Someone has sure already made this observation but the fact they can convert all those empty warehouses into prison camps means they could have converted them into housing, community centers, job training centers or, hell, libraries or schools all along. It’s always a matter of will not resources.
Trump’s Tangled Web of Deal-Making, Policy and Riches
An illustrated guide of the first year of profiteering.
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
100% seriously, European leaders and Commission officials should plan on the basis that the US might do this to them too, about Greenland, about tech regulation, about “Christian values”, about “free speech”, whatever.
I’m exhausted by the world Silicon Valley has foisted upon us — one we’re just expected to accept and adopt en masse, with little say into the direction of technological travel or input on whether the technology that benefits companies and CEOs is actually benefiting the public that’s expected to use it. Typically, I would call for better technology, and that’s at the core of the argument my colleagues and I made for digital sovereignty last year — not just for non-US technology, but for technology with a wholly different set of economic incentives and social values at its foundation. But as we wait to see if that will ever arrive, there is a stronger argument forming with every passing month that rejecting the technologies being sold to us — and even going back to physical and analog alternatives — is the right move in the present. Maybe not everything has to be digital or digitized, maybe the internet shouldn’t be inserted into absolutely everything, maybe we shouldn’t be constantly connected in the way we’re now expected to be, and generative AI certainly does not need to be forced into every facet of society.
The world Silicon Valley has created is exhausting and terrible. We absolutely need better technology, but in the meantime it’s absolutely right to reject what doesn’t serve us and reassess our relationship to digital technology more broadly.
disconnect.blog/we-need-to-r...
What I always hear: “We can’t afford to pay our workers more than $15 an hour.”
What I never hear: “We can’t afford to pay our CEO millions of dollars a year.”
Funny how that works.
We are a social species, and we have always prevailed through cooperation. Caring for our sick. Raising children we didn't sire or birth because they were part of our village or extended family. We are not breeders and predators, we are communicators and survivors. We evolved to UNITE.
"my least woke opinion is---"
That's enough. We've had enough people indulging in the "thrill of a little conservatism", as a treat. Of considering reactionary thought to be a salacious and taboo in a world descending into reactionary mania.
Give me your MOST woke opinions. We're bringing it back.
An illustration of a hand spraying misted water from spray bottle, with the caption "No."
You could just mute that man. Really. Mute or block and get on with your day
Stephen Miller • @St... • 13m Ø Watched the Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra Family Christmas with my kids. Imagine watching that and thinking America needed infinity migrants from the third world.
Dean Martin, born Dino Paul Crocetti, son of Italian immigrant Gaetano Crocetti
Frank Sinatra, son of Italian immigrants Antonino Sinatra and Natalina Garavanta
Merry Christmas to everyone except Stephen Miller and his enablers and handlers
Not to be controversial but I think we should use tools and resources to make people's lives less miserable instead of more
My dream is to see the ballroom turned into The Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Center of America.
Whatever we're gaining from space right now is nothing compared to the damage we're doing by enriching the man working to elect fascist governments throughout the world. He must be stopped.
My predictions for 2026:
- Trump’s coalition will crack and he will be seen as politically finished
- We will see the first stirrings of Woke 2
- Multiracial, working class solidarity against the billionaire oligarchs will be back on the menu
- A new political era will be on the horizon
No one says to legit business owners, "hey I see there's an underground market selling toxic knock-offs of your product: how will you incorporate the toxic product AND protect your customers against its harms?" But apparently it's fine to make this suggestion to educators with respect to AI.
Should a large language model (LLM) be used as a therapist? In this paper, we investigate the use of LLMs to replace mental health providers, a use case promoted in the tech startup and research space. We conduct a mapping review of therapy guides used by major medical institutions to identify crucial aspects of therapeutic relationships, such as the importance of a therapeutic alliance between therapist and client. We then assess the ability of LLMs to reproduce and adhere to these aspects of therapeutic relationships by conducting several experiments investigating the responses of current LLMs, such as gpt-4o. Contrary to best practices in the medical community, LLMs 1) express stigma toward those with mental health conditions and 2) respond inappropriately to certain common (and critical) conditions in naturalistic therapy settings—e.g., LLMs encourage clients’ delusional thinking, likely due to their sycophancy. This occurs even with larger and newer LLMs, indicating that current safety practices may not address these gaps. Furthermore, we note foundational and practical barriers to the adoption of LLMs as therapists, such as that a therapeutic alliance requires human characteristics (e.g., identity and stakes). For these reasons, we conclude that LLMs should not replace therapists, and we discuss alternative roles for LLMs in clinical therapy. Content warning: Contains content and examples related to sensitive mental health topics, including suicide.
anyone who believes and/or promotes the use of chatbots/ AI “companions” for therapy either chooses to ignore evidence that these bots can actually exacerbate mental health issues or is speaking from a place of ignorance dl.acm.org/doi/full/10....
Graphic in the style of Pantone Black background and text says "Color of the year 2025 Redacted Black"
Right. Most organizations have a cognitive surplus. They have a coordination deficit, and adding a bunch of workslop to the mix will only make that worse, not better.
A tiny trial in New York has shown that personalized mRNA vaccines can provoke massive, lasting immune responses against pancreatic cancer, even as sweeping federal cuts now threaten the fragile labs required to produce them.
theintellectualistofficial.substack.com/p/a-breakthr...
This is the saddest day of my professional life. Today is not only the final recording of the latest series of The Infinite Monkey Cage, it is my last ever Monkey Cage. I never thought that I would have to leave the show. I always imagined going on until | dropped dead under the studio lights due to a brain aneurysm caused by my final attempt to understand notions of quantum gravity or the shock of being told about fly maggot infestations in the sacks of macaque monkeys. I resigned in September, after sixteen years of dedication to the show, A show that I named and helped develop over all those years. Unfortunately, my opinions outside the BBC have been considered problematic for sometime, whether it has been voicing support for the trans community, criticism of Donald Trump, numerous other outlandish opinions, including once gently criticising Stephen Fry. These things were considered to conflict with being a freelance BBC science presenter
In a recent meeting where BBC Studio executives again voiced problems with me, I realised my choices. Obedience and being quieter to remain making Monkey Cage, or 'Resign and have the freedom to speak out against what I believe are injustices'. • I chose the latter. It broke my heart. I love this show and I love the audience, and it is because of the audience in particular, that this decision was so difficult to make. I kept thinking about all the extremist voices promoting hate and division. They are being given so many platforms, while voices that represent kindness, open mindedness, empathy seem to be scarcer and scarcer. I felt I couldn't pamper myself with the luxury of silence. One of my many privileges is that I am able to resign and I can speak out even if it is to the detriment of my career.
I have thought a lot about my heroes, Sinead O Connor, James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, and so many more. I think of Sinead's words, "the job of an artist is to be themselves at any cost". James Baldwin said prejudice was really just a word for cowardice. Audre Lorde, viewing her life, wrote that her only regrets were her silences. I think of my father as I resign, he brought me up to believe in fairness , justice and kindness. Though my heart is broken, it is also full of fire. I apologise to our incredible listeners for my departure, your love of the show means a great deal. I am so sorry to let you down. I hope that you can understand my reasoning. I have to accept that I am not what the current BBC expects of their freelance presenters.
Despite this I should add that I have always worked far more than my contracted hours to try and ensure the show was always the best it could be, as well as making myself accessible and responsive to the audience wherever and whenever I met them. Every night, we have recorded, I have been filled with determination to make the best show possible. This was not "just a job" I hope that with my departure I can be a better ally to the LGBTQ community, to the neurodivergent community, to activists fighting against those who aim to brutalise society, to those currently in prison on hunger strike, and to all those who fight for a more inclusive world. From many conversations, I know there are many Monkey Cage listeners who support these communities and activists too. The strawberry is dead. Long live the strawberry. B
Very sad that I felt I had no choice but to resign from The Infinite Monkey Cage - a victory for the transphobes and other bigots - I did it because so much of the media has chosen to believe the kind and empathetic people are a fiction - they are real and so often unrepresented.
There's a man crashing out in my Threads replies because I said your AI generated code isn't production ready if you don't know what's being generated.
So far he's asked who I think I am to talk about production ready code and tried to use the "you look like an only fans bot" as an insult.
I just spent the last two hours debugging the Bluetooth stack *in anger* because for the last few weeks I've had to re-pair my mouse with my laptop. Every time. Remove mouse, re-pair.
Turns out I had two identical mice in my backpack and I've been switching between them.
It was me.
Elizabeth Warren on Colbert's show: "We don't think one corporation or one man named David Ellison should be able to buy up all the shows and buy up all the sports and buy up all the news and decide who watches what and I'm gonna stay in that fight."
Terrific
Anyway is it just me or has the rate of GitHub outages been ticking up significantly over time
A bar graph from the National Association of Home Builders (including its logo). It compares building industry shortages with the percentage of workers in that industry that are immigrants. For example, there's a 60% shortage in brickmasons, and 42% of that industry is immigrant labor.
Thinking out loud: There's a lot of really heroic indy media documenting how inhumane Stephen Miller's dragnet is.
We need a campaign noting that if you want to fix the housing market you need to fire Stephen Miller.
www.nahb.org/advocacy/ind...
Governments and voters are both reacting to algorithm-shaped “public opinion,” not grounded priorities. Immigration feels urgent because platforms amplify fear, pulling parties into hollow performances of toughness. The far right reads that drift as confirmation it’s winning.
A back of a door show holder filled with cables and cable ties
I blame @swiftonsecurity.com for this genius idea
