adamgreenfield

adamgreenfield, 5 months ago to random

There are, of course, worse things in the world, but I find it nearly unbearable that all of us are constantly exposed to the banal things Elon Musk thinks, says and does, whether we want to be or not. I cannot remember the last day on which I did not see or hear his name. (I’m doing it to you right now, and I hate it!) He is the very worst of us, and I look forward to a time in which he is first ignored and then forgotten.

adamgreenfield, 5 months ago to random

How much do you want to bet that vile Michelle Mone’s criticism of the equally vile Rishi Sunak, however well deserved, is primarily founded in her documented, public racism?

adamgreenfield, 5 months ago to random

Dear ones, I am sorry: you cannot educate people out of fascism, nor guilt-trip them into denouncing it if they’ve already embraced it. All you can do, when confronted with fascism, is organize to defeat it.

adamgreenfield, 5 months ago to random

Awwww. Rest in power, Toni Negri. “For me, a revolution isn’t made — it makes you. The revolution means to constantly live and construct moments of novelty and rupture.”

adamgreenfield, 5 months ago to random

Am I wrong to think that the actual petrostate kleptocrats/African dictators/Michelle Mones of the world trivially have any number of ways around all the “know your customer” and “anti-money laundering” requirements, and that they really only constitute a brake and an onerous friction on the activities of ordinary people undertaking legitimate transactions?

adamgreenfield, 5 months ago to random

Let’s be clear from the outset that, yes, some people don’t have the choice, but if you are fortunate enough that you do, your life does not need to be all struggle all the time. You are allowed to have moments of joy. You are allowed to be goofy, or trivial, or shallow. It doesn’t make you any less committed to the cause, and anyone who would judge you for it needs to reflect on why they feel compelled to do so. You definitely don’t need to answer to them.

adamgreenfield, 5 months ago to random

I want to echo what other folks have said about the (foolish and counterproductive) wave of cancellations Germany’s liberal institutions have evidently committed themselves to. If you’ve been disinvited, defunded or fired because of your support for the Palestinian cause – or even, increasingly, for having expressed anything but the most tepid and anodyne concern for what’s happening in Gaza – my goodness, wear that with pride. There will be plenty of us who want to hear what you have to say.

adamgreenfield, 5 months ago to random

It is refreshing to see that, for once, mainstream reportage on the ostensible Effective Accelerationism “movement” mentions its primary ideological inspirations and progenitors – Nick Land, the Extropians, etc. I don’t think the piece makes it clear just quite how repellent their positions would be to most stable, well-grounded people, but hey, it’s a start. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/technology/ai-acceleration.html

adamgreenfield, 5 months ago to random

Glenn Wallis's book "A Critique of Western Buddhism: Ruins of the Buddhist Real" is available free here, in a variety of formats. (Glenn is an accomplished scholarly interlocutor of the Buddhist canon, but I knew him first as guitarist for legendary 1980s Philly hardcore band RUIN.) https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/45850

adamgreenfield, 5 months ago to random

Let’s talk about you for a second. How are you doing? Not particularly well, I imagine: after all, most of us work in fields that are ultimately about the scaled preservation of life and the expansion of possibility in one way or another, and yet right now, this very moment, a process is unfolding which makes a mockery of all that work. We have to sit here knowing that this atrocity is unfolding, and that not one of us can do a goddamned thing about it – maybe not even all of us together.

adamgreenfield, 5 months ago to random

When we moved to the UK, ten years ago this month, there were still at least the rudiments of a functioning public health service. You only rarely saw homeless people on the streets of London, and just about never women. You’d routinely meet people of all sorts from all over Europe who were here for the same reasons we were, or others, who brought their energy and perspectives to everything they did. And none of that is true now. I feel like the proverbial frog in boiling water.

adamgreenfield, 5 months ago to random

Jesus god almighty, this picture. If this doesn't win a Pulitzer, there's no point in running any such competition.

adamgreenfield, 6 months ago to random

I’ve just today encountered the term “muggle” for the first time, and, what is worse, in a context where it’s quite seriously being applied in real-life interactions with folks others might call “normies” or “mundanes.” Beloved, I get where this wounded, preemptive defensiveness comes from, I really and truly do. But it’s…not a good look for adults. Most everyone contains depths, some of them quite unexpected; most everyone will be capable of surprising you. (Or they may simply be masking!)

adamgreenfield, 6 months ago to random

Every once in awhile I get the urge to print up a mess of t-shirts that read JOHN BRUNNER WAS BASICALLY RIGHT. This is one of those times.

adamgreenfield, 6 months ago to random

Spot the ABSOLUTELY BASIC error in this otherwise-interesting piece on high-energy cosmic rays. Truly most of us (myself often enough included) are virtually illiterate as to the fundamental contours of being-in-the-universe, and science journalism like this doesn’t help. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/nov/24/amaterasu-extremely-high-energy-particle-detected-falling-to-earth

adamgreenfield, 6 months ago to KindActions

To accompany the forthcoming release of "Lifehouse," I'm commissioning short pieces for a pamphlet- or zine-style publication on the theme of Making Do in the Long Emergency, or broadly, the place where climate systems collapse intersects #mutualaid and #solarpunk. I've got a few friends and collaborators lined up, but let me know if you've got a project in mind you'd like to see included.

adamgreenfield, 6 months ago to random

Kids, I've just seen an image of a Russian-made Sukhoi attacking a Syrian position misidentified as an IDF aircraft bombing Gaza. I know it's tempting to think a plane is a plane and an oppressor is an oppressor, but please, please be extra-careful in reposting these images.

adamgreenfield, 6 months ago to random

The saddest thing about Elon Musk — and there are many, many sad things about Elon Musk — is that this nominal grown-ass man still uses the word "based" in 2023.

adamgreenfield, 6 months ago to random

Look: I can, at a stretch, imagine taking pleasure at the thought of defeating an enemy in combat. But to mock the suffering of people denied access to the most basic measures of safety, care and dignity? To exult in the anguish of parents grieving their lost children? That's the moment at which your soul flickered and was extinguished. There's no coming back from that.

adamgreenfield, 6 months ago to random

Somewhere beneath all the other, rawer heartbreaks of Gaza, or coiled around them, is the specific grief I feel as a Jew that all of this is being inflicted under a flag bearing the star of my people — that wherever it appears, this symbol will only ever again remind people of this theft, anguish and suffering. It will be cursed by history, and it's hard to argue anything but that this is rightly so.

adamgreenfield, 6 months ago to random

Remember that this woman calls herself a Buddhist. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/nov/04/suella-braverman-says-rough-sleeping-is-lifestyle-choice

adamgreenfield, 6 months ago to random

BTW, you have about 24 hours left to buy this wonderful Dianna Settles print, a joint benefit for Medical Aid for Palestinians and the Atlanta Solidarity Fund. Support these righteous causes, by picking up some of her fantastic work for yourself. https://hilopress.bigcartel.com/product/dianna-settles-fundraiser-print

adamgreenfield, 7 months ago to random

I'm sorry to have to circle back around to this again, but if you don't have the moral clarity to name what Israel is doing in Gaza for what it is — in plain words, attempted genocide — then I simply cannot take anything else you have to say seriously.

adamgreenfield, 7 months ago to random

The other thing nothing can prepare you for about times of horror is that ordinary life keeps going for some, and maybe even for you. In one tab on your browser there is genocide and atrocity, the next an article about the best restaurants in Philadelphia right now, or a silly meme someone's sent you that you can't help giggling at. The affective shear is tidal, and can keep you from readily finding your feet, even when it doesn't tear you apart in and of itself.

adamgreenfield, 7 months ago to random

Once again, I need your help: I am trying to scare up a cellular automata-based visualization I remember seeing from a few years back, that essentially used a game-theoretical ruleset to illustrate how few sociopaths are necessary to turn a whole society sociopathic. Under the right circumstances, only a few moves were necessary to flip the entire field from "cooperator" cells to "betrayers." Is this ringing any bells for anyone, or am I making this all up?