There aren't a lot of things I agree with Mark Carney about, but there's one area where he and I are in *total* accord: the old, US-dominated, "rules-based international order" was total bullshit:
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But the most important force defending American internet hegemony was free trade: specifically, the US forced all of its trading partners to adopt "anticircumvention" laws that make it illegal to modify US tech exports. That means that you can't go into business selling your neighbors the tools to use generic ink or an independent app store, much less make a fortune exporting those tools to the rest of the world:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/03/16/whittle-a-webserver/#mere-ornaments
31/
Enter Comrade Trump. When Trump started weaponizing US tech platforms to take away the working files, email accounts and cloud calendars of judges who pissed him off (by sentencing Bolsonaro to prison and swearing out a genocide warrant for Netanyahu), he put the whole world on notice that he could shut down their governments, judiciaries or companies at the click of a mouse:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/16/pascals-wager/#doomer-challenge
32/
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Enter Comrade Trump. When Trump started weaponizing US tech platforms to take away the working files, email accounts and cloud calendars of judges who pissed him off (by sentencing Bolsonaro to prison and swearing out a genocide warrant for Netanyahu), he put the whole world on notice that he could shut down their governments, judiciaries or companies at the click of a mouse:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/16/pascals-wager/#doomer-challenge
32/
And of course, he's whacked the whole world with tariffs that violate the trade agreements that imposed those anticircumvention obligations that protect America's defective tech exports. Now there's no longer any reason to keep those laws on the books. Happy Liberation Day, everyone! The post-American internet is at hand:
But Trump has *even more* praxis up his spraytan-stained sleeves.
33/
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And of course, he's whacked the whole world with tariffs that violate the trade agreements that imposed those anticircumvention obligations that protect America's defective tech exports. Now there's no longer any reason to keep those laws on the books. Happy Liberation Day, everyone! The post-American internet is at hand:
But Trump has *even more* praxis up his spraytan-stained sleeves.
33/
Trump is succeeding where Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and AOC failed: he's making the case for Democrats to defenestrate their useless, sellout, Epstein-poisoned leaders. All across the country, radical Dems and avowed socialists are sweeping primaries and elections, as voters realize that Blue No Matter Who will doom them to eternal torment in the Manchin-Synematic Universe:
https://prospect.org/2026/02/11/progressive-win-new-jersey-anti-ice-organizing-mejia/
34/
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Trump is succeeding where Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and AOC failed: he's making the case for Democrats to defenestrate their useless, sellout, Epstein-poisoned leaders. All across the country, radical Dems and avowed socialists are sweeping primaries and elections, as voters realize that Blue No Matter Who will doom them to eternal torment in the Manchin-Synematic Universe:
https://prospect.org/2026/02/11/progressive-win-new-jersey-anti-ice-organizing-mejia/
34/
Fury over Trumpismo is pushing even the most useless Democratic leaders to sign up for billionaire taxes:
https://jacobin.com/2026/04/zohran-tax-rich-hochul-nyc
Thanks to Comrade Trump, the median Democratic voter will no longer be satisfied with Kente cloth photo-ops and little ping-pong paddles stenciled with "down with this sort of thing":
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/ping-pong-paddles-to-a-gun-fight/
35/
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Fury over Trumpismo is pushing even the most useless Democratic leaders to sign up for billionaire taxes:
https://jacobin.com/2026/04/zohran-tax-rich-hochul-nyc
Thanks to Comrade Trump, the median Democratic voter will no longer be satisfied with Kente cloth photo-ops and little ping-pong paddles stenciled with "down with this sort of thing":
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/ping-pong-paddles-to-a-gun-fight/
35/
Thanks to Trump, we might see criminal prosecutions - and a primary challenge for any Dem that gets in the way of a serious, Nuremberg-style reckoning with Trumpismo and its gangsters:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/10/miller-in-the-dock/#denazification
Look, all things being equal, I would have preferred that Trump had keeled over from a mid-burger stroke on the campaign trail in 2016. But when life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla.
36/
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Thanks to Trump, we might see criminal prosecutions - and a primary challenge for any Dem that gets in the way of a serious, Nuremberg-style reckoning with Trumpismo and its gangsters:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/10/miller-in-the-dock/#denazification
Look, all things being equal, I would have preferred that Trump had keeled over from a mid-burger stroke on the campaign trail in 2016. But when life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla.
36/
This is a deeply shitty timeline, but Comrade Trump keeps tripping over his red tie. Let's take the wins.
eof/
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Not just subsidies for the energy transition, but also policy shifts in areas that were deadlocked for a decade, like approvals for balcony solar, which is transforming the continent. Even the UK, one of the oil industry's most reliable vassal states, is now greenlighting balcony solar:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-to-make-plug-in-solar-available-within-months
This may not sound like much, but the UK is a country whose politics is composed 50% hatred of migrants and trans people, and 50% incredibly stupid planning battles.
16/
@pluralistic UK planning is a game of snakes and ladders with no ladders. And a lot of snakes.
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(Maybe at this point you're thinking dark thoughts about critical minerals and such. That's not the problem you think it is and it's getting better every day. To take just one example, lithium batteries are about to be replaced with *sodium* batteries. Sodium is the world's sixth-most abundant element:)
China puts a sodium-ion battery into an EV for the first time — it can drive 248 miles on a single charge
A new vehicle is the first mass-produced passenger EV with a viable sodium-based alternative to conventional lithium-ion batteries.
Live Science (www.livescience.com)
21/
Ooh Tesla is gonna be real salty about this news
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This is a deeply shitty timeline, but Comrade Trump keeps tripping over his red tie. Let's take the wins.
eof/
What was that SF quote something like "bad things in the short term are often good things in the long run"?
H. Beam Piper I think. (Who was rather a right wing nut job, granted.)
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What was that SF quote something like "bad things in the short term are often good things in the long run"?
H. Beam Piper I think. (Who was rather a right wing nut job, granted.)
I also recall the rant from "Space Viking" about barbarians who get in power and don't understand what it takes to keep society running, and destroy it.
(Except he meant left-wingers, which is not how it is working out lately.)
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What was that SF quote something like "bad things in the short term are often good things in the long run"?
H. Beam Piper I think. (Who was rather a right wing nut job, granted.)
Found it:
""Might be a good thing, in the long run. Good things in the long run are often tough while they're happening."
"Space Viking" by H. Beam Piper, 1963.
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I also recall the rant from "Space Viking" about barbarians who get in power and don't understand what it takes to keep society running, and destroy it.
(Except he meant left-wingers, which is not how it is working out lately.)
Found it:
"Don't you? You were there; you saw what's happening. The barbarians are rising; they have a leader, and they're uniting. Every society rests on a barbarian base. The people who don't understand civilization, and wouldn't like it if they did. The hitchhikers."
1/3
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This is a deeply shitty timeline, but Comrade Trump keeps tripping over his red tie. Let's take the wins.
eof/
Thank you for that look at the bright side. There are some really good things happening, and that is what I need to focus on right now.
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Found it:
"Don't you? You were there; you saw what's happening. The barbarians are rising; they have a leader, and they're uniting. Every society rests on a barbarian base. The people who don't understand civilization, and wouldn't like it if they did. The hitchhikers."
1/3
"The people who create nothing, and who don't appreciate what others have created for them, and who think civilization is something that just exists and that all they need to do is enjoy what they can understand of it-- luxuries, a high living standard, and easy work for high pay."
2/3
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"The people who create nothing, and who don't appreciate what others have created for them, and who think civilization is something that just exists and that all they need to do is enjoy what they can understand of it-- luxuries, a high living standard, and easy work for high pay."
2/3
'Trask nodded. "And now, the hitchhikers think they know more about the car than the people who designed it, so they're going to grab the controls. Zaspar Makann says they can, and he's the Leader."'
3/3
Space Viking by H. Beam Piper
Free eBook digitized and proofread by volunteers.
Project Gutenberg (gutenberg.org)
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Unlike Carney, I never pretended to like that old order, and indeed, I spent my entire life fighting against it - literally, all the way back to childhood, organizing other children to march against Canada's participation in America's nuclear weapons programs:
All of which means that my experience of the Trump years is decidedly *weird*.
2/
'Thanks to Trump's stupid, bloody, unforgivable war of choice in the Gulf, the world is going to install unimaginable amounts of cleantech.'
Nothing healthier for we humans and our planet right now than petro-fuel prices that better reflect their true cost.
We’re a long way off, but as this post notes, 'Comrade Trump' could hardly have made a finer start.
Every obscenely obese 'family' pickup truck or SUV (baby carriages, all) I see now brings me heartwarming joy.
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There aren't a lot of things I agree with Mark Carney about, but there's one area where he and I are in *total* accord: the old, US-dominated, "rules-based international order" was total bullshit:
--
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/20/praxis/#acceleration
1/
@pluralistic thank you to infinity and back for today's essay. So many nuggets to cherish in here. I take a special shine to "his chud army of Christian nationalists and degenerate gamblers" and the later reference to the "Gretacene." PS Any chance we can advance balcony solar panels in the US?
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The country's fleet of noisy, dirty motorbikes is being swiftly replaced by ebikes that get eight miles to the *penny*:
Ethiopia Expands Vehicle Import Ban to Trucks, Pushing Electric Transport
• Ethiopia expands ICE vehicle import ban to include trucks• EV numbers rise amid push for carbon-neutral transport by 2030• Hydropower, LNG support
Ecofin Agency (www.ecofinagency.com)
Ebikes are insanely great technology. Cheap, rugged and reliable, they're basically bicycles that abolish *hills*. Once you've gotten accustomed to an ebike - maybe you've invested in a folding helmet and a raincoat - you'll never go back.
14/
@pluralistic folding helmet??????
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@pluralistic folding helmet??????
@semitones love mine
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