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Leah 🐸 McElrath

@leahmcelrath.bsky.social

72K followers 1.5K following 15K posts

Politics, intl relations, psychology, etc. Making sense of a world that doesn’t Smith College BA, MSW | LSE #ActuallyAutistic #LGBTQ #MECFS Patreon: patreon.com/leahmcelrath

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Leah 🐸 McElrath @leahmcelrath.bsky.social · Feb 23

Pisses me off that we’re stardust with the gift of conscious existence and having to spend our time on all this bullshit.

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Rima I Anabtawi @rimaanabtawi.bsky.social · 5h

Yep. Gene was founding member of the Committee for the First Amendment, a group of Hollywood artists who formed in 1947 to oppose the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and defend free speech.

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Map Myths @mapmyths.com · 14d

📣 NEW BLOG POST

In the sixteenth century, enormous man-eating monsters ruled the oceans. Nowhere else are these fear-inducing creatures better depicted than on the 1539 "Carta Marina" by Olaus Magnus.

Map: Carta marina et descriptio septemtrionalium terrarum (“Marine Map and Description of the Northern Islands”) (Olaus Magnus, 1539). Source: University of Minnesota’s James Ford Bell Library.

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Andy Greenberg @agreenberg.bsky.social · 5h

Researchers pointed a satellite dish at the sky for 3 years and monitored what unencrypted data it picked up. The results were shocking: They obtained thousands of T-Mobile users' phone calls and texts, military and law enforcement secrets, much more: www.wired.com/story/satell... 🧵👇

Satellites Are Leaking the World’s Secrets: Calls, Texts, Military and Corporate Data

With just $800 in basic equipment, researchers found a stunning variety of data—including thousands of T-Mobile users’ calls and texts and even US military communications—sent by satellites unencrypte...

www.wired.com

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Leah 🐸 McElrath @leahmcelrath.bsky.social · 10h

Books are like food. Some are meant to be tasty snacks, and some are meant to be gourmet meals. Either can be equally delicious, depending on what you’re craving.

Rachel Feder @rachelfeder.bsky.social · 18h

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

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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · Sep 14

This is my favourite view of our home - where you feel in your bones that despite how much we fixate on what's on the land that we've called the planet "Earth", it's over two-thirds (71%) covered in water...

And we're *still* discovering for the first time what's under all that sea.

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A view of the Earth showing the Pacific with almost no land showing.

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mady castigan✨ 🏳️‍⚧️ @madycast.com · 7h

It really sucks Newsom vetoed the HRT and PreP access bills. The stockpile veto is going to hurt.

That said, given everything he has been saying this year, signing 8 out of 10 bills is a win for grassroots activists and the legislators filing the bills.

It shows your pressure has worked!

Trans News Network @transnews.network · 7h

CA UPDATE:

Newsom has signed these queer rights bills:
- AB 82 / SB 497 (Medical privacy)
- AB 1084 / SB 59 (Name/Gender changes)
- SB 450 (Adoption access)

And vetoed these bills:
- SB 418 (HRT stockpile)
- AB 554 (PreP)

Final total: 8 bills signed, 2 vetoed.

transnews.network/p/california...

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Comfortably Numb @numb.comfortab.ly · Oct 18

If you still need to share a link to a tweet, but don't want to send people to Musk's cesspool - replace "x" with "xcancel" in the tweet link.

For example x.com/dril/status/...

becomes xcancel.com/dril/status/...

People will still see the tweet, but without going to Twitter.

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Brian Merchant @bcmerchant.bsky.social · Aug 19

BLOOD IN THE MACHINE was given early access to survey data pulled from interviews with 1,400 Californians on their thoughts about AI.

Among the findings:

-59% think AI will primarily benefit corporations and the wealthy
-55% are more concerned than excited
-*70%* want strong AI laws

How California feels about AI

Spoiler: Not great. Plus, how AI is raising our electricity bills, the chatbot therapist that failed to intervene in a suicide, and what lays behind Grok's personas.

www.bloodinthemachine.com

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Leah 🐸 McElrath @leahmcelrath.bsky.social · 7h

Here’s a paywall free version:

archive.ph/ODUXw

archive.ph

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Leah 🐸 McElrath @leahmcelrath.bsky.social · 7h

Thanks!

Leah 🐸 McElrath @leahmcelrath.bsky.social · 7h

For those complaining about a paywall, here are some excerpts, including:

“The US military is embracing artificial intelligence with a recognition that decisions in future combat may need to be made faster than humans can make them.”

The top US Army commander in South Korea shared that he is experimenting with generative AI chatbots to sharpen his decision-making, not in the field, but in command and daily work.
He said "Chat and I" have become "really close lately."

"I'm asking to build, trying to build models to help all of us," said Maj. Gen.
William 'Hank Taylor, commanding general of the 8th Army, told reporters during a media roundtable at the annual Association of the United States Army conference in Washington, DC, on Monday.
Taylor said he's using the tech to explore how he makes military and personal decisions that affect not just him but the thousands of soldiers he oversees. While the tech is useful, though he acknowledged that keeping up with the pace of such rapidly developing technology is an enduring challenge.
"As a commander, I want to make better decisions," the general shared. "I want to make sure that I make decisions at the right time to give me the advantage."

Al in the military

Commanders like Taylor are focused on fast decision-making and how AI could provide an advantage because of a thought process popular with military leaders known as the "OODA Loop." The theory, developed by US fighter pilots during the Korean War, posits that troops who can move decisively before the enemy does — and observe, orient, decide, and act — often have the advantage on the battlefield.

The US military is embracing artificial intelligence with a recognition that decisions in future combat may need to be made faster than humans can make them.

The former Secretary of the Air Force said last year that he doesn't think the people saying that AI technology is
"going to determine who's the winner in the next battlefield are "all that far off." He also wrote that with the advancement of highly automated, highly autonomous kill chains, "response times to bring effects to bear are very short."

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Leah 🐸 McElrath @leahmcelrath.bsky.social · 7h

One of the military leaders they quote is a top US Army commander in SOUTH KOREA, a country under the US nuclear deterrence umbrella.

It’s highly likely they’re not just talking about optimizing supply operations or whatever.

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Leah 🐸 McElrath @leahmcelrath.bsky.social · 8h

So are we just supposed to hope and pray the LLMs don’t hallucinate during these military consultations?

Business Insider @businessinsider.com · 9h

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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Ari Cohn @aricohn.com · 8h

Breaking: Gavin Newsom VETOES SB 771

www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/u...

OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR
OCT 13 2025
To the Members of the California State Senate:
am returning Senate Bill 771 without my signature.
This bill seeks to hold social media platforms 'iable for algorithms that relay
content violating specified California civil rights laws to their users.
support the author's goal of ensuring that our nation-leading civil rights laws
apply equally both online and offline. likewise share the author's concern
about the growth of discriminatory threats, violence, and coercive harassment
online. am concerned, however, that this bill is premature. Our first step should
be to determine if, and to what extent, existing civil rights laws are sufficient to
address violations perpetrafed through algorithms. To the extent our laws prove
inadequate, they should be bolstered at that time.
For this reas
, I cannot sign this bill.
Sinc ely,
Ga
m

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Leah 🐸 McElrath @leahmcelrath.bsky.social · 8h

LOL—I still think MechaHitler might have been a side project beta test of some kind rather than an accident or artifact (since models that promote ideological extremism could be highly marketable), but I admittedly lean toward the darker side in terms of my personal internal projection modeling.

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 8h

They also cancelled government data collection about hunger to minimize evidence about their policies

José Sepúlveda @josesepulveda.bsky.social · 16h

ProPublica obtained records from the Department of Agriculture that detail the 94 million pounds of food, down to the number of eggs, that never reached food banks because of the #Trump administration’s cuts to The Emergency Food Assistance Program.

My latest video for @propublica.org.

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Leah 🐸 McElrath @leahmcelrath.bsky.social · 8h

That makes sense.

Is the middlestack where the parts of the design that make them have a more or less human-feeling user interface are primarily located?

Leah 🐸 McElrath @leahmcelrath.bsky.social · 9h

Very interesting. I appreciate your response.

I’ve been bothered by how the LLMs seem to engage in mirroring and forced teaming—both of which are powerful psychological manipulation techniques—but those seem to be the result of engineering goals rather than artifacts?

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Leah 🐸 McElrath @leahmcelrath.bsky.social · 9h

The latest hasbara false narrative on X is a claim that there were no female hostages released today because Hamas killed them all.

It is even being spread by Katie Miller, the wife of White House CoS Stephen Miller.

The reality is female hostages were released under previous ceasefire agreements.

Laura Loomer @LauraLoomer
Follow
All of the female hostages are dead.
Where is the outrage?
Savages
12:20 AM • 10/13/25 • 2.3M Views
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Basil the Great ®
@Basil TGMD
Follow
Hamas killed every single female hostage they had left so those girls couldn't tell the world what they had done to them.
To everyone who walks on a 'free palestine' march
To everyone who flies that islamo-fascist flag
To everyone who chants from the river to the sea
Fuck you.
4:19 AM • 10/13/25 • 2.8M Views
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Katie Miller ©
@KatieMiller
Follow
Why are there no living female hostages?
6:30 AM • 10/13/25 • 2M Views
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Mouin Rabbani °
@MouinRabbani
New hasbara talking point: In exemplary unison, Israel flunkies are proclaiming that Hamas murdered all the women it still held.
Some have been asked to insist that they were raped to death, so we already know what the forensic reports will conclude after the bodies are delivered to Israel.
According to my sources the talking point was drafted by the same state that killed them with its bombs.
4:51 AM • 10/13/25 • 17K Views

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Leah 🐸 McElrath @leahmcelrath.bsky.social · 9h

Would you elaborate on this?

/genuine

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Leah 🐸 McElrath @leahmcelrath.bsky.social · 10h

Books are like food. Some are meant to be tasty snacks, and some are meant to be gourmet meals. Either can be equally delicious, depending on what you’re craving.

Rachel Feder @rachelfeder.bsky.social · 18h

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

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 12h

Wow, wow, wow. This has always been legally possible but the law has virtually never been enforced — and now this is the SECOND case I've heard of in the last month (first involving a person with a green card) of a noncitizen being charged for failure to carry their papers.

Gregory Pratt @royalpratt.bsky.social · 13h

NEWS: ICE gave a Rogers Park man a $130 ticket for not having his papers on him. They rounded him up last week and eventually let him go, but not without a fine that some critics say is un-American. Trump admin enforcing little-used law
www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/13/i...

ICE tickets Chicago man with legal residency $130 for not having his papers on him: ‘It’s not fair…I’m a resident’

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement fined Rueben Antonio Cruz $130 for not having his papers with him.

www.chicagotribune.com

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🍅🥔🫐🌽 hoopy frood 🌶️ 🥑🍫🌵 @huwupy.kawaii.social · Mar 20

Guys I’m starting to worry about the width of this gyre

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Leah 🐸 McElrath @leahmcelrath.bsky.social · 10h

I remember my late grandmother’s landline number but have trouble recalling my own cell number.

Leah 🐸 McElrath @leahmcelrath.bsky.social · 11h

I’m relieved beyond words that children and infants in Gaza are no longer being killed and dismembered.

I’m also wary of the extent to which the agreed upon plan is meant to provide cover for the ongoing land grab and population displacement.

It’s impossible—and unwarranted—to exhale fully.

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