The Obscurantist

Being a Contribution to the Inquiry into Cultural and Technological Decay

[The Obscurantist @TObscurantist]

@BrettErickson28 Transparently obvious that he understands Iran as the primary non-negotiable priority of his second term. This was "the deal", whether explicitly said or not: help me get revenge, return to the White House, & allow me to enrich my family, & in return I give you war with Iran.

[The Obscurantist @TObscurantist]

@segyges This is not just Dean Ball's hubris, it's the modus operandi of the U.S. government today. His repeated phrase "regulatory risk" is the fear that the administrative-security state uses with (de)banking, social media jawboning/censorship by proxy, and sanction regimes.

[The Obscurantist @TObscurantist]

@JacobAShell A recent study examining lightning-ignited fires from 2012 to 2022 found 4,201 wildfires in Eurasia, burning about 21.1 million hectares, compared with 2,701 wildfires burning 15.6 million hectares in North America. https://t.co/nrVjVaHoPt

[The Obscurantist @TObscurantist]

@samfbiddle If primary concern is w/ improvements in standard of living then multiple countries (even if just two) on tech frontier in any given domain is vastly preferable to one, if only to provide redundancy & prevent single-point failure which could imperil the progress of mankind.

[The Obscurantist @TObscurantist]

@jdmccafferty Exceptional little volume from Metropolitan Museum of Art on fireworks, with focus on early modern period & their use in royal fêtes. See below: Fireworks for the coronation of James II in 1685 and for the Dutch victory over French/Spanish in 1702 https://t.co/86FIvDQVgE

[The Obscurantist @TObscurantist]

@physorg_com @ConversationEDU @SciReports There's a trackway from late Early Triassic (Prorotodactylus mesaxonichnus) made possibly by a euparkeriid or basal archosauriform perhaps similar to this Brazil species which shows a fairly wide sprawling to semi-erect posture. https://t.co/jziqhTtoYj

[The Obscurantist @TObscurantist]

@Navsteva People in the 1990's imagined the age of the information superhighway, in 2026 the U.S. fights a war with Iran and there's less photographic evidence than the Crimean War.

[The Obscurantist @TObscurantist]

@AndrewCurran_ Trump & U.S. exec. branch across parties increasingly governs by dependency. Executive order (EO 14409) regulating AI may not need a formal "You must comply" when the practical message is "But your federal contracts, approvals, risk of federal investigation may depend upon it."

[The Obscurantist @TObscurantist]

@alz_zyd_ https://t.co/slwe407Wff

[The Obscurantist @TObscurantist]

@alz_zyd_ BEA did a study looking into this, showing the impact to GDP by including unpaid household work covering 1946–2004. By including this value, measured GDP for 1946 is increased by 48% but by only 26% for 2004. Thereby resulting in a slower GDP growth rate over the entire duration.

[The Obscurantist @TObscurantist]

@PaulSkallas Indeed, and they also naturally assumed the rate of technological progress in mid-century would continue if not accelerate with the atomic & space ages leading to an utterly transformed world. They didn't realize actually we'd be stuck with 20th century infrastructure.

[The Obscurantist @TObscurantist]

@RWApodcast US media is deliberately blacking it out. Every outlet is leading with different headlines & narratives yet collectively they're all converging on a concerted campaign to prevent the war from becoming the central story.

[The Obscurantist @TObscurantist]

@MrRelatable88 1922 when Warren Harding signed the Lodge–Fish Resolution, joint resolution of both houses of Congress committing US to a position favoring the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. Effectively the American Balfour Declaration.

[The Obscurantist @TObscurantist]

@a_newsman He's recognized that downplaying the war, declining to deliver televised addresses about it, is a successful strategy for executing it w/ minimal opposition. The break came when he conducted Venezuela as a midnight surprise without the pomp & ceremony of a primetime address.

[The Obscurantist @TObscurantist]

@TreyYingst Of course, reporters scarcely care about the ongoing war with Iran either, relegating it to below the fold, studiously resisting the obvious, human temptation to investigate the basic facts (the high school student's Five Ws) of what's going on in the conflict.

[The Obscurantist @TObscurantist]

@TreyYingst Trump has been periodically repeating a refrain for months hinting at a military operation or coup in Cuba & somehow, *miraculously*, no single reporter has ever tried to pin him down, to assiduously follow-up on what exactly he's planning (and by what authority).

[The Obscurantist @TObscurantist]

@Logo_Daedalus Notice as the war once again escalates, the level of coverage remains constant. It continues to occupy a tertiary position in the news hierarchy. Iran mostly becomes prominent only when Trump makes an inflammatory remark, which can then be processed as domestic political fodder.

[The Obscurantist @TObscurantist]

@Logo_Daedalus It's a complete non-entity in terms of public discourse. Across ordinary contacts, does anyone ever mention the war? It's less salient than say Grenada or Kosovo. There's an institutional determination to not allow the war to become an organizing fact of public life.

[The Obscurantist @TObscurantist]

@Evoincarnate Could call them mammal-like reptiliomorphs (amniotes & tetrapods w/ more recent common ancestor with amniotes than w/ lissamphibians). Would fit w/ our natural impression that these animals were primitively a reptile-like grade.