how to save the world

The cognitive bias codex from wikipedia; if you want to print it out so it’s legible and useful, print the original over four letter-sized pages and paste them together (my printout is taped, tellingly perhaps, over my rarely-used TV). The model was developed by John Manoogian III and refined by Buster Benson; the SVG version includes active links by TillmanR to the wikipedia articles explaining each bias.

A lot of ‘leftie’ writers have been expressing dismay lately not only about what right-wingers are saying and doing, but about what a large proportion of other lefties have been saying. And the concern is not so much about what they’re saying as about how they could possibly have come to believe what they’re saying. In other words, What were they thinking?

I’m increasingly persuaded that much of what we all say and do is simply conditioned behaviour. Our biological ‘wiring’, combined with (because we are social creatures) our cultural conditioning, compels us to believe certain things, and to act accordingly.

Our cultural conditioning — what we believe because of what others in our circles of trust and affinity say or do — often falls afoul of cognitive biases, such as the 180 biases depicted above.

If we really want to understand the prevailing behaviour of any group, particularly one we thought shared our worldview, it helps to try to understand how that cultural conditioning, with its inherent cognitive biases, works. So here is a little thought experiment to explore that.

I want to explore the conditioning process and understand how we came to this point. I am not interested in laying blame for it happening, since that gets us nowhere, and I don’t believe there is anything anyone can do to change most people’s beliefs, unless they are already inclined to change them themselves. What are the cognitive biases that have given rise to what, to me, are frightening misunderstandings? (Of course, my beliefs are the product of my conditioning as well, which is clearly very different from that of those who hold the above beliefs; and I am also subject to cognitive biases.)

So here’s a table I came up with, wading through all 180 biases in the above codex, and focusing on the 32 groups of biases that seem to directly affect our beliefs, to try to make sense of it all:

I’m sure someone could reword the third column of this table to try to make sense of my (to them) seemingly irrational beliefs about Ukraine, Nord Stream, China, and CoVid-19, by attributing them to my admitted cognitive biases. That would be an interesting exploration!

So what’s going on here? I think we’re all doing our best to make sense of the firehose of information and mis- and disinformation and propaganda out there. These cognitive biases, for the most part, aren’t character flaws — They’re ways of dealing with large amounts of information that evolved to make our ancestors more functional, and to enable them to act faster and to survive better. The fact that our overwhelmed (intellectually and emotionally) brains aren’t up to the task with today’s information overload is a tragedy, perhaps, but it’s not anyone’s fault.

The purpose of this exercise is to answer the question posted by the title of this exercise. Not the exclamation mark part, but the question mark part. While part of me seethes at the power of the post-WW2 US presidents and most of their senior ‘advisors’, and the destruction I believe they have wrought, I can kind of understand what has driven them to think, believe, and do what they have done. And I think it would be arrogant to presume that, if I were in their position, I would have done differently.

And that has to be enough. The world, as much as we wish it weren’t, is on autopilot, and no one is in control. The sum total of the cognitively-biased and variously-informed eight billion of us are going to do our best, and the outcome looks both inevitable and troublesome.

While it doesn’t and can’t change anything (at least that’s how I see it from my own cognitively-biased perspective), I have found it immensely comforting to at least be able to guess: What are they thinking? And now, each time I ask the question, I ask it without the exclamation mark.

It seems to be basic human nature to assume the future will be like the present, “only more so” — We expect current trajectories (and even “hockey stick” accelerations) to continue.

Unless there are constraints — limits — that is not an unreasonable expectation. But there are usually constraints. The constraints for our planet, and all life that depends upon it, are the finite amount of land, water, air, soil, energy, and natural resources that can be exploited. For billions of years Earth has witnessed cycles of self-organizing life achieving equilibrium, followed by collapses — global extinction events. These cycles tend to follow a normal curve like that depicted above — a first appearance, then little change for a long time, then sudden accelerating growth, then decelerating growth as limits are reached, then precipitous decline, and then slow decline for a long time, leading to extinction.

To us, such a curve has five perceived stages — slow, fast, slow (at the peak), fast, and slow, in that order. We are now at the third stage, at the peak, at the cusp of what Hemingway described as the “slowly, and then all at once” point of decline. The point at the top of the roller coaster when time seems to stop.

We can appreciate that conceptually, but that doesn’t allow us to actually imagine, anticipate and accept as inevitable the current civilizational collapse and great extinction event, and what they will lead to. What they will lead to (at first “all at once”, but then more slowly over a few centuries), is human societies and planetary ecosystems that would be unrecognizable, even unimaginable, to anyone alive today. And then further slowing before the final human departs the scene, tens of thousands or even a million years from now.

This is the simple reality of how collapse inevitably happens, and it is both astonishing and fascinating that we cannot get our heads around it. It defies all our conditioning about how to think, behave, and process information.

Here are just a few of the things that we unthinkingly, across the political spectrum, seem to take for granted now, things that make no sense when one looks at them through the lens of the near-imminent and unavoidable collapse of our civilization and global ecosystems:

1. Growth is good: I keep reading articles that talk about economic ‘recovery’ as a good thing, and slowdowns as a bad thing. What will it take before we realize that growth got us into this mess, and de-growth, as equitably as we can manage it, is what we should be measuring as ‘progress’ and striving for?
2. Someone has to be to blame: “Well, yes, Billy accidentally blew up the house and killed the rest of the family with his chemistry set, but, you know, his teachers, and the manufacturers of the chemistry set, and of course there were underlying factors…” It’s time to grow up and stop assessing blame. It gets us nowhere.
3. Dwelling on the past: Kind of related to the blame game, we seem obsessed with anger and guilt over past atrocities, stirring them back up and refusing to let go of them. Of course they were outrageous, devastating, traumatizing. Tell the truth about them, give and receive apologies, declare an intent to learn from the errors and not repeat them, ask for (and offer) forgiveness, and then move on. So many people spend their lives living in, and reliving, the past. Such a waste.
4. A politics of hatred, anger, fear and war: Our world is fucked, we’re living in the shadow of collapse, loss, suffering, and death. And what is the news full of, and our attention focused on? Fear-mongering, war-mongering, hate-mongering, propaganda, over-filled privately-run prisons, hopeless, brutal refugee internment camps, bloated militarized police forces, and endless wars. It’s fucking insane. It’s like we’re all facing an imminent firing squad and we’re fighting each other over who deserves the last cigarette. How did all our reward mechanisms get so utterly screwed up? We’re better than this, surely.
5. Capitalism, debt and money as the only way to run an economy: Most economic decisions continue to be made based on maximizing profit for designed-to-be-psychotic corporations. The same system externalizes (doesn’t count) ‘costs’ that are all about sustaining the essentials of basic human and natural wellbeing. This system rewards absurd risk-taking, lying, cheating, and fraud. It has 99% of the population in debt to the other 1% just to make basic ends meet, debts that for the most part can never hope to be repaid, even if collapse weren’t looming everywhere it hasn’t already occurred. And most of us in one way or another worship money, which is simply the tool used to create more debt, and with it, more ‘growth’ (accruing entirely to the richest 1%) and more suffering. There are many better, fairer, simpler ways to transact with each other, that require none of these things. None of these elements of the capitalist religion makes sense in a collapsing world.

Even if we were to rid ourselves of these obviously dysfunctional (in the context of collapse) beliefs and systems, we would be left with the existential question about collapse: What does it mean? — that despite everything we have tried so valiantly to do, our civilization, our species, and most of the species of our world are all dying.

It’s a question that kind of defies answering, at least to the extent we find the value of meaning in making sense of what we have done, and what we are doing, and informing what we might think of doing next.

Consider the analogy of a single human life. From the moment we first conceive of ourselves as separate, we tend to imagine our life’s trajectory as being without end, without demise, and live until our life’s final days as if somehow we might never die. We may buy life insurance, but that’s for someone else, and we hardly relate it to our own death.

So what does it mean to accept that our civilization, our species, and most species of our world are all dying? What does it mean to contemplate that we, alive today, are eight billion of 110 billion humans that have ever lived, and that one day not so far away there will only be scattered tribes of humans, and, eventually, after that, probably no humans at all?

While I think they’re off on the timing, Guy McPherson and the NTHE crowd have tried to embrace this realization. Their approach has been to look at it somewhat as one looks at a loved one’s diagnosis as having an imminent terminal illness — with a mix of grief, compassion, and preparedness.

That may make sense, but rather than just acknowledging the reality of coming death, it seems to me it would make more sense to take stock of, and celebrate, our lives. To optimize how we, as a species and culture, spend each moment of our remaining time, rather than just striving to continue the madness that got us into this mess a little longer. To make the best of what time we have left, together and in harmony with, and perhaps even in service to, the more-than-human world that is harder hit by collapse than we are (though they will likely outlive us).

Something to think about.

image from Midjourney, my own prompt

With the world hurtling into full-on economic and ecological collapse, it is hard to find something — anything — to believe in, to trust, or to accept ‘on faith’. Those on the left, most of whom are no longer in denial of the crises facing us, have spent most of the last 50 years defining themselves for what they don’t believe in — obscene wealth and power inequality, endless war, unregulated, corrupt, untrammelled capitalism, climate disaster, and the oppression of women, BIPOC, the poor and the sick, and so on.

They don’t, any longer, believe in even the possibility of a multipolar peaceful world, universal health care, or free, quality education for all. Though that still comes as a bit of a shock when Bernie Sanders admits it.

They are defined, in short, by what they are against, rather than what they stand for. The right has been unintentionally brilliant in maneuvering them into that cramped, awkward place, but that’s where they are.

We are hence devoid of leaders who can articulate beliefs and programs that are positive, progressive, that supporters can get behind, champion, celebrate, and offer to the jaded among us.

So now in our political arenas we have what Hank Green calls “performative governance” — parties and ‘leaders’ who smile at the cameras, speak carefully crafted words that mean nothing, and then turn away and hand actual governance, and the determination of what money will be spent on, over to the intelligence agencies, special interest groups, and corporate lobbyists who now write many of the laws for ‘their’ politicians to sign.

As Aurélien puts it: ” [Neo]liberal political theory sees elections as a form of competition between professional teams to present the best formula for running the country, after which one will be awarded an exclusive contract.” Many on the right have the same perception. But unlike theoretical party platforms and performances, the differences in terms of what actually happens in government are so minuscule that neither side need be particularly fussed about which team performs best; there are plenty of lucrative positions in the revolving doors of private industry for the ‘losers’.

Sadly, the new left is lacking in both courage and imagination, so this situation is likely to get even worse. They are lacking courage because they, unlike the right, don’t want to offend anyone. They fear it will cost them voters and supporters if they say anything that the atomized identity-fixated populace doesn’t like or doesn’t agree with. Or if they talk about anything too gloomy, like the inevitability of collapse. Their performances, therefore, are “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”. And eventually, the rants against everything get tiring, not inspiring. We might not doubt their sincerity (though we might doubt that too), but we certainly doubt that they will (be able to) act on their words. The actor’s job, after all, ends when the curtain on the stage goes down. It’s all about the applause, and selling more tickets for the next show.

They — the new left — are lacking imagination because, well, we are all lacking imagination these days. As I’ve written before, levels of innovation are at a 40-year low. There are, essentially, almost no good new ideas out there. The new left has been so busy reacting to the performances of the right (which range from the sublime to the ridiculous) that they simply no longer think about anything else. For the last 40 years, we have basically had no practice whatsoever thinking creatively. The western film, music, and other ‘creative’ industries are all retreads, sequels, re-releases, and ‘reality’ shows. Games require no imagination whatsoever, just reaction and appreciation for the graphics. Business and professional practices have become formulaic, without rewards or room for ingenuity.

So instead, in the absence of courage, honesty, imagination, and new ideas, some of the ‘thought leaders’ of the new left are looking to hang their hat on a new religion of the left, one that will galvanize and inspire their disenchanted and indifferent ‘supporters’ with its shared vision, hope, and promise.

In this, they presume (incorrectly) that the right has the supporters of the ‘old religions’ in their pocket. But citizens now say, for the first time ever, that religion is less important to them than money. And studies (like this one done in Louisiana) suggest that, while the right is entertained by the preachers in the pulpits and in the houses of state and on Faux News, and like their spirit, they don’t particularly buy a lot of what they are advocating or claiming is true, any more than leftists still believe what Bernie or AOC or other token principled leftists are saying to be more than empty wishful words.

For those on the right, it is their peer group, which is a lot less fragmented than the leftists’, which determines what they believe and vote for, and that is based more on actual conversations and shared activities than on the crap they see and hear on their screens.

What presumably the new left is looking for in a new religion is something they all can believe in — some bedrock things that differentiate them from the right and which will rally them to vote and to act in support of and in pursuit of the realization of those beliefs. Something positive. Something that is beyond question, a matter of absolute faith.

The problem, of course, is that no such thing exists… anywhere on the political spectrum. The right may use words like ‘god’ or ‘freedom’ or ‘individual rights’ as convenient placeholders or catchphrases, but there is absolutely no consensus among the right as to what those words actually mean. The equivalent phrases used by the left, like ‘fairness’ and ‘justice’ are even more etherial and subjective, and often laced with ‘blame-y-ness’ that morphs them into their negatives (they’re usually about unfairness, and injustice). Our beliefs are complex and nuanced.

Advocates of a new left religion also say that this new progressive faith needs rituals. But rituals are about reaffirming connection and affiliation, and it is the right, not the left, that has a stronger sense of community. Rituals reflect connection; they don’t create it.

And also, leftists tend to be idea people, and attracted to new ideas and questioning and challenging what they are told. The very idea of religions and blind faith in ‘ordained’ ideas and principles is to some extent inherently anathema to progressives.

So (I was going to say “god help us”), I think the last thing that leftists need is a new religion, a new worldview, or a new universally-acceptable set of beliefs.

Instead, what I sense leftists really would find valuable and galvanizing is the much more difficult project of giving up entirely on the existing political process and its systems, labels and (mis)alignments, and instead embracing a pragmatic learning about how we can become more adaptable.

What do I mean by this? I think there’s been a quiet admission, in the minds of many on the left, of the fundamental non-viability of long-held liberal ideals about the universal, centralized, standardized provision of essential services. While these were once feasible projects, at least in affluent nations, I think it’s inevitable that with global economic collapse looming, governments will (within a decade or so) mostly become insolvent and incapable of doing much of anything. To wait for that to happen is, IMO, to cling to a failing model, and a waste of time.

There have been some proposals put forward recently (more on this in an upcoming article about Roger Hallam) that, in order to anticipate the collapse of governance, and to respond to its incapacity to address the crises of our time, we should look to set up our own parallel governance groups (perhaps using the citizens’ assembly model) which can both agitate for change and mobilize resistance to the existing governance structures when they fail to do what is needed, and which can also replace those old-style governments quickly when they collapse.

I find this model intriguing (it’s one of the few fresh new ideas out there), and it avoids rehashing old political models that haven’t worked. It’s agnostic with respect to the traditional political spectrum — anyone unhappy with the existing dysfunctional system can participate. Its defining quality is that it is unapologetically democratic. It presumes that we’re smarter and more competent, collectively, than ‘representative’ governments can ever practicably be.

Whether it works or not (and, let’s face it, anything radically new at this late date might well not work), it’s almost assuredly not enough.

I’ve written before about what I think is entailed in being adaptable — acknowledging the inevitability of collapse and being open to learning new skills and capacities that will help us day-to-day as economic and ecological collapse accelerates. But there may be some experiments we could explore to increase our readiness collectively to deal with the worst aspects of collapse.

Here are three examples of this I’ve heard about recently:

1. The idea that as collapse begins to overwhelm us, ‘resecularized’ churches (and perhaps schools) could serve (of course, some already do so) as essential service providers. The new term for these is Lifehouses, defined as “distributed community support centres for the Long Emergency”. The idea in a nutshell: “Fitting them out as decentralized shelters for the unhoused, storehouses for emergency food stocks (rotated through an attached food bank), heating and cooling centers for the physically vulnerable, and distributed water-purification, power-generation and urban-agriculture sites capable of supporting the neighborhood around them when the ordinary sources of supply are unreliable.”
2. The idea that the processes used in the Basque area of Spain, that network and coordinate the work of many small autonomous (mostly home-based) production facilities, instead of relying on massive, centralized production facilities that won’t survive economic collapse, might be the best post-collapse way to get essential goods produced in a region effectively.
3. The idea of creating (and again, networking) autonomous federations of communities, instead of trying to manage large, unwieldy centralized states — this was the principal model by which many widely-scattered First Nations peoples self-organized and cooperated historically, and it is apparently being used today in the Rojava region of (war-torn) Kurdish Syria.

My sense is that new, flexible infrastructures like these will inevitably replace the current models as collapse advances. But there’s no harm in trying them out now, as they could coexist quite well with the current models.

So, no more religions, please. Instead, let’s have some new ideas on how to adapt to inevitable collapse, that we can test and tweak to help us going forward, and which will have value, even today.

Midjourney imagines TS Eliot walking along the beach. “Do I dare to eat a peach?”. My own prompt.

As usual, I’m reading a lot about collapse these days, and the tone of the writing seems to be growing darker, more desperate. There’s a kind of blame-y distancing of ourselves from what collapse actually represents, that seems prevalent in recent articles and books on the subject. The term “modernity” I find highly problematic. It is not “modernity”, some ‘other’ that is behind collapse — it is our homogenized global culture, the systems we have evolved to get things done, our personal and collective worldview, and our way of being in the world. “Modernity” is not some kind of global cancer that has victimized us, and it’s not “modernity” that has “conditioned” us. We have conditioned each other to get to where we’ve arrived, and we didn’t do so maliciously. No one, and no personified “ism” or modern, wrong-turn malaise is to blame for that. We didn’t “go wrong” at some point. This is just how our species evolved.

To me, accepting that is essential to any kind of real appreciation of our predicament. If we can acknowledge that, perhaps we can stop trying to “heal” ourselves from who we really are, and instead acknowledge that this is who we really are, without judging it as good or bad, or avoidable.

I’m also thinking a lot about what we might do to delineate what actually is and is not possible, to deal with the overwhelming crises that seem to have paralyzed all but the psychotic. If we wanted to show that our governments and our citizens are not completely helpless and useless, it seems to me we could find no better way to start than by eliminating gross financial and economic inequality. Unlike so many of our current predicaments, this problem is actually solvable.

It would require some large-scale legal, tax and regulatory reform, to be sure, and some international cooperation, and would of course be resisted by many of the rich, but it’s quite doable. Mostly, it would require more of what we seem to be conditioning out of each other these days as our sense of learned helplessness grows — namely a dash of courage. I think we will see it soon, but not from the numb old gatekeepers who dominate the halls of power and wealth, who are too busy hoarding all the wealth and power they can accumulate.

I think it will come instead, over the next two decades, from those born after 2000, and especially those born after 2010, if we haven’t dumbed them down too much in our earnest efforts to condition them to cope with the crises we’re facing. They, after all, have the least to lose by confronting the atrocity of systemic gross financial and economic inequality, so perhaps they’ll demonstrate the courage we — all of us — have been unable to muster. I suspect they will at least try, and I’ll be cheering them on.

COLLAPSE WATCH

this cartoon has been kicking around social media for years, with the dates updated, and sometimes the third pane removed; no one seems to know who the original artist was

A better catastrophe?: Alex Smith talks with Tim Lenton and Andrew Boyd about coming to grips with the inevitability of global ecological collapse. Andrew also describes 12 archetypes of how we respond to the threat of collapse; which one are you? Thanks to Paul Heft for the links, and the one that follows.

Going up: David Spratt provides a reality check on the absurdity of believing 1.5ºC and even 2ºC is a remotely achievable goal. The lowest reasonably-conceivable increase is now 2.7ºC, according to the ever-hopeful “we can still do this” IPCC  cheerleaders and the UN chief, but no one with any intelligence still believes them. Between 3-6ºC is a more reasonable guess, and where we go from there is anyone’s guess. The technophiles are already salivating for geoengineering.

Do what I say not what I do: Meanwhile Biden has approved new oil & gas drilling in the gulf and in the arctic that will more than undo all of his legislation to date. And Canada’s governments, including, sadly, some complicit First Nations groups, are hell bent to set off 12 carbon “bombs” with new mining, drilling, fracking and pipeline developments. Worldwide there are 425 such catastrophic “bombs”, and there is no sign that development of them is even slowing down. And BC’s government is painting itself green while approving massive new LNG developments, most of which will be exported to Asia if it can make it through the treacherous coastal straits.

Firmageddon: The largest tree die-off ever to hit the region, due to drought and insect infestation, is underway in the US pacific northwest. Thanks to Kavana Tree Bressen for the link.

LIVING BETTER

image and woodwork by weirdsideprojects.com

Are prisons (still) obsolete: Angela Davis’ bold call for abolition of our archaic prison system is still waiting for a response, 20 years later.

The anatomy of economic collapse: Indrajit Samarajiva summarizes the ideas from Tim Morgan’s five-part article on why our global economy is teetering on the edge of collapse. I think this needs as much attention as ecological collapse, because it’s going to hit most of us sooner.

Wisconsinites rebel against the gerrymandering right: In a recent election, the citizens elected a progressive to the state supreme court, tipping the balance of power in that court. Wisconsin has the worst gerrymandering in the country (a 20% rightward skew), and the citizens are also unhappy with the state’s restrictive abortion laws and proposed voter repression laws.

POLITICS AND ECONOMICS AS USUAL

source as noted, via Hartmann Report; several of the ‘red’ areas outside the south are First Nations reservations

Our strange measures of happiness: An interesting exploration by Patrick Lawrence about the business of statistically measuring happiness, especially at the national level. And why anyone who’s lived in China would not be surprised that its citizens honestly rate themselves much happier than do any westerners.

Corpocracy, Imperialism & Fascism: Short takes (thanks to John Whiting for many of these links):

• Military veteran Larry Wilkerson describes the chaos in the White House and Pentagon since Biden blew up the Nord Stream pipelines. And in a follow-up he talks about the legacy of the Bush wars and current developments in the Middle East. Excellent work from this Canadian alt-news channel staffed by actual competent, experienced journalists.
• The same channel presents a great two-part conversation between Daniel Ellsberg and Noam Chomsky on the war in Ukraine and the planned war against China and what is needed now to avoid nuclear war.
• Russia calls for UN investigation into the Nord Stream bombing; even WaPo is acknowledging that the evidence of its US origin is overwhelming.
• Yet another Exxon/Alberta government coverup of a massive tar sands waste spill.
• Chris Hedges reviews 20 years of war crimes by US presidents and their administrations.
• Trudeau is making excuses for his $20B-over-budget pipeline boondoggle, and trying to greenwash it by selling it off cheap to a First Nations consortium.
• With its diplomatic efforts, China is filling the leadership vacuum left by 20 years of US invasions, bullying, selfishness, and warmongering.
• Dennis Kucinich continues to castigate US military adventures from Iraq to Ukraine.
• Elizabeth Warren explains the Silicon Valley Bank debacle and what needs to be done (but won’t be done) now.
• Indrajit Samarajiva explains how the IMF is recolonizing Sri Lanka and describes how making it “inclusive” doesn’t make imperialism any less intolerable.
• While Russiagate now looks like an elaborate Democratic PR stunt, Israel’s unreported collusion with Trump was horrific and real (thanks to Kavana Tree Bressen for the link). It was Israel who actually hacked the 2016 US election.
• The UK NHS has been ordered to provide confidential patient information to US spy-tech firm Palantir, apparently to dig up dirt on the NHS to support its breakup and privatization.
• A commission reveals large-scale RCMP incompetence in its handling of Canada’s largest mass murder.
• Oops — Ehud Barak admits Israel has about 300 nuclear warheads.
• The Stormy Daniels hush money case against Donald Trump looks really thin. And the cynical, multi-faceted and much-belated prosecution of Trump is providing him with a fund-raising bonanza.
• In case you haven’t been following the monstrously corrupt Clarence Thomas’ long-time undisclosed gifts from the largesse of right-wing billionaire Harlan Crow.
• Yanis Varoufakis explains how we could dismantle the dysfunctional and disreputable US private banking system and replace it with a much better one.
• Trudeau’s endless waffling on assisted dying continues to create massive suffering for Canadians living in agony seeking death with dignity.

20 years of execrable NYT war-mongering; collage by Caitlin Johnstone

Propaganda, Censorship, Misinformation and Disinformation: Short takes:

• The US intelligence ‘community’ and White House press corps are re-booting the “axis of evil” trope, this time about China, Russia and Iran (thanks to Gerry Gras for the link)
• How western propaganda has made Americans hate China. And Canada’s spooks are trying to stir up the same hatred in Canada, by insinuating (apparently based on interviews with rabidly anti-communist Chinese ex-pats) that China’s government interferes with the lives of Canadian citizens of Chinese descent, and with Canadian elections. An “investigation” is planned.
• More on the furore over Twitter labeling NPR as a “state-affiliated” organization.

FUN AND INSPIRATION

a reimagining by British artist Aravis Dolmenna

Making music:

• 10 chord progressions for different emotions: this is unintentionally funny at times, but I have to admit the end products from these very simple ‘basic recipe’ progressions do have some appeal
• variations on the 4/6 – 5/7 – 1/3 – 4 chord progression: a more sophisticated progression that you’ll recognize from a lot of songs, but there are lots of variations to keep it interesting

We aren’t stuck here: Midwesterners Lyz Lenz and Taylor K Philips about the unique culture, language and mannerisms of US Midwesterners. Falling down funny.

Obsidian Cliff: How a Yellowstone mountain famous for its sharp stones became a cultural touchpoint for Indigenous/First Nations peoples. Thanks to John Whiting for the link.

But is it art?: Two renowned artists debate the virtues and foibles of Midjourney AI. Thanks to Marian Bantjes (one of the artists) for the link.

Just give me money: Tracking historical surveys suggests that, for the first time, Americans think money is more important than either religion or community. As long as it’s not Chinese money, I guess.

THOUGHTS OF THE MONTH

Midjourney imagines a future scientist looking up at the stars; my own prompt

From Indrajit Samarajiva, on Euro-American Empire’s racist hatemongering:

Western ‘democracies’ are really just reality TV shows paid for by arms dealers, drug dealers (pharma), and whatever other corporate AI wants to corrupt the place. They periodically host call-in shows called ‘elections’ but the sponsors remain the same. And remain in charge. It’s a circus. The White Empire periodically trots some country its people haven’t heard of into the Cable Colosseum to torture them with sanctions and execute them with drones, and the people dutifully cheer. Hollywood also relentlessly propagandizes the goodness of CIA and MI6 agents and the justification for violence wherever the Empire pleases, because they’re the ‘good guys’. Historical facts like the millions dead in their Terror Wars alone are just numbers. The Empire lives in stories, and its propaganda arms are unparalleled.

Well-meaning people are pushed into this narrative not just in the vulgar sense of the Chinese and Russians and Iran are evil and trying to kill them. They are pushed into the well-meaning idea that sanctioning and attacking these people is actually for their own good. It’s the white man’s burden redux, now carried in a New Yorker tote bag.

From Caitlin Johnstone on criticizing journalists:

[Sydney Morning Herald editor] Bevan Shields melodramatically refers to the public excoriation of his colleagues [by former Aussie PM Paul Keating over the paper’s anti-China war-mongering] as “Donald Trump-like abuse of journalists doing their jobs,” but they are not journalists doing their jobs. They are propagandists. If you want to call yourself a journalist, you need to act like it. Be skeptical, question your sources and their funding, and get the story right. That’s the job. In this case the lives of nearly 26 million [Australians] are relying on you to get it right. It’s a huge responsibility and you are failing us. You deserve so much worse than to have mean things said to you by a retired politician.

From Caitlin Johnstone on resisting the US anti-China war drums:

The problem is not that Australia’s corrupt media are saying our nation will have to follow the US into war with China, the problem is that they’re almost certainly correct. The Australian media aren’t criminal in telling us the US is going to drag us into a war of unimaginable horror; that’s just telling the truth. No, the Australian media are criminal for telling us that we just need to accept that and get comfortable with the idea.

No. Absolutely not. This war cannot happen. Must not happen. We cannot go to war with a nuclear-armed country that also happens to be propping up our economy as our number one trading partner. We need to shred whatever alliances need to be shredded, enrage whatever powers we need to enrage, kick the US troops out of this country, get ourselves out of the Commonwealth while we’re at it, bring Assange home where he belongs, and become a real nation.

From Philip Larkin in The Whitsun Weddings:

TALKING IN BED

Talking in bed ought to be easiest,
Lying together there goes back so far,
An emblem of two people being honest.
Yet more and more time passes silently.
Outside, the wind’s incomplete unrest
Builds and disperses clouds in the sky,
And dark towns heap up on the horizon.
None of this cares for us. Nothing shows why
At this unique distance from isolation
It becomes still more difficult to find
Words at once true and kind,
Or not untrue and not unkind.