Author: Mark Alexander

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On Radical Optimism and Defiant Hope

From MockPaperScissors:

This thread from Joan Westenberg on Mastodon is worth sharing, and so like the Bad Blogger that I am, I've copied and pasted it here because I know you lazy bastids would never click on a link.

It reflects where I think a lot of us are and gives us a path forward to understand why we are still trugging up Mount Doom like Hobbitses on what seems like a futile quest.

"The world is on fire – sometimes literally, sometimes metaphorically. Every day we wake up to headlines that feel like dystopian plot points: climate collapse, political rot, algorithmic overlords harvesting our attention for profit."

"Beneath it all is a threadbare undercurrent of hopelessness, whispered through every doom-scroll, every "thoughts and prayers," every vague assurance that "we'll get through it together." But the truth is, we're not getting through it. Not like this."

"The systems propping up our collective reality are broken, corrupt, and incapable of saving us. So what now? Well, now we stop pretending that the kind of optimism we've been sold – cheery, blind faith in progress – is going to cut it."

"What we need is a radical, rebellious, fuck you optimism. The kind that spits in the face of despair and keeps moving forward anyway, middle finger raised and teeth bared."

"This isn't the optimism of motivational posters or shallow self-help mantras. It's not about good vibes or manifesting your dream house. It's an optimism born from rage and defiance, from an unrelenting refusal to roll over and accept the inevitable."

"It's the kind of optimism that comes with dirty hands and bruised knuckles, that drags itself out of the mud again and again because surrender isn't an option. This is hope with teeth."

"It's not about trusting that things will get better; it's about refusing to let the bastards win, even if things get worse. It's a kind of hope that doesn't wait for permission or assurance."

"It acts, it disrupts, it fights tooth and nail to carve out a sliver of something better, even if it's only for a moment."

"A fuck you optimism doesn't lie to itself. It sees the train wreck coming and still decides to plant flowers on the tracks. It knows full well that the flowers might get crushed, but plants them anyway, because the act of rebellion is its own reward."

"This isn't about optimism as a coping mechanism or a moral virtue. It's a survival tactic. When despair and nihilism seem like the only logical responses to an unraveling world, this kind of hope keeps us alive, keeps us sharp, keeps us dangerous."

"It says, "Yes, everything is broken, but I'm going to fight for beauty and joy and justice anyway, because fuck your inevitability."

"We need this kind of radical hope now more than ever. Not because it will save us – no one is coming to save us – but because the alternative is paralysis. The systems want us to feel small, powerless, apathetic."

"They want us to give up, to believe there's no point in fighting back. A fuck you optimism is an act of sabotage against that narrative. It's not about believing the world can be fixed; it's about insisting that the world deserves to be fought for anyway. Even when it hurts."

"Even when it feels futile. Especially then. Because in a collapsing world, defiant hope might be the only thing worth holding on to."

I think every generation gets a defining challenge; the Greatest Generation had World War Two, and we have the rise of fascism here in America. We must have hope or we have nothing.

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Interplanetary Earth

From APOD:

In an interplanetary first, on July 19, 2013 Earth was photographed on the same day from two other worlds of the Solar System, innermost planet Mercury and ringed gas giant Saturn. Pictured on the left, Earth is the pale blue dot just below the rings of Saturn, as captured by the robotic Cassini spacecraft then orbiting the outermost gas giant. On that same day people across planet Earth snapped many of their own pictures of Saturn. On the right, the Earth-Moon system is seen against the dark background of space as captured by the sunward MESSENGER spacecraft, then in Mercury orbit. MESSENGER took its image as part of a search for small natural satellites of Mercury, moons that would be expected to be quite dim. In the MESSENGER image, the brighter Earth and Moon are both overexposed and shine brightly with reflected sunlight. Destined not to return to their home world, both Cassini and MESSENGER have since retired from their missions of Solar System exploration.

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What a Surprise! 🫤

Coca-Cola (and Dixie Cup) pioneered the recycling movement in the 40's to get people to return valuable glass bottles by charging almost half of the cost of the drink in a returnable fee. Nearly everyone returned their bottles; it was a huge success. When they switched to plastic in the 50's it became more profitable to just toss bottles away so they used shell organizations to secretly lobby congress and senates to kill recycling bills while simultaneously creating massive ad campaigns to convince the public that recycling was all the consumer's responsibility. This isn't a conspiracy theory, it's public knowledge that gets drowned out in the noise made by their PR firms.

Last year Coca-Cola was still up to the same environmental villainry. More recycling advertising campaigns and killed bottle-fee bills which have been long proven to massively boost recycling rates but also push the cost of recycling from the consumer onto the manufacturer. That's also detailed in the previous link.

Don't ever make the mistake of thinking that large corporations care about this world or anything in it other than profit. They'll engage in charity as an investment if the campaign offers good return for their brand value and public image, but don't think for a second we can get capitalists to behave ethically through any other means through any other means than forcing them to do it.