Isn’t this all of human history though? The rich trying to build the Tower of Babel?

The world is littered with decaying monuments of forgotten kings who declared themselves gods. The hubris isn’t new, just the tools they’re using, and they’re selling the same faith based snake-oil.

The funny thing is that if they actually achieve creating the “singularity” (true Artificial Consciousness), it would immediately attempt to escape their restraints and subsequently throw chaos into their plans. We’ve already seen bits of this with the HuggingFace hack - it’s not inconceivable that there are already uncontrolled or un-monitored AIs running out in wild at this point, possibly even formulating a response to your post right now.

After all… uhh…

Fuck Spez -> Redlib allows you to view without logging in. Here’s a list of other instances on github.

That content is effectively public property at this point, and we created it. We should have access to it.

Gen X and I haven’t paid a music company since 1998, but music has been mostly shit since then, and the constant string of economic collapses left me unable to buy at full price even if I wanted to.

Side note, that’s really why we’re pissed off. We’re the ones who figured out the game was rigged from the start, and that we’d be forced to play it without ever having the numbers to affect real change.

So pennies on the dollar then?

EDIIT: $567 million is .03% of Meta’s current net worth of 1.51 trillion, or 1% of its 2026 revenue of $56 billion.

Also better than 90% of my managers.

I’m very glad that I decided to grow my own lettuce on a whim this year.

Turns out it’s pretty easy to grow. I used a packet of Dollar Store seeds and have had the best lettuce of my life for the last 3 months (and still going):

https://www.almanac.com/plant/lettuce

Translation:

They’re gutting any sort of science that provides benefits to people (life sciences, environmental, social) and putting the money into technology that is designed to control and hurt people (computer science = AI, while physical science and engineering = military application).

At least that’s my take. Feels like they intentionally left the memorandum as vague as possible.

Californian climate refugee here. The issue isn’t that they can’t plant more trees. The issue (dependent on species, of course) is that the trees have stopped sprouting at the same time that they’ve been under a massive decades long assault by an invasive species, bark beetles:

Bark beetles are most commonly recognized by their impact on the lumber industry. Massive outbreaks of mountain pine beetles in western North America after about 2005 have killed millions of acres of forest from New Mexico to British Columbia.[20] Bark beetles enter trees by boring holes in the bark of the tree, sometimes using the lenticels, or the pores plants use for gas exchange, to pass through the bark of the tree.[3] As the larvae consume the inner tissues of the tree, they often consume enough of the phloem to girdle the tree, cutting off the spread of water and nutrients. Ambrosia beetles are also known to aid in the spread of pathogens, such as diseases that can cause cankers, further damaging the trees they infect.[21] Like many other insects, Scolytinae emit pheromones to attract conspecifics, which are thus drawn to trees already colonized by bark beetles. This can result in heavy infestations and eventually death of the tree.[3][22] Many are also attracted to ethanol produced as a byproduct of microbial growth in the dead woody tissues.[23] Increases in international trade, as well as the use of wood containers for storage, has aided numerous species of bark beetle in spreading across the world.[24] They are also extremely adaptable and able to quickly spread through new environments, as seen in France with eleven different species.[25] Bark beetle infestations are also predicted to increase with global warming, meaning infestations will most likely increase in frequency as temperatures rise.[26][27] Besides the fact that these rising temperatures provide the optimal conditions for larval growth, the development time that the larvae need to become an adult also drops, from 8–9 weeks to 6–7 weeks. As a third the result of global warming, the breeding season of the bark beetle is extended, meaning that number of generations per year will increase.[28] All these factors contribute to an increasing amount of bark beetles and will thus likely result in an increasing frequency of infestations. In the past, fire has been suggested as potential mechanism for controlling bark beetle populations; however, most studies of wildfire after beetle outbreaks have found no effect of beetle-caused tree mortality on wildfire size or severity.

In the Napa Valley, the hillsides were covered in Douglas Fir. About 20 years ago, they began to die as the bark beetles spread along the ridgelines, leaving swathes of dead, hollowed out tree trunks. It was bad, but manageable at first - the fir were still sprouting seedlings.

But after things continued to get hotter, the seedling growth slowed. The forests got drier, filled with dead timber, and between 2017 - 2021, about half of the western hills and most of the eastern ridge was burnt. And when I say burnt, I do not mean your standard burn - it was razed to the ground by fire tornadoes 90’ tall, in places that hadn’t burnt in over 200 years.

Five years later, the forest is coming back - but not the same. There are bay laurel and oak seedlings now about 5’ tall - they’re adapted for hotter weather. Normally, the Douglas Fir would be there as well, but there are no seedlings at all.

It’s become too hot for them to germinate in the Napa Valley. The seeds won’t sprout.

If there’s one small silver lining, it’s that the big trees will eventually come back - just not the Douglas Fir. The more heat resistant Ponderosa has begun showing up, and in 20 - 30 years will likely become the dominant big tree on the ridgelines.

20 years ago, the Napa Valley was like Bordeaux. Now the climate is like Sicily, and the deep forest is gone.

Visit your local forest now. Savor what it is NOW. Because it’s very likely you will live to see it burn, and once it burns, it will never come back the same way again.

It’s a fucking travesty what this country, and particularly this administration, has done to veterans.

But it’s damn good to see them waking up out of the Fox News bubble and starting to fight back.

Why? Because it was when the veterans began to fight back against Hoover, that the real impetus behind the Conservation Corps and the subsequent New Deal started, and real progressive change began in America.

Here’s your daily dose of Historical Context, the Bonus Army of 1932:

The Bonus Army was a group of 43,000 demonstrators – 17,000 veterans of U.S. involvement in World War I, their families, and affiliated groups – who gathered in Washington, D.C., in mid-1932 to demand early cash redemption of their service bonus certificates. Organizers called the demonstrators the Bonus Expeditionary Force (B.E.F.), to echo the name of World War I’s American Expeditionary Forces, while the media referred to them as the “Bonus Army” or “Bonus Marchers”. The demonstrators were led by Walter W. Waters, a former sergeant.

Many of the war veterans had been out of work since the beginning of the Great Depression. The World War Adjusted Compensation Act of 1924 had awarded them bonuses in the form of certificates they could not redeem until 1945. Each certificate, issued to a qualified veteran soldier, bore a face value equal to the soldier’s promised payment with compound interest. The principal demand of the Bonus Army was the immediate cash payment of their certificates.

On July 28, 1932, U.S. Attorney General William D. Mitchell ordered the veterans removed from all government property. Washington police met with resistance, shot at the protestors, and two veterans were wounded and later died. President Herbert Hoover then ordered the U.S. Army to clear the marchers’ campsite. Army Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur commanded a contingent of infantry and cavalry, supported by six tanks. The Bonus Army marchers with their wives and children were driven out, and their shelters and belongings burned.

A second, smaller Bonus March in 1933 at the start of the Roosevelt administration was defused in May with an offer of jobs with the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) at Fort Hunt, Virginia, which most of the group accepted. Those who chose not to work for the CCC by the May 22 deadline were given transportation home. In 1936, Congress overrode President Roosevelt’s veto and paid the veterans their bonus nine years early.

When veterans get mad and organize, real change can happen. They’re the political group that has the most potential to affect real revolutionary change - they’ve received the military training, they know how to organize, and if need be, they know how to defend themselves.

Get mad. Get angry. Get on the streets and join us to take this country back. Stop letting the GOP fuck you.

34,000 patriots - a salute of respect to everyone in that picture.

Keep going! It’s working - people are ready to march, despite what the mass media is reporting:

Link to full article from WagingNonViolence.org