nothing here but skyhook colonialism

issue 240 - 10th December, 2023

CJW: Hello hello. Hope you're doing well. Fucking December; when did that happen?

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Both give you access to the full bonus archive, as well as new bonuses as they are posted. You can also help spread the word by sending 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. Middle-aged greying goth. Bleak as.
Corey J. White (CJW) - author, voidwitch, bad milk blood robot.

Lidia Zuin (LZ) - Journalist, MA in semiotics, and PhD in Arts. Sci-fi writer, futurology researcher and essayist. @lidiazuin

Climate Change & The Environment

DCH: Green Colonialism by Isobel Cockerell at Noema

Environmentalists, Indigenous groups and academics say that what politicians and energy executives are really advocating for is a technofix for the climate crisis: simply trading out one extractive industry for another without challenging the systems that got us here in the first place. And it could bring untold collateral damage upon one of nature’s last refuges in Europe, alongside the Sami, the region’s last Indigenous culture.

As long as nations like the US and Sweden abdicate responsibility to industry to solve the climate crisis we’re going to continue to see opportunistic approaches that harm indigenous communities in favor of profit.

CJW: Lots of interesting stuff in this one.

When I met Tor Lennart Tuorda, a Sami photographer who works as an archivist at the Sami museum, he put it more bluntly. “It’s only shit talk, this green transition,” he said. “It’s only a way to extract even more. You can call it green colonialism instead. That’s more true.”

Hard to argue with this when we're seeing so little change from the corridors of power, and no change in the economic conditions that are consuming the planet.

And this on geoengineering:

“This is an example of how stupid it is, that we as one creature, among millions of creatures, think we can be larger than nature. It’s something that makes me laugh,” he said. “It isn’t the sun’s fault, and it isn’t the planet’s fault, that our climate is going where it’s going.”

"All of the media companies reviewed — Bloomberg, The Economist, the Financial Times, the New York Times, Politico, Reuters, and the Washington Post — consistently top lists of “most trusted” news outlets. They also all have internal brand studios that create advertising content for major oil and gas companies, furnishing the industry with an air of legitimacy as it pushes misleading climate claims to trusting readers. In addition to producing podcasts, newsletters, and videos, some of these outlets allow fossil fuel companies to sponsor their events." - Leading News Outlets Are Doing the Fossil Fuel Industry’s Greenwashing - Amy Westervelt and Matthew Green at The Intercept

Just the headlines:

Brazil could reach historic low deforestation in 1-2 years, official says | Reuters - Jake Spring at Reuters
The Biden Administration Is Undermining Global Carbon-Reduction Efforts - Rishika Pardikar at Jacobin

Geopolitics & Empire

CJW: Reading Bin Laden’s Messages Might Have Prevented Decades of Disastrous Foreign Policy - Branko Marcetic at Current Affairs

Once upon a time, the Guardian might have responded to the Bin Laden letter being “widely shared on social media without the full context” by attaching some kind of new editorial note or column providing that very context, while making clear the gravity of Bin Laden’s crimes. I’d nominate something like this 2007 column in the paper by political scientist Thomas Hegghammer, in which he addressed the “myth of al-Qaida’s alleged ignorance of Palestine,” and made clear how taking seriously Bin Laden’s grievances about US foreign policy didn’t mean you were lauding him, but that it was actually key to combating what he represented. Hegghammer argued that “Palestine matters greatly for al Qaeda” and that a negotiated settlement to end Israeli-Palestinian violence “will curb new recruitment [to Al Qaeda] by reducing Palestine’s potency as a symbol of suffering.” But are we allowed to write things like that in a newspaper anymore?

You probably heard about Bin Laden's letter going viral on TikTok recently, though a lot of that was steeped in the sort of intergenerational warfare that makes up a lot of mainstream opinion columns. But here Marcetic offers a lot of context for both the time at which this letter was published (and censored) and how parts of it (and its renewed censorship) relate to Israel's war on Palestinians.

CJW: Let The World Speak: An Interview with Shaj Mohan - at Protean Mag

The people of Israel will have to save themselves from this shameful and racist government which is committing genocide and other war crimes. They should also free themselves from American foreign policy goals, especially when American politicians are calling for the genocide of the Palestinians from within their legislative forums. It is now undeniable. I am sure that most of us have seen the video of children being made to sing genocidal songs. Do we need to pronounce what it is imitating? The Israeli prime minister said recently “The weak crumble, are slaughtered and are erased from history while the strong, for good or for ill, survive. The strong are respected, and alliances are made with the strong, and in the end peace is made with the strong.” Do we need to say what it reminds us of?

A really fascinating interview with the Indian philosopher Shaj Mohan, largely but not entirely about the current war in (on) Gaza. Also covers India's relationship to Israel and to Palestinians, the UN, the implications of the label "terrorist", and there's a small section about resistance as opposed to struggle (the latter being the one that actually works), which I found canny.

CJW: ‘A mass assassination factory’: Inside Israel’s calculated bombing of Gaza - Yuval Abraham at +972 Magazine

the Israeli army has files on the vast majority of potential targets in Gaza — including homes — which stipulate the number of civilians who are likely to be killed in an attack on a particular target. This number is calculated and known in advance to the army’s intelligence units, who also know shortly before carrying out an attack roughly how many civilians are certain to be killed.
In one case discussed by the sources, the Israeli military command knowingly approved the killing of hundreds of Palestinian civilians in an attempt to assassinate a single top Hamas military commander. “The numbers increased from dozens of civilian deaths [permitted] as collateral damage as part of an attack on a senior official in previous operations, to hundreds of civilian deaths as collateral damage,” said one source.
“Nothing happens by accident,” said another source. “When a 3-year-old girl is killed in a home in Gaza, it’s because someone in the army decided it wasn’t a big deal for her to be killed — that it was a price worth paying in order to hit [another] target. We are not Hamas. These are not random rockets. Everything is intentional. We know exactly how much collateral damage there is in every home.”
According to the investigation, another reason for the large number of targets, and the extensive harm to civilian life in Gaza, is the widespread use of a system called “Habsora” (“The Gospel”), which is largely built on artificial intelligence and can “generate” targets almost automatically at a rate that far exceeds what was previously possible. This AI system, as described by a former intelligence officer, essentially facilitates a “mass assassination factory.”

A long pull quote because I think this is really important, but it's still worth reading the full piece. It demonstrates how much of the propaganda around limiting civilian casualties is bullshit. The apartheid systems of surveillance and control mean Israel knows exactly how many civilians they are killing - they simply don't care.

The Guardian also covers the same in this piece: ‘The Gospel’: how Israel uses AI to select bombing targets in Gaza by Harry Davies, Bethan McKernan and Dan Sabbagh

All the Times Israel Has Rejected Peace With Palestinians - Jon Schwarz

In the actual world outside of high-level American political rhetoric, Israel could have had peace at many times in the past 75 years. However, such a peace would have required Israel giving up most of the Palestinian land — specifically, Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem — it conquered in the Six-Day War in 1967. Israel has always preferred conflict with stateless Palestinians to that.

A history of the various attempts at brokering peace in Israel-Palestine across the decades and the reasons they failed (spoilers in the headline).

Adobe Stock is Selling AI-Generated Images of the Israel-Hamas Conflict - Matt Growcoot at Petapixel

This is so fucking problematic for a number of reasons. Removing real photojournalists from the process and turning the conflict (and ethnic cleansing) to an aesthetic category for shopping, not to mention it's potential for encouraging misinformation - either through the generated images themselves or by giving a form of plausible deniability to people who wish to push misinformation/propaganda.

"Israel is the only country in the world that has a policy of confiscating and withholding human remains, which is a violation of international humanitarian and human rights law." - The Grim Reality of Israel’s Corpse Politics - Jaclynn Ashly at Jacobin
"On November 18, 2023, a Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) evacuation convoy came under fire in Gaza City in what immediately appeared to be a deliberate attack against clearly identified MSF vehicles. Two people were killed—both family members of MSF staff—including one who was a volunteer supporting MSF medical teams at Al-Shifa Hospital." - MSF convoy attack in Gaza: All elements point to Israeli army responsibility - Doctors Without Borders

Global journalist group says Israel-Hamas conflict is a war beyond compare for media deaths - AP
Netanyahu’s Goal for Gaza: “Thin” Population “to a Minimum” - Ryan Grim at The Intercept

“Every single person who died in Vietnam between autumn 1968 and the Fall of Saigon — and all who died in Laos and Cambodia, where Nixon and Kissinger secretly expanded the war within months of taking office, as well as all who died in the aftermath, like the Cambodian genocide their destabilization set into motion — died because of Henry Kissinger. We will never know what might have been, the question Kissinger’s apologists, and those in the U.S. foreign policy elite who imagine themselves standing in Kissinger’s shoes, insist upon when explaining away his crimes. We can only know what actually happened. What actually happened was that Kissinger materially sabotaged the only chance for an end to the war in 1968 as a hedged bet to ensure he would achieve power in Nixon’s administration or Humphrey’s. A true tally will probably never be known of everyone who died so Kissinger could be national security adviser.” - Henry Kissinger, War Criminal Beloved by America's Ruling Class, Finally Dies - Spencer Ackerman at Rolling Stone

Just the headlines:

West sabotaged Ukraine peace deal with Russia, admit Zelensky official and Germany's ex leader - Ben Norton at Geopolitcal Economy Report
Anduril unveils a jet drone that can explode — or fly back home - Sam Dean at LA Times
CBP Is Testing Palmer Luckey's AI-Powered Surveillance Towers in the Great Lakes - Joseph Cox at 404 Media

Science & Space

CJW: Space junk could have a transcendent, purposeful afterlife - Angelos Alfatzis

This study was primarily focused on the feasibility of using a skyhook to launch payloads into orbit, and it didn’t delve deeply into the specifics of the counterweight. But once we start designing space-based tether systems, we’ll reach a point where the concepts of recycling, cultural preservation and spaceflight converge into a single, comprehensive solution.

A really interesting piece on the idea of using space debris as the counterweight on an orbital skyhook system for launching things into space.

Tech & Design

DCH: Here's a Warrant Showing the U.S. Government is Monitoring Push Notifications by Joseph Cox at 404 Media

The U.S. government is demanding that tech companies provide information related to push notifications in order to identify a target’s specific device, according to a court record reviewed by 404 Media. The finding comes as Senator Ron Wyden published a letter on Wednesday warning that the U.S. and foreign governments are making such surveillance demands around push notifications to Apple and Google.

Push notifications are already a blight on your mental health. This is another good reason to turn them right the fuck off.

Google Researchers’ Attack Prompts ChatGPT to Reveal Its Training Data - Jason Koebler at 404 Media (related: Asking ChatGPT to Repeat Words ‘Forever’ Is Now a Terms of Service Violation)

Just the headlines:

Society & The Culture

Just the headlines:

Nicki Minaj Stans Have Built an AI-Generated, Sci-fi World by Samantha Cole at 404 Media

Health, Cooking, and Related

CJW: Let's Face It, Covid Trashed Our Immune Systems - Jessica Wildfire at OK Doomer

[...] prior Covid infections most definitely weaken your immune system.
A study in Family Medicine and Community Health found that Covid infections made children five and younger much more vulnerable to respiratory infections like RSV. As they conclude, "COVID-19 contributed to the 2022 surge of RSV cases in young children through the large buildup of COVID-19-infected children and the potential long-term adverse effects of COVID-19 on the immune and respiratory system." That's just the tip of the iceberg.

As outlined in this piece, it's looking more and more like Covid infections can have a severe and possibly prolonged impact on your immune system.

DCH: Could Long Covid ‘Brain Fog’ Be an Acquired Form of ADHD? by Amitha Kalaichandran at Undark Magazine

Many people who have long Covid report having problems with thinking, attention, and memory. One physician examines whether this “brain fog” could be a form of acquired ADHD, which usually first manifests in childhood. How should society respond to a growing population of newly neurodivergent adults?

Long-Covid or not we’re already seeing spikes in adult diagnoses for ADHD so that hypothetical question is going to be something we have to try to answer regardless.

“Winter is working with sex tech company Firmtech—which makes the aforementioned smart cock rings—to develop a wearable tracker for the clit. Like a Fitbit for the clitoris. A Clitbit.”
“Under the guise of corporations working to alleviate people’s mental health instabilities, a fundamental form of asset appropriation is under way. After all, until recently, the very idea that our mental health (all the data that represents and tracks it) could be a commercial asset on a balance sheet would have seemed bizarre. But today it is becoming banal. It is one facet of what Nick Couldry and Ulises Mejias have called “data colonialism.”

Labour & Economics

Just the headlines:

San Francisco now at 35% office vacancy rate, highest ever recorded - JR Stone ABC News (DCH: looks to me like an opportunity to work on SF’s notorious homeless problem)
Influencers are getting young Nigerians hooked on online gambling by Ope Adetayo at Rest of World (DCH: influencers are scum)
Unleash the bololô: Masses of delivery workers set off horns and fireworks at bad customers’ homes by Laís Martins at Rest of World
It Will Never Be a Good Time to Buy a House - Annie Lowrey at The Atlantic (DCH: I’ve read somewhere recently that the average age of a first-time homebuyer in the UK is now a spry 47-years old.)

Movies + TV

CJW: Talk to Me (2022)

A screenshot from the film Talk To Me, showing a teenage girl's hand reaching to grasp a severed hand that is standing on a table. The hand is grey and covered in writing. The girl has brown skin and a mustard coloured jumper. Blurred figures watch in the background.

Talk to Me is a new (ish) Australian horror movie that just started showing up on various streaming platforms. If you’ve seen it and been intrigued, I recommend it.

It has a sort of (sub)urban legend feel to it that’s reminiscent of It Follows, as it details a bunch of teenagers who come across a severed hand that acts as a link to people beyond the veil and use it to throw fun, fucked-up house parties. But this being a horror movie, it inevitably leads to some very bad things happening… It’s also a good little dose of Australiana if that’s your thing.

LZ: Gen V

Kinda late with this one, but just finished this spin-off series of The Boys. It doesn't really appeal much to think that this is a college show but add superheroes after years of X-Men and related, but like The Boys, this isn't the average superhero story. It's interesting that in the downfall of Marvel and DC superhero movies, works like The Boys and Invincible are thriving. Not surprising, of course, but still interesting. In response to Alan Moore's claim that superhero franchises were making people childish, it's refreshing to see shows like these ones. And it's nice that it has its own "universe", so not relying so much on the characters in the forefront of The Boys.

There are some The Boys characters that appear here too, especially in the last episodes, but really the main actors are outstanding. Props to Lizze Broadway and her rendering of Gen Z/late millennial femcel, the bi-gender Asian twist presented by London Thor and Derek Luh (I can hear and understand the bissexual panicked screams!). It was also great to see a Brazilian actor debuting in a North American production, though Marco Pigossi still doesn't quite make it seamless that he's not a native English speaker. But this is just the beginning and I see he has a lot of potential! You go, Marco! And speaking of him and his character, Gen V is a lot more queer, diverse and not so darkly mocking those topics like in The Boys. It is true that political agendas are still being co opted for marketing ends, but you can see how younger generations react to this and how there is this breaking point where their dreams and hopes to become real superheroes is kinda shattered with real life (and Vought).

CJW: Bloods

I’m always on the look out for new comedy series that are actually funny, because as it turns out there are plenty that fail to meet his minimum requirement, not to mention the slew of dramedies that always seem to skew further into drama than comedy (admittedly a hard balance to strike, and one that’s completely subjective).

Bloods grabbed me by the second episode though, and by the end of the second (and final, boo!) season I was completely enamoured. The show follows paramedics in South London, with the characters and their dynamics being the real draw card. Maleek and Wendy are the focus, a classic odd couple, but the other pairs are just as compelling and hilarious in their own ways. Impossible to pick a favourite, but the combination of Darrel and Darryl is a thing of beauty.

Apparently the show was greenlit for a third season but then cancelled, and honestly I’m more upset about that happening here than with The Peripheral. At least there I’ve still got the book to re-read.

Music

LZ - Witch Club Satan

A black and white photo of three women with black lipstick and eye makeup, who appear naked, with long black hair (mostly covering their breasts.

Norwegian black metal played by an all-female band with witchcraft references and an album with electronic remixes? Count me absolutely in!!! They are playing next year on The Colossal Weekend in Copenhagen, together with many other interesting bands I have never heard of before, so I'll try to be there to check them live.

ROSA FAENSKAP

And here's another queer black metal band from Norway. If you like Deafheaven, MØL or just atmospheric black metal/blackgaze, this is the new band for you to check out. Love the way a reviewer said listening to them is like being over pink clouds and then falling into the deepest abyss.

Art

MJW: Kaethe Butche

illustration of a woman laying on a bed, except the bed has lilypads on its surface.

I am loving Kaethe Butcher’s beautiful forms and simple lines.

An illustration of two naked people hugging. One of them has skin made of stars and white hair, the other has white skin and hair made of stars.

The Self-Promotion

MJW: May I have Your Attention Please

I have a new piece up as Mia on the Tryst Blog. It’s an illustrated personal essay about attention seeking and being a creative and sex worker, plus a little bit of lockdown and being nuts. I hope you like it!