Feb. 5, 2023, 1:04 p.m.
nothing here but tripping roulette - issue 209 - 5th February, 2023
Nothing Here
nothing here but tripping roulette
issue 209 - 5th February, 2023
CJW: Welcome to another edition of nothing here. Eclectic mix today, but then again, aren't they usually?
I hope 2023 is treating you well so far. I've received some bad news lately, but I'm managing to keep my head up despite it (honestly, I think new meds are helping). If 2023 isn't treating you well, I wish you the strength to persevere.
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Marlee wrote our latest bonus: Bleak Books Are For Bleak Girls about Galax-Arena.
The Team
Daniel Harvey (DCH) - Designer, writer, provocateur. Pro-guillotine tech critic. @dancharvey
Marlee Jane Ward (MJW) - is also Mia Walsch. Writer, apocalypse witch, goth aunt.
Corey J. White (CJW) - Author, podcaster, sin-eater.
Lidia Zuin (LZ) - Journalist, MA in semiotics, and PhD in Arts. Sci-fi writer, futurology researcher and essayist. @lidiazuin
Climate Change & The Environment
MJW: Tripping for the Planet: Psychedelics and Climate Activism
In the last year, at least two peer-reviewed studies have found evidence that psychedelics may influence pro-environmental behaviors. Another philosophical paper published last year argued in favor of psychedelics to help solve our environmental problems. Author Michael Pollan has even spoken to the power of psychedelics in dismantling authoritarianism or inducing closer relationships to nature—akin to the left-wing countercultural movements of the ’60s and ’70s psychedelics are popularly associated with. Meanwhile, brain scientists have examined whether psychedelics cause “neuroplasticity,” or the nervous system’s ability to change its activity and structure. Other people are more skeptical, pointing to the history that psychedelics have with the right wing, in which neo-Nazi figures have credited psychedelic plants and drugs as their source of inspiration.
Clearly, interest in these psychedelics is not dying down anytime soon. As we enter the so-called psychedelic renaissance of the 21st century, Indigenous peoples are growing wary. The history of psychedelics does not begin with Aldous Huxley and Albert Hofmann; its roots lie in the sacred multi-millennial traditions of Indigenous medicine and ceremony. Could the future of psychedelics lie in shaping environmental movements?
While it’s telling that us white folks need chemical assistance to care about and connect with climate issues, it might also be a case of ‘whatever helps’, considering the crisis we’re in.
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CJW: 4 Creatures at Risk of Vanishing - Beatrice Forshall at Orion
In the last thirty years, stocks of baby eels have plummeted by 90 per cent. Rising temperatures are weakening the currents that carry them across the Atlantic. Man-made chemicals like polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), used until 1986 in flame retardants, adhesives, pesticides, lubricants, plastics, paint and paper – and still leaking into the environment – kill eel embryos and render the adults infertile. PCBs do not easily break down and are carcinogenic in humans. The turbines of hydropower stations break the eels’ spines and injure their internal organs; the loss of one female means the loss of the millions of eggs she is carrying. The turbines could be stopped during the twenty or so October nights of the eel run, and eel passes built.
A fascinating excerpt from The Book of Vanishing Species: Illustrated Lives, covering Plankton, European Eels, and Dung Beetles - their history, lives, and the risks to their continuing existence.
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A follow up to the piece we shared last time on carbon credits: The Carbon Con at Source Material
Been largely avoiding US domestic politics, but I think the Stop Cop City movement is important enough to share this: The Crackdown on Cop City Protesters Is So Brutal Because of the Movement's Success, by Natasha Lennard at The Intercept
Just the headlines:
Geopolitics & Empire
CJW: A panicked Empire tries to make Russia an ‘offer it can’t refuse’ - Pepe Escobar at The Cradle
[...] the Americans are actually proposing a variation of the “offer you can’t refuse” classic, including some concessions which may satisfy Russia’s security imperatives.
Crucially, the US offer totally bypasses Kiev, once again certifying that this is a war against Russia conducted by Empire and its NATO minions – with the Ukrainians as mere expandable proxies.
[...]
What may have been offered, in quite hazy terms, is in fact a partition of Ukraine, demilitarized zone included, in exchange for the Russian General Staff cancelling its yet-unknown 2023 offensive, which may be as devastating as cutting off Kiev’s access to the Black Sea and/or cutting off the supply of NATO weapons across the Polish border.
This is really interesting, in terms of what it means for the war, for Ukraine, and for NATO, and for some reason I didn't see it covered anywhere else. That said, Escobar doesn't seem to think this is a serious offer, just a stalling tactic, and that Russia will see it the same way.
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This review of Secret Power: WikiLeaks and Its Enemies by Stefania Maurizi covers a lot of the history of WikiLeaks and makes the book sound well-worth checking out if you want a deep dive on the org.
The US won't say whether or not the armour they're sending to Ukraine will use depleted uranium ammunition. Despite the health risks, it's also worth considering whether you want to contaminate Europe's so-called bread basket. The chapter on DU in Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor was eye-opening.
The US and Brazilian insurrections of 2021 and 2023 show how a new playbook for coups is emerging.
Just the headlines:
Lula accuses Bolsonaro of genocide against Yanomami in Amazon - Tom Philips at The Guardian
Science & Space
Surprisingly, hybrid animals might be more resilient to climate change - CJW: I have a manuscript that's a body horror take on this idea…
Tech & Design
CJW: “Computers enable fantasies” – On the continued relevance of Weizenbaum’s warnings
[...] one of the generally unasked but truly fundamental questions is not about if computers “can be made” to fulfill the particular goals of this or that project, but if computers “ought to be made” to pursue those goals.
Frankly, the “ought” versus the “can” has always been the vital question underneath our adventure with computer technology—and technology more broadly. Though it is a question that tends to be overlooked in favor of an attitude that focuses almost entirely on the “can” and imagines that if something “can” be done that it therefore should or must be done. But as Weizenbaum reminds us, technology isn’t driving these things, people are, people who are responsible for the choices they are making, and people who are so caught up in whether or not their new gadget or program “can” do something that they rarely stop to think whether it “ought” to do so.
You might have already read this as it's been shared a bit already (I think both Sentiers and PGR shared it this past week), but I think it's worth the read if you missed it before now. It's largely a summary of Weizenbaum's thinking (and writing) on computers and how we could re-engage with his ideas as a tool to circumvent the constant tech type cycles.
The above pull quote is a great and succinct summary of Luddism (though the author seems to fall back on the mainstream, and incorrect, definition) - not anti-tech as a rule, but always asking the question of what we ought to make/let tech do, who it benefits, what ideologies does it reinforce, etc.
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DCH: Tiktok's enshittification by Cory Doctorow
Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.
For many years, even Tiktok's critics grudgingly admitted that no matter how surveillant and creepy it was, it was really good at guessing what you wanted to see. But Tiktok couldn't resist the temptation to show you the things it wants you to see, rather than what you want to see. The enshittification has begun, and now it is unlikely to stop.
It's too late to save Tiktok. Now that it has been infected by enshittifcation, the only thing left is to kill it with fire.
What a perfect framing. Doctorow on the inevitable end of all products/experiences predicated on platform capitalism.
More on embiggened enshittification:
CJW: Related: Amazon is becoming a shitty experience too (via Drew Austin).
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Cartoonist Chaz Hutton asks ChatGPT to describe single panel comics and then draws them. Some of them are actually decent. (via Sentiers)
A piece about using LLMs to pre-train AI and robots for specific tasks rather than relying on traditional trial and error techniques, allowing for quicker learning and more general "understanding" of tasks.
Just the headlines:
Elon Musk’s Sci-Fi Futurism Is Just Plutocracy With Space Travel
Apple Brings Mainland Chinese Web Censorship to Hong Kong - Sam Biddle at The Intercept
U.S. Marines Outsmart AI Security Cameras by Hiding in a Cardboard Box
Society & The Culture
CJW: Rewilding Mythology - Sophie Strand at Atmos
416 million years ago plants made it onto dry land. But these plants were unlike the vegetation we know today. Lacking roots, they had no way of accessing the rich nutrients in the soil. Luckily, mycorrhizal fungi in the soil collaborated with these early plants, acting as surrogate root systems for millions of years, slowly teaching them how to root into place and root into relationships. Over millions of years, plants “learned” how to develop their own roots from their symbiotic association with fungi. To this day, over 90% of plants depend on mycorrhizal connections in the soil. Every slice of leafy shade, every old-growth forest, every wildflower-woven field, every vegetable and fruit we eat today is the product of an underworld myth that far pre-dates Inanna’s descent deep into the Earth and Persephone’s seasonal stay in the land of the dead. Our first underworld myth is decidedly inhuman, documented not in a dry text, but the twining roots of the trees and plants we now walk alongside.
On the reality of our multispecies nature being represented in myth, ancient art, and evolution, and the way empire undermines these multispecies roots. Ends with a sort of call to action worth considering for any writer.
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MJW: The Controversial King of Hardcore Climbing
Perhaps as important as the money is the democratization of certain star-making tools now available to everyone. For instance, Mingma David has his own social media brand, which makes it impossible to lump him together with other Sherpas as “the help.” This is the biggest thing Nims has changed; he’s shifted the gravity in the room so the Sherpas in his orbit are holding the biggest megaphone. Instead of only supporting foreign climbers’ ambitions, they’re forming dream teams to dunk on these mountains themselves. They’re flying their own drones and shooting their own movies. Sponsors have ponied up. Fanbois flock to them online. These guys aren’t trying to get sponsored by the North Face team—they’re directly challenging the North Face team. There’s no going back.
Nim’s cockiness is grating, but so is the colonisation of the Himalaya.
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LZ: Sophie showed me the cybernetic divinity of being trans
I never cared much about Sophie’s music, but her image was everywhere I went on the internet a few years ago. This article has enlightened me on why I should pay more and closer attention to her work. It brings the full Preciado vibes when it puts trans people as cybernetic, technological people – and though the author suggests that artificial would be a negative word, I don’t think it needs to be (I mean, almost anything is “natural” these days).
By making hyperpop, this Björk-ish version of pop music which blends pop culture and other deeper or even controversial topics, Sophie has addressed her being trans in songs like Faceshopping. The videoclip is very direct when it superimposes photos of makeup, Coca Cola logo, McDonalds and any other symbols of consumerism, beauty standards, and fashion at the same time she sings “My face is the front of shop/My face is the real shop front/My shop is the face I front/I'm real when I shop my face.” It is especially this last verse that intrigues me.
In this article, the author raises the question on whether her facial surgery for feminization was an act in complacency with patriarchy and conformism, whereas Sophie would be pointing to the other direction: you do to your body what you want, technology is here for that, we are all shapeshifters and technology is just an enabler for that. That’s a very pressing issue for me as someone who has been recently over a treatment against eating and body image disorders. It’s not just because I can make this and that procedure that I should. We have plenty of examples of people who have lost themselves in plastic surgery, crazy diets and other cosmetic procedures.
As a cis woman, my experience with body distortion is very different from what trans people face in terms of gender and body dysmorphia, so I’m not making any comparisons here. But there is this intersection which interests me a lot. I hope to have some time to study this more and go some steps further than I went with this article about transhumanism and beauty standards.
CJW: Last year Matt Colquhoun wrote on SOPHIE's work from a hauntological viewpoint. I found it really interesting.
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CJW: Welcome to the Shoppy Shop - Emily Sundberg at Grubstreet (via Drew Austin)
Even though the companies sell different products, some similarities are impossible to ignore. “We need a new term for ‘internet-based small businesses that still use global supply infrastructure,’” said my friend, the culture writer Kyle Chayka, when I told him about this story. “We know these minimalist-ish generic aesthetics are not connected to any true local origin, but we see them as indicative of some kind of authenticity. My current thought is that they don’t feel local to a place, but instead they feel local to the internet, which is, after all, where we all live.”
A great write-up on what Sundberg calls "smallwashing" - online business selling products through boutiques and small stores that all become increasingly samey looking because of the same boring "hip" aesthetics. A continuation of the instagramification of business spaces - but here instead of being a place where you want to take photos to post, these stores become places where you buy all those products that are have been pushing on you.
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Just the headlines:
Health, Cooking, and Related
MJW: Plant toxin hailed as ‘new weapon’ in antibiotic war against bacteria
“One problem is that there is simply not enough research and development into new antibiotics by pharmaceutical companies,” said Prof Tony Maxwell, who is also based at the John Innes Centre. “New compounds used to come on the market all the time but that is no longer the case. Fewer and fewer big pharma companies are working on antibiotics and so fewer and fewer are being approved by western drug authorities. The problem is that you don’t make money out of antibiotics any more. On the other hand, there is nothing better for treating a bacterial disease than an antibiotic, so this work, which opens up a whole new range of drugs based on our new understanding of how albicidin works, has got to be good news. It may take years to create clinically effective versions but it does suggest we may have a new weapon in our armoury one day.” This point was backed by Ghilarov. “To get things moving, the government needs to step in, as it did with vaccine development. It needs to provide incentives or set up a dedicated antibiotic development institute.”
While it's gross that corporations simply cannot be trusted to work in the actual interest of health any more, I'm excited at the potential in this new antibiotic.
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DCH: The Flu-ification of COVID Policy Is Almost Complete By Katherine J. Wu The Atlantic
Perhaps the greatest risk of making COVID vaccines more like flu shots is that it could lead to more complacency. In making the influenza paradigm a model, we also threaten to make it a ceiling. Although flu shots are an essential, lifesaving public-health tool, they are by no means the best-performing vaccines in our roster. Their timeline is slow and inefficient; as a result, the formulations don’t always match circulating strains. Already, with COVID, the world has struggled to chase variants with vaccines that simply cannot keep up. If we move too quickly to the fine-but-flawed framework for flu, experts told me, it could disincentivize research into more durable, more variant-proof, less side-effect-causing COVID shots. Uptake of flu vaccines has never been stellar, either: Just half of Americans sign up for the shots each year—and despite years of valiant efforts, “we still haven’t figured out how to consistently improve that,” Amin told me.
If America doesn’t want to use all of its vaccine supply intelligently then give it to the rest of the world.
MJW: Amen, sibling.
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DCH: Covid Roulette By George Monbiot
We also know that, with every new exposure, we are more likely to suffer adverse effects. A massive study in the US found that the risk of brain, nerve, heart, lung, blood, kidney, insulin and muscular disorders accumulates with every reinfection. The impacts of long Covid, according to health metrics researchers, are “as severe as the long-term effects of traumatic brain injury”. Now that we know how the virus attacks our cells, “traumatic brain injury” looks less like an analogy than a description. The outcomes can be devastating, ranging from extreme fatigue and breathlessness to brain fog, psychotic disorders, memory loss, epilepsy and dementia.
Its still far too dangerous for everyone to be throwing in the fucking towel.
CJW: Great piece, and a good follow-up to the one Marlee shared last time on the COVID protections for the wealthy and elite at Davos.
MJW: I for one am tired of feeling like a paranoid kook outsider for taking precautions against this virus, considering what is being revealed about covid and its effects on all systems of the body.
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Just the headlines:
UK menopause law change rejected as it ‘could discriminate against men’
Massachusetts prisoners who donate organs may get less prison time (who had that on their dystopia bingo card?)
Labour & Economics
DCH: New FTX Filing Pulls Back the Curtain on Sam Bankman-Fried’s Massive Influence Peddling Operation By Lee Fang, Ken Klippenstein, Daniel Boguslaw The Intercept
The filing offered a look under the hood of FTX’s intricate maze of influence. On the heels of its meteoric rise as a crypto exchange, FTX quickly began to spend extraordinary amounts of money to buy prestige and friends in high places. Now that the firm stands accused of siphoning off billions of its investors’ dollars — with its disgraced founder Sam Bankman-Fried charged with fraud in the matter — increased scrutiny is falling on powerbrokers’ dealings with FTX.
So many cockroaches…
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Just the headlines:
UK to Be the Only G-7 Economy in Recession This Year, IMF Says
New Yorkers Never Came ‘Flooding Back.’ Why Did Rents Go Up So Much? (DCH: a meticulous forensic investigation into NYC rental rates)
Books
CJW: Interzone #294
Gareth Jelley has taken over as publisher of Interzone, and this is very good news. If you listened to any episodes of Gareth’s Intermultiversal podcast, you’ll know that he’s incredibly knowledgeable, and passionate about bringing attention to SF writers beyond the US industry core.
Interzone #294 is out now on Weightless Books and Scarlet Ferret, with physical copies also on their way to subscribers. 256 pages, 80,000+ words of stories, reviews, interviews, and essays, JB6 tankobon-sized, full-colour art, free shipping, planetwide.
#294 features a story from fellow Melbourne-local and friend Kat Clay, and #295 will feature a story from yours truly, so I’ll be sure to mention that when it’s time.
Movies + TV
LZ: Copenhagen Cowboy
Available on Netflix, this is the most recent work by Nicolas Winding Refn. It is quite similar to Too Old to Die Young (Amazon) when it comes to visuals, but that’s what NWR does in all his creations: put a lot of neon in dark landscapes and add a bunch of models-turned-actresses for bleak cameos. But CC is different as it is more magical, fantastical, in a way. It tells the story of Miu, this girl who is also a lucky charm – as in if you pay a certain fee to her, she makes your wishes come true. You would think this series would be about the supernatural and such, but there is SO MUCH going on here. First you will think NWR is giving a nod to Andrew Tate when creating an Eastern European character that happens to be a human trafficker and tries to be a music popstar. Then when you are wondering if this is all about organized crime in the underground scene of Copenhagen, it just takes a different turn by adding a rich family with weird tastes and rituals, including killing young women and paying tribute to the father’s penis. It is like Pusher meets Snatch meets Hannibal meets Kill Bill until you get a cameo of Kojima.
I really don’t know what to say about this series, but I binge-watched it and enjoyed the fun of riding this spiralling roller coaster towards absurdity, pop culture, and an Americanized take of Europe.
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CJW: The Day Shall Come
I had somehow missed this 2019 film until recently, which is odd because it's sort of a spiritual successor to Chris Morris' Four Lions, which is a film I adore. Where Four Lions follows a group of homegrown would-be jihadists in the UK who are their own worst enemies, The Day Shall Come is about a delusional preacher named Moses and the FBI's desperate attempts to entrap him in a domestic terrorist plot of their own devising. The only problem is that the naïve and conscientious Moses is against guns.
The film says it's "based on a hundred true stories," and if you've been paying attention to US domestic terrorism busts over the past 15 or so years, you'll know exactly how true that really is. It's a film of clashing absurdities - Moses' steadfast belief in his movement and in his holy powers against the contortionist machinations of the FBI.
It's brilliant, hilarious, and woefully underrated. It might also be hard to track down, but you should do it.
MJW: I laughed MY ASS OFF while also being utterly devastated.
Music
I just created this playlist on Spotify for those who want to keep up with black metal and other dark music with witchy vibes. :)
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Like metal and cats? Here’s the project for you. These guys make compilations and donate profits to pet shelters.
Art
CJW: Memories Emerge in Stephen Wong Chun Hei's Paintings as Vivid Saturated Landscapes at Colossal
The Self-Promotion
CJW: Alexandra Pierce Reviews Phase Change: Imagining Energy Futures by Matthew Chrulew, ed. - at Locus
Andrew Dana Hudson shared this in his newsletter - a review of Phase Change that specifically mentions the story we collaborated on. When there are a lot of stories in an anthology, it feels good when yours is one of the ones featured in a review.
Also, the first story ADH and I wrote together is going to appear in Analog Magazine later this year. Analog is one of the longest-running pillars of SF short fiction, so this is very fucking exciting. Will share more details closer to publication.
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LZ: The kitsch, the bad and the dubious: a 40-year-long question posed by Laibach
Had the amazing chance to see Laibach live in Copenhagen. The concert was so cathartic that I decided to write this essay. In fact, I have studied and read about Laibach before when I did my monograph on industrial musical and military aesthetics. Back then I was naive enough to think that art can be apolitical, but it seems I just fell prey to this psychological game of make-believe that some bands have been feeding for years – four decades in the case of this Slovenian group. Take a peek and understand why this band is loved by both libertarian leftists and Kim Jong-un.
