Powderhorn

“We can’t put a date on Doomsday, but by looking at the 5,000 years of [civilisation], we can understand the trajectories we face today – and self-termination is most likely,” says Dr Luke Kemp at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge.

“I’m pessimistic about the future,” he says. “But I’m optimistic about people.” Kemp’s new book covers the rise and collapse of more than 400 societies over 5,000 years and took seven years to write. The lessons he has drawn are often striking: people are fundamentally egalitarian but are led to collapses by enriched, status-obsessed elites, while past collapses often improved the lives of ordinary citizens.

Today’s global civilisation, however, is deeply interconnected and unequal and could lead to the worst societal collapse yet, he says. The threat is from leaders who are “walking versions of the dark triad” – narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism – in a world menaced by the climate crisis, nuclear weapons, artificial intelligence and killer robots.

Oops!

High Noon is recalling some of its vodka seltzer drinks because they were mislabeled as nonalcoholic Celsius energy drinks, according to a recall notice posted Wednesday by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

High Noon is recalling two production lots of High Noon Beach Variety packs. Some of these 12-can packs have cans that are filled with High Noon vodka seltzer alcohol and are mislabeled as “CELSIUS® ASTRO VIBE™ Energy Drink, Sparkling Blue Razz Edition” with a silver top.

Setting aside that High Noon should clearly be a THC seltzer, this is the most plausible excuse for a DWI I've heard of. "But officer, I only had two energy drinks."

Kamala Harris, the former vice-president and 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, announced on Wednesday that she will not run for governor of California – a highly anticipated decision that leaves the contest to lead the country’s largest blue state wide open.

“After deep reflection, I’ve decided that I will not run for Governor in this election,” Harris said in a statement, ending months of speculation about whether she might enter the race filled with lesser-known aspirants. Harris, who previously served as California’s attorney general and US senator, offered few details about her future plans but promised to share more “in the months ahead”.

“For now, my leadership – and public service – will not be in elected office,” she said, leaving the door open for a future bid. “I look forward to getting back out and listening to the American people, helping elect Democrats across the nation who will fight fearlessly, and sharing more details in the months ahead about my own plans.”

Cool. So voting will continue being useless in Texas, but we're doing this to save the House majority in D.C.?

Texas GOP lawmakers released their first draft of the state’s new congressional map Wednesday, proposing revamped district lines that attempt to flip five Democratic seats in next year’s midterm elections.

The new map targets Democratic members of Congress in the Austin, Dallas and Houston metro areas and in South Texas. The draft, unveiled by Corpus Christi Republican Rep. Todd Hunter, will likely change before the final map is approved by both chambers and signed by Gov. Greg Abbott. Democrats have said they might try to thwart the process by fleeing the state.

This unusual mid-decade redistricting comes after a pressure campaign waged by President Donald Trump’s political team in the hopes of padding Republicans’ narrow majority in the U.S. House.

Currently, Republicans hold 25 of Texas’ 38 House seats. Trump carried 27 of those districts in 2024, including those won by Democratic Reps. Henry Cuellar of Laredo and Vicente Gonzalez of McAllen.

Under the proposed new lines, 30 districts would have gone to Trump last year, each by at least 10 percentage points.

It's going to pass. As sure as Paxton was going to be acquitted.

This could be filed in tech, but I don't yet have a story. I have several Google accounts, and they all behave differently. Currently, two of five are giving the option to create fucking videos -- not terribly good ones, mind -- that actually look like researched ideas as opposed to "Pete's depressed and was drunk last night, so let's run it!"

Two more men have come forward to accuse Christian rock superstar and Maga firebrand Michael Tait of drugging and sexually assaulting them – including Jason Jones, the founding manager of the American hard-rock band Evanescence.

Jones said he was fired from the band – which had ties to Tait – for speaking out about his alleged assault. Jones said the firing, which he claimed happened in 1999, cut him out of Evanescence’s massive success beginning in 2003.

“It destroyed me,” said Jones. “I was achieving my dreams at an early age, and Tait changed all that.”

Evanescence co-founder Ben Moody denied Jones was fired from the band for speaking out against Tait.

Moody said he does recall Jones telling him about a sexual encounter with Tait, but at the time Moody interpreted it as consensual.

“I was a kid, only 18, and clearly didn’t realize what he was going through,” Moody said. “I’m sure I missed a lot of things I’d recognize today. I didn’t realize he was traumatized.”

Sure, porn-trained AI seems a core function.

Porn sites may have blown up Meta's key defense in a copyright fight with book authors who earlier this year said that Meta torrented "at least 81.7 terabytes of data across multiple shadow libraries" to train its AI models.

Meta has defeated most of the authors' claims and claimed there is no proof that Meta ever uploaded pirated data through seeding or leeching on the BitTorrent network used to download training data. But authors still have a chance to prove that Meta may have profited off its massive piracy, and a new lawsuit filed by adult sites last week appears to contain evidence that could help authors win their fight, TorrentFreak reported.

The new lawsuit was filed last Friday in a US district court in California by Strike 3 Holdings—which says it attracts "over 25 million monthly visitors" to sites that serve as "ethical sources" for adult videos that "are famous for redefining adult content with Hollywood style and quality."

After authors revealed Meta's torrenting, Strike 3 Holdings checked its proprietary BitTorrent-tracking tools designed to detect infringement of its videos and alleged that the company found evidence that Meta has been torrenting and seeding its copyrighted content for years—since at least 2018. Some of the IP addresses were clearly registered to Meta, while others appeared to be "hidden," and at least one was linked to a Meta employee, the filing said.

I don't know that there's much new here for many Beehaw users, but I always enjoy Reich's way of simplifying certain things while still maintaining the view from 40,000 feet. I'd imagine he was an amazing lecturer.

From today's "wait, he was still alive?" files.

Fucking brilliant musician. Many videos in the link.

This is an interesting traipse without stumbling into tinfoil land. Boyle is one of my subscriptions.

When Bonnie hears the opening bars of the Verve’s Bitter Sweet Symphony, she is transported back to 1997. But it isn’t a joyful memory that comes to mind; it is the painful recollection of driving home from school and seeing the sheriff changing a lock on her house.

Then a teenager, Bonnie and her family were about to be evicted. And the Verve’s song was everywhere.

“It was a big hit at the time, and it just seemed to be playing all the time, in takeaway shops and shopping centres, on the radio in the car. I just couldn’t get away from this song,” she says.

To this day the 46-year-old who lives in Canberra, Australia, says she will change the radio or leave the location where the song is playing to avoid hearing it. “The lyrics of this song too closely described our situation,” she says.

Bitter Sweet Symphony was the recessional at my first wedding. I'm pretty certain neither of us (both trancewhore ravers) had bothered listening to the lyrics when we made that selection.

President Trump's new executive order to combat homelessness encourages local governments to revive civil commitment, a process to place people with mental health issues in treatment facilities without their consent.

Why it matters: Involuntary civil commitment has historically been used as a preventative method to confine people before they harm themselves or others, and most frequently affects vulnerable groups such as LGBTQ+, people of color and people with disabilities, according to several studies.

Context: The order Trump signed Thursday calls for shifting homeless individuals into "long-term" institutions for "humane treatment" which the administration says will "restore public order."

Cool. Just one more thing to be worried about from a failed system. I'm guessing "humane treatment" doesn't include access to the outside world.