Henning Dekant 📎

@quaxquax

Physicist who dabbles in Quantum Computing and AI. The Network is the Computer. Still truer now than ever.

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Henning Dekant 📎@quaxquax· Jun 16

With alt text for the visually impaired.

1967 - Jayne Mansfield is killed when her car runs under the rear end of a tractor trailer. Since then, all trailers have a DOT bar at the rear to keep cars from going under them.
1982 - Seven people die when Tylenol packaging was tampered with. Since then, it takes a PhD, channel locks, and a sharp object to get into a bottle of pills.
1995 - A bombing using a certain kind of fertilizer, solution grade ammonium nitrate, killed 168 people, so the government imposed severe restrictions on the purchase of that fertilizer.
2001 - One person attempts to blow up a plane with a shoe bomb. Since then, all air travelers have to take off their shoes for scanning before being allowed to board.
Since 1968 - 1,516,863 people have died from guns on American soil. Gun violence kills an average of 168 people every two days! Now, the problem apparently can't be solved except with thoughts and prayers.

Henning Dekant 📎@quaxquax· May 28

No doubt racism is the original sin of America's founding, yet it regrettably shows up in many places and there is a global racist and fascist nexus. www.jefferson.edu/news/2024/07...

Dr. Guangzhi Huang, Assistant Professor and Director of Interdisciplinary Studies. Intrigued by foreign studies and interactions between people, humanities researcher Guangzhi Huang, PhD, studies the roots and development of racism in China. He seeks to better understand how it intersects with urbanization, and how Western ideas of whiteness and blackness operate in a non-western context. Learn how Dr. Huang uses his research to undercut the negative stereotypes against Africans in China.

Photo Credit: ©Thomas Jefferson University Photography Services.

Henning Dekant 📎@quaxquax· May 16

An illustration of how Russian nationalists think. This is from an online forum that I monitor to see how alt-right and Russian propaganda and disinfo evolves. It's not just Putin. Europe will have to deter Russia for the foreseeable future.

1st User comment:

Marked as quoted: "he could have won in two weeks"

Response : "Not without nukes. And Xi made very clear that this was a red line for him."

Comment in response from User "SilverDune" who previously self-idetified as Russian:

"He could have done it without nukes. A general mobilisation would have been required and an initial blitzkrieg with an army of 2 million men not 120,000.

But Im guessing he underestimated the level of fuckery going on in Ukraine. Now we have to exterminate 3 generations of Ukrainians because they're too dim to understand they're being used."

Henning Dekant 📎@quaxquax· May 16

Caricature by Thomas Plaßmann published at spiegel.de. Text translates to: "Donnie, keep going! Always stay the same!"

Xi hugs Trump from behind while telling him "Donnie, keep going! Always stay the same!" while in a though bubble sees him driving America off a cliff.

Henning Dekant 📎@quaxquax· May 12

Our current crop of AI does not have any emergent consciousness or genuine self-preservation. When they act badly it is because they've been trained on a text corpus that contains stories of AIs acting this way. www.ndtv.com/feature/why-...

Henning Dekant 📎@quaxquax· May 4

BTW Perplexity takes umbrage with you characterization of the term AI “hallucinations“. So why don’t we let AI agents continue this debate and call it a day?

Perplexity output: “AI hallucination” is a real but imperfect term, and it is not best used as a catch-all for every AI mistake. In the research literature, it usually means an AI-generated output that is presented as factual but is false, misleading, or unsupported by the source material; some authors argue the word is imprecise because it borrows from human perception, while AI errors are better described as confabulation or fabrication.

Henning Dekant 📎@quaxquax· Apr 11

🧪 Native and European honey bees not in competition. phys.org/news/2026-04...

Henning Dekant 📎@quaxquax· Apr 2

With alt text.

Bergquam is one of several right-wing influencers - they tend to prefer to be called content creators - who joined ICE on ride-alongs as the Trump administration directed DHS to inundate select American cities with federal agents. Over the course of 2025 and the early months of 2026, these influencers became part of a feedback loop for Trump's mass deportation operations.
DHS has established its own in-house video creation operation to recruit agents and sell Americans on Trump's mass deportation goals. This is different. These are outside influencers and livestreamers who are not known to have been paid by the federal government. Here, DHS has allowed influencers to join ICE on enforcement operations in the country's interior. That's meant interviews with detainees in the back of DHS vehicles, recording close-ups of arrests as they took place, and visits to ICE facilities - access to operations that federal agents have denied to other media. At the same time, federal agents have often threatened bystanders who record their activities. New, previously unreported details about these influencers' involvement with ICE's operations have surfaced in litigation in recent months and in interviews with TPM, helping to paint a fuller picture of the relationship between the federal agency and these far-right content creators.

Henning Dekant 📎@quaxquax· Mar 24

With alt text.

Beyond the bluster and carnage let's look at the current situation in the war between the U.S. and Israel and Iran. I wrote most of this post before the overnight news that Trump is essentially suing for peace. But all of it still applies. And it comes down to one remarkable dynamic.
Despite the U.S. dominating the skies and almost every other combat domain, Iran has seized and holds the initiative in the war itself, forcing the U.S. to react to it and, in Trump's hands, do so erratically and helplessly. Iran has the strategic initiative, despite constant and incredibly damaging attacks by the United States and Israel. Indeed, getting Iran to stop its primary retaliatory measure - throttling the Strait of Hormuz - now appears to be the main U.S. war aim. In other words, the main goal of the U.S. now is to get Iran to cease its retaliation for the U.S. starting the war in the first place.

Henning Dekant 📎@quaxquax· Mar 19

Donnie boy reduced to adopting the Sergeant Schultz defense: "I knew nothing."

Israel, out of anger for what has taken place in the Middle East, has violently lashed out at a major facility known as South Pars Gas Field in Iran. A relatively small section of the whole has been hit. The United States knew nothing about this particular attack, and the country of Qatar was in no way, shape, or form, involved with it, nor did it have any idea that it was going to happen. Unfortunately, Iran did not know this, or any of the pertinent facts pertaining to the South Pars attack, and unjustifiably and unfairly attacked a portion of Qatar’s LNG Gas facility. NO MORE ATTACKS WILL BE MADE BY ISRAEL pertaining to this extremely important and valuable South Pars Field unless Iran unwisely decides to attack a very innocent, in this case, Qatar - In which instance the United States of America, with or without the help or consent of Israel, will massively blow up the entirety of the South Pars Gas Field at an amount of strength and power that Iran has never seen or witnessed before. I do not want to authorize this level of violence and destruction because of the long term implications that it will have on the future of Iran, but if Qatar’s LNG is again attacked, I will not hesitate to do so. Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP

Henning Dekant 📎@quaxquax· Feb 26

Here’s the screenshot with alt text.

Cuban Embassy in US
@EmbaCubaUS

Note from the Ministry of the Interior:
On the morning of February 25, 2026, a violating speedboat was detected within Cuban territorial waters. The vessel, registered in Florida, United States, with registration number FL7726SH, approached up to 1 nautical mile northeast of the El Pino channel, in Cayo Falcones, Corralillo municipality, Villa Clara province.
When a surface unit of the Border Guard Troops of the Ministry of the Interior, carrying five service members, approached the vessel for identification, the crew of the violating speedboat opened fire on the Cuban personnel, resulting in the injury of the commander of the Cuban vessel.
As a consequence of the confrontation, as of the time of this report, four aggressors on the foreign vessel were killed and six were injured. The injured individuals were evacuated and received medical assistance.
In the face of current challenges, Cuba reaffirms its determination to protect its territorial waters, based on the principle that national defense is a fundamental pillar of the Cuban State in safeguarding its sovereignty and ensuring stability in the region.
Investigations by the competent authorities continue in order to fully clarify the events.

Henning Dekant 📎@quaxquax· Feb 21

Christopher Plummer at peak hotness, as Captain Von Trapp in The Sound of Music, tearing a massive red, white, and black swastika flag in half.

Henning Dekant 📎@quaxquax· Feb 9

The spirit of Anchorage. I can see why they like it.

American Soldiers Kneel for Putin in Alaska as they roll out the red carpet.

Henning Dekant 📎@quaxquax· Jan 30

This guy looks like Wallace’s evil twin in the flesh. Just as stupid but also rotten to the core. I just can’t comprehend how this dolt appeals to so many voters.

Henning Dekant 📎@quaxquax· Jan 26

Yes, I didn't mean to take away from the cultural point. It's just that Russia despite its size is incredibly centralized.

Population Density 3D Map of Russia showing two sharp spikes.

Henning Dekant 📎@quaxquax· Jan 10

Here’s the screenshot from Rick Perlstein’s Nixonland with alt text.

A respected lawyer told an Akron paper, "Frankly, if I'a been faced with the same situation and had a submachine gun... there probably would have been 140 of them dead." People expressed disappointment that the rabble-rousing professors— the gurus— had escaped: "The only mistake they made was not to shoot all the students and then start in on the faculty.'
When it was established that none of the four victims were guardsmen, citizens greeted each other by flashing four fingers in the air ("The score is four / And next time more"). The Kent paper printed pages of letters for weeks, a community purgation: "Hurray! I shout for God and Country, recourse to justice under law, fifes, drums, martial music, parades, ice cream
cones— America — support it or leave it." "Why do they allow these so-called educated punks, who apparently know only how to spell four-lettered words, to run loose on our campuses tearing down and destroying that which good men spent years building up? ... Signed by one who was taught that 'to educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.'" "I extend appreciation and whole-hearted support of the Guard of every state for their fine efforts in protecting citizens like me and our prop-erty." "When is the long-suffering silent majority going to rise up?" It was the advance guard of a national mood. A Gallup poll found 58 percent blamed the Kent students for their own deaths. Only 11 percent blamed the National Guard.
"Anyone who appears on the streets of a city like Kent with long hai dirty clothes, or barefooted deserves to be shot," a Kent resident told researcher.
"Have I your permission to quote that?"
"You sure do. It would have been better if the Guard had shot the whol
lot of them that morning."
"But you had three sons there."
"If they didn't do what the Guards told them, they should have bee:
mowed down."
A letter to Life later that summer read, "It was a valuable object lesson.

Henning Dekant 📎@quaxquax· Jan 10

A good reminder that this American ugliness is nothing new. It was defeated then it can be defeated again. digbysblog.net/2026/01/10/t...

Matt Walsh tweet, blaming the victim for being shot by ICE.

Henning Dekant 📎@quaxquax· Dec 23

With as alt text.

In this article, we first briefly lay out the argument that the reckless pursuit of NATO enlargement caused Putin's war against Ukraine. Second, we revisit the history of NATO enlargement and US-Russia relations after the Cold War, showing that it was one irritant among many in the US-Russian relationship; that Ukraine was not close to joining NATO in 2021 when Putin made the decision for full-scale war; and that Russian fear of NATO was not a major factor in the march to war. Instead, we argue that Putin's imperial beliefs about Ukraine were the most important cause of the war. Putin had long sought to bring Ukraine under Russian political control and made the decision for war at a time when everything else he had tried had failed to achieve this core objective. These deeply held beliefs were compounded by a flawed decision-making process that convinced Putin that it would be easy to overthrow the Ukrainian government and put in place a pro-Russian puppet regime. The 2022 full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, we conclude, was primarily about imperial beliefs, not great power politics.

Henning Dekant 📎@quaxquax· Dec 16

The paragraph after the one in Brian's post is also poignant.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to get closure without this trip And I needed it — I’d left too much in my past life. The therapeutic effect of returning home exceeded all expectations. I realized that I’m fine, and that the hardest phase of emigration is behind me. I’ll live out my remaining years in a foreign country, but free and with a clear conscience. That’s turned out to be the most important thing.

Henning Dekant 📎@quaxquax· Dec 16

With alt text.

But what struck me most wasn’t even that. It was the people. Four years into the war, their eyes no longer light up; hope is gone. Fear has returned. I didn’t meet a single “patriot.” The general feeling is: please let this end, why did we ever start it? No one believes in a better future. Everyone says things will only get worse. And at the same time, they’re afraid to say a word too much — they’re are broken and resigned. There’s no talk of any kind of resistance.

Henning Dekant 📎@quaxquax· Dec 16

Pretty obvious trend. digbysblog.net/2025/12/15/s...

Voting record shows 2nd Trump administration much more inclined to vote with Russia against European allies at UN.

Henning Dekant 📎@quaxquax· Dec 13

With alt text.

All of these ideas have the standard mix of insight and self-glorification. The exhaustion of the old order is the part of this constellation of ideas that seems the firmest ground to me. A few months ago, I said that the greatest proof case for Trump's claims about the corruption of the American elite was the ease with which he plowed through it. This isn't just a bit of clever inversion or word play. It's foundational to understanding everything. There's also a greater clarity now, one of the few saving graces about Trump's reelection and his campaign of destruction over the course of 2025. The old system, whatever its merits, is clearly and unequivocally broken and something new has to be built in its place. Something stronger, something more ready to use and comfortable using political power.
This is why, whatever the outcome in seats, Democratic governors rushing to meet Republicans in their gerrymandering push has been one of the most positive developments in politics in the last decade. Nothing is more enervating, demoralizing or hopeless than being the upholders of the proprieties of a vanquished order. Simple rule-following or, even worse, norms-following is simply too thin a reed for any political movement or political party. We have laws not simply to have laws but because the law is the only possible brake on the strong trampling over and exploiting the weak. And if some people become too strong, it becomes impossible for any of us, individually or collectively, to be truly free. This could scarcely be more relevant to an era in which the rest of us appear to live more or less at the sufferance of a few handfuls of centi-billionaires who have
graduated beyond the obstacles of consequences or law.

Henning Dekant 📎@quaxquax· Dec 9

So it turns out that the Akahsa device in #genshinimpact predicted the future of American colleges. What could possibly go wrong when replacing the teaching of science and the humanities with classes on how to use AI? #genshin