It begins anew

 

It seems the never-ending Afghan conflict between the lesser greater evil and the greater greater evil (with the pure evil being thrown in for good measure) is starting all over again. At least according to the video above, which discusses an anti-Taliban resistance group called the AUF, headed by a former covert operations specialist from the old regime. OK, let me guess. If and when the Dems retake the White House, he will be declared the greater good and recieve some quality military assistance from The Man? Indeed, the AUF might be receiving it already, since their office is in Virginia! And the official launch of the organization was made through a US Neo-Con website...

It begins anew. 

Climate click bait

 

Greta Thunberg´s future husband? He´s perfect: autistic, nerdy, speaks English with a terrible British accent (I mean, the guy even *is* British) and is - wait for it - a climate change activist! I mean, dude. He´s probably privileged, too, since he pays people to research and produce his content. 

As for his video, it´s click bait. The message of this overly-long YouTube clip is - if you follow it to the end -that we haven´t lost. We can still save the planet...by renewable energy, diminishing our individual carbon footprints, and (surprise) vote for pro-climate politicians. Imagine that. We can actually *vote* ourselves out of this predicament. Let me guess. Green Party? 

But sure, he complains a lot about the evil oil companies. Gotta bait the young radical savages with something, I suppose. The funny thing is that all the negative stats he presents proves that we really have lost. Oh, and if he ever dates Greta, I´m sure she can tell him about how fucked CSC really is... 

I´m being I-ronick

 

What´s up with all the pessimism? Carthage was rebuilt, so was Jericho, New Rome survived the demise of the old version. There are more Jews and American Indians today than before they were supposedly "genocided". There are more Germans, too. And most of them are good liberals, jawohl. And oh, the dinosaurs survived that once-in-a-planetary-lifetime asteroid collision. Yes, really. They are in your backyard right now. We call them "birds".

So why is everyone so damn negative all the time? I mean, puleeze! Progress is eternal. As for the Fermi paradox, we really are alone. Which means we can expand forever. In all directions. Right now.

Just have to shoot all those pessimists first!

En stilla undran

 

Hur kan AI leda till högre produktivitet om det krävs människor för att dubbelkolla allt den gör, så att den inte gör fel? Är AI verkligen framtiden, eller världshistoriens största blåsning? 

Och vad händer när bubblan spricker... 

Learn how to code

 

- I assume your breakaway civilization
didn´t work out, huh?

"Learn how to code" was the smug response of mandarin liberals (or was it pink slip libertarians?) to the crisis of working class Amerik(w)a. Or something. But 50% of all code is apparently made by AI these days. So now what? "Learn how to monitor AI coding"? 

What if I just want my fucking real physical job back? We are monitoring the situation...

Inside out

 

Some scientists apparently un-ironically speculate that we may live *inside* a black hole. Well, that would explain a thing or two, I suppose...

Note what Sabine is saying here: there are several competing theories about black holes, each mathematically "correct". Yet, only one of them can be true - or none of them are. So naaah, you can´t just "shut up and do the math", as some midwits are trying to tell us.

Shut up *and do the empirical research* is the bottom line here. Note also that many scientists themselves suspect that the simplest explanation (a black hole is a singularity) simply can´t be true...and so the speculations continue. 

I actually see that as a singularly good thing! 

Crystal clear

Vacuum birefringence something-something. Magnetars turn nothingness into transparent crystal. Schwinger limit. Bizarre stuff. Therefore G-d? Or the interface between purusha and prakriti...

Crystal clear!

Trojans

 

Overheard on the web: "We finally found the solution to the Fermi paradox". Note that the AI is called Evil! Intelligent design, anyone? 

AI creates 16 new viruses from scratch

Freak show

 

There is some truth to this, tbh. 

Bad jokes

 

- Yes, Korea is here somewhere! Never heard of Oman...

Marx said that world history always repeats itself twice: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. Somebody has proposed burlesque as the third repetition. I´m not sure what stage Trump´s foreign policy has reached, but it´s certainly beyond farce at this point. 

Trump recently said that he will declare the Strait of Hormuz American territory. A few days later some spokesman of the Trump administration dismissed the statement as a joke?! Then, the erratic president threatened to "bomb the shit" out of Oman.

Another jocular remark, I suppose?

But perhaps Trump can still do something properly tragic, since he decided to scale down US involvement in a joint military exercise with South Korea, citing the ROK´s refusal to back his increasingly quixotic adventure in the Gulf. Instead, he bragged about having good relations with North Korea! The same North Korea which may be in the process of sending tens of thousands of fresh troops to aid the Russians in Ukraine.

It will be interesting to see if Trump´s end will be a tragedy, a farce or even a burlesque. Maybe the Don could at least give us one more performance? For old times sake.