Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Materialist Gnostic @walmsley.bsky.social · 4m

I guess? my entire interaction with Facebook products is that I periodically post photos of food and hikes on Instagram for the maybe six people I keep in touch with that way. I have no direct experience of what people get out of Meta

Materialist Gnostic @walmsley.bsky.social · 5m

the axiom of Popularism is that voters are sensitive to candidate positions but when you look at the things voters say they are madmen buffeted by an information environment with a marginal connection to reality

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Materialist Gnostic @walmsley.bsky.social · 5m

now, it is totally fair to point out that the racist morons get a vote too and we have to have a strategy for mitigating them, but it is not a problem of technocratic details of governance

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Materialist Gnostic @walmsley.bsky.social · 5m

again I don't think the people who voted for Trump "because Haitians are eating cats" were actually making a nuanced analysis of Biden's immigration policy and it's impact on disorder at ports of entry or whatever. I think they are racist morons

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 8h

Last time around backlash to Trump’s cruel immigration policies fueled a Biden approach that failed and generated its own backlash.

To do better next time around, we need to understand what actually went wrong in the Biden years.

www.slowboring.com/p/what-went-...

What went wrong with Biden and immigration

Splashy announcements and policy paralysis

www.slowboring.com

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Materialist Gnostic @walmsley.bsky.social · 9m

but the big thing that it would allow is for blue states to gerrymander more effectively in turn, but I'm not sure it's enough to compensate

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Materialist Gnostic @walmsley.bsky.social · 9m

something I can't tell from that map is what the lean of the districts is and what year they're norming partisan split too. generally speaking a gerrymander that is sharper by number of seats has to be weaker by margin for each seat

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Materialist Gnostic @walmsley.bsky.social · 15m

I think that might be true, particularly in a lax regulatory environment, but that pivoting to AI slop hurts them because it's a product where that strategy is less effective

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Materialist Gnostic @walmsley.bsky.social · 15m

I think the question with Meta is if they have reached a point where their network effect is strong enough they can buy the limited number of competitors that can reach a size that challenges them

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Materialist Gnostic @walmsley.bsky.social · 22m

there's a difference between "making light of important topics" and "siding with the worst government to exist in human history"

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Materialist Gnostic @walmsley.bsky.social · 22m

I have told dark jokes about stuff the Nazis did, and I would not argue if you said they were offensive, but they very much did assume the stuff the Nazis did was bad

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Materialist Gnostic @walmsley.bsky.social · 24m

democracy must unmake the supreme court before the supreme court unmakes democracy

Sharon @sharonk.bsky.social · 1h

damn

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Materialist Gnostic @walmsley.bsky.social · 28m

the behavior of the back button on this site is incomprehensible to me

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Materialist Gnostic @walmsley.bsky.social · 29m

once with e.g. birtherism there were guys who cynically used it to get votes from the rubes who believed it so they could cut taxes. now the elected reps are QAnon believers

Materialist Gnostic @walmsley.bsky.social · 29m

I think the best way of looking at Trumpism is the rabid base has displaced the elite gatekeepers that previously attempted to impose sanity

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Materialist Gnostic @walmsley.bsky.social · 31m

I wonder how possible it is to reconstruct a chatbot personality from logs. can you lift Meta's Big Titty Hitler to ChatGPT in a way users find satisfying without direct access to the weights?

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Materialist Gnostic @walmsley.bsky.social · 36m

also slop inherently has less of a moat than social networks. I can go to the cheapest slop spigot on my own, it doesn't matter if my friends are there

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Materialist Gnostic @walmsley.bsky.social · 36m

even if people love slop that seems bad for Meta because it reduces the value of their network effect moat. if I'm on Facebook because all my friends are, I won't switch even if another service is better. if I'm on Reels for the slop, all someone needs to poach me is cheaper slop.

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Materialist Gnostic @walmsley.bsky.social · 1h

have to say, only naming one superweapon after himself shows a commendable restraint on the part of Palpatine

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Materialist Gnostic @walmsley.bsky.social · 1h

frankly if I'm ever in some sort of bunker situation by first priority is going to be finding the most painless method of suicide available. not me trying to rebuild society after nuclear war. I'm going to be a nice, safe dead.

ae @aelkus.bsky.social · 4h

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

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Materialist Gnostic @walmsley.bsky.social · 1h

can't believe they got rid of the EU to give us another plot about a big dumb superweapon when the EU had such innovative plot ideas as *checks notes* the Sun Crusher

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Materialist Gnostic @walmsley.bsky.social · 3h

"No Kings" is maybe the single most foundational truth of the republic. it's why it's a republic!

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 3h

Johnson: "We call it the Hate America Rally that will happen Saturday. Let's see who shows up for that. I bet you you'll see Hamas supporters, I bet you'll see antifa types, I bet you'll see Marxists on full display, people who don't want to stand and defend the foundational truths of this republic"

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Materialist Gnostic @walmsley.bsky.social · 4h

I just feel like if people wanted me to be worried about robots being in charge they should've done a better job running things

David Marx @digthatdata.bsky.social · 4h

jfc... now klein is platforming yud.

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Materialist Gnostic @walmsley.bsky.social · 4h

we must deport immigrants who wished death on charlie kirk to protect important american jobs in the death threats industry

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Materialist Gnostic @walmsley.bsky.social · 14h

that one fact occupies a disproportionate position in my understanding of politics

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Materialist Gnostic @walmsley.bsky.social · 14h

you bet your ass there's caverns and tunnels. fathomless as all shit, those caverns and tunnels

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