Please yes. Quit giving these criminals the benefit of the doubt as they destroy our political system.

i'd say it did. the public put a group of thieves, vandals and extremists in office last november and they promptly went about destroying everything that might work to limit their ability to loot, steal and inflicting pain on the people they hate

Since this is apparently such a well-studied thing… has anyone tried to replicate the factors that cause university students to become more liberal *outside* the university, as a broader social/political project? (Another naive question probably, but that’s ok.)

I'm reading an essay about "wokeness" and I find myself having doubts about whether I even know what people normally think that word means. What are some stereotypical examples of "woke" behavior?

This thing is starting to feel like the Nixon Tapes.

Robert Nozick’s “Experience Machine” is a really useful thought experiment and it can help you form intuitions about a lot of different things, from drug use to tiktok. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experie...

are there any rigorous studies on *why* increased education is correlated with a leftward political shift? how exactly that works?

arms ✅

Lowering some of his tariffs make Trump a good president like taking a break from beating one’s kids senseless makes one a good parent

i love it when accounts with obscene names randomly like screenshots of philosophical essays on the ethics of political commitments.

apple music knows i’m in love (with a crusty dead philosopher)

if the catholic bishops are smart (doubtful) they will grasp that being a loud voice of moral resistance to the dehumanization of migrants is one of the few paths to the rehabilitation of the American Catholic church from its current state in the popular mind, ie “den of pedo creeps”

next up:

Thread:this is shameful, cowardly bullshit on the part of the AMA.

I wish more people grasped this.

going to make it out of the house before noon today. i swear.

"You don’t understand because you don’t realize that there are two races in Spain—a slave race and a ruler race. Those reds, from President Azaña to the anarchists, are all slaves. It is our duty to put them back into their places—yes, put chains on them again, if you like."

As always the task i've been putting off all weekend (divvying up a bunch of chicken I cooked a couple days ago into 1 meal portions) took 10 minutes and was painless.

Christianity represents a bunch of contrary moral impulses, and it's interesting seeing which ones post-christian secular people have retained.

It's fascinating to be called a "brain rotted orc" because I think you should welcome it when people change their minds for the better.

This seems generally right to me. Don’t throw them a bone or compromise or anything, but it’s better to win someone over than to dunk on them. Right?

my god.

one of the Epstein emails said something like “he has to be understood to get something. it really is just that simple”

Former models for Donald Trump’s agency say they violated immigration rules and worked illegally.

interesting example of political solidarity and something i’ve never seen before: the current issue of NYRB came with a fundraising appeal—not for NYRB, but for the ACLU.

quads / calves ✅

wtf

lol yes.

it should be possible to say “the progress made by the left on identity-related stuff like racial inequality, DEI, women’s rights, queer rights, etc is crucial and worth fighting to preserve, restore and advance further.” while also saying:

lol i meant to leave my apartment two hours ago and im still sitting on the couch.

conclusion: the authentic french pronunciation is “ooh-bee-soft”, which would imply “an ubisoft original”, but most english speakers seem to say “you-bee-soft”, which would imply “a ubisoft original”.

haven’t done one of these in a while. happy saturday! (sorry my bedroom is a mess)

this story was sort of lost in the last few days of the epstein news but it’s wild how many republicans appear to be pedophiles or okay with pedophilia

I was wondering if there's something like Heisenberg's uncertainty principle for public opinion polling, and it turns out there is. This paper came up as relevant: www.jstor.org/stable/2111583

you know, the AI thing would be a lot more palatable if the people driving it used it to drive renewable energy development and address social issues instead of transparently fantasizing about the new feudalism in which they will be kings and the rest of us serfs.

i love this idea because it amounts to updating the law to match how the system works in reality, while better integrating migrants into the tax system and giving them rights.

Reparations are probably a good idea, but for expediency they should be framed not as “paying you back for what my ancestors did to your ancestors” but in a history-blind way as “doing what we can to help elevate systematically disadvantaged communities, wherever we find them”

A really important point. You can't "solve"misinformation without understanding the ways beliefs function as identity markers more than attempts to represent reality accurately gone awry.

this is really something

🤯

Lebensraum im Osten!

chest ✅

this megathread has been getting attention lately, idk why. but it was fun to write. i should do one again this christmas.

you know, there’s interesting stuff to be said about the complex relationship between gay identity and sex, but it probably should be written by someone who isn’t drooling with resentment while rehearsing a bizarre string of cultural allusions that suggest they don’t know what they’re talking about.

i think the left is in the midst of rediscovering patriotism. we did the work of disenchanting the myth of America, now it’s time to recommit to the best hopes the best of us have had for what we can become as a people.

A wild Kantian appeared!

The Goonies

Rule of thumb: punctuation is meant to aid people trying to figure out how to parse—and mentally intone—what you’re saying. A comma here, a parenthesis there helps readers know when you’re pausing (or dropping your voice). So put in punctuation where it sounds right.

For folks (and journalists) who want to search the Oversight Committee email texts, I made a database for searching the 20k text files: splendorous-chaja-f79791.netlify.app

anyway, back ✅