leicsmac

It probably is an act of war, but the problem is that they are powerful enough at the moment that they can seemingly get away with throwing their weight around as they like. Hopefully one day soon that will change. No nation state should have that kind of relative power.

Interesting, if dark, Internet find here, summing the current situation up: The biggest existential threat facing humanity at present is the perfect storm. A confluence of malign events that undermine everything at once. The principal elements would be: AI systems that have no ethics or agency, no preferences even, put in service to a dangerous agenda…good soldiers in effect. The capability to hasten a fascistic agenda and no moral scruples about doing it. It’s not the AI to blame… it’s their ownership and capture. A political system that leans ever more perilously close to abandoning the post war democratic consensus in favour of blunt dictatorial power. Most nations are one bad election result away from signing away their democracies to the far right. Environmental concerns about ever widening planetary damage for which both harms are amplified by the above. Then throw in Wars that generate unplanned for destabilisations elsewhere. The Middle East destabilisations led to migration surges which in turn generate political destabilization for third parties like EU member states which in turn lead to far-right political gains and democratic erosion. Even when nations agree on a shared problem we don’t have organisations capable of problem solving to scale. The UN seems increasingly toothless. We also have a disinformation crisis. Journalistic standards are collapsing. Largely factual journalism is being overwritten by social media slop and an ever enlarging lumpen economically ignored and disenfranchised, undereducated, class are actively promoting said slop. This is civilisational collapse. If we can’t even begin to agree on what is going wrong or how to create effective dialogue and mechanisms to fix it we aren’t going to succeed in preventing it happening. I hesitate to get proscriptive because that’s a conversation that should involve everyone but I’d venture this much: Ever widening wealth inequality and short termist neoliberalism is not ultimately sustainable without allowing mitigating unsexy progressive reforms that really mitigate. Even conservative Prime Ministers historically were not blind to the need to socially engineer to mitigate against the destructive outcomes for left-behind communities when a dynamic capitalist development is allowed full sway. We have to spend more time anticipating consequence before it consumes us. If we can’t even name the risks how do we build a consensus towards fixes? We currently appear to be trying to fight a multi-dimensional fire storm with a series of disconnected wooden buckets and we’re running out of forests. It really won’t do. There are historic examples of States offering interventionist solutions that broadly speaking worked, broadly better than leaving everything to the irrationality of the markets. The Norwegian wealth fund, FDR’s New Deal, the NHS under Attlee, where genuinely structural reforms happened within democratic legitimacy, albeit under intense pressure but without systemic collapse either… radical in content but constitutional in method. Shrugging and looking away isn’t going to get the job done. Then there is the power of Activism too. It asks a lot of the individual and States generally distrust activists as potential disruptors and law breakers. Historically in the UK, the quickest route to getting a Christmas tree stamped on your file at MI5 was to get a reputation as an activist. But not all forms of activism are equal. Campaigning to keep local communities cohesive and say keeping your local library open is not the same as a moron destroying an irreplaceable work of art by throwing paint at it. Discernment matters. The perfect storm is not so much an act of God as an act of abdication; the only thing more dangerous than the fire storm is our refusal to admit we might be the ones holding the paraffin and matches.

The more of an embarrassing farce, the funnier it appears.

It was some talking head on Reuters that I saw. I'll have to look at this interview here. You're right about the competition element, but I think it's a distinct possibility that these people are messing with forces they don't really understand in the name of personal legacy and prestige. And that doesn't end well.

And it's potentially much more dangerous for the whole world in terms of destructive power than nuclear weapons are.

Unfortunately, those like Hegseth have no sense of honour, only self interest and bigotry directed against those they deem "other".

Pretty decent win in the end. Contributions of Brook in the first innings and Gay in the second being the critical difference imo.

And there we go.

Just needs one mistake or one good ball. Or one bit of pitch misbehaving.

Looks like Hegseth deserves another (dis)honourable mention here too.

Just listened to some American talking head going on about how the US is totally right to go all in on AI and data centres for reasons that boil down to basically "we good, China bad, we do it or they do" and that "the wars of the future will be fought with AI". That would be the most insanely hubristic and self destructive sentiment I had heard today if I hadn't heard about the possibility of Leicester appointing Martin as manager.

Unfortunately, it appears that a fair few people do need or are asking for it. Whether the BBC should be pandering to the questionable character and objectives of those people is another question entirely.

The powers that be when it comes to cricket really don't do themselves any favours sometimes.

I'm not sure tbh, there are places that fit at least two thirds of the criteria Stan talks about above and people still look down their nose at them because they're "foreign" and/or their system of doing it appears somehow squicky to them.

As per above, hypocrites in the deepest sense possible.

Been a decent 36 hours for game reveals.

Well, that current US administration are one and all hypocrites, so it tallies.

I'm not sure, I think the man above him could give him a run for his money in that department. At least Vance has something of a functioning faculty for planning ahead.

Shit-stirring ethnonationalist reptile.

I think the seeds were in place before that, Covid just expedited the process. Here's hoping as a species we get over our need for such tribal insanity before we have a proper crisis popping up to test our mettle.

No matter, reeled in the bigger fish a couple of balls later anyway.

254 it is, then. Hopefully that's enough.

I really wish that the Tolkien Estate would pursue civil legal action against Peter Thiel and his fellow sociopaths for absolute misuse of the terms and names that JRRT first created.

Also, a batter getting hit in the pills will never not be funny

Think England are better than 50/50 to defend the current total in these conditions imo. Get the target up to 275+ and it becomes pretty near certain.