The Shame of Capital Punishment

The US is one of the most barbarous countries on Earth. Sure, there are worse – places that execute citizens in what amounts to Hammurrabi’s code – but we pretend to be an advanced democratic republic. Briefly, let’s jump down that rathole: in principle the United States is a state organized along the lines of State Legitimacy, i.e.: a social contract in which the state is allowed to enforce certain things on an otherwise independent populace, in return for the populace expecting certain things from the state. What sort of things might those be? A social safety net? Health care? Minimal pointless wars? The right of the citizen to be secure in their possessions and pursuit of happiness? Being cruelly put to death when the state follows its “due process” and eventually decides its time?

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A fun technique

I enjoy playing with AI-based image generators, which are a source of constant surprises. Sometimes someone will come up with a clever concept and briefly everyone is enchanted with it. For me, the enchantement is “how did they do that?” and the subsequent pleasure of finding out.

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Ask The Strategic Genius: Iran Edition

Right now, we are being treated to a fascinating mix of genius and antigenius, whipsawed between incredible stupidity and last-minute cancellations of the same – which is a form of genius. As Sun Tzu said, deception is the root of strategy – in which case just confusing the living fuck out of everybody has to be one of the fruit of the deception branch. There are so many things wrong, even with the mistakes being made, that the whole thing would make a great Monty Python skit, except the Pythons were trying to be funny.

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Meanwhile the World Cup

I’m on both sides of the fence about things like the world cup. For one thing, it’s a joy to see that humans can perform at such a level, but on the other, it seems to me like a complete kill off of any joy in the sport. Joy, which is often replaced by the ugliest form of nationalism. [I just accidentally put my finger on why I found the Norwegian team to be so charming] I also found the World Cup to be a bit disgusting, given that some of the nations involved are cheerfully performing crimes against humanity, while the others appear to be setting that aside, because, yes, the players practiced a lot. I think none of that really holds much water, because the players aren’t amateurs who are giving their lives to sport – they are professionals, who are gambling that they will make millions of dollars if they perform well.

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More on the Data Centers that Will Kill Us All

A lot of this is what I consider being from the Department of Obviousness Department, which I normally try to avoid, but sometimes, the timing is such that I appear to have powers above and beyond those of an ordinary ex-nerd thinking about the future. There was a time, once, when I was arrogant enough to reply – when someone asked me to predict the future – “I make the future, I don’t predict it.” Which was literally true but also JD Vance-level stupid.

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Happy Facial Recognition Day!

I first wrote about facial recognition back in 2017, shortly after starting this blogue. (stderr) Then, (stderr) I discovered to my complete lack of surprise, that there is a lack of proper paranoia about the topic, and – I suppose that’s justified because climate change is likely to wipe us out, while having no more personal privacy, won’t. I guess we’re arguing about “insult to injury” which is a great way of spicing up your injuries. Add it to heirarchical storage and, whups, things look bad. (stderr) It seems like just the other day I was laughing at people who were implementing poorly-planned “data lakes” but it seems that, miracle, AI actually has stepped in to help with the problem.

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How About Something Cool Now That It’s Too Late for Us?

The great machine of scientific enquiry continues to grind relentlessly along, in spite of the smoking wreckage made, then thrown in its path, by the likes of RFK, Jr. Eventually, I suppose, the republicans will realize that ice-picking the tendons of American Science just means that some other detestable part of the world will “get ahead of us”  in their endless imaginary fight for dominance.

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