Someone, with good intentions, DMEd me this clip from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I think in response to my "what's beyond the edge of tomorrow?" post. https://twitter.com/RealTadzioM/status/1723347798324642139 The thing that enrages and exhausts me is that the repertoires of what counts as "fighting" are so narrow and (usually) doomed to failure. And that there is... Continue Reading →
Letter in the FT: Of Terminators and Time Lords (and corporate technodomination)
Whoop! Another letter in the Financial Times. Your editorial "The Science of Successful Succession" (FT 4 November) ponders the possibility of digital overlords running companies. In 1984 James Cameron's film "The Terminator" gave us "Skynet", a sentient computer that started World War 3 rather than be switched off. Eleven years earlier the BBC's Time Lord Doctor Who... Continue Reading →
Learning from Private Eye #001: incumbency privilege of planning over 10 years, FT greenwash
Private Eye is a UK publication that doesn't really have, to my knowledge, any exact replica elsewhere, at least in the English-speaking world (in France there's La Canard Enchaine, and to a lesser extent Charlie Hebdo). I didn't buy it in 1988 - I wouldn't have "got" it. By 1995 I was though, and have... Continue Reading →
What’s beyond the edge of tomorrow? Well, technofeudalism/fascism/eco-meltdown. Duh.
Marc Maron has a line I like "And don't misunderstand me, I have no hope. I think if you have hope, what are you f---ing seven?." Yes, yes, Sarah Connor and "no future but what we make." But we "make" the future under the constraints - "not in the conditions of our own choosing" - of what has... Continue Reading →
The Buddha, the Big Issue and the emotional poverty problem
There's the old Buddhist line about two goldfish swimming around and one saying to the other "how's the water?" and the other saying back "what do you mean, 'water'?" I think about that a lot, but that doesn't necessarily mean I am any better - day-to-day - at seeing/tasting/feeling the water. So it goes. Meanwhile,... Continue Reading →
Stalin killing millions – a humorous take
"Uncle Joe" Stalin was a murderous thug. This is, in most circles, not controversial. If you want some real humour about his last days, Armando Iannucci's 2017 "The Death of Stalin" is a staggering achievement. This below, from "Tonight, Josephine: and other undiscovered letters" by Michael Green, is pretty good...
Niche humour – Macbeth’s invoice from his doctor
Latest purchase - "Tonight, Josephine: and other undiscovered letters" by Michael Green. (At some point in the mid-1980s I bought the sequel "Don't swing from the balcony, Romeo".). It's classic "middle-class humour" - relies on you deploying your cultural capital. And judging those who don't laugh... This below made me laugh a bit...
Of gods, the enlightenment, fossil fuels and our inevitable-ish doom
Climate Twitter is lighting up over the "in the pipeline" article. Quick, quick, pick a side - are you a Mann-ite or a Hansen-ite? All I want to know is how soon we will know (and how) which team won. Five years should be enough, I'd guess... Not sure exactly what the metrics would be.... Continue Reading →
Of marshmallows, the powerful addict and the double-bind. And #climate, obvs
What if you need not to defer your own gratification (the Marshmallow Test and all that) but someone else's? But what if doing that causes you so much grief you have to stop? Damned if you do, damned if you don't etc - something akin to what Gregory Bateson had in mind with his concept... Continue Reading →
Mask slips, gloves off etc.
So, a couple of pieces in the Grauniad about the criminalisation of dissent (here and here) and the use of facial-recognition technologies. It turns out (and you may be wanting to sit down when you read this) that all that talk about civil liberties, the importance of democracy etc etc is, well "public relations theory... Continue Reading →
marchudson.net 