guy classified as asian and african american by us quasi-legal racial classifications checks asian and african american boxes. okay. whats the story guys? a substack eugenicist posted about it? no way....

He proposes releasing some ICE prisoners to labor on farms where the employers will “own them” and be responsible for them. Historians have spent decades meticulously proving the straight line between slavery and modern capitalism’s concept of the laborer—or we could just let them say it.

does anyone know how it is alex byrne got this way? regular transphobic bigotry is sort of in the air — totally explicable. but this sort of life-destroying obsession with transgender people doesn't come from nowhere. whats the story?

Rural hospitals and small colleges have kept many small towns lights on. Both are being eliminated with this budget bill

the budget bill is an unmitigated disaster. if it passes as is, we're going to head straight into a truly calamitous recession. cutting federal benefits at the start of a recession is an incredibly stupid (and evil!) move. with tariffs and federal research funding vanishing as well...

this is the level of funding where all the possibilities for American politics that have been described as hyperbolic over the past decades - the comparisons to Nazi Germany and other nightmares of the 20th century - become logistically possible and politically likely

hi everybody! if you're an academic philosopher and would prefer your colleagues didn't produce propaganda which furthers the trump administration's attempt to eradicate transgender people from public life, consider reading/signing this open letter about it! dearprofessorbyrne.wordpress.com

the new york times is so evil. i sort of expect fascist american politicians to be evil — it's just what they are — but if there's anybody who knows better and could have done better it's the new york times. you'd think they would have learned something from 2003, or from 1982, but no.

In this metaphor, the middle eastern country being attacked is the USSR, not the beleaguered empire—ran by a ring of spineless power hungry yes men—that is attempting to topple aforementioned middle eastern country. I am very intelligent.

1. After the Skrmetti decision, the New York Times has published 6 articles dancing on the graves of trans youth and spreading disinformation on care. It was cited 7 times in the ruling. Read my latest on what will be a black stain on the NYT for a generation. Subscribe to support my journalism.

Dog they passed a law banning gender affirming care. The options are sue to try to stop it or don’t.

"gender dysphoria" is a vestige of a vestige of a ruthless medical gatekeeping regime that has the goal of producing as few transsexuals as possible. informed consent already obviates it but doesn't go far enough

clearly we have to do both. both have clear eyes about the fact that this is evil, and will kill many children, that even the best outcomes for trans kids are still traumatizing; also we must show trans kids that there is a life for them, community, a future, and that it's not too late post-puberty.

oh my god, we don't even have 50% at "definitely false." a majority of people think that claim is like, weakly plausible. horrifying.

so, first, imagine you're a perfectly rational agent behind a veil of ignorance....

New macro-empirical research finds that every dollar invested in non-defense public R&D yields $1.40–$2.10 in economic output, and since World War II, government funding has driven roughly 20% of U.S. productivity.

the last word of all of these parties before they become the permanently defanged controlled opposition parties within their respective fascist states seems to be, incredibly, "well... we'll let you have trans people!"

thanks oup. very helpful blurb

There is not a single congressional district in the U.S. where more than 15% of voters support cuts to Medicaid.

Trump's anti-market economic worldview on display. He believes that spending money is a sign of weakness. This is the same logic as his claim that last week that the precipitous decline in shipping volumes at the country's ports is "a good thing, not a bad thing," because "we lose less money."/1

i think this may be the most evil part of their bill (ymmv, lots of contenders) imagine: the country enters severe recession w/ a 9.9% unemployment rate. you lose your job. under the gop plan, you and your 8yo kid lose your food assistance because you’re considered a moocher evil evil evil stuff

the budget bill is an unmitigated disaster. if it passes as is, we're going to head straight into a truly calamitous recession. cutting federal benefits at the start of a recession is an incredibly stupid (and evil!) move. with tariffs and federal research funding vanishing as well...

Said this before but the reason housing+zoning policy posters can get so unhinged on here is that it really is the equivalent to the putting on the They Live sunglasses

Mountain Goats: My stepfather is an animal, in that he is ontologically evil and I will destroy him Sufjan: My mother is an animal, in that she is ontologically evil and I love her Car Seat Headrest: I am an animal, I am ontologically evil and Jesus loves me, these things are completely unrelated

what happened here

"Masked security forces captured an opposition leader in the coastal province of New Jersey as regime officials continue their months-long crack-down against pro-democracy elements in the embattled United States. The arrest comes as the regime issued calls for summary detentions without trial."

i did an adjacent activity in high school, and this is mostly true. it gave us lots of reasons to learn about politics, but also pushed us to think of politics like a pundit would — with a shallow framing of expediency, drained of all moral sentiment and commitment. not good for teenagers, obviously

The whole internet loves Chicago Pope, a Chicagoan who’s been elected Pope! *5 seconds later* We regret to inform you the Pope is Catholic

from Marcuse's "Reason and Revolution." I don't doubt that machines will do an equal or better job at paying out "fictitious damages for real wrongs" or effecting a "transplantation [of social and political struggle] to the inner sanctum of the soul."

not nearly the most important thing here but $2.25 million annually is such little money. that's chump change to a billionaire. that's like 5 white supremacist gofundmes. where are the philanthropists, who could easily absorb so many of these costs for the time being? where are the pritzkers?

people are always surprised that students use chat-gpt for canvas discussion post type assignments, but tbh if i was an undergrad that's probably the first thing i would consider using chatgpt for

strong agree. frivolous, stupid consumption is at least consumption. one of the many bad things about having super-rich people in an economy is that they don't spend their money on goods and services, their money doesn't circulate quickly enough to generate enough jobs, productivity, etc.

when i was an undergrad, and unsure about applying to graduate school, Talia Mae Bettcher responded to my cold email and talked with me for like two hours on zoom. she gave me very kind and helpful advice — i probably wouldn't still be doing philosophy without her generosity and encouragement!

the narrative is always "isn't it so strange that young men are so fascist?" when it's always clear from the data that young women are truly the outlier. how is it that we ended up, as an age/gender cohort, being so much better politically than our parents? that's the most interesting question here!

sort of odd that we have a president right. you'd think once you've come around on the "kings are bad" thing you might be skeptical of centralizing a lot of power in one guy more generally.

the average american's 3 friends

oh of course it was. alex byrne is a bigot hack, and nobody in the discipline who hasn't spent the last half-decade destroying their own intellectual reputation has any degree of respect for him. he is a pathetic loser even among the crew of antitrans propagandists in philosophy departments today!

oh no... not my neuroscientist colleagues...

11th worst three-day performance of all time.

It Will Happen Again

pgr update

hi guys is this place miserable enough yet

i still recommend watching it, tbh. there's a monologue so good that it justifies the entire experience, even if you don't vibe with most of the movie. and after you watch ISTTVG, you should watch what's actually the most devastating movie ever made about not transitioning: Synechdoche, New York

I Saw The TV Glow is a turning point in trans art because trans women are now allowed to make mediocre films with a real budget

i need to make baruch spinoza and gerrard winstanley kiss like im zendaya in challengers

the world if fichte were a better reader of spinoza