markcoatney

[markcoatney]

[markcoatney]

My new joint!

[markcoatney]

“I don’t say this lightly: the system is no longer designed to be corrected by the very tools we’re told to use. Partisanship is largely a performative art, not a real debate of policy or ideas. Reform is still discussed but never allowed to mature. We are not living in the America that taught us how democracy works. We are living in the one that quietly replaced it while we clung to rituals that now feel performative.”

— Eulogy for a Republic

[markcoatney]

For Some Reason I've Been Thinking About 'Revolt of the Elites' a Lot Lately

A good podcast overview here

[markcoatney]

“The public was not convinced by our argument, in 2024, because we were shilling for the existing version of democracy—which is deeply corrupt, which does not work. When I got into politics twenty-five years ago, something like campaign-finance reform, government reform, democracy reform, was a top-three issue for Democrats. It was something we talked about every single day. Somewhere along the line that stopped; somewhere along the line we stopped talking about reforming democracy. So it became easy for voters to just believe that we were all corrupt, and that neither Republicans nor Democrats were actually sincere in fixing what was wrong with democracy.”

— Chris Murphy

[markcoatney]

America’s Global Reputation Has Fallen off a Cliff

[markcoatney]

I really am kicking myself that I didn’t think of doing Childhood’s End on Jed’s podcast, but this is a reminder of why George Dyson is, well, George Dyson. Really good discussion about what the book has to say about AI and Social Media; it will challenge the way you think about these things. 

[markcoatney]

If you were born around the 1970s, you probably remember many more dead insects on the windscreen of your parents’ car than on your own. Global land-dwelling insect populations are dropping about 9% a decade. If you’re a geek, you probably programmed your own computer to make basic games. You certainly remember a web with more to read than the same five websites. You may have even written your own blog. But many people born after 2000 probably think a world with few insects, little ambient noise from birdcalls, where you regularly use only a few social media and messaging apps (rather than a whole web) is normal. 

[markcoatney]

It's my 17 year anniversary on Tumblr 🥳

[markcoatney]

 X/Twitter is a Pornhub where everything is twisted around the particular kinks of a specific, and visibly disturbed individual. Whatever Musk wants, as the Voice of God, may or may not become the Voice of the People, but is probably what the people are going to end up talking about, whether they want to or not. 

[markcoatney]

Satellite Photos of Middle Earth. If you’ve ever been curious about what Tolkien’s Middle Earth would look like from space, here you go.

[markcoatney]

Star Trek - The Animated Series (1973)

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Episode #10: Mark Coatney on A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin

[markcoatney]

One of the subtler themes of Abrahamian’s book is her understanding of the hidden globe’s denizens as not just wealthy individuals but parties to a tribe of elevated hunter-gatherers. They are united in their prerogatives. They don’t want total lawlessness; they would like their property rights to be construed as broadly as possible, and they will pay for enforcement. But they share above all a willingness to pick up their ball and go home—wherever that happens to be at any given time. They have resources, leverage, and a kind of honor among thieves. They vote with their feet, as Srinivasan likes to say, and, if Cyprus isn’t game, Palau will be. The beneficiaries are in London, anyway, and their kids are at boarding school in Switzerland. They are, in every sense of the term, duty-free.

This review, of Atosa's book, is so good

[markcoatney]

Pablo Picasso’s ’“Guernica” (1937) by = 。= (2009)

[markcoatney]

Peanuts creator Charles Schulz, writing in 1970 about being a good citizen: “I believe that our greatest strength lies always in the protection of our smallest minorities.”