Malcolm F. Cross

Like no wonder we're heading straight into recession number gazillion of the 21st century.

That's almost worse, you know? That's downsizing the company's actual economic capacity to fudge the numbers on the accounts to make the shareholders happy, hollowing out the actual economic productivity and leaving those same shareholders (if we even CARE about them) holding the bag.

Your company could be growing its capabilities, at a cost of essentially nothing.

Instead, you're ensuring you can only do what you did before, and that EVERYONE ELSE WHO HAS ACCESS TO THE AI CAN NOW DO IT JUST AS WELL AS YOU CAN.

...

Idiots.

And that's assuming AI worked, which it doesn't!

Assuming 'AI actually works', companies that lay off staff are idiots.

You get a thing that increases productivity? Hugely? ... And instead of leveraging that to increase the amount of stuff your company does, you cut back and fire the people who know how to do what you do best?

there's an old adage: "when a product appears to be free, you're the product" (usually, this means the product makes its money through advertising)

in light of the last few years, we can add an addendum: "if a business is run at a loss, it's another business's operating expense"

This is incredible. UK emissions fell 2.4% in 2025 as coal fell to a 400-year low. Incredibly, we used less coal last year than than in 1600, when Queen Elizabeth I was on the throne and Shakespeare was writing Hamlet
www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uk-...

100 girls are dead because of generative AI

This is the reason I still post my comics online, even when very few people read them.

As a satirically egotistical man once said, "Sadly, the world has yet to recognize my genius."

One day, people will discover my work, and I believe they will be entertained; when and how is up to them.

I try to preach the opposite of imposter syndrome to creative people. Know that you are literally the only person on the planet equipped to tell the very specific stories you have to tell in the way only you can tell them.

A $1.5T company just turned 7 million bedrooms into training data. Last week, Swedish newspapers Svenska Dagbladet and Göteborgs-Posten published a joint investigation. Meta contractors in Nairobi…... A $1.5T company just turned 7 million bedrooms into training data. Last week, Swedish newspapers Svenska Dagbladet and Göteborgs-Posten published a joint investigation. Meta contractors in Nairobi ...

Jatin Modi's LinkedIn report on an investigation by two Swedish newspapers into RayBan's AI glasses output. Turns out that your personal life is being scraped to train #GenAI. You are sharing intimate photos of your children with no idea how they'll be used.
www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

People who positively speak about pursuing the Panopticon are pursuing what was envisioned for Big Brother's system of control in 1984.

Privacy to be ourselves on our own terms is fundamental to being human.

It is way, WAY up there.

Hurrah! Look forward to it.

I don't know if you have any colleagues in Carribbean folklore/historical theology, but I imagine there is someone in that field who would be super, super interested in this.

Just to clarify - if Crisp actually did this in the late 1600s, and the enslaved people he abused believed this, that could mean Crisp was fully aware of the spiritual beliefs in play at a time when, as someone doing some cursory googling, I'm not sure we have proof those beliefs existed.

n example of this may be found in 1898 account of the people who were illegally trafficked to the United States on the Wanderer, which stated that a number of survivors later committed suicide under the belief that "if they would jump into the sea and drown themselves they would be carried back to Africa by the good spirits...among them being one called King Mingo, who decoyed two children to St. Simon's beach, during the absence of his mistress, and all three of them jumped from a high bluff into the swift current and were drowned."[9]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide...

When was this written down? Because it's entirely possible you've managed to unearth a much earlier etiology than the 1803 'origin' for the Flying Africans myth. Which is nuts to me, as a story guy.

-- if there is an element of folklore attached, that may be due to wherever the missionary heard it, since this kind of thing was passed around as oral tradition among enslaved peoples.

But attempted mass suicides like that seem to, based on a little more wikipedia-ery, have been... common?

--

Igbo Landing - Wikipedia

- to have been inspired by a mass suicide in 1803 ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igbo_La... ) , and if folklore, this is a significant departure.

... Personally?

I'd fully buy that a slave owner knew enough of his captives' lore and beliefs to abuse them in exactly the way you described, and --

Flying Africans - Wikipedia

It does.

In fact, there is a certain mythic quality to this - a little bit of mythic trickster energy, which, as you mention the French, makes me think Reynard...

But looking into it, the closest folkloric tale I can find is en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_... <-- The Flying Africans, which seems -

Also just to expand on this slightly - if you found these anecdotes because Crisp was speaking of them, I am nigh certain the reason you found them is because Crisp thought this made him look good.

I shudder to think about what kinds of events he went out of his way to ensure weren't recorded.

Forgetting the humanity we all share is the start of so many atrocities. So many.

I understand it completely, though. I have met people who made a game out of exploiting the 'backwards superstitions' of other cultures and found it both amusing and gratifying, because they didn't view other people as human.

This was likely that guy's favourite light anecdote over drinks.

Sadly, inhumanity has a long history. Which is why it's so very important we recognize that and stand against it wherever we are able to.

When David chooses to post a thread, you may need to bolster yourself for it, but you will come away having learned something important.

This is the story of slavery at its most traumatic, one predicated not just on physical violence against enslaved people by slave owners, but the all-encompassing terror of slavery as a psychological tool of control and oppression, and the desperate ways enslaved people tried to resist it. A small 🧵

Brits: Please scream. This is a Labour govt proposing to hand the property of individual British workers to largely US corporations.

@davidpintod.bsky.social

She Came Out of the Bathroom Naked, Employee Says Bank details, sex and naked people who seem unaware they are being recorded. Behind Meta’s new smart glasses lies a hidden workforce, uneasy about peering into the most intimate parts of other people’...

In @svenskadagbladet1.bsky.social and @goteborgsposten.bsky.social investigation, the people behind Meta’s smart glasses testify to the hidden stream of privacy-sensitive data that is fed straight into the tech giant’s systems.
www.svd.se/a/K8nrV4/met...

An incredible investigation. This isn't just happening to gaming sites, either - St. Louis' local alt newspaper The Riverfront Times was bought and hollowed out in the same way, and now shows ai, onlyfans, and crypto garbage.

Once again, my website is taking almost a minute to load because some dipshit AI company thinks it's their right to scrape my data. Man, this is exhausting.

If you’re part of any creative groups, unions or other organisations in the uk you should be passing news like this along and spreading the world. News like this gets has the chance to be overlooked but if enough organisations kick up a fuss things can change.