From the comments section:
Might have been her car… so she “stole” it back!
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The Economist Double Issue
British Edition
U.S. Edition
More at VDARE.com, “War On Christmas In THE ECONOMIST: Once Again, The ‘Christmas Double Issue’ Is A ‘Holiday Double Issue’ In The US”.
Happy “Holiday”.
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British “science fiction author” Charles Stross takes to the pages of “science magazine” Scientific American to denounce “tech billionaires” to want to “make science fiction … real”.
Billionaires who grew up reading science-fiction classics published 30 to 50 years ago are affecting our life today in almost too many ways to list: Elon Musk wants to colonize Mars. Jeff Bezos prefers 1970s plans for giant orbital habitats. Peter Thiel is funding research into artificial intelligence, life extension and “seasteading.” Mark Zuckerberg has blown $10 billion trying to create the Metaverse from Neal Stephenson’s novel Snow Crash. And Marc Andreessen of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz has published a “techno-optimist manifesto” promoting a bizarre accelerationist philosophy that calls for an unregulated, solely capitalist future of pure technological chaos.
These men collectively have more than half a trillion dollars to spend on their quest to realize inventions culled from the science fiction and fantasy stories that they read in their teens. But this is tremendously bad news because the past century’s science fiction and fantasy works widely come loaded with dangerous assumptions.
SF is a profoundly ideological genre—it’s about much more than new gadgets or inventions. Canadian science-fiction novelist and futurist Karl Schroeder has told me that “every technology comes with an implied political agenda.” And the tech plutocracy seems intent on imposing its agenda on our planet’s eight billion inhabitants.
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Science fiction, therefore, does not develop in accordance with the scientific method. It develops by popular entertainers trying to attract a bigger audience by pandering to them. The audience today includes billionaires who read science fiction in their childhood and who appear unaware of the ideological underpinnings of their youthful entertainment: elitism, “scientific” racism, eugenics, fascism and a blithe belief today in technology as the solution to societal problems.
Scientific American (which has been owned by German publishers since 1986) has declared itself firmly in the decelerationist camp. I posted earlier here on 2023-10-17 about Marc Andreessen’s “techno-optimist manifesto” which Stross sees as “promoting a bizarre accelerationist philosophy”. Andreessen wrote “Our enemy is anti-merit, anti-ambition, anti-striving, anti-achievement, anti-greatness. … Our enemy is bureaucracy, vetocracy, gerontocracy, blind deference to tradition.” Our enemy is Charles Stross and Scientific American.
Update: (2023-12-25 13:30 UTC)
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But the angel atop the tree is Donald Trump!
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Mentour Pilot says same.
The contract anticipates the winner will buy used 4-engine airliners. The mere fact that the actual winner will have to buy 747s means Boeing will enjoy some no risk profit.
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This is convoluted enough that I wouldn’t be shocked if it turns out to eventually be “Made in China” (Y-20) or “Made in Ukraine” (AN-225), or -gasp- “Made in Russia” (IL-96)! As well, there must be a number of “lightly-used” A-380’s around. I wonder what requirement for future replacement parts are included in these contracts.
When a commercial aircraft line is shut down, the manufacturer must have some obligations when it comes to existing users for replacement parts for aircraft with foreseeable life spans of up to, say, 30 years. A fair amount of maintenance of such aircraft demands replacement of certain parts which have exceeded their design lifespan.
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Deccelerando!
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I had recently mentioned the similar Oregon case below:
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/traffic-light-crusader-fined-for-doing-math-without-a-license/
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Note the knob on the touchscreen in a world where saving a dollar per vehicle is a huge thing:
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Charged by their village with scavenging food, the boys took the bats home where they were cooked and eaten. There was no way of knowing that the creatures were infected with a pathogen that kills 50 per cent of the people it infects.
Between December 2013 and June 2016, nearly 30,000 people were infected and 11,000 killed across West Africa. Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea were hardest hit.
Even today the grim legacy of the epidemic lives on. Sporadic outbreaks have occurred ever since – and experts now believe it is lingering in an unlikely source: the testicles of male survivors.
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Thank God we still have some free speech platforms such as x.com rumble.com and theepochtimes.com .
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Without the letter (that it appears neither the Post, nor Harvard will release), we are a bit lacking in context, but this sounds odd on Harvard’s part.
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Nature, owned by the same German company as “Scientific” “American”, endorses “Degrowth”, “Degrowth can work — here’s how science can help”.
Researchers in ecological economics call for a different approach — degrowth. Wealthy economies should abandon growth of gross domestic product (GDP) as a goal, scale down destructive and unnecessary forms of production to reduce energy and material use, and focus economic activity around securing human needs and well-being. This approach, which has gained traction in recent years, can enable rapid decarbonization and stop ecological breakdown while improving social outcomes. It frees up energy and materials for low- and middle-income countries in which growth might still be needed for development. Degrowth is a purposeful strategy to stabilize economies and achieve social and ecological goals, unlike recession, which is chaotic and socially destabilizing and occurs when growth-dependent economies fail to grow.
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Reduce less-necessary production. This means scaling down destructive sectors such as fossil fuels, mass-produced meat and dairy, fast fashion, advertising, cars and aviation, including private jets. At the same time, there is a need to end the planned obsolescence of products, lengthen their lifespans and reduce the purchasing power of the rich.
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Reduce working time. This could be achieved by lowering the retirement age, encouraging part-time working or adopting a four-day working week. These measures would lower carbon emissions and free people to engage in care and other welfare-improving activities. They would also stabilize employment as less-necessary production declines.
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Governments that issue their own currency can use this power to finance social and ecological objectives. This approach was used to bail out banks after the global financial crisis of 2007–8 and to pay for furlough schemes and hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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The experiences of countries that have had to adapt to low-growth conditions — such as Cuba after the fall of the Soviet Union, and Japan — also hold lessons.
Indeed!
Addressing the question of how to prosper without growth will require a massive mobilization of researchers in all disciplines, including open-minded economists, social and political scientists, modellers and statisticians. Research on degrowth and ecological economics needs more funding, to increase capacity to address necessary questions. And the agenda needs attention and debate in major economic, environmental and climate forums, such as the United Nations conferences.
So, achieving “degrowth” will require growth—in spending on the “science” promoting it!
A March 2022 editorial in this journal argued that it is time to move beyond a ‘limits to growth’ versus ‘green growth’ debate. We agree. In our view, the question is no longer whether growth will run into limits, but rather how we can enable societies to prosper without growth, to ensure a just and ecological future. Let’s pave the way.
So, this is not some crackpot op-ed: this is the Voice of Establishment Science condemning those who pay its bills to constrained, shrinking, poorer, less free lives—forever.
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Lead author:
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Hey! Give the German owners credit! They are trying to speak truth to power. 
One wonders what the reaction to this kind of propaganda would be if the owners of “Nature” were Russians or Chinese instead of mere Germans?
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