideal for drilling? What's got me awhirl is the drilling tech, using microwave gyratrons to heat & blast rock ahead of the drill-bit. That *ought to* make hot rock accessible. Hey, I had that idea back in the 80s and failed to get anyone interested! Where are my shares, please?
"The company plans to begin harvesting energy from pilot geothermal wells that reach rock temperatures at up to 500 C by 2026. From there, the team hopes to begin repurposing coal and natural gas plants using its system."
https://news.mit.edu/2022/quaise-energy-geothermal-0628
Oven mitt picture on its way. 8)
It’s a replay of sorts of the ‘79- ‘89 invasion of Afghanistan: called at the time “Russia’s Vietnam.”
If we’re in Cold War 2.0, the invasion of Ukraine is Russia’s Vietnam 2.0
Dr. Brin,
The geothermal project on the Big Island was stuck in regulatory limbo when we lived there - residents were afraid it would do something to spark more eruptions (so I heard) and there were corrosion issues. Considering that Hawaii imports large amounts of coal for electricity generation*, I'm surprised more hasn't been done there.
*good luck finding coal on a young, volcanic island
Pappenheimer
Also,
Don't talk smack about Finnish Girl Scouts. Wasn't there a movie...?
Pappenheimer
Stonekettle knows whereof he speaks:
https://www.threads.net/@stonekettle
Republicans, Trump, MAGAs, they all claim to love America. They're all "patriots."
And yet, they absolutely HATE everything about this country. They hate the Constitution, the laws, the idealism, the rights (except for theirs), the differences we once regarded as a strength, they hate nearly everyone of their countrymen, the very land itself, and most of all the idea that anyone else would want to come here.
And they admire Putin and Russia. I mean, what?
Alas, Stonekettle is fine. But his polemic is mostly internal, sharing rage with those who already agree. He does not - as I've seen - offer polemics that sear away the masturbatory incantations used by more sapient MAGAs to justify loyalty to a cause they know to be insane.
I do it all the time and am about to, with tonight's mid-week posting.
Shhh. If A.I. and crypto farms get a sniff of this, it could mean cooling the Earth down to rogue planet levels.
Dr Brin:
...sharing rage with those who already agree.
Yes and no. You are correct that his invective probably appeals most to those who already dislike Trump. But many of the obvious things he points out aren't being recognized all that much even by those on the same side. Like that the American-flag-humping "patriots" actually detest everything special about America itself.
He--like Tim Walz--has the advantage of being a white Christian male with military experience, a background that the MAGAts can't simply reject as "communist". I often post when Stonekettle agrees with me, because no one will listen to me, but many do listen to him.
So, how're things in Sudzha? (according to people also not on the ISW staff ;-)
Tony what? You expect war to be gentle, after what Ukrainians have been through?
BTW I gave a talk today to the Australian War College.
onward
onward
Yeah. We don't need no silly analyses. They're Finns! ;)
On Prescient SF:
Stanislav Lem is an accomplished master. I'm reading, over and over, his Imaginary Magnitude (Mandarin Paperbacks, 1991) in which he brilliantly anticipates our perplexities with Large Language Models.
Starts with a tall tale about a biologist teaching bacterial colonies to write English sentences, by insanely persistent selective breeding. Letter by letter in Morse Code. Word by word, line by line, until the colonies are generating poetry with rhyme and meter, and absolutely no sense of meaning. Because there's nobody home. The researcher is manipulating the population genome, that's all. But he's getting the genome to generate anticipatory behaviors, as our neural networks do ... until (tall tale) they anticipate his attempts to shut the project down.
Then Lem gives us a promotional brochure for an encyclopedia of information services which AI predicts that we'll want, in a flurry of neologisms, e.g. "PROFFERTICE, a trade or service offer based on a prognosticated state of the market", and "The interference of competition, or INTETITION", whence "INTETITIVE BANKRUMBLECY, PROGNOLYSIS, PROGNOCLASE, PROGNOSIS SHIELDING and COUNTERPREDICTION". An encyclopedia must be up-to-date, you see, but knowledge is advancing too fast, so this encyclopedia has to be precognitive, extrapolation built on extrapolations. Just as with the bacteria, "knowledge" is generated by prompting, not a genome, but the whole technical literature, for anticipatory output. Now Lem is the world's greatest satirist of pseudo-erudite academic authority, so all this is written in buzzwords of high-level nerdery, like taking a course in Derrida.
Finally there's a lecture by GOLEM XIV, supreme AI and public oracle. GOLEM emphasizes that there's nobody home. It will attend to your concerns, but human concerns are trivial, so GOLEM spends its time just letting abstract strutures evolve. Me, I'm reading this part over and over, striving to hold two paragraphs in my head at once.
Takeaway: Lem is getting at what happens when a whole literature is being prompted to generate utterances which we expect to be answers, or sensible responses. There's nobody there, the AI has no first person authoring its language. There's only the literature and the hardware. But what eerie potentials are latent in the literature, which we haven't yet made up the prompts for?
And here we are, pretty much. Lem nailed it in 1991. I'm floored.
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