September 14, 2024

LAT: A key ally in the battle against climate change? People over 60

“Global warming is a fact,” said Olmstead, who attended the protest with Third Act, an organization of people over 60 who are dedicated to the preservation of democracy and the fight against climate change. The rocking chair was a nod to his age.
...

“Young people are leading these fights, but by themselves, they don’t have enough structural power” — such as the ability to wield assets and authority — “to make change on the scale we need and the time that we have,” McKibben said. “Older people have lots and lots of structural power — if you’ve reached the age where you have hair coming out your ears, you probably have structural power coming out your ears, too.”
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Many Third Act members in California shared similar motivations. After all, theirs is a generation known for its ability to organize — around the Vietnam War, around civil rights, around the birth of the modern environmental movement. They know how to make change, and some are eager to share that knowledge with younger people.

“A lot of us have been working on making the world a better place since we were young adults and have not let up for a minute,” said Ann Bartz, 73, a Third Act member who lives in Long Beach. Bartz recalled starting college at UC Berkeley not long after the bloody People’s Park protest in 1969. The Vietnam War was still raging, and soon she was participating in some of the demonstrations on campus.

https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-09-13/a-key-ally-in-the-battle-against-climate-change-people-over-60

and Third Act's website is https://thirdact.org/

September 6, 2024

More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley's Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity

Upcoming book that may be of interest.

From the publisher's website:

Description
How Silicon Valley’s heartless, baseless, and foolish obsessions—with escaping death, emergent AI tyrants, and limitless growth—pervert public discourse and distract us from real social problems

Tech billionaires have decided that they should determine our futures for us. According to Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Sam Altman, and more, the only good future for humanity is one powered by technology: trillions of humans living in space, functionally immortal, served by superintelligent AIs.

In More Everything Forever, science writer Adam Becker investigates these wildly implausible and often profoundly immoral visions of tomorrow—and shows why, in reality, there is no good evidence that they will, or should, come to pass. Nevertheless, these obsessions fuel fears that overwhelm reason—for example, that a rogue AI will exterminate humanity—at the expense of essential work on solving crucial problems like climate change. What’s more, these futuristic visions cloak a hunger for power under dreams of space colonies and digital immortality. The giants of Silicon Valley claim that their ideas are based on science, but the reality is darker: they come from a jumbled mix of shallow futurism and racist pseudoscience.

More Everything Forever exposes the powerful and sinister ideas that dominate Silicon Valley, challenging us to see how foolish, and dangerous, these visions of the future are.

Here's the link:

https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/adam-becker/more-everything-forever/9781541619593/

"shallow futurism and racist pseudoscience" - reminds me of some ideologies from the 20th century. Hitler's regime was based on racial pseudoscience, while Mussolini had his roots in a movement called futurism.

Article in Wired magazine online from 2019

When Futurism Led to Fascism—and Why It Could Happen Again

Today, when we talk about futurism, we’re not usually talking about sculpture, painting, or poetry. Futurists today are scenario builders, people with advanced degrees in strategic foresight, science fiction writers, consultants to businesses. Futurists focus largely on technology, and the field today is inextricably linked to technologists working on everything from artificial intelligence to Crispr. And today’s Futurists almost never link their work to the existence of Marinetti, and the Italian movement that came before them. This is in part because Marinetti was an artist, and the Italian Futurists worked in paint and bronze and clay, rather than future forecasts. And there is no direct link between Marinetti's group and the strategic foresight consultants working today. But the link is also one that today's futurists would prefer to avoid in part because of another element of the artists behind the Futurist Manifesto of 1909: Marinetti and his cohort embraced and championed fascism. There are lessons to be learned for today’s technologists and futurists in Marinetti’s manifesto, and it would be foolish to ignore them.

Let’s first take a look at the words often used to describe the Italian Futurist movement: invention, modernity, speed, industry, disruption, brash, energetic, combative. Italian Futurists were obsessed with cars and airplanes; they emphasized youth over experience; they believed that the only way to live was by pushing forward and never looking back. The first tenet in the manifesto reads, “We intend to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and fearlessness.”

Does any of this sound familiar? Disruption? Moving fast (and perhaps breaking things)? The rejection of history? Today’s most vocal voices in tech might not communicate their values with the same aplomb as the Italian poets, but they’re often saying the same kinds of things. Here’s a quote from Anthony Levandowski, cofounder of Waymo, about the value of history: “The only thing that matters is the future. I don’t even know why we study history. It’s entertaining, I guess—the dinosaurs and the Neanderthals and the Industrial Revolution, and stuff like that. But what already happened doesn’t really matter. You don’t need to know that history to build on what they made. In technology, all that matters is tomorrow.” Here’s a quote from the 1909 manifesto: “Why should we look back, when what we want is to break down the mysterious doors of the Impossible?” Where Marinetti declares “We stand on the last promontory of the centuries!” today’s technology moguls say “the future is now.” Where the Italian Futurists were hypnotized by cars and planes, today’s technologists are drooling over rocket ships and space travel. Where Marinetti believed that women were too effeminate to bring about the kind of speedy progress he desired, former Google employee James Damore writes about how the gender gap in tech exists because men and women "biologically differ".

https://www.wired.com/story/italy-futurist-movement-techno-utopians/

May 30, 2024

I've seen the excuses for targeting civilians that amount to this

The civilians deserve to be targeted because they once elected Hamas to represent them (with no subsequent election ever held)
The civilians are targeted because they have not removed Hamas from power and thus give their consent to Hamas (like the way the population of Belarus supports their dictator?)
The civilians are targeted because they "allow" Hamas to hide amongst them.
Civilians should starve because Hamas might steal any food aid.

I've seen all these here.

May 28, 2024

In honor of Doug Ingle, last surviving member of the Iron Butterfly

January 31, 2024

UK Guardian: Activist who led ouster of Harvard president linked to 'scientific racism' journal

The rightwing activist Christopher Rufo has links to a self-styled “sociobiology magazine” that is focused on the supposed relationships between race, intelligence and criminality, and which experts have characterized as an outlet for scientific racism.

At the time of reporting, Aporia was one of 19 Substack newsletters Rufo links to in the “recommended” section on his own newsletter, which according to Substack has more than 50,000 subscribers. Rufo also appeared on Aporia’s podcast, which has published flattering interviews with proponents of scientific racism and eugenics.

Rufo, a close ally of Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, and one of America’s most prominent activists fighting so-called “wokeism”, has repeatedly described his goal as “colorblind equality”, but his links to Aporia raises questions about Rufo’s proximity to extremists.
...
The Guardian emailed Rufo with questions on his apparent endorsement of Aporia, and how he reconciled that with his professed “colorblindness”. He did not respond directly to any questions put to him but instead made a crude sexual insult to a Guardian reporter.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/31/rightwing-activist-christopher-rufo-ties-scientific-racism-journal

These are the Neo-Nazis attacking the most prestigious US universities, with the assistance of their republican hencement.

January 24, 2024

NPR: Raped, pregnant and in an abortion ban state? Researchers gauge how often it happens

...Dickman used to live and practice in Texas, and he began to wonder about patients who became pregnant due to rape in states where abortion is no longer an option. (He is also the medical director of Planned Parenthood Montana and a plaintiff in several lawsuits challenging abortion restrictions in Montana.)

He and a group of colleagues have arrived at an answer. They estimate in a research letter published Wednesday in JAMA Internal Medicine that 64,565 pregnancies have been caused by rape in the 14 states where abortion is banned.

The figure, while an estimate that may spark some debate, is an important data point since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Supreme Court decision overturned the federal guarantee of abortion rights. While there once was political consensus that abortion should be permitted in cases of rape, that has changed. Few states with total bans on abortion have exceptions for rape. Those that have exceptions require victims to report the rape to authorities, something that research shows happens only in a small fraction of sexual assaults.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2024/01/24/1226161416/rape-caused-pregnancy-abortion-ban-states?utm_medium=JSONFeed&utm_campaign=news

January 21, 2024

Military interests are pushing new nuclear power, and the UK government has finally admitted it

https://phys.org/news/2024-01-military-nuclear-power-uk.html

The UK government has announced the "biggest expansion of the [nuclear] sector in 70 years." This follows years of extraordinarily expensive support.

Why is this? Official assessments acknowledge nuclear performs poorly compared to alternatives. With renewables and storage significantly cheaper, climate goals are achieved faster, more affordably and reliably by diverse other means. The only new power station under construction is still not finished, running ten years late and many times over budget.

So again: why does this ailing technology enjoy such intense and persistent generosity?
...
Official UK energy policy documents fail substantively to justify nuclear power, but on the military side the picture is clear.

For instance, in 2006 then prime minister Tony Blair performed a U-turn to ignore his own white paper and pledge nuclear power would be "back with a vengeance." Widely criticized for resting on a "secret" process, this followed a major three volume study by the military-linked RAND Corporation for the Ministry of Defense (MoD) effectively warning that the UK "industrial base" for design, manufacture and maintenance of nuclear submarines would become unaffordable if the country phased out civil nuclear power.

A 2007 report by an executive from submarine-makers BAE Systems called for these military costs to be "masked" behind civil programs. A secret MoD report in 2014 (later released by freedom of information) showed starkly how declining nuclear power erodes military nuclear skills.

January 19, 2024

Who is most efficient in health care? Study finds, surprisingly, it's the VA

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-01-efficient-health-va.html

Private-sector hospitals, clinics, and insurers are bloated, bureaucratic nightmares compared to efficiently run Veterans Health Administration facilities that put care over profits, a new study reveals.

The study, by researchers at Hunter College of the City University of New York, Harvard Medical School, the Veterans Health Administration, and the University of Washington, points fingers at profit-driven private facilities and insurers, where a whopping 30% of staff are stuck in the tangled web of paperwork, while the VHA shines with a lean 22.5% administrative staff. That means nearly 900,000 fewer paper pushers would be needed if private hospitals, clinics, and insurers took a page from the VHA's playbook.

The research is published in the journal JAMA Network Open.

Most of the bloat comes because profit-seeking insurers try to avoid paying for care by imposing complex rules and documentation requirements.

The final quoted sentence hits it on the bell. This is why we need single payer.

December 25, 2023

December 1972 - The Christmas Bombing of Hanoi

Operation Linebacker II, sometimes referred to as the Christmas bombings, was a strategic bombing campaign conducted by the United States against targets in North Vietnam from December 18 to December 29, 1972, during the Vietnam War. More than 20,000 tons of ordnance was dropped on military and industrial areas in Hanoi and Haiphong and at least 1,624 civilians were killed. The operation was the final major military operation carried out by the U.S. during the conflict, and the largest bombing campaign involving heavy bombers since World War II.

By late 1972, U.S. combat involvement in Vietnam had been dramatically reduced, and negotiations to end the war were underway in Paris. After secret meetings in October between lead negotiators Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho, an informal agreement was reached. The terms included a total U.S. withdrawal, North Vietnam's recognition of South Vietnam, new borders based on the present front lines, and new elections in the South, which would include the then-banned Communist Party of Vietnam. South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu, however, totally rejected these terms when he was informed about them and, following Richard Nixon's reelection in November, the U.S. submitted new terms, which included the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) as the recognized national border, leading to a breakdown in negotiations on December 16. Nixon issued an ultimatum for the North to return to negotiations within 72 hours, after which he ordered the bombing campaign on December 18. Conducted by more than 200 B-52 bombers from Strategic Air Command supported by tactical planes of the Seventh Air Force and Task Force 77, the raids ran continuously over a 12-day period. The U.S. acknowledged the loss of 16 B-52 bombers, while North Vietnam claimed 34 bombers shot down.

The effect of the bombings on the peace negotiations is debated. On December 22, Nixon asked the North to return to the talks with the terms offered in October and warned Thieu that he would sign the agreement even if Thieu did not. The North agreed, and Nixon ordered a halt to the bombings on December 30. The North Vietnamese delegation stated that the campaign played no role in the decision to return to negotiations, while an aide to Kissinger remarked that "[w]e bombed the North Vietnamese into accepting our concessions". On January 27, 1973, the Paris Peace Accords were signed along the same terms as the initial October agreement.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Linebacker_II

December 18, 2023

LAT: As border extremism goes mainstream, vigilante groups take a starring role

...
The encounter at the wall reflects the extremes to which perceptions of border insecurity are now driving the actions of both citizens and the government. Fueled by right-wing rhetoric about the border being overrun, long-established groups such as Foley’s are enjoying a resurgence, attracting volunteers from across the country and influencing the national debate on immigration.

Apart from Foley’s group, anti-government militias active in Arizona and Texas have spread Q-Anon conspiracy theories and filmed themselves “intercepting” migrant children before delivering them to the U.S. Border Patrol, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit advocacy organization.

One group has been documented crossing the border into Mexico on its patrols. At the same time, some Republicans in Congress have called for declaring drug cartels terrorist organizations and launching U.S. military strikes against them on Mexican territory.

Self-proclaimed Proud Boys have patrolled the border in southern Arizona since at least 2021 — often in coordination with established militias. Foley said he’d spoken several times with Oathkeepers leader Stewart Rhodes, who was sentenced to 18 years in prison on seditious conspiracy charges in connection with the Jan. 6 insurrection. Foley denied any formal relationship between their groups. He said he was in Washington when the Capitol was overrun but did not enter with the mob.

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-12-18/arizona-border-militias-extremism-mainstream-immigration