Vikram Bath
@vikrambath.bsky.social
Former business school professor, current software engineer. Writes at ordinary-times.com
Pinned
Vikram Bath
@vikrambath.bsky.social
· Apr 5
Note that these are the years over which America first became the world’s economic superpower
Reposted by Vikram Bath
Your brain on fascism: don’t ask what authorizes the government to kill a given person; ask instead if the government is specially prohibited from killing them
Stephen Miller’s Wife @katiemiller : “Can you cite the statute that makes the boat bombings illegal?”
@bakarisellers.bsky.social : “The due process
clause in the constitution.”
@bakarisellers.bsky.social : “The due process
clause in the constitution.”
November 29, 2025 at 3:21 PM
Your brain on fascism: don’t ask what authorizes the government to kill a given person; ask instead if the government is specially prohibited from killing them
Reposted by Vikram Bath
The purpose of inventing push button elevators is for employers to no longer have to employ elevator operators
The purpose of inventing robots is for employers to no longer have to employ people.
November 29, 2025 at 12:37 PM
The purpose of inventing push button elevators is for employers to no longer have to employ elevator operators
This is actually true if you think of immigration as White genocide
Stephen Miller’s wife Katie Miller: “We are removing every single illegal alien… a majority of those removed have had serious violent crimes.” 🤥
@bakarisellers.bsky.social : “That’s FALSE.”
Abby Phillip: “Based on DHS’s own data, a majority have NOT had violent criminal records.”
@bakarisellers.bsky.social : “That’s FALSE.”
Abby Phillip: “Based on DHS’s own data, a majority have NOT had violent criminal records.”
November 29, 2025 at 11:26 AM
This is actually true if you think of immigration as White genocide
Reposted by Vikram Bath
“current” is a pretty weird word there
a lot of words, none of them denying that Hegseth gave an order to kill helpless people who were stranded at sea after he blew up their boats
November 29, 2025 at 1:41 AM
“current” is a pretty weird word there
Reposted by Vikram Bath
A reminder for those who are not aware: "remigration" is the process of deporting all non-white people from a country. It includes citizens and is, by definition, ethnic cleansing.
And to be clear: this is not fake. I just screenshot it myself.
And to be clear: this is not fake. I just screenshot it myself.
November 28, 2025 at 6:12 PM
A reminder for those who are not aware: "remigration" is the process of deporting all non-white people from a country. It includes citizens and is, by definition, ethnic cleansing.
And to be clear: this is not fake. I just screenshot it myself.
And to be clear: this is not fake. I just screenshot it myself.
Reposted by Vikram Bath
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...
She is literally doing a book tour for her memoir about her affair. The publisher is Simon & Schuster
November 26, 2025 at 7:24 PM
She is literally doing a book tour for her memoir about her affair. The publisher is Simon & Schuster
How does it cost this much to run
find . -type f -exec sed -i 's/Trump/Biden/g' {} +
?
find . -type f -exec sed -i 's/Trump/Biden/g' {} +
?
Newly released emails show the FBI spent almost $1 million in overtime analyzing the Epstein files as part of an effort dubbed the “Special Redaction Project."
FBI’s Frantic Scramble to Redact Epstein Files Revealed
A trove of emails shows all-nighters and almost $1 million in overtime as Trumpworld debated releasing the Epstein files.
trib.al
November 26, 2025 at 6:22 PM
How does it cost this much to run
find . -type f -exec sed -i 's/Trump/Biden/g' {} +
?
find . -type f -exec sed -i 's/Trump/Biden/g' {} +
?
Reposted by Vikram Bath
it's not actually unusual for the bigwigs in big business to be Republicans
this "you work with computers so you have to understand we all hate computers now because the people who run the computer companies we know about are right wing" is bullshit. industry bigwigs are right wing
this "you work with computers so you have to understand we all hate computers now because the people who run the computer companies we know about are right wing" is bullshit. industry bigwigs are right wing
November 26, 2025 at 3:53 PM
it's not actually unusual for the bigwigs in big business to be Republicans
this "you work with computers so you have to understand we all hate computers now because the people who run the computer companies we know about are right wing" is bullshit. industry bigwigs are right wing
this "you work with computers so you have to understand we all hate computers now because the people who run the computer companies we know about are right wing" is bullshit. industry bigwigs are right wing
This particular flavor of evil had not occurred to me
Exactly. My first thought was "how much is he paying in child support that he won't have to pay if she gets deported?"
bsky.app/profile/pran...
bsky.app/profile/pran...
That’s what I’m thinking. He wants full custody.
November 26, 2025 at 3:13 PM
This particular flavor of evil had not occurred to me
I have not read any of the Epstein reporting because it creeps me out, but I lack an intuition for what his actual function was. Why did Harvard need him as a go between to accept donations from rich clients? Couldn’t the rich people just give their money to Harvard directly?
November 26, 2025 at 2:10 PM
I have not read any of the Epstein reporting because it creeps me out, but I lack an intuition for what his actual function was. Why did Harvard need him as a go between to accept donations from rich clients? Couldn’t the rich people just give their money to Harvard directly?
This sounds right, but it’s famously hard to predict the equilibriums that will be reached when the dust has settled.
“Great! My job just got so much easier!” might be a bad sign. Ask a recent computer science graduate what they think about AI’s impact on the job market for software engineers!
“Great! My job just got so much easier!” might be a bad sign. Ask a recent computer science graduate what they think about AI’s impact on the job market for software engineers!
I think that may be the core division here: if you are an author or an artist the cons of generative AI very likely outweigh the pros for you
If you are a software developer the opposite is true
If you are a software developer the opposite is true
November 26, 2025 at 1:35 PM
This sounds right, but it’s famously hard to predict the equilibriums that will be reached when the dust has settled.
“Great! My job just got so much easier!” might be a bad sign. Ask a recent computer science graduate what they think about AI’s impact on the job market for software engineers!
“Great! My job just got so much easier!” might be a bad sign. Ask a recent computer science graduate what they think about AI’s impact on the job market for software engineers!
I wish there were a global, lifetime setting that I could set somewhere letting all apps know where they can stick all the badges I have “earned”
November 26, 2025 at 1:08 PM
I wish there were a global, lifetime setting that I could set somewhere letting all apps know where they can stick all the badges I have “earned”
Most honest Black Friday deal:
Golly. Gee. When you put it that way, I'm really feeling the need to gEt ThIS dEaL bEfOrE iT's GoNe.
November 26, 2025 at 10:39 AM
Most honest Black Friday deal:
I refuse to believe these industry interests actually want to get rid of automatic emergency braking. It’s such a cheap no-brainer feature that US consumers have been demanding anyway. It’s just oppositional defiance syndrome being expressed through legislation
November 25, 2025 at 8:02 PM
I refuse to believe these industry interests actually want to get rid of automatic emergency braking. It’s such a cheap no-brainer feature that US consumers have been demanding anyway. It’s just oppositional defiance syndrome being expressed through legislation
Reposted by Vikram Bath
Our military has been ordered to bomb civilian fishing boats. According to the Guardian as of yesterday, at least 21 vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific have been hit, killing 83 people. 1/
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
Deadly airstrikes and a military buildup: how the US pressure campaign against Venezuela has unfolded in the Caribbean
US has used claims of a ‘war on drugs’ to justify its attacks, which have resulted in 83 deaths that the UN has called extrajudicial executions
www.theguardian.com
November 25, 2025 at 7:13 PM
Our military has been ordered to bomb civilian fishing boats. According to the Guardian as of yesterday, at least 21 vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific have been hit, killing 83 people. 1/
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
Reposted by Vikram Bath
Zizek has a joke in one of his books that only the Leninist party state could complete the final evolution of capitalism without democracy
“Yang Jiemin, VP of the state-owned company behind the port, said its highly automated operations require 60% fewer workers than traditional ports. It underscores one advantage Chinese companies have in deploying AI versus the U.S.: no independent labor unions.” www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ai-r... (🎁🔗)
Robots and AI Are Already Remaking the Chinese Economy
China’s factories and ports are learning to make and export more goods faster, cheaper and with fewer workers.
www.wsj.com
November 25, 2025 at 2:45 PM
Zizek has a joke in one of his books that only the Leninist party state could complete the final evolution of capitalism without democracy
Having tried, I can say I empathize with the challenge of finding reasonable voices on the right who can articulate a vision for why you should support the right that doesn’t take race and gender animosity as a first and obvious ground assumption
"elevate charismatic figures such as Alan Dershowitz"
-____________-
-____________-
November 25, 2025 at 11:59 AM
Having tried, I can say I empathize with the challenge of finding reasonable voices on the right who can articulate a vision for why you should support the right that doesn’t take race and gender animosity as a first and obvious ground assumption
Relatedly, I wonder if the creepy un-aging grandma app would have been less creepy if the grandmother herself had wanted to leave a remnant of herself. Instead, the video has mom forcing grandma to put on a performance 1/2
a really "wow, Ellie, I didn't know you were that kind of crank" opinion I have is that within a century or so I think that people are going to raise/train artificial neural networks instead of biological children, and that humans probably will end up as a minority of sentients on the planet
November 24, 2025 at 6:30 PM
Relatedly, I wonder if the creepy un-aging grandma app would have been less creepy if the grandmother herself had wanted to leave a remnant of herself. Instead, the video has mom forcing grandma to put on a performance 1/2
Almost all the weddings I have attended in my life I did so as a child
November 24, 2025 at 4:36 PM
Almost all the weddings I have attended in my life I did so as a child
Reposted by Vikram Bath
checked for it too and it’s not there & while Twitter search is worse than ever, I couldn’t see any replies to a deleted tweet either. The timestamp is recent enough that evidence would be there
November 24, 2025 at 2:45 PM
checked for it too and it’s not there & while Twitter search is worse than ever, I couldn’t see any replies to a deleted tweet either. The timestamp is recent enough that evidence would be there
I don’t think it is any more complicated than that Andrew Tate knows how the attention economy works
November 24, 2025 at 2:39 PM
I don’t think it is any more complicated than that Andrew Tate knows how the attention economy works
Reposted by Vikram Bath
thinking about how my parents escaped vietnam, where the CIA destabilized my family's home country by spreading misinformation, and they landed in the united states, which is now getting destabilized bc someone in vietnam is spreading misinformation
Twitter pays people based on engagement (views, retweets, comments, etc). It appears that many MAGA accounts are based abroad and they use AI technology to generate low-effort rage bait.
My guess is that this will get worse as AI tech improves. For instance, fake videos of minorities doing crime.
My guess is that this will get worse as AI tech improves. For instance, fake videos of minorities doing crime.
November 23, 2025 at 5:59 PM
thinking about how my parents escaped vietnam, where the CIA destabilized my family's home country by spreading misinformation, and they landed in the united states, which is now getting destabilized bc someone in vietnam is spreading misinformation
Reposted by Vikram Bath
Summing the median expenditures of American households in every category of spending as a way to calculate the poverty line is a smart way to calculate the poverty line at above the median income level
Man, gotta love some Wall Street guy who decides It’s Time To Care About Poverty and uses vibe math to recalculate the poverty line, as… $136,500
Extreme “it’s one banana, Michael” energy
Extreme “it’s one banana, Michael” energy
November 24, 2025 at 1:41 PM
Summing the median expenditures of American households in every category of spending as a way to calculate the poverty line is a smart way to calculate the poverty line at above the median income level
Reposted by Vikram Bath
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