Now that the collapse of our political, economic, social and ecological systems is accelerating, the signs of this collapse, including scapegoating, corruption, and social disorder are becoming more obvious. This is the fourteenth of a series of articles on some of these signposts. For over 20 years, a British filmmaker named Adam Curtis has been producing…
drawing by Chaz Hutton Now that the internet has degenerated to a sad mishmash of spam, scam, propaganda, disinformation, useless ‘apps’, and commercial fraud, with a new overlay of AI slop, the question becomes how to best get what we used to get from the internet, through workarounds. Preferably before the stench of the internet’s rotting…
image by AI; my own prompt Often young children, puzzled or distressed by the behaviour of their peers and the other people they know, invent imaginary friends — characters who share their joys, who understand and reassure them, who have interesting things to say, and who it seems are just more fun to be around,…
image by Suno AI — its suggested ‘cover art’ for the Yacht Rock song below Several new friends and acquaintances have asked me to explain what I mean when I say we have no free will. It’s hard to explain in words, and pretty much impossible to do so briefly. So I thought I might…
This is #49 in a series of month-end reflections on the state of the world, and other things that come to mind, as I walk, hike, and explore in my local community. my stitched-together 180º panorama view of half the lights around our local lake; right click and open in new tab to see full-screen It’s hard…
cartoon by the late Michael Leunig There goes a chunk — the sick and aged along with the huge apparatus of doctors, social workers, hospitals, nursing homes, drug companies, and manufacturers of sophisticated medical equipment, which service their clients at enormous cost but don’t help them very much. There go the college students along with…
AI depiction of Neanderthal woman making a carrier bag; my own prompt (and yes, I know the question of Neanderthals’ skin colour is controversial) A recent Vlogbrothers video described the staggering impact that the invention of cordage and textiles has had on human development. The video features a fascinating interview by Hank Green with Virginia…
Graphic and artwork from the memebrary; original source/artist unknown. Graffiti at the bottom is, of course, mine. In our culture, it is blasphemous to bad-mouth stories. Stories are “all we are”, we are told. They are what distinguishes us from ‘lesser’ animals. They are the building blocks of the soul, of our morality, of our…
from the memebrary – original source unknown As the image above suggests, we have seemingly reached the point at which our feeble and incompetent attempts to come to grips with this civilization’s accelerating collapse have descended to sheer absurdity. We have, in our outrage and learned helplessness, installed demented, mentally-challenged and traumatized ‘leaders’ in positions…
A little bit of navel-gazing about human nature (particularly my own) and the nature of reality. Probably only of interest to those with similar proclivities. AI tries to make sense of the puzzle of me. Evidently, the pieces don’t fit. Over the years, and especially recently, I’ve been writing about our essential nature: Who/ what…
