Plutopia News Network Sci-Fi Saturday: "Repo Man": A suburban punk named Otto finds himself in pursuit of the inexplicable. "It's all part of a cosmic unconsciousness." youtu.be/3nPEM5d-MtQ?...

From @pluralistic.net.web.brid.gy - Piketty’s insight: social arrangements that last a generation feel eternal, yet vanish fast. From primogeniture to politics, tech, and energy, history shows everything changes. pluralistic.net/2026/02/05/c...

Ken MacLeod joins the Plutopia News Network to explore politics in science fiction—failed systems, rising nationalism, and fractured societies—while reflecting on the hardest part of writing as he finishes his 21st novel: plot. plutopia.io/ken-macleod-...

Plutopia News Network Sci-Fi Saturday: For a break from authoritarian apocalypso, see the full-length "Creature from Galaxy 27,” a 1958 potboiler, a fun terrible film. Alien invasion would feel quaint right now. youtu.be/b36ZW8xOSII?...

Just a reminder that Plutopia News Network is raising money to fund our 2026 podcast expenses. Even a small contribution helps - we want to stay ad-free. gofund.me/d3f9e327f

Adam Roberts discusses his new critical book "Fantasy: A Short History," and what it means to “suspend disbelief” in fantasy and science fiction - on the Plutopia News Network podcast. youtu.be/IwLz41iwvv0?...

Trump says he doesn't have that thing you get that makes you forget the names of diseases... www.nj.com/politics/202...

Re Trump: "Flipping the table over in a poker game rigged in your favor because you resent having to pretend to play the game at all." ~ November Kelly. h/t @pluralistic.net.web.brid.gy

Somehow gun owners don't appear to have realized that the protofascist Trump regime would eventually come for their guns. They seem surprised.

Even some of them get it: “We lost all trust,” one current ICE official said. “I’m not sure I can see how we exist three years from now.” www.nytimes.com/2026/01/26/u...

Plutopia News Network Sci-Fi Saturday: "Bugonia" explores a human version of Colony Collapse Disorder, observed by the strangest set of beekeepers. youtu.be/bd_5HcTujfc?...

Republicans to Smith: you repeatedly went after bad guys and left good guys alone. That's not fair. Bad guys and good guys should get equal treatment.

Today's the birthday of the CIA, started January 22, 1946 as the Central Intelligence Group.

In no sane world should. it be necessary to revive the "silencing Science Tracker." But here we are, and I'm grateful that the @sabincenter.bsky.social and @csldf.org are doing this important work. silencingscience.org

Dave Evans discusses the nature and spread of online misinformation and introduces Does It Square?, an AI-assisted fact-checking tool designed to help users pause, evaluate claims, and ground conversations in shared facts. plutopia.io/dave-evans-d...

Support the Plutopia News Network via our GoFundMe: www.gofundme.com/f/support-pl...

State of the World 2026: Considering slop. #SOTW26 people.well.com/conf/inkwell...

“Putin wasn't all that bad as Russian leaders go historically, but I think he badly mis-\read the state of the world. An 'Iraq Weapons of Mass Destruction' level of self-induced delusion.” - @bruces.bsky.social people.well.com/conf/inkwell...

"When it comes to downscaling climate change, the biggest problem is perhaps that AI/ML algorithms are trained on data that are not representative in a future warmer climate." www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar...

"King Tide is going to come." And flood highways, and who knows where else. www.newscientist.com/article/2510...

I seem to have disappeared. Or lost my poetic disposition, anyway.

Plutopia News Network Sci-Fi Saturday: After Alexander undergoes “The Copenhagen Test,” someone hacks his mind—seeing through his eyes. Disaster for an intelligence analyst… or an opportunity his agency might exploit? youtu.be/cfTcNb104NI?...

The 2026 State of the World discussion featuring Bruce Sterling and Jon Lebkowsky launched today and will continue through January 19. Thrills, spills, chills, shills, peccadillos, armadillos... the faster the world spins, the faster we spin the yarns. tinyurl.com/sotw2026 #sotw26

The 26th annual two-week State of the World conversation launches next Tuesday, January 6th. Join @bruces.bsky.social and I as we dance the apocalypso. I'll post a link when we've launched.

Looking on the bright side - at least Trump stopped invading American cities...

Plutopia News Network Sci-Fi Saturday: Some think "The Great Flood" is all wet, but it's fast-paced action sci-fi with an interesting twisty premise. youtu.be/SYF0MxHVAR0?...

Cory Doctorow discusses his book ENSHITTIFICATION: how platforms lure users with quality, pivot to serving business customers at users’ expense, then squeeze both sides for maximum profit. plutopia.io/cory-doctoro...

Suggest a trend that's manifesting as 2025 ends and 2026 begins. Here's one that's obvious: chatbots are trending, AI is trending, robots are trending!

another robot highlight for 2025: man wearing humanoid mocap suit kicks himself in the balls

Plutopia News Network Sci-Fi Saturday: "Strange Days" is a wild sci-fi thriller set at the dawn of Y2K, and ending with a 12/31/1999 end-of-millennium (Y2K) New Year's Eve celebration as backdrop. Happy New Year, Y2K+26! youtu.be/epJKjZHXzYU?...

Paul Robbins discusses his publication, The Austin Environmental Directory's focus on resilience: backup power during grid failures, clean-energy research, looming water shortages, food security, green cleaning products, and Austin’s environmental organizations. plutopia.io/paul-robbins...

Agree. Sharyn Alfonsi is standing up. People need to stand up with her and for her.

"In a nation run by swine, all pigs are upward-mobile and the rest of us are fucked until we can get our acts together: not necessarily to win, but mainly to keep from losing completely." -Hunter S Thompson

Plutopia News Network Sci-Fi Saturday: First official trailer for Spielberg's "Disclosure Day" dropped this week, and it's looking profoundly weird and compelling. "People have the right to know the truth!" youtu.be/nKIpb7fQaMI?...

So far no drug company has paid me to take any of my prescriptions. I keep waiting. One drug company should be paying me 2000 per month, if there's actually been a 600% reduction in cost.

Taking a sledgehammer to the open Internet: youtu.be/q0hE4EM7RRo?... A whole pile of bad bills...

It's almost time for the annual two week State of the World conversation led by @bruces.bsky.social and yours truly. We'll try not to explode as we survey the damage, which is exceptionally plentiful and weird this year.

When the Washington Post added to its header the slogan "Democracy dies in darkness" in 2017, we took it as a warning. In fact it was a plan.

Cool AI-driven tool to analyze and evaluate claims made in social media posts (or anywhere you browse): doesitsquare.com

Plutopia News Network Sci-Fi Saturday: A bit of Christmas season sci-fi... In "Trancers" a cop from the 23rd century follows a criminal mastermind with psychic powers to December 1985. youtu.be/P84mvtrZemc?...

Trump's criterion for pardons: Is this a crime I might have committed myself? If yes, then I'll grant the pardon.

Move over, ChatGPT!

"Stay woke, keep your eyes open." ~ Lead Belly. www.dailykos.com/stories/2025...

Plutopia News Network Sci-Fi Saturday: "The Day the Earth Caught Fire" (1961): Nuclear tests alter the earth's axis and nutation, causing devastating climate change. Good 8 minute overview at youtu.be/Yj15_3WVE2k?...

We should've celebrated the third birthday of the term "enshittification," coined by Cory Doctorow in November 2022. Still gaining traction. Cory's book was released in October: discuss.privacyguides.net/t/cory-docto...

While American families are expected to pay more for goods this holiday season due to Donald Trump’s tariffs, small-business owners are facing an existential crisis, @annielowrey.bsky.social reports: theatln.tc/LgxsChD9

FIFA created a "peace prize" so they could give it to Trump, honoring a level of corruption much greater than their own. Nominees for next year include Vladimir Putin, Kim Jon Un, Min Aung Hlaing, Nicolás Maduro, and Alexander Lukashenko.

Gary Gach talks about four major branches of Buddhism at Lion's Roar: www.lionsroar.com/dharma-101-t...

Author Bruce Schneier joins the Plutopia podcast to discuss his new book Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship. Schneier frames democracy as an information-processing system that aggregates citizens’ preferences into policy. youtu.be/Ui1eP5cASN0?...

"Dead media — our older computers — were not simply superceded by improvements, but killed off as industrial policy. It’s not enough to create the new for the sake of improvement. The old must be actively annihilated." @bruces.bsky.social here: bruces.medium.com/the-dairy-pr...