Theodor Von Bönghitz Adorno
@tzraick.bsky.social
1.6K followers 13K following 2.9K posts
Columbia Sociology & Sustainable Development… Fan of math, science, evidence based practice & nuance… Pragmatic realist & autodidact… R/ts are NOT endorsements, all standard disclaimers apply.
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Reposted by Theodor Von Bönghitz Adorno
kashana.blacksky.app
The funniest part of all the billionaires are building bunker stories is the part where they’re sure the class hierarchy will survive the apocalypse.
aelkus.bsky.social
www.bbc.com/news/article...

"I once met a former bodyguard of one billionaire with his own "bunker", who told me his security team's first priority, if this really did happen, would be to eliminate said boss and get in the bunker themselves. And he didn't seem to be joking."
Tech billionaires seem to be doom prepping. Should we be worried?
The debate is ramping up about what happens if - or when - computer intelligence overtakes humans
www.bbc.com
tzraick.bsky.social
Douglas rushkoff had some wild conversations about this.

The people who hired him and flew him out to their secretive ranch didn’t seem to understand that money would have no value if civilization collapsed..

They seriously proposed giving their paid security un-aliving helmets…
aelkus.bsky.social
of course you can try to automate the security-bodyguard function but this only shifts the loyalty problem to the killer robot technician-programmer, who has the exact same incentive
tzraick.bsky.social
I’m throwing a mountain of ecological economics their way, and they already have a lot of sociology lit to chew through.

But they’re not really engaging with the meat of the discussion.

It’s not their fault, I obviously have to pivot, too.

But like…how do I put them in a tech baron’s mindset?
tzraick.bsky.social
I’m ta’ing a class about one particular “exit”…

And most of these kids have no clue just how bad things are gonna get within their life time.

But they also don’t seem to appreciate social infrastructure.

How do I teach these kiiiiddsss.
(Said in Mr Carmenez voice).

No but seriously, help me.
aelkus.bsky.social
www.bbc.com/news/article...

"I once met a former bodyguard of one billionaire with his own "bunker", who told me his security team's first priority, if this really did happen, would be to eliminate said boss and get in the bunker themselves. And he didn't seem to be joking."
Tech billionaires seem to be doom prepping. Should we be worried?
The debate is ramping up about what happens if - or when - computer intelligence overtakes humans
www.bbc.com
tzraick.bsky.social
On the left it’s often Green New Deal style eco socialism.

He said we’d flip flop between the two new coalitions and either stick to fascism… or see the rise of a Black/red/green big tent populism with an ecological mindset and a penchant for big ideas.

I know which one I’d rather see.
tzraick.bsky.social
He predicted that the centrist parties would continue their long decline, fundamentally failing to rise to meet ANY of the challenges of the day.

And in their place we’d see populism both on the right & left.

On the right that increasingly takes the form of ethno-national fossil fascism...
tzraick.bsky.social
I saw his campaign ad on LinkedIn of all places and I instantly thought to myself this man will go places.

Shit, I’d vote for him and I’m not even British.

A few years ago Mark Blyth made a remarkably prescient prediction (“where do we go from here”)…
steamedhamms.bsky.social
polanski is doing well because the strategy of everybody to his right has been hippy punching for what feels like forever and there are now enough hippies who don’t like being punched to show up in polling
Reposted by Theodor Von Bönghitz Adorno
sergioperez.bsky.social
Spent my first three-ish years as US DOJ attorney going after the mountain of harm created by this guy & I am sad to report that he is making sense.

Kavanaugh stops are a destructive expansion of the discretion already afforded to police & are an affront to the 4th amendment & due process rights.
jesspish.bsky.social
for @slate.com I wrote about Joe Arpaio's view on the SCOTUS shadow docket decision in Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo, the case in which Kavanaugh said it was okay to racially profile people.
“I was vindicated by the Supreme Court of all this shit.”
slate.com/news-and-pol...
He Was the Most Notorious Sheriff in America. He Says the Supreme Court Vindicated Him.
Thanks, SCOTUS.
slate.com
Reposted by Theodor Von Bönghitz Adorno
olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social
"And yet Táíwò’s own position misses something fundamental about the world we now inhabit. Shame does not operate in a vacuum...today, the sturdy ground that once formed shame’s foundation has collapsed."

Helpful response by @eric-reinhart.com in @newrepublic.com

newrepublic.com/article/2015...
Why Shame No Longer Works in American Politics
While it once played a role in binding society, shame has lost its power—and so have the liberal tools that depend on it.
newrepublic.com
tzraick.bsky.social
Remember when educators were begging for a pittance of funding to put these kinds of course packets together themselves, with vetted curriculum, and all they needed was it support?

Why couldn’t this have been a DOE initiative?

Oh, right, the magic of the market!
robertscotthorton.bsky.social
A look at a company that grifted Native Americans in New Mexico with a wink from an Anglo-dominated school board. Stride, a 25-year-old company also known as K12 Inc., is an industry leader in virtual education, serving over 220,000 students in 31 states last school year.
A virtual education company was a lifeline to a rural district. Now they're at war.
What began as an emergency option for New Mexico students during the pandemic has spiraled into dueling lawsuits and drawn government scrutiny.
www.nbcnews.com
tzraick.bsky.social
This is utterly fascinating and yet diabolically evil at the same time.

There’s no instinct more powerful than the will to protect one’s child, and hijacking that for clicks is profoundly evil.
jessicacalarco.com
We need to talk about how social media algorithms push moms down a slippery slope of distrust.

From "Are my kids getting enough support in school?" To "Maybe I should homeschool." To "Maybe modern medicine is bad."

I've seen this first-hand in research I'm doing on parenting apps. 1/🧵
tzraick.bsky.social
Shame is an essential element of any functioning social order.

Some people don’t have guilt. We can’t rely on their own internal morality, bc they have none.

We all need to collectively reenforce these norms and the only -and best- way to do that is through shame.

We all need to reenforce this.
olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social
"A key aspect of the way we lived with each other before these self-styled epochal developments [post-2020] involved exactly the “social shame and cultural pressure” that Klein and other influential voices now come to condemn"

tapping the 'bring back shame' sign
www.bostonreview.net/articles/how...
Reposted by Theodor Von Bönghitz Adorno
ronfilipkowski.bsky.social
First there was the Opium Wars. Now we have the Cooking Oil War.
Reposted by Theodor Von Bönghitz Adorno
Reposted by Theodor Von Bönghitz Adorno
thefarce.org
Put a banner on every closed rural hospital

WE SAVED ARGENTINA INSTEAD
Reposted by Theodor Von Bönghitz Adorno
Reposted by Theodor Von Bönghitz Adorno
edzitron.com
Articles like this drive me insane. The amount of tokens being used is going up because they explicitly made it so that models use more tokens. This is the tech section of a globally-renown newspaper and it's an argument that's unmoored from reality or meaning.
www.wsj.com/articles/ai-...
“Over the last few months, we’ve begun to see glimpses of our AI systems improving themselves,” Meta Platforms Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said in July on the social-media giant’s second-quarter earnings call.

All of that should make AI models more efficient, which could have a beneficial effect on the economics of AI.

Second, data centers under construction around the world will soon begin operations, increasing the supply of computing power and energy and driving down the cost of training and using AI. Tech company Microsoft last month said it is in the final stages of construction on a $3.3 billion data center in Wisconsin and announced plans for a second, $4 billion facility in the area.

And third, increasing demand for tokens could finally become an economic benefit as models improve and the supply of computing infrastructure expands.

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Another massive increase in demand for AI is likely in the coming months or quarters, just as those other forces take hold, according to Terry. That’s because the most promising corporate AI trials are likely to move into broader deployment.
tzraick.bsky.social
She isn’t.

Her arguments boil down to her feelings, arbitrary and capricious.

Not once have I seen a piece written by her that wasn’t absolute dogshit.

That’s why she’s a political commissar, not real editorial staff.
jamellebouie.net
one of my takeaways from this great piece is that weiss just doesn’t…sound like an intelligent person? or at least, not someone who has thought even a little bit about how and why they think the things that they do. www.youtube.com/watch?v=gieT...
Bari Weiss: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
YouTube video by LastWeekTonight
www.youtube.com
Reposted by Theodor Von Bönghitz Adorno
brunojnavarro.bsky.social
GoFundMe CEO Tim Cadogan shared that groceries are becoming a hotter topic for fundraising. "In some cases, very sadly, that is happening," he told Yahoo Finance Executive Editor Brian Sozzi. "We're seeing it more and more."
GoFundMe CEO says economy is so challenged people are raising money to buy food
GoFundThis: Some surprising items have begun to make the list for crowdfunding lately, according to this CEO.
finance.yahoo.com
Reposted by Theodor Von Bönghitz Adorno
wildweatherdan.bsky.social
Yup, and our failing health system makes people desperate for a low cost cure jump at the quackery. Many cancer patients try them while neglecting starting science based options, and by the time they give up on the quack, their disease has greatly progressed. skepticalinquirer.org/2025/08/from...
From ‘Tractors’ to Cell Therapy Clinics: Unproven Medical Procedures | Skeptical Inquirer
Figure 1. Original Elisha Perkins patented metallic tractors and carrying case. Wellcome Collection. Mainstream news media reported in March 2017 that three ...
skepticalinquirer.org
tzraick.bsky.social
They don’t wana piss off a potential future source …or wind up in a gulag
beijingpalmer.bsky.social
I don't understand why U.S. reporters so regularly seem to let politicians get away with 'I haven't seen that' about stuff a) they obviously know and b) is directly relevant to their job. Did they sign some kind of agreement never to ask a follow-up question?
atrupar.com
REPORTER: We know the president moved forward with mass layoffs. We're also learning there were significant cuts to staff at special education services. Are you comfortable with those cuts?

MIKE JOHNSON: I haven't seen the specifics of that and I don't know
Reposted by Theodor Von Bönghitz Adorno
docrevan.bsky.social
I think the counter argument to “Ellison and Weiss will turn CBS News into an unstoppable propaganda machine” is Bezos’s WaPo which lost basically all the talent and also is in a subscription death spiral