#internet of things technology and product development

[spearheadtech]

Spearhead Technology empowers businesses with cutting-edge digital solutions. We specialize in AI, cloud migration, and automation services. Our mission is to drive innovation, efficiency, and growth. Partner with us to future-proof your digital journey.

[intelisync]

2024's Game-Changing Technologies for Metaverse Development

Picture a universe where virtual and physical worlds blend seamlessly, allowing you to interact with digital elements in real-time. As 2024 draws near, groundbreaking technologies are shaping this metaverse, making such interactions more immersive and dynamic than ever.

The metaverse, an expansive network of virtual environments, is evolving rapidly as we approach 2024, driven by several key technologies. Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) are at the forefront, enabling immersive experiences that blend the physical and digital worlds. VR technology has advanced significantly, offering users enhanced graphics, realistic simulations, and responsive feedback that create fully immersive digital environments.

AR enhances the physical world by overlaying digital information, enriching experiences in retail, healthcare, and entertainment through interactive and engaging environments.

Blockchain technology is essential for the metaverse, providing a secure and transparent method for managing digital assets and transactions. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) allow users to own unique digital assets like virtual real estate and art, while smart contracts facilitate automated and secure transactions. The decentralized nature of blockchain promotes trust and reliability, making it a crucial component of the metaverse's infrastructure.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) further enhances user experiences by creating intelligent virtual agents, personalized interactions, and realistic simulations. AI-driven non-player characters (NPCs) provide engaging and adaptive experiences, and AI technologies enable natural language processing and speech recognition for seamless communication between users and virtual environments.

Edge computing and 5G technology are critical for the seamless operation of the metaverse. By bringing data processing closer to users, edge computing reduces latency and improves the responsiveness of virtual environments. 5G networks provide the high-speed internet required for real-time interactions, supporting scalable and complex virtual environments.

The Internet of Things (IoT) and spatial computing further enhance the metaverse by capturing physical movements and translating them into virtual actions, creating realistic and immersive experiences.

Elevate your business with Intelisync's cutting-edge metaverse solutions. Reach out to Intelisync today and learn how our advanced technologies in VR, AR, AI, and blockchain can revolutionize your operations, enhance customer engagement, and drive your Learn more...

[probablyasocialecologist]

Ending mass human deprivation and providing good lives for the whole world's population can be accomplished while at the same time achieving ecological objectives. This is demonstrated by a new study by the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB) and the London School of Economics and Political Science, recently published in World Development Perspectives. About 80% of humanity cannot access necessary goods and services and lives below the threshold for "decent living." Some narratives claim that addressing this problem will require massive economic growth on a global scale, multiplying existing output many times over, which would exacerbate climate change and ecological breakdown. The authors of the new study dispute this claim and argue that human development does not require such a dangerous approach. Reviewing recent empirical research, they find that ending mass deprivation and provisioning decent living standards for 8.5 billion people would require only 30% of current global resource and energy use, leaving a substantial surplus for additional consumption, public luxury, scientific advancement, and other social investments. This would ensure that everyone in the world has access to nutritious food, modern housing, high-quality health care, education, electricity, induction stoves, sanitation systems, clothing, washing machines, refrigerators, heating/cooling systems, computers, mobile phones, internet, and transport, and could also include universal access to recreational facilities, theaters, and other public goods. The authors argue that, to achieve such a future, strategies for development should not pursue capitalist growth and increased aggregate production as such but should rather increase the specific forms of production that are necessary to improve capabilities and meet human needs at a high standard, while ensuring universal access to key goods and services through public provisioning and decommodification. In the Global South, this requires using industrial policy to increase economic sovereignty, develop industrial capacity, and organize production around human well-being. At the same time, in high-income countries, less-necessary production (of things like mansions, SUVs, private jets and fast fashion) must be scaled down to enable faster decarbonization and to help bring resource use back within planetary boundaries, as degrowth scholarship holds.

July 25 2024

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #4

Feb 2-9 2024

The White House announced that a landmark 23 million Americans, 1 in 6 households, have been connected to affordable high speed internet with the help of the Affordable Connectivity Program, saving Americans between $30 and $75 every month on their internet bill. 4 Million ACP users are seniors, 1/4th of households on the program are African American and 1/4th are Latino, and it supports 320,000 households on Tribal lands. Sadly the program will be forced to end if Republicans in Congress continue to block new funding

The White House announced $5 billion for a National Semiconductor Technology Center, focusing on research and development as well as workforce needs. This is part of an effort under the CHIPS and Science Act to make America a world leader in science and grow jobs for the 21st century. This will include hundreds of millions of dollars of investment in workforce development

The EPA announced finalized rules that will strength air quality standard around fine particle pollution, AKA soot. The new stronger rules are projected to prevent 4,200 premature deaths and save Americans $46 billion in health costs by 2032. Soot is particularly harmful to those with lung and heart illnesses, children and those with asthma. Industrial soot is more common in low income communities

The Department of Transportation announced $1.5 Billion investment in America's bus systems. The bulk of the money will go helping local transport authorities buy low or no emission buses. There will also be investment in bus facilities.

President Biden signed a memorandum directing a strengthening of human rights safe guards around weapons transferred from US stockpiles to allied nations. The directive seeks to guarantee no arms are transferred that might be used to violate human rights.

HHS and HUD announced a join program partnering with 8 states and DC to help streamline an all of government response to homelessness. This is an off shoot of the $3.16 billion dollar investment amounted by HUD last week to end homelessness in America

The Department of Energy and FEMA released the findings of a two year study that projections Puerto Rico will be able to be 100% renewable energy by 2050. DoE also announced that by the end of the 30,000 low income Puerto Ricans will be able to apply for a solar power program, the first investments in a billion dollar DoE program for the island's renewable energy future

Department of Transportation announced $417 million dollar loan to the North Carolina Turnpike Authority to complete a major transportation overhaul in the greater Raleigh area

The EPA and Department of Energy announced a joint plan to invest federal funds to help measure and reduce methane emissions from the oil and gas production. Methane is the second largest green house gas after CO2 and is responsible for 30% of global warming in the last 200 years. This comes after the EPA pushed new rules to fine oil and gas manufacturers for excess methane emissions.

The Senate confirmed 2 more Biden nominated federal judges. This brings the total number of Biden judges to 177 For the first time in history a majority of a President's judicial nominees are not white men, Biden has nominated a majority women and people of color Biden also nominated 4 more federal judges, including two LGBT candidates. If they are confirmed it'll bring Biden's LGBT judge total to 11 tying with President Obama for the most LGBT people put on the federal bench

[collapsedsquid]

No-one now believes - or pretends to believe - that Silicon Valley is going to connect the world, ushering in an age of peace, harmony and likes across nations. That is in part because of shifting geopolitics, but it is also the product of practical learning. A decade ago, liberals, liberaltarians and straight libertarians could readily enthuse about “liberation technologies” and Twitter revolutions in which nimble pro-democracy dissidents would use the Internet to out-maneuver sluggish governments. Technological innovation and liberal freedoms seemed to go hand in hand. Now they don’t. Authoritarian governments have turned out to be quite adept for the time being, not just at suppressing dissidence but at using these technologies for their own purposes. Platforms like Facebook have been used to mobilize ethnic violence around the world, with minimal pushback from the platform’s moderation systems, which were built on the cheap and not designed to deal with a complex world where people could do horrible things in hundreds of languages. And there are now a lot of people who think that Silicon Valley platforms are bad for stability in places like the U.S. and Western Europe where democracy was supposed to be consolidated. My surmise is that this shift in beliefs has undermined the core ideas that held the Silicon Valley coalition together. Specifically, it has broken the previously ‘obvious’ intimate relationship between innovation and liberalism. I don’t see anyone arguing that Silicon Valley innovation is the best way of spreading liberal democratic awesome around the world any more, or for keeping it up and running at home. Instead, I see a variety of arguments for the unbridled benefits of innovation, regardless of its benefits for democratic liberalism. I see a lot of arguments that innovation - especially in AI - is about to propel us into an incredible new world of human possibilities, provided that it isn’t restrained by DEI, ESG and other such nonsense. Others (or the same people) argue that we need to innovate, innovate, innovate because we are caught in a technological arms race with China, and if we lose, we’re toast. Others (sotto or brutto voce; again, sometimes the same people) - contend innovation isn’t really possible in a world of democratic restraint, and we need new forms of corporate authoritarianism with a side helping of exit, to allow the kinds of advances we really need to transform the world.

From "rapid technological development will save the world, it'll be great" to "there is no alternative to rapid technological development, no matter how much it sucks"

[thebreakfastgenie]

We did, in fact, have 24/7 access to tv and YouTube before TikTok. And plenty of ‘slop’ being pushed on those platforms. The reason you don’t find the new generation of slop engaging is because you’re not a child anymore and have more discerning taste. Nothing new is actually happening

I didn't find my generation of slop engaging either I've been an elitist media snob since birth.

We did not, in fact, have 24/7/365 access to TV and internet before smartphones. We were limited by being in a room with a TV or computer and a cable or internet connection. Nowadays most teens and adults (and quite a few children) in the developed world have smartphones and cellular data networks extend to most places. There is no escape from an endless stream of content. Also TV and YouTube weren't necessarily intellectually stimulating but short-form video content is processed differently and has a different effect on the brain. A constantly available stream of endless short-form videos selected by an algorithm for the express purpose of keeping users scrolling is new. It's the same type of thing that happened with previous technological advances but on an exponentially greater scale.

I don't think smartphones or social media or even mindless slop are inherently bad, it's the way those things are being used by corporations, because if we all had a healthy level of social media use it would make companies like ByteDance and Meta less money than if we were all addicted to doomscrolling. Companies getting us addicted to their products to the detriment of society because it's more profitable for them isn't new either. But recognizing it's happening is the first step to doing something about it.

[sapphiresaphics]

Severance: my best guess.

This will contain spoilers from season 1 to season 2 Episode 7.

I’ve not tried to do any theory crafting for Severance yet, so I’m gonna try now based on all the available information we have.

So the Eagan family is a bit of a cult. It started in the late 1800’s with a guy who worked in an Ether factory. Ether is used by doctors as an anesthetic and is primarily used in surgeries. Ether can also cause hallucinations and distorted thinking.

Which brings me to Kier Eagan and his 4 tempers and his 9 principals. Kier supposedly conquered the 4 tempers (Woe, Frolic, Dread, and Malice). These would be emotions that he feels were detrimental to life. And he created the 9 principals (Vision, Verve, Wit, Cheer, Humility, Benevolence, Nimbleness, Probity, Wiles) as emotional virtues that he cherished.

It would not surprise me that this old man working in an ether factory frequently had hallucinations and visions and wrote down his stories as a distorted Bible of sorts. “These are the things that hold you back, these are the things that make you strong” sort of thing. And because this was a business and he was the CEO (a crazy CEO but a CEO nevertheless) these principals and tenants were passed down through the generations.

And for our immediate purposes it seems to have worked. The Lumon company grew from a small Ether factory that made topical salves, to a giant tech company that has their hands in many pies all over the world. Kinda like how Google went from an internet search browser to basically owning everything we interact with today.

And over the years that cult like devotion to Keir Eagan and his mantras has resulted in the corporation of Lumon wanting to impose Keri’s wisdom and will on the rest of humanity, as most religions often want to do.

Fast forward and they’ve developed a technology that can separate your consciousness into two beings. Memories for each consciousness only exist for that consciousness and cannot transfer over to the other. The severance procedure.

This procedure allows people to go to work, but never actually deal with work because their innie is the one doing all the unpleasant tasks for them. Great on the surface, but there’s a twist. That other consciousness of yours that is created… well it’s another person. With its own wants and dreams and desires. And as this procedure is being tested Lumon discovers that these innies are increasingly resistant to having their entire lives be reduced to working forever until they die.

So Lumon has a problem. I believe they think the reason these innies are so unhappy is because they have the 4 tempers in them. It’s not because they’re people with wants and dreams, it’s because they also have Woe, Frolic, Dread, and Malice in them. That’s why the innies keep fighting back.

Stepping back for a minute we are also aware that Lumon raises kids through various programs. Harmony Cobel was raised through some sort of “girls for Lumon” program. As most likely was Milchek and Miss Wong. And these programs seem to focus heavily on removing emotion from your essence. Cobel was praying to keep her emotions under control, Milchek was practicing in a mirror to adhere to Lumon’s desires for him. And Wong can’t graduate from her fellowship until she is deemed worthy.

I think what the Macro Data Refiners are doing is finding these components and providing data for the severance chips to suppress these emotions. To ensure that they aren’t being preferable to any of the data, it’s all sent to them encoded and jumbled up. But some numbers “feel” a certain way. And the MDR members are able to basically sense these emotions and bin them. “You feel the hurt down there too, you just don’t know what it is.”

Remember this is a corporation and they are pushing a product they want everyone in the world to get. So if the goal of this product is to push the idea that you can get this medial procedure and then ever again have to experience anything negative ever, they need to ensure that when outies return to consciousness that no negative side effects linger.

And Gemma is their test subject for this procedure. They are using her by placing her into various different stressful environments and situations, adjusting the chips, and seeing when she comes out of them if she feels or recalls anything negative.

I don’t know if the point of the chips will be to control the innies as well, removing all will to resist or something along those lines. They’ve shown surprisingly little care into the lives of the innies. But they do seem to at least be aware that controlling the innies is a problem. That’s why they lean so heavily on the cult stuff. That’s why they isolate departments and keep everyone fearful of one another.

I think that’s also why Bert is different. He seems to RELISH in the vices. A “scoundrel” as he calls himself. He seems to believe that innies deserve to experience pleasure. He is the snake to Lumon’s garden of Eden if you will. Since he’s a partner with Lumon, it’s possible that he views the innies as a source of allowing people to express those carnal desires and thoughts free from the guilt of having them as an outie.

And we’ve seen at least with the waffle party that Lumon has this belief in mastering and overcoming those same vices and pleasures. Why else would the waffle party have the 4 tempers dancing erotically while the “founder” sits in the bed and does nothing, whip in hand ready to strike if they rustle their emotions?

So this is Lumon’s pitch to the world. Imagine you never have to worry about doing anything negative you don’t want ever again. Get this wonderful medical procedure and you’ll be able to, at the push of a button, skip over your entire work day and just come home refreshed and happy to continue to live your life. If you want to have a baby and don’t want to deal with the pain of childbirth, just use the severance chip to skip over that! Don’t want to do a boring repetitive task like writing Christmas thank you notes? Don’t want to fly on an airplane? Don’t want to go to the dentist? Just use our chip and skip over that moment and get on with your life.

And of course this has extreemly dangerous implications for the rest of the world. What if you want to go to war but don’t want to deal with the fear of dying? What if you want an army of people who can perform manual labor all day without rest? What if you want to have sex but don’t want the shame or fear you might have a kid? Any Vice or fear or labor you need… Severance will be there to take care of it.

And for Lumon’s part… well that’s potentially even more sinister. We don’t know what their goal is, but good god can you imagine if Google had access to your brain and at a moment’s notice they could just switch you off??? We’ve seen that the Overtime Contingency works outside of the Lumon building. Giving a CULT access to EVERYONE in the world that they can manipulate at any time would be… horrific.

“They will all be Kier’s children”

So I think that’s the plan. Perfect this technology so they can market it as a way to bypass your negative feelings, but it’s a Trojan horse. You’re actually surrendering your will and personhood to this cult. A cult who can use you to do anything they want. Make anything they need. Do any task they want. And you’d never know it, because you’re no longer the outie.

Fucking TERRIFYING.

[sag-dab-sar]

Clarification: Generative AI does not equal all AI

💭 "Artificial Intelligence"

AI is machine learning, deep learning, natural language processing, and more that I'm not smart enough to know. It can be extremely useful in many different fields and technologies. One of my information & emergency management courses described the usage of AI as being a "human centaur". Part human part machine; meaning AI can assist in all the things we already do and supplement our work by doing what we can't.

💭 Examples of AI Benefits

AI can help advance things in all sorts of fields, here are some examples:

Emergency Healthcare & Disaster Risk X

Disaster Response X

Crisis Resilience Management X

Medical Imaging Technology X

Commercial Flying X

Air Traffic Control X

Railroad Transportation X

Ship Transportation X

Geology X

Water Conservation X

Can AI technology be used maliciously? Yeh. Thats a matter of developing ethics and working to teach people how to see red flags just like people see red flags in already existing technology.

AI isn't evil. Its not the insane sentient shit that wants to kill us in movies. And it is not synonymous with generative AI.

💭 Generative AI

Generative AI does use these technologies, but it uses them unethically. Its scraps data from all art, all writing, all videos, all games, all audio anything it's developers give it access to WITHOUT PERMISSION, which is basically free reign over the internet. Sometimes with certain restrictions, often generative AI engineers—who CAN choose to exclude things—may exclude extremist sites or explicit materials usually using black lists.

AI can create images of real individuals without permission, including revenge porn. Create music using someones voice without their permission and then sell that music. It can spread disinformation faster than it can be fact checked, and create false evidence that our court systems are not ready to handle.

AI bros eat it up without question: "it makes art more accessible" , "it'll make entertainment production cheaper" , "its the future, evolve!!!"

💭 AI is not similar to human thinking

When faced with the argument "a human didn't make it" the come back is "AI learns based on already existing information, which is exactly what humans do when producing art! We ALSO learn from others and see thousands of other artworks"

Lets make something clear: generative AI isn't making anything original. It is true that human beings process all the information we come across. We observe that information, learn from it, process it then ADD our own understanding of the world, our unique lived experiences. Through that information collection, understanding, and our own personalities we then create new original things.

💭 Generative AI doesn't create things: it mimics things

Take an analogy:

Consider an infant unable to talk but old enough to engage with their caregivers, some point in between 6-8 months old.

Mom: a bird flaps its wings to fly!!! *makes a flapping motion with arm and hands*

Infant: *giggles and makes a flapping motion with arms and hands*

The infant does not understand what a bird is, what wings are, or the concept of flight. But she still fully mimicked the flapping of the hands and arms because her mother did it first to show her. She doesn't cognitively understand what on earth any of it means, but she was still able to do it.

In the same way, generative AI is the infant that copies what humans have done— mimicry. Without understanding anything about the works it has stolen.

Its not original, it doesn't have a world view, it doesn't understand emotions that go into the different work it is stealing, it's creations have no meaning, it doesn't have any motivation to create things it only does so because it was told to.

Why read a book someone isn't even bothered to write?

Related videos I find worth a watch

ChatGPT's Huge Problem by Kyle Hill (we don't understand how AI works)

Criticism of Shadiversity's "AI Love Letter" by DeviantRahll

AI Is Ruining the Internet by Drew Gooden

AI vs The Law by Legal Eagle (AI & US Copyright)

AI Voices by Tyler Chou (Short, flash warning)

Dead Internet Theory by Kyle Hill

-Dyslexia, not audio proof read-

[animentality]

not to be a boomer, but I do worry about the current generation of kids being raised with iPads.

first off. some of them literally can't hold a pencil because their parents never gave them physical toys to grip and play with, developing their fine motor skills.

you might ask why do we even need to learn how to write physically anymore- well, frankly, because if you're stranded on an island somewhere and you need to write HELP, you might not have the strength to hold a pencil, but you can at least hold a stick.

but on a more general note.

writing by hand helps you remember things better. it forces you to focus in a way that typing something word for word does not. a person can transcribe what a professor says without even thinking about it.

someone writing notes has to consider what to write and what to omit. it also activates more parts of your brain, forcing you to flex the parts of your brain related to learning and communicating, while also engaging the part of your brain dedicated to muscle control and precision.

but in general, I think the issue isn't even oh technology is bad and kids are getting dumber.

you can have PowerPoints AND take physical notes. that could help you learn even better than the olden days where you just had to remember everything that was thrown at you. or read very limited, out of date books.

the problem is that the generation that raised/is raising this generation of children just doesn't understand the true impact that all this technology will have on their kids. or they just don't care.

because our generation had the internet yes, but it wasn't widely accessible for most of us, sharing our computers with the entire family in the kitchen. it was also the internet in its infancy, where it wasn't quite so predatory, when it was lawless and disturbing, yes, but it wasn't weaponized by corporations trying to sell you things and steal your data, it wasn't flooded with bots and ai and all sorts of things that the human brain can't even distinguish as real or fake, especially when you're just a little kid.

that generation still played with physical toys. we celebrated when it snowed and we could stay home.

we also came from a gen that still, vaguely, cared about some form of community and had third spaces for kids to hang out.

90s children, who still had some memories of both playing outside on a playground and playing Mario Kart on the Nintendo 64 with their friends, who both went out to the mall and had a club penguin account.

we grew up with laptops and smart boards. maybe some of us had them in high school or college, but we still physically went to class and developed relationships. learned uncomfortable things about ourselves and others, the way humans do.

met new people and were exposed to new ideas, away from our parents. but not from some fucking influencer trying to sell us Sephora products.

we had to study for things, instead of just being able to Google shit for some bullshit online test.

which is also something that really concerns me. so many kids today can so easily Google answers for every test, and while tests don't ultimately matter in the real world, they still provide some basis for things that do matter.

like I'm just imagining medical students googling how to perform an appendectomy on the day of, and just using a YouTube tutorial to guide them through, and shuddering.

there are some things that the Internet can't teach you.

there always will be.

but I don't think my generation is really helping their kids find the balance that we were given naturally growing up.

the boomers and gen xers had fist fights and we had bullying someone online until they committed suicide.

and now kids use AI to spread fake nudes of girls.

but the laws haven't caught up with a lot of this stuff yet, and certainly won't while we have dinosaurs running our government. and culture takes even longer to change than laws.

I also worry because I know how badly covid affected kids worldwide. how they struggle to read and do math, because remote learning just isn't good for kids.

and I can't even blame them!! I literally teleworked for 4 years and even I can admit that I'm not nearly as good at focusing at home as I am in the office.

it's hard for kids with social anxiety and disabilities, yes I know, I know, trust me, I have social anxiety, and as a hybrid worker ATM, I highly doubt I'd be able to handle 5 days a week in the office.

but it's also not particularly good for kids to stay home ALL the time, entertaining themselves in their room and never being challenged, and never meeting people other than their parents.

the iPad is more of a symbol of that problem than the direct problem.

if your entire... world view is limited to what you can see on your iPad... I mean what a terrible world view you'll have.

you're a 10 year old using TikTok and all you ever see is the same opinion over and over until you can scarcely comprehend people who have an opposing opinion.

you see fake videos that seem so real. that must be real, and so comforting, aren't they, those videos that seem so real?

you let 30 year old influencers who are trying to grift people shape your world view.

and it's not even your fault.

your parents aren't doing anything to help you.

you're young and you're being barraged with entertainment and fake educational videos and how to guides that accidentally create mustard gas in your toilet.

your parents should be teaching you to find a balance between these things. they should be telling you what's real and caution you about the things you see.

they should limit your fucking time on the iPad actually. take you to a fucking park and let you roll in the mud or some shit.

and then when you're a teenager and a young adult, then you can start deciding for yourself what you believe.

but a lot of these weird millennial/gen z parents, man. just let your 1 year old scroll through vids on TikTok while you don't even talk to them or look at them once.

maybe it's because they don't see the harm in it, but I don't get it.

adults can watch TikTok all day and know, ahhh this is bad for me. I'm not doing anything I actually want to be doing.

adults can see other adults doing dumb shit and say ah you're sponsored. someone paid you money to say and do that. silly.

but kids are just kids.

they don't have discipline and frankly, that's not their responsibility. that is yours.

you should be teaching them that they can't have everything in life at their finger tips at all times, actually.

the iPad doesn't solve all of your problems, nor will it think critically for you.

so I worry about if humanity can really keep up with its own technology.

our species is still in its infancy, believe it or not.

so maybe these are just growing pains, and future generations will be able to look back on this era and know the proper balance.

but as someone living in 2024.

I wonder just how much pain is left before we really mature and either make it or break it.

[mariacallous]

I stopped using my cellphone for regular calls and text messages last fall and switched to Signal. I wasn’t being paranoid—or at least I don’t think I was. I worked in the National Security Council, and we were told that China had compromised all major U.S. telecommunications companies and burrowed deep inside their networks. Beijing had gathered information on more than a million Americans, mainly in the Washington, D.C., area. The Chinese government could listen in to phone calls and read text messages. Experts call the Chinese state-backed group responsible Salt Typhoon, and the vulnerabilities it exploited have not been fixed. China is still there.

Telecommunications systems aren’t the only ones compromised. China has accessed enormous quantities of data on Americans for more than a decade. It has hacked into health-insurance companies and hotel chains, as well as security-clearance information held by the Office of Personnel Management.

The jaded response here is All countries spy. So what? But the spectacular surprise attacks that Ukraine and Israel have pulled off against their enemies suggest just how serious such penetration can become. In Operation Spiderweb, Ukraine smuggled attack drones on trucks with unwitting drivers deep inside of Russia, and then used artificial intelligence to simultaneously attack four military bases and destroy a significant number of strategic bombers, which are part of Russia’s nuclear triad. Israel created a real pager-production company in Hungary to infiltrate Hezbollah’s global supply chains and booby-trap its communication devices, killing or maiming much of the group’s leadership in one go. Last week, in Operation Rising Lion, Israel assassinated many top Iranian military leaders simultaneously and attacked the country’s nuclear facilities, thanks in part to a drone base it built inside Iran.

In each case, a resourceful, determined, and imaginative state used new technologies and data to do what was hitherto deemed impossible. America’s adversaries are also resourceful, determined, and imaginative.

Just think about what might happen if a U.S.-China war broke out over Taiwan.

A Chinese state-backed group called Volt Typhoon has been preparing plans to attack crucial infrastructure in the United States should the two countries ever be at war. As Jen Easterly put it in 2024 when she was head of the Cyber and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), China is planning to “launch destructive cyber-attacks in the event of a major crisis or conflict with the United States,” including “the disruption of our gas pipelines; the pollution of our water facilities; the severing of our telecommunications; the crippling of our transportation systems.”

The Biden administration took measures to fight off these cyberattacks and harden the infrastructure. Joe Biden also imposed some sanctions on China and took some specific measures to limit America’s exposure; he cut off imports of Chinese electric vehicles because of national-security concerns. Biden additionally signed a bill to ban TikTok, but President Donald Trump has issued rolling extensions to keep the platform functioning in the U.S. America and its allies will need to think hard about where to draw the line in the era of the Internet of Things, which connects nearly everything and could allow much of it—including robots, drones, and cloud computing—to be weaponized.

China isn’t the only problem. According to the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Annual Threat Assessment for this year, Russia is developing a new device to detonate a nuclear weapon in space with potentially “devastating” consequences. A Pentagon official last year said the weapon could  pose “a threat to satellites operated by countries and companies around the globe, as well as to the vital communications, scientific, meteorological, agricultural, commercial, and national security services we all depend upon. Make no mistake, even if detonating a nuclear weapon in space does not directly kill people, the indirect impact could be catastrophic to the entire world.” The device could also render Trump’s proposed “Golden Dome” missile shield largely ineffective.

Americans can expect a major adversary to use drones and AI to go after targets deep inside the United States or allied countries. There is no reason to believe that an enemy wouldn’t take a page out of the Israeli playbook and go after leadership. New technologies reward acting preemptively, catching the adversary by surprise—so the United States may not get much notice. A determined adversary could even cut the undersea cables that allow the internet to function. Last year, vessels linked to Russia and China appeared to have severed those cables in Europe on a number of occasions, supposedly by accident. In a concerted hostile action, Moscow could cut or destroy these cables at scale.

Terrorist groups are less capable than state actors—they are unlikely to destroy most of the civilian satellites in space, for example, or collapse essential infrastructure—but new technologies could expand their reach too. In their book The Coming Wave, Mustafa Suleyman and Michael Bhaskar described some potential attacks that terrorists could undertake: unleashing hundreds or thousands of drones equipped with automatic weapons and facial recognition on multiple cities simultaneously, say, or even one drone to spray a lethal pathogen on a crowd.

A good deal of American infrastructure is owned by private companies with little incentive to undertake the difficult and costly fixes that might defend against Chinese infiltration. Certainly this is true of telecommunications companies, as well as those providing utilities such as water and electricity. Making American systems resilient could require a major public outlay. But it could cost less than the $150 billion (one estimate has that figure at an eye-popping $185 billion) that the House of Representatives is proposing to appropriate this year to strictly enforce immigration law.

Instead, the Trump administration proposed slashing funding for CISA, the agency responsible for protecting much of our infrastructure against foreign attacks, by $495 million, or approximately 20 percent of its budget. That cut will make the United States more vulnerable to attack.

The response to the drone threat has been no better. Some in Congress have tried to pass legislation expanding government authority to detect and destroy drones over certain kinds of locations, but the most recent effort failed. Senator Rand Paul, who was then the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and is now the chair, said there was no imminent threat and warned against giving the government sweeping surveillance powers, although the legislation entailed nothing of the sort. Senators from both parties have resisted other legislative measures to counter drones.

The United States could learn a lot from Ukraine on how to counter drones, as well as how to use them, but the administration has displayed little interest in doing this. The massively expensive Golden Dome project is solely focused on defending against the most advanced missiles but should be tasked with dealing with the drone threat as well.

Meanwhile, key questions go unasked and unanswered. What infrastructure most needs to be protected? Should aircraft be kept in the open? Where should the United States locate a counter-drone capability?

After 9/11, the United States built a far-reaching homeland-security apparatus focused on counterterrorism. The Trump administration is refocusing it on border security and immigration. But the biggest threat we face is not terrorism, let alone immigration. Those responsible for homeland security should not be chasing laborers on farms and busboys in restaurants in order to meet quotas imposed by the White House.

The wars in Ukraine and the Middle East are giving Americans a glimpse into the battles of the future—and a warning. It is time to prepare.

[probablyasocialecologist]

An increasing number of Silicon Valley investors and Wall Street analysts are starting to ring the alarm bells over the countless billions of dollars being invested in AI, an overconfidence they warn could result in a massive bubble. As the Washington Post reports, investment bankers are singing a dramatically different tune than last year, a period marked by tremendous hype surrounding AI, and are instead starting to become wary of Big Tech's ability to actually turn the tech into a profitable business. "Despite its expensive price tag, the technology is nowhere near where it needs to be in order to be useful," Goldman Sach's most senior stock analyst Jim Covello wrote in a report last month. "Overbuilding things the world doesn’t have use for, or is not ready for, typically ends badly."

[...]

According to Barclays analysts, investors are expected to pour $60 billion a year into developing AI models, enough to develop 12,000 products roughly the size of OpenAI's ChatGPT. But whether the world needs 12,000 ChatGPT chatbots remains dubious at best. "We do expect lots of new services... but probably not 12,000 of them," Barclays analysts wrote in a note, as quoted by the WaPo. "We sense that Wall Street is growing increasingly skeptical." For quite some time now, experts have voiced concerns over a growing AI bubble, comparing it to the dot-com crisis of the late 1990s. "Capital continues to pour into the AI sector with very little attention being paid to company fundamentals," tech stock analyst Richard Windsor wrote in a March research note, "in a sure sign that when the music stops there will not be many chairs available." "This is precisely what happened with the Internet in 1999, autonomous driving in 2017, and now generative AI in 2024," he added.

27 July 2024

[alkistisnetwide]

I'm going to make a sincere case against busting online piracy, prompted by recent EU and Greek laws

1. Art is a human right and necessary for personal development. People who can not afford the expense and those who do not have the ability to use money (= many children in restrictive, poor, conservative and ocassionally abusive households) are being deprived of most opportunities to have good influences and be exposed to constructive ideas

2. The intricacies of the legal and business world have made it impossible to access a large amount of obscure media, the creators of which wish to be available to the public. Streaming platforms are known to remove content unexpectedly, which becomes inaccessible even to those who are willing to pay. Media is nowadays rent, not bought, so piracy is often motivated by the desire to preserve it (also applies to higher level scientific knowledge)

3. It is outrageous to give corporations who are by no means struggling financially the power to control the dissemination of something intangible, to the extent where they can put people on trial for simply viewing. It is a violation of individual privacy and since there is no product being sold and the industry is extremely centralised said corporations can profit massively

It's important to see the laws for what they really are. They aren't there for the small artist who can't afford a lawyer. They serve the interests of the industry by not only forcing people to pay monthly for their slop but also by removing any alternative to it

I'll now make an additional argument, specific to myself, that could upset some people. My mother is someone who never embraced technology (and that's perfectly within her rights) and my father is rather prone to ideological thinking (wild conspiracy theories). I grew up without a television, without a phone until my teens and without the ability to make payments over the internet (we did have a laptop). Thankfully, YouTube back then wasn't so disgustingly censored, but being a young child that didn't have the ability to navigate the web I was restricted in how to entertain myself and didn't possess much critical thought. I never knew what my peers were talking about (maybe that was for the best, but it did contribute to my isolation) and when I was a preteen I was stuck reading a certain kind of far-right material on forums. At that age, where I was beginning to develop my ability to think like an adult, I should have had access to media that wasn't teaching me all the ways in which I, a little girl, had to change myself in order to appeal to men, be accepted and not be "contrary to nature". Instead, I developed body dysmorphia, bought into some theories about evolutionary psychology, began to intensely fear everyone around me and eventually found myself in some *really peaceful and non-violent group chats* (I had already been getting along with people who liked their "women" "pure" by that point). I was in an echo chamber and I have been really lucky to have gotten out *in time*.

I credit the fact I'm not in a big mess right now to:

Naoki Urasawa's Monster, the anime form of which is now a Netflix property, back then someone had uploaded the whole thing. The manga is available online

The work of an extremely talented musician who I won't shill here

Genshin [f*ck*ing] Impact, which despite it's flaws is an amazing story, as long as you aren't prone to gambling that is

Yes, there were a lot more factors contributing to my indoctrination than the content I consumed and what I didn't engage with. However, any one of them has some influence and any one of them might tip the scales for somebody

[skeyfruit]

There was information circulating on the Internet that Falconer was in the bad blood group not by choice. I don’t know how true it is, but I decided to write a fanfic that tells how this could happen

I want to warn you that I am not a native English speaker and do not count myself among the group of good writers, but I hope this will be readable

Warning

maybe Berserker/Falconer

I never thought that in pursuit of freedom I would end up like a bird in a cageSince childhood, I believed that I was different from my relatives, while others were eager to fight, I paved the way to the unknown, to what seemed alien and meaningless to others, expanding my range with new knowledge, studying foreign cultures and behavior. Striving for perfection, you begin to understand that no matter how graceful a hunter you are, you can always be beaten, covered with self-confidence, you lose your vigilance, excessive emotionality always loses to a cold mind.

I have devoted most of my life to the study of space and living organisms. Having become a pathfinder, this became my full-time task, preserving the newly acquired information. Developments in technology have opened new paths for me. improving weapons, updating systems, bringing everything to the edge of what is possible and permitted. There were also borders, there was no chance of conducting our own production for a variety of weapons and additional amenities. borders had their inconveniences, and every time attempts to get around them ended in refusal and pointlessly wasted time. Without approval there were no resources, the idea of ​​hidden production made no sense in this case. It was not possible to travel through space without permission, constantly asking for permission for this or that expedition. The only thing that was approved as a single copy was a wrist reconnaissance device that imitated the flying creatures I loved.

That day, I conducted a successful test of its performance and efficiency in completing assigned tasks on a planet that was part of a dense jungle. Until some moment it seemed to me that I was alone here, it seemed.

a demonstrative crash of a figure landing several pounds away. An unfamiliar hunter was slowly approaching me. There was no threat coming from him, but it seemed to me that I had never seen him before; the red tassels on his dreadlocks stood out against the background of the rest. he offered me a deal where everyone can get what they want. At the time it seemed like a harmless proposal, but I should have thought twice about what I was doing.

firmware equipment, disabling geolocation, this should already have aroused suspicion, but my new acquaintance sounded quite convincing, convincing me that there was nothing wrong with this, or that I was too naive then. in return, I was given my own shuttle, the supply of the necessary resources and complete freedom of action to carry out my instructions. At the slightest doubt, Berserker rubbed into my gained trust. This was his plan, I was deceived and I myself let him get away with everything. I understood that what I was doing was against the rules, but I didn’t realize their seriousness until it went too far.

It all started small, supplying prey from different parts of the galaxy. Our hunt did not go anywhere near the code. The berserker did not disdain any method of elimination, starting with shooting a plasma gun at an unarmed victim, ending with torturing prey with traps, bringing him to exhaustion and suffering until death for his own pleasure. and if the prey managed to give a worthy rebuff, there can be no question of any fair fight.he can play with her at first, performing in hand-to-hand combat, but in the event of the slightest defeat, under the pressure of his emotionality and impulsiveness, he deals with her in the most dishonest and vile way, it is impossible to win, he dictates the rules and they are constantly changing. but the peak was what I saw in the trophy camp. Then it became obvious that I had not only fallen into the clutches of a heretic, but had also become part of it. Fratricide. I didn't want to be a part of this, but it was too late.

The metal door opened and the young hunter climbed aboard the ship. he was behind Berserker, a slight tension hung in the air. Heretic was distracted from polishing the skull, paying attention to the figure standing behind him - Why such a defensive position? - The falconer glared at him with an incredulous, condemning look, nevertheless raising his voice - Atturi is in the camp, did you know about this? “He still wanted to believe that it was some kind of mistake.” A grin broke out on the heretic’s face, something like a smile; there was not a drop of regret in his gazehe indifferently took a couple of steps to the side, turning over a human skull in his hands, already polished to perfection - Are you talking about that pathetic hunter? “Berserker asked a rhetorical question with some arrogance, after which he turned towards his companion. — In my opinion, everyone here does their own thingresponsibilities - He took several decisive steps towards the falconer, standing in front of him at a distance of one meter - Other work should not concern you - There was a distinct hint of threat in his voice. The falconer face burned with disgust and condemnation, which amused the Berserker.It’s clear that there’s nothing left to talk about - I’m not going to have anything to do with this, I’m leaving. - He turned around demonstratively and headed towards the exit - No one is keeping you here - Falconer slowed down, listening to the elder’s words. The berserker followed him, standing behind the hunter. “But do you really think that they will take you back?” His clawed paw rested on the falcon neck at shoulder level. His words cast doubt on what had previously been floating around in Falconer's thoughts. his sudden disappearance could cause a lot of suspicion, without proper alebi his deeds could be revealed, and then what? Serve the rest of your life at the lowest level of caste or be sentenced to death, one option is better than the other. he raised his incredulous gaze towards Berserker, his doubt was visible in it, the stabbing truth still kept him here. - Do you want to go back to where you will become nobody again? - He walked forward, standing between the exit and Falcon, bending slightly to meet his gaze, his palmshe fingered the ranger's dreadlocks, pulling one of them towards her, still holding it in her hands. - Be realistic, birdie

[not-terezi-pyrope]

One thing that frustrates me about AI dangers conversations online is that a lot of it is just people discovering that a lot of perfectly ordinary types of crimes and antisocial behaviour can also be done with the new technology, and then immediately making that fact the technology's fault.

People can produce a lot of bullshit and post it online? People can already do that with their own hands, by paying a dude to write, by using a crude algorithm stitching text. Using the bullshit to lie? You can do that by... Lying. Or pasting your bullshit into a fake news format. Media organizations can and do do these things at scale.

People can create convincing images of things that didn't really happen? You can already do that with photoshop. Or by staging a photograph. Or by physically modifying film images, back in the day.

People can blend images of someone's face onto nudes? Terrible thing to do, but you can do it with photoshop. Or by cut and pasting printouts. Or hiring an artist to sketch your custom porn.

People can plagiarise your content and take your ideas, or elements from them, in ways that are hard to trace or detect? To do things with them you did not intend? They can and do already and have done this for centuries. Hell, you probably support them doing this to an extent, when it is called "influence", "homage", "derivative work", "remix".

People can produce fake audio recordings of your voice? Harder, but impersonations exist. It is possible to edit speech, to ascribe words to people who didn't say them.

Now the obvious rejoinder to all this is that AI tools lower the access barrier to some of these things, and yes, they do. As did photoshop, photography, mass media, the internet. You have discovered the purpose of technology; to increase accessibility across the board to more complex creative and productive processes.

All of the above problems are real and concerning, but they are human problems, and they will continue to be done by humans, as they are, and condemned/combated by humans, as we already do. New methods being invented to do these things may embolden people to try their luck at being shitty for a time, but that will lessen as these techniques become normal things that exist, as all technologies do. AI is in so many ways just another general purpose technology that makes doing a lot of different things easier, for good or ill. Actions are the problem here, but in this regard AI itself specifically really isn't.

Unless your problem is with technological development in general, and you believe that past a certain point people, or at least "the masses", can't be trusted with new tools. But that's a different conversation, and a position that I imagine people will find much harder to defend and find acceptance for than "computers bad".

[punk-pins]

fundamentally you need to understand that the internet-scraping text generative AI (like ChatGPT) is not the point of the AI tech boom. the only way people are making money off that is through making nonsense articles that have great search engine optimization. essentially they make a webpage that’s worded perfectly to show up as the top result on google, which generates clicks, which generates ads. text generative ai is basically a machine that creates a host page for ad space right now.

and yeah, that sucks. but I don’t think the commercialized internet is ever going away, so here we are. tbh, I think finding information on the internet, in books, or through anything is a skill that requires critical thinking and cross checking your sources. people printed bullshit in books before the internet was ever invented. misinformation is never going away. I don’t think text generative AI is going to really change the landscape that much on misinformation because people are becoming educated about it. the text generative AI isn’t a genius supercomputer, but rather a time-saving tool to get a head start on identifying key points of information to further research.

anyway. the point of the AI tech boom is leveraging big data to improve customer relationship management (CRM) to streamline manufacturing. businesses collect a ridiculous amount of data from your internet browsing and purchases, but much of that data is stored in different places with different access points. where you make money with AI isn’t in the Wild West internet, it’s in a structured environment where you know the data its scraping is accurate. companies like nvidia are getting huge because along with the new computer chips, they sell a customizable ecosystem along with it.

so let’s say you spent 10 minutes browsing a clothing retailer’s website. you navigated directly to the clothing > pants tab and filtered for black pants only. you added one pair of pants to your cart, and then spent your last minute or two browsing some shirts. you check out with just the pants, spending $40. you select standard shipping.

with AI for CRM, that company can SIGNIFICANTLY more easily analyze information about that sale. maybe the website developers see the time you spent on the site, but only the warehouse knows your shipping preferences, and sales audit knows the amount you spent, but they can’t see what color pants you bought. whereas a person would have to connect a HUGE amount of data to compile EVERY customer’s preferences across all of these things, AI can do it easily.

this allows the company to make better broad decisions, like what clothing lines to renew, in which colors, and in what quantities. but it ALSO allows them to better customize their advertising directly to you. through your browsing, they can use AI to fill a pre-made template with products you specifically may be interested in, and email it directly to you. the money is in cutting waste through better manufacturing decisions, CRM on an individual and large advertising scale, and reducing the need for human labor to collect all this information manually.

(also, AI is great for developing new computer code. where a developer would have to trawl for hours on GitHUB to find some sample code to mess with to try to solve a problem, the AI can spit out 10 possible solutions to play around with. thats big, but not the point right now.)

so I think it’s concerning how many people are sooo focused on ChatGPT as the face of AI when it’s the least profitable thing out there rn. there is money in the CRM and the manufacturing and reduced labor. corporations WILL develop the technology for those profits. frankly I think the bigger concern is how AI will affect big data in a government ecosystem. internet surveillance is real in the sense that everything you do on the internet is stored in little bits of information across a million different places. AI will significantly impact the government’s ability to scrape and compile information across the internet without having to slog through mountains of junk data.

[dailyanarchistposts]

Scientific consensus has finally emerged that global warming is taking place as a result of industrial capitalism and with dire consequences for life on earth. Corporate efforts to bribe scientists to argue otherwise are attracting fewer and fewer takers; this is especially telling in view of how many researchers depend on industry backing. But rather than engaging with the fact that capitalism itself is destructive, governments and liberal environmentalists are promoting corporate responses to the problems posed by climate change.

If we really believed what scientists are telling us about global warming, the fire engines of every fire department would sound their sirens and race to the nearest factory to extinguish its furnaces. Every high school student would run to the thermostat of every classroom, turn it off, and tear it out of the wall, then hit the parking lot to slash tires. Every responsible suburban parent would don safety gloves and walk around the block pulling the electrical meters out of the utility boxes behind houses and condominiums. Every gas station attendant would press the emergency button to shut off the pumps, cut the hoses, and glue the locks on the doors; every coal and petroleum corporation would immediately set about burying their unused product where it came from—using only the muscles of their own arms, of course.

But it appears we’re too out of touch to grasp what’s happening. And as long as that continues, we’ll be powerless to stop it.

Those who learn about the destruction of the environment from books or the internet can’t hope to rescue anything. The decimation of the natural world has been going on around us for centuries now; it takes a particularly bourgeois brand of blindness to drive by felled trees, spewing smokestacks, and acres of asphalt every day without noticing that anything is happening until it shows up in the newspaper. People for whom reality is composed of news articles, rather than the world they see and hear and smell, are bound to destroy everything they touch. That alienation is the root of the problem; the devastation of the environment simply follows from it.

When profit margins are more real than living things, when weather patterns are more real than refugees fleeing hurricanes, when emissions cap agreements are more real than new developments in our own neighborhoods, the world has already been signed over for destruction. The climate crisis isn’t an event that might happen, looming into view ahead; it is the familiar setting of our daily lives. Deforestation isn’t just taking place in national forests or foreign jungles; it is as real at every strip mall in Ohio as it is in the heart of the Amazon. The buffalo used to roam right here. Our disconnection from the land is catastrophic whether or not the sea level is rising, whether or not the desertification and famine sweeping other continents have reached us yet.

As usual, the people who brought this crisis upon us are eager to explain that they are the best qualified to remedy it. But there’s no reason to believe that their motives or methods have changed. The results are in that smoking causes cancer, but they’re still trying to sell us low-tar cigarettes.

Forget about nuclear power, solar power, clean coal, and wind turbines. Forget about carbon trading, biofuels, recycling programs, organic superfoods. Forget about new legislation, along with every other inefficient, insufficient response involving ballots, petitions, or some other proxy. Our only hope is to fight with our own hands, to take a stand on the ground beneath our feet—rediscovering in the process what it means to be a part of the world, not separate from it. Every tree they try to cut down, we can stop them. Every poison they try to release into the atmosphere, we can block them. Every new “sustainable” technology they introduce, we can unmask them.

They aren’t going to stop destroying the planet until we make it too costly for them to continue. The sooner we do, the better.

And Things Are Heating Up

Appendix: A Field Guide to False Solutions

The Corporate Solution

Where others see hardship and tragedy, entrepreneurs see an opportunity for financial gain. Putting the “green” in greenhouse gases and the “eco” in economy, they greet the apocalypse with outstretched wallets. Are natural disasters wrecking communities? That’s great—sell the survivors disaster relief and put up luxury condominiums where they used to live. Are food supplies contaminated with toxins? Slap “organic” on some of them and jack up the price—presto, what was once taken for granted in every vegetable is suddenly a selling point! Is consumer culture devouring the planet? Time for a line of environmentally friendly products, cashing in on guilt and good intentions to move more units.

So long as being “sustainable” is a privilege reserved for the rich, the crisis can only intensify. All the better for those banking on it.

The Conservative Solution

Many conservatives deny that our society is causing global warming; of course, some still don’t believe in evolution, either. But what they themselves believe is immaterial; they’re more concerned with the question of what it is profitable for others to believe. For example, when the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its 2007 report, an ExxonMobil-funded think tank linked to the Bush administration offered $10,000+ to any scientist who would dispute its findings.

That is to say—some people consider it a better investment to bribe experts to deny that anything is happening than to take any steps to avert catastrophe. Better that the apocalypse snatches us unawares so long as they can maintain their profits one more year. Sooner the end of life on earth than the possibility of life beyond capitalism!

The Liberal Solution

Certain do-gooders would like to claim credit for bringing global warming to the attention of the public, even though radicals have been clamoring about it for decades. But politicians like Al Gore are not trying to save the environment so much as to rescue the causes of its destruction. They are pressing for government and corporate recognition of the crisis because ecological collapse could destabilize capitalism if it catches them off guard. Small wonder corporate initiatives and incentives figure so prominently in the solutions they propose.

Like their conservative colleagues, liberals would sooner risk extinction than consider abandoning industrial capitalism. They’re simply too invested in it to do otherwise—witness the Gore family’s long-running relationship with Occidental Petroleum. In this light, their bid to seize the reins of the environmentalist movement looks suspiciously like a calculated effort to prevent a more realistic response to the crisis.

The Malthusian Solution

Some people attribute the crisis to overpopulation—but how many shantytown dwellers and subsistence farmers do you have to add up to equal the ecological impact of a single high-powered executive?

The Socialist Solution

For centuries, socialists have promised to grant everyone access to middle class standards of living. Now it turns out that the biosphere can’t support even a small minority pursuing that lifestyle; one might expect socialists to adjust their notion of utopia accordingly. Instead they’ve simply updated it to match the latest in bourgeois fashions: today every worker deserves to eat organic produce and live in a “green” condominium. But these products only came to be as a marketing ploy to differentiate high-end merchandise from proletarian standard fare. If you’re going to think big enough to imagine a society without class differences, you might as well aim for a future in which we share the wealth of a vibrant natural world rather than chopping it up into inert commodities.

The Communist Solution

In practice, Marxism, Leninism, and Maoism served as a convenient means to swiftly jerk “underdeveloped” nations into the industrial age, utilizing state intervention to “modernize” peoples who still retained a connection to the land before eventually dropping them unceremoniously at the margin of the free market. Today, party communists have gotten no further than blithe assurances that new management would take care of everything. Sing along to the tune of “Solidarity Forever”:

If the workers owned the factories, climate change would not exist All the smoke from all the smokestacks would be changed to harmless mist …

The Individual Solution

An individual or community can live a completely “sustainable” lifestyle without doing anything to hinder the corporations and governments responsible for the vast majority of environmental devastation. Keeping one’s hands clean—“setting an example” that no statesman or tycoon will emulate—is meaningless while others lay the planet to waste. To set a better example, stop them.

The Radical Solution

Too many radicals respond to the crisis with despair or even a kind of wrongheaded anticipation. There’s no reason to believe the exhaustion of the planets petroleum supply will put an end to patriarchy or white supremacy. Likewise, it’s all too likely that hierarchy can make it through ecological collapse intact, so long as there are people left to dominate and obey.

We’ll get out of the apocalypse what we put into it: we can’t expect it to produce a more liberated society unless we put the foundations in place now. Forget about individualistic survival schemes that cast you as the Last Person on Earth—Hurricane Katrina showed that when the storm hits, the most important thing is to be part of a community that can defend itself. The coming upheavals may indeed offer a chance for fundamental social change, but we have to come up with a compelling vision and the guts to implement it.

Another End of the World Is Possible!