Liffguard

Yep. Indiscriminately dropping munitions into civilian areas is emotive strategy. It feels cathartic. It feels like you're punishing your enemies. But it achieves nothing. The Ukrainian leadership have been very good at avoiding this so far, whereas the Russian leadership have fallen into it repeatedly. If the Ukrainians did adopt this, it would not be a good sign.

Remember the last time strategic hamlets were used? As I recall, they were famous for being both humane and effective. Although I also recall there's another name for this sort of thing, where people are forcibly concentrated into a camp. It's on the tip of my tongue...

The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery. This book is...not subtle. At all. But then, not everything needs to be. I think this is a book that would lose something if it tried for more nuance. It definitely resonated with me. It wasn't that long ago that I read Ursula K Leguin's The Beginning Place, and in many ways these two books feel like companions to each other.

Arrests after protest in support of Palestine Action Authoritarian bullshit. In what way does this make anybody safer, or serve the public good? Presumably the media's numerous right-wing free-speech champions will be willing to condemn this?

Ugh, in my last post on this thread I mentioned I no longer have any motivation for weightlifting or resistance training. That's still true. But it's looking like I might have to go back to it regardless. My body is not holding up well at the moment. I've been getting regular pain in my collateral medial ligament when walking, even without carrying weight. I've thrown my back out like three times in the last year, always doing pretty inoccuous stuff. Whether I like it or not, I think I need to strengthen everything up again. Think I'll definitely be looking into some kind of flexibility/mobility training as well.

I was thinking this recently in relation to my previous job. In theory, a lot of it could have been done by AI. In fact, in theory a lot of it could have been done by more basic automation, no AI required. There was in fact a big push to make this the case. While I worked there we deployed an app that allowed patients to manage their own appointments and access their own medical records and test results. In theory this should have made a lot of my work obsolete, were it not for the significant proportion of elderly patients who either 1) didn't have a smartphone, 2) had a smartphone but didn't know how to use it, 3) didn't even have a flip-phone, 4) didn't even have a computer or any kind of private internet access. So a huge part of my day was spent on the phone, patiently talking to people who might be any combination of confused, hard-of-hearing, scared, frustrated, angry, or in various stages of dementia. The app was actually very functional, but ultimately it could only be as useful as its interaction with the human element. And even putting aside people with limited tech access, there's no accounting for human randomness or weirdness. I still vividly remember being on the phone with one patient who wanted directions to the hospital, but didn't know where he was or where he was coming from, and couldn't understand that directions depend on the start point. We got him sorted out eventually, but it was a painstaking process. Could an LLM deal with that situation? Sure maybe, but I'm willing to bet that there are loads of random human situations everyday that are weird or annoying enough to fall outside the system's parameters. As with many fields, ten percent of situations can generate 90 percent of the work. I suspect that AI systems will cope really well with the 90 percent but struggle with the remaining ten.

Played an awesome gig last night. My girlfriend got some great video footage of us on stage. During said footage, I engaged in some vigorous headbanging, which involved the top of my head becoming visible. Readers, I regret to inform you that I now have a small but undeniable bald spot. Guess it might be time to embrace the buzz cut again.

"What was personal gain but the freedom to do what you wanted to do? And what was power but the freedom to do what you wanted to do? And once you had that freedom, any more wealth or power actually began to restrict one’s options, and reduce one’s freedom. One became a servant of one’s wealth or power, constrained to spend all one’s time protecting it." - Kim Stanley Robinson, Green Mars

Can it? How can anyone trust that any agreement with the US won't last only until the next time Republicans take power?

It's a shame a talented director like Villeneuve is being wasted on this when he could be working on something interesting instead. ETA: besides, Villeneuve is totally the wrong choice for this. The Bond franchise has been taking itself way too seriously for a while now. If it must continue at all, it needs to lighten up, and that isn't really Villeneuve's forte.

Two good threads on Bluesky from Jeffrey Lewis and Bret Devereaux. https://bsky.app/profile/armscontrolwonk.bsky.social/post/3lsageddlpk2l https://bsky.app/profile/bretdevereaux.bsky.social/post/3lsautzdcas2c In particular, I think this quote from Bret is relevant: There have been a few posts on this thread, and it's an argument I've also heard elsewhere. The argument usually takes the form that Iran would be a qualitatively different nuclear-armed state when compared with other nuclear-armed states because Islam (or the particular theological position of Iran's rulers) is a "death cult."* And I'm glad to see some push-back on that. Iran's leadership is religious, but also rational. By "rational" I don't mean just, or ethical, or moral, or wise; merely that their foreign policy actions are largely motivated and guided by the same geostrategic concerns as other states, rather than religious mania. I'm certainly not saying that Iran with a nuke is a good thing. It has the potential to be a serious problem. But the idea that Iran will gain a nuke and then immediately launch it in a religious fervour is basically just imagining that Iran is run by the terrorists from Team America. It's silly, and motivated more by anti-muslim bigotry than any kind of serious analysis. *ETA: Also, this is neither here nor there, but I do find the "death cult" accusations particularly ironic in this instance, given how much of American support for Israel is predicated on a significant chunk of the American population believing it's necessary to usher in the end times.

Nope, it's just looking at the situation without blinkers guided by national loyalty. If you spend your life in an ideological environment that takes it as an axiom that "the west" is always operating justly and in good faith, then refusing to grant that benefit of the doubt and just thinking of western states and non-western states in the same terms can seem anti-western. State-sponsored terror? How many terror groups has the US funded and armed in the past few decades? The Israeli state hasn't needed to sponsor terror, it just commits it directly. Destabilising the region? Has any force been more catastrophic for the middle east than US intervention? Internal repression? How's the West Bank doing lately? Theocratic government? Have you heard the terms in which Israeli government officials talk about Gaza? To be very clear, this is not a two wrongs make a right argument. Iran is not justified in committing terrible crimes just because other states also commit crimes. Iran is not an innocent victim, or without agency, or immune to consequence. But neither is it uniquely evil, irrational, or dangerous. To look at the USA, and Israel, and Iran and judge them on the same terms is not "anti-western." If it's evil when they do it, then it's evil when we do it.

It remains to be seen if Israel will succeed at its goals or not, but tactical and operational success is not the same thing as strategic success. You can cause a lot of destruction, win every battle, and still fail to achieve any objectives.

Even authoritarian regimes have to take public opinion into account. They have more capacity to act if they have buy-in from the population.

A person who worries about his house being broken into is motivated to upgrade his security system. A person who's just had his house broken into and been stabbed in the process is really fucking motivated to upgrade his security system. There's a difference between "this is a priority" and "this is the priority."