it's wild how jay was waxing philosophical about about how "social media doesn't have to suck" and the question about removing the pedophile-apologist transphobe was directly connected to social media admins making decisions that make social media suck, making the "WAFFLES" thing especially unhinged

the extwitter mindset is ultimately about a contempt for knowledge. it was never about "science vs humanities." it is about the idea that it is worthwhile to understand the different facets of a complex system even if you cannot provide an immediately instrumental justification for doing so

Yeah, this is good. And in fact I would go further and argue that other people's perspectives are nearly the *entirety* of what keeps us sane. That is, you can't really have a compelling concept of sanity - or reality, or truth - without accounting for their role.

Karl Popper endorses this post.

As is impoundment of Congressionally-allocated funds, as I understand it. I'm confused about why we think it's okay for the federal government to revolt against the states, but not vice versa

On Friday 18 blue state attorneys general BLASTED the Federal Trade Commission, telling it to back off trans youth healthcare and warning of an insidious attempt to reshape the regulation of medicine in the US. And nobody covered it. www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-new...

I’m tired of saving Trump voters from the consequences of their own decisions. If farmers want a bailout, they should call their republican congressmembers and ask them to use their article 1 powers to get rid of the tariffs.

Academic people, search for your editors. My chapters were stolen but they aren't listed by my name.

You can see which boats from the flotilla are being intercepted in real time here: flotilla-orpin.vercel.app

I really appreciated when Ta l-Nehisi Coates asked Klein, “But was silence not an option?” This. If there is one skill I’ve had to learn as a white dude, it’s knowing when it’s time to shut up or sit something out. I’m imperfect, of course, but getting better.

Critics both to the left and right of the Sumud Flotilla are not allowed to say anything if they aren't doing something substantive themselves. 2 years of genocide and Western complicity and at least these brave souls try to break the evil blockade. They are better than all of us.

Tonight’s dumb napkin cartoon…

Oh yeah Stephen Miller? You think YOU'RE tough? You think YOU'RE hardcore? Bet you can't do what I do! Bet you couldn't EXIST ON A SUBWAY and be unbothered by the PRESENCE OF HOMELESS PEOPLE like I can!

What he says is arguably valid for their public image. But if you had been doing any kind of advocacy for peace between Israelis and Palestinians 20 or 30 years ago you would have understood then that the ADL was pretty rotten at its core, and you'd not be surprised how things turned out.

Six Democratic senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee (Durbin, Schiff, Whitehouse, Klobuchar, Coons, and Welch) voted yes on two Trump district court nominees this morning, and my question remains, why do senior members of this party keep voluntarily ceding political capital to Donald Trump

All AI content should be required to have watermarks. All of it.

I know this is petty but I'm infuriated by the sloppiness of 'concerning'. It's not concerning if this is true. It'd be wonderful. It'd be delicious if Johnson goes down because of his hypocrisy.

I think one reason why jeffries and schumer do poorly on here compared to pritzker is their posts lol. Pritzker is doing poster constinuency service, they’re doing cable news constituency service on bsky

I really appreciated this thoughtful piece about Ta-Nehisi Coates & Ezra Klein. Andrea Pitzer says “lost” folks like Klein “don’t have a clear idea how this moment fits into history and what it is exactly that they’re doing”. [degenerateart.beehiiv.com]

Don't think for a minute that the next few decades of US history couldn't resemble the 20th century history of Pakistan, or Turkey, or Greece. This is not a prediction. But there is nothing special about America that stops it from happening. This country is what we make of it.

This. Allowing the truth of climate change to be denied and ignored was a gateway to allowing all sorts of other truth to be denied and ignored. (Click back through post to see context.)

there has to be such a thing as an edpol event horizon, where one major party loses educated voters by such high margins that they cannot staff a government that can accomplish any policy aim we may be there already

Just want to remind people that in January 2017 I gave a talk at the American Physical Society meeting warning everyone that Trump would gut science just like Hitler did And I've posted the link on social media before, including again earlier this year: bsky.app/profile/chan...

A few lawyers who weren't aware that chatbots are bullshitters are now aware that chatbots are bullshitters. Good stuff. Spread the word.

If I were a four star general I'd be awfully annoyed at having to sit through a lecture from an angry middle-schooler.

Not the most offensive thing about Ezra Klein but on the top ten list is that the appeasing bullshit he’s recommending democrats do to win back power is exactly the shit that lost them power, and he’s insulting our intelligence by pretending otherwise.

this is more or less what I expected

likely not live to see. And that's ok. When I was a wee thing and lived in France I got to see a monolithic cathedral. It's what it sounds like a cathedral carved out of a solid block of rock. It took centuries to carve. We've lost that kind of thinking / 3

This is true and also we should never accept that Trump v. United States is a valid precedent. It's not and as many justices should be removed and/or diluted with more seats and/or jurisdiction stripped as may be necessary, and eventually the repudiation of it should be codified by amendment.

Excellent reporting from Heated and Atmos. It looks like some of the biggest investors in the anti-trans movement are fossil fuel billionaires who are trying to use trans issues to ensure that Republicans pass policies favorable to their industry. heated.world/p/fossil-fue...

It doesn't bother me much to live with the far right. I've been living. What's concerning to me, exemplified by the types of people like EK and the people who agree with him, is the demand that I acquiesce to the far right's design for my life and future so they can feel good again.

Just a reminder that US-made bombs have been blowing up Palestinians every single day for the last two years. All of that is political violence funded by your tax dollars. So when the US government talks about stopping political violence, perhaps it should start with its own.

ICE brutally detains U.S. citizen just for filming—knocking her unconscious. "Agents took her to a side alley, beat her up, then called an ambulance," witness said. "Then they kidnapped her from the hospital—without a formal discharge—and took her to Downtown LA Detention Center."

The UN Speech that should have been covered wall to wall

If @ezrakleinbot.bsky.social really is a liberal who wants liberals to reach out to the widest audience, why doesn't he use his platorm to elevate someone like @jamestalarico.bsky.social ?

What has happened in this country particularly since 'Citizens United' can be summed up pretty simply: right wing billionaires generously funded and platformed people with the worst ideas.

one way you could describe lincoln's approach is of never getting ahead of the public on its attitudes, but holding an immovable set of principles on where the country ought to be and where he hopes to lead it

I know much more (useful, true information) about autism than most doctors. I've been studying the subject a very long time, through firsthand experience & knowing other Autistic people. If there were an environmental cause with solid evidence behind it, we'd know. There is not. #ActuallyAutistic

Embarrassingly, it apparently took the latest Klein/Coates convo to get me to really read the whole Clinton 'deplorables' quote all way through. And it's striking to me how a poor choice of sentence subject can potentially end a civilization. If only the subject had been beliefs, not people.

Good time to refresh this read from 2020. "DHS analysts recounted orders to generate evidence [that] would have served to legitimize President Trump’s false claims about “Antifa" [which] even his most loyal intelligence officers failed to drum up proof ever existed." gizmodo.com/donald-trump...

# of paragraphs for news orgs to mention there's no discernable need to deploy troops to Portland, Oregon The Guardian: 1st paragraph BBC: 4th paragraph AP: 5th paragraph Time: 6th paragraph Politico: 8th paragraph NPR: 9th paragraph CNN: 10th paragraph NBC: 12th paragraph Fox News: never mentions

I think the admin is overestimating the bloodlust of normie America to see protesters on sidewalks mowed down by gov bullets. The WH has full poaster’s madness and their brains are so baked on edgelord provocations they’ve totally detached from society at large, performing for a shrinking minority.

There is absolutely no good faith reason to use the term “AI” for any technology one is selling. It serves only for dazzling people into thinking the technology has capabilities that it doesn’t. If one wants a technology to be trustworthy, just use a transparent, informative term without hype.

The thing regular people don’t often grasp about ‘academic freedom’ is that if you don’t allow experts to research & teach in their fields of expertise, guided by their professional judgment & decades of training, you have effectively given up on the concept of knowledge & shut down your university

I'm going to make myself an official curmudgeon here, but I don't see how the irony here helps. I hope the kids are smarter than my generation.

Ppl legit think the govt knows everything and anything mysterious or uncertain must be a coverup

Crazy how the executive branch goes “if we can’t break the law it’s irreparable harm to our lawbreaking,” 6 Supreme Court Justices go “yeah sure,” often with no further explanation, and 3 are left doing an eloquent version of “but checks and balances, duly passed statute, what are we doing here.”

there is an enormous collective action problem in elite society right now and if we can get the dam to break we can shove this guy back in the dumpster of history where he belongs that starts with, correctly, convincing them that it is actually in their self interest to fight back