Henry Edward Hardy @hhardy01@mastodon.social

So remember back when Trump first came into office?

Muslim ban!

We were told Muslims were a clear and present danger to security blah blah.

Skip forward two years and its all about the Mexicans and Central Americans. Countries not known for terrorist attacks on the US, or anyone but themselves.

Once the target of "other" was set, it could so easily be re-pointed at targets of opportunity... Mexicans, Muslims, Socialists, Jews... you...

As we stand on the verge of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing, we take stock of all that has been accomplished since... the establishment of Skylab in 1973, the Mars colony in 1984, the orbital transfer platform on Cruithne in 1990, the Jupiter mission in 2001, re-establishment of atmospheric homeostasis on earth and starting terraforming Mars 2002, and the establishment of the O'Neill L-5 colony from the deorbited 16 Psyche in 2019.

Oh nevermind that was the good timeline. :)

You know, I love the fantasy of impeaching Trump. A just indictment and trial, lots of nice speeches, and the evildoer led away in chains.

Not going to happen, unfortunately. The only scenario in which this works is if Dems somehow gain a substantial majority in the Senate, but Trump is re-elected.

But still what's it get you, aside from end times revanchist President Pence?

Keep up the investigations, and referrals to state authorities. But we have to win this at the ballot box.

Really, asking "what should replace Facebook" is putting things the wrong way around.

A more interesting way to ask the question is, "what did Facebook replace."

People used to build their own websites. People used to have blogs. People used USENET which was truly distributed and un-censorable.

Facebook and Google took the open internet and open standards and monetized and made everything crappy. Enough of that. Nothing should replace Facebook, it's done, stick a fork in it.

Favorite dystopian movies ignoring some obvious ones

Escape from New York
Children of Men
Damnation Alley
Hell Comes to Frogtown
They Live
On the Beach
By Dawn's Early Light
District 9
Animatrix
Serial Experiments Lain
Vampire Hunter D/Bloodlust
Fists of the North Star
Titan AE
War Planets (cgi series)
Logan's Run
Total Recall (1990)
Dredd
Black Out 2022
Cherry 2000
Ghost in the Shell: Innocence
Appleseed Alpha
THX 1138
Barbarella
The Postman

Comments, additions?

What do you think?

"Three years ago, crowds at Donald Trump rallies called for the imprisonment of a political adversary. On Wednesday, they chanted for a member of the opposition party to be expelled from the country.

These are not behaviours emblematic of a healthy, well-functioning democracy."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-49035505

Ms. Omar...retweeted a comment by Jon Favreau, a former speechwriter for President Barack Obama, saying that the crowd’s chant of “Send her back!” was “one of the most chilling and horrifying things I’ve ever seen in politics.”

Above that statement, she quoted the poet Maya Angelou, writing in part: “You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/17/us/politics/trump-rally-greenville-nc.html

What is up with the Tories in the UK?

Why don't they just implement May's deal, and go yay hooray for us we did it!

Most curious from an outsider's perspective.

-Minsky cont-
So I explain this that and the other thing on my screen then say you know Marvin 95% of what I do comes in the STDIN and out through STDOUT. How long till I can have an AI that will do 95% of that work for me?

Without a pause he says: 5 years.

We both bust out laughing because that's the same answer he's been giving to that same question since he became MIT's youngest Prof in 1958. :)

My first encounter with Minsky was extremely funny.

I was at my desk at One Laptop per Child in the "garden" and this small, sprightly older man comes and perches on a chair next to me, looking over my shoulder onto my screens.

I was ignoring him but giving him the sideeye like, where have I seen this guy before... on my books... oh fuck its Minsky!?!

What are you doing Henry?

[holy shit he knows my name right?]
-cont-

I wish Marvin Minsky was here.

That is all. :)

Favorite dystopian novels ignoring some obvious ones

The Futurological Congress
Memoirs Found in a Bathtub
Canticle for Leibowitz
Fail-Safe
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
Eclipse Trilogy
Slan
We
Stand on Zanzibar
The Shockwave Rider
Ware Tetralogy
The Dead Lady of Clown Town
Snow Crash
RUR

More suggestions? Comments?

What do you think?

Neoliberals are like the assistant factory manager in Havel's "The Memorandum": clueless, pathetic, ineffectual, and completely sure of their own blamelessness for the catastrophe of an authoritarian system they created and perpetuated.

"Trump and the Republicans...Afraid of losing their grip on power, they have opted to instill fear and terror in the American public through both their rhetoric – the demonization of immigrants, the delegitimization of dissent – and their policies – Ice raids across US cities and the initial steps towards a war with Iran. And in statehouses around the country, Republicans are working to guarantee white minority rule into perpetuity as the country’s demographics shift."

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/17/trump-attacks-squad-scared-politics

"Protesters blocked access to the headquarters of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, calling for the agency to be shut down. The Jewish and immigrant demonstrators invoked the treatment of Jews during the Holocaust, railing against the conditions of migrants detained at the border while calling for legislators to establish "permanent protection, dignity and respect for the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S.""

https://www.newsweek.com/protesters-block-ice-headquarters-washington-dc-1449592

"Trump's racism is part of a much larger pattern of white supremacist behavior by his administration: Interning nonwhite migrants and immigrants in concentration camps, seeking to ban Muslims from entering the United States, suggesting that black athletes who oppose police brutality are traitors, changing the country's immigration laws with the aim of maintaining a white majority, and disenfranchising nonwhite people through gerrymandering, voter suppression..."

https://www.salon.com/2019/07/17/author-of-white-identity-politics-we-really-need-to-start-worrying-as-a-country/

I have had two friends who have "turned Trump."

One was always liberal, his Mom was a union and local Democratic Party official. Now he talks to me about the "deep state" and shows me racist memes like he somehow thinks he will convert me or I will "understand".

The other was a yippie in high school, then a gay communist bodybuilder high ranking civil official in a major EU state. After the Pulse shootings he went on an anti-Muslim rant FB rant. He expanded to anti-immigrant then went Trump.