"That's when I start to look on the bleaker side…Trump might not have a long term plan, but people around him do," @katiestallard.bsky.social told me and @mariarepnikova.bsky.social on the Rhyming Chaos podcast.

In 2019-21, I wrote my master's thesis on why the Russian government pursued info ops--disinformation and propaganda campaigns--against individuals, with George Soros being the primary case study. I hate how relevant it is now.

Sheeple shuffling the deck in your option space.

1/ A longtime Wired editor just wrote a mush-brained essay about how he totally missed the political rot of Silicon Valley (& still doesn't get it). But in the late 1990s, a Wired journalist warned of a toxic ideology bubbling up from tech. Paulina Borsook has largely been erased. Let's change that

Think of the waste this involves

@bethanymclean.bsky.social Dear Bethany & Luigi, re your excellent interview with John Ioannidis, & in the current atmosphere in the US around science, I think all the time of Trofim Lysenko: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trofim_... @zingales.bsky.social

NEW on #Capitalisnt: @stanfordmedicine.bsky.social's John Ioannidis joins @zingales.bsky.social and @bethanymclean.bsky.social to discuss the relationship between capitalism and science & its future, and how both will have to respond to contemporary politics. Listen: capitalisnt.com/episodes/how...

I could write an entire book about ideas that animate how American protestants, especially evangelicals, think about their faith but are ahem *loosely* based on the Bible. - The Rapture - Satan being an angel cast out of heaven - Spiritual warfare - Kids lose their faith in college - Tradwives

259. The pleasure of love consists of loving; we are happier in the passion we feel than in that we inspire.

Mission is our core.

Theodore Roosevelt:

That bracing quote by Theodore Roosevelt is from an editorial he wrote in the Kansas City Star, May 7, 1918.

Thank you for coming to my Teddy talk.

Hilma af Klint, Altarbild, nr 1, grupp X, Altarbilder, 1915 one of first Western abstract artists whose work predates Kandinsky's #womensart

I wrote this, 'Myth and Truth: an Axiom', in 2010. This year I've edited + re-written it a bit, + added illustrations, just finished today. So I present to you anew: mattsbulletins.blogspot.com/2010/06/myth... Churchill. Diogenes, Orwell .... ?

All week we have seen institutions misunderstanding (willfully or not) the online world surrounding the Kirk shooting suspect (and the act itself). I talked to @ryanhatesthis.bsky.social about why. slate.com/podcasts/wha...

A lot of people are asking is it your laundry list's first rodeo ? It's too close to call, but it's definitely on the podium.

NEW: ChatGPT is causing chaos in marriages, as one spouse becomes deeply fixated on AI therapy/advice/spiritual wisdom — alienating the other spouse and, often, resulting in divorce. In some cases, ChatGPT-enmeshed spouses are using the tech to bully their partners. futurism.com/chatgpt-marr...

'The Candidate' starring Robert Redford is on YouTube. Your chance to see a brilliant film. Who knows when it will get taken down: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KUK...

All political tribes can be hypocritical but the right's current level of hypocrisy on free speech is deliberate. It's an assertion of power not a blindspot.

The standard fare position of MAGA Republicanism is that people of certain genders and minority groups should be removed from public life. Their project is to ensure transgender people and migrants of color, for instance, do not live here with them. Those groups are not given a chance to disagree.

And you know he didn't always win those - he just selectively edited out the parts where a student utterly demolished his specious arguments.

Debate is a performance and a skill, not some neutral crucible into which two ideas enter and the truth leaves. A debate between a flat earther and a hollow earther will not yield truth. A skilled debater could take an obviously false position and argue rings around someone with no debate skills.

I'm English so I hadn't come across Charlie Kirk before he was assassinated. I've been watching a lot of his stuff & thinking about it hard. This piece by @mmasnick.bsky.social is spot on. How would Kirk ever have fared debating with someone 'his own size' i.e. equally skilled & prepared ? >>

Key scene from Robert Redford's 'Quiz Show' (1994). Rob Morrow as Richard N. Goodwin confronts the evil executive from Geritol played by Martin Scorsese. This is showing you how things work. The executive's utter - justified - confidence in his impunity. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vaw0...

Such sad news about Robert Redford. So many great performances, so many great films he was involved with, as well as his other contributions to the good of the world. A particular favourite of mine is his film 'Quiz Show', brilliant on every level.

Robert Redford (1936-2025) should be remembered as much for his social conscience as for his talents as a storyteller. This 1976 interview about ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN is a sobering reminder of what we’ve lost. #RobertRedford #FilmSky

The project of “Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship” (Exec. Order No. 14,149) sure does involve a lot of speech chilling and federal censorship

It's an intuitive solution to see full stack development for a quantum shift in your product roadmap.

Like Socrates, the eiron.

In the latest sign of warming ties between Washington & Minsk, following last week's visit by Trump envoy John Coale & release of dozens of political prisoners, U.S. military officers observed joint "Zapad-2025" war games between Russia & Belarus today. Unexpected. www.reuters.com/world/europe...

IIRC all that labeling stuff was “censorship” & ‘Russian bots’ were a hoax perpetuated by Obama and the Stanford Internet Observatory. The US senators & representatives calling for people to be fired for their political speech now —that is NOT censorship. The Freedom Caucus decides what words mean.

OUT NOW: @michaelehayden.bsky.social and I made one of our “Who the Hell?” episodes for Charlie Kirk to counter the gross revisionism and lies in mainstream press. We covered how he died and how he lived — honestly Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s... Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/4Pxo...

Elon Musk has shared an obviously AI-generated image of the Unite the Kingdom rally in London. The first AI error is that the Arc de Triomphe is in Paris, not London. And once you zoom in, you'll notice that the Union Jacks and the crowd have other errors typical of AI images.

Comforting to live in a country where protesting against genocide gets you in trouble, protesting for white supremacy doesn’t. Maybe pro-Palestine activists should start painting roundabouts.

1. Starmer is afraid of the far right people demonstrating yesterday, & they know it, & so does everyone else. Yaxley-Lennon, Musk & their followers are trying to intimidate him & they're succeeding. 2. If you don't know what to do about something, pretending it isn't happening is a bad response.>>

Entirely on form for Starmer but still absolutely mind boggling

This flooding the zone thing really works. I was scrolling past this thinking, yes, and then realised I’d basically forgotten that the US government murdered a boat full of people in international waters about ten seconds ago

Anyone heard from the Prime Minister?

Some more direct incitement from Musk This man burned his sheep's clothing a long time ago and is now fully leaning into his right wing white supremacist nationalism

Here is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon aka 'Tommy Robinson' interviewing Elon Musk by video link at the Unite the Kingdom rally in London, today Saturday 13.9.25: www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzLA... Musk wearing a t shirt which reads "What would Orwell think ?"

Mr Fluent says: Dynamically handle your fine-grained compression steps to achieve high bandwidth connectivity & a sentient modified chip set as your end goal.

NEW: The killing of Charlie Kirk and the end of the 'global town square'. On the state of X, how AI 'enhancement' is the new crowdsourced manhunt, and the balkanization of Twitter into anti-social media: www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/the-killin...

I tried to grapple with Kirk’s assassination and why, as one of his targets, I mourn his murder but not his politics. open.substack.com/pub/wicziped...

The Antichrist Playbook: Peter Thiel & Silicon Valley Apocalypse Hype Explained www.youtube.com/watch?v=KegS...

Avoid clichés like the plague.

I watched Peter Thiel speaking at the Oxford Union in 2023 on YouTube. I was really disturbed that the students seemed very open to what he had to say. I couldn't work out if it was b/c they didn't really understand who he is & what he stands for, or b/c they did, which would be awful. >>