If we decide to ban smartphones from schools we should ban them from work too. I’m supposed to be writing an article right now and instead I’m here. Then we should ban them from streets so that people have to pay attention to where they are going and the things going on around them. At that point we’d have something like functioning human beings again instead of mindless zombies. We could still have terminals for plugging into the Machine but our time with it should be regulated (like it already is with research clusters) so that we don’t waste energy. There, the whole problem is solved and all it takes is a global butlerian jihad.

Could you please finish your manifesto? I want to know what happens at the end. Do we mass shoot all the boomers?

Yeah every new technological solution has its associated ecological cost. Some are better than others. Guess which ones are the most profitable.

There’s something called the Kuznets environmental curve that explains this pretty intuitively. It’s an optimistic forecast that I only buy when I’m in a good mood.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuznets_curve

This is from David Graeber’s Debt: The First 5000 Years. It’s an anecdote his grad school advisor told him about a Samoan lying around on the beach.

MISSIONARY: Look at you! You’re just wasting your life away, lying around like that.

SAMOAN: Why? What do you think I should be doing?

MISSIONARY: Well, there are plenty of coconuts all around here. Why not dry some copra and sell it?

SAMOAN: And why would I want to do that?

MISSIONARY: You could make a lot of money. And with the money you make, you could get a drying machine, and dry copra faster, and make even more money.

SAMOAN: Okay. And why would I want to do that?

MISSIONARY: Well, you’d be rich. You could buy land, plant more trees, expand operations. At that point, you wouldn’t even have to do the physical work anymore, you could just hire a bunch of other people to do it for you.

SAMOAN: Okay. And why would I want to do that?

MISSIONARY: Well, eventually, with all that copra, land, machines, employees, with all that money—you could retire a very rich man. And then you wouldn’t have to do anything. You could just lie on the beach all day.

Would have gotten away with it if they did Assyrians building ziggurats. It’s not hard guys ffs

In modern society you either work or starve. There’s no adventurous alternative as would have been available before modernity.

Can we just stop having this discussion? It’s so boring. Both sides misrepresent the other. Tankies are stupid. Also nobody is a tankie. The Biden administration sanctioned a genocide. Every other US president is a war criminal. This discussion never goes anywhere.

I think way more exciting for me since I moved here is the fact that every bar has at least 3 different kinds of custom lemonades made with raspberry, elderflower, etc.

Iszonyú szar az Irn Bru, nem értettem én se miért szeretik.

Missed a few.

Johnson: use war to win re-election

Nixon: fight hippies and commies

Ford: pardon Nixon

Carter: attain energy independence

Was it the poet who lives on the beach? That was the only one I’d have been threatened by

Thanks, I had to research to even notice anything was wrong.

Just for posterity in case this follows us here, there is a genocide going on in Palestine. Feels like a mantra at this point.

Did anybody find the transcript for this second leak? The first one was so cringe and I’d love to read this one as well.