Mark Sumner 🇺🇦
@devilstower.bsky.social
Author, journalist, old guy.
Science, climate, space, transportation, energy, and how human selection drives the evolution of all of the above.
www.unchartedblue.com
Science, climate, space, transportation, energy, and how human selection drives the evolution of all of the above.
www.unchartedblue.com
Pinned
The biggest problem, in both government and business, is that too many people can’t tell the difference between cruelty and leadership.
Reposted by Mark Sumner 🇺🇦
Why give in now, Northwestern?
Marjorie Taylor Greene of all people recognized that Trump isn't the future, but Northwestern's leaders apparently think it's the time to get on board.
Either they think this is forever, or they have no principles and concluded there's no downside to collaborating now.
Marjorie Taylor Greene of all people recognized that Trump isn't the future, but Northwestern's leaders apparently think it's the time to get on board.
Either they think this is forever, or they have no principles and concluded there's no downside to collaborating now.
November 29, 2025 at 2:31 AM
Why give in now, Northwestern?
Marjorie Taylor Greene of all people recognized that Trump isn't the future, but Northwestern's leaders apparently think it's the time to get on board.
Either they think this is forever, or they have no principles and concluded there's no downside to collaborating now.
Marjorie Taylor Greene of all people recognized that Trump isn't the future, but Northwestern's leaders apparently think it's the time to get on board.
Either they think this is forever, or they have no principles and concluded there's no downside to collaborating now.
Reposted by Mark Sumner 🇺🇦
How low we have sunk as a country. The US Department of Defense is now run by a rabid war criminal.
Ordering the execution of helpless survivors of an attack is ALWAYS a war crime, whether they civilian or military.
Pure, mindless, barbarism.
www.thedailybeast.com/pentagon-pet...
Ordering the execution of helpless survivors of an attack is ALWAYS a war crime, whether they civilian or military.
Pure, mindless, barbarism.
www.thedailybeast.com/pentagon-pet...
Pentagon Pete in Legal Peril Over ‘Kill Them All’ Orders
A follow-up missile allegedly killed survivors of a U.S. strike on a drug boat.
www.thedailybeast.com
November 29, 2025 at 6:06 AM
How low we have sunk as a country. The US Department of Defense is now run by a rabid war criminal.
Ordering the execution of helpless survivors of an attack is ALWAYS a war crime, whether they civilian or military.
Pure, mindless, barbarism.
www.thedailybeast.com/pentagon-pet...
Ordering the execution of helpless survivors of an attack is ALWAYS a war crime, whether they civilian or military.
Pure, mindless, barbarism.
www.thedailybeast.com/pentagon-pet...
Trump isn’t interested in stopping the drug trade. But he’s very interested in helping his friends hold a monopoly over that trade … and in what they can do for him.
Isn’t this something that should be investigated? What are the details related to this pardon? Who requested that a pardon be considered on behalf of Juan Hernandez. What documents, emails exist? Was anything of value offered? Who was involved in the process?
November 29, 2025 at 4:46 AM
Trump isn’t interested in stopping the drug trade. But he’s very interested in helping his friends hold a monopoly over that trade … and in what they can do for him.
Reposted by Mark Sumner 🇺🇦
“What is remigration, which the Department of Homeland Security is calling for?”
It’s this:
It’s this:
November 28, 2025 at 7:20 PM
“What is remigration, which the Department of Homeland Security is calling for?”
It’s this:
It’s this:
Reposted by Mark Sumner 🇺🇦
‘Remigration’ is a term that comes out of the European far right. Its use by the DHS account is a sign of democratic and epistemic collapse
November 28, 2025 at 8:59 PM
‘Remigration’ is a term that comes out of the European far right. Its use by the DHS account is a sign of democratic and epistemic collapse
Reposted by Mark Sumner 🇺🇦
It should go without saying, but the president has no authority to do this, and anyone reporting the story needs to say as such.
November 28, 2025 at 9:16 PM
It should go without saying, but the president has no authority to do this, and anyone reporting the story needs to say as such.
The claim of “widespread child sacrifice” by Native Americans is another racist fantasy from “they’re eating the cats” JD Vance. However, the millions of native children massacred by “Christian Civilization” are very real. No reporter should speak to Vance without confronting him over his racism.
VP JD Vance stood before a crowd and tried to falsify history, claiming Christians ended widespread mass child-sacrifice practices among Native Americans
November 28, 2025 at 3:58 AM
The claim of “widespread child sacrifice” by Native Americans is another racist fantasy from “they’re eating the cats” JD Vance. However, the millions of native children massacred by “Christian Civilization” are very real. No reporter should speak to Vance without confronting him over his racism.
Reposted by Mark Sumner 🇺🇦
Homeland Security doesn’t grasp the fact that the first Thanksgiving was about making “room at the table” for European “invaders.”
November 27, 2025 at 11:57 PM
Homeland Security doesn’t grasp the fact that the first Thanksgiving was about making “room at the table” for European “invaders.”
Reposted by Mark Sumner 🇺🇦
This is the first Thanksgiving for Sophie & Colin Hortman without their parents, Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and Mark Hortman who were assassinated along with the family dog in an act of political murder. National guards troops were not deployed to the state in response.
November 27, 2025 at 5:24 PM
This is the first Thanksgiving for Sophie & Colin Hortman without their parents, Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and Mark Hortman who were assassinated along with the family dog in an act of political murder. National guards troops were not deployed to the state in response.
Reposted by Mark Sumner 🇺🇦
Evangelicals have a long history of falling in line when presented with charlatans and manipulative, vainglorious narcissists masquerading as saviors.
Why evangelicals couldn't care less about Trump's Epstein scandal
They have a long history of falling for narcissists posing as Saviors.
www.motherjones.com
November 28, 2025 at 12:00 AM
Evangelicals have a long history of falling in line when presented with charlatans and manipulative, vainglorious narcissists masquerading as saviors.
Reposted by Mark Sumner 🇺🇦
Dude who took health insurance and food stamps from more Americans than any Speaker in US history wants you to know how tough he's got it.
Mike Johnson: “I haven’t had a vacation day in two years. I haven’t been off in two years, literally.”
November 27, 2025 at 11:53 PM
Dude who took health insurance and food stamps from more Americans than any Speaker in US history wants you to know how tough he's got it.
Reposted by Mark Sumner 🇺🇦
Hey @nature.com, have you got an explanation for how the hell THIS happened? & especially why you accepted a paper with such a bizarre piece of genAI slop in it?!
& more to the point, why we should take you seriously at all going forward?
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
& more to the point, why we should take you seriously at all going forward?
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
November 27, 2025 at 3:03 PM
Hey @nature.com, have you got an explanation for how the hell THIS happened? & especially why you accepted a paper with such a bizarre piece of genAI slop in it?!
& more to the point, why we should take you seriously at all going forward?
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
& more to the point, why we should take you seriously at all going forward?
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
This article by Masha Gessen has been my most revisited text over the last nine years. The lessons they taught in 2016 still apply.
Autocracy: Rules for Survival | Masha Gessen
In the face of the impulse to normalize, it is essential to maintain one’s capacity for shock. This will lead people to call you unreasonable and hysterical, and to accuse you of overreacting. It is n...
www.nybooks.com
November 27, 2025 at 8:58 PM
This article by Masha Gessen has been my most revisited text over the last nine years. The lessons they taught in 2016 still apply.
Reposted by Mark Sumner 🇺🇦
This is why OpenAI is selling so aggressively to education at all levels—they want to create entire generations of users incapable of reading, writing and thinking without ChatGPT to hold their hands
And teachers and professors should call this out for what it actually is
And teachers and professors should call this out for what it actually is
To bear out this rosy projection, HSBC assumes that OpenAI will become "as ubiquitous [...] as Microsoft 365" (345mm users worldwide) while bringing in 10x the number of users (3bn).
November 25, 2025 at 11:11 PM
This is why OpenAI is selling so aggressively to education at all levels—they want to create entire generations of users incapable of reading, writing and thinking without ChatGPT to hold their hands
And teachers and professors should call this out for what it actually is
And teachers and professors should call this out for what it actually is
Reposted by Mark Sumner 🇺🇦
Personally, I think it's a bad thing when people in the government post AI images without disclosing that they're AI.
Image on the left is something RFK Jr. posted today. Image on the right is a photo from 2024.
Image on the left is something RFK Jr. posted today. Image on the right is a photo from 2024.
November 27, 2025 at 8:28 PM
Personally, I think it's a bad thing when people in the government post AI images without disclosing that they're AI.
Image on the left is something RFK Jr. posted today. Image on the right is a photo from 2024.
Image on the left is something RFK Jr. posted today. Image on the right is a photo from 2024.
“Peter Thiel is not just a technofascist seeking to build an AI-fueled authoritarian surveillance state. He's also an absolutely bonkers pseudo-religious nutcase who views everyone who stands in his way as an agent of ... Satan. And that includes the Pope.”
Vampire Billionaire Attacks Pope
He's not just a technofascist seeking to build an AI-fueled authoritarian surveillance state. He's also an absolutely bonkers pseudo-religious nutcase who views everyone who stands in his way as an ag...
www.unchartedblue.com
November 27, 2025 at 7:19 PM
“Peter Thiel is not just a technofascist seeking to build an AI-fueled authoritarian surveillance state. He's also an absolutely bonkers pseudo-religious nutcase who views everyone who stands in his way as an agent of ... Satan. And that includes the Pope.”
Reposted by Mark Sumner 🇺🇦
ICE DETAINED MARILYN. Fuck these people. www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news...
‘Northern Exposure’ actor gave ICE agents in Redmond her tribal ID. They called it ‘fake,’ she says
Indigenous actor Elaine Miles of "Northern Exposure" was detained by ICE at a Redmond bus stop. When she showed them her Tribal ID, they told her it was fake.
www.seattletimes.com
November 27, 2025 at 4:35 PM
ICE DETAINED MARILYN. Fuck these people. www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news...
Reposted by Mark Sumner 🇺🇦
The casual cruelty of the Trump regime is arguably the most damning and sickening element of its police state tactics. The shooting of 2 Nat’l Guardsmen will no doubt worsen matters as Trump calls immigration the nation’s worst nat’l security problem. Nope, he is. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
ICE detains Texas father as son’s health declines: ‘Don’t forget about me’
Maher Tarabishi was arrested at a routine visit despite decades in the US, leaving his son with Pompe disease
www.theguardian.com
November 27, 2025 at 3:34 PM
The casual cruelty of the Trump regime is arguably the most damning and sickening element of its police state tactics. The shooting of 2 Nat’l Guardsmen will no doubt worsen matters as Trump calls immigration the nation’s worst nat’l security problem. Nope, he is. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
With AI, we’re creating a “first contact” situation. One where we are the unsuspecting islanders watching a warship steam into our harbor.
November 26, 2025 at 4:28 PM
With AI, we’re creating a “first contact” situation. One where we are the unsuspecting islanders watching a warship steam into our harbor.
Introduce yourself with four spaceships.
November 26, 2025 at 3:51 PM
Introduce yourself with four spaceships.
Reposted by Mark Sumner 🇺🇦
November 25, 2025 at 10:14 PM
Reposted by Mark Sumner 🇺🇦
Countries that have abortion access, DEI policies or protection for LGBTQ+ people will be considered “human rights violators“ by the Trump regime
We’re in the upside down.
www.forbes.com/sites/maryro...
We’re in the upside down.
www.forbes.com/sites/maryro...
Abortion And DEI Policies Now Considered Violations Of Human Rights, U.S. Says
The Trump administration has overhauled how the State Department conducts its annual Human Rights Report.
www.forbes.com
November 25, 2025 at 9:48 PM
Countries that have abortion access, DEI policies or protection for LGBTQ+ people will be considered “human rights violators“ by the Trump regime
We’re in the upside down.
www.forbes.com/sites/maryro...
We’re in the upside down.
www.forbes.com/sites/maryro...
Reposted by Mark Sumner 🇺🇦
The word 'Orwellian' is overused, but calling countries with active human rights protections 'human rights violators' is pure doublespeak.
Countries that have abortion access, DEI policies or protection for LGBTQ+ people will be considered “human rights violators“ by the Trump regime
We’re in the upside down.
www.forbes.com/sites/maryro...
We’re in the upside down.
www.forbes.com/sites/maryro...
Abortion And DEI Policies Now Considered Violations Of Human Rights, U.S. Says
The Trump administration has overhauled how the State Department conducts its annual Human Rights Report.
www.forbes.com
November 25, 2025 at 11:02 PM
The word 'Orwellian' is overused, but calling countries with active human rights protections 'human rights violators' is pure doublespeak.
Seventeen years later, and the Republican healthcare plan is still “Let it all fall apart, then we’ll think of something. Eventually.”
Trump was going to roll out a health care plan. Then Republicans weighed in.
Lawmakers just have a few weeks left to reach a deal to avoid a massive premium spike for ACA enrollees.
www.politico.com
November 25, 2025 at 3:54 PM
Seventeen years later, and the Republican healthcare plan is still “Let it all fall apart, then we’ll think of something. Eventually.”
Wall Street Journal comes about one inch from saying Meta is engaged in a $27 billion fraud.
“… a marvel of financial engineering: Meta Platforms is building a $27 billion data center in Louisiana, financed with debt, and neither the data center nor the debt will be on its own balance sheet.”
“… a marvel of financial engineering: Meta Platforms is building a $27 billion data center in Louisiana, financed with debt, and neither the data center nor the debt will be on its own balance sheet.”
AI Meets Aggressive Accounting at Meta’s Gigantic New Data Center
Favorable treatment off the balance sheet hinges on some convenient assumptions.
www.wsj.com
November 24, 2025 at 9:41 PM
Wall Street Journal comes about one inch from saying Meta is engaged in a $27 billion fraud.
“… a marvel of financial engineering: Meta Platforms is building a $27 billion data center in Louisiana, financed with debt, and neither the data center nor the debt will be on its own balance sheet.”
“… a marvel of financial engineering: Meta Platforms is building a $27 billion data center in Louisiana, financed with debt, and neither the data center nor the debt will be on its own balance sheet.”