We're Toast 28

This post is a collection of links that support my increasingly strong feeling that the human race (or at least our technological civilization) is doomed. It is part of an ongoing series of posts.

Fallen trees

The End of Roe Will Spark a Digital Civil War. "New privacy and expression laws that vary state to state will be a nightmare for platforms, and for users’ rights."

The Hunt for Big Hail. "Hailstones of record size are falling left and right, and hailstorm damage is growing. But there is surprisingly little research to explain why."

Reality is Trolling You: The Farcical Nightmare of Post-Trump America. "To be an American, picking your way through the debris field of what used to be, at least nominally, a democracy—before Trump and his confederacy of dunces defiled, corrupted, plundered, pimped, sabotaged, and otherwise destabilized it from within—is to live in a nation permanently on edge, a nation whose nervous system has been short-circuited by post-traumatic stress, a nation that knows it will be retraumatized tomorrow and the day after tomorrow and maybe for every tomorrow to come by the farcical awfulness of just about everything."

Climate Change Is Shaking the Global Economy. IMF and WTO Demand a United Front. "The heads of the International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization on Monday warned about the risk of inaction on climate change and called for broad collective action at a time when threats from extreme weather events are escalating around the world."

Russian official says civilian satellites may be “legitimate” military target. "Russia wasn't happy about Starlink providing broadband in Ukraine after invasion."

The Lancet Commission on lessons for the future from the COVID-19 pandemic. "As of May 31, 2022, there were 6·9 million reported deaths and 17·2 million estimated deaths from COVID-19, as reported by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME; throughout the report, we rely on IHME estimates of infections and deaths; note that the IHME gives an estimated range, and we refer to the mean estimate). This staggering death toll is both a profound tragedy and a massive global failure at multiple levels. Too many governments have failed to adhere to basic norms of institutional rationality and transparency, too many people—often influenced by misinformation—have disrespected and protested against basic public health precautions, and the world's major powers have failed to collaborate to control the pandemic."