#Greta Thunberg speech

[darionavarrini]

Greta Thunberg rilasciata dalla polizia tedesca

L’attivista per il clima svedese Greta Thunberg è stata brevemente arrestata martedì durante una protesta contro l’espansione controversa di una miniera di carbone in Germania occidentale che è diventata un punto di riferimento per il dibattito sui cambiamenti climatici del paese. Le proteste a Lützerath, un piccolo villaggio destinato a essere ripulito e demolito per fare spazio alla vicina…

[very-uncorrect]

Maybe making fun of the young girl who's passionate on stopping the world we live on from literally dying is kind of fucking stupid of some of y'all

[exit-babylon]

In her speech at Austrian World Summit, Greta Thunberg accuses political leaders of “role-playing”, “playing with words”, and only using the “crisis” as a “business opportunity”. However, is Greta that different from the people she criticizes? How convincing are her arguments? To answer these questions, this in-depth language analysis focuses on Greta’s persuasion techniques and arguments and what they reveal about her. The analysis uses academic concepts such as ‘presuppositions’, ‘constitutive rhetoric’, and ‘synecdoches’ and draws comparisons to excerpts from Greta’s 2021 Youth4Climate speech and Glastonbury speech.

[annarubys]

everything wrong with me can be explained by the fact that i only use youtube when i don’t feel like committing to an episode of tv (takes too long) but my ideal youtube video length is 20-30 minutes and i spend at least another 15 minutes during every use adding hour long essays to my watch later

[justnews420]

"We cannot remain silent. No-one can remain silent when there is an ongoing genocide and when people are denied the most basic human needs … To stand with Palestine is to be human."

Greta Thunberg calls out Israel's genocide during a speech in Leipzig, Germany.

[intersectionalpraxis]

Tweet/X Post in Response to activist Greta Thunberg being pushed away from her mic on stage by a European man: The man interrupting Greta Thunberg sums up perfectly everything wrong about European progressive circles and the so-called left.

They want sanitized battles to feel good about themselves without questioning the underpinning systems of oppression and exploitation.

The video provided below shows Greta Thunberg giving her speech about climate justice, and a European man going up to interrupt her in order to accuse her of being 'too personal, not political.' While people on-stage try to do de-escalation, the crowd and Greta eventually emphasis: "no climate justice on occupied land."

Video: 11/12/2023

[cleolinda]

(For our purposes, listen to it without the visuals first.)

I wasn't going to keep posting about Unreal Unearth, but something happened yesterday.

It's been five months since I first heard this song, and I'm still astonished by it. You know the tiktok skit about the Star Wars wedding music, and the guy is grooving along until the Imperial Death March filters in, and then he's kind of alarmed, like, wha—? And then he realizes it slaps anyway and he keeps dancing? That is "Eat Your Young."

It's the morning of March 17th. The EP with the first three singles from the new album has dropped. I've got my phone blasting the song on the bathroom counter, I don't understand half what the man is saying nor did I expect to, I'm cheerfully mumbling along in the shower, grooving along,

wait they did what for a war drum

Get some Pull up the ladder when the flood comes Throw enough rope until the legs have swung Seven new ways that you can eat your young Come and get some Skinning the children for a war drum Putting food on the table selling bombs and guns It's quicker and easier to eat your young

What the fuck, this song goes so hard. That's the chorus. The conceit of the whole album is that it loosely follows Dante's Inferno, so this is the third circle of hell, gluttony. Hozier himself says that he wasn't specifically thinking of Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal—

“I don’t know how intentional the reference to Jonathan Swift was in this. That essay [Swift’s 1729 satirical essay A Modest Proposal in which he suggests the Irish poor sell their children as food] is such a cultural landmark that it’s just hanging in the air. I was more reflecting on what I felt now in this spirit of the times of perpetual short-term gain and a long-term blindness. The increasing levels of precarious living, poverty, job insecurity, rental crisis, property crisis, climate crisis, and a generation that’s inheriting all of that and one generation that’s enjoyed the spoils of it. The lyrics are direct, but the voice is playful. There’s this unreliable narrator who relishes in this thing which was fun to write.” [Apple Music album notes]

—and I believe him. The song's not a suggestion, a proposal; it's an invitation to atrocity in progress. I also believe he probably wasn't thinking of Greta Thunberg's iconic speech at the UN Climate Action Summit, not specifically, but that's what I hear in the song, like the flip side of a coin:

You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I'm one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you! [...] You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency. But no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that. Because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil.

I feel like on some level, even coincidentally, "Eat Your Young" is the answer to the question, what would you sound like if you were that evil? Who would you be? I can think of a dozen possibilities just off the top of my head or looking around my blog, from something as petty as studio executives mangling trees to deprive striking workers of shade (while hoping they lose their homes), all the way up to the US school-to-prison pipeline. The National Rifle Association keeps politicians in its pocket while the US has more mass shootings than days in a year, Nestlé fucks shit up around the world as a way of life, even ChatGPT sucks up water while threatening jobs—and for what? And yet, I promise you most of these things weren't the inspiration for an Irishman’s song—some of them hadn't even happened yet. There's just that much fresh You Would Be Evil to go around. I am certain that Hozier wrote the song partly about (as one article puts it) "Ireland's housing crisis: Millennials, a generation sacrificed," given that time back in the day when he helped occupy a building—a housing crisis happening in multiple countries. There's so much of the world I'm not touching on. I can stuff a paragraph with links and it's utterly inadequate.

I haven't even mentioned war.

There's an overwhelming sense this decade of the future being fed into a meat grinder. That sense is in this song. What would it sound like to be in the head of someone who didn't give a shit about anything but profit? Well, it might sound like this.

And if you haven't heard it, well—I'm going to sound absolutely out of my mind after saying all that, but "Eat Your Young" has a beat and you can dance to it. It's sexy. And I'm certain that's on purpose. You get seduced into the sound of it, as if by something demonic, something that enjoys sucking down the future and is not going to stop. And the sheer fucking catchiness of the song keeps you listening to it—thinking about it—when maybe you push away the dry headlines we get everyday. If you let this song stay in your head, it becomes a lens. Five months later, I still think about it when I read the news. Maui was on fire and tourists stayed. Within days, the prospect of developers swooping in to buy up land reared its head. If there's something still to take, there is ground to break, whatever's still to come. Get some.

I was born in 1978 —I'm late Gen X. In my forties, I'm young enough to worry about the future still; I’m neither so rich that I can just plan to retire to Mars, nor so old that I can know I'll be safely gone before the world might go up in flames. But I'm also not my nephew, whose school year just started back up, or the neighborhood kids who race him home down the sidewalk in the afternoons. Yesterday, he had his very first mass-shooter lockdown drill. He’s six.

I think music can put the feeling back into numb fingers, and I think that's why "Eat Your Young" works so well—Hozier calls the song fun and playful, and I think you have to have that, something you can live with rather than just switch off for your own mental survival. We need music to feed spirit at protests; we need something to keep our feet moving. Don’t give up, don't close your eyes and slip away. Those kids, they have dreams we could try to steal back for them.

Since I mentioned Maui:

Why Hawaiian sovereignty has undeniable context for the Maui fires

The Climate Crisis and Colonialism Destroyed My Maui Home. Where We Must Go From Here

How You Can Donate and Help Support Maui Communities Right Now

The Maui Strong Fund

[ashmouthbooks]

EARTH IS MISSING! / EVERYONE'S WORLD IS ENDING ALL THE TIME

this spring I entered the Elizabeth Soutar Bookbinding Competition held by the National Library of Scotland. The theme this year was climate change. I didn't win any of the categories (I certainly didn't think I'd win any of the Craft categories, but I thought I had a decent shot at the Creative categories) but I am very happy with how my binding came out anyway!

under the cut is the details of the binding and the process that went into it, plus a full list of the texts included.

this is a modified 3 piece bradel binding - a 3 piece bradel is usually made with leather spine with the spine attached to the textblock and the front and back covers added on after. there's another variety of a 3 piece bradel case where the spine and boards are assembled with a thin piece of paper to later be covered with a bookcloth. I wanted to use some leftover misprint cardstock I had (the same stuff I'd previously used to make paperbacks) and I wanted to print the titles directly onto the covers and spine (specifically I wanted to overprint the titles to imitate the existing misprint), and in order to fit it through my printer I had to have it in three pieces. so I assembled a bradel case as if it were to be covered with a cloth, only the cardstock I was using to assemble the case would also be the cover material.

everything I used to make this book was recycled or reused, with the exception of the greybeards which were new (I didn't have any rescued book boards from secondhand books at the time). the text paper is recycled eco-craft paper, the endbands are re-used macramé cords wrapped in green wrapping paper that came from a gift bag, and as mentioned, the cover material comes from a misprinted running sheet.

a few process photos of getting the case together:

in terms of content, I took care that not only should the binding fit the theme of climate change - by using recycled and reused materials - but the text inside should also fit the theme. there were a lot of considerations there because I could easily have just bought a copy of something like Greta Thunberg's speeches and rebound them, but I wanted the texts to be something that made sense to me. so I went and looked at the SFF magazines I read for climate fiction and essays, I looked for academic papers, and I looked on Gutenberg for older pulp fiction relating to climate change. once I had a selection of texts I pared them down to two categories, fiction and non-fiction, and decided the most fun way to bind them would be as a tête-bêche with fiction on one side and non-fiction on the other, and this then informed how the binding would physically turn out - the modified 3 piece bradel.

here is the full table of contents for each side of the book:

EVERYONE'S WORLD IS ENDING ALL THE TIME and other writings

A Climate of Competition: Climate Change as Political Economy in Speculative Fiction, 1889–1915 by Steve Asselin Published in Science Fiction Studies, Vol. 45, No. 3, SF and the Climate Crisis (November 2018), pp. 440-453

A Century of Science Fiction That Changed How We Think About the Environment by Sherryl Vint Published in the MIT Press Reader, 20th July 2021

The climate is changing. Science fiction is too. by Eliza Levinson Published in The Story, 30th June 2022

’Not to escape the world but to join it’: responding to climate change with imagination not fantasy by Andrew Davison Published in Philosophical Transactions: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Vol. 375, No. 2095, Theme issue: Material demand reduction (13 June 2017), pp. 1-13

Science in Fiction: A Brief Look at Communicating Climate Change through the Novel by Eline D. Tabak Published in RCC Perspectives, No. 4, COMMUNICATING THE CLIMATE: From Knowing Change to Changing Knowledge (2019), pp. 97-104

Everyone’s World Is Ending All the Time: notes on becoming a climate resilience planner at the edge of the anthropocene by Arkady Martine Published in Uncanny Magazine issue 28, May 7, 2019

EARTH IS MISSING! and other stories

Earth Is Missing! by Carl Selwyn in Planet Stories (1947)

Climate—Disordered by Carter Sprague in Startling Stories (1948)

Climate—Incorporated by Wesley Long in Thrilling Wonder Stories (1948)

A Being Together Amongst Strangers by Arkady Martine in Uncanny Magazine (2020)

You’re Not The Only One by Octavia Cade in Clarkesworld Magazine (2022)

Why We Bury Our Dead At Sea by Tehnuka in Reckoning Magazine (2023)

[compassionatereminders]

Found this cute little book of Greta Thunberg speeches at the library last time I went! Am looking forward to reading exactly what she has had to say in different contexts through the years

[mosswolf]

reading summary - april

braiding sweetgrass by robin wall kimmerer: i've read this before, but i wanted to listen to the audiobook after enjoying listening to gathering moss

paladin's faith by t kingfisher: wren <3 paladin's strength is still my fave but really enjoyed this as ever, i love that the demon stuff is being revisited and made more complicated!!! hey judith. whats goin on mate...

gender outlaw: on men, women and the rest of us by kate bornstein: shes really funny. so shes a transfem lesbian who's had bottom surgery, right, and at one point she jokes that more manhating terfs should appreciate her because after all, shes the only person in the room who actually HAS castrated a man!

guides for dating vampires 2, 2.2 and 2.3 by d.n bryn: didn't like these very much, found one of the mcs really irritating. ah well, the first one was good at least...

the last sun, the hanged man and the hourglass throne by k.d edwards: it was super fun to reread these, theyre so easy to read and messy and fun. i was keeping an eye out for plot stuff this time and there was loads of foreshadowing i'd missed!!

the picture of dorian grey by oscar wilde: id actually never read this and wow, by god can that man pontificate. i enjoyed it but am super glad i listened to the audiobook haha...

no one is too small to make a difference by greta thunberg: i was given this because people really know (1) thing about climate change when i tell them i study it haha. it was darkly relatable to read through her speeches in chronological order and see them just getting angrier and angrier,, me too ms thunberg. me too

persephone station by stina leicht: this was so good. i love scifi about fucked up criminals and robots and robot criminals!!! its Quite long, over 500 pages, and i do think it could have been edited down some more to be perfect, but still!! thoroughly enjoyable

the black god's drums by p djeli clark: really enjoyed this as well, steampunky fantasy new orleans with gods and storms and airships!!! nice and compact, blazed through it super quickly.

the other significant others: reimagining life with friendship at the center by rhaina cohen: some of this was definitely aimed at people who arent aro and in poly qprs already (which is fair enough) but even so, i really enjoyed the stories of the people she interviews about their unconventional relationships and stuff!

[the-light-of-stars]

Calls for peace and equality are now openly being called "absolutely indecent" "very very naive" "missing basic democratic values" and "hateful and antisemitic" by leading german officials:

"With her pro-palestinian statements at a climate demonstration Greta Thunberg has again caused outrage. "Absolutely indecent" Greens [progressive party] leader Lang called the performance. "Very naive" said central council [ -of german jews, the government funded biggest jewish organisation in germany] president Schuster - if not even antisemitic."

The Greens leader also said that Thunberg is "confusing victims and perpetrators" , the leader of the central council called for the German chapter of Fridays for Future to denounce Thunberg and change its name, the israeli consulate in Germany called her an antisemite , the leader of the German-israeli Society called her a 'professional Israel-hater' and the antisemitism consultant of the German Government called her statements "insufferably antisemitic" and "showing a worldview that is missing basic democratic values" .

The "very naive, absolutely indecent, antisemitic" statements that are "confusing victims and perpetrators" and are "showing a lack of basic democratic values" in question?

"At the demonstration in Amsterdam Thunberg said in front of ten thousands of listeners that the climate movement has the obligation to "listen to the voices of those who are oppressed and those who are fighting for peace and equality". She also chanted multiple times "No climate justice on occupied land" and apparently referred to the palestinian regions that are occupied by Israel."

Oh and the state security police in Berlin is now considering the phrase "Stop the genocide" to be "antisemitic hate speech" and a "hate campaign" slogan

[eretzyisrael]

by Phyllis Chesler

Just last week, pro-Palestinian Arab demonstrators tried to stop Congressmen Richie Torres and Mike Lawler, from speaking about Israeli-Arab peace through the Abraham Accords at the 92nd St Y in New York City.

Approximately twenty to twenty five protestors stood up in waves, one after the other, yelling out "Free Palestine" and "Genocide is not peace." It took about twenty minutes to clear the room. The assembled audience booed them and eventually started yelling "Get them out" and "Yeah, free Palestine from Hamas."

Torres sat on the platform entirely unfazed. Afterwards, he tweeted: "No amount of Astroturf Anti-Israel agitation is going to bully me into supporting a ceasefire that perpetuates the genocidal terrorism of Hamas. I refuse to be intimidated by a fanatical fringe that represents no one and nothing but itself."

This demonstrating-in-waves is hardly original. It is an Islamist/Marxist tactic long in use.

For example, in 2008, female students, members of the Muslim Student Association (a creation of the Muslim Brotherhood), chose to interrupt my friend and colleague Nonie Darwish's lecture about eight Iranian women who were facing execution and about Sharia law. Each hijabbed student sat at the end of each row, cleared their throats rather loudly, and then proceeded to leave, one after the other, for the bathroom. Their interruptions continued as Nonie spoke.

In 2010, ten Muslim students interrupted Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren's lecture at the University of California's Irvine campus. They continued to heckle and shout him down. "Michael Oren, propagating murder is not an expression of free speech" and "Sir, you are an accomplice to genocide." Amazingly, the students were charged, found guilty and sentenced to three years of probation, 56 hours of community service and fines.

For the last twenty years in America outside lecturers, professors, and students have been bullied, cancelled, and shut down all across America. Loud mobs have harassed politicians at their homes, on the street, and while dining out with their families.

These anti-Israel demonstrators have also disrupted High Culture.

In October of this year, at least 1,000 pro-Palestinian Arab hordes demonstrated outside the Opera House in Sydney, Australia. The government had illuminated the House in the colors of the Israeli flag following Hamas's 10/7 brutal terrorist massacre against Israeli civilians.

More recently, at the end of November, climate (!) demonstrators managed to interrupt and delay the performance of Wagner's Tanhauser at New York City's Metropolitan Opera House for one hour. In tried and true Alinsky/Marxist/Black Lives Matter/Antifa/Islamist form, the protesters sat in different parts of the audience and then, one by one, they stood, screamed, dropped banners over the balconies, resisted being escorted out.

Makes sense. Environmentalist poster child Greta Thunberg has moved on from saving the planet to "doubling down on (her) anti-Israel stance, accusing it of "genocide" in Gaza. She has taken to chanting "crush Zionism" at rallies.

I guess all those who need attention go where the action is.

Such demonstrations, delays, and interruptions are precisely what I'm talking about when I say that a Red/Green alliance is trying to destroy Western culture and civilization.

Right now, we are living through near-constant demonstrations replete with drums, megaphones, and loud and aggressive marchers; they are shutting speakers down, blocking the entrances to trains, obstructing traffic by blocking roads and bridges all over North America.

Slowly, surely, our sense of safety in public spaces is being eroded.

These "smaller" but almost continuous interruptions have begun to unravel our democratic rights to free speech, lawful assembly, civil society, and street safety. This is what I mean when I write that Islamists/Marxists are destroying Western culture and our civilization.

They must be stopped

[zot3-flopped]

That Matty statement doesn't seem like something he'd say. It's definitely damage control because I highly doubt Taylor would have the courtesy to warn her exes before an album release, especially how she kept the speculation up til now that the album would address joe cheating rumors.

Anyways, I don't think Matty will retaliate like someone else said. He's not petty like Taylor. If he were to he could definitely make a jab at her co2 emissions compared to the completely clean/carbon neutral tour they just ended (and notes having an entire song dedicated to greta thunberg speech)

The 1975 music doesn't center around specific people/characters like Taylor's music. Its more abstract than that. There's several love songs on being funny in a foreign language we have no idea who the subjects are to those songs because they don't drop clues for fans to gossip about.

Matty needs to shut his fuckin mouth at times because it keeps getting him in trouble like the podcast but he's not a petty obsessive person like Taylor

Either he never said this or he said it sarcastically because she DID rip him apart and present their relationship negatively.

[luminofilmsofficial]

Andrew Tate and young men in the industry that try to treat me like dirt:

Andrew Tate’s nasty empire of misogyny is a terrible indictment on our society. This deep rooted hatred of women, from following his site and advice, to incels to nasty sites on the dark web, Trump’s pussy grabbing, women are the targets. Under the banner of free speech, so called alpha males challenge the place of women and spread their toxic masculinity through social media.

Will it help undermine this movement now he has been arrested for sex trafficking and belittled by Greta Thunberg? I doubt it.

I have noticed from the beginning of my 11 year career in the film industry the people who give me the most trouble are young men, who literally ooze disgust and hatred. Reluctantly take any direction from me. They may have a girlfriend/wife they may act to others normally but there is no respect, in fact there is little disguised derision. They cannot fathom why a woman is giving them instruction. They are the ones who have gone through film school, the ones who think they know it all, who should be in my position. They think they deserve it and I do not.

On one film such a young man gave me jobs as he thought I wasn’t doing enough, yet as Line Producer my position was well above his.

Now I can spot them and if possible quickly get them fired or fire them as I know they will be trouble. And never employ them again. But that does not get to the route of the problem.

Where does it come from, this hatred of women, disrespect for older women, feeling that sex and women are there’s for the taking, that women should be subservient and “under” them in relationships and work?

[airasilver]

Opinion: Here’s who should have won Time’s ‘Person of the Year’

Updated 10:07 AM EST December 8, 2023

Editor’s Note: Holly Thomas is a writer and editor based in London. She is morning editor at Katie Couric Media. She tweets @HolstaT. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author. View more opinion on CNN.

Taylor Swift is Time’s 2023 “Person of the Year,” and apparently, I’m the only millennial woman on Earth who doesn’t feel seen.

OK, that’s an exaggeration. But since the announcement, it’s felt like a specific corner of Spotify Wrapped got bitten by a radioactive spider and attained superhuman powers.

I’m happy for her, I guess. I’ve nothing against a seemingly pleasant person having a lovely time, and there’s no denying she’s had a stellar year. As Time’s feature details, Swift’s now made more No. 1 albums than any other woman in history, has world leaders begging her to tour their nations and has reportedly become a billionaire. “Swift is the rare person who is both the writer and hero of her own story,” says Time. That’s great. I just don’t find that story especially compelling.

Ugh, I feel so mean. I’m well aware this will upset people, and I’d never want to rob anyone else of their joy. We’ve all had conversations with people who simply don’t “get” the music or TV we’re into. Typically, my response to such complaints is, “That’s OK, it wasn’t made for you.” But part of what’s making me so squirmy is the sense that Swift, and the stories she tells through her music, are basically aimed at me. If you lined me up alongside everyone I know who’s currently rhapsodizing over her success, I’d be indistinguishable. But I’m not biting. That’s not because I think there’s anything wrong with her. If anything, my choice for Time “Person of the Year” would be more problematic.

Historically, the title’s recipient has often been a provocateur. The idea isn’t necessarily that the “best” person wins — though that’s certainly been the case at times — it’s that the person who’s had the most influence, for “good or ill” over the previous 12 months, is recognized. Previous winners have included Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Greta Thunberg, Martin Luther King Jr. and Elon Musk. This year’s shortlist included the Hollywood strikers, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Barbie, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Trump prosecutors, King Charles III and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Time ultimately named Altman CEO of the year. I think he should have taken the top title.

In case he hasn’t yet crossed your radar, Altman is the 38-year-old chief executive of OpenAI, the tech startup responsible for creating ChatGPT. ChatGPT is a revolutionary generative artificial intelligence chatbot that was launched in November 2022. It’s since astounded observers by passing exams at law and business schools, writing effective job applications and computer code and composing part of a political speech for Israel’s president.

The implications of that tech alone are both miraculous and terrifying, particularly given the potential for disinformation campaigns to influence the presidential election in 2024. Many companies besides OpenAI are vying for a bite of the lucrative AI market, competing to develop newer, evermore sophisticated systems. Though the Biden administration recently introduced legislation to regulate the exploding industry, the pace of development is so rapid that it’s often difficult for governments to keep up.

The mysteriousness and speed of the AI race were evidenced in November, when, less than a year after ChatGPT’s launch, Altman was fired suddenly by his company’s board. Just days later, Microsoft, OpenAI’s biggest stakeholder, announced it was hiring Altman to head up a new AI team. This prompted a mass revolt among OpenAI’s staff, almost all of whom threatened to quit unless Altman was rehired. Within days, he was, and the board that’d fired him was replaced.

The circumstances around both Altman’s dismissal and rehiring were remarkably murky. In their statement announcing his sacking, the original board accused Altman of “being not consistently candid in his communications,” but didn’t elaborate on what that meant. Even more worrying, Altman’s return and the restructuring of OpenAI have been characterized as a victory for AI “accelerationists” — those who believe that the tech should be developed as fast as possible, unconstrained by safety concerns. The episode proved that Altman wasn’t just capable of spearheading potentially the most significant invention of the 21st century so far. He was able to upend the ecosystem that created it within days.

This, I think, is what’s lacking in Swift as Time “Person of the Year.” Her predominance in the entertainment industry is undeniable, but her story is essentially one of becoming mega-successful within an existing framework. As she told Time, we live in a patriarchal society fueled by money, so “feminine ideas becoming lucrative means that more female art will get made.” It’s not a million miles from, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”

The impression that no one’s anticipating any controversy from Swift anytime soon was reinforced in November when Gannett, America’s biggest newspaper chain, hired the first-ever Swift correspondent. The journalist in question, 35-year-old Bryan West, is a self-avowed fan. Odd though some might find it to hire someone with such an obvious bias, West has argued that it’s no different than “being a sports journalist who’s a fan of the home team.” Whether you agree with that comparison or not, it’s undeniably in his professional interests for Swift to remain popular and relevant — and it seems unlikely that the appetite for stories about her will wane anytime soon.

This is why Altman, not Swift, ought to have been Time’s “Person of the Year.” His impact on the world could be exponentially more consequential, but not nearly enough people are aware of him or the implications of his technology. Every move Swift makes, however incidental, is the subject of feverish intrigue and speculation. Over in San Francisco, Altman is making moves that could change the fate of the world. And until a month ago, most of us were unaware he even existed.

© 2023 Cable News Network. A Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All Rights Reserved. 
CNN Sans ™ & © 2016 Cable News Network.

I don’t know about Sam Altman but I agree, it shouldn’t have been Taylor. She’s just a musician who is everywhere and in everything.

At least I’ve seen good and bad on the AI front. Good and bad from Hollywood and etc. Taylor? Just everyone praising her? For what? Her singing? Her tours? (Where people died but while they bitched at males for things out of their control, Taylor is praised for it….doesn’t make sense to me.) Her making us spend money we then complain about?

She’s not that good of a singer. I don’t like her anymore. She’s the same as any other singer out there.

[jaewul]

I'm not a hero, 'cuz calling yourself a "hero" makes you a self-mythologizing narcissistic autocrat

Or, welcome to my dissertation on heroes, punks, Hobie Brown, and Spider-Man

Get comfortable because I have a lot to say

(btw English is not my first language, if you catch some error don't hesitate to correct me)

So, I cannot say that I am a Spider-Punk expert, because, never being very interested in Spider-Man, I was not aware of his existence before seing him in the Across the Spider-Verse trailer. That being said, I instantly fell in love with his character, starting with his iconic entrance and presentation.

And a sentence stuck with. I'm not a hero, 'cuz calling yourself a "hero" makes you a self-mythologizing narcissistic autocrat.

It just sounds like Hobie is being a typical contrary punk teenager here, presenting himself in opposition to the other spider-men, but like most things Hobie do and say, I don't think it's random.

Remember when he was plucking things from the walls in Miguel's lab and everyone assumed he was being randomly destructive when he was actually collecting materials for Gwen's watch ?

Anyway, Heroes are not Punk

Heroes are a big part of the subconscious of today's individualistic and consumerist society. I am not only talking about superheroes here ; can you imagine Star Wars without Luke Skywalker ? I am talking about Robin Hood, about Harry Potter, about any figure coming out of nothing to save the day. Because they all have their origin is the most hero of all heroes, our lord and saviour, Jesus Christ.

The prevalence of that kind of story as two consequences (that I can see) :

The first one is the cult of the personality. You know it. Without that faith in the providential man (or woman, who knows) would there be as many Elon Musk's fanboys ? It's of course very linked to consumerism, and to the very existence of influencers. We need role models, and to show our support to them, we consume their products, or emulate they appearance, they lifestyle. And we buy. And we listen. And we obey.

The other consequence is inaction. We wait, for someone to come and save us, to lead us to a better future, to show us the way. We wait for second coming of the Christ, when really, all the important social fights were won collectively. I am going to take an example from my country, Belgium, as this is what I am familiar with. The south of the country used to live from the coal mines in the 19th century, and it was a true capitalist hellhole. The situation only got better after some very violent revolts amongst the workers. I have studied that subject in university, quite extensively, but I don't remember one single name on the side of the workers. Sure, at some point someone was probably chosen as a negotiator, they were some figurehead during the fights, but nobody quite remember them. We remember the collectivity, because it's the collectivity who actually made things change.

I am not saying that we should not admire people, or follow them, but there is a big difference between a figurehead and a hero. Sometimes someone will crystallize the attention, and the energy of the people, and help put something into movement. That someone can even be fictional ! But when the figurehead become a hero, when the people stop trying because they think that special person/group of person is going to save them, we get a Greta Thunberg situation. Yeah, remember her speech ?

This is all wrong. I shouldn't be up here. I should be back in school in the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope ? How dare you.

She is a girl, a child truly, who was trust into the role of a hero and saw everyone around her stop trying and start to look up to her to do something. And nothing happens.

Remember what Miles said at the end of the last movie ?

Anyone can wear the mask. Anyone can be the hero. It's a good line. It's hopeful. It's inspiring.

But Hobie give us a slight variant. Nobody should wear the mask. We should not need heroes. It makes me think of Bertolt Brecht, a Marxist autor who said "unhappy is the land that is in need of heroes".

I don't think we could do without heroes. And to be fair, I love heroes, I love superhero stories, and while I absolutely hate wars, stories of men doing inspiring things in war fascinate me. I don't know where I am going with this whole thing, so I am going to let it like that for now and maybe come back to it later with a clearer head.

That being said, if I see anyone with official™ Hobie Brown merch, it's on sight motherfuckers