Cardano et al

Quick point for those asking to buy book for art, I will soon be accepting Cardano, a blockchain that isn't meant to be a pump and dump or ransomware thingie. I also have to learn more about it, but we'll soon see. Email me for more info. 
Spent a good amount of time yesterday evening talking about the current china scare. Friends also think it's some top down (nevermind the grassroots racism among the masses) attempt to distract from bad times. 

That's my bet. Remember, we need to work and move away from the nationalistic framework if we're to have any hope of defeating the real issues of nukes, climate change and inequality (mainly working to make sure there aren't any places for corporations etc to hide their money from the people). Any move away from that is beyond silly. But liberals (over at LGM etc) are all in on hating on the Asians (even if they may only claim to save it for the CCP). Guess in many ways what trump dug up lives on. That Shakespeare quote of the good we do being interred with our bones but the bad lives long after is damn true .
Speaking of the bad, here's some reasons to be scared of the war coming home, if it hasn't already Remember about 5-6 years ago, and it still is a theme with much of racist America, is that many people see cops "fighting" a war in the cities against minorities as a just war, similar to the one in Afghanistan. Where one ends and the other starts is hard to make a call on. 
Here's a good breakdown of some of the reasons for our current rural/urban divide. Sundown towns. [1] So once again, that racial aspect and the past never being past still ring true. It's true, of course, even in cities like mine, Seattle, wrt to redlining etc. And there are neighborhoods in Seattle and in NYC where black people and other races aren't allowed to go without that threat looming over them. 
Quick side note in that yesterday I said I would look over what I said before and see where I stand now. Let's look 5 years back. That fateful year. There's this piece. Being that I was one of the first people who said Trump had a good chance to win and I was also screaming at how the MSM and dems (the elites therein) were trying to cut him down. In all the wrong ways and in all the ways that would help him. But the piece itself is a little cryptic IMO.
 I do agree that the whole "status quo is great" was a stupid way of attacking trump, but I also think that I could have framed it better. Indeed a change was needed, and with Biden we might get a more leftward shift that before, but could I have been more specific? Yeah. 
Then in the aftermath of my novel, Labyrinth of Souls , I have this post on AI. Seems a bit too bullish on how much AI (or exactly how this tool) would be used. Part of how much the internet was buzzing with such talk? Huh, I suppose in many ways, my view on automated warfare was a better bet, tbf.  Though it has some interesting points, with La Sagrada familia finally being built only because of computers, and well, I do get some things right:

But this seems to show the weakness of my initial position. Why do I think that artificial intelligence will be better than humans in making higher end decisions? Is it simply a matter of eliminating heuristics that will make them better? Or will they, like many other tools, simply be used to exacerbate existing iniquities? Unfortunately, given that the powerful own the tools, this latter scenario is very likely. We must be careful, then, as we move forward down this route. 

Not too shabby a view, though, again, it perhaps needs to be more specific rather than so broad.
And finally, from that time period, this piece on the state of lit today. Let's see, first I'm peddling my email, and then there's the hope about the increasing diversity of the lit world. Interesting stuff indeed. Hopeful for my own writing but since I'm still standing on the fringes I'm not sure what else to say 5 years on. You?


[1] full text below. James Loewen, who wrote the book, remarks on that page: "When I began this research, I expected to find about 10 sundown towns in Illinois (my home state) and perhaps 50 across the country. Instead, I have found about 507 in Illinois and thousands across the United States." 2/9:45 PM · Jun 1, 2021·Twitter Web App37 Retweets3 Quote Tweets142 Likes John Holbo@jholbo1·14hReplying to @jholbo1There are a lot of small to mid-sized towns and cities in the US with nearly all-white populations. Loewen expected to find they were a mix: some 'sundown towns' where African-Americans were excluded by law and threat of violence, but some all-white by chance. 3/1363 John Holbo@jholbo1·14hWhat he found was the latter is nearly the null-set. There basically aren't white-to-this-day towns, to which blacks didn't happen to migrate, as it so happened. (Obviously there may be exceptions, and you have to prove it. That's why Loewen's project exists.) 4/1355 John Holbo@jholbo1·14hExample: I remember learning in high school that Grants Pass, where grandma and grandpa lived and mom grew up, was an especially notorious sundown town in the 50's, when mom was a girl. True fact. 5/ 2447 John Holbo@jholbo1·14hBut I only learned last year the liberal university town Eugene, where I grew up - in which I lived when I learned this stupefying fact that Grants Pass was a sundown town - was also a sundown town until ... the 40's? The 50's? Unclear. 6/ 2956 John Holbo@jholbo1·14hIt's vampire fiction, if you are black - only it's all historical fact. Wherever you were surrounded by all white folks, the whites turn into hateful predators after the sun went down. (I haven't watched "Lovecraft Country" but ...) 7/2566 John Holbo@jholbo1·14hBut, aside from the nightmare fuel quality of it, and the recency of it, and the collective amnesia about it, it feeds into one of the most salient dynamics in contemporary politics, the urban-rural 'density' divide. 8/ (@willwilkinson) [image error] The Density Divide: Urbanization, Polarization, and Populist Backlash - Niskanen CenterIn this new paper, I weave recent research in political science, economics, psychology and more into an account of political polarization and the rise of populist nationalism as a surprising and...niskanencenter.org1865 John Holbo@jholbo1·14hI basically buy Will's thesis but there's more to it (as Will would agree, I'm sure - can't talk about everything at once.) Terrible but true, the 'pull' of the urban center is partly a function of the 'push' of bucolic-but-naw-too-many-vampires-for-me, for African-Americans. Enjoyed it? Share it via email, facebook, twitter, or one of the buttons below (or through some other method you prefer). Thank you! As always, here's the tip jar. paypal.me/nlowhim Throw some change in there & help cover the costs of running this thing. You can use paypal or a credit card.