This was an actual headline in Die Zeit, one of Germany’s biggest newspapers yesterday. No, I did not fake this screenshot. This is why journalism is going down the drain right now. You look at the website of one of the most influential examples of the corporate news media for an analysis of the US presidential election and their take is “fuck”?

These people are doomed. Not only didn’t they see the most likely outcome of the election coming, an outcome that anyone with half a brain and who was paying attention to the situation on the ground could easily have predicted correctly, they then proudly go around displaying their own ignorance to their readers. They fucked up their analysis because they are so far up their own arse that they don’t understand what actual people experience out there and now they proudly announce this to everyone? That’s like a mechanic being proud about not being able to fix your car. “Yeah, can’t do it. Says here in the manual it’s easy to fix, but fuck it, I guess you were meant to buy a new one anyway.”

What really takes the cake is that they expect me to subscribe and pay for the amazing insight that their editors are morons and don’t know what they are doing. Guys, I wouldn’t read your idiotic articles if you paid me! I’m wasn’t surprised by the election result, because unlike you I’m actually in touch with reality. You should be paying me. I’m apparently a better political analyst than the experts you employ.

No wonder these so-called Leitmedien (“leading media”, as we call these guys in Germany) are losing all trust with the public. The only leading they are doing is to lead their readers off the cliffs of self-delusion to smash their heads on the rocks of madness below.

I called it. A year ago.

By the way: I love all these gaming journalism outlets reporting propaganda straight from Electronic Arts on how The Veilguard is breaking sales and continuos player records on Steam for the company. How stupid do these people think we are? EA hasn’t launched a new game on Steam since they quit the platform in 2011! This is the first proper release on there from them in 13 years. The fact that it is breaking records means nothing at all.

Elden Ring, a game that is now almost three years old, still has half the player count that The Veilguard had at release. And more players are playing Baldur’s Gate 3 right now than are playing Failguard. That is how this game stacks up to its direct competition. EA spent over $250 million on this shit — versus $200 million for Elden Ring and $100 million for Baldur’s Gate 3. Seems to me that From Software and Larian kicked their ass. That’s the real story here.

I’ve been watching Asmongold play Failguard. Jesus Christ, the dialogue is so bad. Very, very bad.

“I’ve seen your work. Like that time you ditched your orders for a better strategy during a darkspawn attack."

(Yes, that’s some actual dialogue from the first half hour of the game. And no, they don’t explain it further. That is meant to single-handedly explain why your character is badass and why Varric trusts you with the fate of the world. Jesus.)

Boy, I’m so glad I didn’t buy this shit.

After being on my literary to do list for decades, I decided to start reading Iain M. Banks' Culture series. These books seem to me to be particularly relevant today, with everyone going on about all this nonsense about AI and what it means for the future of humanity but meanwhile, we don’t even have a clear concept of intelligence, let alone an idea how to actually replicate it artificially. Banks' vision of what actual AI would be like from the ’80s is much more intelligent and coherent than the bullshit the so-called experts of today are cooking up.

Anybody interested in the ethical and moral dilemmas inherent in creating actual thinking machines should probably read these books.

“What does this thing actually look like? I mean you never see them by themselves, they’re always in something … a ship or whatever. And how did it – what did it use to warp with?” “Externally,” Jase said in its usual, calm, measured tones, “it is an ellipsoid. Fields up, it looks like a very small ship. It’s about ten meters long and two and a half in diameter. Internally it’s made up of millions of components, but the most important ones are the thinking and memory parts of the Mind proper; those are what make it so heavy because they’re so dense. It weighs nearly fifteen thousand tons. It is fitted with its own power, of course, and several field generators, any of which could be pressed into service as emergency motors, and indeed are designed with this in mind. Only the outer envelope is constantly in real space, the rest – all the thinking parts, anyway – stay in hyperspace.

— Iain M. Banks, Consider Phlebas (1987)

Huffington Post, 1 July 2024:

New York Times, 13 July 2024:

I can’t think of many headlines that aged quicker and aged worse than that Huffington Post one.

“Objectivity is only possible in a vacuum of emotions. But since nature abhors a vacuum, true objectivity is never achievable for human beings.”

I propose this as Fab’s Law of Journalism.