AI does not exist but it will ruin everything anyway

ageingrockstar · 2024-01-29T09:07:17+00:00

The attack's success may be due to information passed on by the Russians, who have been learning how to defeat US air defence systems in Ukraine :

“This is a significant accomplishment,” one of the sources said. “Was the bypassing of the US air defence system at Tower-22 pulled off with Russian assistance? US bases generally rely on the C-RAM [Counter Rocket, Artillery and Mortar] system. It was sent to Ukraine last year where the Russians have been learning to defeat it. What now of American EW [electronic warfare]? They’ve been doing a fair job of knocking drones down up to now. It seems a ‘coincidence’ that, not a week after the meetings in Moscow with Arabs and Iranians, we see this success. It’s a success the circumstances of which, we can be sure, Biden and Austin are not keen to advertise.”

...

While there has been no announcement from the Russian Defense Ministry of a successful hit against C-RAM in Kiev, military sources believe Russia’s General Staff have acquired the technical capability to neutralize the American system, allowing drones through to hit their ground targets, including the C-RAM mounted truck unit.

The Iranians have been observing, as have the Arab forces planning and executing drone attacks against C-RAM defended US bases. How much of the Russian intelligence on C-RAM is being shared with them?

...

The military source again: “If there’s no coincidence, and if this isn’t a lucky strike for the Arabs, then this may reflect a step-change up in Russian military assistance to the Iranians. Maybe Tower-22 was selected as a small target for demonstration effect, so as to send a message about the bigger targets, Al-Tanf and Muwaffaq Salti. Hitting them next makes ‘regional war’, and then US ground forces are going to be in the thick of it — the Biden Administration will have a new war on its hands — and bodybags, instead of votes, for Election Day. “

John also reports on the deployment by Iran of a converted container carrier (not an expensive warship) into the Gulf of Oman. The Shah Mahdavi is a naval drone carrier and electronic warfare vessel.

The current positioning of the Shah Mahdavi is a signal that if the Biden Administration, or the Trump election campaign, or their claques in the US Congress decide on making a direct, retaliatory strike against Iranian targets — military personnel, territorial units, or naval vessels — the IGRC will close the Strait of Hormuz. Iran will then be at war with the US, and so will the rest of the world which, until Israel started its war against the Palestinians, depended on the Suez Canal, Red Sea, Persian Gulf, and the Indian Ocean for its energy supply and trade lifelines.

“This is a major embarrassment and a message for the US and its allies”, the military source concludes. “It should resonate with all of them. It’s the conclusion to be drawn from the fact that the systems they have relied on have been defeated on land [in the Ukraine] and are now defending their ships on the Red Sea, and being defeated there too. The implications of all of this are enormous. Now, even the smallest maritime country, at a relatively low cost, can project force and inflict harm on the traditionally dominant actors. No need for expensive fighter or strike aircraft, let alone the pilots to operate them, or technicians and facilities to maintain them. No need for specialized military ship-building facilities. Any bulk transport, cheaply got, will do.”

ageingrockstar · 2024-01-29T08:47:00+00:00

I can't be bothered reading a RCP post but, just looking at the headline, Trump is a cause of chaos and in a (very moderately) good way.

I'm not a fan of Trump either but it's very noticeable how much the 'Deep State' is opposed to him. That's because he is not a compliant politician in some ways and because he doesn't play the role of the President in the ways that they want. The election of Trump was a black swam event - outsiders like him aren't meant to defeat the Deep State favourites (Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Hillary Clinton, etc) but he did, and in a consummate way. They then sought to undermine his presidency in various ways and are now going to extreme lengths (and we are yet to see the limits of how far they will go), to prevent him getting a second term. This is despite Trump doing most of the things that the Deep State wanted as president, but the fact remains that they couldn't ever be 100% sure of him (as they could be of Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, etc, etc) and that is not acceptable to the Deep State and the oligarchy, not acceptable at all. They will simply not tolerate a president that goes 'off-script', as Kennedy started to do in the period leading up to his assassination.

So yes, Trump is a cause of some chaos. Doesn't mean I endorse his presidency but it is somewhat amusing to observe how much his election freaked the Deep State out, any yes, brought some chaos into US politics.

ageingrockstar · 2024-01-16T02:25:29+00:00

Re Russian jets, the Superjet 100 is a smaller aircraft than the 737 or the Airbus A320. For the direct Russian competitor to these 2 aircraft, there is the Irkut MC-21 which has also implemented an import substitution redesign and retesting schedule.

ageingrockstar · 2024-01-16T02:10:06+00:00

I've become an interested follower of the development of China's Comac C919 and Russia's Sukhoi Superjet 100.

The Chinese jet is further advanced, with a significant landmark achieved last year as the first jets went into commercial use (in China).

The Russian jet had to be redesigned to swap out all the imported parts subject to sanctions (including the engines). However, this has proceeded apace with the first import substituted jet undergoing test flights last year with the old engines and a second test vehicle with fully Russian engines scheduled to do test flights this year.

China will obviously get there first (it already has, with jets now in use) and has a larger internal market to support it. So they're the main prospect but it's good to have the Russian prospect as well. Then there's Brazil's Embraer jets too (in commercial use for decades now). So jets from 3 out of the original 5 BRICS countries.

For now, my position is to avoid Boeing and take Airbus. But keen to switch from Airbus to a BRC jet when the option is available.

ageingrockstar · 2024-01-16T01:45:38+00:00

Then there's the Megan 'comically grotesque' special - They're still making too many babies even when we regularly 'mow the lawn' so how can it be genocide when the population continues to grow ?

Found here : https://saidit.net/s/WayOfTheBern/comments/bpxa/michael_tracey_brings_the_evidence_that_new/14j19

ageingrockstar · 2024-01-14T02:30:48+00:00

Great submission; a perspective on China that is very counter to the usual narrative in the Western media

ageingrockstar · 2024-01-08T04:53:33+00:00

BTW, both ppl have very clear enunciation (including the native Dutchman) so this video is very comprehensible at 1.5 speed, if you want to get through it faster.

ageingrockstar · 2024-01-08T04:45:15+00:00

I'm often a little lazy about writing a comment under a submission. Fortunately, this time, Arnaud Bertrand has done the job for me (and at some length).

This is undoubtedly one of the most extraordinary interviews of a former senior US government official on Gaza.

This is Chas Freeman, former Assistant Secretary of Defense and former US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

Key points in the video:

He agrees that many of the victims of Oct 7th were killed by the Israeli army in the form of "undisciplined fire by helicopters with hellfire missiles or by tanks with incendiary rounds directed at buildings". In the case of the victims of the music festival he even says they "were largely killed, it appears, by hellfire missiles and by other undisciplined fire by Israeli forces". To him this "disgrace in military terms" stems from a "lack of discipline and training necessary to respond" but also from the IDF's "Hannibal directive", which "says that rather than get into bargaining over hostage exchange you should just kill the Israeli hostages along with their captors."

He says that with Oct 7th "Hamas had 2 objectives":

"Put the Palestinian self-determination issue back on the global agenda", something he says they've "succeeded" in doing since they're is "widespread recognition outside Israel that only self-determination for Palestine in the form of a 2-state solution can provide security to Israel". He says that even in "the US, which has a larger Jewish population than Israel, many Jews have come to realize that this is the case. Younger Jews in particular in the U.S. are very disillusioned with Zionism and don't want to suffer contagion from it in the form of antisemitism, which is actually growing now as a result of Israeli actions".

"Give Hamas enormous popularity among Palestinians because they are seen as having stood up, as having been willing to accept death rather than captivity". He refers to Norman Finkelstein's "analogy of slave revolts in the U.S." and particularly the "1831 revolt by Nat Turner, a well-educated very intelligent enslaved African who led a slave revolt in Southern Virginia which had as its objective the murder of every white person they encountered." He says it "raises a moral question: 'Is the violence of the slave-owner morally the same as the violence of the slave trying to end that violence?'. The same moral question arises with Israeli oppression of Palestinians versus Palestinian resistance to oppression."

All in all he concludes that much like the violence against African-Americans that followed slave revolts in the 19th century, the Israeli vengeance against Palestinians "won't be remembered fondly by anyone in the future". In fact he goes as far as saying that "when people think of Israel in the past they thought of it as a refuge for the victims of the Holocaust... now they will think of it as the home of perpetrators of genocide. When they think of Israel, they will think of burned buildings and dead babies. This is an image problem of a fundamental nature and from the point of view of Israel it strips Israel of its protection by charges of antisemitism against anyone who is critical of Israel because to be critical of people who are carrying out genocide cannot be antisemitism, it cannot be considered immoral. Antisemitism is a despicable attitude but to oppose genocide by Israel is not."

https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1743865744218358216

ageingrockstar · 2024-01-07T08:32:39+00:00

Philanthropic people lose all sense of humanity. It is their distinguishing characteristic.

― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

ageingrockstar · 2024-01-02T01:33:31+00:00

Yes, Steamboat Willie is finally entering the public domain. Welcome, Mickey and Minnie Mouse! Read what this means here.

ageingrockstar · 2024-01-02T01:27:59+00:00

I'd read it, but I'm afraid of Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf should have been more afraid of Virginia Woolf

ageingrockstar · 2024-01-01T06:20:44+00:00

Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) :

At the end of every year, we look back at the last 12 months and evaluate what has changed for the better (and worse) for digital rights.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/2023-year-review

ageingrockstar · 2024-01-01T06:16:25+00:00

The Paris Review’s Favorite Books of 2023 :

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2023/12/15/what-the-paris-review-staff-read-in-2023/

ageingrockstar · 2024-01-01T05:58:50+00:00

Dimitri Simes Jr. Talks Geopolitics 2023 With Scott Ritter & Michael Hudson

This is a 3 hour radio 'marathon' live-streamed on December 27. There's an information page here which describes the format : 1st hour a review of the key events and Dimitri's key interviews (from his New Rules podcast), 2nd hour with Scott Ritter to discuss the major military conflicts that shaped the world this year, 3rd hour with Michael Hudson to talk about the shifts in the world economy, as well as the rise of the Global South against US dollar hegemony. That page doesn't seem to include a link to the 3 hour show but it can be found in its entirety on twitter's platform here :

https://twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1LyGBnmWalLGN

ageingrockstar · 2024-01-01T01:24:08+00:00

Craig Murray on What we have learned in 2023 :

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2023/12/what-we-have-learned/

ageingrockstar · 2024-01-01T01:19:00+00:00

Aurelien :

https://aurelien2022.substack.com/p/the-obligatory-end-of-year-essay

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-31T23:55:17+00:00

RT on India's 2023 :

https://www.rt.com/india/589897-india-history-2023-moon-g20/

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-31T21:59:15+00:00

Simplicius the Thinker :

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/end-of-2023-roundup-update-on-the

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-31T21:58:50+00:00

Ben Norton :

https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2023/12/31/stories-2023-gaza-ukraine-china-brics/

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-31T21:31:29+00:00

They're about to almost completely lose their automobile industry, which has been hugely important to the Japanese economy. That'll be interesting (i.e. devastating).

Meanwhile, as the article notes, they are moronically boosting their military spending. Japan would have no military threats at all if it was not in 'alliance' (military servitude and occupation) with the U.S. and hosting its troops and bases.

I fear that Japan will have to go through an extreme crisis before they come to their senses.

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-31T21:23:04+00:00

The next blow to the collective Japanese psyche will be falling behind ~~Germany~~ Russia to become the fourth-biggest economy

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-31T21:19:44+00:00

Farewell John, you were a man of courage and acuity

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-31T05:42:49+00:00

Note at the top of John's blog :

We will be silent from January 1 until January 15, but not deaf or blind.

So he'll be observing developments but no new updates for two weeks. It's very typical in Australia to spend the first two weeks of January at the beach (if not the whole month) so I expect that might be where John is heading.

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-31T03:22:46+00:00

Agree that Brian is a valuable commentator, especially for analysis of US interference in SE Asia.

However, while I take his point that environmental concerns are very often used by US agents and cutouts as a way to block development of infrastructure that will enrich and give greater independence to countries that the US wants to keep in a subordinate position, I also think he makes too little of environmental concerns and is somewhat glib on the matter (e.g. his saying that the problems that dams cause can be fixed). This criticism doesn't significantly lessen my appreciation for his journalism, as we all have our weak spots, but I do note it.

With regards to the cargo transport corridor across the Isthmus of Kra, I am very interested in this subject and am very supportive of some type of corridor being built. However, I also very much want it to properly consider environmental concerns and a canal being built here would have very, very significant environmental impact. (The Panama Canal had, and continues to have, major environmental impact on the region, so much so that this environmental impact is now threatening its economic viability too.) So I am happy to hear that things seem to be trending towards implementation of a road and rail corridor, a land bridge, rather than construction of a canal. I hope this model is chosen, that good, independent environmental impact studies are done and measures put in place for amelioration of identified impacts, and that work can then be soon begun.

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-30T13:10:10+00:00

All this exposes is that she never read or heard ANYTHING on such an important event.

Agree, as I put in my comment. (I'm not at all trying to defend Haley whom I loathe.)

most of the secessionists put [slavery[ in their reason to leave the Union.

Cheers, didn't know this (my knowledge is patchy).

But doing a little bit of a search on the web I turned up this :

What led to the outbreak of the bloodiest conflict in the history of North America?

A common explanation is that the Civil War was fought over the moral issue of slavery.

In fact, it was the economics of slavery and political control of that system that was central to the conflict.

A key issue was states' rights.

The Southern states wanted to assert their authority over the federal government so they could abolish federal laws they didn't support, especially laws interfering with the South's right to keep slaves and take them wherever they wished.

Another factor was territorial expansion.

The South wished to take slavery into the western territories, while the North was committed to keeping them open to white labor alone.

Meanwhile, the newly formed Republican party, whose members were strongly opposed to the westward expansion of slavery into new states, was gaining prominence.

The election of a Republican, Abraham Lincoln, as President in 1860 sealed the deal. His victory, without a single Southern electoral vote, was a clear signal to the Southern states that they had lost all influence.

Feeling excluded from the political system, they turned to the only alternative they believed was left to them: secession, a political decision that led directly to war.

https://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/feature/causes-of-the-civil-war/

My italics above. This seems to be in concordance with what I stated above - that it was more the economics of slavery rather than the morality of slavery that was the issue, and thus an issue of economic competition and state rights.

And I also turned up this :

The U.S. citizenship test – which immigrants must pass before becoming citizens of the United States – has this question: “Name one problem that led to the Civil War.” It lists three possible correct answers: “slavery,” “economic reasons” and “states’ rights.”

But as a historian and professor who studies slavery, Southern history and the American Civil War, I know there’s really only one correct answer: slavery.

https://theconversation.com/what-really-started-the-american-civil-war-205281

That author is arguing for the 'only correct answer' being slavery while noting that the citizenship test allows two other reasons - economics and state rights.

Looking around a bit more there does seem to be some contention about the causes. So like I also said in my top answer, it seems a complicated subject (not surprising for the causes of a war, which are often argued about and debated).

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-30T08:29:49+00:00

it's an easy one that can be answered

Is it an easy one to answer ?

I'm not particularly well versed in the history of the USA (didn't receive an education in the US, never properly studied US history) but even my fairly patchy knowledge of the Civil War leads me to think that the answer is complicated. I certainly don't think it's as easy as just answering slavery. (And again, with only my patchy knowledge, I personally would only credit slavery as a minor cause, not a major one. Or if I was going to give it more weight, I would list it as the North wanting to eliminate the economic advantage that the South got from slavery.)

Her answer was woeful certainly, because she made it clear that she was clueless about the history of the Civil War and she then fillibustered with a lot of her stock lines. But if she'd just answered "It's complicated and not really something that we can go into adequately here", then I think she would have been fine. (Not that I want her to be fine, but with more training in how to be a slick, teflon-like politician she could have slipped fairly easily away from what turned into a debacle. And probably, this incident will just help educate her better in how to do so next time.)

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-30T04:24:27+00:00

The British SAS has been a vector for state terrorism and criminality for decades now. They get mythologised by the British media but they are a morally corrupt force and one that only deserves denouncement. I can understand young men getting brainwashed into joining up but they still have the personal responsibility to say No to carrying out criminal & extra-judicial acts of violence and if they have personal honour they should resign once they realise the true nature of the power that they serve (the corrupt & stinking British establishment). Big hint : if you are being sent overseas to carry out covert operations for the British Crown in a former British colony, the probability of that act being an evil one or furthering evil aims is not noticeably far away from 100%.

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-29T02:53:19+00:00

Ok, cheers, and my comment wasn't meant to reflect back on you at all. You can post whatever you like of course, and I personally really appreciate your covid submissions.

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-29T01:08:39+00:00

The war started in 1948 mate, with the violent occupation of Palestine and the ethnic cleansing of its people.

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-29T00:49:03+00:00

The press loves to print negative stories about Tesla, because it knows they get clicks and repostings to social media for more clicks back to their site.

Meanwhile they avoid printing good new stories about Tesla, such as that the Model Y is on track to be the best-selling car In the world this year (not just best-selling EV).

The US is suffering from deindustrialisation and decreasing levels of innovation & competitiveness on the world stage.

Tesla is one of the few US companies that is going against this trend. It must utterly bemuse the people in China, Russia, India & Iran (all nations growing their industry) to see US Americans hating on this company, which they themselves admire and fear (as a competitor).

As to the bullshit content of this story by the fucking Daily Mail, yes, there was an industrial robot incident at Tesla back in 2021 where a robot programmer was injured while reprogramming the robot. As the article itself reports, there have been no further incidents since (in 2021, 2022). I stopped reading there; if this was the best that this rag could do for the lede then the rest of the article only promised to be even more inflated bullshit reporting.

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-29T00:09:31+00:00

The last hyperlink in the text (on the words 'Mediterranean Sea') takes you to a page on a whale watching operator's site about the Strait of Gibraltar. It's nicely written and quite informative.

https://www.firmm.org/en/strait-of-gibraltar

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-28T00:45:51+00:00

This is quite a long report (~52 mins) by Ben Norton but very informative as a backgrounder on the geopolitics of the region, particularly with respect to the choke that Yemen is putting on the Red Sea. It's also good at dispelling certain myths (e.g. that Yemen is only a proxy for Iran).

It covers matters such as :

a proper background of the 2014 revolution in Yemen, the war that followed and the victory by Ansar Allah (Houthis)
Israel's strategic vulnerability with respect to marine trade
Discussion of Israel's 3 ports, two on the Mediterranean and one on the Red Sea
Saudi Arabia's abandonment of Palestine after the assassination of King Faisal in 1975 and its cozying up to Israel in the decades since
Venezuela and Hugo Chavez's role in inspiring Ansar Allah in Yemen

And a lot of other detail (the list above is just from memory after listening to it a day ago). And speaking of listening, yes, it's available on the Geopolitical Economy Report podcast, if you don't feel like you need to watch a talking head.

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-27T02:27:06+00:00

Lots of interesting stuff in this article (as is common with Bhadrakumar; he has a diplomats skill in collecting and boiling down information).

I'm going to focus on this one bit :

An immediate fallout of all this is going to be that India is unlikely to join the US-led alliance in the Red Sea gearing up to wage a war on terror against the Houthis of Yemen. This is despite the US efforts to involve the Quad countries in the Red Sea operations. By the way, both Japan and Australia have dissociated themselves from joining the US-led coalition of the willing.

For those not familiar, the so-called Quad is a massively weird diplomatic network between Australia, India, Japan and the United States. I say weird because if you look at a map of the countries involved, it makes no fucking geopolitical sense. India lies at the top of the Indian Ocean, between West Asia and East Asia. Japan is in East Asia on the West Pacific coastline. The USA has a coastline on the East Pacific. And Australia lies in another hemisphere with Indian Ocean and West Pacific coastlines.

After the Quad was formed (and dissolved and then reformed because a more sensible Australian PM pulled out and then got stabbed in the back) we started seeing the adoption of the weird sounding term Indo-Pacific. I had never heard this term before the last decade or so and I believe it was no accident that we started hearing it then. I believe it was dream up to artificially justify the Quad as a 'natural defender of security' in this so-called area. But the idea of a region called 'the Indo-Pacific' makes no fucking sense. The Pacific is the world's ocean. It is massive and dwarfs all other oceans. It doesn't even make sense to treat it as a single entity. Rather one should more naturally talk of the Western Pacific (Asia, SE Asia and Australia/NZ) and the Eastern Pacific (the coastline of the Americas). Between these two littoral regions lies (again, to repeat myself) the world's largest ocean. And then to tack on the Indian Ocean as well is just moronic.

So yeah, you have one nation in the Indian Ocean, up near where all the action is. One nation down in the Southern Hemisphere, far away from all the action both in the Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific, one nation (Japan) in the northern Western Pacific where yes, all the action is, and one nation over in the Eastern Pacific, where it should stay and mind its own business (but of course, we know it doesn't).

The only reason these nations were cobbled together is that, outside Europe, these are the only medium powers that the USA had any hope of cobbling together in a marine alliance. But it never made any sense, for reasons I have outlined above. So I'm not surprised to see it falling apart under any real pressure. The 'Indo-Pacific' is a nonsense and 'the Quad' is doomed to failure.

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-27T01:56:54+00:00

If you read John Helmer on his own site, you not only get to enjoy his delightfully idiosyncratic and old school web design but you can also find his newer articles before they get reposted to places like Naked Capitalism. I say this because I think his later update on the marine shipping crisis is even more interesting than this one, as he expands on the possibility (that I've started to see discussed elsewhere too) that the crisis could escalate to affect the Mediterranean as well.

TradeWinds has reported the target strategy under a headline indicating that Iran may expand the war to threaten shipping moving through the Gibraltar Strait towards Israel’s Mediterranean ports, Ashdod and Haifa. The Iranian statement on the Gibraltar Strait has been reported in the western press with the qualification that “Iran has no direct access to the Mediterranean itself and it was not clear how the Guards could attempt to close it off” and that “the only groups backed by Iran on the Mediterranean are Lebanon’s Hezbollah and allied militia in Syria, at the far end of the sea from Gibraltar.”

The western news agencies and the Anglo-American maritime media appear not to be aware of the capabilities of Algeria, whose parliament has authorized the government to take unspecified military measures against Israel. Algeria’s military is also collaborating closely and recently with the Russian Navy.

The possibility of a drone attack on an Israeli vessel near the Gibraltar Strait has not yet dawned publicly, not at least in the mainstream and maritime industry media. More than 100,000 vessels transit through the Gibraltar Strait each year. If Israeli-owned and international shipping are now blocked from reaching either Eilat or Haifa and Ashdod from the east through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, the Gibraltar Strait in the west is the gateway remaining. This is acknowledged by Israeli experts. “According to Dr. Elyakim BenHakoun from the Industrial Engineering and Management Faculty at the Technion Institute of Technology, about 99% of goods (in terms of cargo volume) reach Israel by sea, and around 40% of the cargo arriving in Israel passes through the Suez Canal…the consequence of stopping ship traffic in the Red Sea is to circumnavigate Africa, leading to an extension of shipping times by approximately two weeks to a month, depending on the destination region, vessel speed, and ship category. This roughly translates to an additional cost of $400,0000-$1 million per ship.”

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-26T07:21:06+00:00

Science fiction (SF) influences everything in this day and age, from the design of everyday artifacts to how we—including the current crop of 50-something Silicon Valley billionaires—work. And that’s a bad thing: it leaves us facing a future we were all warned about, courtesy of dystopian novels mistaken for instruction manuals.

Billionaires who grew up reading science-fiction classics published 30 to 50 years ago are affecting our life today in almost too many ways to list: Elon Musk wants to colonize Mars. Jeff Bezos prefers 1970s plans for giant orbital habitats. Peter Thiel is funding research into artificial intelligence, life extension and “seasteading.” Mark Zuckerberg has blown $10 billion trying to create the Metaverse from Neal Stephenson’s novel Snow Crash. And Marc Andreessen of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz has published a “techno-optimist manifesto” promoting a bizarre accelerationist philosophy that calls for an unregulated, solely capitalist future of pure technological chaos.

These men collectively have more than half a trillion dollars to spend on their quest to realize inventions culled from the science fiction and fantasy stories that they read in their teens. But this is tremendously bad news because the past century’s science fiction and fantasy works widely come loaded with dangerous assumptions.

SF is a profoundly ideological genre—it’s about much more than new gadgets or inventions. Canadian science-fiction novelist and futurist Karl Schroeder has told me that “every technology comes with an implied political agenda.” And the tech plutocracy seems intent on imposing its agenda on our planet’s eight billion inhabitants.

We were warned about the ideology driving these wealthy entrepreneurs by Timnit Gebru, former technical co-lead of the ethical artificial intelligence team at Google and founder of the Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (DAIR), and Émile Torres, a philosopher specializing in existential threats to humanity. They named this ideology TESCREAL, which stands for “transhumanism, extropianism, singularitarianism, cosmism, rationalism, effective altruism and longtermism.” These are separate but overlapping beliefs in the circles associated with big tech in California. Transhumanists seek to extend human cognition and enhance longevity; extropians add space colonization, mind uploading, AI and rationalism (narrowly defined) to these ideals. Effective altruism and longtermism both discount relieving present-day suffering to fund a better tomorrow centuries hence. Underpinning visions of space colonies, immortality and technological apotheosis, TESCREAL is essentially a theological program, one meant to festoon its high priests with riches.

...

Perhaps SF’s weirdest contribution to TESCREAL is Russian cosmism, the post-1917 stepchild of the mystical theological speculation of philosopher Nikolai Fyodorovich Fyodorov. It’s pervasive in science fiction—seen in topics from space colonization to immortalism, superhumans, the singularity, mind uploading, and more.

Cosmism’s contribution to the TESCREAL ideology is a secular quasi-religion with an implied destiny—colonize Mars and then the galaxy, achieve immortality, prioritize the long-term interests of humanity—that provides billionaires with an appealing justification for self-enrichment. We can see this with Thiel, who co-founded analytics company Palantir Technologies with a Lord of the Rings–themed name and recently told the Atlantic that he wanted to be immortal like J.R.R. Tolkien’s elves. And we can see it when Musk lands his rockets on barges with names taken from a science-fiction series by Iain M. Banks (ironically enough, one about a galactic socialist utopia). TESCREAL is also heavily contaminated with Christian theological reasoning, Campbellian white supremacism, Randian ruthlessness, the eugenics that was pervasive in the genre until the 1980s and the imperialist subtext of colonizing the universe.

But there is a problem: SF authors such as myself are popular entertainers who work to amuse an audience that is trained on what to expect by previous generations of science-fiction authors. We are not trying to accurately predict possible futures but to earn a living: any foresight is strictly coincidental. We recycle the existing material—and the result is influenced heavily by the biases of earlier writers and readers. The genre operates a lot like a large language model that is trained using a body of text heavily contaminated by previous LLMs; it tends to emit material like that of its predecessors. Most SF is small-c conservative insofar as it reflects the history of the field rather than trying to break ground or question received wisdom.

Science fiction, therefore, does not develop in accordance with the scientific method. It develops by popular entertainers trying to attract a bigger audience by pandering to them. The audience today includes billionaires who read science fiction in their childhood and who appear unaware of the ideological underpinnings of their youthful entertainment: elitism, “scientific” racism, eugenics, fascism and a blithe belief today in technology as the solution to societal problems.

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-26T03:06:08+00:00

I don't see this as the problem with 'Big Tech'. Sure, it's a story that is propagated widely but I think it's mostly a canard.

The big problem with tech jobs is whether those jobs are sustaining an exploitative and 'control of the user' industry (still the vast majority) or whether they are contributing to software that puts the user in control.

I really don't give a shit if Facebook and Microsoft start employing more ppl in Pittsburgh or Nashville or Houston or Dublin. They'll still be producing evil, controlling software.

Good software has been decentralised for decades. To take one prominent example, the Linux kernel was begun by a Finnish graduate student in 1991 and has always had many senior contributors from around the world. Ok, Linus ended up moving to the US but it is still a widely distributed project. And this is the pattern of basically all Free Software - it is a global, decentralised project.

Shitty, user controlling software naturally centralises in 'power bases'. That's a symptom of the underlying malignancy of its 'business model'. Celebrating that its power bases are shifting (as it has toxified its original bases, such as Silicon Valley), is a misguided celebration, in my opinion.

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-26T02:53:04+00:00

I was thinking of composing a post around this article, and drawing it out a bit more.

The second part of the analysis, of the ISW report, is very significant in how much it exposes how different the thinking & understanding of the NATO blob around the realpolitik of the situation is to 'the narrative' that is propagated by the corporate and state media.

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-23T09:46:42+00:00

My guess is either Argentina or another European country (Germany or the Netherlands say)

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-23T06:10:18+00:00

Isn't this already implied by naming them after US presidents ?

e.g. the USS Abraham Lincoln, the USS Ronald Reagan, etc

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-23T02:32:45+00:00

There is no 'Artificial Intelligence'. There never will be; intelligence is a property of conscious life.

s/AIscepticism

Having said that, machine learning is a valid term. Machines can 'learn'. And very powerful machine learning technologies are being developed and we should be very wary of how they are being used, not least in polluting and controlling public discourse.

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-22T13:17:11+00:00

I've found another resource for logging Palestinian genocide enablers / supporters. It's the Accountability Archive and it has a website at :

https://accountabilityarchive.org/

(plus some social media accounts that you can find linked on there).

I have some reservations about this website however as it currently doesn't show what it's already collected. There's only a form at present for public submission. And they don't list anyone in their team. So you have to take on trust that they are doing what they say they are doing. (Browsing what they post on their X / twitter account seems to indicate they're legit, but still I think they should be progressively publishing what they collect.)

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-22T04:59:55+00:00

Watched the whole thing now. Scott's answer to the question of whether Russia could have been defeated was very interesting.

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-22T04:40:02+00:00

Never heard Scott speak so openly about the persecution he and his family experienced for speaking the truth.

Timestamp : https://www.youtube.com/live/c-s3600cMRw?si=7cMivDWW4J8aJleD&t=890

He's very open that he didn't know what he was in for when he started doing so and says that he's not sure he would do it again if he knew what he knows now (which is very honest of him). But that he's unafraid now, because everything has already been done to him (except for putting a bullet in his head).

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-22T01:30:46+00:00

Ah, I found this thread linked in the comments below (which I had to access by repeatedly clicking 'show more replies' - strange) :

https://twitter.com/KintsugiMuslim/status/1735398595510046911

It's a more general list, compiled by a group of two, split up into "several categories based on Mann (Explaining Ethnic Cleansing, 2005)".

Seems an impressive effort already. The pdf can be accessed here :

https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=!AFTLzU_7ywgHhog&id=20448391C9BF03A0!181245&cid=20448391C9BF03A0

(Unfortunately hosted on MS servers - I held my nose for the download)

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-22T00:14:48+00:00

I'm sure the article makes some good points but I'm going to argue with them targeting swimming pools in the headline.

Swimming is a fantastic form of exercise and building pools for semi-public use (e.g. all the residents of a dorm) is a good use of funds in my opinion, just like making nice outdoor areas for ppl to enjoy is.

A swimming pool that (say) 400 people have access to is a much more justifiable expense than a private pool in someone's backyard, which only gets limited use by that family and is thus considered 'extravagant'.

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-20T19:57:07+00:00

Surface ships have been sitting ducks in a real war for a long time now, as many ppl have pointed out. Drones certainly make them more vulnerable, especially to the 'death by a thousand cuts' tactic (exhausting their defences), but hypersonic missiles, such as the Chinese and Russians have, are indefensible against. And ordinary missiles would eventually score a hit too.

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-20T19:52:03+00:00

My position on this (albeit, not deeply thought out) is that having photos of anything should not itself be an offence.

Certainly having photos of some things can indicate a sick mind and also be possible indication of complicity in a crime. So that might give reason for the individual to be investigated.

I'm also aware that the production of some photos is incentivised by the demand for them so that crimes may be commited to satisfy that demand. That is indeed problematic.

But I think you need to go after the crime itself (which the photo is evidence of) and not the photos themselves.

Again, this isn't a position I've given a great deal of thought to, so criticism welcome. It basically springs from my instinct that photos of anything are 'free speech' and that persecution for having photos of any subject matter, however distasteful, is a violation of free speech. That shouldn't stop search warrants, but any photos turned up should be used as possible evidence of a crime, and not a crime in themselves.

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-20T12:40:09+00:00

Yeah, I was thinking the same as yr second paragraph even as I typed my earlier comment.

I think his voice problem may also be a result of psychological stress. To be fair on the guy, he did (indirectly) see both his father and uncle assassinated. That would take its toll.

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-20T08:48:00+00:00

Related Caitlin Johnstone post :

When Israeli president Isaac Herzog described the assault on Gaza as a war “to save Western civilization, to save the values of Western civilization,” he wasn’t really lying. He was telling the truth — just maybe not quite in the way that he meant it.

The demolition of Gaza is indeed being perpetrated in defense of western values, and is itself a perfect embodiment of western values. Not the western values they teach you about in school, but the hidden ones they don’t want you to look at. Not the attractive packaging with the advertising slogans on the label, but the product that’s actually inside the box.

For centuries western civilization has depended heavily on war, genocide, theft, colonialism and imperialism, which it has justified using narratives premised on religion, racism and ethnic supremacy — all of which we are seeing play out in the incineration of Gaza today.

https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1737292168942023082

(However, I think she goes a bit overboard later in that post when she says stuff like "That mountain of child corpses is a much better representation of western culture than anything Mozart, da Vinci or Shakespeare ever produced.". I disagree with her there.)

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-20T08:35:27+00:00

I'd like to see a website set up, where records are made of every significant figure who is defending and speaking in support of these heinous Zionist crimes.

I think they all need to be held to account. Yes, they have the (absolute) right to free speech. And history will damn them for what they freely said.

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-20T08:31:11+00:00

I've added this to my personal 'Yuck' bookmarks folder.

Absolutely sickining the rhetoric and excuse making here (for an absolutely unjustifiable act).

As Arnaud says :

The whole world sees this kind of talk which is pervasive among almost all Western leaders. And they just won't forget, we're looking at a future where any talk of "values", "principles", "respect of rules", etc. by the West will be met by laughter and ridicule by the rest of the world for decades to come.

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-20T07:29:34+00:00

having the family idiot join the clergy

Fanny Price is upset on Edmund Bertram's behalf

(I just finished listening to this quite nice reading of Mansfield Park)

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-20T07:19:12+00:00

Pesonal experience counterpoint - I find that these two excessively fit the mould of 'political tragics'. Commentators on politics that don't bring much to the table themselves. (It's extremely easy to take down RFK Jr at this point; and with their audience they're just preaching to the choir.)

Plus I saw Russell Dobular making some incredibly stupid pronouncements about Tesla recently on Jimmy's show. Fine to attack Elon Musk on his many personal failings and political hypocrisies but when you carry across that dislike to make objectively stupid observations about Tesla (as Russell did) you expose yourself as stuck in partisan thinking.

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-20T07:11:53+00:00

Trivial personal particular but I'm just glad that I don't have to feel guilt anymore about not wanting to listen to his awful speaking voice

(And perhaps there's something in his voice failing; there's a belief that truth-talking strengthens the voice - maybe the opposite is also true)

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-17T08:40:28+00:00

Yeah. it makes sense.

I think Scott and Jeff (his Ask the Inspector show manager) are being unnecessarily arrogant in belittling ppl who have theories about the World Trace Centre attacks. It's fine for them to be not interested and say they don't want to engage; it's another thing for them to actively mock ppl who are interested. I still like and respect Scott; he does a lot of truth telling and has been very courageous in doing so. I'm much less impressed by Jeff.

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-17T02:25:36+00:00

Hadn't thought of it that way. So what you're positing is that the necessary actions/preparations would have been put in place by a tight-knit 'deep state' group that would have already been intensely vetted for loyalty to the group on admission and which maintains fierce allegiance (on pain of death) ?

FWIW, I've never really developed an opinion either way. I'm not a US American and have only ever had mild interest in the events of that day. (Actually I resisted the media frenzy around the event at the time and only first viewed footage of the event years afterwards.) I've always been much more interested in how the attacks were used as excuses for removal of rights (including by nations other than the US) and for US war-mongering (which my country to its shame joined in with).

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-17T02:10:46+00:00

Automatic upvote from me for anything from John Helmer, who I feel is a vastly underappreciated journalist (due in part do his fierce independence)

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-17T02:03:42+00:00

Good that Austria is holding out against EU sanctions, even if for selfish, profit driven reasons.

However, Austria is also one of only two European nations (the other being Czechia) that recently voted with the USA and Israel against the General Assembly vote in the UN calling for a Gaza cease-fire.

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-17T01:58:35+00:00

What do ppl here think about Scott Ritter's dismissal of these WTC theories, on the principle that the conspiracy required would be impossible to keep secret ?

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-17T01:54:22+00:00

What they're saying here with this "recall" is that people's actions and behavior aren't being sufficiently monitored and controlled by automated systems, with the usual argument of "it's for their own protection".

You make an excellent point. Tesla cars all now come with an internal camera focused on the driver. I'm not sure how far it's been implemented so far, but the intention of that camera is to continually monitor the driver while they are using auto-pilot to make sure they are paying attention to the road, to what the car is doing, etc. There's various technologies that can track attention from video input of a human face, mostly on where the eyes are focused and how they are scanning etc. That would work much better than monitoring pressure on the wheel but it's a massive trade-off in privacy that I personally would be very reluctant to make without cast-iron guarantees on non-storage of the video, non-transmission and protection from subpoena, etc. (Satisfactorily strong guarantees and protections I think we are unlikely to get.) But I also do think that video monitoring of drivers is where things are heading. I can see the alternative argument too - that driving on public roads is not actually a right, it's a privilege (I agree on this principle) and so if having cars with auto-pliot and monitoring of the driver properly monitoring the autopilot leads to safer driving (I think it does already and will continue to improve into the future) then that is where we will go and the 'right' to drive a car completely manually and with nothing to monitor your attention in the car except passing police cars will increasingly be limited and eventually removed. Actually, in Australia we already have external cameras set up over roads which issue fines against ppl using their phones while driving, etc.

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-16T08:43:33+00:00

Brave woman. She reminded me of Sophie Scholl who resisted Nazism with her group the Weiße Rose

https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/sophie-scholl-and-white-rose

There were other youth groups who resisted Nazism too. This article profiles 4 (including the White Rose again) :

https://www.thecollector.com/german-youth-resistance-groups-wwii/

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-16T08:00:55+00:00

Here's an article on Australia's quality EV news site The Driven, on this recall :

https://thedriven.io/2023/12/15/tesla-recalls-more-than-2-million-cars-sold-in-the-us-due-to-autopilot-flaws/

I'd suggest it's a far better way to get informed on this story (and only takes 3 minutes to read). Here, for example, is an informative excerpt :

Several interesting details about the lead up to the incidents described above are found within NHTSA documents related to the investigation. On average, Autopilot aborted control less than 1 second prior to impact. Analysis of video footage from the scenes showed that on average the drivers would have seen the emergency services incident 8 seconds before the first impact.

However, none of the drivers took evasive action 2-5 seconds before impact, despite vehicle data confirming all drivers had their hands on the steering wheel. This indicates the drivers involved were clearly not paying attention or taking action to maintain safety, even though their Tesla vehicles concluded they were.

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-16T07:03:37+00:00

Looked him up :

Russell Dobular is the founding Artistic Director of the Horse Trade Theater Group (now Frigid), and EndTimes Productions. He also provides guided tours of his native New York City through his company, Hidden New York Tours.

https://substack.com/profile/12623755-russell-dobular

Ok, and this guy is brought on to opine about Tesla's engineering chops ? When serious car journalists like say Jason Cammisa are prasing all the engineering advances of the cybertruck (48V electrical system, gigapress metal casting, drive-by wire, stainless steel exoskeleton, etherloop bus, etc, etc) while saying that he's personally not interested in having one.

Jimmy's wasting his audience's time bringing on guests like this.

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-16T06:54:49+00:00

Ok, I've got up to the part now when Russell Dobular starts opining. At 9:10 he says that Telsa is going to collapse and their technology will be quickly superseded. This guy is an idiot; he's gong against what Tesla's own competition (e.g. Ford, Volkswagen, Toyota) have conceded many times; that Tesla's tech is way ahead of what they have and that the best they can hope for is a distant second place (which none of those I just listed will achieve; rather it will be a chinese manufacturer like BYD). Jimmy's letting down the show having such an idiot on. His sidekick's comments (can't remember his name) are much more reasonable and balanced.

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-16T06:44:02+00:00

To Jimmy's first point, calling it autopilot is absolutely fine. Autopilot has been used for a long time on airplanes and boats. Pilots and captains of boats still monitor the craft they are piloting when they switch on autopilot. Autopilot auto pilots the vehicle; that doesn't mean that the person who is in control of the craft can stop monitoring it and go to sleep. No-one has any problem with calling it auto-pilot in airplanes so it's unfair to call out using that name for the same technology in cars.

What Tesla should be called out for is selling 'Full Self Driving' for quite a number of years now, when they still haven't delivered on the promise in the name. Teslas can 'self-drive' but full self-driving does imply that no human is necessary for monitoring or to even be in the car. That's still not possible.

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-15T22:16:22+00:00

I don't understand how the buildings would require 'massively expensive renovations' to put in heat pumps. They don't intrinsically require any modifications to the building apart from installation. And installation is fairly simple; you install the interior unit, an exterior unit, and a pipe connecting the two.

Heat pumps are a fantastic technology. They move heat around rather than generating heat. So to heat a house they bring heat in from outside. This is just the same as a fridge, except in a fridge it works in the other direction. The heat pump in a fridge moves heat out of the fridge to the exterior environment.

I can appreciate that the feckless (and generally revolting) German Greens may have pushed this technology on the people in a ham-fisted and draconian way, which is stupid, but the actual technology is, quite objectively, a fantastic one. I say objectively because, from pure physics, moving heat around rather than generating it is a far superior approach.

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-14T23:52:38+00:00

It's striking seeing ASEAN overtake the EU in value of imports on that timeline.

The level of imports from the two economic unions were running about the same but then diverged quite markedly in 2020.

Of course, the Covid panic would have played a role early on in this decoupling (easier for China to continue sourcing from ASEAN countries during the disruption) but it's significant that the gap has continued through '21 to '23.

Similar comparing South America to the USA, although the gap that's opened up is not so large.

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-14T23:43:06+00:00

Which is why Free Software is vitally important.

If the code can't be audited then it's not safe to run. Full Stop.

Oh, and btw, Richard Stallman predicted this ebook systopia back in 1997, when he published his article/story The Right to Read.

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-11T02:09:22+00:00

Oh, I've now thought to check the comments (on Rumble) and see that other ppl have identified the book as the same one I found.

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-11T02:04:07+00:00

At 32:44 Pepe mentions a book that he's currently reading by a female Chinese professor of philosophy from Xidian University, translated & published by Princeton University Press.

Pepe says the book is 'amazing' and is clearly very impressed by it. Unfortunately however, he doesn't name the author or the book.

I've done a little detective work and I think this may be the book he's talking about :

https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691242729/chinese-cosmopolitanism

It checks out because the author is a female professor of philosophy at Xidian University.

Hope this helps anyone who was also intrigued by Pepe's description of the book.

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-09T01:38:07+00:00

Thanks for this reply and the links you included.

The D-Dimer thing sounds interesting, will look into it. Possible affects on my blood is something that I have some concern about.

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-02T22:56:21+00:00

Haven't watched this yet, but what I'm personally interested in is how to ameliorate any potential damage to yr general health from taking the vaccine.

I (foolishly) took two shots of the Pfizer vaccine. I didn't have any nasty reactions to the shots; indeed the second shot I barely felt. However, I did take them and it is now clear that taking them was a mistake and an unnecessary risk.

So I'd like to know whether there is any regime you can follow to ameliorate any post-vaccine damage, or any screening / tests you can take to detect potential damage.

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-02T22:47:30+00:00

I acknowledge yr personal experience in this area (which I don't have).

Regarding this :

not much changes when a company treats its workers well and they unionize

I would say it depends on the union that those workers join. Just as there are bad corporations (Ford, GM, etc) there are also bad unions. And I think the two are somewhat mirror images, although it's still much better for the pair to exist (Ford, GM <> UAW) rather than there only be the bad corporations (e.g. the all powerful chaebols in South Korea). But I think if the workers do work for a good company (putting aside whether Tesla is good or not), then joining a 'bad' union would be a mistake.

So now going back to Tesla, I think it will be determined how well its workers think of the company, on whether they collectively decide to join the UAW. If they do then that will indicate that the company is bad enough for it to be worthwhile to join a bad (but powerful) union.

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-02T12:54:43+00:00

I agree with Musk's take on unions. He says that if Tesla's workforce unionise then the company will have deserved it (i.e. badly treated its workers).

I don't believe Tesla is badly treating its workers at this point in time, and I doubt the UAW will be successful in its attempt to unionise Tesla.

However, Ford, GM and Stellantis all thoroughly deserve the treatment that they got from the UAW. Bad companies deserve union action.

ageingrockstar · 2023-12-02T08:37:34+00:00

Took me a day to get round to watching this but I'm glad I kept the tab open

Have now watched it; Catherine was a great guest and prompted a good discussion

ageingrockstar · 2023-11-30T06:43:06+00:00

Monty Python's take :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=En7bhLPso2Y

ageingrockstar · 2023-11-30T06:39:36+00:00

Btw, in a slightly odd corner of the web, there's a website called DeathList :

https://deathlist.net/

Here's how it works :

DeathList is a list of 50 celebrities chosen by the DeathList committee, before the commencement of the year, for the fact they may die during the year. The DeathList rules are as follows: Candidates must be famous enough such that their death is confidently expected to be reported by the UK media; Candidates cannot be famous solely for the fact they are likely to die imminently and only 25 candidates can reappear from the previous year’s list.

As you can see, HK was #2 on the 2023 list (taking their current score for the year to 16/50). But they also show that he had been on earlier years' lists 10 times previously, the first time in 1993. So it took a long time until the DeathList called his departure successfully.

ageingrockstar · 2023-11-30T06:35:09+00:00

Wyatt Reed :

It’s the liberals who freely celebrate the news of his death, totally untethered from the reality of the system he stewarded, and completely unaware of how the Vietnam-level slaughter of Slavic boys they just cheered in Ukraine fits into any of it.

...

It’s the fact that his system of worldwide dominance outlives him, and that so many of those who now claim to hate him think just like him — but don’t have the brains to realize it.

https://twitter.com/wyattreed13/status/1730085838443147659

ageingrockstar · 2023-11-29T22:39:56+00:00

That's an extraordinary photo at the top of the article

ageingrockstar · 2023-11-29T22:36:32+00:00

There is no 'cloud'

There is only storage on other ppl's (corporate controlled) computers, with all of the risks that this entails but which are obfuscated by this deceptive marketing term

ageingrockstar · 2023-11-29T08:47:29+00:00

I liked Kim's little takedown of the bullshit term 'human shield' later in this segment. She made a good case for why it's just another propagandistic tool.

ageingrockstar · 2023-11-29T04:25:04+00:00

Just updating this conversation to drop a link to this recent article :

https://planb.lugano.ch/can-freedom-truly-be-free/

Which provides a good summary of the current issues with the server based, advertising supported model for social media, and talks about how Keet / Holepunch has implemented a liberating solution (from tech tyranny).

Keet's recently moved into Beta. I've been testing it on mobile and it's shown a lot of progress from the Alpha build (which was already pretty good). For example, I'm in a chat room that has more than 500 members and the discussion is easily shared by keet across all the members' phones (with transmission in encrypted form). No servers involved; no trust in or resources needed from a (corporate) third party. However it's still undergoing constant development and weekly updates, up to a proposed full release in February of next year, so for now best for ppl happy to be beta testers (and ppl keen to get a taste of a liberating technology)

With the issues that Saidit is facing, the value of the 'never on a server' motto has been made more clear. If you're not running on servers then there's nothing for a Distributed Denial of Service attack to attack. (The constant cloudflare prompts show that saidit is under a DDOS attack, which has been kept up for some time now.)

ageingrockstar · 2023-11-27T20:57:26+00:00

I'm a (big) fan of Simplicius but this critical comment underneath the sitrep was well made. There were also some good comments by ThermalVision critiquing Simp's 'AI' credulity

ageingrockstar · 2023-11-27T19:23:18+00:00

Noam Chomsky on Khazar Theory & Israel DNA Claims :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmOBsYbxPCY

Edit to add : if you watch the short (4 min) video linked above, look at the top comments below the video too. There are some good ones.

ageingrockstar · 2023-11-26T02:29:53+00:00

Word

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