Dropping by in-between belts of rain here that have been coming down so hard (accompanied by a high wind warning) that I have seen waves of water blowing down my street like snow drifting on a highway during a blizzard.
Two things, loosely linked in my overly-lateral mind...:
That Rubio speech in Munich was really alarming to me.
It's a full-throated apologia for explicitly euro-centric Christian colonialism. It's delusional in its sense of history. And Rubio is working so hard to name-check all of the European colonial powers on his way to rewriting himself as a proud Spanish-American:
Our [US] story began with an Italian explorer whose adventure into the great unknown to discover a new world brought Christianity to the Americas – and became the legend that defined the imagination of a our pioneer nation.
Our first colonies were built by English settlers, to whom we owe not just the language we speak but the whole of our political and legal system. Our frontiers were shaped by Scots-Irish – that proud, hearty clan from the hills of Ulster that gave us Davy Crockett and Mark Twain and Teddy Roosevelt and Neil Armstrong.
Our great midwestern heartland was built by German farmers and craftsmen who transformed empty plains into a global agricultural powerhouse – and by the way, dramatically upgraded the quality of American beer. (Laughter.)
Our expansion into the interior followed the footsteps of French fur traders and explorers whose names, by the way, still adorn the street signs and towns’ names all across the Mississippi Valley. Our horses, our ranches, our rodeos – the entire romance of the cowboy archetype that became synonymous with the American West – these were born in Spain. And our largest and most iconic city was named New Amsterdam before it was named New York.
And do you know that in the year that my country was founded, Lorenzo and Catalina Geroldi lived in Casale Monferrato in the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia. And Jose and Manuela Reina lived in Sevilla, Spain. I don’t know what, if anything, they knew about the 13 colonies which had gained their independence from the British empire, but here’s what I am certain of: They could have never imagined that 250 years later, one of their direct descendants would be back here today on this continent as the chief diplomat of that infant nation. And yet here I am, reminded by my own story that both our histories and our fates will always be linked.
The part of that which jumped out at me was his reference to the "Scots-Irish – that proud, hearty clan from the hills of Ulster that gave us Davy Crockett and Mark Twain and Teddy Roosevelt and Neil Armstrong." I've read enough American lit to be sensitive to invocations of the Scots-Irish as a clan to hear the rhetoric that built the resurgence of the KKK at the turn of the 20th C.. Nothing here is out of place with that Klan rhetoric except for Rubio's ethnic heritage.
The second thread that runs through Rubio's speech is the Climate Rejectionism. Rubio is so very fucking cocksure that the "climate cult" is using fear to suffocate capitalism and weaken nations.
I'm making a sideways leap here that is outside of the explicit context of Rubio's speech, but so very in line with the ethno-religious calvinism of his mytho-historical conception of civilization belonging to the West...
Fast Company has highlighted the ecofascistic streak running through the Epstein files:
“Maybe climate change is a good way of dealing with overpopulation,” Epstein writes. “the earths forest fire. potentially a good thing for the species.”
[screenshot of the email]
Linking the conversation back to the earlier topic of how brains function, Epstein adds: “too many people . . . [it] is the fundamental fact that everyone dies at some time. make it [impossible] to ask so why not earlier. if the brain discards unused neurons, why [should] society keep their equivalent.”
What Fast Company does not explicitly note in their analysis is how this conversation between Epstein and Joscha Bach is that it starts with Epstein musing over the genetic inferiority of blacks and the need to improve human genetics.
That whole line of thinking is right at home with the view of history that undergirds Rubio's speech, and it highlights the importance to Rubio of his being able to link his family back to Spain, and not to the indigenous population of the New World.
The whole philosophical underpinnings of these western chauvinist christian nationalists are morally repulsive.
4 weeks ago
wonkie - High Country News has a series they call "Deep Time in the West" that sounds like it's the sort of thing you would love. Here's a shorter sample of the sort of things in the series:
...and it's talking about things in your back yard.
It's a great series.
4 weeks ago
Looks like Brett Adcock is taking advantage of the low-key finance panic around a potential AI winter to introduce a new shiny with the promise of unrealized exponential growth. I'm betting he's hoping to secure some venture capital now before one of the big AI firms goes public and sucks up all the potential investment ahead of the inevitable sobering up period that will follow.
Humanoid robots with AI brains - it's the next big thing. It's bigger than AI. It's bigger than self-driving cars. It's bigger than Segways. It's bigger than virtual reality.
[It hasn't yet run out of low hanging fruit to discover its own intractable problems.]
Robots in dorms? We're already forcing students to take on unsustainable levels of debts to pay for their university education and they are barely able to keep their old smartphone and cheap laptop functioning. Now they are going to bring a robobutler to campus with them? Maybe they can use it to cook them instant ramen and write their papers while they work their two part-time jobs to pay for it and all their other expenses.
At least the part time jobs that haven't already been taken by robots. (We've already got little self-guided robots delivering food for students in the dorms here, so don't even think of starting a bike delivery service as a side hustle.)
Seriously, though, how does any of this entrepreneurial hype make any sense?
I'm already sick of having to replace my phone every five years and they want me to invest in a robobutler?
GTFO.
These jokers and their investors are all high AF.
4 weeks ago
My in-laws in Colorado on the other side of the divide are freaking out about the lack of water and snowpack, too.
I used to teach this science fiction short story by Paolo Bacigalupi at least once a year in my writing class, and it never failed to get my students thinking a lot more deeply about the water issues we face in the western US:
It's imagining a desertified West with a weak federal government and interstate conflict, with parts of the Southwest unsustainable for living due to water demands.
Interesting story for looking at our current situation through the eyes of a potential future.
Meanwhile, I'm unable to ride the local trails at the moment because So Cal has had rain, and will have more again at the start of next week. It's probably not enough to save the local snowpack in the Sierra, but it damn sure is going to help give us a little margin before things start to dry out and get hotter again.
Dropping by in-between belts of rain here that have been coming down so hard (accompanied by a high wind warning) that I have seen waves of water blowing down my street like snow drifting on a highway during a blizzard.
Two things, loosely linked in my overly-lateral mind...:
That Rubio speech in Munich was really alarming to me.
https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2026/02/secretary-of-state-marco-rubio-at-the-munich-security-conference
It's a full-throated apologia for explicitly euro-centric Christian colonialism. It's delusional in its sense of history. And Rubio is working so hard to name-check all of the European colonial powers on his way to rewriting himself as a proud Spanish-American:
The part of that which jumped out at me was his reference to the "Scots-Irish – that proud, hearty clan from the hills of Ulster that gave us Davy Crockett and Mark Twain and Teddy Roosevelt and Neil Armstrong." I've read enough American lit to be sensitive to invocations of the Scots-Irish as a clan to hear the rhetoric that built the resurgence of the KKK at the turn of the 20th C.. Nothing here is out of place with that Klan rhetoric except for Rubio's ethnic heritage.
The second thread that runs through Rubio's speech is the Climate Rejectionism. Rubio is so very fucking cocksure that the "climate cult" is using fear to suffocate capitalism and weaken nations.
I'm making a sideways leap here that is outside of the explicit context of Rubio's speech, but so very in line with the ethno-religious calvinism of his mytho-historical conception of civilization belonging to the West...
Fast Company has highlighted the ecofascistic streak running through the Epstein files:
https://www.fastcompany.com/91490280/epstein-files-how-ultra-wealthy-peddle-climate-denialism
What Fast Company does not explicitly note in their analysis is how this conversation between Epstein and Joscha Bach is that it starts with Epstein musing over the genetic inferiority of blacks and the need to improve human genetics.
That whole line of thinking is right at home with the view of history that undergirds Rubio's speech, and it highlights the importance to Rubio of his being able to link his family back to Spain, and not to the indigenous population of the New World.
The whole philosophical underpinnings of these western chauvinist christian nationalists are morally repulsive.
wonkie - High Country News has a series they call "Deep Time in the West" that sounds like it's the sort of thing you would love. Here's a shorter sample of the sort of things in the series:
https://www.hcn.org/issues/58-1/how-to-find-deep-time-in-seattle/
...and it's talking about things in your back yard.
It's a great series.
Looks like Brett Adcock is taking advantage of the low-key finance panic around a potential AI winter to introduce a new shiny with the promise of unrealized exponential growth. I'm betting he's hoping to secure some venture capital now before one of the big AI firms goes public and sucks up all the potential investment ahead of the inevitable sobering up period that will follow.
Humanoid robots with AI brains - it's the next big thing. It's bigger than AI. It's bigger than self-driving cars. It's bigger than Segways. It's bigger than virtual reality.
[It hasn't yet run out of low hanging fruit to discover its own intractable problems.]
Robots in dorms? We're already forcing students to take on unsustainable levels of debts to pay for their university education and they are barely able to keep their old smartphone and cheap laptop functioning. Now they are going to bring a robobutler to campus with them? Maybe they can use it to cook them instant ramen and write their papers while they work their two part-time jobs to pay for it and all their other expenses.
At least the part time jobs that haven't already been taken by robots. (We've already got little self-guided robots delivering food for students in the dorms here, so don't even think of starting a bike delivery service as a side hustle.)
Seriously, though, how does any of this entrepreneurial hype make any sense?
I'm already sick of having to replace my phone every five years and they want me to invest in a robobutler?
GTFO.
These jokers and their investors are all high AF.
My in-laws in Colorado on the other side of the divide are freaking out about the lack of water and snowpack, too.
I used to teach this science fiction short story by Paolo Bacigalupi at least once a year in my writing class, and it never failed to get my students thinking a lot more deeply about the water issues we face in the western US:
https://windupstories.com/books/pump-six-and-other-stories/the-tamarisk-hunter/
It's imagining a desertified West with a weak federal government and interstate conflict, with parts of the Southwest unsustainable for living due to water demands.
Interesting story for looking at our current situation through the eyes of a potential future.
Meanwhile, I'm unable to ride the local trails at the moment because So Cal has had rain, and will have more again at the start of next week. It's probably not enough to save the local snowpack in the Sierra, but it damn sure is going to help give us a little margin before things start to dry out and get hotter again.