Daniel Dvorkin @medigoth@qoto.org

I have stopped trying to parse #Poe's #Law and my life is better for it.

We are invested in our #evolution in a way we aren't in just about anything else's: the idea that there was a moment in our development when the lightbulb came on appeals to our egos. But really we're subject to the same constraints as every other critter.

https://neurosciencenews.com/evolution-brain-size-28153/

From an exchange in one of the Facebook #paleontology groups:

"STOP. Is there really any compelling evidence that non-avian #dinosaurs (or any of them) had a #bird-like #respiratory system?"

[The answer is yes. Lots of comments explaining the evidence and linking to relevant journal articles.]

"STOP.
Can't touch this.
#Pneumaticity time."

Like Sokka, if I have nothing else to contribute, I can always add sarcasm and meat.

I'm a believer!

Retro!

A sad little personal note about the #election, and my #writing. Trivial in the grand scheme of things, but I want to get it off my chest.

For close to a decade now I've been complaining about the #WINMP (work in not much progress) and as those who follow my illustrious career know, recently I managed to turn it into the #WISP (work in some progress). What's more, it's published, at least in embryonic form. I feel really good about that.

There were a lot of reasons it took me so long. One is that after thinking about it for several years, I finally wrote the first draft in 2016, finishing it a couple of months before that year's election.

Well, that draft got two kind initial reviews and one ... much less kind, from someone in whose writing judgement, and judgement in general, I put a great deal of trust. That knocked me off my feet for a while. But I wasn't going to give up. The story wanted to be told.

And then—November happened.

You see, the story as it was depended on a functioning #US #government. Not necessarily one with everyone's best interests at heart, and I planned some pretty nasty events down the road. But competent, and ideally not run by someone composed *entirely* of equal parts malice, ego, and stupidity.

I spent a good part of the next four years thinking about ways around this. Throwaway dialogue: "Nobody in #Washington really knows what we're doing here." "Not even the #President?" "*Especially* not the President." But I wasn't actually writing it.

The election of 2020 made that kind of workaround unnecessary—permanently, I thought—and I breathed a sigh of relief. Easier to do when you're not choking to death on your own liquefying lung tissue ... I'll get back to it any day now, I told myself.

Come early 2024, and a friend responded to one of my WINMPy posts with an offer. Sounds like your story would fit into my anthology series, he said. Here are the deadlines. Send me a manuscript.

I hadn't been that motivated since I first started writing the thing.

I did the thing. The thing was done. First in a fairly lengthy list of planned stories, eventually to be collected in a novel-length compilation. Over twenty years after my last publication, I was a *writer* again.

And then—November happened. Again. Motherfucker's like Freddy Krueger without any of the wit and charm.

So here I am. Again.

WISP though it may be, the story will not be denied. Long and long it slumbered. Lying undisturbed in the strata, one might say, bits of once-living tissue being replaced one by one with bits of mineral. Then entire bytes, and eights of bytes, and sixty-fours, and soon the whole thing was kilobytes of stone.

Then resurrection.

Surrounding matrix carefully chipped off, the skeleton revealed in painstaking steps. Shreds of preserved soft tissue softening under drops of saline. Bones glistening again with life. New flesh merging with old, growing outward from the bone. Muscles, organs, blood. Skin, and at last feathers—

—I mean, you didn't expect anything else, did you?

This is my monster, and it's *hungry*.

But I sure do wish I didn't have to jump through so many hoops to feed it. That's all.

https://www.amazon.com/SF-Horror-Boundary-Shock-Quarterly/dp/B0DJD9JDLP/

"The #US isn't a #democracy, it's a #republic!"

It's a goofy argument, but fine, whatever. You don't like the d-word, don't use it.

A republic, by definition, does not have a #king.

55 days to #coronation, and "#Republicans" are just fine with that.

Why doth #treason never prosper ...

Here's some good #political news, at least: #Gaetz is withdrawing from consideration as #AG. No doubt #Trump will pick some other repulsive clown, but I'll take the win.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/11/21/trump-ag-pick-matt-gaetz-says-hes-withdrawing.html

lolsob

Yes. There are no #vaccine #skeptics. There are:

1. Rational people who accept the overwhelming evidence that vaccines are safe and effective;

2. Traitors to humanity who lie and say they're not; and

3. Credulous fools who listen to group 2 over group 1.

That's it. There is no fourth option.

Because I am not above shameless self-promotion, get your t-shirts here:

https://www.zazzle.com/pd/spp/pt-zazzle_shirt?dz=116516f4-1106-47f4-ab28-6f7a2b18c749&side_name=front&style=hanes_mens_crew_darktshirt_5250

"#Vaccines work
#Evolution is real
Human activities cause #climate #change
#Chemtrails don't exist
#HAARP doesn't control the #weather
People landed on the #Moon
And FFS, the #Earth is #ROUND"

Seems like this might be particularly important at the moment.

Click to embiggen.

I just got a #spam call from a #bot describing itself as an "#AI #volunteer." Uh ...

Yeah, maybe they should have been "alarmed" a couple of weeks ago. That would have done a lot more good.

I know that if we want to have any chance of salvaging the country from this ongoing train wreck, we're going to need to work with a lot of people who have buyer's remorse. And saying "we told you so" isn't going to be productive. But for the moment, I'm just going to indulge myself in a little snark:

WE FUCKING TOLD YOU SO.

https://www.npr.org/2024/11/17/nx-s1-5193867/farmers-agriculture-experts-reaction-trump-rfk-jr-tariffs

#Kennedy for #HHS. There is no bottom to this well.

Seen in the wild: "Luckily all our #environmental laws are older than 18 years, so Rep. #Gaetz shouldn't have much interest in them."

Read the whole thread. This is serious. For better or worse (I think we can definitely say "worse" now) #Twitter used to a major way #science news propagated across the internet. Even after #Musk took it over, a lot of people who should have known better kept relying on it. Now we're seeing the consequences of that.

We can't rely on *any* one platform to get our messages out, not even #Mastodon. Post here, on #Bluesky, even on #Facebook while it's still not a *complete* shithole, and on any other platform you think might have a chance of reaching a decent-sized audience.

This applies to science and #politics and everything else, but I think with science it's particularly critical. #Xitter and other right-wing platforms are going to be pushing even more #misinformation than they already are. For #scientists to keep speaking up is one of the best ways to fight back.