tobychev @tobychev@social.cleverlibre.org

There are important stories to be reporting in this space. When automated systems are being used, who is being left without recourse to challenge decisions? Whose data is being stolen? Whose labor is being exploited? How is mass surveillance being extended and normalized? What are the impacts to the natural environment and information ecosystem? 25/

Wow, IEA dropping this just before COP28 is quite a move.

https://youtu.be/UzQJ2norrEw?si=2KRwFw70s0oL9Q3f

This video is one minute long, but I’ll also link to the one hour long report launch video with the key findings in the next post. It feels as close as I think you’ll ever get to an energy thinktank doing a mike drop on debunking the usual fossil fuel talking points.

Especially when they were set up in the 70s to *secure* fossil fuel supply for rich westerners on economies.

The Israeli Minister of communication is proposing the shut down of Haaretz due to “defeatist and false propaganda”

#Israel #Gaza #Palestine

Doing reviews for a conference and 1) getting annoyed about the authors assuming US readers, and 2) learning horrible things about the US.

"[...]having an eviction on record makes it more difficult to [...] qualify for affordable housing programs."

WHAT? That's who those programs are _for_?

"Exempel på brister som skulle kunna leda till utvisning är bristande regelefterlevnad, som bidragsfusk och skulder. Det kan också handla om association eller samröre med kriminella nätverk och våldsbejakande organisationer. Även missbruk och vissa uttalanden kan komma att räknas till sådana brister, enligt regeringen."

https://omni.se/fler-utlanningar-ska-utvisas-for-bristande-levnadssatt/a/3EaoJq

Elva nazister vid bordet, som sagt.

#SvPol #Nazister #Regeringen

This is of course my favorite cover of The Continent, from May of this year. I wouldn’t mind having it as a poster. This is how the magazine explained the image:

”Cover: The Creation of Adam, Michelangelo’s iconic fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel depicts the Christian deity breathing life into the very first man. Today, a handful of incredibly rich men in Silicon Valley claim a similarly grandiose mission. This is, apparently, the dawn of the age of ’artificial intelligence’.

According to its creators, this emerging technology is godlike in its abilities: so powerful that it could one day create unimaginable wealth and luxury – or destroy us all. But not everyone is buying into
this hype. We spoke to several African AI researchers who see, instead, an all too familiar pattern of exploitation and extraction.”

@thecontinent

This is not a fully formed thought, but I have a visceral reaction to seeing coverage of Altman’s firing treated as a top-left news headline. It feels part of the hagiography of these dudes, that we cover them like kings and we cover their companies like nations, but somehow we don’t cover what their tech is going to do to real people.

According to all reports, he was triggered by the fear that, exactly after her graduation, she would definitely leave the city and move abroad, or to another city.
In this sense, getting such an important University result appeared to the guy as a level of independence and personal accomplishment too big to bear, and enough to make him a killer.
(there were other reports of him being "too possessive", but that was the final trigger)

Last week poor Giulia Cecchettin was ready to have the final discussion on her thesis in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Padova, but a few days before she disappeared, together with her former boyfriend. This weekend, she was found dead in the mountain at a hundred kilometers of distance, while a day later the boyfriend was arrested in germany, where he drove until he ran out of money and gasoline.

It’s curious that I haven’t seen anyone bring up the Sabra and Shatila massacre that Israel aided and abetted during their invasion of Beirut in 1982. The reason I’m surprised it doesn’t come up is that it was very close to Oct 7: attackers going door to door, torturing and butchering 1000-2000 civilians in their own homes in a “hands-on” fashion. Palestinian civilians in that case.

The point is absolutely NOT that the earlier horror somehow justifies the later one. It emphatically does not.

The point is that, unfortunately, what happened on Oct 7 was not “a new dimension” of horror, or a “uniquely” evil event. And when it happened before, Israeli voters later enthusiastically elected Ariel Sharon, regardless of the fact that Israel’s OWN inquiry at the time found him ultimately responsible for the massacre (at least he got a slap on the wrist and not a slap on the back). Memory is short, and double standards run high.

“In February 1983, an independent commission chaired by Irish diplomat Seán MacBride (the then-assistant to the Secretary-General of the United Nations) launched an inquiry into the violence and concluded that the IDF, as the erstwhile occupying power over Sabra and Shatila, bore responsibility for the militia's massacre. The commission also stated that the massacre was a form of genocide.”

EVERYONE: We gotta save salmon

US ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS: Ok we'll build a giant fish vacuum

TRIBES: Why not just open up the dams

ARMY CORPS: We have to save the power companies!

POWER COMPANIES: No, you really don't

ARMY CORPS: FISH VACUUM

CONGRESS: Maybe u should look into shutting down the dams

ARMY CORPS: Our FISH VACUUM only costs $1.9 BILLION AND DOESN'T WORK LET'S GOOOOO

TRIBES: “Killing salmon to lose money deserves a deeper analysis.” (actual quote)

https://www.propublica.org/article/willamette-river-salmon-dams-usace?utm_source=comms&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=comms

In @thecontinent this weekend.

« "When I went to Africa, it seemed like no one was paying attention. It was like: ‘We can do whatever we want.’"

These are the words of an American military drone operator – someone who, at the press of a button, can decide whether Africans live or die.

A devastating new investigation details how one particular drone strike killed a Somali mother and her four-year-old daughter. The United States military investigated itself and exonerated itself. Because in Africa, you can do whatever you want. »

#TheContinent #Somalia

https://mas.to/@thecontinent/111430566639579861

Reposting with alt text because I can't not boost memes about this.

"The hegemony that algorithmic culture is in the process of achieving doesn’t depend on what algorithms “really” do, but on the ways we come to tolerate their deployment — what sorts of stories we come to tell ourselves about algorithms to domesticate them or disavow them, to make their threat to our autonomy seem manageable."

https://robhorning.substack.com/p/two-riders-were-approaching

What do #Climate activists need from #ClimateScience?
A brave choice to invite the Danish green student movement to the #NCKF symposium - but actually quite moving to see how much science they use. (They may be the only people in the world to have read the #IPCC reports from start to finish...

#denGronneUngdomsBevægelse
#DenGrønneUngdomsBevægelse

#ClimateActivists

Ireland, CERN and Science

And lo! it came to pass that Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science Simon Harris TD has today secured Government approval to submit Ireland’s formal application to join the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) as an Associate Member. I have posted about this before, for example here. Currently Ireland is in the anomalous position of not having any form of association agreement with CERN; the…

http://telescoper.blog/2023/11/15/ireland-cern-and-science/

Svenska Freds och Palestinagrupperna är verkligen helt fel ute. Att bara demonstrera för sin åsikt är ett hot mot demokratin. Vill de utnyttja sin sanna yttandefrihet ska de fredligt registrera sig på en kurs, fredligt trakassera föreläsaren och sina kursare, fredligt posta sina trakasserier på hatbloggar och videokanaler och fredligt syssla med nazism och förföljelse på fritiden. Så funkar demokratin. Iallafall på svenska högskolor.

Svenska Freds ba: "Stoppa Chalmers vapensamarbete med israeliska företaget Elbit Systems för svenska universitet ska inte stötta eller uppmuntra brott mot folkrätten"

Chalmers ba: "Hold my beer"

Tack för tipset @pettter

Här är blixtaktion från Svenska Freds:

https://www.svenskafreds.se/engagera-dig/blixtaktion-chalmers-samarbete-vapenforetag/

Och här är Chalmers trista censurbudskap:

https://www.chalmers.se/aktuellt/rektor-kommenterar/inga-politiska-manifestationer-pa-chalmers-campus/

This chart from the recent Carbon Brief analysis is wild.

Is shows the massive increase in solar built in China in 2023, which effectively means that next year, the worlds largest carbon emitter will peak next year and likely start reducing emissions every year going forward, as ever more clean generation displaces fossil energy.

Really worth a read:

https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-emissions-set-to-fall-in-2024-after-record-growth-in-clean-energy/