@Nicovel0 Agreed.

I’m trying to be as clear as I can that I’m talking at the level of economies because I’m trying to get at what economics orthodoxy *selects*. I’m very much aware that ordinary Americans are increasingly impoverished

I’ll celebrate a leader’s speech at Davos when it goes here
https://mastodon.social/@urlyman/115932377046092497

When in the 1920s and 1930s one of the world’s most industrialised countries finds itself *bankrupt* because of systemic stupidity and calls upon fascism…

and then in the 2020s the country with the largest economic throughput and the world’s reserve currency also calls upon fascism…

that should tell us something about notions of industrial wealth.

If it makes no difference whether you are bankrupt or ‘rich’, then the very ideas of where prosperity lie need examining
https://overcast.fm/+BTumVn9Rmo

…If we want a world that doesn’t descend into world war we have to actually present that alternative path, coherently and inspiringly.

Calling up 20th Century tropes does not open that path *at all*

…I’m sorry, but constructing a new bullshit is just a new bullshit. I nonetheless understand *why* it’s appealing.

Defence is a recurring theme in the discussion below too, but where the conversation goes in the latter third is the opportunity in front of us https://overcast.fm/+BTumVu6hWY

…When Carney says “not every partner will share all of our values” he’s effectively saying all Canadians share the same values.

That’s obviously not true. As is the case for every constituency of every nation state. But what is largely true is that the values that the richest 10% in the world hold (yep that includes me) are fundamentally out of step with thermodynamic reality.

Which makes me wonder what tf “value-based reality” even means

…The direction of travel is clear. When Carney says “energy, AI and critical minerals” the sector that’s going to first is defence.

When he says “We actively take on the world as it is, not wait around for a world we wish to be” he means the 1930s world my dad entered adulthood into. Physics doesn’t get a look in

Striking that Carney didn’t mention once, not even in passing, the accelerating reality we’ve all been creating, hegemon and ‘middle countries’ alike.

Striking that a middle country with a lot of oil is able to say the things he did say whereas a country like the UK with not much is struggling to say anything at all

https://globalnews.ca/news/11620877/carney-davos-wef-speech-transcript/

@ReggieHere 😆

I’ll ask Ethel The Ready if she has one

In case you were wondering to what extent the UK has moved on from feudalism (or is heading back towards it), the UK Parliament has

9 Baronesses and Lords in Waiting

https://www.gov.uk/government/ministers#whip-baronesses-and-lords-in-waiting

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord-in-waiting

“Is it really possible to fight flags with more flags?”

“The algorithm shows up to 4x as much far right content. What are we to do?”

…

“When I’m making videos, I can’t help but wonder if I’m feeding the modern imagination-limiting machine. At the same time, I fear leaving the most popular format on earth to those who don’t even blink before they post.”

https://sarahsteinlubrano.substack.com/p/flag-hanging-and-shortform-video

…And all that is only from the US and only a little over a *third* of the oil we import.

We are setting fire to our lives. When shall we start dampening the flames?

https://mastodon.social/@urlyman/115819817437528882

For every UK person on average, the weight of ~3.5 people in oil and gas comes to us each year *from the US*.

That 16.2 billion kg (approximately 111 million barrels) does the work of about 1,220 million people, for an archipelago of 69 million people.

https://mastodon.social/@urlyman/115926459712761034

…Postscript:

I infer that https://aboard.com is built on Vue and Aboard have npm installed the entire https://developers.lottiefiles.com/docs/dotlottie-player/dotlottie-web/ dependency?

@urlyman in a similar vein, William the Conqueror gave large tracts of land around London to his favourite hunter, who happened to be a bit overweight. He was the "gros venor" (large hunter) - or Grosvenor.

@AbramKedge that is some top trivia 😃

…Anyway, that aside, Aboard are saying some nuanced things. They are trying to dial down the hype.

But I suggest they also take a close look at their own footprint. Not because it’s of consequence in the scheme of enshittification centers spewing slop, but because that’s where any of us can start

https://aboard.com/hedging-our-bets/

…That is clearly rather more requests than intended because nearly every file is being requested at least 3 times, so it’s worse than it’s meant to be (Cloudflare is part of the issue).

But look at the largest file above (that got requested 6 times).

It’s `dotlottie-player.js`, served from unpkg.com. I’m guessing from the name that it’s powering the (sluggish on my phone) animation of pseudo-typed headline with flashing cursor.

~500 KB for that?!

That’s objectively nuts :/

…The morning after.

Returning on a laptop to aboard.com to see if I was being fair above.

I’ll freely admit that I was triggered last night, and I can see that what Aboard are saying has more nuance than I gave them credit for. I’ll come to that in a bit.

But first, let’s just note that the homepage of https://aboard.com makes over 60 requests for JavaScript files which together amount to 4.92 MB *compressed*…