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Benjamin Harnett

@benjaminharnett.com

3.4K followers 660 following 5.1K posts

Sometime poet, historian, software engineer, novelist, union man. https://www.benjaminharnett.com https://thehappyvalleynovel.com

www.benjaminharnett.com

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Benjamin Harnett @benjaminharnett.com · Jun 20

I interviewed 300 high achievers about their morning routine, and you will never believe, they all have inherited family wealth.

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Dr Emily Skeletonpain @limeyemily.bsky.social · 11h

Each photo in this gets progressively closer to the Vance meme

ryan cooper @ryanlcooper.com · 12h

every young Republican staffer is a Nazi, it's that simple www.politico.com/news/2025/10...

‘I love Hitler’: Leaked messages expose Young Republicans’ racist chat

Thousands of private messages reveal young GOP leaders joking about gas chambers, slavery and rape.

www.politico.com

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Benjamin Harnett @benjaminharnett.com · 13h

Seriously

Benjamin Harnett @benjaminharnett.com · 14h

The difference between the smartphone and wearables is that the smartphone does 98% of what wearables could offer, and the other 2% is weird shit that only the worst creepasses actually want.

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flyingrodent @flyingrodent.bsky.social · 16h

The Sensible Moderates, ladies and gentlemen

Geri Scott C @Geri_E_L_Scott
X.com
This has gone down *badly* with some in govt, amid push to reform the ECHR from the inside.
Shabana Mahmood especially is said to take a
"dim view" of arguments made and her allies say issue of trans rights after the Supreme Court's judgement is "beyond reproach".
Govt source says "it doesn't help sustain public confidence in the European Convention when the Council is seen to intervene in domestic politics and national security".
Steven Swinford • @Steven_Swinford • 5h
Breaking:
The government's treatment of trans people in the
UK could breach the European Convention on Human Rights, Europe's human right...

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Jon Bois @jonbois.bsky.social · 1d

book bindings on both sides. people keep prying them open from the right side and snooping around. mind your own business

Rachel Feder @rachelfeder.bsky.social · 1d

Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat

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alex roberts @lexlanham.bsky.social · 16h

class action lawsuit alleges canada dry ginger ale is deceptively labeled b/c the soda is not actually made in canada, but in the US!

the class alleges this misrepresentation is material to their purchasing decision, i.e. they would not have bought the canada dry had they known

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Sam Eyler-Driscoll 🍉🌻🍁 @sameyler.bsky.social · 17h

I will never, ever forget how sick I felt when I realized that Americans were simply going to metabolize this and move on. One of the most dreadful “fascism is already here” moments in my life in this country

Zito @zeets.bsky.social · 18h

Congrats to all the people who have postured as intelligent and morally righteous for years but decided that they couldn’t take a stand against genocide or decided to justify and cheer on the massacre of a people for whatever reason. Now they can go back to playing the intellectual in peace.

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Fabio Chiusi @fabiochiusi.bsky.social · 20h

"we should not assume that technological revolutions are productivity revolutions. The rate of productivity growth has been in sharp decline since 2003, and today sits where it stood before the widespread adoption of the personal computer"

www.techpolicy.press/generative-a...

Generative AI’s Productivity Myth | TechPolicy.Press

People may be using artificial intelligence, but that doesn’t mean it’s useful, writes Eryk Salvaggio.

www.techpolicy.press

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Matt Ortega @mattortega.com · 1d

Did people all get hit in the head with the a hammer at the same time? What is going on?

Business Insider @businessinsider.com · 1d

Some military leaders are turning to AI chatbots for help with decision-making, seeing this tech as a way to get the advantage.

Even top generals are looking to AI chatbots for answers

Some military leaders are turning to AI chatbots for help with decision-making, seeing this tech as a way to get the advantage.

www.businessinsider.com

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Roy Edroso @edroso.bsky.social · 1d

This is the way. www.thebanner.com/politics-pow...

Maryland Democrats want a candidate in every 2026 race

An initiative dubbed “Contest Every Seat” aims to fill ballots across the state with Democratic candidates for the House of Delegates, state Senate, county councils and county commissions.

www.thebanner.com

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Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 1d

boost your user satisfaction and growth with this one weird trick (removing the shit everyone hates that you added for no reason)

r/SaaS
u/soasme
I deleted ALL AI features... and user growth went UP.

Everyone's busy adding Al to everything.
I did the same for indie10k.com but it didn't work.
I removed all of fancy Al stuff - Al coach, Al growth ideas, Al "personalized" advice - everything.
Guess what?
I see more registered users and higher retention.
That actually make me wonder why now i have one page with one button, without all that Al thingy, but it does better?
Here's my question:
Is Al feature actually helping SaaS grow?

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Helen Rosner @hels.bsky.social · 1d

Hey if you have a culinary or restaurant or cooking or grocery or whatever question that I can answer — etiquette, advice, culture explainer, vibe prompts, etc — for my (ostensibly) food-related sporadic advice column, please send it to [email protected] with “Helen Help Me” in the subject line!

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Matt Seybold @mattseybold.bsky.social · 1d

If GOP is indeed steadfast in destroying the College Board, the progressive agenda is to make sure nothing replaces it. The College Board is an EdTech tapeworm inside K-16 gobbling away from both ends. I’m pretty sure its GOP critics just wish they owned the tapeworm.

Annie Abrams @annieabrams.bsky.social · 1d

the college board's not a progressive organization

Kent Lind @camasonian.bsky.social · 1d

I've proctored dozens of AP and SAT tests at my school and never earned a single dime for any of it.

They profit off an army of teachers providing them free labor.

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Benjamin Harnett @benjaminharnett.com · 1d

Sky was putting off some serious mood yesterday

A mown patch of green field with stalks of dead plants and low dark hills and some silhouetted trees in the mid-distance. But overhead a bit sprawling cloudscape in the sky, all dramatic as the low fall sun lights it, while some puffs of clouds are a row of shadowy dashes.

The field all dry grasses and old milkweed stalks and a young elm tree at the center that will eventually tower in the middle of the field. The clouds are all piled up around it dramatically. Stormily.

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bleary @bleary.off-the-records.com · 1d

If anyone needs me I will be in the museum, lying down next to the bog bodies.

Did people really memorize phone numbers before cell phones, or is that just a movie thing?
2? Questions
I was watching some old shows from the 90s and noticed people would just dial numbers from memory - like they'd call their friends or family without looking anything up.
Made me wonder if that was actually normal back then? Did people genuinely have all their important numbers memorized, or did most folks keep a little address book or written list nearby?

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Benjamin Harnett @benjaminharnett.com · 1d

Haha no fucking way—you would all hate me.

Rachel Feder @rachelfeder.bsky.social · 1d

Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat

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Benjamin Harnett @benjaminharnett.com · 1d

Great shirt!!

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Joseph Howley @illdottore.bsky.social · 1d

The final book of apuleius’s golden ass is still confounding and captivating readers to this day

Garfield and Friends Screens @garfieldscreens.bsky.social · 1d

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Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 2d

There is a cult of action at the heart of tech.

This cult says: don't mind that the systems are broken. Don't try and fix them. You can just do things, using you ubermensch will.

AI has plugged into this cult to promise 10x-ing your action. But instead your will becomes subservient to the machine.

"Just doing things" is not a path to value

Action for the sake of action feels good, but the path of least resistance leads you to surrender your own agency.

productpicnic.beehiiv.com

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John Leavitt @leavittalone.bsky.social · 2d

No one remembers Donald trump was president before not even Donald trump

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Jacek Debiec, MD, PhD, DPhil 🌎 🧠 @drjacekdebiec.bsky.social · 2d

In the university I worked, the office of medical ethics was replaced by the office of corporate compliance.

"The institutionalization of medical ethics, by which ethics as a practice of critically questioning the good is instead replaced by a professional morality that gives us ready-made answers"

Eric Reinhart @eric-reinhart.com · 2d

New article out this month on how doctors become fascists.

50% of German physicians joined the Nazi Party––twice the proportion of any other profession. US doctors today are arguably the most conservative in the world, and we're heading along a similar path.
drive.google.com/file/d/1CAk9...

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darth™️ @darthbluesky.bsky.social · 4d

the republican majority leader with a clear vision for the democratic party

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 4d

Thune: "If the Democrats had won the majority, they probably would've tried to nuke the filibuster. And then you'd have four new senators from Puerto Rico and DC, you'd have a packed Supreme Court, you'd have abortion on demand ... "

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Benjamin Harnett @benjaminharnett.com · 2d

This this this.

Bo Bolander @bbolander.bsky.social · 2d

friends were discussing ethical quandries of artificial intelligence last night, stuff that has been discussed a million times in theory for decades, & somebody asked what i thought & i said "i don't give it any thought anymore, this shit is driving people insane and i refuse to engage with it"

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Sonja Drimmer @sonjadrimmer.bsky.social · 2d

So my point is that we need to get better at understanding when the language of progressivism is co-opted by bad actors to hustle into the public sphere (“too innovative for regulation”) technologies that threaten the basic foundations of trust necessary to a functioning society.

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Benjamin Harnett @benjaminharnett.com · 2d

I mean, right???