Language models based on the transformer architecture can be used in ways that are beneficial, but such beneficial use requires transparency into training data (as I have been arguing since 2018) and that doesn't even touch the unethical production of these systems. >>

This is part of a pattern I've started to notice: There are people out there who are loudly committed to off-loading their work to chatbots and come seeking my validation for their position. >>

the republican party line is, fairly explicitly, "we will kill your children if you don't vote for us because we know you won't kill our children if we don't vote for you," and the appropriate response to the existence of such a political party is to outlaw it

The president is handing out oversized clown shoes to his cabinet — and watching to see who refuses to wear them. It's Solzhenitsyn's Stalin story come to life: the first person to stop applauding ended up in the gulag. The lesson then, as now — never be the first to stop clapping.

one upside of all of this is the revelation that the swinging dick bankers and big rah rah capital execs and billionaires are actually meek little scared dogs and president AOC or whoever (god willing) should walk them on a leash and make them drink out of a bowl

"Will oil companies refrain from making windfall war profits out of the goodness of their hearts?" www.theguardian.com/business/202...

If Europe follows von der Leyen's prescription of a “more realistic and interest-driven foreign policy”, Trump and Putin have conquered Europe. "Interest-driven foreign policy" simply means selfishness and evil—precisely what those men want everyone to pursue. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

Oh, and look, here's that class action suit! That anyone with half a brain would have seen coming! From, like, a million miles away! Just because you work in tech doesn't mean you're smart.

Even if AI could write a novel what problem has been solved? The problem of knowing what you’re reading was written by another person? Who loves reading novels but hates the part where your mind briefly and mysteriously touched another?

Sun Tzu (D-NY) - “When your enemy is making a mistake, fix it for him at great cost to yourself.”

“Piracy is the most effective form of artistic distribution these days. So be it.” -Werner Herzog on NPR just now 🔥

It's simple really, it's because he faced no real accountability for his actions.

I don't want to hear the eventual mewling. It absolutely DOES matter that state TV is doctoring footage.

Pretty cool how they let the guy who loves committing securities fraud just wander through regulatory agencies with his catamites going "oh this has to go, it's uhhhh fuckin.... inefficient"

They blew up a girls school

So funny that Dems have spent a decade unable to unravel the complex mind of the dumbest man in politics, then Mamdani instantly came up with "be charismatic and strong" and "make him fake newspapers" and it's Super Effective.

Labour's swing toward racism is perhaps the biggest unforced error in British political history; burnt their base to ashes and won them not a single vote on the right.

I’m personally very excited for Alberta’s vanity referendum on whether or not the federal government should do a bunch of things just because one really whiny province wants them to

an AR-15 costs less than two sticks of RAM. this is a market economy establishing an incentive structure

there is a subtle yet repugnant hint of ecofascism that unites takes from supposed leftists and liberals like “getting rid of people’s dependency on USAID is worth the human cost” and “air conditioning is a needless luxury, and some people will just have to die of heat to stop climate change.”

a lot of people just don't think it's unjust for people to die in other places to die of preventable illness etc. I swear there's a weird appeal to nature thing going on with it

The further in advance you announce your willingness to vote for a horrible person as the lesser evil, the more enthusiastically supportive of that evil you seem. Which is to say, Newsom is horror show, and preemptively declaring support in a theoretical future vote says you like his kind of horror

Voting for the lesser evil is what you do AFTER you have exhausted all other options. Refusing to exhaust those options, uh, what Rob says.

This is the thing I think trolls, etc don't understand: Once I block you I literally never think about you again. Shit, five minutes after I block someone I don't remember who they are or why I blocked them. They simply and literally don't exist for me anymore. If this is a victory for you, fine.

The worst case scenario for an AOC presidential run in 2028 is that she’s setting herself up for 2032 or 2036. She is going to be president someday—it’s just a matter of time.

So you're saying ICE is incompatible with the rule of law as practiced in this nation from the founding? Think I see a pretty easy solution here, champ.

Climate change mitigation? Totally within our power, technology-wise. Clean water? Same. Food for all? Same. Shelter for all? Same. But the profit motive ensures that our emerging technologies are the most extractive and exploitative ones possible.

If those who claim the authority of law do not obey the law, and the law does not stop them, then they do not have the authority of law, because there is no longer any law.

Being neutral between fascism & democracy, is actually supporting fascism.

The face of accepting the consequences for standing up for what’s right Banger lines

The US military should be able to attract and retain top talent based on the promise of tuition assistance (in the form of loans, to be sure) to attend Trump University in lieu of Harvard. www.cnn.com/2026/02/13/p...

Yes! What if we treated extremely normal human variation as something other than a "disorder"??? www.positive.news/society/yout...

“You’re gonna get in trouble for that.” “OK.” Perfect reply. No peace for fascists.

To quote @marthawells.com this kid just embodied "I don't make threats. I'm just telling you what I'm going to do"

get the kid in the brown hoodie a scholarship

Funny story: my career in drones exists because I have a arithmetic learning disability, tested awfully in math and couldn’t study STEM in college, and became so angered by how normal it was to look down upon non-tech people in the 2010s that I decided to master a hard tech field out of pure spite.

I'm convinced AI is our generation's radium - a discovery with genuinely useful applications in specific, controlled circumstances that we stupidly put in everything from kid's toys to toothpaste until we realised the harm far too late where future generations will ask if we were out of our minds.

In the immigration system, white people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: ICE, who terrorize the populace; and DOJ attorneys, who lie to judges and ignore their orders. These are their stories. Law and Order: FU.

omg everybody go draw a horse this is what the internet was made for gradient.horse

GM: Charisma check. Mamdani: [rolls natural 20] GM: that’s a d6 how did you Mamdani: [direct to camera] Did you know you can check out board games at your local public library? 😊

Virginia State Senator Louise Lucas is just a delight on every level

No joke: I got angry hate mail today for writing an obituary of a Black woman scientist—because the person felt she did didn’t deserve the recognition. Which just makes me want to share it again: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

I’ve been using the CIA World Factbook online since I was a little kid. What a stupid, pointless desecration.

Although ICE agents absolutely should not be wearing masks, acting like the brutality will stop because their faces are showing is quite naive. Police forces brutalize people all the time with their faces outs, name tags, badges and body cams. The only solution is no ICE.

A Nobel Peace Prize nomination for Minneapolis is really a recognition of people power and it’s the first time a whole city has been put forward for the prize.

"People are still being aware of and decent to one another in ways that really expose us as uncaring monsters."

There are no immigration crises, anywhere. There are governments deliberately under-planning for forecasted immigration and then using the strain to turn people against each other instead of against them.

death by preventable disease is an inevitable and even desired outcome of concentration camps. in every era of concentration camps people have died of typhus, which is a disease of privation and enforced crowding. this illness is intentionally inflicted