Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝙲. 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚗

@charlescmann.bsky.social

6.3K followers 280 following 3K posts

Author of "1491, "1493," and, most recently, "The Wizard and the Prophet." Working, inefficiently, on another book. The background image is pretty old by now, but I like the pig. The avatar photo is only a couple years old, though, so that's something.

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝙲. 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚗 @charlescmann.bsky.social · May 1

My thanks to the New Atlantis, letting me do this series on "How the System Works," and for removing the paywall today. It's maddening how little attention our society--and our political leaders, who take cues from us--pay to the systems that have made things better for so many billions.

How the System Works

A series on the hidden mechanisms that support modern life — and what happens if we don’t maintain them

www.thenewatlantis.com

1 13 38

Reposted by 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝙲. 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚗

Boston Tom Levenson @tomlevenson.bsky.social · 19h

Two things of note in today's announcement of the 2025 Nobel physics prize (besides the work being honored).

1: The US institutional dominance of the prize continues.
2: 2 of the three laureates are immigrants, drawn here decades ago by the then-unmatched opportunities for science here...

1/

Nobel Prize in Physics Is Awarded for Work in Quantum Mechanics

www.nytimes.com

5 35 91

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝙲. 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚗 @charlescmann.bsky.social · 1d

It's widely believed that all or almost all of the 31 soldiers who died (25 immediately, plus 6 later who died of their wounds) were killed by friendly fire from troops' Hotchkiss guns. I don't know if the autopsies were published, though.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝙲. 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚗 @charlescmann.bsky.social · 1d

Hegseth says that the Wounded Knee soldiers' "place in history is settled." Well, that's true.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝙲. 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚗 @charlescmann.bsky.social · 1d

Just saw this from Hegseth. Wild that he's going there. Even Teddy Roosevelt, no cringing pacifist, called Wounded Knee a "massacre ... [native women], children, unarmed Indians, and armed Indians who had surrendered were killed, sometimes cold-bloodedly and with circumstances of marked brutality."

Tweet from Pete Hegseth: "Under my direction, the soldiers who fought at the Battle of Wounded Knee will keep their medals. This decision is final. Their place in history is settled." Which, the last bit, kinda true.

Snippet from Aida Donald's Lion in the White House. Quote is from Roosevelt's defense of the military in the Philippines. He says "nothing had occurred as bad as ... the massacre... at Wounded Knee." At Wounded Knee, Roosevelt recalled, "squaws, children, unarmed Indians, and armed Indians who had surrendered were killed, sometimes cold-bloodedly, and with circumstances of marked brutality."

2 6 25

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝙲. 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚗 @charlescmann.bsky.social · 2d

Don't know if this counts, but my wife and I had our socks knocked off by One Battle After Another. Both cartoonish and chilling in a way that somehow seemed like exactly the right tone for the moment. A bit weird to single this out, but there's an incredible car chase scene toward the end.

1 3

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝙲. 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚗 @charlescmann.bsky.social · 2d

A lovely tribute from an editor to a writer, in this case the amazing Texas true-crime writer Skip Hollandsworth, who has what sounds like a terrific book coming out on the 14th.

Behind the Scenes With a True Crime Legend

You should meet Skip Hollandsworth. No, really.

www.texasmonthly.com

1 8

Reposted by 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝙲. 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚗

John Vaillant @johnvaillant.bsky.social · 2d

www.optimistdaily.com/2025/09/mexi...

Mexico’s jaguar numbers rise: conservation sparks a 30 percent increase | The Optimist Daily

Mexico’s jaguar population has grown by 30 percent in 15 years, thanks to community-led conservation. Here’s how they’re protecting the big cat’s future.

www.optimistdaily.com

1 35 170

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝙲. 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚗 @charlescmann.bsky.social · 2d

Speaking of books that probably would not be published today, I came across this gem from 1961. Weird to think that the 1962 Tall Timbers conference just one yr later marked the beginning of the end of this way of thinking.

Book cover of Charles S Cowan's "The Enemy Is Fire!" shows a photograph of a forest fire, with the title in red in a black band up top. The word "Fire!" is in black lettering on a red shape that looks like flames. The design is god-awful, but that's kind of beside the point.

Reposted by 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝙲. 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚗

#BruceSterling @bruces.bsky.social · 2d

"Creative writer"? Trump hates you and wants you replaced with slop

9 23

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝙲. 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚗 @charlescmann.bsky.social · 2d

So at the university football game I sat next to a cheerful student from Japan who was telling me how much she liked the "colorful traditional costumes" and the "old folk music" and asking about the "dances," and I realized she was talking about the marching band and that she was, well, spot-on.

2 16 67

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝙲. 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚗 @charlescmann.bsky.social · 5d

The US gov't shutdown has affected PubMed, a vital piece of our health infrastructure--it's the online library in which doctors and biomedical scientists look up research. The effects of the shutdown on PubMed seem likely to be transient, but it's not good that we're messing with this stuff.

Notice on PubMed website:

Notice

Because of a lapse in government funding, the information on this website may not be up to date, transactions submitted via the website may not be processed, and the agency may not be able to respond to inquiries until appropriations are enacted. The NIH Clinical Center (the research hospital of NIH) is open. For more details about its operating status, please visit cc.nih.gov. Updates regarding government operating status and resumption of normal operations can be found at opm.gov.

1 12 30

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝙲. 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚗 @charlescmann.bsky.social · 5d

But most tech startups, no matter how big, eventually fail. Jawbone, Convoy, Theranos, OliveAI, WeWork, Webvan, Pets.com, Broadcast.com... there's a long list of giant collapses. Amazon and Facebook are exceptions. Uber may become one--but last year it lost $17B, so it's not out of the woods yet.

1 1

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝙲. 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚗 @charlescmann.bsky.social · 5d

Kind of the argument in the article. Note, too, that the vast majority of those users are free. If I read this correctly, these guys are saying that just 5M of ChatGPT's 700M users pay for the service--0.71%, if I did the math correctly.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT to hit 700 million weekly users, up 4x from last year

The milestone follows a $8.3 billion raise from top investors, including Dragoneer Investment Group, Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital.

www.cnbc.com

1 1

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝙲. 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚗 @charlescmann.bsky.social · 5d

@dkthomp.bsky.social: "Total AI capital expenditures in the U.S. are projected to exceed $500 billion in 2026 and 2027—roughly the annual GDP of Singapore. But the WSJournal has reported that American consumers spend only $12 billion a year on AI services. That’s roughly the GDP of Somalia."

This Is How the AI Bubble Will Pop

The artificial intelligence boom is the most important economic story in the world. But the numbers just don't add up.

www.derekthompson.org

2 4 13

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝙲. 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚗 @charlescmann.bsky.social · 6d

A good thing is that, at least for now, the summer outbreak has passed and overall infections seem to be declining. Thank goodness--the Stratus and Nimbus variants are, just like you say, super-contagious. www.cdc.gov/cfa-modeling...

Map of infections from CDC shows "COVID-19 infections are growing or likely growing in 1 state, declining or likely declining in 36 states, and not changing in 10 states." The one state that is likely growing is Arizona.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝙲. 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚗 @charlescmann.bsky.social · 6d

Just one deadpan zinger after another. Excellent stuff.

Excerpt from article:

After receiving a security clearance, Ketchum was told that EA 2277 was 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate, or BZ—a pharmaceutical, intended as an ulcer therapy, that was rejected after tests found it unsuitable. Infinitesimal amounts could send people into total mental disorder. BZ is an anticholinergic, similar to atropine or scopolamine, which are used in medicine today. At high doses, such drugs trigger delirium—a dreamlike insanity usually forgotten after it subsides. Sim, one of the first doctors to try BZ, later proclaimed that it “zonked” him for three days. “I kept falling down,” he said. “The people at the lab assigned someone to follow me around with a mattress.”

One night, Ketchum was observing soldiers on BZ when Sim wandered into the ward. “What are you doing here?” Sim asked. From the waist down, he was wearing only underwear.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝙲. 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚗 @charlescmann.bsky.social · 6d

This morning I diverted myself from thinking about the completely crazy things our government is doing today by reading about a crazy thing our government did in the past--testing delirium-causing drugs on hundreds of unsuspecting soldiers. A terrific 2012 piece from @raffiwriter.bsky.social.

Operation Delirium

Decades after a risky Cold War experiment, a scientist lives with secrets.

www.newyorker.com

1 2 17

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝙲. 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚗 @charlescmann.bsky.social · 6d

A pal sent me this, along with his excited announcement that he's planning to open a movie theater that will show movies he's downloaded with BitTorrent but the film studios can choose to opt out if they want by filling out a form each time he shows one of their products.

Exclusive | OpenAI’s New Sora Video Generator to Require Copyright Holders to Opt Out

Executives at the company notified talent agencies and studios over the last week.

www.wsj.com

1 10 42

Reposted by 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝙲. 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚗

Sarah Taber @sarahtaber.bsky.social · 7d

US farmers are saying they "just need temporary help, until things get better."

Here's the thing. US farm exports- which are mostly soy- CANNOT get better.

Other countries expanded their soy industries to fill China's demand.

We've walled ourselves out of the global market, folks. This is it.

1K 5.4K 20K

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝙲. 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚗 @charlescmann.bsky.social · 7d

Maybe something changed? I just looked, and the image in your first post is not blocked or warned about on my feed.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝙲. 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚗 @charlescmann.bsky.social · 7d

No, it's not kind. "Swamp" is a wonderful book. And @mikegrunwald.bsky.social is a fine writer -- I'll give a plug for his new book on food.

I'm glad you thought to mention it, because maybe that way "Swamp" will get some more readers.

1 1

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝙲. 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚗 @charlescmann.bsky.social · 7d

I should say the book's big villain is the Bureau of Land Management. But it's such a commodious work that the Army Corps sections would be an entire book in anyone else's hands.

Cadillac Desert is one of those books that makes me think, "Oh, if I could ever write something as good as this..."

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝙲. 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚗 @charlescmann.bsky.social · 7d

This might be the place to say that if you want to read a comprehensive indictment of the Army Corps' ecological sins you should turn to Marc Resiner's classic "Cadillac Desert." Revised edition from 1993--still an incredible, thoroughly reported, passionately written book.

Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, Revised Edition

The American West and Its Disappearing Water, Revised Edition

bookshop.org

2 4 20

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝙲. 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚗 @charlescmann.bsky.social · 7d

I had to laugh at the idea of kneecapping the Army Corps. I wonder if anyone at DoD will tell Hegseth that knocking back the Army Corps--chiefly responsible for building dams--has been a big goal of the green movement for decades?

2 1 15

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝙲. 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚗 @charlescmann.bsky.social · 7d

Hegseth just said he doesn't want flabby people in the military. He's gonna fire anyone who can't, like, do a zillion pushups. There goes the Army Corps of Engineers!

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 7d

Hegseth: "It all starts with physical fitness and appearance. If the secretary of war can do regular hard PT, so can every member of our joint force. Frankly, it's tiring to look out at combat formations and see fat troops. Likewise, it's completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals."

5 5 26