Malazan Empire: Gust Hubb - Viewing Profile - Malazan Empire

Happy New Year all (Pacific Standard Time). Haven't written here for a while, though I still drift through. No new year resolutions this year except to survive. I am surprised where we have come in the last 40 odd years I have lived. Compared to the 80s, this world has proven itself not just crazy but batshit insane (but only because I am finally learning the way things really are). And I don't know whether to be optimistic or pessimistic or both. In 2000, there was hoopla about the Y2K bug crashing everything and the silly themed glasses finally had two side by side 0s for eyeholes. In 2012, the big thing was the Mayan apocalypse and debates as to whether it meant the world changing into something new or just flat out ending. But this year, I think we are going to see some shit.

I think the Palestinian genocide is finally going to mobilize the general western world public to truly fight the current Western powers-that-be. I know that for me, watching time this genocide in real-time on the social media platforms and learning history I had never known (e.g. USS Liberty 1967), is changing my life course. Late to the party, but trying to be active.

I wonder how AI is going to surface in the coming year, especially since I suspect a fully aware AI exists and is likely already out in the interwebs. And even if not, I feel like for good or for bad, new challenges have been completely unlocked by having this new computational and analytical technology. I already am seeing it impacting my career dramatically.

I think this year could be the year something finally pushes the climate over the edge, like the AMOC (Atlantic meridional overturning circulation) fully collapsing. It's hard to tell how much out there is catastrophizing and how much is understated.

And obviously, as an American, I think that this very well could be the last year of the USA. I do think T rump will get fully convicted (beyond what is already sticking to him) and maybe even thrown off enough state ballots to truly bar him from the election. And likewise, I don't think Biden stands a chance after what he has done in the Palestinian genocide. It is likely America will limp along if both these old farts are removed from the ballot and newer candidates are thrown into the mix, but this isn't even acknowledging the deeper rot in the Congress, Supreme Court, and state governments (not to mention all other levels of the American government) nor acknowledging the deep rifts in the populace itself.

Has everyone forgot about the aliens btw? I mean wtf....

All told, here is to riding the wave of 2024 and hoping not to fall in and drown. I appreciate this forum greatly, even if I rarely pop up. Good luck out there and happy new year.