“We thought we were living in a politically neutral slave state.”

Hard same. Diehard coop member for 10y before I moved away & never understood the coop hate. The caricature, yes, ok I get it. But in practice it is like, actually one of (very) few good institutions? While still having its quirks & annoyances. (Like anything built by & carried out w/other people.)

For ppl who aren't aware:
Old temperate forests are insanely rare nowadays and extremely important ecosystems lost forever once cut.
They're not just "old trees" but intricate networks of trees, fungi and all kinds of living creatures.
You CANNOT replant this!! Once it's gone it's lost FOREVER!!!

We genuinely need a revival of virtue in the United States.

In my view, that’s almost as critical a project as any other structural reform project necessary in the wake of trumpism. We should become a society that actually values human life such that we would feel shame about this.

probably too much to ask but I would simply like to live in a world not run by psychopaths perverts and idiots intent on justifying their opportunism and evil by appeals to reenacting primordial cosmological Battle Myths of which the ultimate and most archetypal is the end of the world itself

They beat a blind refugee who speaks no English for failing to obey police commands he could not understand. Then instead of apologizing, they charged him with possession of a “weapon”—HIS WALKING STICK. Then they dumped him miles from home without notifying anyone, after which he was found dead.

a full range of US state violence against this man, a disabled refugee who fled state violence to come here and ended up incarcerated and then dead

Nurul Amin Shah Alam, Blind Rohingya refugee dumped by CBP, dies in cold "They just left him."

They killed him.

It takes a lot to infuriate me and break my heart only because you have to be able to tolerate a lot when covering Trump and fascism and try your best to stay centered and hopeful.

This story I can't let go.

They chose to let him just die.

www.motherjones.com/mojo-wire/20...

Just finished watching this. Compelling! And lots to think about. Appreciate you sharing. Very "accessible" too, from a non-tech/non-academic pov. Wish these conversations were being had more broadly/publicly vs the ones we seem to be stuck with atm...

Second sentence tell: "quietly radical" and the structure of it.

We are deciding right now whether we want to be a country with ethnic cleansing and concentration camps.

An image of a poem called Early Dark by Rebekah Denison Hewitt. The tree holds on/to a few scrawny leaves. When I couldn't make /enough/milk, I cried watching the carpet fibers/ bloat/with liquid, the night I/ spilled/what little I had. We're all deficient/in sunlight/ this time of year. I've read so many poems/ mentioning stars /collapsing, /their dead light. God told/ Abraham these shining duds/are your descendents,/ like it was a good thing.

Looking forward to Rebekah Denison Hewitt's first book of poems: Creature in Bloom. Releases in March! uwpress.wisc.edu/Books/C/Crea...

An image of a poem called Early Dark by Rebekah Denison Hewitt. The tree holds on/to a few scrawny leaves. When I couldn't make /enough/milk, I cried watching the carpet fibers/ bloat/with liquid, the night I/ spilled/what little I had. We're all deficient/in sunlight/ this time of year. I've read so many poems/ mentioning stars /collapsing, /their dead light. God told/ Abraham these shining duds/are your descendents,/ like it was a good thing.

Looking forward to Rebekah Denison Hewitt's first book of poems: Creature in Bloom. Releases in March! uwpress.wisc.edu/Books/C/Crea...

It’s giving middle passage

If you have a problem with Newsom doing this, you should have a problem with Mamdani doing this.

I don't give a fuck how cute or charming or adorable he is. This is unconscionable.

In the concentration camp universe, this is what's known as a filtration camp. A government preemptively takes a whole class of people to interrogate and detain extrajudicially in order to inflict duress on them while arbitrarily assessing their (supposed) culpability.

The story of the Bible is the story of choosing the marginalized over Empire.

Again and again.

Libraries are among the few public institutions that represent the kind of world we want to live in. They must be fought for.

Tho I don't know that making something easier is the way to "better" art. Many great artists push boundaries in the opposite direction -- deliberately making things harder to catalyse creativity. I would be curious to know what Hockney thinks of AI & if he plays with it at all (for his art.)

Thinking aloud, maybe certain types of artworks (& surely ones we can't yet imagine) become possible or more efficient with the use of AI. Ex: Chuck Close's photorealistic paintings. Funny his work inspired the development of the ink jet printer...

Genuine question, not trying to make a point. I am curious how your human editor would describe the pieces pre-agent vs. post-agent, & how that changes their task, if at all? What is the value add specifically? Learning for you, less time on editing, a different quality of (real) editing possible?

I also struggle to imagine how agents would be truly useful for creative work. Often the process IS the work, the act of doing it is how you find out what IT is & what you think & what you are trying to say. Without the process there is no IT. But my imagination here may well be limited.

I don't see that happening in most orgs/sectors as rapidly as prognosticated. One concern: that in some cases those tools will homogenize tasks & outputs in ways that are actually reductive: not a net good, even if more "efficient." Example: in education.

for work -- once tools are built specifically for the tasks of these professions. But this still requires experts to understand (complex) consistent use cases across & within orgs in order to create something that can be widely adopted and/or commercialized.

My experience: anyone trustworthy who talks about legitimate use cases for AI already codes. "It can build a whole app!" But then they describe the parameters it needs to do that & giving it those is itself a body of knowledge. Your example is the same.I don't doubt it will be useful in the future

I found that gap -- summarizing rather than allowing the reader to experience her mother -- fascinating. (& well-articulated by Gornick.) Loved the book, but clear how Roy is still her mother's prisoner. I don't mean this reductively. Just that it reads as "true" to how abuse shapes and forms.

Recently re-watched & that movie actually reads as MORE culturally relevant today than it did on its release --not something I frequently think about a film!

Abuse is the common thread. Being willing to abuse & exploit is often quite lucrative, & the impulse to wield power in this way permeates a person's life. That so many wildly wealthy people participated in the horrific orchestrated abuses of children (& others) should not really come as a surprise.

Welcome The Stranger YouTube video by NYC Mayor's Office

This city is home to people of countless faiths. But no matter what you believe, one thing unites us: we are all New Yorkers. We will not allow ICE to terrorize our neighbors.

youtu.be/uoU9Img_B40

Yes for me. Still in touch with multiple friends from high school (and even a couple of my teachers!)