@carolannie ( i’ve mixed feelings about their CEO… https://theintercept.com/2025/01/28/proton-mail-andy-yen-trump-republicans/ )

Any VPN recommendations?

(the main motivation is to present as a US client while overseas, for a whole family’s devices, i’d like someone i don’t feel shitty to do business with.)

Stein’s Law is the law now in America.

This is excellent, by #LeeDrutman

(i think the piece suggests fusion voting would not do enough more than that it’s a particularly hopeful way forward. but the analysis of where we are, and how futile much of our factionalizing is, has never been presented more clearly.)

https://leedrutman.substack.com/p/the-moderation-debate-fiddles-with

ht @ryanlcooper

you used to have to change the clocks, but now it’s like a treasure hunt to find a clock that hasn’t changed itself.

concentrating our forces off Venezuela and Nigeria will ensure our critical national security interests are protected.

This post does not exist.

if you’ve written for a long time, you have to hope you don’t become a stereotype of yourself. it’s not an easy thing to avoid.

boo, y'all!

isn't he doing to grok what they did to HAL 9000?

if you believe that a better world is possible, you may be tarred as a doomer, because achieving a better world involves calling attention to what is wrong with this one.

your very optimism is called pessimism, particularly by people for whom the current world is more than comfortable.

@Alon A smart US would not. But a man always desperate to be able to brag about a “good deal”, who welcomes the hatred of the virtuous and pious, might make a trade!

Anyone else think the nuclear announcement is a concession that Xi requested?

The timing is... suspicious.

China is the nuclear laggard of the three apocalyptopowers. It wants to catch up, and has the technical and industrial means to do so, but it probably needs to test its new tech. However, it's invested a lot in portraying itself as good guy to America's putative evil empire.

The US' negotiating position vis China is objectively bad, but people can find creative… sweeteners.

i get knocked down / but i get up again / but not without throwing a huge temper tantrum and acting bitter and depressed for days and you're never gonna keep me down!

@riaschissl wow. i use claude a lot, had no idea it was synthesizing a profile. i thought each session was like a new birth!

friendship is the microstructure of solidarity. AI companionship is an opiate of the masses.

if we think of Jeffrey Epstein as a kompromat op, isn't AI erotica served by centralized platforms likely to become Jeffrey Epstein blitzscaled?

i don't mean to draw a moral equivalence. no children are harmed indulging a weird fetish with Mistress GPT. but it'll become a blackmail treasure trove.

if you don’t maintain your assets, they become liabilities.

@paninid times! i’m an idiot.

that human nature changes so much with the times suggests it isn’t really nature.