Overview
Interesting scientific developments this week are countered by continued stupidity in politics and economics. Elon Musk insists that a million people will move to Mars on his Starship, which finally managed to launch last week.
War - Gaza
While the killing has slowed, there is no progress toward a ceasefire or reconstruction of Gaza. Israel and its criminal government are still being provided massive weapons and funds to annihilate the Palestinians.
The new world disorder: how the Gaza war disrupted international relations
Not long ago a picture circulated from inside Gaza showing smoke billowing from the explosion of a US-supplied bomb, and discernible in the background was the outline of eight black parachutes dropping US aid in precisely the same neighbourhood. It was suggested that the picture would make an ideal cover for any book about the confused world disorder that the six-month war in Gaza have spawned – a disorder that as yet has no dominant player, value system or functioning institutions.
CLIMATE
We are now at the tenth month of broken temperature records. March’s average temperature was 1.6 degrees C above the pre-industrial average, which is our official goal that should not be passed.
“According to data released by the Copernicus Climate Change Service, March 2024 was warmer globally than any previous March in the data record by all standards:
* 0.10°C above the previous high set in March 2016
* 0.73°C above the 1991–2020 average
* 1.68°C warmer than the average pre-industrial March temperature
* Global sea surface temperature averaged 21.07 °C, the highest monthly value on record and slightly higher than what was recorded in February
* The most above-average country was Paraguay, at nearly +5°C (!)” [Source: https://medium.com/the-environment]
The rise of eco-anxiety: scientists wake up to the mental-health toll of climate change
Every year for six years, Laureen Wamaitha hoped that her fields in Kenya would flourish. Every year, she’d see drought wither the crops and then floods wash them away. The cycle of optimism and loss left her constantly anxious, and she blamed climate change. “You get to a situation where you have panic attacks because you’re always worried about something,” she says.
Medical student Vashti-Eve Burrows, meanwhile, saw powerful hurricane Dorian rage through the Bahamas in 2019 and now she is fearful about the future of the country, an island archipelago that is vulnerable to sea-level rise and storms. “Will there even be a Bahamas in maybe 20 to 30 years?” she says.
SCIENCE and TECHNOLOGY
Is Google's AI Actually Discovering 'Millions of New Materials?'
. . . in the last month, two external groups of researchers that analyzed the DeepMind and Berkeley papers and published their own analyses that at the very least suggest this specific research is being oversold. Everyone in the materials science world that I spoke to stressed that AI holds great promise for discovering new types of materials. But they say Google and its deep learning techniques have not suddenly made an incredible breakthrough in the materials science world. [Source: 404Media]
Trump’s Brain Is Not Okay
An expert’s view of Trump’s mental slide into dementia.
While for many it’s obvious how serious Trump’s declining mental capacity has become, for too many Americans that reality has not yet broken through. The media continues to treat Trump like a normal candidate; many Americans have baked Trump’s bizarre behavior into their perceptions of him; and many take right-wing lies about Joe Biden’s mental fitness at face value.
Given this, we wanted to hear from John Gartner, founder of Duty To Warn, a group of mental health professionals who have been raising the alarm about Trump’s increasingly sociopathic behavior since 2017. Now in 2024, Gartner has an even more dire warning about Trump: that there are increasing signs the former president is heading fast down the road toward dementia. [Source: The Big Picture-Substack]
INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
The Hungarian Crisis
George Friedman April 9, 2024
Viktor Orban governed Hungary from 1998 to 2002 and again from 2010 to the present. In that time, he has dominated Hungarian politics and, to a great extent, Hungarian life. But late last week, his reign was challenged as tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered in Budapest, calling for his downfall. Demonstrations continued through the weekend. Since Orban assumed the premiership more than a decade ago, the Hungarian opposition has been fractured and generally ineffective. For so many people to rally against his rule after so much time is therefore a stunning event, regardless of whether it leads to his removal.
As the leader of Hungary, Orban created an ideology that has influenced other countries. It has two critical dimensions. The first is opposition to migration into Hungary. A decade ago, millions of people from the Middle East sought refuge in Europe, where many governments allowed them entry even when faced with domestic resistance. Orban’s position ran counter to European liberalism. He argued that Hungary was not just a place but a culture and that waves of immigrants threatened that culture and history. His position won support in Central Europe, where an anti-migration coalition formed in opposition to the prevailing view in Brussels. Over the years, Orban’s view has gained many more adherents throughout Europe.
Second, Orban was hostile to what some now refer to as “woke” culture, particularly its attitude toward homosexuality. His criticisms were partly based on a conservative understanding of Christianity but even more on the belief that homosexuality would corrupt Hungarian society. Again, he was taking a stand against European liberalism, and again his view gained acceptance in other countries over time. In the most recent Dutch election, for example, the party of Geert Wilders, an open and vigorous ally of Orban, unseated the liberal party whose erstwhile leader was one of Orban’s strongest critics.
Suffocating Subjects Long for Air in Nick Brandt's Unsettling Underwater Photos
Until next week.