Philip K Dick and Mexican labor union upheaval

BBC Culture has an excellent article on Philip K Dick's future prediction ability and life. Excerpts:

Dick's politics could not be simplified into a straightforward description of left or right, as he was biting in his attacks on both the McCarthy-esque witch hunts of the period as well as the more evangelical leanings of communism.

Dick was altogether anti-establishment: his stories feature authorities and companies consistently abusing their power, especially when it comes to surveillance. His worlds are ultra-commodified and their citizens addicted to materialism, while celebrity, media and politics meld to create nightmarish, authoritarian scenarios, usually topped off with a heavy dose of technocracy and bureaucracy.

On a different news front, Mexico unionism is going through a reckoning, surprisingly partly due to the most recent incarnation of USMCA. 

Independent union SNITIS won nearly 87% of the vote at the Tridonex auto parts plant in the border city of Matamoros late on Monday, clobbering powerful union CTM, which also recently lost an election at General Motors Co in the central city of Silao.

Francis Fukuyama, clumping and progress

Francis Fukuyama is infamous for his post-1990 predictions. He recently opined on Putin's war and had to employ some clunky phrasing to explain away his past follies:

The horrific Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24 has been seen as a critical turning point in world history. Many have said that it definitively marks the end of the post-cold war era, a rollback of the “Europe whole and free” that we thought emerged after 1991, or indeed, the end of The End of History.

Global GBP per capita growth during recessions

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Quantum puzzles and the sex lives of fish

Quanta has an excellent article about quantum puzzles, Euler, and the golden ratio, and one Ion Nechita is mentioned as a quantum puzzle enthusiast.
An FB post reminded me of an excellent 2021 NPR segment on the sex lives of fish.

America then and now