“Democrats need to abandon trans rights to win” is a mirror image of the message that WOULD win: “Republicans ran on affordability, then passed the largest tax hike in history and made your healthcare costs triple. Now they’re obsessing over trans people, like they’ve solved all the real problems?”

too many of us have built ourselves a mind prison. we torment ourselves because, on a deep level, that certainty of doom is more comforting than the uncertainty of struggle. and plus it gives you the thrill of feeling more righteous, more cynical, more knowing--even as you scare yourself sleepless.

I am not an economist but… wouldn’t treasury bonds having a “good” year mean that people are buying them, a thing that people do when there is stock market volatility because they’re seeking a safe, lower return? They’re bragging that the stock market is shit on their watch?

Like this is their singular focus. It's not a distraction, it is what they see as their responsibility to do because they were elected. My people are seeing every right we have ground to dust before our eyes. The Trump admin is a machine at identifying some dignity we won 20 years ago and poof gone

Someone else here said it best. To paraphrase: From the perspective of a competitive autocracy, we are doing great at stopping it. From the perspective of a democracy, things are very very bad

I have read eight billion articles about What It All Means and here is my takeaway about why Trump won in 2024 and Republicans are losing everywhere now: people really did not like Joe Biden and now they really do not like Donald Trump you can try to dive into the why, but that’s the core of it

correct, if you can get Actual Leftists through the primary the electorate has never been less concerned with “this person’s views are out of bounds of Acceptable Discourse (as defined by media dipshits)” use the anger to put good people in charge and hope they can avoid becoming The Bums in turn

Jimmi Pickles says it’s gonna be ok

I wrote a bit for McSweeney's about Isaac Chotiner interviewing Santa Claus. Just a little something for the holiday season. Enjoy!

this really isn’t an exaggeration

Fantastic piece from @leahstokes.bsky.social, with several practical ideas about how to reduce electricity prices.

You know the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)? Venerable research institution, respected worldwide? Trump has put an oil executive in charge of it & changed its name to the "National Laboratory of the Rockies." It's so embarrassing being American these days.

If you want to quickly understand what's going on at Oklahoma University - with the transphobic student suing over a well-deserved bad grade from a trans TA - read Noah's post.

Wherein I ask to be at the front of the line when the basilisk arrives Huge thanks to @justinhendrix.bsky.social for hosting this! techpolicy.press/what-happens...

This is actually quite brilliant, up to and including the final sentence 🔥

It's not the public's fault that marketing has shoved dozens of different technologies that have nothing to do with each other under the umbrella of "AI." Blame that on the marketers and the techbro hype. They've poisoned the well and you can't explain to every single individual the differences.

Sadly, I assume the best ones have already been eaten

I had an interesting set of interactions w AI-generated content that I think is instructive. A very bright student made a claim in an essay that struck me as outlandish, so I searched the question on Google which turned up that phrasing the search a certain way makes the AI summary agree w the claim

Abolishing single family zoning wouldn’t remove single family homes from places where they make sense, it would just force those homes to compete on price (and also taxes) on a free and open market

Happy Thanksgiving

The media really will treat LLMs as human before they give trans people the same courtesy

Google at its peak was basically the best information retrieval system in human history and they and every competitor decided going from there to “you didn’t want answers you wanted half-assed auto-complete 80%-wrong hallucinations” in a few years was the right idea

It's weird to not only have lived through an information revolution but also now living through its undoing, all within less than a generation.

when trying on pants, do this in the store. then tell the sales associate "the menswear guy told me to do this." IG mr.funkys0ul

I think we haven’t sufficiently discussed the allure of AI to people who struggle with literally disabling levels of perfectionism. And instead of learning coping skills or developing self esteem, they’re outsourcing to a machine that burns down hectares of rainforest.

if there's a reason to keep up the "tribunals for all involved" discourse one such reason it is to put in stark relief how far away some of the Dem politicking is from the mood on the ground

AI is coming for you

the medical disinformation surrounding 'gender affirming' care is not different from the medical disinformation surrounding vaccinations. these ppl think they're informed.

“trump is ecstatic to meet the muslim socialist immigrant mayor of new york while MAGA’s strongest soldier from georgia-14 resigns in disgust” is a fucking coalition-breaking disaster for the hard right

I don't think you need to think there will be long term shifts in Trump's policies or behavior (there won't be) to enjoy what just happened, sometimes it's good to enjoy things that are funny in the moment

Trump if Mamdani was WH chief of staff:

VACCINES DO NOT CAUSE AUTISM and if they did WHICH THEY DO NOT autism, any form of ASD, is better than dead children. The CDC is compromised and we can no longer trust it.

“Elon Musk has the potential to drink piss better that any human in history” -Elon Musk’s chatbot

first they came for trans people and i wasn’t quiet, i spoke up, i said “are you really going to die on this hill? there’s an election to win!” because i am not trans.

this tiktok was so lovely 🥹

Trying to decide if saying "I support JD Vance" will get me suspended from Bluesky

Fish have committed credit card fraud

yeah i'm MtF (Military to Full-stack developer)

If we don’t signal our virtue every now and again - then so many believe they are utterly alone - “virtue signalling” is not there to say “aren’t I good” but “there are more of us than you might imagine” and “fuck you for demanding that only the brutal and the bullies may speak”

“Parents who, after consulting with a doctor and a psychologist, allow their 15-year-old child to transition commit child abuse. The child is too young to consent!” --Megyn R. Kelly “Grown men who have sex with your 15-year-old? Big whoop! It’s not like she’s 8. LOL!” --Also Megyn R. Kelly

Well this explains the hot mess of dialogue in Other M

If you need me, tap me on the shoulder. I’ll be happily working all day listening to this on a loop.

if we take it to be true that the tariffs are aimed at getting americans to buy US-made products, then what's the point of rolling them back when they become painful? the entire point is to cause financial pain to change consumer behavior. what's the strategy here?

So, this thread--particularly @lizthegrey.com's useful explanation of how the relevant databases actually work--is worth reading in response to the Erin in the Morning story that's terrifying our community today. But I'll add a few broad points about Where We Are and scaremongering.

Open AI loses copyright case in Germany. Judge Elke Schwager summarized the case saying that if you want to build something and need components, "then you purchase them and do not use the property of others."

Car Size xkcd.com/3167/