The Belligerent Optimist

Tens of thousands of Iranians being slaughtered. Continued suffering for Gaza. Yet the world is fixated on America.

This is not me diminishing anything. ICE is awful. But we need to get radically better at processing more if we want to actually mount a serious challenge to the avalanche of evil.

- Several leading Russian and Chinese figures die of asphyxiation after excessive laughter - “Americans will never act...” - Americans...not acting. - Generative AI consumes so much energy it generates Alcubierre warp bubbles. AI data centres vanish in a “pop”, and take all the tech bros with them. - Some kind of ‘Pacific Rim’ type shit. - EU Leaders cave (again). Peace in our time. War in yours. - Donald tries to buy...demands...INVADES (wtf?) Greenland (history blames Gerardus Mercator) - Those Independence Day ships show up. The world collectively sighs “that makes sense” - Everyone remembers Gaza again. - Everyone forgets about Gaza again. - My achillies still hurts - “Just one more turn mom!” - Sam Altman re: AGI - “Dead Economy Theory” - ‘IT’ happens. - NATO collapses (replaced by SUPER NATO) - Europeans realise why US flag burning is so popular in other parts of the world. - The New York Times rebrands as a local arts, culture and entertainment guide. - The Metaverse actually takes off (I know right?) - The vast majority of human suffering is ignored. - New forms of human suffering are commodified. - World War 3: Golden Thunderdome - Extraterrestrial life is confirmed, but no one cares. - Part of Greenland slides into the ocean and is gifted to Trump as the ‘Mobile Piece Prize’ - Taiwan is invaded by China. - New Zealand is declared unable to defend itself and critical to Antarctic security. Offer to purchase includes a dowry of 9 rings.

With everyone saying "I didn't have xyz on my bingo card"... I decided to make one.

I present - my 2026 bingo card.

“Rules based order” in the same sense abusive parents would claim “there are rules in this house mister”

I am very far from versed in geopolitics but I don't get the phrase "rules-based world order"

Israel set about committing weaponised mass murder of tens of thousands of families a few years ago which you'd think would be against the rules, and a western countries responded by giving them more guns?

I wish the Total Perspective Vortex was a real thing.

I know this doesn’t apply to a lot of of you, but listening to Americans apologise and opine to each other and the word about how “Americans are too…” or “Americans won’t act until…” really is the most spectacular case of the bystanders effect I’ve ever seen. It’s you. You’re them.

Our grandchildren will despise us.

And they’ll be right to do so.

Europeans slowly realising why burning American flags seems to be such a prominent pastime in other parts of the world.

And like, not one European has even been bombed yet.

Gotta wonder if this whole thing would just evaporate if someone showed trump a globe instead of a Mercator projection.

Just think where we might be if everyone were just a tad less racist and a smidge less greedy.

American kids will be copping the German experience of association as a repercussion for a century. And people will forever ask “why didn’t they do anything?”

Trump won’t be judged like Hitler. And Republicans won’t be judged like Nazis. History will pick them apart as unique precisely because of their significance. But ordinary Americans on the other hand, will be judged like the Germans and treated with far less nuance.

YouTube video by The Clancy Brothers - Topic Patriot Game (Live at Carnegie Hall, New York, NY - March 17, 1963)

This song is etched into my memory from childhood. It’s always been relevant. And it sadly will continue to be for some time yet.

Compu-Global-Hyper-Mega-Net Compu-Global-Hyper-Mega-Net is Homer's Internet company from the episode "Das Bus". The company's headquarters is the dining room of 742 Evergreen Terrace. It is never made clear what the company sell...

The internet sucks. Time for a reboot. May I suggest…

All the coolest people were in Cairo

Zapp brannigan standing in front of an Earthican flag - Futurama

Picards standing by Kirk’s grave in Star Trek generations.

I fully support a Kirk Remembrance Day.

Wait I’m just being told… I’m sorry what’s that?

Who?

I would, however, add a note of hope. We're all familiar with the butterfly effect. How small, seemingly insignificant things can ripple outwards to create large-scale change. Well, that applies to everything we do. It might help to keep in mind. Every little thing matters.

A facebook post with the following text: "Looking at the world and understanding people and processes, what poses a threat and what doesn't, the success or failure of movements, the expansion and collapse of ideas and organisations, how massive things can be disrupted by small things and how small things can become massive things as well as how people can be at once subject to enormous forces and a force unto themselves...all of that...requires - more than a passing knowledge of politics, economics and philosophy - a knowledge of physics and of cosmological processes. Society is a universe with as many dimensions as there are conceptual paradigms, all folded into one another. A mass of multidimensional interconnected universes. So when someone says a leader will never amass power, or a person can never make a difference. Just imagine how a cloud of gas turns into stars and planets, orbiting each other, feeding off of each other, ripping each other apart and reforming ad infinitum. Instead of thinking about how many people are on side with Donald Trump right now. Think about Gravity."

I'm not over the moon that I turned out right about all this 8 months before the orange dickhead won his first election. But I stand by the analogy.

Hope is punk now.

And being the eternal belligerent optimist I am, I guess that makes me cool.

It took a while, but you were right all along Mum.

Age turns music from a parade of dreams to a procession of memories.

The 'Do Nothing' Democracy (and what to do about it) Democracy has stalled. It lacks vision. It's consumed by feckless conflict. And it's starting to believe the bullshit authoritarians say about it. But we can fix it. We have the technology.

This (what the emperor said), but unironically.

I’m sick of folks buying into the images authoritarians have painted on the inside of our eyelids. Democracy is the engine of human freedom and one of the best damn ideas we’ve ever come up with. It just needs fixing.

Exactly. It would be good. IDGAF about celebrities. And I don’t buy that it’s supposed to be feel good either. If I wanted feel good I’d start a youtube called “Something You Love” that just spent an hour with someone as they show&tell their passion. Could be a hobby, idea, place or even person.

So here’s my pitch. A late night show, with all the trimmings, but they just pull randoms off the street and introduce/treat them like they’re ‘important’ celebrities.

We got a great show for you tonight. Josh is here! He waited tables for 3 years and now he’s starting an animal shelter!

I’m convinced that history will judge Millennials even more harshly than their boomer parents. We grew up so consumed with expectation and self righteousness and believing we deserved what our parents had, that we gave up the last chance to properly change things before it all turned to shit.

The Great War for Peace continues.

Just read that @nature.com is adopting transparent peer review across the board.

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

You folks should really look at using Stone - the free tool built explicitly for that purpose. Produces embedable records of review.

www.writeinstone.com

Captain Jean Luc Picard of the Starship Enterprise smiling in front of a “Captain Picard Day” banner made by children about the ship.

Happy Captain Picard Day!

Mass protests > Military parades

Ok cool. Now take a page from the Arab Spring and do the same thing every week.

Every. Week.