[new draft post] Demographic transition is just specialization and trade https://drafts.interfluidity.com/2024/02/06/demographic-transition-is-just-specialization-and-trade/index.html

@shelenn I'll defer to you on all of that, I know very little, don't follow country music at all. I hope that in this case the kind of symbolic promise of the collaboration corresponds at least to something happy for the artists. but i've know way to know.

@shelenn (i still haven't heard the Luke Combs cover, except the Grammy's duet. for those of us of a certain age, i think, it's all Tracy, plus something like hope in the oddity of the collaboration.)

@artcollisions (a country singer who did a cover of "Fast Car")

it's interesting how universal it was among people of a certain age to burst into tears upon exposure to the Tracy Chapman / Luke Combs performance of "Fast Car".

i tried to explain to my immigrant wife, but i was at a loss.

here's #SarahKendzior https://sarahkendzior.substack.com/p/driving-in-circles

"'You laugh,' he said, 'you think you're immune. Go look at your eyes, they're full of moon.'" ~Joni Mitchell https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igj20M84hbo

@eARCwelder one can argue that the kind of charisma associated with celebrity is more valuable in occupying a head-of-state role effectively than policy "smarts" i dislike what Reagan did, but he was an effective head-of-state for his coalition. Zelensky's extraordinary role in a terrible situation owes a great deal to his skill as a communicator. Everything else about Trump is deficient, and he delivered nothing to his most ardent fans, but he retains remarkable power by virtue of their ardor.

@LesterB99 you can hang out in public spaces where people mess around on laptops — cafés, airports, whatever — and if you see someone mess up a captcha it's like The Purge, you can do anything you want to them without consequence.

You claim to believe in human dignity, yet you put a Captcha on your website.

once what’s left is a choice between philanthropy or “the market”, you are not in a very good place.

i think about how pundits mocked people expecting President Obama actually to stand up for things as “Green Lantern” theory, and compare it to how viciously effective not-even-President Trump is at shaping US action deploying nothing but his (very aptly named) bully pulpit.

it’s hard to believe how badly we are screwing Ukraine and destroying what little is left of the expectations that supported Pax Americana.

all in the service of the ambitions and ego of one petulant and foolish old man.

@kissane sometimes the curation is worse than the diseasation. (sorry. i’ll show myself out.)

“On living and working with ‘Nazis’” by Gordon / JGF https://notes.kateva.org/2024/02/on-living-and-working-with-nazis.html

@paninid i’m sorry. it’s a constabulary.

Buffering…

what morning in america would look like. https://mastodon.social/@Cdespinosa/111877444998212479

[tech notebook] Style-by-mail in feedletter https://tech.interfluidity.com/2024/02/04/style-by-mail-in-feedletter/index.html

i stand humbled by your company's bold new vision.

"I Ask Seven Heretical Questions About Progress" #TedGioia https://www.honest-broker.com/p/i-ask-seven-heretical-questions-about

(ht Tom A. I think!)

@LesterB99 that’s half of it. the other half is riling up the libs, because conflict and social radicalism increase political support for imposition of order, and fascism requires internal enemies. as long as the circus is raucous, Musk’s interests are well served. stoke the fear, and the bogeymen, all at once.