alan

@Analogbear @ASFleischman @JonBoeckenstedt Problem with this, is what played out is that with its removal the claim functionally became that *testing* is culturally biased rather than any attempt at revising the SAT. Which failed and is now being reverted, so the opportunity to fix it is gone

@ASFleischman @JonBoeckenstedt In the world of pedagogy, we've said for 40+ years that the SAT is culturally biased; that bias manifests in many ways -beyond the SAT- along racially-divisive lines. Being "color blind" is neither possible nor laudable; it's a denial of the reality of Black and Brown Americans.

You can, of course, believe that the SAT is not a racist test. But you have to admit an awful lot of people campaigning to bring the test back have a lot of racist bones in their bodies, notwithstanding their proclamations to the contrary.

@hone1er @MattBruenig @Noahpinion That’s not what I said. But it’s fine, it’s just a niche product for niche evangelists, or criminals (not it’s saying all criminals). That was true of some other interesting tools that eventually became great products, but crypto isn’t there yet

@oystersaison @MattBruenig @Noahpinion If you think banks are doing everything above board just google, "banks fined for money laundering" They've also helped with worse things than that but i'll not get into that here If you don't want to use the protocols then don't. You can still do peer to peer transactions

It wasn't just crypto. A big factor was post-2020 DEI at tech companies, which previously had been the most meritocratic of industries.

@hone1er @labububibibobo @MattBruenig @Noahpinion Okay… but your comment doesn’t belong attached to Bruenig’s then, is what I’m saying. And understanding is not the problem. People would understand it if it solved problems that were actually important to them

@oystersaison @labububibibobo @MattBruenig @Noahpinion If the bar for something being useful is it's VC backed and everyone uses it, then sure Just cause most of the world is financially illiterate doesn't mean it's not useful for those who can understand it

@labububibibobo @hone1er @MattBruenig @Noahpinion If the bar for something being useful is a single person using it, then sure. But that’s not the context here, we’re talking about VC money. In that frame, it’s functionally useless and a massive disappointment

@oystersaison @hone1er @MattBruenig @Noahpinion Then why does he have to be majority of people? Cryptos can serve a minority of people, and it’s not useless.

@hone1er @MattBruenig @Noahpinion But you can’t trust the code running protocols, this has been shown over and over again, because the contracts are adversarial and the bigger the scope the bigger the incentive to find novel ways to trick people

@hone1er @MattBruenig @Noahpinion Are you aware that for the vast majority of people the pseudonymity and irreversibility are a strictly negative feature? The banking guardrails add tremendous value for market participants

@thinkingshivers Just say “she was a rich girl, and thus, careless”. the rest is garbage imo

I submitted a draft of my short story to Claude for copy editing. Sometimes he’ll suggest a re-write of a particular sentence. My version: “She was just a rich girl, with a carelessness about her that could only come from being born into privilege.” Claude’s suggestion: “She was just a rich girl, careless in the way only privilege allows.” It's a matter of taste, but I personally think Claude's version is better. It's saying the same thing but more deftly. But when I swap his sentence in then plug the paragraph into Pangram, it goes from being high confidence that it's human to low confidence that it's human. If I keep doing this, will it start to read like AI slop? If I keep doing this, is it even my writing anymore? So I'm keeping my version, the one I think is worse, and I'm disquieted by the fact that there could be a better version of this story that I now need to specifically avoid.

@justalexoki The fact that you’re drawing conclusions from a self selected poll from your Twitter followers says more about you and your ability to reason than anything about political demographics. Not that this phenomenon doesn’t exist but come on now.

looking back these results were actually kind of crazy. how or why did so many turn from the left to the right?

@k1nghenryIV @hogspeuw @davidfrum You sound pretty arrogant yourself buddy what’s the problem

@hogspeuw @davidfrum It’s so funny how jews use this to deflect from their own bad behavior. Egotistical as always, which is why calling jews arrogant is not a “trope” — it’s a fact.

There are people who get drunk and expound sports opinions over-emphatically. There are people who get drunk and reminisce emotionally about an ex. If you get drunk and let loose about the Jews - the problem you have is not a drinking problem.

@s4rah_dev @lydiakauppi Why are you shaming someone for taking steps towards improving their health and well-being? Don’t be a jerk

@lydiakauppi “I took drugs because I didn’t want to find a new doctor” is a really interesting thought process but if there’s other benefits you’re not mentioning I’m happy for you

I lost 75lbs on Zepbound, and it’s true people really don’t talk about the side effects. For instance, now when I bring up a health concern, my doctor orders tests

@hecubian_devil I’ve said this before but you can’t have a strategy unless you have a goal, and “no AI” is not a goal. I haven’t heard a single coherent vision for a future that grapples with the (global!) existence and development of these models.

We are facing down what is plausibly the biggest change in the material conditions underpinning the relationship between labor and capital since the Industrial Revolution Our response so far is plugging our ears & shouting “fake and gay! Fake and gay! You suck robot cock lmao”

@hecubian_devil Can you clarify what the goal would be? I guess I struggle to understand what the pushback is trying to accomplish. Because probably nothing is slowing this down. It’s also a very conservative (lowercase c) position to take

Yes, this is slop—in part because the person making seems tasteless, dull, and infatuated with the tech itself rather than narrative art—but video gen is clearly close to *commercial viability* in the right hands. Especially for kids’ content, since they’re undiscerning. This is why I’ve been agitating for a leftist AI skeptical response bigger than “it’s slop, it sucks, it’s fake, it’s bad.” Because it has been getting vastly more capable, and is rapidly approaching the point at which *enough* people will be willing to pay for it—even if YOU don’t, even if LOTS OF US don’t—that it will entrench. Right now, we call it slop and get a lot of positive feedback and feel superior and good and like we are leading the majority. Give it two years and people will be parking their kids in front of AI-generated children’s shows without a second thought. They’ll be getting mad at you for calling it slop, because they’ll feel impugned as parents. Other people will be getting mad because they have AI “friends,” or they’ve gotten addicted to using it at work or school to take shortcuts. It feels so good right now to shit on AI on the basis of its capabilities, but that is clearly *time-limited* and ultimately a failing strategy to contain and regulate AI. we have got to come up with something better, stronger.

@ReubenR80027912 @TheStalwart In his prime he was pretty close actually! Can’t think of anything notable I’ve heard from him in the last 15-20 years though. But his name used to come up all the time for being a whacky pill popping futurist. Also he made great electric keyboards

@TheStalwart This is prob a personal defect but: if I was so insanely correct about something on a 20 yr lie (like hitting a hole in 1 on a par 4) I’d be SO pissed I wasn’t a household name

Never read anything quite like The Singularity Is Near. In 2004, Ray's writing stuff like "Sometime in the 2020s, we'll have AI that begin can work on their own successors" and his evidence is basically a straight line time series of milestones starting with fire, the wheel, etc.

@NateBlanchett Probably because Katie porter is a massive narcissist and also kind of an idiot? And klobuchar is not

Why do the “mean boss” allegations not seem to phase Amy Klobuchar’s popularity but very similar allegations seem to have damaged Katie Porter’s political ambitions significantly?

@JacobAShell @jessesingal genuinely, what does that even mean? Other ethnostates don’t have to abide by international law? Just the Jews?

@jessesingal Id hope to see some kind position like "given the history yes it makes sense for Jews to have a Jewish majority state, but it has to abide by international law or else it lacks legitimacy" something like this.

If you're this mad about Israel you should at least familiarize yourself with the *basics*. This isn't a new question or a gotcha! It's in fact been discussed and debated at great length for many many many many many many many years.

@brjimc @jacobin This is the “original sin” argument, which is even less coherent. I thought we were talking about its right to exist in 2026.

That 75% didn’t happen by accident. 750,000 Palestinians were expelled in 1948 and hundreds of thousands more in 1967. Then the Law of Return granted citizenship to any Jewish person worldwide while denying it to the people who were forced out. South Africa couldn’t manufacture a majority, so it ruled by force. Israel manufactured its majority, then called it democracy.

The question "Does Israel have a right to exist?" isn't a real inquiry about the rights of nations. It's a manipulation of discourse, a litmus test that forces Palestinians to offer theoretical assurances before their real political grievances can even be heard. jacobin.com/2026/04/israel…

@brjimc @jacobin No, I didn’t? Proportion of Israelis that are Jewish is roughly 75%. South African whites were a strict minority during apartheid, less than 20%. How is that ethno-majority?

@oystersaison @jacobin So was apartheid South Africa. Strongly desired and maintained by its ethno-majority citizenry. You've made my case. But, Israel has deep corruption problems as well as its occupation, war crimes snd plausible genocide.

@brjimc @jacobin I’m not persuaded that’s internally consistent at all but I appreciate the effort. I’m also not sure your framework even applies here. The state of Israel is strongly “desired and maintained” internally by its ethno-majority citizenry.

Both statements are consistent. No nation has an inherent right to exist, that’s the universal principle. The caveat identifies what accelerates the end - when a state sustains itself through apartheid, ethnic cleansing, or genocide, (or other corruption) it destroys its own legitimacy. It fails the very purpose of a state, the social contract. A just state is desired and maintained by its citizens. When corruption reaches a tipping point people stop believing in the state and stop sustaining it, or it meets external forces that finish the job. It's not contradictory, it's how every empire in history ended.

@brjimc @jacobin You said “No nation has the 'right' to exist at the expense of another people through apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and genocide.” The plain reading of this implies you think other states have the right to exist, so I’m not sure what you mean.

No nation has the right to exist. And, history backs this up. Nations come and go. The Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Rhodesia. Nobody mourns their "right to exist." The only reason this statement becomes controversial is when it’s applied to one state in particular. That tells you more about the state of politics than the philosophy or history.

@brjimc @jacobin Splitting hairs my friend. Look I get it, it’s a very useful rhetorical tool to be able to make the claim that Israel doesn’t have a right to exist. But that’s all it is. Backtracking to “philosophical” position is motte and Bailey work

@oystersaison @jacobin I’m not moving goalposts. I’ve never called for any state’s dissolution. Transformation, not destruction, that’s always been the position. My original statement about the 'right to exist' was a philosophical position.