there’s something sadly emblematic about this as a (nearly) last (non) act. what do Yoda say? do or do not.

playing around on redbook, it is all welcomes and smiles and cordial mutual curiosity. until someone asked about israel and, hooboy, that got ugly fast.

i’m rednote curious, prefer using a Chinese app to a Musk, Meta, or Google product. i’ve no illusions about China’s government. but Elon and our homegrown tech oligarchs are a more proximate threat to my own political community. i’d prefer a fediverse or atproto alternative obviously!

is “influencer” a legitimate and desirable role in the economy that public policy should support and protect? re youtu.be/cUyzDhYDMTc

"actual threats came from the GOP, 2 which Zuckerberg quickly caved… supposed threats from the Biden admin were overhyped, exaggerated, and misrepresented, and Zuck directly admits he was able 2 easily refuse those requests… the rest is noise." @mmasnick.bsky.social www.techdirt.com/2025/01/16/r...

is SpaceX liable for these costs?

how long until Starship is able to send humans to Greenland?

"Is Xiaohongshu TikTok Two?" (Sorry.)

God I'm going to miss the Lina Khan FTC.

(shamelessly linking my own drivel) drafts.interfluidity.com/2024/05/28/m...

this is the situation before Stupid & Evil Party tries to impose fascism. we’ll be busy trying to counter that for a while. but when we get a moment, mb we should take a break from defending Stupid & Useless over Stupid & Evil (Useless is much better than Evil!) and find a way to better options.

i’m constantly told that Amazon is among the most trusted institutions in America while the press is distrusted and despised, so why don’t they just rebrand it “The Amazon Ace” or something.

there is no such thing as a mediocre human.

the most useless form of take is our politics are bad because our people are bad. it’s not a constructive or actionable kind of take. it also gets causality wrong. the character of a community, the character of its members, is downstream from its politics much more than the other way around.

gonna start a trend of close in foot fetish videos under the hashtag #TikTokToe

we like to imagine we are impervious. rational empirical adjudicators are we! but in fact we too are prisoners of the zeitgeist. we do our best to keep our hazmat suit sealed but poison still seeps through the seams.

in theory, our credit ratings are now impervious to medical debt / disputes over medical billing, right? how real do we think this is, as a practical matter, given the change in administration? www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/new...

hot sauce at neighborhood lunch spot.

winning is like heroin. just because you want more and it feels good doesn’t mean that more is good for you. it’s terrible for a human to always lose. but we’re learning how terrible it also is to win too much. these people are enviably comfortable, but they are not enviable people.