Völkerversteher. Physiker und Ingenieur mit Interesse an Philosophie und Literatur. Bergmensch. Wie ist die Welt, wie soll sie sein? Hier nur privat.
Hinterm Mond, der blaue Planet
Joined February 2019
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Das ist zwar nicht die beste aller möglichen Welten, aber dafür die Teuerste. Das ist doch auch was.
Frei nach Woody Allen
Alex Karp (CEO, Palantir) on his way to turn the "art of war" (as he calls the meat grinder) into a product for "allied countries".
No matter where you stand on Ukraine, you'd have to recognize this is extremely problematic.
Not even 3 months ago this guy was Ukraine's Minister of Defence, meaning in charge of weapons procurement, including from Palantir - the company whose CEO is now the lead investor in his new private venture.
That alone should raise eyebrows, and not in a small way...
But also think about it from a European taxpayer's standpoint.
EU taxpayers have given literally hundreds of billions to Ukraine's war effort, much of it spent buying American defense technology - including from Palantir.
And now the expertise that spending generated is being privatized by those same Americans, and will likely be sold back to Europeans as a product.
There is a common talking point in Europe that goes "sure we're spending an eyewatering amount of money to support Ukraine but it's also an investment in European strategic autonomy - Ukraine's battlefield innovations will feed Europe's future defense capacity."
I'm not making it up, that's a real argument made by serious people, for instance the German Council on Foreign Relations (dgap.org/en/research/publica…): "The defense-industrial integration of Ukrainian innovation with European production and funding capacity bears huge potential for Europe’s collective security. Increased cooperation would give the EU and Ukraine greater autonomy from the US."
This deal illustrates perfectly just how wrong that argument is turning out to be. The first major privatization of Ukraine's defense expertise is... an American-owned startup.
Lastly there is the Palantir angle, a company so problematic that many, if not most, major European countries - such as France, the Netherlands, Switzerland and even Germany - are actively cutting ties with it, citing threats to data sovereignty and national security.
And yet somehow the man who ran Ukraine's defense with Europe's money - the single most expensive investment Europe made in several generations - is delivering the fruits of that investment to Palantir's CEO in a private deal.
Make it make sense 🤷
So, long story short, this is yet another chapter in what is becoming Europe's defining story: being the incompetent sucker in the room.
f. s. montanus retweeted
Wenn ich höre “nicht einhalten des Standards", drängt sich bei mir die Frage auf: Ist mit „Standard“ ein Qualitätskriterium oder eine Ideologie "unserer Demokratie" gemeint?
Ich vermute eher letzteres.
( Ich arbeite übrigens auch für Russland )
f. s. montanus retweeted
Opinions have caused more ills than the plague or earthquakes on this little globe of ours.
f. s. montanus retweeted
"Kennst Du das Land, wo die Kanonen blühn? Du kennst es nicht? Du wirst es kennenlernen!"
youtu.be/r2I9FQNFzDA
From the Book of Double Standards:
A genocide isn't a genocide if we, the good ones, feel that the killing is legitimate based on our world view. Of course, the bad ones don't have this freedom of interpretation. The bad ones are always genocidal, even if they aren't.
Ausgerechnet die, die anderen gerne Verschwörungstheorien vorwerfen, haben selbst Verschwörungstheorien.
Die AfD von Kandidat Ulrich Siegmund gilt als besonders russlandfreundlich. Sollte er Ministerpräsident werden, könnte Putin Zugang zu hochsensiblen Staatsinformationen bekommen. Erste Hinweise gibt es schon jetzt. spiegel.de/politik/deutschla…
f. s. montanus retweeted
AI companies are buying large volumes of used, rare, and out-of-print books, scanning them for training data, and in many cases destroying the physical copies afterward.
This practice has accelerated as labs seek high-quality, pre-2022 human-written text free of AI-generated content that now saturates much of the open web.
The most documented example is Anthropic’s internal effort known as Project Panama. Court filings from copyright litigation revealed that the company acquired millions of physical books from used-book sellers and wholesalers such as Better World Books. Workers used hydraulic cutting machines to slice off the spines, fed the loose pages into industrial high-speed scanners, and then discarded or pulped the remains. An internal planning document described the goal as an effort to destructively scan books at massive scale. A federal judge later ruled that purchasing the books, creating internal digital copies this way, and destroying the originals constituted transformative fair use under U.S. copyright law, relying in part on the first-sale doctrine.
Similar activity is now widespread. Specialized brokers, including ISBNdb, openly market bulk acquisition services to AI labs, offering orders ranging from thousands to as many as one million titles. They emphasize older printed books as “structurally clean” training data.
Booksellers in the United States and Europe have reported sudden surges in bulk orders for mixed, random selections that include rare and out-of-print volumes. Some of these titles may represent among the last readily available physical copies. While a substantial portion of the books involved would otherwise have been remaindered, recycled, or sent to landfills, the inclusion of uncommon editions has drawn criticism from archivists, collectors, and rare-book dealers who note that gentler, non-destructive scanning methods exist yet are slower and more expensive.
The process remains largely quiet because the intermediary services promise anonymity to their AI clients. Public attention has grown mainly through litigation disclosures and reporting by outlets that examined the court records and interviewed booksellers.
The practice highlights a practical tension in large-scale AI development: the demand for vast quantities of reliable human text collides with the finite physical supply of older printed works and the cultural value of preserving rare copies.
f. s. montanus retweeted
＃白骨が今なお告発し続ける日本軍国主義による対中国侵略戦争の罪悪。中国東北部には、旧日本軍による虐殺と強制労働犠牲者が埋められる「万人坑」が、今も60カ所以上残されている。撫順・平頂山では、わずか3時間のうちに約3000人が虐殺された。必死に這い出ようとした人々、わが子を庇おうと覆いかぶさった母親、布団にくるまれたまま焼かれた生後間もない乳児等々、見るに耐えない惨状。遼源炭鉱で命を奪われた中国人炭鉱労働者の平均年齢は、わずか30歳だった。旧日本軍が14年間にわたり1500万トン以上の石炭を奪い去った後、この地に残されたのは、10万人もの炭鉱労働者の累々たる遺骨だった。白骨は声を発しないが、その一つ一つが決して消すことのできない歴史の真実を語り続けている。
f. s. montanus retweeted
🔥Frank Zappa was decades ahead of his time. He said this in 1981:
"Schools train people to be ignorant. They give you the equipment that you need to be a functional ignoramus."
"They prepare you to be a usable victim for a military industrial complex that needs manpower."
"As long as you're just smart enough to do a job, and just dumb enough to swallow what they feed you, you're going to be alright."
"Schools mechanically and very specifically try and breed out any hint of creative thought in the kids that are coming up."
f. s. montanus retweeted
#Israel must immediately release Palestinian Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya and all the health & care workers arbitrarily detained: UN experts. The practice of medicine is not a crime.
ohchr.org/en/press-releases/…
f. s. montanus retweeted
*Danger to the life of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya. Please share as much as possible!*
New information received from Adv. Nasser Odeh, the attorney for Dr. Abu Safiya, Director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, who visited Dr. Abu Safiya at the "Rakefet" underground detention facility at Nitzan Prison, indicates a severe deterioration in his condition, to the point of an immediate threat to his life. Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) and his attorney are demanding his immediate transfer from the facility and an urgent visit by a judge to assess his condition firsthand—before it is too late.
Following new information received from a visit conducted by Adv. Nasser Odeh on July 2nd at the "Rakefet" facility in Nitzan Prison:
According to Adv. Odeh's affidavit, Dr. Abu Safiya arrived at the visit handcuffed and shackled, accompanied by masked prison guards. Fresh and severe injuries were visible on his head, around his eyes, on his ears, and on his neck, to the extent that his attorney had difficulty recognizing him. During the visit, Dr. Abu Safiya struggled to breathe and speak continuously; he appeared extremely weak, had difficulty sitting without falling over, and on several occasions leaned backward in a manner that raised concerns that he was about to lose consciousness. According to Adv. Odeh, he appeared terrified and in severe distress, and struggled to express himself for fear of retaliation. It is the attorney's direct and immediate impression that Dr. Abu Safiya is in immediate danger of death.
Dr. Abu Safiya told his attorney that shortly after the hearing (on June 10, 2026) regarding his appeal to the Supreme Court against the extension of his detention order, while he was held in isolation at Ganot Prison, four or five prison guards entered his cell and beat him all over his body, according to him with a hammer and batons. He added that since his transfer on June 24, 2026, to the "Rakefet" facility, he has been subjected to violence and beatings on a daily basis, and has lost consciousness several times, all without receiving adequate medical treatment. He told his attorney that he fears for his life, stating: "This is the last time you will see me... They brought me here to kill me. I am not imagining it. I see it. This is the end."
Following the visit, Adv. Odeh urgently contacted the Israel Prison Service (IPS) demanding an end to the abuse of Dr. Abu Safiya, his immediate transfer to another detention facility, and that he be granted urgent medical examination and treatment due to the real concern for his life.
Furthermore, Physicians for Human Rights has urgently appealed to the Attorney General, the Chair of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, the Chair of the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, the National Public Defender, and the Commissioner of the Israel Prison Service, demanding an immediate visit to Dr. Abu Safiya by an official entity outside the IPS, and to allow him an independent medical examination, due to the serious concern for his life.
Despite the High Court of Justice ruling this June against his release, Physicians for Human Rights reiterates its demand to release Dr. Abu Safiya and all other doctors held without charges or trial.
It should be noted that the "Rakefet" facility is an underground interrogation and detention facility at Nitzan Prison, regarding which severe testimonies and allegations of violence and abuse against detainees have been published in the past.
Physicians for Human Rights Israel warns that given Dr. Abu Safiya's health condition and the information provided by his attorney, any delay in intervention could put his life in real danger.
*Danger to life.*
*He must be removed from there! Today.*
(Translation from Hebrew by Gemini)
f. s. montanus retweeted
Some people can't be fooled the second time. Some people can be fooled 40 times in a row.
"Pressefreiheit ist kein Privileg, das der Staat gewährt. Sie ist ein Schutzschild gegen Machtmissbrauch und für einen freien gesellschaftlichen Diskurs. Wer daran rüttelt, rüttelt an den Fundamenten der Demokratie"
@MaikeGosch
nachdenkseiten.de/?p=144717
f. s. montanus retweeted
Als ich im Frühjahr 2023 meinen Vortrag über die Kognitive Kriegsführung der NATO hielt, war nicht absehbar, wie sehr die Kriegsgefahr in Europa zunehmen würde.
Heute ist klar, dass die Kognitive Kriegsführung die Bevölkerungen gespalten hat, die Friedensbewegung geschwächt und dass es daher möglich ist, die Aufrüstung und einen neuen, großen Krieg in Europa immer weiter voranzutreiben.
Was es jetzt braucht ist ein Verständnis der Mechanismen der Kriegspropaganda und einen entschlossenen, gemeinsamen und lauten Wunsch nach Frieden.
Den gesamten Vortrag gibt es auf meinem YouTube-Kanal: youtu.be/QUDWr6HV3bg
f. s. montanus retweeted
"Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable."
-@banksy
Irony at its peak: hiding art that speaks against silencing voices.
f. s. montanus retweeted
Heute wird Dieter #Hallervorden 90 Jahre alt. Alles Gute, lieber Herr Hallervorden. Und danke für Ihre Kunst und Ihren Mut! Zuletzt haben Sie es sich nicht einfach gemacht und Finger in manche Wunde gelegt. Sie hätten es einfacher haben können. Aber sie wählten die Konfrontation, die so viele Menschen im Lande nicht suchen, obwohl sie es dringend mal müssten.
Bleiben Sie uns noch lange erhalten!
overton-magazin.de/hintergru…
