Because ‘voices in your head’ are so passé

benfell

Human Science

Inquiry

Quantitative
Artificial intelligence idiocy

You know, because ‘voices in your head’ are so passé.[1]

Will Bolton, “AI girlfriend ‘told crossbow intruder to kill Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle,’” Telegraph, July 6, 2023, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/05/ai-windsor-intruder-queen-elizabeth-jaswant-singh-chail/

Pennsylvania

Pittsburgh

Century III Mall


Fig. 1. “The exterior of the closed Century III Mall taken from a drone . . . in West Mifflin.” Photograph by Benjamin B. Braun, May 11, 2023, via the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,[2] fair use.

Justin Vellucci, “Judge fines Century III Mall owners more than $240K over conditions at West Mifflin site,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, July 5, 2023, https://triblive.com/business/judge-fines-century-iii-mall-owners-more-than-240k-over-conditions-at-west-mifflin-site/

Infrastructure


Fig. 1. Post-collapse scene at the Fern Hollow Bridge, photograph by National Transportation Safety Board, January 29, 2022, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

Julia Felton, “Pittsburgh officials advance plan to tear down poorly rated bridge despite lawsuit,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, July 5, 2023, https://triblive.com/local/pittsburgh-officials-advance-plan-to-tear-down-poorly-rated-bridge-despite-lawsuit/

Imperialism

Russia

Ukraine
Wagner mutiny

Julia Ioffe is sticking[3] to her view that Vladimir Putin emerges from the Wagner mutiny strong.[4] but I’m having some difficulty reconciling that with Yevgeny Prigozhin’s arrival in Saint Petersburg to retrieve weapons and money seized from the Wagner Group.[5]

The surprise move to hand cash and guns back to the man who, just weeks ago, threatened to overrun Moscow has turned Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, into a laughing stock among his supporters.[6]

First, laughingstocks are not usually considered ‘strong.’ Second, Prigozhin retrieving his money and his guns makes a far different picture from that of Alexei Navalny,[7] now rotting in a Russian prison, with the prospect of further decades to come,[8] after being poisoned, presumably at Putin’s request:[9]

Leonid Volkov, a close ally of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, complained of his colleagues getting their bank accounts blocked and losing millions of rubles in computer and video equipment in police raids in recent years before their organisation was formally banned.

“Each employee of our regional chapters still has a state-ordered block of funds on their bank account to the tune of 75 million rubles: that’s clearly more important than Prigozhin’s driver with a power of attorney,” he tweeted.[10]

The approach taken to poison Navalny took years.[11] I don’t think a ‘strong’ Putin can wait that long with Prigozhin.

Julia Ioffe, “Putin’s Post-Prigozhin Clean Up,” Puck, July 5, 2023, https://puck.news/putins-post-prigozhin-clean-up/

Nataliya Vasilyeva, “Prigozhin flies to Russia to collect weapons seized after mutiny,” Telegraph, July 5, 2023, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/07/05/yevgeny-prigozhin-wagner-returns-russia-weapons-belarus/

  1. [1]Will Bolton, “AI girlfriend ‘told crossbow intruder to kill Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle,’” Telegraph, July 6, 2023, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/05/ai-windsor-intruder-queen-elizabeth-jaswant-singh-chail/↩
  2. [2]Neena Hagen, “The fall of the Century: Once a retail shopping jewel, the West Mifflin mall has been left to rot,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 21, 2023, https://www.post-gazette.com/business/development/2023/05/21/centuryiii-west-mifflin-mall-slag-heap-kaufmanns-sears-police-closed-crime/stories/202305210039↩
  3. [3]Julia Ioffe, “Putin’s Post-Prigozhin Clean Up,” Puck, July 5, 2023, https://puck.news/putins-post-prigozhin-clean-up/↩
  4. [4]Julia Ioffe, “Putin vs. Prigozhin: The Post-Coup Report,” Puck, June 27, 2023, https://puck.news/putin-vs-prigozhin-the-post-coup-report/↩
  5. [5]Nataliya Vasilyeva, “Prigozhin flies to Russia to collect weapons seized after mutiny,” Telegraph, July 5, 2023, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/07/05/yevgeny-prigozhin-wagner-returns-russia-weapons-belarus/↩
  6. [6]Nataliya Vasilyeva, “Prigozhin flies to Russia to collect weapons seized after mutiny,” Telegraph, July 5, 2023, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/07/05/yevgeny-prigozhin-wagner-returns-russia-weapons-belarus/↩
  7. [7]Nataliya Vasilyeva, “Prigozhin flies to Russia to collect weapons seized after mutiny,” Telegraph, July 5, 2023, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/07/05/yevgeny-prigozhin-wagner-returns-russia-weapons-belarus/↩
  8. [8]Kirill Buketov, “Russia: Alexei Navalny faces 30 more years in prison,” Deutschewelle, June 18, 2023, https://www.dw.com/en/russia-alexei-navalny-faces-30-more-years-in-prison/a-65943349↩
  9. [9]Tim Lister, Clarissa Ward, and Sebastian Shukla, “Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny dupes spy into revealing how he was poisoned,” CNN, December 21, 2020, https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/21/europe/russia-navalny-poisoning-underpants-ward/index.html↩
  10. [10]Nataliya Vasilyeva, “Prigozhin flies to Russia to collect weapons seized after mutiny,” Telegraph, July 5, 2023, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/07/05/yevgeny-prigozhin-wagner-returns-russia-weapons-belarus/↩
  11. [11]Tim Lister, Clarissa Ward, and Sebastian Shukla, “Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny dupes spy into revealing how he was poisoned,” CNN, December 21, 2020, https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/21/europe/russia-navalny-poisoning-underpants-ward/index.html↩

One thought on “Because ‘voices in your head’ are so passé”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.