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Reposted by beka valentine

Jenn @geekgalgroks.bsky.social · 1h

This isn't good at all.
www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/ne...

Minnesota to stop processing SNAP benefits amid federal government shutdown

The Minnesota Department of Children, Youth, and Families says they're being forced to stop processing Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Benefits (SNAP), or food stamp applications, starting W...

www.cbsnews.com

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Reposted by beka valentine

A Spooky Goose @anarchygoose.bsky.social · 7h

Born Eric Arthur Blair (thus 'Eric' in the above quotes), Orwell was very much a product of Empire. He was born into a family of Indian colonisers who made their money through slavery in Jamaica.

This, too, tends to get ignored because he spent some time dossing around Paris doing poverty tourism.

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A Spooky Goose @anarchygoose.bsky.social · 7h

So yeah okay I've got some time.

Most people dismiss Orwell because he was a snitch and a traitor who collaborated with the British government to kill communists and queers.

Did you also know he was a rapist? Probably not because it tends to get talked about like this (from The Orwell Society):

First, the relationship was considerably more erotic than Jacintha, (conceived, after all, under Queen Victoria) could confess in print. Second, Eric proposed marriage to Jacintha before leaving for Burma, and was wounded by her rejection. Third, in September 1921, Eric tried at least half-heartedly to rape her, which naturally drove a wedge between them. We need to reevaluate her “solution to the problem of his life” in the light of this new intelligence.

She admitted that she and Eric had later engaged in what used to be called “heavy petting” (“some intimacy but not full intercourse” was how she put it). Jacintha also wrote Eric at least two erotically suggestive poems, one imagining herself as his vampire lover, the other envisioning the two of them reincarnated: Eric as Sarasate, the gipsy virtuoso, and herself as his violin.xiii It can probably be assumed that Jacintha was sending Eric some confusingly mixed messages.

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beka valentine @bekavalentine.bsky.social · 7h

hot take: Alan Kay is not only an arrogant, extremely over-rated asshole, but actually on the whole rather a failure who achieved little in the way of positive contributions to the world

Reposted by beka valentine

Janet Lunde @janetlunde.bsky.social · 3d

The GOP is trying to suppress voting by requiring burdensome proof of citizenship through a rule change by the Election Assistance Commission.

Don't have a passport? Changed your name on marriage? Expect a giant paperwork hassle to register to vote!

Log a comment against this by Oct 20th!

Regulations.gov

www.regulations.gov

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beka valentine @bekavalentine.bsky.social · 9h

Dow Jones
Jan 2003: 8601
Today: 46270
Change: 5.38x

S&P 500
Jan 2003: 861
Today: 6644
Change: 7.72x

Nasdaq
Jan 2003: 1387
Today: 22521
Change: 16.24x

Gold
Jan 2003: 370
Today: 4213
Change: 11.39x

this is kind of embarrassing for the stock market tbh

beka valentine @bekavalentine.bsky.social · 14h

@sampflugrath.bsky.social watched this again recently with some friends friends. the effects are so beautiful

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onion person @junlper.beer · 14h

jd vance is currently defending this

Santiago Mayer @santiagomayer.com · 14h

Young Democrats: hey maybe don’t kidnap my international friends

Young Republicans:

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NY Times Pitchbot @nytpitchbot.bsky.social · 22h

Whether it's young Democrats expressing their support for DEI or young Republicans saying "I love Hitler,' both sides have expressed controversial opinions.

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Alex Degen (Magic Serple 2025) @adactivity.bsky.social · 22h

This is cool after the war on everything called “porn” by platforms and payment processors. A machine that stole all your words can generate and sell “erotica” but you can’t haaa

Matt Burgess (WIRED) @mattburgess1.bsky.social · 23h

Oh good, ChatGPT is getting "erotica for verified adults" later this year

We made ChatGPT pretty restrictive to make sure we were being careful with mental health issues. We realize this made it less useful/enjoyable to many users who had no mental health problems, but given the seriousness of the issue we wanted to get this right.

Now that we have been able to mitigate the serious mental health issues and have new tools, we are going to be able to safely relax the restrictions in most cases.

In a few weeks, we plan to put out a new version of ChatGPT that allows people to have a personality that behaves more like what people liked about 4o (we hope it will be better!). If you want your ChatGPT to respond in a very human-like way, or use a ton of emoji, or act like a friend, ChatGPT should do it (but only if you want it, not because we are usage-maxxing).

In December, as we roll out age-gating more fully and as part of our “treat adult users like adults” principle, we will allow even more, like erotica for verified adults.

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proletkvlt @proletkvlt.bsky.social · 14h

Sam Altman, bubble still growing: Yeah man so basically my computer is so good we're gonna need Dyson spheres lol we're gonna need all electricity on Earth but it will pay off because my computer is basically God

Sam Altman, bubble deflating: So basically I'm thinking the computer can touch on you

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beka valentine @bekavalentine.bsky.social · 22h

but no one with any political prospects -- not even DSA and Mamdani -- are organizing around those fundamental changes that have to happen. everyone wants to spend their way out of the problem, and they will never succeed in doing that

beka valentine @bekavalentine.bsky.social · 22h

you cannot solve these problems by spending money, you have to take power from the rich and from corporations, you have to regulate and control private capital

spending money can never solve these problems, you have to change laws, change institutions, and OR-GA-NIZE

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beka valentine @bekavalentine.bsky.social · 22h

government programs that just spend money to "fix" societal problems are almost always transfers of wealth. if your taxes are strongly progressive, you're shuffling around the wealth of the rich. if your taxes are regressive, you're fleecing the poor to make the rich richer

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beka valentine @bekavalentine.bsky.social · 23h

there isn't even any vanity space travel of note, tho

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beka valentine @bekavalentine.bsky.social · 23h

it's also really funny that people think the worlds problems are caused by the fact that we're not spending enough money on fixing them, which is just absurd

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beka valentine @bekavalentine.bsky.social · 23h

there's a fairly famous datapoint here from the 90s, where people think that NASA's budget is a full quarter of the entire budget for the US government, or something to that effect, which is a legitimately hilarious

people are just going on vibes for this shit, it's wild

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beka valentine @bekavalentine.bsky.social · 23h

i'm also fairly confident that people who talk about space cowboys have no idea how much money is spent on space, nor who's spending it

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beka valentine @bekavalentine.bsky.social · 23h

i've never met someone who says "we should be spending money on solving earth's problems not on space cowboys", who also knows what we spend money on in the space industry

i'm convinced that it's impossible to hold that view while also having that knowledge

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Dr. Samantha Hancox-Li @sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com · 1d

they have been trying to do meme authoritarianism, and that means generating the right kinds of content--the forces of Order vs the forces of Chaos, riots and violence and burning shit and ""antifa supersoldiers""

the kind of imagery to justify the kind of powers they aspire to

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Dr. Samantha Hancox-Li @sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com · 1d

instead they get grandmas, and priests, and inflatable frogs, and ordinary decent people rising up and saying "this is vile, this is unamerican, these are secret police"

they get kristi noem in a staring contest with a guy in a chicken suit

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Dr. Samantha Hancox-Li @sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com · 1d

one of the reasons they're so mad at "no kings" is that they thought they were going to get a different kind of protest. they *want* the black bloc to be out there fighting with the cops. those are the images they've been trying to generate from "go." instead--

newrepublic.com/article/2016...

MAGA Rage at “No Kings” Boils Over—and It Quickly Backfires on Trump

As Trump allies smear the coming protests, a good writer on MAGA skewers the absurdity of these attacks on large swaths of Americans—and explains why our best recourse will be to turn out in force.

newrepublic.com

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Chuck Wendig @chuckwendig.bsky.social · 1d

This is why the inflatable costumes works so well -- it works the same way calling them "weird" or "creepy" did. It disrupts their narrative, and makes them seem pathetic rather than cool-and-cruel.

Christopher Webb @cwebbonline.com · 1d

You need to see this:

“The show of force is the point. They want these images to be out…The Department of Homeland Security is walking around Chicago with a film crew.” @jacobsoboroff.bsky.social

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beka valentine @bekavalentine.bsky.social · 1d

yesssss

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It's Going Down @igd.bsky.social · 1d

People organizing in #Chicago to protect children from violent ICE attacks.

"Armed with whistles and know-your-rights pamphlets, community volunteers call themselves “guardian angels.” Together, they secure...elementary, middle and high schools across the city." www.yahoo.com/news/article...

‘Angels’ step in after federal agents use tear gas near Chicago school

Mayor Brandon Johnson said the incident in Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood sent students scrambling.

www.yahoo.com

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