Men Duly Understand the River of Life, Misconstruing It
The strangest aspect of the clusterfuck for me is that the shittier & speedier & deeper it descends into the inevitable the bigger & stinkier the duh of typing about it becomes. Document, don't explain, all is serf-evident (sic). Compulsively grid it, me
High Holy Day day-after-tomorrow here, will the guy still be alive in October when his new novel drops and will that be the first novel I attempt to read between then and now? cause I've stopped reading novels as in not even trying any more for reasons more spiritual than physical and I'm going blind. Yes, this is a bleggalgaze, seeing more of them of late around Blegsylvania. Three last Pere Ubu songs, I've listened to everything I own and I own almost everything, this death hurt
"For example, I would suggest that you be careful about nostalgia for a democratic polity that never was. Be careful about activists and organizations appended to the Democratic Party. Be careful about the podcasters who built an audience by caping for Bernie Sanders. Be careful about celebrities who moderate support for Palestine under pressure. Be careful about genocide profiteers in the film and publishing industries. Be careful about the next shiny young politician who comes out of nowhere to save us. Be careful about anti-Zionists who ignore Palestinians. Be careful about anyone who prioritizes the settler’s existential angst. Be careful about anything that tries to make a place for oppression in this world"
"I really, really want people to stop saying Democratic leaders like Jeffries and Schumer are "weak" or "inadequate." They aren't weak; they are morally depraved. They are ACTIVELY colluding in Trump's murderous and evil nihilism.
"It really tells you everything you need to know about the Democratic Party that they can't go after Trump for the most blatant corruption scandal in the history of the presidency because some of them are in bed with the same corruption coin guys"
"The Trump administration's slashing of academic research seems insane from outside their worldview. But what Christopher Rufo says here makes sense when you understand that they do genuinely see the entire concept of science as their deadly enemy"
Trump Will Never Run Out of Ways to Humiliate the Firms That Caved to Him
"for sociological reasons the public messaging from Democratic insiders about abandoning lines of conflict always pretends to be about strategy but it's important to be clear eyed that a core faction of Democrats are *ideologically* opposed to anything vaguely progressive"
Last night the police at UCLA charged into students with batons in hand, arresting several, for attempting a public screening of “The Encampments” documentary on the one-year anniversary of the UCLA encampment
"lol the Zombiecrats are polling even lower than Trump, their "playing dead" strategy working as brilliantly as one would expect"
"Really baffled by Whitmer and Newsom. Forget morality and decency. It's dumb politically. Of all the times to make overtures to MAGA, you're doing it when Trump's polls are tanking, he's getting throttled in court, and weeks before the tariff pain hits?"
Men duly understand the river of life, misconstruing it, as it widens and its cities grow dark and denser, always farther away.
And of course that remote denseness suits us, as lambs and clover might have if things had been built to order differently.
But since I don’t understand myself, only segments of myself that misunderstand each other, there’s no reason for you to want to, no way you could
even if we both wanted it. Do those towers even exist? We must look at it that way, along those lines so the thought can erect itself, like plywood battlements.
Y'know: I'm told in Watership Down (which I haven't read; really not my cuppa) the Rabbits incorporated The Snare, the tool by which Rabbits are seized and doomed, into their social fabric; normalized and < shrug > gotta learn to love The Wire.
It's hard not to be curious about the details of corruption and madness, the inevitable disintegration of the social structure we were born into. It's hard not to say fuck it and join in the deathwatch, worshipping the Wire. But we do what we can.
i read watership down all the way through in a single sitting - the protagonist rabbits managed to identify a threat to their environment - a construction project - and to escape the sick society which had accommodated itself to The Wire - and find a place for themselves where they could live full rabbit lives while pursuing truth, justice, and a tolerable tomorrow
as oscar wilde said, the good end happily and the bad unhappily - that is what fiction is for
You link to Thomas Fazi's guest post by Roberto Iannuzzi [https://www.thomasfazi.com/p/gaza-the-us-and-china-the-future] which argues that Israel’s Gaza operation is a U.S. “dress rehearsal” for a potential U.S.-China war, normalizing mass civilian casualties through reinterpreted International Humanitarian Law (IHL). He claims the U.S. is preparing for unrestrained warfare, citing China’s missile superiority and eroding democratic oversight as signs of a civilizational crisis.
Arguments Against: • The Gaza-China link is speculative; Gaza is a regional conflict, not a U.S.-China proxy. • China’s military edge is overstated; the U.S. retains advantages in naval, air, and cyber domains. • Democratic oversight erosion is exaggerated; broader factors like populism drive institutional challenges. • The “end of civilization” claim is alarmist, ignoring diplomacy and mutual deterrence.
Established vs. Controversial: • Established: Gaza’s devastation (47,000+ deaths), U.S.-Israel military ties, China’s missile growth, and IHL debates. • Controversial: Gaza as a U.S.-China test, deliberate normalization of civilian deaths, and civilizational collapse narrative.
The issues raised by Iannuzzi’s article—escalating militarism, U.S.-China tensions, and the normalization of destructive warfare—intersect with the concept of ecological overshoot, where humanity’s resource consumption exceeds Earth’s carrying capacity. Drawing on William Rees, Tom Murphy’s Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet, and Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway’s The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future, these works frame militarism and geopolitical rivalry as symptoms of a broader ecological and societal crisis.
William Rees, co-developer of the ecological footprint concept, argues that humanity’s overconsumption drives resource depletion, biodiversity loss, and social instability. Militarized conflicts, like those in Gaza or a potential U.S.-China war, exacerbate overshoot by diverting resources (e.g., fossil fuels, metals) to warfare, accelerating environmental degradation. Rees emphasizes that escalating geopolitical tensions reflect competition for dwindling resources, as nations prioritize short-term dominance over long-term sustainability. A U.S.-China conflict, as Iannuzzi warns, would likely intensify ecological overshoot, with global supply chains disrupted and carbon emissions surging from military operations.
In Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet, Tom Murphy highlights the finite nature of energy resources, particularly fossil fuels, which underpin modern industrial and military systems. He argues that humanity’s reliance on high-energy lifestyles is unsustainable, as renewable energy cannot fully replace fossil fuels at current consumption levels. Iannuzzi’s depiction of U.S. and Chinese military buildup—reliant on energy-intensive technologies like missiles, jets, and AI—ignores these limits. A large-scale war would deplete energy reserves, disrupt renewable transitions, and push societies closer to collapse, as Murphy warns, by prioritizing destructive power over ecological resilience.
Oreskes and Conway offer a fictional retrospective from 2393, attributing societal collapse to humanity’s failure to address climate change and resource overuse. They highlight how ideological commitments to growth and militarism blinded leaders to ecological realities. Iannuzzi’s concerns about Gaza and U.S.-China rivalry align with their narrative: unchecked militarism diverts attention from climate mitigation, while normalizing destruction (e.g., Gaza’s devastation) desensitizes societies to ecological and human costs. The authors warn that such myopia, if extended to a U.S.-China conflict, could precipitate cascading failures—food shortages, climate displacement, and ecosystem collapse—culminating in civilizational decline.
Iannuzzi’s focus on Gaza and U.S.-China tensions reflects a short-term geopolitical lens, but Rees, Murphy, Oreskes, and Conway situate these dynamics within ecological overshoot’s long-term consequences. Militarism accelerates resource depletion and environmental damage, undermining humanity’s ability to adapt to a finite planet. A U.S.-China war, as Iannuzzi fears, would amplify these risks, consuming energy and materials needed for sustainable transitions. However, Iannuzzi's alarmist framing overlooks potential mitigations, such as diplomatic de-escalation or global cooperation on climate goals, which Rees and Murphy advocate, but which seem unlikely to be implemented. Oreskes and Conway suggest that avoiding collapse requires prioritizing ecological limits over power struggles—a shift incompatible with the warfare Iannuzzi describes.
Iannuzzi’s warnings about Gaza and U.S.-China conflict are plausible but speculative in scope. When viewed through the lens of ecological overshoot, these issues signal a deeper crisis: humanity’s failure to align ambitions with planetary boundaries. Rees, Murphy, Oreskes, and Conway underscore that militarism, if unchecked, will hasten resource exhaustion and societal collapse, making sustainable governance and demilitarization critical for long-term survival, and their absence ominous.
Thankee.
ReplyDeleteY'know: I'm told in Watership Down (which I haven't read; really not my cuppa) the Rabbits incorporated The Snare, the tool by which Rabbits are seized and doomed, into their social fabric; normalized and < shrug > gotta learn to love The Wire.
It's hard not to be curious about the details of corruption and madness, the inevitable disintegration of the social structure we were born into. It's hard not to say fuck it and join in the deathwatch, worshipping the Wire. But we do what we can.
i read watership down all the way through in a single sitting - the protagonist rabbits managed to identify a threat to their environment - a construction project - and to escape the sick society which had accommodated itself to The Wire - and find a place for themselves where they could live full rabbit lives while pursuing truth, justice, and a tolerable tomorrow
Deleteas oscar wilde said, the good end happily and the bad unhappily - that is what fiction is for
You link to Thomas Fazi's guest post by Roberto Iannuzzi [https://www.thomasfazi.com/p/gaza-the-us-and-china-the-future] which argues that Israel’s Gaza operation is a U.S. “dress rehearsal” for a potential U.S.-China war, normalizing mass civilian casualties through reinterpreted International Humanitarian Law (IHL). He claims the U.S. is preparing for unrestrained warfare, citing China’s missile superiority and eroding democratic oversight as signs of a civilizational crisis.
ReplyDeleteArguments Against:
• The Gaza-China link is speculative; Gaza is a regional conflict, not a U.S.-China proxy.
• China’s military edge is overstated; the U.S. retains advantages in naval, air, and cyber domains.
• Democratic oversight erosion is exaggerated; broader factors like populism drive institutional challenges.
• The “end of civilization” claim is alarmist, ignoring diplomacy and mutual deterrence.
Established vs. Controversial:
• Established: Gaza’s devastation (47,000+ deaths), U.S.-Israel military ties, China’s missile growth, and IHL debates.
• Controversial: Gaza as a U.S.-China test, deliberate normalization of civilian deaths, and civilizational collapse narrative.
The issues raised by Iannuzzi’s article—escalating militarism, U.S.-China tensions, and the normalization of destructive warfare—intersect with the concept of ecological overshoot, where humanity’s resource consumption exceeds Earth’s carrying capacity. Drawing on William Rees, Tom Murphy’s Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet, and Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway’s The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future, these works frame militarism and geopolitical rivalry as symptoms of a broader ecological and societal crisis.
ReplyDeleteWilliam Rees, co-developer of the ecological footprint concept, argues that humanity’s overconsumption drives resource depletion, biodiversity loss, and social instability. Militarized conflicts, like those in Gaza or a potential U.S.-China war, exacerbate overshoot by diverting resources (e.g., fossil fuels, metals) to warfare, accelerating environmental degradation. Rees emphasizes that escalating geopolitical tensions reflect competition for dwindling resources, as nations prioritize short-term dominance over long-term sustainability. A U.S.-China conflict, as Iannuzzi warns, would likely intensify ecological overshoot, with global supply chains disrupted and carbon emissions surging from military operations.
In Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet, Tom Murphy highlights the finite nature of energy resources, particularly fossil fuels, which underpin modern industrial and military systems. He argues that humanity’s reliance on high-energy lifestyles is unsustainable, as renewable energy cannot fully replace fossil fuels at current consumption levels. Iannuzzi’s depiction of U.S. and Chinese military buildup—reliant on energy-intensive technologies like missiles, jets, and AI—ignores these limits. A large-scale war would deplete energy reserves, disrupt renewable transitions, and push societies closer to collapse, as Murphy warns, by prioritizing destructive power over ecological resilience.
Oreskes and Conway offer a fictional retrospective from 2393, attributing societal collapse to humanity’s failure to address climate change and resource overuse. They highlight how ideological commitments to growth and militarism blinded leaders to ecological realities. Iannuzzi’s concerns about Gaza and U.S.-China rivalry align with their narrative: unchecked militarism diverts attention from climate mitigation, while normalizing destruction (e.g., Gaza’s devastation) desensitizes societies to ecological and human costs. The authors warn that such myopia, if extended to a U.S.-China conflict, could precipitate cascading failures—food shortages, climate displacement, and ecosystem collapse—culminating in civilizational decline.
Iannuzzi’s focus on Gaza and U.S.-China tensions reflects a short-term geopolitical lens, but Rees, Murphy, Oreskes, and Conway situate these dynamics within ecological overshoot’s long-term consequences. Militarism accelerates resource depletion and environmental damage, undermining humanity’s ability to adapt to a finite planet. A U.S.-China war, as Iannuzzi fears, would amplify these risks, consuming energy and materials needed for sustainable transitions. However, Iannuzzi's alarmist framing overlooks potential mitigations, such as diplomatic de-escalation or global cooperation on climate goals, which Rees and Murphy advocate, but which seem unlikely to be implemented. Oreskes and Conway suggest that avoiding collapse requires prioritizing ecological limits over power struggles—a shift incompatible with the warfare Iannuzzi describes.
Iannuzzi’s warnings about Gaza and U.S.-China conflict are plausible but speculative in scope. When viewed through the lens of ecological overshoot, these issues signal a deeper crisis: humanity’s failure to align ambitions with planetary boundaries. Rees, Murphy, Oreskes, and Conway underscore that militarism, if unchecked, will hasten resource exhaustion and societal collapse, making sustainable governance and demilitarization critical for long-term survival, and their absence ominous.