4 days agoMember-onlyThis Garbage CivilizationWhat do we leave as our monuments? Garbage and landfills — I worked at McDonald’s when I was 14 years old and at the end of shift I’d have to throw away any leftovers. There was a laminated sheet under the register that listed the accounting value of the stuff we sold, and it was fraction of what we sold it…Future6 min readFuture6 min read
6 days agoMember-onlyThe Subtle Propaganda Of HollywoodHow Hollywood violently defends the status quo — I was watching F9 (of the Fast & Furious franchise) and I was struck by one line. The Fast crew is working for the CIA now (who are somehow the good guys) and the bad guy’s plan is to “reboot the world order within minutes.” As if that’s a bad…Hollywood7 min readHollywood7 min read
May 28Member-onlyWhy Russia Is Going To WinAccording to John Mearsheimer, who predicted the war in the first place — John Mearsheimer is an imperial scholar who predicted the Ukraine War years ago (along with many others from within Empire itself). I call him imperial because he argues not that American warmongering is bad but that it should be done better. But even an imperial clock is right twice a…Russia15 min readRussia15 min read
May 26Member-onlyTwo Parents Is Too LittleDifferences in parenting between Sri Lanka and the UK — I have left my children in Sri Lanka which means they’re down to zero parents now. But they’re not. They’re with two sets of grandparents and one set of great-grandparents and two maids and a cook and a driver and two guards that follow them while they pretend to walk…Family10 min readFamily10 min read
May 25Member-onlyThe Worst Case Scenario For AI Is Already HereCorporations are AI and they’ve been fucking up the world for centuries — If you expand your definition of AI to match the legal definition, it’s already here. Corporations have had legal personhood for centuries and used that to run riot over the world. Just because these artificial beings have human components we don’t call them AI, but we’re the ones getting squashed…AI4 min readAI4 min read
May 25Member-onlyHow Science Played With Magic And Got BurntAny sufficiently advanced tech is indistinguishable from magic — For all the innovation of science, we still fundamentally depend on magic potions and rocks. Fossil fuels are the magic potions brewed deep in the earth, and magnets, uranium, and rare earth minerals are the magic rocks. We can cast incantations over these ingredients and the incantations work, but we…Science4 min readScience4 min read
May 24Member-onlyWhat The Blood Sacrifice Of The Maya Can Teach Us About TodayGenital mutilation vs. the mutilation of the planet. What’s more gruesome? — Mesoamerican civilization is usually characterized as blood-thirsty, which I suppose it technically is. As the late Linda Schele and David Freidel write in A Forest Of Kings, Now we call this world Mesoamerica, a term which refers not only to geography, but to a Precolumbian cultural tradition that shared a…History7 min readHistory7 min read
May 23Member-onlyHow The Ancients Had Better Technology Than UsThey had communication technology so powerful it reaches us still — In the Three Body Problem, scientists at the end of the world rack their brains for the most long-lasting storage technology and sheepishly come back with this answer: “According to the most advanced theories and techniques in every field, based on extensive theoretical research and experimentation, through analysis and comparison…History6 min readHistory6 min read
May 20Member-onlyHow Electric Vehicles Won’t Save UsMinerals are also non-renewable resources — One of the few pieces of ‘capital’ an ordinary human owns is a car. Given the planet-fuckery that capitalism has become, this is the most obvious thing to ‘fix’. Today we are relentlessly advertised electric vehicles as a solution, a transition that lets us have our cake and eat it…Electric Vehicles7 min readElectric Vehicles7 min read
May 19Member-onlyThe Poor RichStrange lessons from the Netflix show ‘How To Get Rich’ — I’ve been watching the reality TV show How To Get Rich which I want to hate, but I don’t. The unfortunate title is not what I think the host Ramit Sethi intended. He keeps referring to how to live your rich life, which is a very different concept. As he…Money6 min readMoney6 min read
