Notices by Michael Halila 🏳️‍⚧️ (mhalila@mastodontti.fi)

Here's some unformed thoughts that have been rattling around my head for a while.

I was born in the 1980s; I'm a little over 40 years old. Growing up, I consumed a lot of sci-fi, and I feel there was a general vibe that technology was going to keep on developing and everything would change dramatically in the future. The year 2020 got thrown around a lot.

In most ways, daily life in 2026 is almost exactly the same as it was in 1996.

From the standpoint of daily life, technology has stalled.

Canada is joining the Eurovision Song Contest. Great; kick Israel out and we'll watch. https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/jul/01/canada-joins-eurovision-song-contest

The worst thing about this is that when the trillion-dollar "AI" bubble finally pops, it's taking the global economy down with it.

I'm sure the next massive recession will be fun for everyone.

This is just, in so many ways, such a deeply stupid timeline.

There is just no conceivable way a large language model ever becomes intelligent. None.

The whole idea that building bigger and bigger data centers and feeding more and more data into the models will lead to some kind of intelligence is, at best, based on a religious faith totally divorced from reality.

Or it's a scam. Those are never easy to tell apart.

Now that people are talking about "artificial general intelligence" (AGI) again, I just wish we had literally any journalists in major media outlets who understand what a computer is.

A computer is just a calculator. The idea that you can get "artificial intelligence" by running a big enough random nonsense generator is, literally speaking, saying that if you just plug enough calculators together, at some point the calculators become intelligent.

It's complete fucking nonsense.

These are the same leaders who've spent years telling us that an unprovoked attack on another country is an unspeakable atrocity, and that bombing civilians is a terrible war crime. When Russia does it.

When Israel murders civilians in cold blood and starts yet another war of pure aggression, all of a sudden they're here to tell us how Israel has a right to defend itself.

This would be easier for those of us following along at home if they'd specify which countries are allowed to bomb others.

It's also very difficult to understand what the strategic rationale of any of this is even supposed to be.

Israel is starving Gaza, ethnically cleansing the West Bank, fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon, occupying Syria, bombing Yemen and is now at war with Iran.

What does victory in any of these conflicts look like for Israel? Is the strategic vision behind all of this simply that if they murder enough people, somehow peace will break out?

It just feels so mindbendingly stupid to wake up to a lovely summer day in 2025, and see that Israel is invading its neighbors and the Americans are bombing a country in the Middle East because they've decided it has weapons of mass destruction.

C'mon bro, just one more war. Just one more surgical bombing campaign, one more brutal Israeli invasion. If we just kill some more Palestinians and bulldoze a couple more villages. It'll be peace, bro. I promise.

If we want to talk about the deeper roots of these conflicts, let's do it.

Let's talk about a century of colonialism. Of merciless exploitation by European countries, by oil companies and "strategic interests".

Let's talk about a settler colonial state founded by ethnic cleansing, whose basic security policy is endless war against its neighbors and territorial expansion.

Let's talk about a superpower that regularly invades and bombs the area, and leaves pure chaos in its wake.

I agree that the Middle East is locked in a spiral of violence, or however the talking heads are going to put it this time.

I don't agree with the racist lie that this is somehow an intrinsic, permanent feature of the area.

The cause of the violence is a century of European and American imperialism, settler colonialism, exploitation and war.

Stop the bombing, stop the ethnic cleansing and settler colonialism. It is the only way to a lasting peace.

At times like these, it is incredibly important to remember that the peoples, cultures and faiths of what we now call the Middle East have lived together in peace for centuries.

We are being fed a story of eternal irreconcilable hatreds to stop us from seeing what's really happening. That the violence we see today is rooted in 20th-21st century imperial exploitation.

Don't fall for the racist, Orientalist lies.

So there's a country in the Middle East that has a nuclear arsenal, is conducting a genocide in the territories it illegally occupies, and is invading or bombing at least three other countries.

When this country mounts an unprovoked surprise attack on a fourth country and murders hundreds of civilians, our leaders line up to tell us that actually, it's the victims of all these attacks that are the threats to peace.

The hypocrisy is so brutal. They're showing us exactly how the system works.

They say they're against "DEI"; what they do is nothing but pure, vicious racism. They literally just fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff because he's Black, and even the media on this side of the pond won't say it out loud. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/21/trump-hegseth-joint-chiefs-cq-brown-jr

So Trump is now saying that the US will occupy the Gaza Strip and forcibly remove its population.

This would be a crime against humanity. He's out there saying that the US is going to ethnically cleanse Gaza.

So, where's that rules-based international order I've been hearing so much about? https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/feb/04/benjamin-netanyahu-donald-trump-israel-gaza-middle-east-ceasefire-latest-live-news

An icon for the fediverse? Yes! Grandfather Nurgle will welcome us in his embrace.

A couple of headlines from today. While the ethnic cleansing of Gaza continues:

"West Bank children being killed at unprecedented rate" by Israeli troops and settlers https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/19/west-bank-children-killed-unprecedented-rate

Israel is deliberately targeting ambulances, rescue crews and other emergency services in Lebanon https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/18/lebanon-civil-defence-reels-after-deadly-israeli-strike

And the whole "rules-based international order" looks on and keeps arming Israel so they can butcher even more innocents.

Meanwhile, in Germany, according to the Berlin chief of police, antisemitic violence is rising dramatically.

What kind of antisemitic violence?

"Of the 1,300 investigations regarding violent crimes, it is mostly about attacks or resistance against police officers at demonstrations".

So when the Berlin police attack demonstrators, if those demonstrators resist, it's antisemitic violence.

What an absolutely extraordinary time to be alive. https://m.jpost.com/diaspora/article-829696

If a person from Greenland has a child in Denmark, the Danish state will use a totally unsuitable test to see if they're "civilised enough" to take care of their child. If not, the child is taken away from them.

Colonialism is alive and well in the Nordics in 2024. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/25/danish-parenting-tests-baby-removed-from-greenlandic-mother

Israel confirms Palestinians won't be allowed back to northern Gaza, and sources tell Haaretz that Israel will annex the area.

This is what we keep saying this is about: the ethnic cleansing and annexation of Palestinian land.

It's just war crime after war crime, while our leaders cover their eyes and pretend they can't see. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/06/palestinians-will-not-be-allowed-to-return-to-homes-in-northern-gaza-says-idf

I still think it's interesting to ask what form of government the US is exactly. In a sense, a democracy, with a franchise limited by overt racism (voter suppression, gerrymandering and so on) and subject to almost dictatorial oversight by a Supreme Court elected for life and functionally immune to accountability.

Now they've decided that a president can try to overthrow democracy as part of his official duties. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2024/jul/01/supreme-court-decision-trump-immunity-ruling