i really like it when people read what i write, but i sure hope my essays are not “consumed” and if you did that please vomit it back motherfucker.

“I tried to help OpenAI raise some money by starting a GoFundMe for them, but those fundraising campaigns are capped at a mere billion dollars. Which doesn’t even pay for snacks at OpenAI.”

the whole furry thing never appealed to me, but now i think it'd be cool to be a froggy. ht @guillaumee.bsky.social

All else equal — ceteris paribus, as the economists say — if you were to just grab that expensive watch from the jewelry store counter and walk out the door, you'd be better off. Only all else would not be equal. Lots of data-centric political punditry is basically "grab the watch".

"we could call this a…muscular, socialism-inflected version of antitrust. Rather than (or in addition to) playing constant…whack-a-mole against market concentration…the govt steps in directly and creates the competition it wants, either thru subsidies or outright state-owned firms." @ryanlcooper.com

i hope they stop murdering people there. i am rooting for that.

“In smaller courses, the difference in the quality of…discussion where 70% of the students have done 50% of the readings and one in which 20% have done 10% of the readings is obvious in the same way…a cold Coke tastes different than lukewarm spit. The former is no Chablis, but it is more palatable.”

“It’s true that Bush did more to infringe on civil liberties than Trump did in his first term, but if Trump had been president on 9/11, he probably would have put the country’s entire Muslim population in internment camps.” @mattyglesias.bsky.social www.slowboring.com/p/the-author...

what variety of exquisite corpse is this?

people underestimate the power of mere annoyance in politics. often people just vote against the people they consider more annoying.

in a dystopian society, billboards would be dominated by ads for personal injury and divorce lawyers. radio (they’d call it “podcasts”) would be constantly hawking supplements, CBD, and psychotherapy.

any softness in the AI sector would be contained.

the entrenchment of a gerontocratic political leadership globally suggests life extension research may have social costs its enthusiasts and funders have not reckoned with. for much of the world, the finitude of leaders’ natural lifespans represents the public’s best hope for change.

once you define oat milk as a chemical weapon, portland really is a war zone.

youtu.be/3jL4S4X97sQ

a thing that Trump's political and tech's current business strategy have in common is confident reliance on the enthusiasm of the public for being told comforting lies. turn that photo of your kid into an endearing video of a moment that never happened!

has there ever been a more contemptuous performance before Congress, in the ordinary sense of that word, than Pam Bondi?

better to just do them than pretend that everything is normal while you have a government the public hates.