nothing here but acidic terrorism

issue 268 - 29th September, 2024

CJW: Welcome again to another issue of nothing here. We’re happy to have you.

If you would like to support us (and are able, shit ain’t easy out there), you’ve got a couple of options:

Both give you access to the full bonus archive, as well as new bonuses as they are posted. You could also help spread the word by forwarding this email to someone you think might enjoy it.

The Team

Daniel Harvey (DCH) - Designer, writer, provocateur. Pro-guillotine tech critic. @dancharvey
Marlee Jane Ward (MJW) - is also Mia Walsch. Writer & visual artist. Barely engages with the internet at all any more.
Corey Jae White (CJW) - author, voidwitch, has Flesh and also Blood.

Lidia Zuin (LZ) - Journalist, MA in semiotics, and PhD in Arts.

Climate Change & The Environment

CJW: World's oceans close to becoming too acidic to sustain marine life, report says - at France24

"Even with rapid emission cuts, some level of continued acidification may be unavoidable due to the CO2 already emitted and the time it takes for the ocean system to respond," he explained.
"Therefore, breaching the ocean acidification boundary appears inevitable within the coming years."

Good news, everyone!

"Four years on from Fink’s forthright statement, the world is getting a sobering reminder that as far as the investors at the heart of the global financial system are concerned, saving the world [from climate change] isn’t really the point. As for Larry Fink, he’s stopped even pretending to care." - BlackRock Promised to Be Climate-Conscious. The Joke’s on Us. - Justin Villamil
“Deadly blackouts that killed hundreds of people across Texas in 2021 — which have been widely blamed on failures to properly insulate gas pipelines — may have had a more nefarious cause, a new lawsuit alleges. Over the past three years, a wave of new data — and lawsuits — have made the case that the outages were, in fact, a result of market manipulation by some of Texas’s biggest fossil fuel companies”. - Lawsuits allege deadly 2021 Texas blackouts were an inside job - Saul Elbein at The Hill
"America's Three Mile Island nuclear energy plant, the site of a high-profile accident that discouraged nuclear power development in the US for decades, is preparing to reopen as Microsoft looks for ways to satisfy its growing energy needs." Microsoft deal would reopen infamous nuclear plant. - Natalie Sherman at BBC News (DCH: America’s Chernobyl is going to be used to exclusively power Bing. What could possibly go wrong?)
In the Shadow of King Coal - Sarah Jones at Dissent Magazine (DCH: Good read on the stranglehold coal still has on Appalachia)

Just the headlines:

As fast fashion giant Shein embraces AI, its emissions are soaring - Sachi Kitajima Mulkey at Grist
AI is revitalizing the fossil fuels industry, and big tech has nothing to say for itself - Brian Merchant at Blood in the Machine

Geopolitics & Empire

CJW: Israel’s Beeper Attacks Are Terrorism - Madeleine Hall at Jacobin

Much of the mainstream Western media has marveled at the so-called “precision” and “sophistication” of the attack, framing it as an operation intended only to target members of Hezbollah. This is patently false, as numerous civilians have been injured and killed.
Israel’s real aim was clear: to stoke fear and mass panic among an entire population. [...]
There’s a word for this: terrorism.

Fuck Western mainstream media for the way they covered this attack in particular (and everything about Israel's genocide, war crimes, and terrorism more generally), and fuck the terrorist state of Israel. What more is there to say?

CJW: Israel Is Extending Its Genocidal War to Lebanon - Seraj Assi at Jacobin

Footage shows Israeli forces carpet-bombing civilian homes across Southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, hitting at least fifty-eight towns and villages. According to Lebanon’s health ministry, the Israeli bombing has targeted homes, medical centers, ambulances, and the cars of people trying to flee. Entire Lebanese families have been wiped out. Horrific footage shows children trapped under the rubble.
This is a blatant war crime.

It's just so incredibly infuriating. They've been allowed to conduct a genocide for a year now - not just allowed, but it's been actively facilitated by weapons sales and transfers from the US and other complicit allies, and now they're being allowed to just start killing civilians in an entirely different country with the same bullshit justifications, and the West just does nothing. The lies at the heart of liberalism are truly being revealed here - it's merely cover for more violent imperialism, colonialism, and extractivism.

"The world voted overwhelmingly at the United Nations to demand an end to Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territory and a withdrawal of all troops and settlers within 12 months." World demands end to Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine, in landslide UN vote - Ben Norton at Geopolitical Economy (DCH: There’s a useful short video covering the story too.)

Science & Space

CJW: A Brilliant Image of the Solar Eclipse Wins the 2024 Astronomy Photographer of the Year- Colossal

an abstract image of the sun with glowing rings that appear to grow from the right side — Ryan Imperio (USA), “Distorted Shadows of the Moon’s Surface Created by an Annular Eclipse.”

I didn’t realise Sunn O)))’s name included a visual representation of the sun…

DCH: Neither Elon Musk Nor Anybody Else Will Ever Colonize Mars - Albert Burneko at defector

Mars does not have a magnetosphere. Any discussion of humans ever settling the red planet can stop right there, but of course it never does. Do you have a low-cost plan for, uh, creating a gigantic active dynamo at Mars's dead core? No? Well. It's fine. I'm sure you have some other workable, sustainable plan for shielding live Mars inhabitants from deadly solar and cosmic radiation, forever. No? Huh. Well then let's discuss something else equally realistic, like your plan to build a condo complex in Middle Earth.

Mars colonisation is a total fiction. Always has been. Always will be in the lifetimes of anyone reading this message.

Tech & Design

CJW: Artificial intentionality - Rob Horning

If AI could say something for you, maybe it wasn’t worth saying; maybe you could have spared the world of at least one more instance of math masquerading as language. If you let it write your silly love song, it demonstrates how little love you feel, how little you are willing to risk or spare. But there are no labor shortcuts for caring, in and of itself, no stretching a little bit of intentionality to provide focused attention across some ever increasing population. Care doesn’t scale; cruelty does. You can’t automate your way around the infinite obligation to the other.

Emphasis mine. Horning has been writing about the various pitfalls and inherent hollowness of AI and AI use for months now, but I found this piece especially interesting. One thing he mentions - which a lot of people on sosh have been quick to point out - is the way that using AI tools for art (of whichever form) robs you of the experience of learning that art properly, of becoming adept at it, of the beautiful failures and successes of creation. I trust that certain artists (ie Holly Herndon) will be able to create legitimate art with AI, but as a simple and/or mainstream tool for streamlining the creation of… well, anything and everything, I think it is pointless and ultimately anti-human.

DCH: The Subprime AI Crisis - Edward Zitron

I hypothesize a kind of subprime AI crisis is brewing, where almost the entire tech industry has bought in on a technology sold at a vastly-discounted rate, heavily-centralized and subsidized by big tech. At some point, the incredible, toxic burn-rate of generative AI is going to catch up with them, which in turn will lead to price increases, or companies releasing new products and features with wildly onerous rates — like the egregious $2-a-conversation rate for Salesforce’s “Agentforce” product — that will make even stalwart enterprise customers with budget to burn unable to justify the expense.

And if that comes to pass what we’ll see is massive layoffs, too-big-to-fail bailouts, and financial ruin for too many.

CJW: Big Tech’s Coup: How Companies Seized Power From States—and How States Can Claw It Back - Marietje Schaake at Foreign Affairs (via Foreign Exchanges)

Under mounting pressure from authorities in a country [Brazil] with a significant number of X users (and asset seizures), the company eventually agreed to block the disinformation accounts and pay off its fines. But the brazenness with which a tech mogul was able to defy a state’s decision makes a stark and scary fact very tangible: democratic governments have lost their primacy in the digital world. Instead, companies and their executives are increasingly in charge. This power shift is the sum of society’s systemic dependence on technology firms, the legal gray zones in which they operate, and the unique characteristics of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence. It is a product of how public institutions have been stripped of their technological knowledge, agency, and accountability. It is a reality that generations of politicians of various parties have allowed to set in.

A great read on the ways that Big Tech undermines (and seeks to replace?) the state.

If democracy is to survive, leaders must fight this coup head on. They need to shrink their overdependence on powerful tech companies. They must empower public interest technology as a counterweight. They need to rebuild their own tech expertise. Most of all, they must build effective and innovative regulatory regimes that can meaningfully hold tech companies (and governments using tech) to account. Doing so is needed to sustain open, free, and vibrant digital societies based on the rule of law.
The Brazilian case is a reminder that it is not too late. Democratic authorities can reclaim their sovereignty and assert themselves effectively in tech—if they choose to use their muscles.

Emphasis mine. The problem here is that the political right sees privatisation as an unequivocal good (yes, that's how stupid they are) and will never support governments developing their own public interest technology.

Virtual Friends, Real Feelings - Jay Springett
Reclaiming sovereignty in the digital age - Paris Marx (DCH: A brilliant long read from Marx on the cyberlibertarian toxin poisoning the Internet.)

Just the headlines:

AI chatbots might be better at swaying conspiracy theorists than humans - Jennifer Ouellette at Ars Technica

Society & The Culture

CJW: She Said I Want Something That I Want - Stefan Kelly (via Austin)

The version of you that now counts to your self-conception is the one staring back at you, not the one that takes it in. The one in the mirror is the one with an identity. With a story. And that story only make sense when you see yourself fitting in with all the other things. With all the other words. With all the other symbols.
From that moment on, you’ve been more than a being that behaves on pure instinct and sensory input. That behaviour got added up into something more. Your vision became mediated.
You entered the world of symbols, and you would never leave again.

A really fascinating (and really long) piece about how culture writers get it wrong when they write about culture, but also why they get it wrong - perception, reality, hyperreality, the symbol vs the actual, yearning as the meaning of life, etc etc.

I feel like it's changing the way I think about things, but it's also so long and meandering (complimentary) that I think it'll take a while to fully process.

A must read.

How Capitalism Incentivizes the Destruction of Art - Ciara Moloney at Current Affairs

Health, Cooking, and Related

DCH: Woman found guilty of fatally infecting neighbour with COVID-19 - The Independent

A woman in Austria has been found guilty of fatally infecting her neighbour with COVID-19, her second pandemic-related conviction in a year, according to local media.

Truly monstrous behaviour. They should’ve thrown the book at her.

“One of the most striking findings was that post-COVID deficits in hospitalized patients look similar to 20 years of normal aging. The team also found that people who had been hospitalized with COVID had reduced brain volume in key areas and abnormally high levels of brain injury proteins in their blood.” Study sheds new light on severe COVID's long-term brain impacts - Lisa Schnirring at University of Minnesota

Just the headlines:

Abortion Bans Have Delayed Emergency Medical Care. In Georgia, Experts Say This Mother’s Death Was Preventable. - Kavitha Surana at ProPublica

Labour & Economics

CJW: Raise Wages? No Need — McDonald’s Is Hiring Inmates Instead - Alex Park at Jacobin

As both suits allege, inmates who refuse to work on a given day can face consequences, including revocation of privileges (like time on the phone with family members), stints in solitary confinement, lengthening of sentences, or transfer to one of Alabama’s medium- or high-security prisons — some of the most violent prisons in the country.
ADOC calls the whole scheme “convict leasing.” But given inmates’ inability to quit when they want to without repercussions behind bars, the system is closer to involuntary servitude — i.e., slavery.

Slavery in the US didn’t end, it just changed form.

“We were the janitors of the internet,” Botlhokwa Ranta, 29, a former content moderator from South Africa now living in Nairobi, Kenya, told me two years after her Sama contract was terminated. Speaking from her home, her voice was heavy as she continued. “We cleaned up the mess so everyone else can enjoy a sanitized online world.” The Human Cost Of Our AI-Driven Future - Adio Dinika at Noema

Just the headlines:

Online Dating Caused a Rise in US Income Inequality, Research Paper Shows - Alexandre Tanzi at Bloomberg
Amazon Drivers in Queens Are Joining the Teamsters - Luis Feliz Leon at Jacobin
Biden’s Labor Board Is Boosting Bottom-Up Union Organizing - Eric Blanc at Jacobin

Movies + TV

MJW: Blink Twice (2024)

There’s a TW for sexual assault at the start of the film and I for one was really happy to see it - I think content warnings should be on all media because I dunno about you, but when I am slammed with something horrific in a film or book or whatever, I always wish I could have known beforehand. Not because I will necessarily always avoid it, but I like to have the opportunity to prepare myself and make sure I’m in a good place for it.

ANYWAY, Zoe Kravitz’s Blink Twice starts out dreamy: waitress Frida (Naomi Ackie) meets tech billionaire Slater King (Channing Tatum) and is invited to his private island for fun, frolics, and drugs galore. All the girls are wearing white, there’s champagne flowing, and Frida… wakes up with dirt crusted under her nails every morning. Cue the horror. Blink Twice is about power and forgetting and the cycle of violence, and if you’re feeling up for it, is an impressive directorial debut for Kravtiz.

CJW: I don't know what I think of the film's ending, and it maybe took too long to set up what was happening, but it was still an interesting film, and worth the watch. My favourite part was probably the way it implied that any man who doesn't immediately and instinctively side with women is not just complicit in misogynist violence, but utterly contemptible.

MJW: The Substance (2024)

What a fucking ride! Everyone is talking about The Substance, and that’s because it’s really good. Demi Moore is perfect as ageing TV star Elisabeth Sparkle. She comes across The Substance, a drug that can create a ‘better’ version of yourself, and sort of births the young-and-hot Sue, played by Margaret Qualley. If you like body horror, satire, aerobics, lingering closeups of flawless asses, horrific consequences, and SHIT TONS of full frontal nudity, The Substance will be right up your alley.

CJW: I've been a fan of Qualley ever since season 1 of The Leftovers, and she has never disappointed, with highlights including Death Stranding (she helped her character/subplot work so much better than it might have), and the incredible Sanctuary (what if Fifty Shades was actually good, knew something about actual BDSM, and had something of value to say about relationship power dynamics). The Substance is more brilliance from Qualley, and of course Demi Moore is fantastic too (I feel like she was underrated as an actor even at her peak because she was too beautiful and Hollywood is incredibly fucking misogynistic).

Incredible feminist body horror. Instant classic IMO.

IRL

MJW: I’m doing a reading at Ethical Sleazebag, a weekly even for fucking weirdos to perform odd shit. It’s on October 11th, you can find more info here: https://www.instagram.com/ethicalsleazebag/

Music

LZ: Aesop - Supernova (Grimes remix)

I have been very hesitant about Grimes since she had three fucking children with Elon Musk, being two of them from surrogate mothers. Then she starts dating DJ Anyma and becomes the new model for his huge projections (one more handshake for her eating disorder), and the DJing fiasco that went sort of viral. No new big releases besides Welcome to the Opera (which I didn't quite like), buuuuuut here she is remixing a super futuristic techno song for Aesop.

It's just natural that she would start partnering with K-pop artists, and Aesop has been known for their sci-fi aesthetics in MV. I don't quite like the MV for this song because it gives some Second Life shitty graphics and aesthetics, but with some nice contemporary rendering so it looks softer on the edges. In some scenes (especially when the girl is running and you see her from the side), the neck goes so weird that it took me back to Lawnmower Man. Anyways, it's all about the beginning of the 2000s aesthetics for the future once again. I hate that it got super girly and not bold, buuuuut… at least there's new Grimes and she's doing God's work bringing back the sounds from the beginning of her career.