danni naeil

Month: February 2025

  • Harvesting US agencies for Grok?

    Few have escaped the unconstitutional encroachments of Elon Musk(olini) (professional manchild) into US agencies, with his team of followers (at least 37 people, because the portrayal of the single, man “genius” simply doesn’t exist – they always rely on lots of followers and fixers).

    Ostensibly they’re distmantling agencies (USAID was instituted by the Republican party in the 1990’s by the way) and “saving expenditures” for the sake of saving money and perhaps decreasing the US debt. Personally, I believe the real purpose is, primarily, to harvest as much data on the population as possible, to provide all of it to Muskolinis Grok AI. The scaling laws need more data, and why not harvest secret and non-official data? Without it, AI programs can neither proceed nor progress, and now Grok has an advantage. Whoever wins this war of artificial intelligence wins all of it (it is presumed) and can control the population with extremely sensitive data on virtually every American.

    Secondly, Grok will have the capacity to surveil and weed out uncomfortable and inconvenient employees in the federal bureaucracy. If necessary, they’ll fire more people and bring in loyalists and sycophants to fill the vacant places.

    As Ezra Klein put it: “Congress is a place where you can lose. […] Trump is acting like a king, because he’s too weak to govern like a president.” So, expect no resistance from the weak Republicans in Congress. And this is what happens to democracy and bureaucracy when “entrepreneurs” think they can play government.

    From now on, I’ll follow the Canadian motto “Buy Canadian”, though in the way of “Do not buy American whenever you can avoid it.”

  • And so it begins

    It’s time fot the big finale: the writing of the master’s thesis!

    Last year I tried to get a scholarship for data collection abroad. Unfortunately I didn’t, mainly because I study political science and not STEM (albeit, if I may say so myself, I study STS – science and technology studies).

    Many attempts were made to contact organizations and academics in Canada. After a while I managed to receive replies from people whom I could interview about mining, Indigenous peoples, land rights and critical minerals. After a video meeting with one person, I decided to pay for the journey to Canada myself.

    Why travel from Sweden to Canada just to interview a few people on these topics? I’ve been wanting to do it for several years. Besides, I didn’t want to read and write. I wanted more than that.

    The same week our course officially started, I traveled to Canada. Thus I could spend time there and get acquainted with the literature necessary for the literary review.

    Partly it felt weird and almost unjustified. I did get much information indeed, about the situation in Canada (and Sweden, since two of them had visited Sweden and written about Fennoscandia), but only during the last interview did we touch on a feasible topics I could write about: resistance to mines in previous mining-friendly municipalities.

  • A visit to Brussels

    A visit to Brussels

    In October our class went to Belgium with the purpose of visiting the European Week of Regions and Cities 2024 during our course on the European Union. We lived in Mechelen, a nice city north of Brussels. EURegionsWeek spans four days. Representatives from regions and cities from all over the EU, as well as academics and lobbyists, gather in Brussels to listen to workshops and panels on various themes, such as youth and democracy, energy and climate, digitisation and artificial intelligence.

    Each of us choose one or two themes, which could align with the assignment. Mine were AI and energy. My assignment focused on the implementation of the AI Act in a Swedish municipality’s social service.

    The most interesting panel discussion focused on the European semiconductor industry, with barely ten attendants, while the most boring panel discussion focused on a members personal interest in climate change (with a personal speech which gave no clue about her actual work for the organization she represented).

    To travel with the teachers was nice. They knew Brussels and EURegionsWeek well. We drank some Belgian beer (goeze) and wandered the streets of Brussels.

  • Restricted aid to Ukraine

    Restricted aid to Ukraine

    I planned to write this text regarding USA, Ukraine, Russia, Israel, Iran, North Korea, China and Trump a month ago, but didn’t have the time.

    Between the US presidential election and the inauguration of Donald Trump, many pundits and military analysts had hopeful discussions on how Trump could help Ukraine more than the Biden administration. I really couldn’t see this. I know the Biden administration has done wonder for Ukraine, and faltered, stammered and didn’t do enough for Ukraine “to win” (whatever that actually means). One of the main reasons, from my perspective, is ammunition constraints.

    Israel attacked Gaza and was on the verge of attacking Libanon and Iran after the 7th of October 2023. The Biden administration did all they could to restrain the Israeli government from a regional war. Simultaneously Biden warned China that the US would fight a war for Taiwan, with an ever-present Chinese military in the Taiwan Straight, while North Korea and Iran helped Russia against Ukraine.

    I believe Biden was afraid of regional wars in Europa, the Middle East and Asia, first and foremost because wars are bad. He had realized how bad they were before becoming president and was, thus, cautious. Secondly, the US can’t support its own military against China, Israel against Iran and its allies, and Ukraine against Russia. It simply doesn’t have the ammunition to do so. The war between Russia and Ukraine proved to the Americans how quickly ammunition is depleted. Javelins and Stingers were used in numbers they US couldn’t rebuild in many years, and that was a “small” war. Fighting one to three regional wars at the same time would have forced the US to choose which war to actually fight.

    There might’ve been several, to me unbeknownst, reasons for the Biden administration to restrain its support of Ukraine, but this is the most obvious one I can think of.

    Regarding Trump I didn’t for a second believe he was going to support Ukraine as much as Biden. The man has no comprehension of geopolitics whatsoever. He doesn’t understand politics, political power and power relations at all. He believes strong men should haggle, not negotiate. Biden stood back and let allies and his own secretaries and directors take place during his years as president. Trump has yes-sayers shouting and haggling as if they’re on some sort of parody of a Medieval market.

    Trump will pivot in any way he sees fit, because he can’t focus on any issue too long. One minute he’ll affront Russia, the next the European Union, and after that Ukraine. He’ll treat Ukraine like some American granary, attempting to haggle, while not understanding what haggling territory means for Ukraine and Russia.

    He has already ruined relations in the Middle East with the preposterous idea on Gaza, his relations with Canada and Mexico. Now he’ll ruin the relations ever further with the EU (he doesn’t understand how the EU works, therefore despising it) as well as with Ukraine. The result might be what Emanuel Macron has wanted for eight years: a stronger Europe (and a weaker US). At the same time, Russia and China will grow stronger, as will India and Brazil. Meanwhile, the Trump administration will continue to erode its power and power relations globally.