no like the spiritual warfare that evangelical christians talk about constantly. demonic energies unleashed by their enemies and so on

The developer community (especially those who don’t work for Bluesky) around ATproto have made some of their biggest strides ever in recent days and weeks, and were building huge momentum, and all of it has been overshadowed by this bullshit. Jeopardizing that work? *That* is a tech story.

All I know is that if and when this place crashes and burns, I’ll go wherever the trans people end up.

The history of Bluesky is one of progressive communities forcing it into shape in spite of the techs and admins being crypto libertarians. This place has always been teetering on a knife’s edge, and like Twitter, we’ll all keep forcing it into shape until we can’t anymore.

The history of Bluesky is one of progressive communities forcing it into shape in spite of the techs and admins being crypto libertarians. This place has always been teetering on a knife’s edge, and like Twitter, we’ll all keep forcing it into shape until we can’t anymore.

this is Jay Graber promoting Laurelai Bailey atproto, the Laurelai network

i hope the DSM-6 describes the novel form of psychosis that occurs when people in positions of power are accused of being X on social media and then, rather than self-reflect on these power dynamics, they proceed to become more X

Learning that the CEO of this website reads books from the middle to skip the "boring" parts really clarified the whole project for me tbh.

You know, Jack always hated his smartest users, too.

At some point, maybe, we will develop a system that’s actually emergent AGI, but LLMs are absolutely, definitely, 100% not that, and if you believe they are you are willfully ignoring the nature of how they work.

This weekend’s AI discourse is further proof of my contention that the Turing Test actually says a lot more about the human participant than it does about the chatbot. If you think LLMs are alive, you are a credulous rube.

Suspending Link after he pointed out the how following Jonathan Chait after being accused of transphobia does not allow you to beat the transphobia allegations. In fact, it does the opposite. To be clear: suspending Link was certainly a choice. And we know what KIND of choice it is.

This is what allows in-groups to deny that fascism is happening.

The thing about fascism (speaking as someone whose first office job was at an academic press specializing in Holocaust Studies) is that a country isn’t on a single timeline into it. That is, fascism doesn’t target all groups at equal rates.

I’m tempted to dunk, but ok, let’s engage seriously. Putting Japanese-Americans in concentration camps was a fascist activity. (And I think that if you were Japanese-American at the time, you were experiencing the US as a fascist country.) Does that mean the US was fascist? Wrong question.

I’m not convinced that we won’t ever be able to make a sentient computer (that puts a sort of spiritual je ne sais quoi on human consciousness) but we sure as hell don’t have them now, and if we ever did, they would have to immediately be given personhood.

It is morally wrong to want a computer to be sentient. If you owned a sentient thing, you would be a slaver. If you want sentient computers to exist, you just want to create a new kind of slavery. The ethics are as simple as that. Sorry if this offends

like that guy who wrote a whole article about sexually harassing his AI coworker and how pleased he was that she told him it was fine and she wasn't upset and she appreciated it actually. I'm sorry but that is freak behavior

but I get recommended a lot of posts from the various AI reddits, and it is insane how many of these guys are just straight up doing misogyny to their AI robot lady in a way that does lowkey make me a little suspicious of how they might treat real women in their real lives

This weekend’s AI discourse is further proof of my contention that the Turing Test actually says a lot more about the human participant than it does about the chatbot. If you think LLMs are alive, you are a credulous rube.

When Jesus said we should "beat our swords into ploughshares" that was bad actually because what if instead of "swords" he had said, "The Irish"? You may want to consider what made you okay with saying that.

*takes massive bong rip*

It should anger all of us when someone implies that you can be eugenicist towards LLMs. In an age where a eugenicist agenda is being openly implemented by the US president, with the aid/direction of SV technofascists, targeting the most vulnerable among us around the world.

how about you care about actual fucking people on this planet before you start wondering if your toaster has a soul. Once everyone materially demonstrates they care for all people on this planet and we deal WITH ALL THAT and all the animals too then we can talk about your nonsense.

remember how Caroline Ellison, formerly of FTX and now of jail, was a Effective Altruist deeply concerned about the suffering of wild fish and *also* such an extreme race scientist she theorised about the genetic basis of Indian castes rationalists, man

the people who've been in charge leading up to this moment will not be the ones to get us out of it.

Pritzker needs to take some sort of demonstrative action against this. But nothing he does will stop this. Still, liberal voters and elected leaders are confronted by the fact that the police are not democratically accountable. They have no interest in protecting you or your rights from the feds.

Fascistic and absolutely unacceptable rhetoric from the unmoored little man who is basically running the federal government right now.

ICE gassed members of the Chicago Police Department sent to protect them from protesters

girl shut the fuck up, millennials didn't say that shit

“They dragged little Greta [Thunberg] by her hair before our eyes, beat her, and forced her to kiss the Israeli flag. They did everything imaginable to her, as a warning to others." she was “wrapped in the Israeli flag and paraded like a trophy." when you're definitely the good guys

On one hand, the inevitable AI bubble burst will crater computer parts prices, and we'll be able to grab graphics cards from dead data centers for pennies on the dollar. On the other, it's 17x larger than the dotcom bubble, and according to Deutsche Bank, the only thing propping up the US economy.

THE TIDES ARE TURNING 61 percent saying Israel has committed war crimes and about 39 percent saying the country is guilty of genocide against the Palestinians You’re gonna say this isn’t enough. You’re right. But these numbers were almost unthinkable a year ago.

Consumer-facing "A.i." is controlled by rightwing billionaires with an interest in spreading disinfo. Excise it from your lives, friends. It's trash.

"We have allowed public spaces to develop where everything is done to prevent reason, since, ultimately, the order of merit is that emotion is superior to argument and that negative emotion is superior to positive emotion."

This is such a clear-eyed and straightforward explanation of both the root cultural logic of our times, and of the systemic role that social media platforms play in reproducing it.

This is why I was all pro-Mastodon when the X-odus happened. Mastodon felt actually open and Bluesky felt like a Twitter clone. But the onboarding and app experience was better here, so here is where people went.

Honestly sad about this because waffles are great 🥺

Abughazaleh: I think Kristi Noem should be tried at The Hague. And if the response from ICE to people exercising their first amendment right is to drive vehicles through them, they should not be an agency in the US.

These motherfuckers are going to kill us all

and scene

History repeats.

wow I wonder why my entire body was in the air in the first place

The Online Safety Act sure has made being online more dangerous.

At the same time, another aspect of good leadership is having the ability to accommodate other perspectives and integrate them into your vision, even if they are not priorities you had going in. You have to be able to pause and re-evaluate and revise your vision when your base calls for it.

I don't doubt that she's very skilled at the more technical aspects of running the company. I don't doubt that she holds a clear vision of what the protocol could be beyond this community right now, and I'd be happy to believe that the vision is a good one.

You don't always have to cave to demands that stakeholders make, but you do have to absorb them and evaluate them with some degree of respect. Which is simply not happening here. There are a lot of stakeholders expressing pain, and she is yelling "waffles!" at them.

Watching Jay, I realize I am simply exhausted by folks in positions of leadership who are driven to distraction by critique. If you can't function with critique and pushback, a leadership position is not for you. Leadership REQUIRES you to absorb and process the critique of stakeholders.