Check out the November Better Is Possible here:
https://www.bblloobb.com/2022/better-is-possible-november-2022-mastodon-swifties-and-crime/
Hello! And so soon too.
Does it say more about me or *society* (man) that it’s 10x as easy to find stories and articles for The Dystopia Is Already Here than it is for Better Is Possible?
[Article] Robots with guns. What could possible go wrong?
“As The Intercept reports, the Oakland police force made a “percussion actuated nonelectric disruptor,” or PAN disruptor, a top-priority item on their wish list last year.
In short, PAN is a shotgun-shaped accessory attachment for wheeled robots, which are often deployed in war zones and by bomb squads.
It can be loaded with explosive forces ranging from blanks and pressurized water to live rounds — a worrying new development in the use of potentially lethal machinery by police forces across the country.”
Oakland Police Want to Arm Robots With Shotguns, Because We Live in a Dystopian Nightmare, Futurism, https://futurism.com/oakland-police-robots-shotgun
[Articles] Fast Furniture Is An Ecological Disaster
“[…]reports that the U.S. and U.K. toss a combined 31 million pieces of furniture per year.
And all of it inevitably goes straight to landfill, where it can sit for decades before actually breaking down.”
The Fast Furniture Industry Kills Billions of Trees Every Year, Study Shows, Green Matters, https://www.greenmatters.com/living/fast-furniture-impact
Though it seems many buyers are somewhat aware that fast fashion is problematic, few contend with what happens when you toss a Wayfair end table into the dumpster in favor of the latest cottagecore craze. Something like 12 million tons of furniture and furnishings waste (also known as f-waste) is created every year, and most of it can’t be recycled because of what it’s made of. For context, in 1960 the number was 2 million tons—and a growth in population does not explain this 567 percent jump. (Even just between 2005 and 2018, furniture waste grew by 30 percent.)
Flipping the Switch on Fast Furniture, Dwell, https://www.dwell.com/article/fast-furniture-slow-design-tiktok-trends-c394e497-210c548e-d27345c2
[Link Dump] Musk, The Media, and War on Trans Folks
[Article] Elon Musk’s Twitter Reinstates Anti-Trans Activists on Same Weekend as Club Q Attacked, Vice, https://www.vice.com/en/article/epz8jz/elon-musk-twitter-colorado-shooting-anti-trans-reinstated
[Podcast] A Matter of Survival — Trivializing Trans Rights as Boutique “Identity” Issue, Citations Needed, 2018 https://citationsneeded.medium.com/episode-57-a-matter-of-survival-trivializing-trans-rights-as-boutique-identity-issue-25ecaa5acf0
[Article] Anti-trans rhetoric is rife in the British media. Little is being done to extinguish the flames, CNN, 2021, https://edition.cnn.com/2021/10/09/uk/uk-trans-rights-gender-critical-media-intl-gbr-cmd/index.html
[Article] Twitter has now banned a group that organizes to protect people at LGBTQ events from far-right violence., The New Republic, https://newrepublic.com/article/169112/elon-musk-anti-trans-twitter-john-br
[Article] Church Political Endorsements: Why Are These Happening Unchecked?
“Six days before a local runoff election last year in Frisco, a prosperous and growing suburb of Dallas, Brandon Burden paced the stage of KingdomLife Church. The pastor told congregants that demonic spirits were operating through members of the City Council.“
“Burden’s sermon is among those at 18 churches identified by the news organizations over the past two years that appeared to violate the Johnson Amendment, a measure named after its author, former President Lyndon B. Johnson. Some pastors have gone so far as to paint candidates they oppose as demonic.
At one point, churches fretted over losing their tax-exempt status for even unintentional missteps. But the IRS has largely abdicated its enforcement responsibilities as churches have become more brazen.”
Churches Are Breaking the Law by Endorsing in Elections, Experts Say. The IRS Looks the Other Way., ProPublica, https://www.propublica.org/article/irs-church-nonprofit-endorsements-johnson-amendment
[Essay] Architecture Critique of “New York City’s $200 million suicide machine”
CW: SUICIDE. Oh boy…this is a dark one.
“It is true that the Vessel is not the first structure people have jumped to their deaths from. And, certainly, installing higher handrails—or safety nets, such as the ones that were reportedly tested this August—could help save lives. But such safety measures would only strengthen the impression that, given its remarkable lack of other uses, the shiny staircase to nowhere is the first structure in human history whose sole purpose is suicide. The erection of this eschatological monument therefore demands that we go beyond security protocols and protective design. If nothing else, the four victims of “New York’s Staircase” demand we descend its gilded steps and dig deeper when we ask: What is it about the Vessel, exactly, that makes you want to kill yourself?“
Dead Ascending a Staircase, The Baffler, https://thebaffler.com/latest/dead-ascending-a-staircase-farjoun
[Articles] FTX/Sam Bankman Fried and Longtermism
Very possible a week from now Sam Bankman Fried is in jail, but it’s important to dissect, not just his obvious and obscene fraud, but the “Longtermism” he advocated for.
“Longtermism calls for policies that most people, including those who advocate for long-term thinking, would find implausible or even repugnant. For example, longtermists like MacAskill argue that the more “happy people” who exist in the universe, the better the universe will become. “Bigger is better,” as MacAskill puts it in his book. Longtermism suggests we should not only have more children right now to improve the world, but ultimately colonize the accessible universe, even creating planet-size computers in space in which astronomically large populations of digital people live in virtual-reality simulations.“
What “longtermism” gets wrong about climate change, The Bulletin of Atomic Sciences, https://thebulletin.org/2022/11/what-longtermism-gets-wrong-about-climate-change/
“The Future Fund, a subset of Bankman-Fried’s charitable apparatus that was largely associated with the related movement known as “longtermism” — the idea that the welfare of future people should weigh heavily on the present, and thus, one of the highest impact actions to take today is to minimize risks of extinction or near-extinction — committed “over $160 million” to a wide range of individuals and organizations aligned with the view. The fund’s five external staffers resigned last week.”
Sam Bankman-Fried gave millions to effective altruism. What happens now that the money is gone?, Grid, https://www.grid.news/story/economy/2022/11/15/sam-bankman-fried-gave-millions-to-effective-altruism-what-happens-now-that-the-money-is-gone/
Toodeloo!
