Cool. Thanks for that info.

I hope. Maybe Euro, maybe PRC’s renminbi. We’ll see.

I just wondered, give how US dollars is world’s ‘reserve currency’ (since 1944 Bretton Woods pact), how its crash might affect the whole of global trade (it must hurt more than failure of a national currency like Zimbabwe’s since it is a reserve currency and has a special role in the world). Will we get another reserve currency or has the world economy changed so much that we will get a new way of doing business with no reserve currency or multiple competing reserve currencies? I think we are in uncharted territory so its hard to predict…

“If anyone says they’re a libertarian, I just shrug and leave.” - Atlas In His Own Words

Drum roll, ting on the cymbal! Lol!

I think it would be easier to just get WW3 over with and see how the dust settles!

I switched to Linux on my laptops years ago. Recently, I retired and started playing video games like Skyrim. I play on a Nintendo Switch. I considered playing Skyrim on a laptop so I could use/build mods. I bought a laptop with Windows 11 and spent forty minutes removing the bloat, ads, spyware, ai nonsense, and other dross, fixing it so it did not ‘update’ to restore everything I deleted, and installing my preferred alternatives (browser, search, email etc). It reminded me why I hate Windows almost as much as Mac OS (which is even more controlling). Microsoft have hundreds of engineers ‘enshitifying’ everything. It is more than a full-time job trying to stop them and block their ‘improvements’. I am retired. I have better things to do.

I did not enjoy playing games with a laptop (hurts my arthritis, I prefer using a console and an easy chair) and resented having to reverse engineer everything I installed to keep it running but without sacrificing my privacy so the laptop now just sits in a drawer. It amazes me that anyone still tolerates Microsoft products, or any of the monopolists stuff. Why is anyone still using google search or chrome browser, why bing or any of it? Why is anyone still seeing adverts? Why is everyone still being fed by algorithms? You must chose this - but why? I always sought out better and if it did not exist, I built it, and if I could not build it, I did without. There is a lot of dumbing-down around technology. Back in C20th, we used to build our own hardware, write our own software. We were skilled hobbyists (later I got an M.Sc. to reinforce my hobby skills with theory and even ran a business for a while as an engineer). Around 2000 +/- five years, the monopolists offered ‘help’ in the form of WYSIWYG editors to write code for us or ‘click buttons to register your account’ platforms to host content for us instead of us running our own websites (blogger, wordpress, facebook, twitter etc). They dumbed us all down, farmed us like animals for data and used clickbait to get ad revenue and undermined our politics, culture, even changed our sense of being human. Now old folk can build resources but younger people can only consume. We have to re-skill and resist the seduction of the easy and free-to-use. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Never trust a tech bro, whether USA or any nationality.

Personally, I want to ‘jail break’ my Switch and make mods for my console version of Skyrim. I can’t do that now as it is illegal but when they bring out the Switch 2 and the old console is ‘obsolete’ and they stop trying to get money for Skyrim, I reckon we tinkerers will get a chance to re-purpose the old console to play the old games in our own way. I reckon some exciting engineering is happening amongst the recyclers and re-purposers rather than amongst the corporates. I only buy second-hand for ethical reasons and to save money. I always install my own software based on AOSP or use a more ethical distro or alternative to the commercial options. I always debloat or degoogle or remove unwanted stuff. I wish that kind of personalisation were more common. There is a zero sum relationship with tech: either the technology controls you, or you control it. I urge you to control your own tech. Don’t be enslaved by it. I feel I am in a minority in wanting sovereignty over my damn phone. It makes me sad.

The problem is the dollar. While international trade is in US dollars, US can dominate global economy. But Trump is trashing dollar and promoting crypto. How long will the dollar remain default currency? I think when dollar loses its value, USA economy will crash harder than any crash in history. Wheelbarrows of dollars will not buy matches. Will another traditional currency replace the dollar or is dollar’s fall a sign that the old system no longer works for any currency. How does economics function after money fails? Are we all going to have to use crypto? How does that work? I hope some expert in economics has worked out a plan. I doubt they have though, this is all unchartered territory.

This is a worry for me. I opened an ebay.co.uk account in 2004. You had to pay for purchases via Paypal. I had all sorts of problems using Paypal and customer care was lousy. I started looking into Paypal and decided it was unethical. I opted out. Ever since, I have been looking for more ethical financial services. When I cannot find them, I just do without stuff.

Right now, I have allegedly ethical bank accounts with Co-Op Bank (UK), Smile Bank (UK) and Triodos (EU). I have a savings account with a community-run credit union (UK) and a prepaid debit card account through my trade union for online purchases (UK). This is good enough for UK-based activity. But I often need to send money abroad e.g. to charities in other countries or to support podcasts or creatives based abroad. I am asked to fund via USA resources like Patreon and I refuse. I want an ethical alternative.

I want to see each nation (or groups like the EU) create its own local resources and make them compatible with other nations via some exchange service that guarantees secure, quick, ethical transactions. I am glad EU is starting to do this, it is decades overdue. I guess UK will drag itself forward eventually but only after we get a government able to live in the here and now instead of the C20th like Starmer does - I suspect he has not had a new idea since 1995. He’s younger than me but his mental processes make him seem like my grandfather. Oh, for some young people in government!

P.S. Hello, Media Storm, UK prize-winning investigative journalism podcast. You are great but I cannot fund you as you use oligarch-owned Patreon and communicate only via oligarch-run Instagram or gmail - if you read this, set up some UK-based, ethical comms or funding account and I will set up a monthly subscription. I will email you about this using mediastormpodcast(at)gmail.com but I resent it.

I play Skyrim. In that rpg video game you can be an assassin. After you kill Grelod the Kind, a child abuser, one of the children she tortured says:

“Kill one person, and you can solve so many problems. I wonder at the possibilities.” - Runa Fair-Shield.

When does assassination become an acceptable political strategy? I can see how bumping off many crazy men (and right now I can only name male dictators but I guess women could be just as bad) would make the world safer - well, safer if we assume it would not trigger a backlash and WW3.

Maybe we could assassinate Kim and North Korea would rejoice not set off nukes? Maybe we could assassinate MbS and the Saudis would just shrug and appoint a new Crown Prince with a less murderous tendancy towards journalists and dissidents? But could we assassinate Putin, Trump, Xi, or Modi and not release hell?

If I had a red button to press and it would remove Putin, Trump, Musk, Thiel, Hamas, Netanyahu, or other bad guys, should I press the button? What do you think?

Note: this is a thought experiment - outside Skyrim, I never killed anyone, never worked as an assassin for hire, and have no desire to change that fact. I just want to read your thoughts on this topic - I think we’ve all wondered if there is a shortcut back to normality in face of current events but are we fooling ourselves?

Cheers friend! My hope lies in the decency of most people - yes, we are told that humans will readily do evil e.g. will hurt others if ordered to do so by an authority figure in a white coat (a classic experiment I vaguely recall from somewhere). But what gets missed is that there are always some people who refuse the first time, and if those who get fooled once realise what happened they are harder to fool a second time, which means we humans are fallible but we tend to fail towards becoming older, wiser. In brief, we can learn to do better. That is our strength. That’s how we survive.

And so he lives in a rented room in the Drunken Huntsman - one room with annoying flatmates (cummon, who d’you think hires the Dark Brotherhood to bump off Anoriath if not Nazeem or his missus? - she’s a healer, could poison both of the brothers if she wanted, so that leaves Nazeem as suspect numero uno) and a resentful spouse who is not shy about telling the world her opinion of him. The guy has to have giant shoulders to carry that burdon, no wonder he’s struggling.

Big, open country and very few people - perfect! I live in a city centre flat (appartment). I guess that explains my misanthropy, if it needs explaining ;-)

And when he comes out the other end, put him in a jar, and send him to Maeven Blackbriar? ‘Try this vintage brew, Madam. Signed Friends of Christophe.’ Couldn’t happen to a more deserving guy (or gal - but don’t let me go on about Maeven or I’ll be here all day, grr!)

‘When they show you who they are, believe them the first time.’ Trust your instincts!

AI does this with MLM. I rest my case.

I tried learning Japanese and struggled for exactly the reasons you describe so clearly. I felt I might manage to learn if I were living in Japan and picking up the contextual clues but I could not learn Japanese effectively from a textbook. Visiting Japan is high on my wish list, maybe one day.

That occurred to me too - I am old and can recall how we used to communicate and we were much more likely to give people time and hear them out than now. I am British and we now typically speak faster than we used to, youngest generation gobbles so fast I find what they say incomprehensible except for the expletives, and our accents have changed - standardised around Americanised, Londonised, British generic. There used to be strong regional accents, even separate dialects that had survived for centuries, but now these have effectively gone extinct and if I use a dialect word no one under fifty knows what it means. I find that rather sad. As for writing, this too is abbreviated and simplified e.g. using emojis instead of trying to describe complex emotions. I see this as a top-down change driven by technology and monetisation of social lives - it promotes brief attention spans, rapid turn-over of thought/feeling, quickly onto next topic, see another ad, move on, repeat, no leisure to reflect or second-guess or share a process with others. I find it debases public culture, encourages divisions and intolerance, and promotes political extremism (mainly of the Right since the Far-Right approves instinctive action over rational choices - ‘move fast, break stuff’ as does predatory capitalism - ‘don’t think, just buy!’). Everything is ‘hot takes’, empty slogans, and algorithm-led scripted reactivity.

I am not surprised that there is a global loss of literacy and language comprehension skills - in China, reliance on mobile technology means using predictive speech-to-text (Chinese language cannot be written effectively with keyboards) or voice control with the result that even university-educated Chinese now struggle to read or write less common words e.g. ‘brassicas’ rather than ‘cabbages’. Take away phones and/or censor the use of this technology e.g. ban some vocabulary so it cannot be communicated in writing, spoken to others via technology, or be used to control technology, and Chinese citizens will soon be unable to communicate or think independently.

To avoid dystopian futures, I think we will have to take responsibility to reclaim these skills and/or resist the change by being ‘old fashioned’ especially when using new technology like AI or when online. Like I am now - writing a lot instead of a few hot words and expecting others to donate time and bother to read me. This kind of communication is either reactionary or revolutionary now, radical Right or radical Left. This kind of English is the luddite sabotage of the C21st. I want to use this kind of slow language to promote Leftist politics. Bring back the verbose! Bring back slow time! Save humanity! I guess I am in a minority on this but I always have been all my life so I shrug and continue. In practical terms, I ration my exposure to fast language and spend a lot of time reading paper books or listening to archive audio from C20th where the language is slower and at a pace that supports meaningful conversation (even if it is just imagined dialogue between the reader or listener and the author or speakers). Thank you for reading this far (if you did).

I taught myself Mandarin and found it quite do-able, especially reading it whereas speaking it is harder. Then I tried learning Japanese and gave up. I think you need to know more about Japanese culture and the unspoken meanings to really get the hang of it and use it correctly/politely. All I now can remember of Japanese is ‘maramoto’ (? spelling) which means ‘cute little thing’ and is Japanese for ‘guinea pig’ and ‘chrissimassy cakeo’ which, you’ll never guess, is Japanese for ‘Christmas cake’! I try to imagine myself visiting Japan and trying out my language skills - walking into a hotel and talking to reception by improvising with my only vocabulary - ‘Maramoto, (greeting with a polite bow). Chrissymassy cakeo? (pronounced with accompanying hand gestures so as to convey ‘do you have a room with view of the sea and en suite?’)’ I imagine being politely but firmly shown the door! Ha!

You make good points. I sincerely hope you succeed. I admire Sanders and AOC - wish we had similar figures here in UK politics, we had Corbyn but he was destroyed by the rightwing of his party and now we have Starmer who is at best Centre-Right. I think Starmer is clueless and unwittingly preparing the way for a coup in UK like the one in US. We are just a few years behind you unless we find a miracle. I am more pessimistic than you because I think this Trumpian coup cannot be stopped by legal means now that Trump views himself as above all law and thinks his executive orders amount to regal degrees from an absolute monarch. I cannot imagine Trump being impeached, tried, deposed in USA’s current situation and I expect it to get much, much worse because Trump is serious about dismantling American democracy and has no respect for human rights and wants to wage imperialist wars and open access to the new economic zone in the ice-free Arctic. Would he even allow another election or accept any result he dislikes? Will Dems not be soon made an illegal group or labelled a terrorist organisation - like the people vandalising Tesla cars? The window of opportunity to stop him is closing very, very fast.

Given that what amounts to fascism or some similar tyranny not yet defined by academia already controls USA, what can ordinary citizens do? I think they have to recognise the old way is gone - no more calling police to report a crime, or expecting rights of employees to be respected, or getting insurance to cover healthcare, or having enforcible consumer rights, no free education, no civic freedoms or human rights, no social security in sickness or old age. Society, for the poor, those unable to emigrate, will be effectively lawless, have no safety nets, few outside resources to rely on, no state provision. Trump is trying to replace dollar with crypto currency. People might not even have access to cash economy but be reduced to barter. When ‘might is right’, the only way to protect your life, your loved ones, your neighbours and community, will be by organising yourself and improvising at the local level (and building ties with other similar organisations). Thus a kind of practical de facto anarchism - not read from a textbook and led by theory but built by trial and error from scratch from the ground up. I feel insane saying this about USA. It sounds more like an HBO or video game scenario! If Trump objects to such communities, they will either be disappeared by police or military or dragged into violent conflict with police or military. Eventually, it scales up and we have civil war or organised armed resistance and/or terrorism against Trump’s regime. Who wins that armed struggle, who else gets involved, will it lead to WW3, is beyond my guess. I cannot imagine what 2050 will be like for anywhere on earth, least of all USA. And by then, I’ll probably be dead of old age and never know.

I base this sketch of post-democracy USA on seeing what happens in improvised communities e.g. refugee camps etc. Yes, UN or MSF or other NGOs and charities do some professional organisation, send in some outside help/rations/transport/water/electricity, but the main work of surviving is on the refugees themselves. They do what they can, improvise schools, childcare, community kitchens, latrines, form orderly queues, ensure fair shares, stop crime, stop black markets, or help one another tolerate what they cannot control. USA has better infrastructure than a city of tents in Sudan or wherever but the principle remains - when a state fails, the people have to build from the ground up. Either that, or some opportunists hijack their fears, hunger, desperation, ambition, and recruit them into some cause not necessarily their own e.g. organised crime, religious fanaticism, terrorism, armed struggle in a civil war or maybe a revolution - give me your son to fight my cause and I’ll give you rice, give me your daughter for my brothel and she’ll send you a cut of the earnings so you can buy medicine, sell me your kidney and I’ll smuggle you to a new country where you’ll be safe. When society falls apart, there is chaos, and then there are new rules. The future is created by those who make those new rules.

I hope it will not come to this ‘worst case’ scenario. I hope there is a way to avoid this. But if it comes to it, I think leadership will emerge in the moment, from the community. It will not helicopter in from Washington or the state capital. The political parties will not organise food or medicine or dig graves. They are not designed to do that. Boy scouts, school football teams, college students, religious congregations, and random community groups would be more organised, integrated into the community, and potentially provide more timely, practical help. I would hope Leftists would be useful too but too many of us just talk, we don’t do the work. There is some hope in that community preparedness - we can be our own leaders, make our own society, fix our problems good enough to get by. Humans have that built in. We have been doing this for millions of years and we all default to human and we can build on that and protect the human against the inhumane. I have to believe that. I have to believe most people are good and do right by one another given a chance. I believe good is better than evil and can win in any struggle, given time, hard work, and some luck. I don’t want to be wrong about that. I think your hope in saving the democratic system by heroic efforts now, and my hope of surviving a failed system through heroic efforts in future, is based on this same belief in human decency and human beings’ sheer determination to survive. We are allies, I think.

I’m old. I write essays. Youngsters write snippets for social media. Apologies for my verbosity!