politics – KS Augustin

Young #blood, #GermanShepherds and a quick review of #JihadisNextDoor

In my previous post, I made the comment that Zbigniew Bzrzenski probably died because he got cut off from the supply of young people’s blood that feeds the world’s supervillains. You may have thought that I was making a joke but science is with me on this one. In fact, science is so with me on this one that there’s even a startup, Ambrosia, built on this very model. The founder, a doctor trained at Stanford by the name of Jesse Karmazin, charges around US$8K for a blood transfusion from people under 25. Here’s the link to the article at Vanity Fair.

#Brzezinski and #IT darlings; postscript on #Macron

I was going to lead off with something else this month but the happy news of Zbigniew Brzezinski’s death popped up and, dear reader, I couldn’t restrain my delight. I am so happy the old fart is dead and should you think that that is less than respectful, I wish to share some of his quotes with you:

In the technotronic society the trend would seem to be towards the aggregation of the individual support of millions of uncoordinated citizens, easily within the reach of magnetic and attractive personalities effectively exploiting the latest communications techniques to manipulate emotions and control reason.
With the more endowed nations constrained by their own higher technological capacity for self-destruction as well as by self interest, war may have become a luxury that only the poor peoples of this world can afford.
It’s easier to kill a million people than it is to control a million people.
Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multi-cultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat.

I want to respect #Russia but it’s difficult #Tupolev

While it’s true that I have a Master’s in International Politics, it’s not worth a helluva lot in this world because of all I wasn’t taught.

I wasn’t taught that the United States and the United Kingdom (together with their fellow Anglo wannabe dictator nations that make up the “Five Eyes”) use their influence to coerce other nations into actions counter to those nations’ interests. (There’s a reason why Australia has such a bad reputation among the Pacific Island nations.)

I wasn’t taught that the Mossad is essentially an anti-democratic death squad masquerading as a nation-state’s intelligence apparatus. I wasn’t taught that failed states can be propped up indefinitely through the use of military aid.

Post-US election and a topsy-turvy world #Clinton #USA #Trump

Happy New Year! After the Electoral College’s December vindication of Trump’s November election last year, it’s now pretty much over bar the shouting.

All my USian friends are so-called “liberals” and have deplored the election of Trump. I can see their point, but I also tried to bring some balance to the equation by pointing out The Rest of the World’s perspective:

Trump is against the TTIP and TPPA, which has already won him some brownie points in other countries
Trump doesn’t want to start WWIII with Russia
Clinton has promised nuclear war with both Russia and Iran
There have been other racists and sexists in the White House and the world hasn’t come to an end

My doubts about #FidelCastro

Fidel Castro died recently at the ripe old age of 90. It seems that all left-leaning commentators must praise the man who defied the might United States for half a century. As I’m somewhat left of Che Guevara it must follow, then, that I do the same. But Fidel Castro isn’t passing the smell test to me and I thought I’d use the second of this month’s blog posts to explain why.

It’s obvious to all who bothered with reading Cuba’s history that the exceedingly corrupt Fulgencio Batista had to replaced. While Batista was the democratically elected President of Cuba from 1940 to 1944, he came back as a US-backed dictator in 1952. Wikipedia says that:

[R]eceiving financial, military, and logistical support from the United States government, Batista suspended the 1940 Constitution and revoked most political liberties, including the right to strike. He then aligned with the wealthiest landowners who owned the largest sugar plantations, and presided over a stagnating economy that widened the gap between rich and poor Cubans.

Humans vs Terminators? Maybe. Maybe not. #AI #war #psychology

In a lovely example of synchronicity this week, a book and an article from The New York Times converged. The book is ON KILLING by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman. The article is “The Pentagon’s Terminator Conundrum: Robots That Could Kill on Their Own”. The book moves smoothly into the article, so let’s begin.

We are subjected to an incredible amount of violence via the popular media. I’m not specifically talking about children or video games. I’m talking about us, the global society that accesses Western or Western-aping popular culture. This includes video games, of course, but also movies and books, not to mention Top 100 music and their slick videos. There are death threats on Facebook, insults on Twitter, jeers on Instagram, and so on. No channel of popular media is free of it. We’re told that humans are an inherently violent species. “What other species kills members of its own species?” you’ve probably heard. Actually, quite a few, but let’s not let that stand in the way of a good bromide. Quentin Tarantino unleashes fables of bloodshed so bloody that you need to put a bucket under the screen to catch the excess body fluids. And yet…