Author | Lightnews

I, BS

@thebenshaw.bsky.social

210 followers 730 following 290 posts

Luddite/technologist, social justice worrier, recalcitrant masters student poking at media-ecologies and socio-technologies. Tangata tiriti, trying to be a better guest on unceded Djarra country.

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I, BS @thebenshaw.bsky.social · Dec 19

Me, struggling to write a short bio: "How can I possibly capture all of my life's rich experience and my many nuanced and thoughtful perspectives in so little space?"

My doctor:

A screenshot of text with the heading "Clinical Notes (including relevant medications" and the following text "44 year-old man - GI upset"

I, BS @thebenshaw.bsky.social · 19h

Wonder how MasterCard et al are going to respond to this? www.wired.com/story/chatgp...

ChatGPT’s Horny Era Could Be Its Stickiest Yet

OpenAI will soon let adults create erotic content in ChatGPT. Experts say that could lead to “emotional commodification,” or horniness as a revenue stream.

www.wired.com

I, BS @thebenshaw.bsky.social · 1d

I pointed them towards www.baldurbjarnason.com/2025/trustin... but I doubt anything will change their mind vis their subjective experience (as is true for all of us most of the time right?)

Trusting your own judgement on ‘AI’ is a huge risk

Web dev at the end of the world, from Hveragerði, Iceland

www.baldurbjarnason.com

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I, BS @thebenshaw.bsky.social · 1d

I made this argument to a developer on the weekend and he seemed astonished I would think that. Generally believed it was a game changer for him, would happily pay $5k + a month for it. Even seemed pretty well versed on its myriad ethical/financial/environmental issues ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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I, BS @thebenshaw.bsky.social · 2d

Hear me out: jousting sticks

I, BS @thebenshaw.bsky.social · 5d

Such a tired but pernicious line. How close is Australia to retirement? Are we planning on having kids? Sure hope we land that big new client!

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I, BS @thebenshaw.bsky.social · 7d

Future generations will not look kindly on our penchant for intentionally mutating dogs into forms that are detrimental to their health and wellbeing because we think it looks cute.

Zach Weinersmith @zachweinersmith.bsky.social · 8d

Do you have any extremely niche, but serious, ethical stances?

I, BS @thebenshaw.bsky.social · 8d

Maybe I'm showing my specific prejudice around the flight capabilities of the African Swamp Hen 😅

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I, BS @thebenshaw.bsky.social · 8d

There's some evidence that Pukeko arrived in NZ from Australia about 1000ya, I think the conclusion is they flew here (or maybe floated?). I'm no expert but kinda feels like drawing a long bow to avoid the possibility of pre-colonial trans-(pre)Tasman trade? academic.oup.com/auk/article/...

Dispersal and speciation in purple swamphens (Rallidae: Porphyrio)

Abstract. Dispersal, when accompanied by reduced gene flow and natural selection, influences speciation rates among groups of organisms. We used molecular

academic.oup.com

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I, BS @thebenshaw.bsky.social · 11d

oh great another thing that 1 minute ago I didn't know existed and that I now covet.

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Reposted by I, BS

T✨ @tastromo.bsky.social · Aug 17

Israel is also holding approximately 10,000 Palestinian hostages.

Please consider all the hostages next time you’re talking about this. Too many only care about the 50 Israelis.

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I, BS @thebenshaw.bsky.social · 12d

Because a huge part of the promise of 'AI' is "what if we made it so that economically precarious people still had to do all the shitty jobs but we ALSO didn't have to see them?"

Kasey Gifford @kaseygifford.bsky.social · 12d

We should be asking this
c o n s t a n t l y.

I, BS @thebenshaw.bsky.social · 12d

It's spooky season in the goldfields

A photograph of a field in the early morning. The sun is just above the trees in the background, which are shrouded in fog.

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Reposted by I, BS

Alex @shakingstick.bsky.social · 15d

Portland reclaiming frogs for the forces of light in meme semiotics is a delight

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Reposted by I, BS

Sharon Murdoch @domesticanimal.bsky.social · 22d

Peace plan. Both Trump and Netanyahu have used these words.
My Stuff #cartoon today #Israel #USA #PeacePlan #Gaza #Palestine

Cartoon. Title: “Peace Plan” Image shows a white dove dressed in army gear, brandishing a gun, with the Israeli flag on his helmet and the US flag on his vest. He’s standing amidst the rubble, and saying “Sign… Or we finish the job”

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I, BS @thebenshaw.bsky.social · 16d

JFC. Guess I do still have the capacity to be shocked by the IDF.

I, BS @thebenshaw.bsky.social · 17d

I think the source she was actually looking for was Trinidadian musician Anslem Douglas, from a song later made famous by the Baha Men.

Malcolm RF 💚🇳🇿 @p-no-nwa.bsky.social · 17d

Our Finance Minister putting her English Literature degree to good use, inspiring. #nzpol

Alex @shakingstick.bsky.social · 17d

Heh.

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I, BS @thebenshaw.bsky.social · 19d

Well done Miriam-Webster, you had me sweatin' there. www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvQn... #LLM #ActualIntelligence

LLM

YouTube video by Merriam-Webster

www.youtube.com

I, BS @thebenshaw.bsky.social · 23d

Get Jason Gunn and Lana Coc-kroft spinning a big ol' "Wheel of Nationalisation". It'd kill in the ratings.

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I, BS @thebenshaw.bsky.social · 24d

Though it would be pretty funny if he saw a bunch of drunk American sailors and was like "fuck if I know what they're saying, but they're just like me!"

I, BS @thebenshaw.bsky.social · 24d

As someone who lived in Bahrain for a couple of years, I can say pretty confidently that if he was "at a bar" he was probably not watching interactions among "locals". Most bars are full of Anglosphere migrant workers or members of the US fifth fleet.

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I, BS @thebenshaw.bsky.social · 24d

I tend not to subscribe to conspiratal "powerful men working in the shadows to mold the world according to their esoteric philosophy" narratives ("they're greedy and morally malnourished" usually does the trick) but this is a pretty compelling picture www.wired.com/story/the-re...

The Real Stakes, and Real Story, of Peter Thiel’s Antichrist Obsession

Thirty years ago, a peace-loving Austrian theologian spoke to Peter Thiel about the apocalyptic theories of Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt. They’ve been a road map for the billionaire ever since.

www.wired.com

I, BS @thebenshaw.bsky.social · 28d

What if I'm active in large part *because* I'm disorganised?

Reposted by I, BS

The Spinoff @thespinoff.bsky.social · 28d

New Zealand is punching above its weight in cowardice

Winston Peters promised that New Zealand’s recognition of Palestine was a matter of 'when, not if', which has a real deadbeat-dad-promises-he’ll-have-his-shit-together-next-week air about it....

thespinoff.co.nz

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I, BS @thebenshaw.bsky.social · Sep 23

Star Wars: A cautionary tale of the chaos that ensues when a son and daughter disobey the edicts of their father and join indigenous terrorists to conspire against their homeland.

Reposted by I, BS

Dr Sanjana Hattotuwa @sanjanah.bsky.social · Sep 23

Posted a response to this to on LinkedIn from the perspective of power demand in Sri Lanka. For those in New Zealand, the total power generation capacity in 2021 was 10,080MW, which is what just the NVIDIA GPU's at OpenAI propose to use up. From either country's perspective, this is mind-boggling.

Sri Lanka's peak electricity demand on Monday, 22 September 2025 was 2.7 gigawatts. OpenAI's proposed AI infrastructure, or more precisely, what's just powered by NVIDIA GPUs would consume a staggering 3.7X times more electricity than Sri Lanka's total peak power consumption on a given day.

While countries like mine focus on, and struggle to meet daily energy needs of their populations, and industries with a few gigawatts, the AI industry is moving towards unprecedented energy consumption levels that rival entire nations.

The sheer scale of it is hard to get one's head around.

Sustainability, environmental impact, the acceleration of global warming, & many other questions arise, but neither NVIDIA nor OpenAI want to meaningfully address them.

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