While some science fiction imagines humanity alone in the universe, other stories imagine that life just like our own is plentiful outside our Solar System. One common thread in such stories is the idea of precursor civilisations - ancient races that lived, died and passed out of general knowledge long before humanity took to the stars.
On the work of Akihiko #Okamura, Japanese war photographer who moved from #Vietnam to Ireland, to record the 'surreal dislocation of the everyday' during the troubles in the North of #Ireland
Economics: "Humans only value things monetarily."
Sociology: "Uh, | don't..."
Economics: "Humans are always rational and value is calculated by complex internal calculus."
Sociology: "Uhhh, Psy, can you help?" Psychology: "That's not how humans..." Economics: "ALSO MY SYSTEM WILL GROW EXPONENTIALLY FOREVER!!"
Physics: drops teacup
New on Assigned, I found out earlier today that Jonathan Haidt, the author of the splashy new pop-psych book about how smartphones are bad for kids, believes and is promoting a fringe theory that kids are becoming #trans due to social media as well.
Haidt told PBS that "clusters of girls" are developing gender dysphoria when they never had it before.
The problem, of course, is that there's no research whatsoever backing that up. #science#news
Ho lee shit.
The AP has found that the number of deaths caused by the police in the US is SIGNIFICANTLY higher than thought because they're not always reported as being "officer-involved."
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The investigation found that between 2012 and 2021, more than a thousand people died after police use physical force that was not intended to be lethal. That includes batons, stun guns, physical restraints, and chemical agents. The oldest victim was 95 and the youngest 15.
Only 28 of the officers were charged.
The Police role was only cited in about half of the cases, meaning that many more Americans have died at the hands of the police than was previously known.
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The thing happening here is of a piece with the enshittification Doctorow talks about (a useful model despite overuse) but it’s bigger than that. “The collapse of the value of knowable truth under the dead weight of financialization” is probably too simple, but idk.
Thinking about the panicky rush to replace teetering systems of knowledge with plausible-word machines + the old days of plaster dust in milk and spent tea leaves boiled in sheep shit and resold as new.
https://www.europesays.com/1128543/ How to Avoid Food System Collapse: If Atlantic Ocean currents break down, the Northern Hemisphere could face crop failures. So why isn’t there a plan for that? #Climate
also, "DEI is a term that has become increasingly more polarizing."
remarkable how even US journalists who evidently try really really hard and have clear positioning still end up defaulting to "polarization" as an overarching frame.
"What is happening at Boeing is happening in every industry. A general trend toward financialisation & hedge fund culture that sees only numbers, not peoples lives or wellbeing. It's just that aviation has a way of making the corruption impossible to hide. It's the dead canary." - Ben King
It's always bothered me that when people adapt Kafka's Metamorphosis they depict Gregor Samsa as a roach. Cockroaches do not undergo metamorphosis. They are born as nymphs which are just smaller wingless versions of the adult form.
Kafka writes that Gregor can only enjoy rotten food. Which also makes him not at all roach-like. Roaches strongly prefer fresh vegetables to rotten ones.
I always imagined him as a beetle. Which implies that the man Gregor was a larvae for all his pre-bug life.
@futurebird Someone once told me "It's not Kafkaesque to wake up an insect. If you wake up an insect and your first thought is that this might make you late for work...that is Kafkaesque." That completely changed my perspective on a lot of things.
I think about Kahneman's work in behavioral economics whenever we warp the world around the theory of homo economicus, the wealth maximizing machine person
TIL that the “blood geyser” trope in sword fighting movies, animated or otherwise, comes from a technical failure on a Kurosawa set in 1962 that the man himself refused to reshoot because the actors stayed in character and the shot looked so cool.
Brooklyn is, without doubt, the US's capital of pirate (unlicensed, unauthorized, illegally operated) community radio stations. Wander around neighborhoods with an FM radio, especially on weekends, and between the regular stations and the static you'll reliably find a range of (often unpolished) stations serving hyperlocal news, world music, and even ads.
Abortion rights return to the Supreme Court for the first time since Dobbs this week, as Republicans aim to ban the safest and most common form of abortion in all 50 states.
Here's a good explanation at the principle Republicans hope to use to finish off bodily autonomy -- and thus most birth control, IVF, and surrogacy -- in America.
"The head of the IPCC has compared the rollout of carbon capture and storage (#CCS) to "trying to push water uphill," questioning a technology that the oil and gas industry has long touted as integral to net-zero emission plans.
The International Energy Agency has previously called for the oil and gas industry to let go of the "illusion" that carbon capture is a solution to climate change, pushing instead for energy majors to ramp up investments in clean energy."
"[#Exxon] is suing #investors to intimidate them from ever trying to influence corporate decisions.
“What they’re trying to do is silence shareholder voices, specifically to silence the voices of shareholders who are concerned about #ClimateRisk,” he added. “It’s noteworthy that a company like Exxon is so determined to shut down the conversation… amongst shareholders about these long-term risks.” "
Sounds like they're soiling their pants over "climate risk".
