Reactionary religions are all personality cults. Trump did not do this to White Evangelicals. They created him as part of a radicalization spiral. All religious fundamentalists know that their beliefs are rejected by most people. But instead of admitting error, they've declared war on modernity.

Not believing in science really comes back to bite you, doesn’t it?

We need things beyond ourselves. Food, support, medical treatment. But we live in a time where the confrontation with the fact of needing is so threatening to us, and makes us feel so vulnerable, we will do anything to protect ourselves from the threat of needing.

I want you to notice how this article, which took two journalists to write, doesn't even bother to seriously explore whether the claims being made by companies are true it's genuinely just not relevant to them

Neuroscientist here, who has talked about the US losing science ground to other countries: The biggest problem for generating future cures for brain diseases is the ongoing utter destruction of US basic neuroscience. It’s not about regulation.

Yes! RFK Junior and his brain worms are trying to destroy American science and enact a eugenic philosophy that obliterates public healthcare and sound medicine. The conspiracy-mongers and religious zealots need to be debated into the ground. Their ideas are moronic, and everyone should know it.

I was on Science Friday (on Wednesday) to talk about two things you'll be hearing a lot about this summer: artificial intelligence and the World Cup. www.sciencefriday.com/segments/wor...

"Something remarkable happened in April. For the first time in history, wind and solar generated more electricity than gas across the entire planet. Not in a country. Not in a region. Globally." Tons of great news here from Danny Kennedy (via @billmckibben.bsky.social's newsletter, which rules).

Stock markets fall and oil jumps as Middle East conflict intensifies and AI boom falters – business live www.theguardian.com/business/liv...

new William Gibson book opening line dropped

Well this just made me very sad www.nytimes.com/2026/06/04/w...

Yes, engagement for progressive messages and causes is higher here than on the bigger platforms. Still, if your aim is to reach the public and get their votes, you have to be on all of them. We need all of the above, all of the time.

Just saying…. #BookSky

Some good news on the medical front.. Pancreatic cancer halted by virus injection in three patients.. www.newscientist.com/article/2528...

I was interviewed by @Gizmodo during my last Tokyo visit. And the piece also features new portraits by my favorite South African photographer trio. Read more in: www.gizmodo.jp/article/moni...

It's not depression, nor is it anxiety. I can't think of a better term than "chronic heartache." Had it every day since 2022!

The Situationship Room.

Are AI companies burning cash too quickly to last? Critics often say that, but they don't present full numerical analysis. This is one of the better critical ones I've seen in a while:

未来は「デバイス」の中ではなく「身体」に起こる。“フューチャリスト”モニカ・ビエルスキテ インタビュー @monikabielskyte.bsky.social www.gizmodo.jp/article/moni...

Can't speak to the details of Sunrise. But there's def a Thing where the folks w greatest aptitude in making noise, often seem incapable of actual goal-oriented behavior. Everything is a personal branding exercise; there is no theory of change beyond "raise awareness (& be seen Raising Awareness)."

The future is not being “shaped by technology.” It is shaped by what we fund, build, teach, normalize, ignore, resist — and imagine. Our apathy shapes it too. New TikTok on how we can all participate in Protopian futures, beyond doomscroll collapse and sci-fi despair. vt.tiktok.com/ZSxC8W5vT/

A livestream of a volcano in the Philippines captured a meteor crashing to Earth today. What are the odds? Mayon Volcano, Location: Albay, Luzon, Philippines

"In September 2025, nine mosques and cultural centers in and around Paris were targeted...Bloody severed pig heads, each marked with the word “Macron” in blue ink, were left outside their front doors." This was a Russian stunt. From @occrp.org Read more: www.occrp.org/en/investiga...

GOOD NEWS! Researchers at Stanford University have developed a UNIVERSAL vaccine known as GLA-3M-052-LS+OVA, that protects against a wide range of respiratory viruses, bacteria AND even allergens. The vaccine is delivered intranasally AND provides broad protection in the lungs for several MONTHS.

How to make that snake oil you bought from us actually work, by The Snake Oil Sellers Association, tickets £25.

A livable future cannot be produced by treating the living world as an externality. Life-Centric Design turns this understanding into a design condition. Good design does not stop at the isolated user — it has to account for the life systems that humans depend on. open.substack.com/pub/monikabi...

Foresight calibrated to a minority fraction of the world’s population is parochial practice cosplaying as global strategy. open.substack.com/pub/monikabi...

Autocrats don’t just attack educational institutions; they seek to turn them into “a place that breeds the values of authoritarianism, suspicion, hostility,” Ruth Ben-Ghiat tells @anneapplebaum.bsky.social. Listen to the full episode of “Autocracy in America”: theatln.tc/4xDXZcjA

Russia targets "military command and control facilities, air bases, and military industrial enterprises."

Human-centred design doesn’t actually center humans — it centers a fiction of what a human is. A body is not a sealed unit. Life-centric design repositions humans within the ecology they cannot be separated from. open.substack.com/pub/monikabi...

Mission accomplished, seems to be.

For a country of less than 7 million, this is huge. If this were the US a demonstration would have to be 50 times this size to be equally big, relative to population.

FIFA is panicking: World Cup hotel cancellations are surging as global fans ditch the U.S., citing soaring costs, visa bonds, and Trump’s dictatorial behavior. Turns out nobody wants to pay $1,000 a night just to experience an authoritarian simulation.

The Soviet joke captures it: both systems concentrate power through different mechanisms. Capital or party. The alternative is distributing power so no single mechanism can concentrate it. Cooperatives, public services, democratic institutions. Not one answer but many, layered so none dominates.

"Un cuerpo no es una unidad sellada. El diseño que trata la biosfera como telón de fondo parte de un modelo científico defectuoso de lo que realmente es un ser humano. El diseño vitacéntrico reposiciona a los humanos dentro de la ecología de la que no pueden ser separados."

I'll have something coming out about this eventually but to say this killer was motivated by just "nihilism" is wrong: The killers glorified neo-Nazis They promoted Siege and ideas like "accelerationism" Their influences were ripped out of a "Terrorgram" documentary. www.cbsnews.com/news/san-die...

Those who redesign the fantasy can redesign the future. Can we prototype futures that fully address the broken status quo, while also reaching past its boundaries? open.substack.com/pub/monikabi...

Hi. Not really sure how to promote this story...but it is about AI and the overwhelming feeling of it bleeding into everything with no concrete articulation for what a good version of that future looks like. It's about feeling like every 8th person is living on another planet. Hope you'll read it

Ok, I had to get that load off. If you want a more constructive version of this thread, please check out my conversation w @monikabielskyte.bsky.social on the beautiful possible and the power of imagination 👇 /end

Well.

Grateful to The Verge for publishing my essay on why large-language models are not going to achieve general intelligence nor push the scientific frontier. www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...

Feed AI slop and it scales rot. Without corrective choices, it becomes a culture-eating machine speedrunning enshittification aka platform decay: more content, less trust; more speed, less memory; more output, less reality. The answer is human guidance at every level: vt.tiktok.com/ZSx1j4jWD/

Those who control the fantasy, control the future. open.substack.com/pub/monikabi...

I actually think that this is about atmosphere. There's something intrinsically jolly about a person on a bicycle.

Something that amuses me about how American culture dominates post-apocalyptic fiction is that nobody cycles. The petrol has run out so everyone trudges around.

The right establishment wants to win. The left establishment (moderate or progressive) wants to feel good about itself.

The actual "secretive globalists" are all on the right.

There is a pattern that recurs whenever a ruling class decides that their worldview should override evidence. Historically, it has killed millions. In its updated form, it is receiving billions in venture funding. open.substack.com/pub/monikabi...

My latest for @rns.org : I spoke with philosopher Émile P. Torres ( @xriskology.bsky.social ) about TESCREAL and the religious dimensions of the AGI race. Eternal life, heavenly abodes, internecine conflicts —suffice to say, there are a lot! bit.ly/4d4joYF