We’re nine days into 2025, and it’s already full of exhausting levels of controversy before we’ve even had a turnover in power in my home country of the United States. We’ve seen resignations of world leaders, wars continuing and getting worse and worse (you know where), the owner of Twitter continuing his tirade of lunacy and demonstrating why the billionaire class is not to be revered, California ablaze with a horrendous and large wildfire, right wing thinktanks developing plans to out and attack Wikipedia editors as any fascist-friendly organization would do, Meta rolling out and rolling back GenAI profiles on its platforms, and, just yesterday, the same Meta announcing sweeping changes to its moderation policies that, in a charitable reading, encourage hate-based harassment and abuse of vulnerable populations, promotion and support for disinformation, and other problems, all of which are so profound that people are talking about a mass exodus from the platform to…somewhere. It’s that last thing that brings me back to the blog today. Since the takeover at Twitter, social networks have been in a state of chaos. Platforms have risen and fallen — or only risen so much — and nothing I would call stability has formed. Years ago, I (and many others far more popular than me) remarked that we’ve ceded the territory of self-owned or small-scale third party spaces for massive third party platforms where we have minimal to no control or say and which can be stripped away in a tech-scale heartbeat. By putting all our ducks into a bin of unstable chaos, we’re also expending our time and energy on something that won’t last, requiring us to expend more time and energy finding alternatives, rebuilding communities, and then repeating the process again. In the present environment, that’s impossible to ignore.1 This is all rather reductive, but this post is not the place to talk about all the ways that social networks have impacted control over our own spaces and narratives. Another time, perhaps. I similarly don’t have space to talk about the fact that some of the platforms we currently have, however functional they may be, have placed many of us in a moral quagmire, as in the case of Meta’s recent moderation changes. Another time… ↩
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Oooo 🙂 I will so be there & can't wait. Although, I keep wondering how they will pull the story line together for the 2nd Captain – Kirk that is. Will they reference Captain Archer from Enterprise since that was the last TV series? I figure everything will pull together … but until then … It's Space & Beyond 🙂
I dig the look of Spock, but I am not very excited about this movie. I don’t like Chris Pine, and Eric Bana spouting that line “the wait is over” is just too lame to inspire excitement in me for this movie. As far as the CG goes, in the trailer it was noticeable, and that robot guard at the beginning just looked awful. At first I thought I was watching a television commercial, then I realized this was the trailer for the new Star Trek. Also, I never saw Kirk as an angst ridden, “I know I have a greater destiny than this” kind of guy, but rather I will reach the stars and do what I want, consequences be damned. Sure, there is a sense of greater destiny in that version too, but more of one that is owed and accepted that it will happen, there is no doubt. Kirk is a cocky dude who has sex with alien chicks and leads every away team. There is no room for doubt or reflection in his character, especially in his earlier years. I will probably watch this movie, but I do not think that it will be all that spectacular, and definitely not the best of the Trek series. Nothing will ever be able to touch “The Wrath of Khan” not even the Voyage (or was it journey?) Home, which is the one most non-hardcore Trek fans (of which I belong to, I was always more of a Star Wars kinds guy, but I can appreciate the Trek) say is the best.
Neeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrddddddddd.