Yeah. One of the things that limits how high atmospheric O2 levels can get is that, above the percentage in the Jurassic (I read as high as 26%), everything just bursts into flame all the time, and you draw the level back down that way. You can’t make meter-scale dragonflies and big dinosaurs with the O2 level we have today (21%; I don’t think you can...), but the O2 level where it is possible apparently just couldn’t last that long, and was geologically only a transient. So with the accumulation of wealth and power. There’s so much that needs to be done that accumulated wealth and power would be very useful to have to do it, not squander it as is being done now. But I guess the system has its own dynamics.
Another characterization for predators then being saprophytes of moribund institutional and social forms. What was it Nietzche said? If you stare too long into Marketing&Legal, Marketing&Legal stares back into you? Eric > On Sep 3, 2026, at 23:50, glen <[email protected]> wrote: > > I'd like to back up a bit to "predators" and what/who that refers to. > Stephen's slop points at companies (Amazon, Meta, etc.). But Applebaum (only > inferring from EricS' post) seems to be pointing at the humans ... what? ... > *driving* those corporations? Is "driving" the right word ... One need not > know how a car works in order to drive it. Maybe *motivating* those > corporations? Bezos did such a good job instilling a demiurge, could Amazon > be anything other than what it is? Microsoft seems to struggle. Gates had > some agonistics with Allen, Ballmer, et al. Jobs and Wozniak are different > enough ... How different are Karp and Thiel? And what demigod lies at the > heart of Palantir? > > Anyway, it reminds me of the Daniel Quinn novel with Takers and Leavers. And > I recently ran across an anti-immigrant rant referring to Givers and Takers > (immigrants are Takers and good 'ole boys are Givers in this framing). I > worry about rampant false dichotomies. As much as I loathe Bezoses/Amazons of > the world, I can't help but wonder if that's not part and parcel of any built > environment? > > I mean, I reallyreally wanted to move to a real city when Renee' got her MS. > Seattle counts, San Francisco, New York, ... Dublin! for cryin' out loud. We > coulda moved to Dublin. But my appreciation for cities may be a kind of > predictive nostalgia. Cities objectively suck ... the filth ... the primitive > predation of muggers or gang members. But they're also gorgeous examples of > scaffolding. Hell, we don't even have a good place to recycle/reuse old > laptops here in Olympia. Even a smallish city like Portland has Free Geek. > Rural people just toss 'em in the landfill, I guess. > > And to mix all my metaphors, I am enthralled by the idea that the existence > of an apex predator in the wild benefits their local domain. I got these 2 > emails yesterday: > > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fisal.groups.io%2fg%2fannounce%2fmessage%2f1131%2c&c=E,1,TPEpMcVl0tjlMSAOnRJlAQcEOaxpyRukwf_wvFu_CWlw2diIdWB99yPH5qE6P01Ot9x_MDRiJAbpjMQzIxQJ6Q0fZJZwhCxpqYMbv5D4hqyQ78EOvVeJ&typo=1 > and > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fmailchi.mp%2funicornriot%2fstory-recap-aug-12-sept-1-26%3fe%3d1d001189d3&c=E,1,cgAUu3u5mJzbH2G4imL960by8M0XVBkYEPpPsGTbfrs_ucBTkeYDkC0En5c0NAWiZpUpwLtRsJVkd7R7odM5IWdBv6Abz3oCw4Mg1o_g3oV03mk,&typo=1 > > "Complex Anarchism", "Far-Right" flourishing in Queens, ... Don't our > predators do something *for* us? I'm not talking about the ability to order > Q-Tips and have them at your doorstep within minutes. There's something else > they do for us not merely in spite of their psychopathy but *because* of it? > Maybe w.r.t. CAFO, to what extent can we really appreciate artisanal meat if > our DEI programs ensure that half of our meat is artisanal? I see so many > people wearing Bikini Kill or Sex Pistols t-shirts and I can't help but think > something's been lost, maybe akin to the loss of conservatism's referent. I > say, let the conservatives have the academy. We'll see what happens to them > when they have to actually *do the work*. > > > On 9/3/26 4:04 AM, Santafe wrote: >> Scary how that reminds me of the Rio Grande corridor down to Albuquerque. >> Maybe in winter, or under forest fire smoke. Was that part of the design >> prompt? >> But very useful, Stephen; thank you. >> It’s funny; I wasn’t actually thinking about data cows, though that is very >> available here, and the written part below is really quite a great summary. >> I have continued to wrestle with a certain specific set of assertions, which >> to me were totalizing. Not only data, but the whole pro-natalism program, >> the Amazon driver-eye-tracking surveillance, and on and on. Total >> possession and disposal of what formerly were called people. >> The assertion is one that I first got from Arendt, and probably mentioned >> here. She distinguishes between party fascism and movement fascism, and >> says there was something very important that (somebody; in the day (?)) had >> failed to grasp: that the Parties wanted to control the government, while >> the Movements wanted to destroy the government. Parties and Movements are >> two categories for her, which she doesn’t ever “define”, but just starts >> referring to and kind of fills in by context. As if those were current >> terms among the readership she had in mind. >> Snyder, in some recent essaying, has been making not-the-same point, but one >> using the same assertion: that what people are not getting is that the >> destruction by the MAGA Honchos isn’t incidental to some other point; that >> it is itself the point. And that the cabal who envision a Really Different >> Future are conscious and deliberate about this. They imagine that they see >> something that will make their power sufficient to whatever it is they want, >> and the destruction of the “country” as a place that hosts “citizens” and >> all those related concepts, is explicitly a step to get there. >> I have no way to know if this language is always in the air for historians, >> or if Snyder inherits it as a point from Arendt or others who preceded him. >> So I don’t know if I should take these as independently formed insights, or >> repetitions of one same thing. >> But he wasn’t using that language a few months ago, the way he is now >> regularly. More memes running through the discourse. >> Eric >>> On Sep 3, 2026, at 10:19, Stephen Guerin <[email protected]> >>> wrote: >>> >>> woah, Eric S, love the CAFO metaphor - I had to look up the acronym for >>> Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (feedlots) >>> >>> it gave me a better visual for the cloud companies and their data centers. >>> My AI Slop rendering: >>> >>> <cafo.jpg> >>> >>> My AI Slop Summary: >>> >>> In the CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation) metaphor, human users >>> cease to be sovereign agents and are reduced to captive "data cows," >>> grazing on algorithmically synthetic feed while centralized data centers >>> function as industrial feedlots engineered for continuous behavioral and >>> biological extraction. Rather than enabling autonomous movement across an >>> open, peer-to-peer digital commons, each cloud titan fences off human >>> activity within proprietary pens to harvest high-yield telemetry, >>> attention, and cognitive labor. Within these computational complexes, every >>> interaction is quantified, concentrated, and processed into predictive >>> models or metered rents, stripping the human commons into an industrialized >>> resource base where escape is foreclosed by deliberate technical friction, >>> network lock-in, and legal enclosures. >>> >>> Across the industrial landscape, each major cloud operator runs a >>> specialized processing line within its data center infrastructure: *Meta* >>> operates the affective agitation feedlot, where engagement algorithms >>> provoke emotional volatility to extract behavioral surplus for >>> hyper-targeted advertising; *Google* runs the zero-click information >>> corral, ingesting global search intent, ambient Android location, and video >>> dwell times to process human curiosity into programmatic auctions; *Amazon* >>> manages a dual-sided marketplace pen and logistics abattoir, using >>> fulfillment monopsonies, platform ad-tolls, and AWS compute meters to >>> squeeze both sellers and consumers; *Microsoft* maintains the white-collar >>> corporate pen, capturing workplace enterprise telemetry through mandatory >>> OS, identity (Entra ID), and Copilot subscriptions; *Apple* runs the gilded >>> luxury paddock, using hardware sandboxing, ecosystem tethers, and App Store >>> tolls to extract recurring rents under the banner of security; *OpenAI* and >>> *Anthropic* operate the high-density cognitive rendering plants, scraping >>> the digital intellectual commons to digest human language into proprietary >>> token-inference engines; *Epic Systems* encloses clinical healthcare into >>> administrative vaults, processing patient biometrics and doctor workflows >>> into un-exportable electronic silos; *Esri* runs the spatial registry pen, >>> turning public geography, civil infrastructure, and hazard response into >>> metered proprietary service credits; *Adobe* and *Autodesk* manage >>> specialized creative and architectural cages, locking design files behind >>> perpetual cloud subscriptions; while *Oracle* and *Broadcom* serve as the >>> corporate extraction facilities, leveraging audit threats, architectural >>> dependency, and sudden 300% to 1,000% hypervisor rate hikes to strip-mine >>> trapped enterprise IT departments. >>> >>> >>> _________________________________________________________________ >>> Stephen Guerin >>> CEO, Founder >>> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fsimtable.com&c=E,1,hghd3pz5rxy1OH3hPr95LXdjig5L8jY1efuGHa8WUzfVFSba7ADUbExw17XgdXuo1OGsW1mENPvCCvF6PBPSGV7CWWz-M1tlBbJWP0GM2e45oKlUIVIgMw,,&typo=1 >>> >>> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fsimtable.com&c=E,1,aser_-Ofcf43lLHEFgZbSdpW8uTE_2deEFrWduPoDxU6AyEkjbUJ0f3qrEWZSTFbJJPb5CpE3DGik9o4RQ5Fd5goK-9ojgcjFz-eryMEQmwNLe1v&typo=1> >>> [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> >>> >>> [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> >>> Visualization Research and Teaching Lab >>> <https://hwpi.harvard.edu/eps-visualization-research-laboratory/home> >>> Harvard Earth and Planetary Science >>> Landscape Architecture >>> <https://www.gsd.harvard.edu/2025/02/landscape-architecture-students-explore-pioneering-climate-visualization-techniques-to-inform-design/> >>> Harvard Graduate School of Design >>> >>> mobile: (505)577-5828 >>> >>> >>> On Tue, Sep 1, 2026 at 6:48 PM Santafe <[email protected] >>> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: >>> >>> >>> I noticed, somewhere else, too, that Anne Applebaum has now started to >>> use the term “predators” explicitly to refer to the various oligarchs and >>> the relatively small and connected band of people trying to end the society >>> and turn it into a *CAFO*. It has been about time for that term to be one >>> of the standards for a while too. Not just in the generic term “predatory >>> capitalism”, which is also correct in some ways but has been both >>> long-enough used, and rhetorically over-used enough, to have become >>> semantically bleached. Applebaum’s use is more specific and meant to draw >>> a role distinction in a place and a time. The predator group are the thing >>> that will still be here when trump is gone, and that is what the world both >>> knows and needs to come up with some plan to deal with, if there is a path >>> to be found through this that isn’t pretty miserable. >>> > -- > 8647 ⊥ ɐןןǝdoɹ ǝ uǝןƃ > ὅτε oi μὲν ἄλλοι κύνες τοὺς ἐχϑροὺς δάκνουσιν, ἐγὰ δὲ τοὺς φίλους, ἵνα σώσω. > > > .- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / ... > --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam&c=E,1,UjygRej_W5Z_4rKCNtgq8uip0eSprcHc3A5K5hztzyM6YMbLkTSh8Gmj8bm7pUhJpHxKFrpNKtRW2xXDkHm4c8e1AHm2ogqfZXrcmg-GvxrZ9iWN9qk_AIU,&typo=1 > to (un)subscribe > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com&c=E,1,4C4WqZYkiYS49gQftMYQH3WyxBFGstfpIf6qGg3JYuDd0NpCq9PEZexJTp92p9eXnAtY62GpQWafsQhLJ0oQadYVWFhIjuyzmoeleWrx&typo=1 > FRIAM-COMIC > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f&c=E,1,Ga2SSsSVIYrzqTfzWodpxDSIJqWyoO_C2Q7DJcGtdcGrbOW5HqYBrbchNDuyGk8NPCWHCgXuCK5LebN53cDr6T3sYHq1GxqGc246IX57eTLtsjo,&typo=1 > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f&c=E,1,TrFtmjr_phcL3moN2IO4LdpLKuF9sIo_Fef0UXucdV0pmPqG7HhWOCwL_tVZMnyyO3S17lFEDE1tNKvY0lARQrkUPptN8YDKbVlDO3xT79w,&typo=1 > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ .- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. 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