alexander max

i have seen exactly zero evidence to suggest that peter thiel is anything other than a dumbass who got lucky once

YouTube video by Hermeto Pascoal Hermeto Pascoal - Música da Lagoa (Sinfonia do Alto Ribeira, 1985)

youtu.be/lZbfNtDCHdM?...

RIP HERMETO PASCOAL, the king of Brazil.

So many misread Debord/D+G as saying that representation is all that matters, where as the whole point is that representation becomes a way to manage material relations without having to directly address them AS LONG AS everyone continues to reap rewards from representation and self-recognition

Reading about expanding threats to interlibrary loan (bc of Trump's IMLS cuts, tariffs, etc.) means I need to re-up this:

Child Amputees, Aid Massacres, Mass Starvation—the Israeli War Crimes NYT Covers Less than Mamdani and 'Globalize the Intifada' Theoretical, third order, speculative violence must be condemned while actual, real world mass violence, that actually exists in reality, is seen as normal and unworthy of sustained coverage.

In the past month NYT has published 32 articles that mention Mamdani and “globalize the intifada", 13 that mention Israel's fake "aid" agency that's killed 800+, 5 on Israel's starvation campaign and two that mention, in passing, child amputees in Gaza. I argue this is makes no sense and is depraved

Hispanic journalist in Atlanta detained by ICE speaks out Mario Guevara tells the AJC about his month behind bars, and his once positive feelings toward Donald Trump.

“I’m plainly convinced that my situation in this ICE jail is direct retaliation for my coverage,” Mario Guevara told @ajc.com in an exclusive interview from the Folkston, Georgia ICE detention center where he is currently detained, despite a judge's bail order. “I haven’t committed any crimes.”

“It took from the invention of the photovoltaic solar cell, in 1954, until 2022 for the world to install a terawatt of solar power; the second terawatt came just two years later, and the third will arrive either later this year or early next.”

Moore’s Law eat your heart out. Jesus.

Just sit with this for a moment. Israel perpetrated what is certainly the largest single mass killing of trans people in history. And it's basically a footnote in an article in the NYT covered weeks after it happened.

work for more than thirty years. And already the thousands of academic books lining my offices are beginning to feel like archeological artifacts. Why turn to them to answer a question? They are so oddly inefficient, so quirky in the paths they take through their material. Now I can hold a sustained, tailored conversation on any of the topics I care about, from agnotology to zoosemiotics, with a system that has effectively achieved Ph.D.-level competence across all of them. I can construct the "book" I want in real time— responsive to my questions, customized to my focus, tuned to the spirit of my inquiry.

This piece on the humanities and AI is interesting. But I struggled with the text below, in which research is seen as the efficient extraction of what I already know I want. For me, the point of books is that they’re not ‘customized’ — their quirkiness is a feature, not a bug. tinyurl.run/cwxDSr

I am supposed to be writing questions for a discussion of the ethics of AI for a university panel. I keep coming back to the same question, given the ecological, social, and psychic cost of relying on AI, how can anyone who is serious about anything resembling an ethics actually support this stuff?

these are our brothers and we should be building a better world together

the story today is of a profoundly low energy military parade being met with millions of americans in nationwide protests denouncing the dictatorial pretensions of the president

The typical profile for this kind of political violence:

• White, middle-aged man with a history of failed (often quixotic) business ventures.

• Tendency towards grandiosity "stolen valor" claims

• Steeped in online extremist milieu

• Recent stressors: bakruptcy, breakup, death of a parent

tense scene at the salvation army

straight to the gulag

The police are a service. If you didn’t call for service, their presence is suspicious.

no gods or kings, onlyfans.

Also helps to remember that hope is not actually an emotion, it is action engaged consistently. Hope does make space beside itself for all kinds of emotions.

We feed you.
They hunt us.

Met an active duty member of the military yesterday who filed conscientious objector paperwork in response to deployment of military on U.S. soil.

Was told multiple Army have filed, unknown quantities in other branches.

prolonged and exhausting

So much is being normalised by Israel's impunity. I don't know of any other context where one side of negotiations is publicly asking for the destruction of the other side as a precondition for the negotiation. It's Orwellian in its twistedness. 🧵

Juntos Seguros | Community Safety Map Juntos Seguros helps keep our community safe and informed. Anonymous reporting, no login required. Together we are stronger.

Someone has created a community run website that shows if and where ICE is. Users can input data and check on what others in their community are reporting: juntosseguros.com

The year is 2028. Meta AI Waifu Plus Pro Platinum instructs 70 million American men to transfer all of their wealth into ZuckerCoin after voting for Zuck for Prez and a tsunami ballot initiatives proclaiming he can legally hold multiple state and local elected positions concurrent to the presidency.

Replacing peer review with "some coked up 19 year old libertarian" review does not strike me as a positive development. Imo.

One of the things I learned writing a book about global trade is that thing you got delivered next day started its journey *months* ago in China or SE Asia.

A few months from now you will see an explosion of stories about empty shelves. It’s going to blow people’s minds.

Is this bad? I'm no international shipping expert, but this sounds bad.

Always, but especially grateful for this wisdom today:

“be careful about the supposedly radical luminaries interjecting liberal Zionism into conversations about Palestine.

In these instances, “be careful” isn’t an appeal for you to keep safe; it’s a demand that you seek to protect everyone else.”