Month: November 2025

AI, Freak U.S.A, Manipulation, Money, Science, TechnologyLeave a comment

A Lack of Transparency Threatens AI — and the American Economy

Fernando Kaskais

Image Credit: Tarakan – Adobe Stock Even the Wall Street Journal does not appear to understand the nature of the looming problems Jeffrey Funk  OpenAI and other AI software startups are at the economic center of the generative AI economy. End users pay OpenAI for the use of its software and OpenAI pays the AI cloud providers to process those models. In turn, those cloud providers pay Nvidia and other semiconductor companies for their chips, particularly graphical process units (GPUs). These cloud providers are now building so many data centers that electricity has become the biggest bottleneck in the overall AI value chain according to … Continue reading A Lack of Transparency Threatens AI — and the American Economy

Freak U.S.A, Military, Politics, Rights, WarLeave a comment

On the ‘Legitimate Authority to Kill’

Fernando Kaskais

“I don’t think we’re gonna necessarily ask for a declaration of war. I think we’re just gonna kill people that are bringing drugs into our country. Okay? We’re gonna kill them. You know? They’re gonna be like dead. Okay.”- President Donald Trump, October 23, 2025 by Laurie Calhoun  As of today, the Trump administration has launched missile strikes on at least nineteen boats in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, terminating the lives of more than seventy unnamed persons identified at the time of their deaths only as “narcoterrorists.” The administration has claimed that the homicides are legal because they are … Continue reading On the ‘Legitimate Authority to Kill’

Curiositys, Health, History, Living, Philosophy, PsychologyLeave a comment

‘I awoke at ½ past 7’

Fernando Kaskais

A Victorian parlour, c1898. Courtesy Getty Images Our cursed age of self-monitoring and optimisation didn’t start with big tech: as so often, the Victorians are to blame By Elena Mary – is a postdoctoral associate member in the Faculty of History at the University of Oxford in the UK. She is a historian of culture, class and the female body in modern Britain. Ilook at my Fitbit and note despondently that I have done only 2,247 steps today. I haven’t met my ‘hydration goal’ or crossed everything off my to-do list. I didn’t think of three things I was grateful for … Continue reading ‘I awoke at ½ past 7’

Literature, Living, Media&Culture, Philosophy, PsychologyLeave a comment

5 books that teach you how to die well — by living better

Fernando Kaskais

Michael Konrad Hirt / Public Domain “Our ultimate goal, after all, is not a good death but a good life to the very end.” Key Takeaways By Scotty Hendricks Every now and then, if you’re lucky, you’ll encounter a book that changes your life. History’s great novels have earned a reputation in this regard. While the stories of Homer, Virginia Woolf, Fyodor Dostoevsky, or Jane Austen may not be for everyone all the time, an education in the classics can change people in profound ways and give our minds a meeting place in the world of ideas. Some books take a more direct … Continue reading 5 books that teach you how to die well — by living better

Art, In Portuguese, PhotographyLeave a comment

Neoprene

Fernando Kaskais

FERNANDO KASKAIS Fazendo o sacrifício a Neptuno, perante um altar de água que forma parêntesis e vírgulas e parece esculpido num imaculado mármore de Carrara, o jovem surfista tenta mostrar que percebe e domina os dons espirituais e físicos do poder das ondas. Talvez se engane, e arrisque a sua pele de Neoprene para sentir por uns breves momentos o fluxo universal transmitido pelo mar, que o ignora a ele, e a Neptuno, pois o mar é um Deus maior, insubmisso, que não responde perante ninguém. https://kaskaisphotos.wordpress.com/2025/11/15/neoprene/ F. Kaskais Web Guru Continue reading Neoprene

Freak U.S.A, Military, Politics, WarLeave a comment

Empire repurposed: Washington’s final frontier is Venezuela

Fernando Kaskais

Photo Credit: The Cradle As the US recalibrates from global hegemony to hemispheric dominance, Venezuela becomes the battleground for an empire in decline – but also for the Global South’s defiance. By Aidan J. Simardone War with Venezuela seems all but imminent. Off its coast, the US has deployed the largest military build-up in the region since 1994. Since Washington’s animosity began in 2002, when the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez took office, the question is not “why” but “why now?” With unipolarity in tatters and Eurasian resistance surging, Washington’s last viable project is the consolidation of its so-called “backyard.” Even hawkish institutions realize the US … Continue reading Empire repurposed: Washington’s final frontier is Venezuela

Israel, Manipulation, Middle East, Politics, ZionismLeave a comment

Why Does Everyone Care About Israel? Grasping the Shibboleth of Global Citizenship

Fernando Kaskais

No, it’s not a Satanic conspiracy to hate the Jews. It’s because Israel is the Shibboleth for what you think about the Post-WWII New World Order. By JD Hall When World War II ended, the victors were not just rebuilding nations. They were rebuilding reality itself. The old world had been made of distinct peoples, faiths, and borders. The new world would be made of systems. Bureaucracies, councils, and global institutions would replace the ancient loyalties that once held societies together. It was called “cooperation,” but it really meant submission. Every country would learn to live according to the moral and economic … Continue reading Why Does Everyone Care About Israel? Grasping the Shibboleth of Global Citizenship

China, Future, Health, Science, TechnologyLeave a comment

China Jumps on the Transhumanism Train

Fernando Kaskais

Image Credit: ICHI-DESIGN – Adobe Stock It is said to be is devoting much energy and many resources to the life-extension project Wesley J. Smith  This article is republished from National Review with the permission of the author. Transhumanism offers a (delusional, in my opinion) hope to blaze a materialistic path to immortality. Transhumanists yearn, for example, to upload their minds to computers, thinking that will do the trick. It won’t. Even if the “mind” could be uploaded, it would merely be software that mimicked a person’s beliefs. The “uploaded” subject would still be dead. Now, according to an interesting story in the New York Times, China has … Continue reading China Jumps on the Transhumanism Train

Climate Change, Eco, Future, Planet, ScienceLeave a comment

The model of catastrophe

Fernando Kaskais

Photo by Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters The immense complexity of the climate makes it impossible to model accurately. Instead we must use uncertainty to our advantage David Stainforth is a professorial research fellow at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is the author of Predicting Our Climate Future: What We Know, What We Don’t Know, and What We Can’t Know (2023). Today’s complex climate models aren’t equivalent to reality. In fact, computer models of Earth are very different to reality – particularly on regional, national and local scales. They don’t … Continue reading The model of catastrophe

Curiositys, Manipulation, Media&Culture, Politics, PsychologyLeave a comment

Why Doesn’t Anyone Trust the Media?

Fernando Kaskais

Collages by Mark Harris. Source images: Silhouette © Magalí Druscovich/Reuters/Redux; building © David Zanzinger/Alamy; radio dial and children watching television © Classic Stock/Alamy; newsboy courtesy Lewis Wickes Hine, Library of Congress; paper press © Luisa Fumi/Alamy; front page of the New York Times, July 21, 1969 © magnez2/iStock; printing press, Times of London, 1827 © Lebrecht Alamy; microphone © Olga Yastremska/Alamy  Anatomy of a credibility crisis by Jelani Cobb, Taylor Lorenz, Jack Shafer, Max Tani The challenges facing the establishment media are more severe today than ever before. Trust in the press is at a record low, with only a quarter of Americans aged eighteen to twenty-nine expressing confidence in media organizations. Jobs … Continue reading Why Doesn’t Anyone Trust the Media?