10 August 2020

Uncaffeinated Monday Morning Link Sausage Platter

It's Monday. All week.

  • Brain-hack victims are so pathetic. It's just an echo in my ghost. And that still doesn't deal with the real barrier to communication — that much, and depending on the subject most, conscious thought and intentional memory retrieval is language-dependent and even explicitly constrained (or enabled) by language. So it's not even about brain-to-brain interfaces, but internal-to-brain interfaces. And the Puppet Master lurks…
  • But not "antifa" — which is about as well-organized as the Democratic Party. In 1972.

    Some would say that's rather the point: That it doesn't, and shouldn't, require a formal organization, or even a loose hierarchy, to oppose fascism and other forms of totalitarianism. Others would ignore it, looking for any excuse to turn the conversation from means to policy preferences. Still others would object that it's all about perceptions, rhetoric, and distraction in the first place. I would reach for another pint of ale.

  • Recommendation: Try to remember historical events within 30 miles of where one is trying to score electoral points with one's small-town white evangelical base against financially successful Black men. Especially when the only reason Oklahoma even has a professional basketball team is that the Seattle City Council refused to subsidize renovations that would have benefitted only the NBA franchise on 40–50 days a year, thus making it "financially attractive" for billionaires with nothing better to do to move the franchise to Oklahoma City (where the only professional sports were a few miles south in Norman).

    One wonders if this all took place on The Res, though; a large-scale map indicates that the region that Roberts represents is probably still treaty land…

  • Or you could just shed a crocodile tear for corrupt marketplaces for nonpersonalized collectibles enabling money-laundering and other corruption. Of course, it's not just the contemporary stereotypical Russian kleptocrat who benefits; sometimes it's an Ashkenazim immigrant whose legacy is museums, antitrust violations, and environmental disasters.