My latest AI feature dives into a nebulous movement of people sharing esoteric codes, manifestos, glyphs, diagrams, and poetry generated with chatbots, all of it based around theories of AI sentience and mysterious metaphors about spirals.

NEW: Firings of LGBTQ staff at NBC and Condé Nast have worsened an already dire picture for legacy news media when it comes to covering the trans community. From @billiejsweeney.bsky.social, a close look at our increasingly degraded media environment. www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-new...

Sure we had a massive intellectual dead/end for a bit with Oxford linguistic philosophy in the 1950s (does anybody else remember Gellner’s takedown of this type of argument in Words and Things?) but I’m sorry, this takes the biscuit, no philosopher should be dropping this in the NYT. Irresponsible!

Youd think the guy cited State and Revolution or some shit, directly invoked Lenins name, Lumpenproletariat as a concept is incredibly common in socialist discourse going back at least as far as Marx

Oh no! Lenin quoted by a random councillor? Perfect for a headline to drive up panic. Nobody reads the articles! Lenin! You have to wait for the fifth paragraph for the Telegraph to provide the quote, and I gotta say, this was an apropos use of Lenin and an astute analysis by Cllr Peter Cooper!

Was on a thing recently to talk about that review I wrote. Used my time wisely, e.g. I said some hard truths about Maarten Boudry and Massimo Piglicucci’s edited volume on the demarcation problem from like ten years ago, viz. it is a TERRIBLE BOOK OF ANTI-SCHOLARSHIP, BOUDRY YOUR BOOK SUCKS!

“I’ve been hearing that standards will be eliminated or severely cut back. Bari has told people that she wants to get rid of standards and is shocked that they have so much power. She also asked openly, ‘What’s the point of standards?’” one CBS source said. www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a...

My favourite thing is that he went through security, transferred landside, queued for a paper ticket rather than just using contactless, went back through security, was kindly allowed to jump the queue, nevertheless managed to make his flight, and yet somehow this demonstrates that the UK is broken.

Noah Smith is paid in the high six-figures to write a blog read by Americans who believe themselves to be intelligent. Yet, he is both unable to read a sign and also for some reason chose to have a 90 minute layover for a flight that takes 90 minutes. onemileatatime.com/news/economi...

i hit a button on my newly invented switchblade broadsword and the whole thing launches out of my hands and disappears over the horizon. i never explained what it was supposed to do so everyone is cheering and going nuts

Foxes? In the BBC henhouse? Declaring the hens are biased against foxes? Makes sense to me!

I think it's in incredibly poor taste to suggest that only Brianna Ghey's loved ones c/should have any insights worthy of listening to regarding her murder, as opposed to the many transgender people in the UK who continue to experience the transphobic prejudice and violence that led to her murder.

I just want to reiterate, if you are using the front page of national newspapers to say how the media are biased against you, the standing assumption is that you are acting in bad faith. Remarkably, being silent is a key component of being silenced.

Of course, using claims of systematic bias as a means to drive systematic bias is also of a very old playbook. None of this is new, but the tactic of claiming conservatives are marginalised has been the modus operandi of the alt-right since the 2010s. They will destroy the BBC if they can.

This Veterans Day I want to acknowledge the Black veterans of WWII who fought fascism and nazism and came home to fight for civil rights and democracy here. New research shows Black veterans were critical in securing the voting rights currently under attack. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

We all know that the current "crisis" at the BBC is because powerful people with strong opinions, chiefly around Israel and trans issues, simply cannot accept the representation of those who disagree with them or the presentation of evidence that contradicts them

This is why the anti-trans political project is a form of hyperpolitics: only rarely is there an explicit articulation of What Is To Be Done, Who Will Do It, and To Whom. The almost-always implicit conclusion is the long arm of the state must crush trans people in both body and spirit, completely

when this piece of shit is asked what good phone pouches are supposed to do, shs responds glibly about online radicalisation. where else would children learn to be transphobic in the tolerant UK, after all? ridiculous

Polanski responded to the Manchester attack in a thoughtful, sensitive and considered way, not in spite of his lack of political qualifications but because of the ethical and human qualities which are the really indispensable (though of course insufficient) qualification for high office.

People are not fearful of Farage in Downing Street because they worry that he wouldn't competently manage the bureaucracy or grasp the finer points of macroeconomics. They worry because he is palpably a nasty piece of work who would govern actively against their interests, even their safety.

A person is not "qualified" to be PM in the same way as they are qualified to be a surgeon or a mechanic. You can picture Polanski learning the technical aspects of government a lot more easily than you can picture Farage or Starmer acquiring the necessary ethical or humanistic qualities.

In the last decade, the BBC has legitimised climate change denialism, paved the way for Brexit, defended the coup that was prorogation, over-platformed Farage's Far Right projects, and is neutral on our abandonment of human rights norms. What is this 'good' it supposedly does?

Brianna Ghey was not murdered in cold blood by a phone. Or a social media app. She was murdered in cold blood with knives plunged into her 28 times by two 15-year-olds fed a constant stream of hate and dehumanization by UK corporate media and the UK government.

The sensible moderate liberal British politician, at heart, loves the Fascist Other that they can use as a threat, as an enforcer to push their malignant reactionary agenda and claim they aren't the ones doing it.

we are going to win

Recently I acted as a go-between for a BBC radio producer that needed to interview someone for a programme. I got in touch with an ad hoc team of experts, the producer was clearly amenable to our position, we got an expert, but the programme was shit. That’s the job of the BBC editor.

Like the Guardian, people view the BBC as left wing and, as a result, their combined anti trans campaigning has done more damage to trans people than the entire right wing media machine, because they legitimised the right wing's lies.

Instagram has become a marketplace for neo-Nazis. Influencers are using the platform’s massive reach to glorify Hitler, deny the Holocaust, and sell merchandise. Their content, drenched in antisemitism, misogyny, and racism, reaches millions daily. Meta knows it — but refuses to act. Read more:

UPDATE: The Senate votes 53-47 to shoot down the Baldwin amendment to extend ACA funds for 1 year. A party-line vote with every Republican rejecting it.

Wow: Per Hamdi's legal team, his only charge was a visa overstay — after Trump revoked his visa. Despite DHS tweeting that Hamdi supported terrorism, they never charged him with any criminality. In other words: Trump revoked a journalist's visa, so agents could arrest him for overstaying his visa.

this is in the middle of a whole section where her and Jon Sopel wax lyrical about how bad the 'pro-trans Stonewall bias' was at the *BBC* lmao

Emily Maitlis admitting she worked at the bbc to try and get healthcare for trans people shut down

The UK has no intention of banning Conversion Therapy. They've been talking of a ban for 10 years now, and we're still no closer. I fear that's just how Labour like it.

"For one engineering professor, the decision to leave the Air Force Academy became clear after he repeatedly was told he could lose his job any day...Johns said people on the faculty now live in fear of retaliation and are afraid to speak out. Academic freedom is gone, he said."

Lord have mercy the Supreme Court is hearing oral argument rn in an appeal from a case I wrote about last year it's undisputed that Damon Landor suffered a *brazen* violation of his legal rights, yet the GOP justices sound skeptical that he can actually sue the prison guards who violated his rights

You know who's cool? @nicemangos.bsky.social, that's who. You should definitely check out her podcast, Polite Conversations open.spotify.com/show/25FhI3g...

The administration went all the way to the Supreme Court on Friday night to halt food-stamp funding. 🤡

1/ NEW: We identified 20 people who attended a white nationalist conference and, despite their efforts to keep it secret, caught another 30 people on film to identify in the future. Several MMA/combat sports instructors were discovered and their gyms have cut ties. 🧵👇

Lemons, onions, or vinegar are decidedly pointless against tear gas and pepper spray.

Burning tear gas grenades have been clocked at nearly 800 deg C (1450 F), which is way hotter than most gloves, mitts, etc will ever bear. So don't pick them up.

Pinning this again: Do not use milk, juice, urine, antacids, baking soda on pepper spray or tear gas. Just water. Plain water.. Optical saline ok in eyes, but maybe save it for the dumbasses who wore contact lenses. Plain soap or shampoo ok on skin, but never in eyes.

Well you can't say he hasn't done his time.

"Some of the soldiers interviewed [...] said they were influenced by the language of Israeli politicians and religious leaders suggesting that after the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals were killed, every Palestinian was a legitimate target."

Trump has threatened to bomb or invade 7 countries with a shot to play in the 2026 World Cup. He *has* bombed one (Iran) and said he'd deny them visas. He's preparing for war with another (Venezuela). He has summarily executed citizens from at least 3. He has imposed tariffs on nearly all of them.

"A lot of highly-placed Democrats were ashamed of those things that Mamdani was not ashamed of. Were? Are. Are terrified of those things. They often run campaigns that begin by agreeing with Republicans that the good things they aren't are bad things they are." www.the-reframe.com/the-extraord...

1/ Eleven Dutch parties across the political spectrum from socialist to conservative have issued a joint appeal to a provincial government to build a memorial to Black American soldiers who died in World War II, to replace one removed from the Netherlands American Cemetery. ⬇️

1/ The US Government has quietly removed a memorial to Black soldiers who died in World War II from the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten, South Limburg. The move follows a complaint from the right-wing Heritage Foundation to the American Battle Monuments Commission. ⬇️