Microsoft, the company I have to pay $100/yr to keep using the software required to do my job, has just unveiled a feature that promises to replace my entire profession with something called "vibe writing". www.theverge.com/news/787076/...

I read this article when it came out a month ago, and I've thought about it every day since. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/28/o...

The defining lesson of this first year of Trump authoritarianism is that kowtowing & capitulating yields zero permanent benefit and only emboldens the admin to come after you more. This critical lesson was first documented in the landmark political science treatise “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.”

In this short piece, I lean on embodied cog sci to argue that we should refuse & resist llms in education (pp. 53-58) unesdoc.unesco.org/in/documentV... "the classroom is an environment where love, trust, empathy, care & humility are fostered & mutually cultivated through dialogical interactions"

The people stoking anti-immigrant hysteria aren't interested in adjusting immigration to an acceptable level, not even to zero, because hysteria is the point. "No matter what ever-escalating pledges, solutions or policies are offered, nothing will ever be enough." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

"generate a map of the USA with each state named"

Justice Jackson taking on Gorsuch's "pure textualism" and arguing for a more holistic reading of Congress' handiwork—worth reading in full. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24p...

#NoKings NYC

#NoKings NYC

#NoKings NYC

#NoKings NYC

#NoKings NYC

#NoKings NYC

#NoKings NYC

A centralized database will be "ill-equipped to correct errors, allow for extenuating circumstances, or bring facts up to date," warned Vance Packard. "The notion of the possibility of redemption is likely to be incomprehensible to a computer."

The reason it was a great crowd and no incidents is BECAUSE there were so few police officers.

Rain could not put out the 🔥 at NYC's #HandsOff march today

I’ve seen a lot of assumptions in the media that Trump (and Musk) are targeting institutions with loyalty tests. But that’s not quite right. They’re using dominance tests. And the difference between these two things matter. 🧵

In retrospect we should have reacted much more strongly to people being like “you’re just virtue signaling, you’re just saying you have virtue, you’re just treating virtue like it’s a good thing for an adult human being to have, you just want to run around everywhere having morality and being good”

Yesterday I was working on my next Darkforum post when the NY Times scooped me: www.nytimes.com/2025/03/01/w... A thread… 1/11

Living in London years ago I noticed whenever a politician said "the UK economy" they meant the auto industry. Meanwhile what the world actually admires about Britain are its music, literature, films, universities. And they keep actively destroying those sectors! tiny.cc/i2ab001

An entire analysis piece rooted in the (unacknowledged) logic of domestic abuse. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/24/w...

Here's something I wrote about art, individualism, predatory behavior, and how we ended up in this mess: open.substack.com/pub/darkforu...

“If you are… a government that has put all its chips on growth, why is that same government undermining creative industries that bring £126bn to the UK economy and is giving away for free the property rights of 2.4 million people who work in those industries?” www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Having watched with growing alarm the developments of the last 24 and 36 hours in Washington, I thought I’d take a stab at how the US media would cover this story if it was happening in a foreign country. Here’s that story that should be written this weekend: www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/musk-s-jun...

In my self-defense classes I focus on how most people are socially conditioned to follow the norms of a civilized, polite society — and there is a MENTAL SHIFT required to use violence to defend from violence. I'm reminded of this while watching our elected officials dithering and delaying. 1/

Reporting from Washington DC, here's Gil Scott-Heron on political "mandates" www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBu2...

"Politically speaking, we are in the tantrum phase of the climate transition." www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/uninsurabl...

This article by @lizpelly.bsky.social (on Spotify's perpetual quest to avoid paying royalties to musicians) is today's reminder that vast fields of human achievement are being destroyed in pursuit of shareholder value — an appetite that, by definition, will never be satisfied. tinyurl.com/bdjdnmhu