Links and Notes for November 11th, 2022

Below are links to articles, highlighted passages[1], and occasional annotations[2] for the week ending on the date in the title, enriching the raw data from Instapaper Likes and Twitter. They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts. YMMV.

Table of Contents

• COVID-19
• Economy & Finance
• Public Policy & Politics
• Journalism & Media
• Art & Literature
• Philosophy & Sociology
• Technology
• Programming

COVID-19

State of Affairs: November 16, 2022 by Katelyn Jetelina (Your Local Epidemiologist)

“I had hoped we would have applied lessons from COVID-19 to other diseases, like masking, staying home while sick, and getting vaccinated. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like this is happening. After 2.5 years of a pandemic, the public (and leadership) is just in a different state of morale, and the willingness to take preventative steps seems to be lower.”

Yup, in Switzerland as well. I’ve overheard young people in the train talking about classmates who are ill who are going to class anyway because they have mandatory in-school time. No-one is masking; lots of people are coughing, some quite horribly. No-one cares. No-one wants to take about it, to says nothing of do anything about it. They don’t care about hospitals, about staffing, about children getting sick. None of this matters anymore because we’re just done talking about it. We have accepted that we’d rather be sick all the time and sometimes die rather than have to adjust anything at all about our lifestyles—or, God forbid, have to discuss a plan of action. It’s over. The viruses have won to a degree that we haven’t seen in generations. We have lost all faith in science and trust in God to sort everything out.

Economy & Finance

Crypto and Stocks on 09.11.2022

FTX’s Balance Sheet Was Bad by Matt Levine (Bloomberg)

“You cannot apply ordinary arithmetic to numbers in a cell labeled “HIDDEN POORLY INTERNALLY LABELED ACCOUNT.” The result of adding or subtracting those numbers with ordinary numbers is not a number; it is prison.”

“$16 billion of dollar liabilities and assets consisting mostly of some magic beans that you invented yourself and acquired for zero dollars? WHAT? Never mind the valuation of the beans; where did the money go? What happened to the $16 billion? Spending $5 billion of customer money on Serum would have been horrible, but FTX didn’t do that, and couldn’t have, because there wasn’t $5 billion of Serum available to buy. FTX shot its customer money into some still-unexplained reaches of the astral plane and was like “well we do have $5 billion of this Serum token we made up, that’s something?” No it isn’t!

“One simple point here is that FTX’s Serum holdings — $2.2 billion last week, $5.4 billion before that — could not have been sold for anything like $2.2 billion. FTX’s Serum holdings were vastly larger than the entire circulating supply of Serum. If FTX had attempted to sell them into the market over the course of a week or month or year, it would have swamped the market and crashed the price. Perhaps it could have gotten a few hundred million dollars for them. But I think a realistic valuation of that huge stash of Serum would be closer to zero. That is not a comment on Serum; it’s a comment on the size of the stash.”

“If people start to worry about the investment bank’s financial health, its stock will go down, which means that its collateral will be less valuable, which means that its financial health will get worse, which means that its stock will go down, etc. It is a death spiral.”

“Last week I was shocked that one of the main assets of FTX — one of the main assets it relied on to be able to pay out customer balances — was a token it had just made up. But I was wrong! It was two tokens that it had just made up! FTX’s two largest asset balances, “before this week,” were $5.9 billion of FTT ($553 million at post-crash prices last Thursday) and $5.4 billion of SRM ($2.2 billion post-crash). Something like two-thirds of the money that FTX owed to customers was backed by its own tokens that it had made up.”

“Of that $19.6 billion of assets back in the good times, some $14.4 billion was in more-or-less FTX-associated tokens (FTT, SRM, SOL, MAPS). Only about $5.2 billion of assets — against $8.9 billion of customer liabilities — was in more-or-less normal financial stuff. (And even that was mostly in illiquid venture investments; only about $1 billion was in liquid cash, stock and cryptocurrencies — and half of that was Robinhood stock.) After the run on FTX, the FTX-associated stuff, predictably, crashed. The Thursday balance sheet valued the FTT, SRM, SOL and MAPS holdings at a combined $4.3 billion, and that number is still way too high.”

“Still it is striking that the balance sheet that FTX circulated to potential rescuers consisted mostly of stuff it made up. Its balance sheet consisted mostly of stuff it made up! Stuff it made up! You can’t do that! That’s not how balance sheets work! That’s not how anything works!”

It is how scams work. This is a scam that doesn’t accept its own death yet.

“[…] the leading story appears to be that FTX gave the money to Alameda, and Alameda lost it. I am not sure about the order of operations here. The most sensible explanation is that Alameda lost the money first — during the crypto-market meltdown of this spring and summer, when markets were crazy and Alameda spent money propping up other failing crypto firms — and then FTX transferred customer money to prop up Alameda. And Alameda never made the money back, and eventually everyone noticed that it was gone.”

That sounds about right.

“It is the typical way these things go, the default assumption for why someone would use customer money. No one wants to fail, no one wants to admit that they lost money, and if there’s a poorly guarded pot of money they can use to paper over losses, sometimes they will.”

Crypto Wants a Central Bank by Matt Levine (Bloomberg)

“If a bank with good assets is facing a liquidity crunch, it can go to the central bank and say “we have $200 of assets but we can’t get $100 of cash, help,” and the central bank will help. It will help by “lending freely, against good collateral, at a penalty rate,” as Bagehot’s famous formula goes: The central bank will lend the bank $100 to pay its depositors, but first it will make sure that the bank really has $200 of good stuff. (And it will charge interest.) If a bank shows up at the Federal Reserve and says “hi we owe depositors $100 but don’t have it, we lost it all on roulette,” the Fed will not help.”

The first is a liquidity crisis (assets exist, so there’s collateral against which to borrow liquidity, should one find a lender. Central banks will generally do so, especially if the entity is systemically necessary). The second is a solvency crisis (assets do not exist or are “magic beans”, which no-one wants. It’s not that assets are illiquid; it’s that they’re non-existent). This isn’t rocket science, actually, but we can trust the media to get this consistently wrong because they love to glad-hand fucking idiots who’ve ponzi-ed them because it makes them feel better about their own terrible financial decisions because they, once again, bought a pile of magic beans from an obvious shyster.

“Just! Imagine being the banker who shows up at the energy company that is trying to get rid of coal, and being like “I have a way to get rid of your coal for you,” and they are like “is it wind power,” and you are like “oh no, we’re gonna get a novelty oversized fake mustache and glue it on the front of your coal plants so we can pretend they’re someone else’s coal plants.” ESG Consulting But Evil. It’s perfect, I love it, no notes.”

Federal appeals court blocks Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan indefinitely by Chase Lawrence (WSWS)

“The ruling said: “It is alleged MOHELA obtains revenue from the accounts it services, and the total revenue MOHELA recovers will decrease if a substantial portion of its accounts are no longer active under the Secretary’s plan. This unanticipated financial downturn will prevent or delay Missouri from funding higher education at its public colleges and universities.”

“It continues: “Due to MOHELA’s financial obligations to the State treasury, the challenged student loan debt cancellation presents a threatened financial harm to the State of Missouri.””

Translation: we need the interest income to fund the program that loans out more money in order to get usurious interest income, so we can’t stop now.

Crypto Meltdown is a Great Time to Eliminate Waste in Bloated Financial Sector by Dean Baker (CounterPunch)

“If our politicians actually had any interest in economic efficiency, they would be engaged in an all-out push to downsize the financial industry and free up hundreds of billions of dollars for productive uses. Unfortunately, their flirtation with crypto scammers is a symptom of the larger problem. The finance industry has bought their collaboration, and politicians of both parties will continue to run interference for the financial industry as long as the campaign contributions are coming in.”

FTX Had a Death Spiral by Matt Levine (Bloomberg)

“But the timing problem is also connected to a real economic risk. If the price of Bitcoin falls by 90%, Customer B will be thrilled. He will come to you and say “here’s my Bitcoin back, I’d like to withdraw my dollars.” But you don’t have his dollars, or not all of them; half of them are with Customer A. Your dollar loan to Customer A is now underwater: You loaned her 50% of the value of her Bitcoin, but Bitcoin fell by 90%, so she owes you more than her collateral is worth. You call her up and ask her for more money — a “margin call” — but she, sensibly, doesn’t answer the phone. You have to pay Customer B out of your own capital, and you don’t get it back from Customer A. You’ve just lost money. Actually that’s the best outcome. The worst outcome is that you don’t have enough capital, you go bankrupt, and Customer B does not get his money back.”

“If everyone knows that you are in this situation — that you have a lot of Bitcoin collateral and Bitcoin prices are falling — people will expect you to have to liquidate your Bitcoin collateral, so they will expect Bitcoin prices to fall, so they will sell Bitcoin, which will cause Bitcoin prices to fall, which will cause your long-Bitcoin customers to default, which will cause you to liquidate Bitcoin at lower and lower prices, etc., until you are bankrupt.”

Public Policy & Politics

The FBI’s Transformation, from National Police to Domestic Spy Agency. Part One: “Disruption” by Matt Taibbi (TK News)

“[…] new policies stressed a dragnet approach to all intelligence matters. A DC analyst has a question? Let’s pose it to every source in the country, whether it makes sense or not, even if it might harm the CI relationship. You’ll get a lot of useless information and even more wasted time for field agents, but it was a win-win for analysts, who got lots of new data for what one agent calls “the term papers.””

The U.S. Isn’t going to avoid becoming the Stasi.

“Friend is politically conservative, and like other agents in conflict with the Bureau also had issues with its vaccine policy, but his most conspicuous quality is that he loved being an agent. He would have done pretty much anything to keep being one, including arresting boatloads of J6 suspects, so long as those arrests were by the book. But they weren’t. He signed up to catch bad guys, not intimidate, disrupt, harass, or whatever it is the Bureau does now.”

Die USA haben den Gaskrieg gegen Russland gewonnen by Jens Berger (NachDenkSeiten)

“Der Fracking-Boom in der zweiten Hälfte der 2010er-Jahre sorgte für ein massives Überangebot von Erdgas. Anfang dieses Jahrzehnts lag der Spotmarktpreis am US-Knotenpunkt Henry Hub bei umgerechnet gerade einmal fünf Euro pro Megawattstunde. Die mit vielen Milliarden Dollar vom Finanzsektor ausgestattete US-Frackingbranche stand vor dem Kollaps und mit ihr Teile des US-Finanzsystems, da die Investitionen nach „guter alter Manier“ mit wenig Eigen- und viel Fremdkapital gehebelt waren. Wollte man den Kollaps verhindern, gab es dafür nur eine Möglichkeit: Das Gas musste auf andere Weltmärkte exportiert werden und aus geographischen Gründen kam dafür nur die Verflüssigung zu LNG infrage.”

“Die USA sind der Gewinner des Gaskriegs gegen Russland; und dies auf allen Ebenen. Die US-Frackingindustrie ist durch die Abschöpfung des Überangebots an Gas erst einmal gerettet. Die Prognosen für die Zukunft sehen dabei rosig aus. In Texas und Louisiana wurden bereits Projekte genehmigt, mit denen sich die Kapazität der LNG-Exporte in den nächsten Jahren deutlich steigern wird.”

“Auch geostrategisch ist dies ein Hauptgewinn für die USA, ist Europa doch nun völlig abhängig von US-Energielieferungen und damit politisch und volkswirtschaftlich erpressbar.”

“Der LNG-Boom hat jedoch auch globale Folgen. Über die gesamte Lieferkette, angefangen beim Fracking, über den Transport, die Verflüssigung bis zur Einspeisung in die europäischen Pipelines entstehen nicht nur CO2-Emissionen, sondern auch die besonders klimaschädlichen Methan-Emissionen.”

“Bislang wurden diese katastrophalen Zahlen vor allem von den Grünen stets damit gerechtfertigt, dass es sich bei der LNG-Versorgung um eine Übergangslösung handeln soll. Das ist jedoch kaum mehr als ein frommer Wunsch, da vor allem die Verstromung von Gas ein elementarer Ankerpunkt der Energiewende ist.”

„Im Blindflug“ – Bundesregierung hat bis heute keine Erkenntnisse zur konkreten Wirkung ihrer Russland-Sanktionen by Florian Warweg (NachDenkSeiten)

“Das heißt weniger verklausuliert: Die Bundesregierung hat Wirtschaftssanktionen um der Sanktionen willen verhängt. Ob diese tatsächlich die behauptete Wirkung zeigen, scheint die Verantwortlichen wiederum – vor allem im Wirtschafts- und Außenministerium – kaum zu interessieren, sonst hätten sie diesbezüglich konkrete Prüfkriterien aufgestellt.”

“Bei Aufrechterhaltung dieser Position durch die Bundesregierung wäre der Konflikt und das Sanktionsregime gegen Russland auf Jahrzehnte festgeschrieben. Mit unabsehbaren Folgen für die Zukunft (und auch Wettbewerbsfähigkeit) Europas.”

“Vor einer ähnlichen Situation stehen seit vielen Jahren Länder wie Kuba, Venezuela, Iran und Syrien: Wenn die Zentralbank und alle weiteren erdenklichen Finanz- und Bezahlkanäle sanktioniert sind, dann kann das betreffende Land auch keine Medikamente oder auch nur nötige Grundstoffe für die Medikamentenproduktion erwerben, egal ob diese offiziell auf der Sanktionsliste stehen oder nicht.”

“„Die Bundesregierung kann bis heute nicht sagen, ob ihre Sanktionspolitik auch nur ansatzweise einen Eindruck auf die russische Kriegsführung hat oder Russlands Oligarchen trifft. Die Ampel führt ihren Wirtschaftskrieg offensichtlich im Blindflug und verfolgt eine weitestgehend faktenfreie Politik zum Preis eines massiven Wirtschaftseinbruchs in Deutschland.”

Warum ist die Transformation gescheitert? by Heiner Flassbeck & Friederike Spiecker & Constantin Heidegger (NachDenkSeiten)

“Die Region ist gekennzeichnet von der Dominanz westlicher Unternehmen, massenhafter Abwanderung von Arbeitskräften und enormer politischer Instabilität, die bis zu offenem Antagonismus gegenüber der EU reicht. Die Verantwortlichen in Westeuropa haben nicht verstanden und trotz dieser beunruhigenden Entwicklung nicht einmal zu verstehen versucht, wie es zu den entweder fatalen oder zumindest weit hinter den Erwartungen zurückgebliebenen Ergebnissen des Systemwechsels kommen konnte.”

“Nach 30 verlorenen Jahren haben die ehemaligen Transformationsländer Anspruch darauf, nicht weiter als Anhängsel des Westens betrachtet zu werden – was übrigens für die Entwicklungsländer in gleicher Weise gilt. Wer glaubt, es reiche aus, ihnen nur das Angebot zu machen, sich dem Westen anzuschließen, sich also den bisherigen Konzepten des Westens ohne Wenn und Aber unterzuordnen, hat schon vor 30 Jahren falsch gelegen.”

“Ein politischer Neuanfang in ganz Europa muss auch die Haltung zu China klären. Der amerikanische Hegemonialanspruch mit seiner Tendenz, China schon deswegen zum großen Gegner zu stilisieren, weil es eine wesentlich stärkere wirtschaftliche Dynamik zu erzeugen vermag als die USA, darf für Europa kein Vorbild sein. China ist groß, es wird ökonomisch noch größer werden und sein Umgang mit der Klimakrise wird für den Planeten mindestens so entscheidend sein wie das Verhalten Europas und der USA. Selbst wenn China noch viele Jahre von einer kommunistischen Partei diktatorisch regiert werden wird, muss man Wege finden, dauerhaft kooperativ miteinander umzugehen.”

The US Chips and Science Act of 2022 and Its Impacts on China’s Semiconductor Industry by Zhū Jīng (朱晶) (Scheer Post)

“The U.S. and other Western countries are ignoring the basic fact that the division of labor in the global IC industry brings mutual benefits to all countries from the political interests of great power competition, forcibly cutting off the industrial chain, using technological advantages to promote “de-China” and reconstruct the industrial chain, blocking the upgrading pace of China’s IC industry and maintaining its global dominant position. This brings a lot of uncertainty to China’s deep participation in the global IC industry division of labor.”

“China’s IC high-quality domestic substitution has become more difficult. As the United States continues to tighten the technology and supply chain restrictions on China’s integrated circuit industry, China began to implement the domestic replacement of key technologies and products, and in a series of industrial policies to promote the phased results.”

First Strike: The US and the World’s Most Dangerous Nuclear Policy by Ted Snider (Antiwar.com)

“The updated Nuclear Posture Review makes it clear that it is the US that has the most dangerous nuclear policy in the world. China has recommitted to its no first strike policy. India has always had a no first strike policy. Russia does not. But it confines its nuclear employment policy to defending only Russian territory. Only the US reserves the right to a first strike policy and the right to extend its nuclear umbrella beyond its territory to the territory of its allies and partners.”

Die evangelische Akademie Frankfurt auf Kriegskurs by Wolf Wetzel (NachDenkSeiten)

“Ist es wirklich zu viel verlangt, für die sicherlich sehr gebildeten Mitglieder der evangelischen Akademie, sich an das Jahr 1999 zu erinnern, als man einen Angriffskrieg auf die ehemalige Bundesrepublik Jugoslawien begann, der auf Kriegslügen basierte und dem „Recht des Stärkeren“ – also gegen alle völkerrechtlichen Konventionen verstieß?”

“Ist es zu viel verlangt, sich den Gedankengang zu erlauben, inwieweit die russische Regierung ihren Krieg ähnlich begründet hat wie die NATO-Partner im Fall des „Kosovo-Krieges“, der bereits mit seiner Bezeichnung Teil der Kriegslüge geworden ist?”

“Wäre es nicht an der Zeit, der Frage nachzugehen, ob die Kriegsbegründung, ein „zweites Auschwitz“ zu verhindern, noch weiter hergeholt ist als die Begründung, die Ukraine zu „entnazifizieren“?”

“1999 sprach man von einer „Bombenkampagne“, und von „legitimen Zielen“, wenn man die komplette Zerstörung der zivilen Infrastruktur eines Landes vorsätzlich und von oberster Kommandostelle anordnet: „Ich denke, kein Strom für deinen Eisschrank, kein Gas für deinen Herd, du kommst nicht zur Arbeit, weil die Brücke weg ist – die Brücke, auf der du deine Rockkonzerte veranstaltet hast – und ihr alle standet da mit Zielscheiben auf euren Köpfen. Das muss um drei Uhr morgens verschwinden.“ (Nato-Luftwaffenbefehlshaber, Generalleutnant Michael C. Short, The New York Times vom 13.5.1999)”

“Erst 2022 entdeckt man in Deutschland die kriegsverharmlosenden Phrasen, wenn sie vom Erzfeind Russland kommen. Dann kann man nicht genug schockiert und echauffiert sein, wenn die russische Regierung ihren militärischen Einmarsch in die Ukraine als „militärische Spezialoperation“ bezeichnet, was mit Blick auf die „humanitäre Intervention“ 1999 fast schon mehr Wahrheitspartikel enthält.”

Why Is The New York Times Still Hyping ‘Russiagate’? by Patrick Lawrence (Scheer Post)

“[…] by the time Manafort and Kilimnik were talking about autonomous regions, Ukraine, Russia, Germany, and France had signed two accords, the Minsk I and Minsk II Protocols, calling for none other than a federalized Ukraine with the express purpose of holding the nation together. Moscow strongly backed these accords in the name of Ukrainian unity. Kyiv continued shelling its own citizens and did nothing to implement them, and Paris and Berlin did nothing to urge Kyiv to stop the shelling and abide by its commitment.”

Truth Cops: Leaked Documents Outline DHS’s Plans to Police Disinformation by Ken Klippenstein, Lee Fang (The Intercept)

“DHS plans to target inaccurate information on “the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, racial justice, U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the nature of U.S. support to Ukraine.””

““Who among us thinks the government should add to its work list the job of determining what is true and what is disinformation? And who thinks the government is capable of telling the truth?” wrote Politico media critic Jack Shafer. “Our government produces lies and disinformation at industrial scale and always has. It overclassifies vital information to block its own citizens from becoming any the wiser. It pays thousands of press aides to play hide the salami with facts.””

Strompreisdeckel – Würden die Menschen das Strompreissystem verstehen, hätten wir eine Revolution noch vor morgen früh by Jens Berger (NachDenkSeiten)

“Dazu ein Rechenbeispiel: Selbst wenn der Preis für Strom aus Erdgas sich sehr großzügig gerechnet auf 50 Cent/kWh verfünffacht hätte, würde dies ja nur zehn Prozent des gesamten Stromvolumens betreffen. Wir hätten also eine Steigerung von rund 40 Prozent bezogen auf das Gesamtvolumen und wenn man berücksichtigt, dass die Herstellungskosten ihrerseits nur 40 Prozent des Endkundenpreises ausmachen, kämen wir am Ende auf eine Steigerung von 16 Prozent des Gesamtpreises und nicht auf die oft über 100 Prozent, die von den Stromanbietern bei Neuverträgen in Rechnung gestellt werden.*”

“Wenn die Stromgestehungskosten für Strom aus Erdgas sich also verfünffachen, gilt dieser Preis auch für alle anderen Anbieter, auch für die Anbieter von Strom aus regenerativen Energien, Kohle und Kernkraft, deren Kosten sich – wenn überhaupt – nur marginal gesteigert haben. Die Preissteigerungen beim Erdgas, die eigentlich nur ein kleinerer Preisfaktor für den Strompreis sein müssten, sind durch das Merit-Order-Prinzip also ursächlich verantwortlich für die massiven Preissteigerungen für die Endkunden.”

“Stand August war das vom Staat geführte EEG-Konto mit knapp 17,5 Milliarden Euro im Plus. Diese 17,5 Milliarden Euro wurden von den Stromkunden über höhere – zu hohe – Strompreise bezahlt. Anders sieht es bei den fossilen Energien und der Kernenergie aus. Hier erzielen die Betreiber als Anbieter an der Strombörse direkt die zusätzlichen Gewinne, die sie dank des Merit-Order-Prinzips einstreichen können.”

“Es ist zwar löblich, dass man an die Übergewinne geht, aber davon hat der Verbraucher in diesem Fall leider überhaupt nichts. Er ist es schließlich, der diese Übergewinne über seine Stromrechnung erst bezahlt hat. Nun wird dieses Geld vom Staat abgeschöpft. Das ist keine Entlastung, sondern unter dem Strich eher eine zusätzliche Abgabe.”

“Dabei gäbe es doch eine ganz andere Möglichkeit: Wäre der Strompreis niedriger, würden keine Übergewinne in diesem Bereich anfallen und der Staat müsste nichts subventionieren und auch nichts umverteilen. Das wäre eine echte Entlastung und sie wäre durchaus umsetzbar.”

“Würde man nun auch noch an die Monopole mit ihren rational nicht erklärbaren Preisen im Stromtransportbereich gehen, wären sogar weit niedrigere Verbraucherpreise möglich. Aber das ist ein anderes Thema.”

Fehleinschätzungen – Wir müssen uns ehrlich machen by Peter Vonnahme (NachDenkSeiten)

“Wagenknecht warf der Regierung vor, „einen beispiellosen Wirtschaftskrieg gegen unseren wichtigsten Energielieferanten vom Zaun zu brechen“, und sagte im nächsten Halbsatz, „natürlich ist der Krieg in der Ukraine ein Verbrechen“. Was ist daran so falsch? Wagenknecht hat nicht gesagt, dass Deutschland einen Krieg vom Zaun gebrochen hat, sondern sie sprach von einem Wirtschafts -Krieg. Das ist etwas anderes. Es lässt sich darüber streiten, ob diese zugespitzte Formulierung glücklich gewählt war. Aber sie enthält mehr an Wahrheit als die verkürzte Formel, Russland sei schuld an unserer sich abzeichnenden wirtschaftlichen Misere. Das hat sich zwar in unseren Sprachgebrauch eingenistet, ist aber falsch.”

“Denn Tatsache ist, man kann zwar beliebig viel Geld drucken, aber nicht einen einzigen Tropfen Öl. Auch kein Gas. Und genau das brauchen wir.”

“Die Berücksichtigung nationaler Interessen, insbesondere das Wohl und Wehe der eigenen Bevölkerung, ist weder feige noch herzlos; für Mitglieder der Regierung ergibt sich das sogar aus dem Amtseid. Die überwältigende Mehrheit im Bundestag ordnete sich geopolitischen amerikanischen Interessen unter. Deutschland hat teils auf Druck, teils aus Überzeugung die Ukraine wirtschaftlich und militärisch stark unterstützt. Von daher wäre es an der Zeit, dass Deutschland weitere Hilfen an die Ukraine von erkennbaren Friedensbemühungen der ukrainischen Führung abhängig macht. Doch dazu hatte man bisher nicht die Courage.”

“In viele Ländern herrscht Krieg (z. B. Jemen, Äthiopien, Somalia, Kamerun, Kongo). Andere Länder wurden von großen Naturkatastrophen (Erdbeben, Dürren, Überschwemmungen usw.) heimgesucht. Die Opferzahlen sind teilweise dramatisch höher als in der Ukraine. Diesem Land kommt weder historisch noch politisch eine Sonderstellung zu. Allein der Umstand, dass die Ukraine von Russland, dem Systemgegner der „westlichen Wertegemeinschaft“, angegriffen worden ist, rechtfertigt unter humanitären Gesichtspunkten keine Bevorzugung. Die Menschen anderer Länder leiden unter grausamen Kriegen und Verwüstungen nicht weniger stark.”

Man kann doch nicht jedem Kind der Welt etwas zum weihnachten schenken. Darum schränkt man sich auf den eigenen ein.

“[…] die Geografie lässt sich nicht ändern. Russland bliebe das größte Land der Erde, eine Fläche, die sich über zehn Zeitzonen erstreckt. Es ist das Land, das über die meisten Bodenschätze der Welt verfügt, neben Kohle, Öl, Gas, auch Eisenerz, Nickel, Kupfer, Aluminium, Platin, Gold, Diamanten und Uran. Dieses riesige Land wird immer unser Nachbar sein, mit dem wir auf Gedeih und Verderb zusammenleben müssen. Mit und ohne Putin.”

Die glauben eventuell, dass Deutschland mit NATO das alles übernehmen könnte. Der Author glaubt eher, dass Russland nicht so leicht wegzukriegen ist. Anderen sind anderer Meinung. Die liegen natürlich falsch—es ging nie so leicht oder überhaupt erfolgreich als vorgesehen oder erhofft (ganz zu schweigen von moralischen Gedanken)—aber leider war Dummheit nie ein genügendes Hindernis.

Pipelines sprengen unter Freunden, das geht gar nicht by Jens Berger (NachDenkSeiten)

“Es erscheint vollkommen unmöglich, dass inmitten dieses dicht überwachten Areals ein staatlicher Akteur eine größere Marineoperation durchziehen kann, ohne dass dies von den unzähligen aktiven und passiven Sensoren der Anrainerstaaten bemerkt worden wäre; schon gar nicht direkt vor der Insel Bornholm, wo sich Dänen, Schweden und Deutsche ein Stelldichein bei der Überwachung der Über- und Unterseeaktivitäten geben.”

“Um halbwegs unbemerkt Sprengkörper an einer Gaspipeline anbringen zu können, bräuchte man eine plausible Ablenkung – einen Grund, warum man in der Nähe von Bornholm taucht, ohne dass man gleich in den Verdacht gerät, einen Sabotageakt zu verüben. Das muss zeitlich gar nicht einmal in direktem Zusammenhang mit den Anschlägen erfolgt sein. Moderne Sprengsätze sind natürlich fernzündbar. Wer hat also in den letzten Wochen derartige Operationen in dem Seegebiet durchgeführt?”

“Betrachtet man sich die Karte von Nord Stream, so sieht man, dass die Pipeline von Staaten umzingelt ist, die schon immer gegen sie opponiert haben. Dies fängt bei Finnland, Schweden und Dänemark an und geht über die baltischen Republiken bis Polen. Bis auf Russland und Deutschland waren alle Ostseeanrainerstaaten ausgemachte Gegner dieser Pipelines und niemand wird ihnen heute eine Träne nachweinen. Daher ist es auch unwahrscheinlich, dass wir jemals harte Daten sehen werden, aus denen man die Täterschaft ableiten kann.”

Thanatos Triumphant by Mike Davis (New Left Review)

“By all accounts, Putin, who surrounds himself with as much astrology, mysticism and perversion as the terminal Romanovs, sincerely believes that he must save the Ukrainians from being Ukrainians lest the celestial destiny of the Rus becomes impossible. The present must be smashed in order to make an imaginary past the future.”

I really don’t think this is anything but fevered authorly onanism. I’m kind of surprised to see Mike Davis writing so hyperbolically and seemingly without nuance. Has he actually researched this, as he has with myriad other topics? Or did he just take these statements as given, gleaned from LA Times?

America This Week: November 6-12, 2022 by Matt Taibbi (TK News)

“Iran has been in a state of chaos since September 16th, when a Kurdish woman named Mahsa Amini was arrested by the country’s morality police and beaten for wearing an “improper” hijab. The country exploded in protests and in the time since saw remarkable defiance, with scenes of women burning their head-coverings. Mass arrests ensued and now Iran’s parliament has voted to impose the death penalty on all protesters in custody, as many as 15,000 people, as a “hard lesson.””

Jesus! Is that true?

I think he got it from Iran Protesters Defy Regime to Mark ‘Bloody Friday’ as 15,000 Face Death by Brendan Cole (Newsweek)

“The protests took place three days after Iran’s parliament voted to impose the death penalty on the estimated 15,000 jailed protesters.

“Iranian lawmaker Zoreh Elahian, who voted in favor of sentencing the protesters to death, was in New York this week for a U.N. General Assembly committee meeting that discussed human rights.”

I guess that’s what happens when you cite Newsweek just one time. It’s completely untrue. Fact check: Has Iran sentenced 15,000 protesters to death? by Maziar Motamedi on November 16th, 2022 (Al Jazeera)

“The fact that the exaggerated reports have been debunked does not mean that no execution sentences have been handed out. On Sunday, the Iranian judiciary announced that the first death sentence has been handed down to an unnamed “rioter” who was charged with moharebeh, “corruption on Earth” and “setting fire to a government centre, disturbing public order and collusion for committing crimes against national security”.

“The judiciary also announced on Wednesday that four more individuals have received death sentence in connection with the protests.

“Two individuals were sentenced for “using a knife in the street to cause fear and terror for the people“ in addition to attacking others with the knife and arson.

“Another is accused of running over and killing a police officer with a car, while a fourth is accused of playing the role of a “leader“ in street unrest and blocking the streets.”

Why Are the Russians Retreating in Ukraine? by Patrick Lawrence (Scheer Post)

“As to Putin, it seems he has come under fire from the hawkish wings of Moscow’s political firmament. This is nothing the Kremlin will welcome, but we must bear in mind: Vlad the Horrible is in fact a liberal Westernizer in the Russian context, or was until Washington threw a custard pie in his face, and he has been fending off his nationalistic right flank for years.”

“Other things started happening soon after Surovikin took over in Ukraine. A large proportion of Kherson’s civilian population—apparently not the entire city—was evacuated. Then Russian soldiers began removing statues and other Russian-related cultural artifacts, including Potemkin’s tomb, out of the city. This was looting and grave-robbing in Western media accounts. When we consider what Ukrainians and other East Europeans do these days to monuments honoring the Soviet Union’s sacrifices in World War II, it is simply prudence and respect for history.”

That may be giving an army too much credit, though, isn’t it, Patrick? I mean, if they’re expending effort to get civilians and cultural landmarks out of harm’s way, that’s grand, but it’s also a pretty generous interpretation considering you started your article with a pronouncement that this is the murkiest war you’ve ever covered. I think you’re leaning a bit too far out the window on this one. The interpretation that the Russians vamoosed because they were concerned that their presence was making the city too much of a tasty target for Ukrainian psychos who would murder Ukrainian citizens with a flood is very ungenerous, but probably accurate? Most armies these days have little to no consideration of civilian casualties if we’re at all honest about war as she is played.

Top Zelensky advisor threatens war with Iran by Alexander Rubenstein (The Gray Zone)

““Of course, increasing pressure on the Iranian regime was discussed today with Mrs. Ursula von der Leyen. Its complicity in Russian terror must be punished,” Zelensky proclaimed in a speech published on his website. “And we will bring this issue not only to the level of our traditional partners. The whole world will know that the Iranian regime helps Russia prolong this war, and therefore prolong the effect of those threats to the world provoked precisely by the Russian war. If it was not for the Iranian supply of weapons to the aggressor, we would be closer to peace now.””

The same can be said of the nearly endless supply of weapons provided to Ukraine. They are prolonging a war, the most evil of human activities, regardless of which “side” you’re on. NATO stubbornly avoid peace talks and puts more and more fuel on the fire, then threatens Iran with war when it provides weapons to the “wrong side”. It only makes sense if you think that wars are something to be “won” instead of an indication that all have already lost the chance to avoid needless suffering. Ursula and co. don’t care at all. They are intent on “winning” by sacrificing millions of lives and livelihoods. Bandying about ideas of a hot war with Iran doesn’t concern them at all. They welcome it—they will be lauded for it, so why wouldn’t they?

““Absolutely everyone who helps Russia prolong this war must bear responsibility for the consequences of this war along with it,” Zelensky said, adding that “we understand” that Russia is preparing for more “mass attacks on our infrastructure” with “Iranian missiles.””

Zelensky is a leader whose interest is not in ending the war, but in “winning” it. He seems to to understand or to care that a prolonged war will destroy everything in his country. He still seems to be taking the stance that Ukraine is on the cusp of “victory”—almost nine months into a war that never should have happened.

“Just as Iranian-made drones appear to have given Russian forces a major boost on the battlefield, the US HIMARS artillery system has enabled significant Iranian gains, including the recapture of Kherson. However, no high ranking officials in Russian president Vladimir Putin’s office have similarly threatened the United States, or any of the other 40 countries that provided Ukraine with critical military assistance.”

It is understandable that Iran’s supply of weapons to Russia will be targeted as unacceptable involvement in the war, an act ripe for punishment, while NATO’s many-times-more arming of Ukraine can still be considered as non-involvement. This is how people without morals or brains or empathy think. They cannot acknowledge that the level of outrage they feel about Iran’s arming of Russia is exactly how Russia feels about NATO’s arming of Ukraine. It doesn’t matter who’s right, or who’s justified in feeling that way. None of that matters at all. Diplomacy is about empathy, about understanding how your so-called opponent will feel and react to certain actions or stances. Iran is just as wrong to supply Russia as NATO is to supply Ukraine. Instead, everyone should be doing everything they can to bring this war to and end instead of doing everything that they can to “win” it, which inevitably prolongs it, bringing death and destruction and suffering to millions more people, their homes, their livelihoods, and their lives.

Extended episode: Norm Finkelstein Takes Down Bernie and the Squad by Useful Idiots (YouTube)

Norm Finkelstein is a national treasure and an excellent guest and terrible small-talker and an absolutely relentless voice for truth and justice and peace. Definitely worth watching.

Chris Hedges & Lee Camp War Is The Greatest Evil by Behind the Headlines (YouTube)

Two of my favorite journalists and commentators discuss war for an hour.

“Hedges: I’ve covered conflict for a long time and I can tell you that both sides lie like they breathe and that war is a very dirty business.”

Why the War in Ukraine Is a True Act of Madness by Rajan Menon (Scheer Post)

“A more fundamental reason much of the global south wasn’t in a hurry to pillory Russia is that the West has repeatedly defenestrated the very values it declares to be universal. In 1999, for instance, NATO intervened in Kosovo, following Serbia’s repression of the Kosovars, even though it was not authorized to do so, as required, by a U.N. Security Council resolution (which China and Russia would have vetoed).”

I was speaking to some friends who could not wrap their heads around the fact that the NATO attack on Yugoslavia was also an international crime. It was not sanctioned by the security council. It was not even put to a vote. NATO simply decided on its own to attack Yugoslavia to put down the Serbs in a civil war. This is seen as completely justified in the West—indeed by many people from that region—because it stopped the Serbs.

Was there another way to go about it? No-one even contemplates the possibility. Breaking international law—and then ignoring the transgression completely—was the only solution. Since it is considered a good outcome for everyone who matters, there is no need to even consider that it was illegal. They were even less willing to consider that perhaps the people in the east of Ukraine yearned to be saved from their own countrymen attacking them, just like the Kosovars and Albanians yearned to be saved from the Serbs.

Is the Russian invasion under this pretense illegal? Of course it is. Is it more so than the attack on Yugoslavia in 1999? No, it really isn’t. They’re both attacks on and transgressions of another country’s territorial integrity, according to international law. One is lauded as proof that humanitarian intervention isn’t an oxymoron while the other is considered the only attack on European soil since WWII. That is how strongly people believe that the attack on Yugoslavia wasn’t even an attack—they don’t even remember it as anything other than a noble intervention with literally no downsides for anyone. I have many wonderful neighbors who would not be living in Switzerland if NATO had left everything so hunky-dory.

“Leaders regularly implore “the international community” to act in various ways. If such appeals are to be more than verbiage, however, compelling evidence is needed that 195 countries share basic principles of some sort on climate change — that the world is more than the sum of its parts. Evidence is also needed that the most powerful countries on this planet can set aside their short-term interests long enough to act in a concerted fashion and decisively when faced with planet-threatening problems like climate change. The war in Ukraine offers no such evidence. For all the talk of a new dawn that followed the end of the Cold War, we seem stuck in our old ways — just when they need to change more than ever.”

Blinken, Sullivan Don’t Agree With Milley’s Push for Diplomacy on Ukraine War by Dave DeCamp (Scheer Post)

“The CNN report said that Milley has in recent weeks “led a strong push to seek a diplomatic solution” to the fighting. But his position is not a popular one in the administration, and one official said that the State Department has the opposite view of Milley.

“The report reads: “One official explained that the State Department is on the opposite side of the pole from Milley. That dynamic has led to a unique situation where military brass are more fervently pushing for diplomacy than US diplomats.”

“Throughout the war, Blinken and his State Department have shown little interest in diplomacy with Russia. Blinken has only held one known phone call with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, since the February 24th invasion, and the conversation was focused on a potential prisoner swap, not the war in Ukraine.”

Roger Waters on Ukraine, BDS Controversies and American Foreign Policy (YouTube)

Roger Waters is also a fantastic interview who does not shy away at all from speaking truth to power. Thirty minutes of information and excellent interviewing well-worth watching (or, at least, listening to).

The Chris Hedges Report: Pink Floyd's Roger Waters on Ukraine, Palestine, music & more by Real News Network (YouTube)

Another great interview by two of my favorite commentators and investigators and warriors for real justice.

Cormac McCarthy’s poem cited by Roger Waters in The Chris Hedges Report Podcast with Roger Waters, co-founder of Pink Floyd, about his music, activism and current This is Not a Drill tour by Chris Hedges (SubStack)

NATO to convene under Article 4 after Poland says Russian missiles struck its territory by Andre Damon (WSWS)

“Zelensky added, “Today, Russian missiles hit Poland, the territory of our friendly country. People died… It’s only a matter of time before Russian terror goes further… We must act.””

No investigation needed, of course. Obviously, it was the Russians. There’s literally no downside to acting as if it were, right?

“In a tweet, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called for the United States to respond by sending advanced fighter aircraft to Ukraine and establishing a no-fly zone.”

This would be a fittingly ridiculous way to expand the war.

Where did all the materiel and money you’ve received so far go? Ukraine seems to be an absolute black hole into which money can be thrown.

‘Unfortunate Accident’: Polish President Says Missile That Killed Two Likely Fired by Ukraine by Jake Johnson (Scheer Post)

“NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg echoed that assessment at a press conference Wednesday following an emergency meeting of alliance ambassadors.

““Our preliminary analysis suggests that the incident was likely caused by a Ukrainian air defense missile fired to defend Ukrainian territory against Russian cruise missile attacks,” Stoltenberg told reporters. “But let me be clear: this is not Ukraine’s fault. Russia bears ultimate responsibility as it continues its illegal war against Ukraine.””

Ukraine fired rockets at Poland and it’s Russia’s fault. Considering how quickly Ukraine jumped on it, asking for more support, I think that NATO should very carefully investigate whether Ukraine is trying to create a Gulf of Tonkin moment here. But they won’t, because they honestly all love war so much. Stoltenberg should drop dead already. The world would be better off.

That Biden and the U.S. very quickly acknowledged that it was not Russia is, for me, a good sign. It means that they may actually be serious about keeping things calm until diplomacy gets a chance—despite Ukraine’s desperate attempts to “seal the deal” and get NATO fully involved (letting the world burn, as it were).

White House Asks Congress for $37.7 Billion in New Ukraine Aid by Dave DeCamp (Scheer Post)

Of course, one day earlier, Joe Biden’s White House asked for a ton of money for Ukraine. They are just burning America’s money before the lame-duck session begins.

Journalism & Media

No, New York Times, You Don’t “Deserve Better” Than Donald Trump. by Matt Taibbi (TK News)

“There are probably 75 million Americans who think you’re all less trustworthy than Donald Trump, and that’s not because they think Trump is a saintly Clean Gene savior (the Times featured photos of Trump supporters “praying before Donald Trump”). On the contrary, they know he’s a bullshit artist of the first order. They just think you’re worse. When Trump lies, the average person shrugs, like they did when he tried to sell them on the “World’s Greatest Steaks!” When members of the we-deserve-better crowd lie, they do it with a halo, which makes millions of people want to send Trump rocketing up their poop-shoots.”

“Democracy needs a press that works independently of political parties, and the Times played a leading role in rubbing out this quasi-functional feature of American society. That’s why it’s impossible to agree that they “deserve” better than Donald Trump. They very much deserve Trump, as does anyone else who cheated and censored and red-baited for the last six years while claiming the mantle of “democracy.” As Chappelle said, Trump is an honest liar. You folks at the Times are the other kind.”

Dave Chappelle Stand-Up Monologue by SNL (YouTube)

At 08:30, he said,

“I’ve been watching the news now, and they’re declaring the end of the Trump era. Now, OK, I can see how, in New York, you might believe this is the end of his era. I’m just being honest with you: I live in Ohio, amongst the poor whites. A lot of you don’t understand why Trump was so popular. I get it. Because I hear it every day. He’s very loved. And the reason he’s loved is that people in Ohio had never seen anyone like him. He’s what I call an honest liar. That first debate. I’d never seen anything like it. I’d never seen a white, male billionaire screaming at the top of his lungs, ‘this whole system is rigged,’ he said.

“And, across the stage, was a white woman, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama, sitting over there, looking at him, like, ‘no, it’s not.‘ I said, ‘now wait a minute, bro. It’s what he said.‘ […] No-one had ever heard someone say something that true. […] No-one had ever seen anything like that, no-one had ever seen anybody come from inside of that house, outside, and tell all the commoners, ‘we are doing everything that you think we are doing, inside of that house,’ and then he just went right back into the house, and he started playing the game again.”

Art & Literature

All Quiet on the Western Front: A strong anti-war film, and at the right time by Christoph Vandreier, Bernd Reinhardt (WSWS)

“The new film also manages to make the horrors of war tangible. It sticks in the viewer’s bones for weeks afterwards, and the question hammers inside one’s head as to how such a catastrophe can be prevented in the face of renewed warmongering today. This is precisely why the film’s bleak outlook, and its eradication of real social contradictions are so regrettable.

“Nevertheless, this All Quiet on the Western Front will help inspire a new generation to look at the reasons for imperialist slaughter and incite opposition to the forces who threaten the world with a Third World War. It will encourage them to reject today’s Himmelstößes and Kantoreks in media offices and at university lecterns and to join an international movement against war.”

The 1964 Italian Film That Speaks to the Dread of Climate Change by Soham Gadre (Jacobin)

“What is still refreshing about Red Desert even after nearly sixty years is its ability to relay directly the feelings of living under capitalism through the cinematic form. There is a consistent obfuscation of humanity in the land of man-made creations. When Giuliana visits a factory, she is framed behind a series of red beams. Her conversation with Corrado takes place in an apartment complex of concrete, clean blocks and manicured grass, with one pink flower delicately standing. In the docks, the characters are seen as small figures, faint in the fog, next to the gigantic ship.”

“Near the end of the movie, Giuliana stands with her son looking at one of the smoke stacks of the factory. He asks “Why is that smoke yellow?” She says, “It’s poisonous.” He responds, “So, if a bird flies near it, it will die?” She continues “The birds know not to fly here anymore.” Her words hit like a punch in the pit of the soul.”

Philosophy & Sociology

The Chris Hedges Report with Justin E. H. Smith on Marcel Proust’s masterpiece In Search of Lost Time (À la recherche du temps perdu). by Chris Hedges (SubStack)

This is a brilliant podcast: A 30-minute discussion about one of the 20th-century’s most famous French novels—a 7-volume, 4000-page treatise on memory and time—with two of my favorite and brilliant and insightful writers.

At 21:50,

“Smith: These are leitmotifs of the whole novel and, indeed, they do seem to be the answer to the question of ‘what are these dim fragments of memory for, anyway?’ Well, they can be catalyzed or sublimated into great musical a idea, like, for example, the phrase in Vinteuil’s sonata that seems to hold the secret to our existence and, indeed, you really this towards the very end of the novel—the seventh volume—again, functioning as a payoff for so much of the long-windedness of the whole thing, the realization that the narrator has of himself, that he needs to conjure out of himself, something as valuable, as redeeming as Vinteuil’s sonata, in order to make this whole lifetime of dim fragmentary memories do anything for him at all.”

At 23:10

“Hedges: I want to talk about the mutation of the self, especially around grief. […] There’s that lamentation, […] and, of course, there’s the death of his grandmother, which is probably modeled on the death of his mother, which he pretty much had a nervous breakdown after his mother died. But he doesn’t fear grieving. He fears the day he no longer grieves because the self that was one in love no longer exists.”

Was everyone stupid back then?

It's you humans inside human-made structures who ruin everything

The expected value of longtermism by Jeroen Bouterse (3 Quarks Daily)

“I take MacAskill’s argument for longtermism to apply to time the same argument that effective altruism already applied to space: our distance or proximity to other people has no normative implications whatsoever. What matters is, always, the difference we can make. The application of this argument in his previous book, Doing Good Better, is that almost everyone in the affluent world can make a meaningful difference, but that this potential is being severely underused.”

“I find it hard to believe that such a proto-divine mind would care as much about the absolute and relative quantities of similar lives as MacAskill seems to expect. People do not tend to evaluate their own individual lives via the area under their happiness curve, […]”

“Almost no matter your take on ethics, improving the health and living conditions of the global poor is a good thing; the question is how you and I can do that best, how we can contribute most effectively and what we should leave to better-placed actors.”

“I agree with MacAskill that the child drowning in the pond is equally real whether they are a neighbor’s child, live ten thousand miles away, or ten thousand years away. The difference is that in the first two cases, the existence of the pond is a given. In the last case, on the other hand, no concrete scenario is defined in which we get to make a local intervention (e.g. removing the child from the pond); rather, any intervention in the present derives its value from the way in which it improves, by replacing it, the entire later world. It may be in our power to remove the pond in advance, or the child for that matter; or, if children and ponds are both valuable, we could aim to arbitrarily improve their absolute numbers, at an acceptable child/pond-ratio.”

“[…] just like empirical uncertainty tends to do in longtermist discussions, the fat tail wags the decision-theoretical dog: if extremely large populations are at stake, theories that maximize total wellbeing make such a large difference if they are right, that they dominate our rational decision-making even if we ascribe only low credence to them.”

“I should remind myself what longtermists are using these calculations for in practice. They are not running around pressing buttons that kill a million people now to maybe-possibly save a trillion lives later. What they are doing, is pressing upon us how much sense it makes to make relatively modest investments in projects that may warn us about incoming asteroids, decrease the likelihood of climate disaster, prevent a crippling pandemic, or improve the chances that artificial intelligence will be durably aligned with human interests.”

“Perhaps, in tending to scale value linearly with quantity of lives, they are somewhat biased in favor of possible futures in which there is a massive number of people. Perhaps they are sometimes misguided in practice as to which courses of action should even be on the table. Still, we could do much worse. Surely the world is not suffering from an excess of foresightedness.”

Walking, Seeing, Thinking by Justin E.H. Smith (Hinternet)

“[…] you were told that you could, if you like, come back into this world reincarnated as “an animal”, you should decline the offer, as it is so highly probable as to be basically a moral certainty that you would come back not as an elephant, a whale, a dog, or even a bat, a mouse, or an eel, but rather as some sort of arthropod. Coming back as anything other than an insect, a spider, a krill, or some other creature of that order is an anomaly practically as remarkable as winning the lottery.”

“Why the hell would anyone prefer a site that compels you to write your thoughts in fragments, which then takes all the monetary profit that results from this writing for itself, and leaves you to fend off the swarms of enraged Sans-Culottes who are committed, as a matter of principle, to not taking in what you have to say with any charity or judiciousness? Why would anyone settle for an arrangement like that?”

Technology

Import AI 309: Generative bias; BLOOM isn’t great; how China and Russia use AI by Jack Clark (Import AI)

“These kinds of biases aren’t so much a technical problem as a sociotechnical one; ML models try to approximate biases in their underlying datasets and, for some groups of people, some of these biases are offensive or harmful. That means in the coming years there will be endless political battles about what the ‘correct’ biases are for different models to display (or not display), and we can ultimately expect there to be as many approaches as there are distinct ideologies on the planet. I expect to move into a fractal ecosystem of models, and I expect model providers will ‘shapeshift’ a single model to display different biases depending on the market it is being deployed into. This will be extraordinarily messy.”

Pluralistic: 09 Nov 2022 Delegating trust is really, really, really hard (infosec edition) by Cory Doctorow (Pluralistic)

“Back in 2018, Bloomberg published a blockbuster story claiming that the server infrastructure of the biggest cloud companies had been compromised with tiny hardware interception devices: […] The authors claimed to have verified their story in every conceivable way. The companies whose servers were said to have been compromised rejected the entire story. Four years later, we still don’t know who was right. How do we trust the Bloomberg reporters? How do we trust Apple? If we ask a regulator to investigate their claims, how do we trust the regulator? Hell, how do we trust our senses?”

“The ceremony continues: the safe yields a USB stick and a DVD. Each of the trusted officials hands over a smart card that they trust and keep in a safe deposit box in a tamper-evident bag. The special laptop is booted from the trusted DVD and mounts the trusted USB stick. The trusted cards are used to sign three months worth of keys, and these are the basis for the next quarter’s worth of secure DNS queries.”

This sounds like a shamanic ritual.

“These companies are so opaque and obscure that it might be impossible to ever find out what’s really going on, and that’s the point. For the web to have privacy, the Certificate Authorities that hold the (literal) keys to that privacy must be totally transparent. We can’t assume that they are perfectly spherical cows of uniform density.”

“[…] how did Trustcor, who marketed a defective security product, whose corporate ownership is irregular and opaque with a seeming connection to a cyber-arms-dealer, end up in our browsers’ root of trust to begin with?”

“Trustcor isn’t just in Firefox’s root of trust – it’s in the roots of trust for Chrome (Google) and Safari (Apple). All the major browser vendors were supposed to investigate this company and none of them disqualified it, despite all the vivid red flags.”

“Today, learning that the CA-vetting process I’d blithely assumed was careful and sober-sided is so slapdash that a company without a working phone or a valid physical address could be trusted by billions of browsers, I feel like I did when I decided not to fill my opioid prescription.

“I feel like I’m on the precipice of a great, epistemological void. I can’t “do my own research” for everything. I have to delegate my trust. But when the companies and institutions I rely on to be prudent (not infallible, mind, just prudent ) fail this way, it makes me want to delete all the certificates in my browser. Which would, of course, make the web wildly insecure.

“Unless it’s already that insecure.”

Programming

How fast is ASP.NET Core? (Dusted Codes)

“Make no mistake, ASP.NET Core is very fast and certainly doesn’t need to shy away from a healthy competition. However, it is evidently not faster than Java, Go or C++. Perhaps it will get there one day but at the moment this is not the case. I am certain that we haven’t seen the ceiling for ASP.NET Core just yet and I look forward to what the .NET Team will deliver next. ASP.NET Core is a great platform and even though it’s not the fastest (yet), it is still a joy!

“I wish Scott Hunter and the rest of the ASP.NET Core Team didn’t feel the need to market ASP.NET Core based on soft lies and bad-faith claims to make ASP.NET Core stand out amongst its peers.”

“David Fowler from the ASP.NET Core team confirmed they will be more mindful about this going forward.”

Tree views in CSS by Kate Rose Morley (fosstodon)

“A tree view (collapsible list) can be created using only html and css, without the need for JavaScript. Accessibility software will see the tree view as lists nested inside disclosure widgets, and the standard keyboard interaction is supported automatically.”

C Isn’t A Programming Language Anymore by Aria Beingessner (Faultlore)

“My problem is that C was elevated to a role of prestige and power, its reign so absolute and eternal that it has completely distorted the way we speak to each other. Rust and Swift cannot simply speak their native and comfortable tongues – they must instead wrap themselves in a grotesque simulacra of C’s skin and make their flesh undulate in the same ways it does. C is the lingua franca of programming. We must all speak C, and therefore C is not just a programming language anymore – it’s a protocol that every general-purpose programming language needs to speak.”

“Everyone had to learn to speak C to talk to the major operating systems, and then when it came time to talk to each other we suddenly all already spoke C so… why not talk to each other in terms of C too? Oops! Now C is the lingua franca of programming. Oops! Now C isn’t just a programming language, it’s a protocol. Ok so apparently basically every language has to learn to talk C. A language that is definitely very well-defined and not a mass hallucination.”

“What does “talking” C mean? It means getting descriptions of an interface’s types and functions in the form of a C header and somehow: matching the layouts of those types doing some stuff with linkers to resolve the function’s symbols as pointers calling those functions with the appropriate ABI (like putting args in the right registers) Well we’ve got a few problems here: You can’t actually write a C parser. C doesn’t actually have an ABI. Or even defined type layouts.”

“I wrote this dang thing to check for mistakes in rustc, I didn’t expect to find inconsistencies between the two major C compilers on one of the most important and well-trodden ABIs!”

“Common forward-compatible tricks include: Reserving unused fields for future versions’ use. Having a common prefix to all version of MyRadType that lets you “check” what version you’re working with. Having self-size fields so older versions can “skip over” the new parts. Microsoft is genuinely a master of this forward-compatability fuckery, to the extent that they even keep stuff they really care about layout-compatible between architectures.”

“This thing is an absolutely indestructible forward-compat behemoth. Hell, because they’re so careful with padding it even has the same layout between 32-bit and 64-bit! (Which is actually really important because you want a minidump processor on one architecture to be able to handle minidumps from every architecture.)”

“This is why int is 32-bit on x64 even though it was “supposed” to be 64-bit: int was 32-bit for so long that it was completely hopeless to update software to the new size even though it was a whole new architecture and target triple!”