If you are Really Damn Old you may recognise the song lyric reference in the first half of the title. "Whatever," as the young people used to say. "How Groups Zombify" - HGZ, as we will call it, (but which could also stand for Hypocrites Going Zealous?) is a key question. For me, anyway. Not... Continue Reading →
Martin Luther King – “Perhaps we shall not overcome after all.” (#satire)
"Our Dumb Century" by the folks at The Onion is a staggering satirical achievement. Lots more to say, but this fits my current mood (see the Cher, incentive structures and our inevitable doom post etc)
Neologism of the decade: nihiliberalism
(or should that be nihilogism of the decade?) There's this and this bit of an interview with the late Mark Fisher. "Now we are faced with nihiliberalism rather than neoliberalism. The phrases justifying neoliberalism are mechanistically repeated, but there’s no real conviction in it anymore." Hat-tip to @Dant_Lane for bringing this to my attention. Basically,... Continue Reading →
Did you exchange a walk on part in the war…
for the lead role in a cage. Yeah. Probably I did. Didn't you? Didn't we all? Or most of us at least. Somewhere between the Scylla of egomania/unfettered narcissism and the Charybdis of slave morality/abnegation for its own sake, lies... what exactly? Strutting and fretting our hour upon the burning platform, as we see our... Continue Reading →
Cher, incentive structures and our inevitable doom
Cher is on the CD in the lovely Arcadian café I am sitting in. “Do you believe?”, she is asking me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZXRV4MezEw And then she sings the magic words “I really don’t think you’re strong enough.” Too right, Ms Cher. Strength is the issue. Last night I had a zoom call with an academic who... Continue Reading →
On climate, measuring the wrong damn thing and false negatives (aka “what Horatio Hornblower can tell us about the future”)
I came to the "Horatio Hornblower" books only when I was 18, sadly - too much bloody ropey Doctor Who in my youth. So it goes. There's one of these stories, set during the Napoleonic wars that comes to mind every-so-often. Hornblower is a midshipman and the ship he is serving on captures a bunch... Continue Reading →
Rochdale Council’s idea of improving nature
This is a couple of weeks back, but I realised I am probably gonna use it again and again, so want to put it somewhere it can be found. Rochdale Council deleted the tweet, and the Twitter monkey responsible probably got sent for re-education. You can DO these things of course, but you're not supposed... Continue Reading →
No numbers, no infrastructure, no clue – the death of XR
Various people have called me several shades of cunt for my take on XR. They either ignore, or never bothered to find out, that back in 2019, when it was kicking off, I conducted and posted interviews with participants on Manchester Climate Monthly, offered to put together a private event with old and new activists... Continue Reading →
Big Brother is talking to you…
States don't just create external boundaries. As per Cesaire, the technologies are being brought into the metropole.
Academia making me angry for the right reasons! Energy technology innovation #EpicFail #SpeciesBeDoomed
I often rant, sorry, "offer calm, considered and reasoned critiques" about academics who study nonsense badlystudy important things badlystudy important things well but write in turgid academese These things make me angry. But for once, I am angry after reading an academic paper, not about any of the above (because it is paper which studies... Continue Reading →
marchudson.net 