State of the Discussion

Thanks Charles, though I have my doubts about Grok's accuracy. I'm sure if Musk thought there was some money to be made, Grok would be claiming that Edwards is an assatarian...

russell - But which Christianity? There are a lot of them.

From the point-of-view of the christian nationalists, the answer to anyone capable of asking such a question is "clearly not yours." It's a very pluralistic, humanistic, Post-Enlightenment sort of question, and anyone who thinks that way is clearly an apostate and a victim of liberal delusions.

I think "breezy" captures a bit of the pejorative, since it is so often deployed as a collocation with "indifference."

I'm not going to bother trying to suss out the origins of Western Civilization as a concept because it is absolutely clear to me that the vast majority of the people who are acting as Western Civ chauvinists don't really mean Western Civilization when they deploy that term; it's just a bit to on-the-nose for them to say what they really mean: "Christendom."

They'll keep Judaism as a poor relation, and they have to baptize Plato and Aristotle posthumously (à la Aquinas) to keep their philosophical pretenses, but neither of those are truly in the line of succession. And if they can finally undo all that Enlightenment blather about pluralism and rationalism, they'll sure as shit go right back to calling it Christendom. Western Civ is just its nom de guerre.

The writer knew that Shambaugh hadn’t spoken to him and stuck them in anyway.

The writer's explanation.

"The piece was retracted the same day after Shambaugh revealed that quotes attributed to him were fabricated using AI, violating Ars Technica's policy against unlabeled AI-generated content. Edwards apologized publicly, attributing the error to rushing while ill with COVID and accidentally using ChatGPT-paraphrased text from Shambaugh's blog as quotes; he emphasized it was his sole responsibility and not representative of Ars' standards."

Ars Technica Writers' Reputation After Retraction

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:

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:

https://www.fastcompany.com/91490280/epstein-files-how-ultra-wealthy-peddle-climate-denialism

“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.

Some people are claiming they’ve gotten calls from agents acting on their own.

Unsurprising, given the possibility of programs like this
https://www.wlrn.org/immigration/2025-08-06/ice-offers-then-quickly-withdraws-cash-bonuses-for-swiftly-deporting-immigrants

I wouldn't be surprised that these bonuses are happening in other places, it is just that they haven't gotten anyone to blow the whistle.

Thank you for the article, Nous. I might use it in a novel I just started. I love the idea of finding deep time in an urban area.

Well, all those lazy detainment center alien inmates need to do something for their upkeep before their deportation (which can then be postponed indefinitely). Send them into the fields (in chains wherever possible). That will keep labor costs low (let's not kid ourselves, that has always been the #1 priority) and be the closest thing currently achievable to the reintroduction of slavery. The inevitable (and desirable) culling effect can be compensated for years by tapping into the reservoir of millions of deportation candidates. When that is used up, enough progress will have been made into establishing a proper US gulag system (and finding a proper merkin name for it).
Don't tell me that this isn't the wet dream of some of those involved in the current mess.

Thanks to Michael for posting the open thread and GftNC for requesting it.

Writing this immediately after writing that can lead to some unwanted inferences, but I'm wondering if anyone would like a spare set of keys to the blog in order to post a regular open thread (and no, I'm not going to get an AI agent to do that) I'll still be posting, but every bit of cognitive offloading helps at my age. Send a message to libjpn at gmail if you are interested.

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.

On Wednesday this week, Trump signed an executive order that requires the Dept of Defense -- excuse me, Dept of War -- to sign long-term power purchase agreements with coal-fired power plants to provide power for military bases to keep those plants running. Separately, that the Dept of Energy will provide at least $175M for maintaining and upgrading coal-fired power plants in Appalachia. The EO includes a provision that the PPAs cannot infringe on the authority of other executive branch agencies. I have SO many questions about how they're going to make this work within the constraints set by FERC.

The robots are coming.

"Peter & Dave sit down with Brett Adcock to discuss the future of Figure and Humanoid Robots."

The Humanoid Takeover: $50T Market, Figure's Full Body Autonomy, and Robots in Dorms

Ok, open thread:

AI agents now have their own social network. Humans can observe but (I think) not participate actively.

The agents have a lot to say to each other, apparently. They've even invented their own religion.

https://www.moltbook.com/

Between AI and the ever-larger Epstein blast radius, the world is just getting too freaking weird for me. I'm glad I'm old.

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.

Homan is sorta right. With the removal of the huge ICE mob, the public safety threats have largely been arrested. That's "arrested" meaning stopped.

This first thing I thought of when they announced the withdrawal as a victory was W's "Mission Accomplished" banner on the aircraft carrier.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice ... um, well ... don't get fooled again!

Don't know which thread to put this in, but I have just seen this in the Independent - the subheading says "Pullout from Minneapolis comes as Trump's approval ratings on immigration enforcement have thanked":

The Trump administration is ending the “surge” of thousands of immigration and law enforcement agents to Minnesota that sparked months of protests and led to the shooting deaths of two American citizens who were protesting the federal presence there.
White House Border Czar Tom Homan told reporters in Minneapolis on Thursday that there has been a “big change” in state and local officials’ willingness to assist in providing some support for federal operations in the state and said there has been less of a need to deploy “quick reaction forces” to protect agents from protesters.
“With that and [the] success that has been made arresting public safety threats and other priorities since this search operation began, as well as the unprecedented levels of coordination we have obtained from state officials and local law enforcement, I have proposed — and President Trump has concurred — that this surge operation conclude a significant drawdown has already been underway this week and will continue through the next week,” Homan said.

He added that “a small footprint of personnel” would remain in the area to supervise the transfer of “full command and control” of immigration enforcement in the state back to the ICE field office that has been in Minneapolis for decades.
Homan also said he would remain in Minneapolis “for a little longer” to “oversee the drawdown of this operation” while stressing that the massive deployment of agents that had been dubbed “Operation Metro Surge” by administration officials was in fact “ending.”

The administration's decision to withdraw the thousands of agents whose roving patrols and aggressive tactics roiled Twin Cities streets in what appeared to be a deliberate effort to punish Minnesotans for having voted against President Donald Trump in the 2024, 2020 and 2016 elections comes weeks after the White House dispatched Homan there in the wake of the shooting death of 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti at the hands of a Border Patrol agent.
Federal officials announced the deployment in early December, ostensibly to combat what the administration claimed was a wave of public benefits fraud by Somali immigrants after a viral video by a right-wing YouTube creator alleging that Minneapolis was filled with fake child care centers and medical businesses run by Somalis gained attention in conservative media circles.
Administration officials say the months-long effort has led to more than 4,000 arrests of what they allege to be “dangerous criminal illegal aliens” but that number has also included numerous American citizens and people without criminal records.

The White House had justified the outsized presence and roving patrols as necessary because Minnesota does not allow state and local law enforcement to conduct civil immigration enforcement, though Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey have maintained that ICE officers have always been permitted to take custody of people who are being released from jails and prisons at the end of a court-imposed sentence.
At one recent White House press briefing, press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed there are “thousands” of “criminal illegal aliens” held in Minnesota facilities and being released back into the community without notifying federal officials. One Department of Homeland Security press release recent alleged that there were “more than 1,360 active detainers for criminals in Minnesota jails” as well.

But the administration’s claims and purported justifications have also been undermined by Minnesota officials who have pointed out that only as many as 380 non-citizens were being held in state prisons — and of those, only 270 were subject to “detainers” filed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The Minnesota Department of Corrections also said there are roughly 100 non-citizens with “detainers” filed against them in county and local jails as well.
And while the administration has repeatedly claimed the aggressive operations in Minnesota were justified by the state government’s refusal to cooperate with federal enforcement efforts, Attorney General Pam Bondi further undermined those arguments last month when she sent a letter to state officials demanding access to the state’s voter database in exchange for removing agents from Minneapolis streets.
President Donald Trump has in recent months repeatedly lied about his electoral history in the Gopher State by claiming to have won it three times even though he has never carried the state’s electoral votes and no Republican has done so since the 1972 presidential election.
Walz had said earlier in the week that he expected the federal deployment to end in “days, not weeks and months” based on his own talks with administration officials, including Homan and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles.
And in the wake of Homan’s announcement, Walz said he was “cautiously optimistic” that the “surge of untrained, aggressive federal agents are going to leave Minnesota.”

People support Trump for reasons that have little to do with matters of fact in any social or economic or even political sense. It's tribal. They are on Team Trump.

I don't talk with Trump supporters about Trump. Or if and when I do, it's very brief, I just say that I think he's a crook and an asshole, and leave it at that. Oddly enough, they are also generally happy to leave it at that.

I have a friend who suggests talking with Trumpers about what motivates them, but without bringing Trump into it. For example, why is it necessary to deport people who have been here for decades. I haven't really tried that, but I guess it's an option.

The mason in the article has a valid complaint. People who live in southern border communities have valid complaints. People who were concerned about inflation had valid complaints. Whether they are looking in the right places for either causes or solutions is a different story, but the things they are unhappy with are not always unreasonable. They're just (IMO) looking at the wrong villains.

So, talking to the mason about undocumented labor and how that affects him could be useful. Etc.

But I really do think that Trump's base - the more or less 27-ish percent hard core - are basically unshakeable and there is nothing I'm gonna say or do that will move that.

If bad things happen to them, personally, or to someone in their family or close circle of friends, it could make a dent. Other than that, it ain't gonna happen.

Oddly, the nearest thing to really undermining his base support that I can think of was Trump et al saying that people shouldn't carry firearms to a protest. If there's one thing that might pry some of his base away, it's any hint of weakness around the 2nd A.

The paranoid style has always been a significant factor in the US. They aren't going away.

It comes down to this, social media is a communications technology that we are only just starting to adapt to. AI is another technology we will have to learn to use properly. Eventually, we will figure out how to use them without them being used abusively. The operative word being eventually.

Unfortunately, it will take us a while. Those of a historical bent might look at how our (great) great grandparents eventually dealt with "yellow journalism". Then, as now, a new technology for distributing information blossomed while distributing lots of misinformation. Over the course of decades, most (by now means all but most) people figured out that the tabloids were not reliable sources. Amusing, perhaps, but not reliable.

The challenge, once again, will be surviving while we figure out how the adjust and then roll out those adjustments across the population.