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Maybe I'm European
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For the first time since 2019, I was in the United States. I didn't write to you while I was traveling, I didn't open my computer except for once. I didn't write, I just soaked up the input. And boy oh boy was it entirely too much input. My brain feels squashed inside my head from the amount of life I experienced in the last couple of weeks. The drama, the intrigue, the Christian fundamentalism and the hedonism too. I'm just waiting for it all to process.
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“My body is my brain bag, it hauls me around to those places and in front of faces where there’s something to say or see.” Carrie Fisher
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One thing that was processed quickly enough is that despite my continued citizenship, I am no longer an American. I've long suspected this, but after three years of not having been in the States, the degree of culture shock was more than overwhelming. It's the individualism of the place that is so interesting. Each person, each family unit, each group of friends are the only people that exist on the planet. You can see it in the way Americans drive – every car owns the road. It's evident in rural communal places, they even still use Styrofoam. Naturally, this is all a generalisation and there are sanity bastions. You might say that even I could find home somewhere in the vastness of the USA. The thing is, though, I never did. And this visit made me feel like I never would.
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I'm home now and need some recovery, some routine.
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Maybe I'm Pentaverate
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I spent an hour or two this week becoming a climate scientist on your behalf. It's been hellish in Europe this summer, and I wanted to write something to you about how I'm suffering from a water-issue frequency illusion. That isn't interesting anymore though because I went on an internet adventure.
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Someone told me the other day that the hot, hot, hot temperatures probably had to do with the way jet streams are changing. Curiosity took hold, and sure enough, there's some science to back that up. But I didn't come to it immediately. Instead I observed someone who seems to have manipulated his h-index, but is also maybe right about some climate stuff. I learned that the Director-General of the EU Joint Research Centre (JRC) hasn't had a meeting since November 2021, and I'm a little concerned about his well being. I found that the EU could really use some help with their technology and usability. I wondered why someone who gave a talk on "AI for Good" is publishing PDFs about essential climate information instead of fucking webpages. I considered focusing some of my energy on that because it's the second time in two days that I've been appalled by EU Commission websites. Instead I took a turn into conspiracy theory world as I continued to try and verify the whole "jet stream changes are responsible for the heatwave" thing.
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The conspiracy theory websites were ugly as sin and obviously (to me) not written with any sort of scientific rigour. People believe this nonsense though, and I ponder my responsibility to change anyone's mind. We are brain bags of cognitive bias, and fighting disinformation means not fighting disinformation. It's strange that the best way to change minds is to ignore the BS and just tell accurate stories. Fighting only gets people to dig their feet in. It seems that we have no choice but to ignore the utterly ridiculous and just continue to do the work, even if the world is outright terrifying at the moment.
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Maybe I need help?
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I've not had loads of energy since I've returned, and I find myself struggling to write. This newsletter took far longer than it should have. I've not managed to be productive this week. But, hey, it's summertime here and in Europe that means everyone else is MIA anyway. How about you? What's up?
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