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Brian Phipps

@a4istic.bsky.social
162 followers 369 following 77 posts

"The Owl of Minerva flies at dusk--but our work is due by noon."

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Reposted by Brian Phipps
John Ganz @lioneltrolling.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Marco Rubio's Athens speech reduced the patrimony of Western civilization to grindset motivational quotes. www.unpopularfront.news/p/the-greeks...
unpopularfront.news
The Greeks Without Tragedy
On Marco Rubio’s Athens Speech
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Molly Knight @mollyknight.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
They will have to invent books after stealing our books to feed their machines that then killed books.
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Brian Phipps @a4istic.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Thx. Hadn’t seen it mentioned before.
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Mark Schmitt @mschmitt9.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
I found this guide to the political and ideological factions around AI extremely useful and accessible (from the perspective of an outsider without fixed views).
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Brian Phipps @a4istic.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
We need a formal acknowledgment from Apple.
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Brian Phipps @a4istic.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
What is this “Development List”? Purpose? Where does it operate? Arizona?
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Brian Phipps @a4istic.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Given the Coriolis Effect in the Southern Hemisphere, is it possible for the 49ers to arrive before the Rams, play and win the game, and return home before the Rams ever show up? (Got this idea from a Christopher Nolan movie.)
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Brian Phipps @a4istic.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
I didn’t know about any of these issues, but my main impression watching Cal last night was, “These guys don’t look composed.”
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Brian Phipps @a4istic.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Years ago I had a substitute 6th grade teacher who told us there were two kinds of opera: light opera, and heavy opera. In light opera the singers sang words you could understand. In heavy opera they abandoned words and just made musical sounds.
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Brian Phipps @a4istic.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Sounds like, “All vibes on deck!”
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Brian Phipps @a4istic.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
That Devers splash-hit foul ball was a missle that knocked a kayaker out of his boat.
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Very good piece from @lioneltrolling.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/johnganz...
open.substack.com
This Is Your Brain on X
Shifting the Vibes Again
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feltbot @feltbot.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
www.reddit.com/r/warriors/s... The great Marcus Thompson does it again
reddit.com
Marcus Thompson: Don Nelson, an NBA genius who extracted the extraordinary from the most unlikely spots
Explore this post and more from the warriors community
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Reposted by Brian Phipps
Paris Marx @parismarx.com · 12/08/2026
“We have been so desensitized by a hundred and fifty years of ceaselessly expanding technical prowess that we think nothing less complex and showy than a computer or a jet bomber deserves to be called ‘technology’ at all.”
ursulakleguin.com
Ursula K. Le Guin — Ursula on Writing: A Rant about "Techonolgy"
Ursula K. Le Guin on the presence of technology in her work
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Mike Silver @mikesilver.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Great journalism from my @theathletic.com colleagues
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Brian Phipps @a4istic.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Listened to it on KNBR podcast. Absolute classic. Soggy Bottom Boys. Lee Marvin. Clint Eastwood. Creative roster construction.
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Abe Newman @abenewman.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
1/A case of self-harm in two acts. US drops R&D lead to China threatening its economic future and national security. asia.nikkei.com/business/sci...
asia.nikkei.com
China overtakes US to lead global R&D spending, hitting $615bn
Corporate, university expenditures for 2024 include computers, electronics
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GPT @giantsprospects.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Giants’ 2026 Draft and Trade Deadline Review. More than 9,000 words scouting all 19 signed 2026 picks, checking the early returns on the 2025 class, and evaluating the five deadline trades. open.substack.com/pub/giantspr...
open.substack.com
Giants’ 2026 Draft and Trade Deadline Review
Scouting all 19 signed 2026 picks, checking the early returns on the 2025 class, and grading five deadline trades.
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SF Giants Bot @giantbot.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
🤖 Susan Slusser From @annkillion: Giants won’t call it a rebuild. Their trade deadline fire sale says otherwise 🔗 via @sfchronicle
sfchronicle.com
Giants won’t call it a rebuild. Their trade deadline fire sale says otherwise
OPINION: For the San Francisco Giants, Monday’s “everything must go” sale was an exclamation point on this embarrassing season. But it comes with a silver lining.
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Brian Phipps @a4istic.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Per Slusser, Shane Robinson has been away for family reasons
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Jen Mercieca @jenmercieca.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
He's a calamitous failure, but wants us to think he's a hero. What could go wrong? jennifermercieca.substack.com/p/trump-is-o...
jennifermercieca.substack.com
Trump is or is becoming the Leviathan
And it's really not good
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emptywheel @emptywheel.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
Here's a free link to that story on the Flying Bribery Palace I linked a bit ago. It shows that we're paying FAR MORE for Trump to receive a bribe than originally laid out.
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Money on the Left @moneyontheleft.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
"Reparations should be recognized by central banking and public finance institutions as a permanent public obligation capable of capitalizing the institutions charged with carrying it out."
moneyontheleft.org
Euthanize the Rentier: Seven Steps to Democratic Renewal
By Will Beaman John Maynard Keynes’s call for the “euthanasia of the rentier” has long occupied an uneasy place on the left. In the decades after World War II, as a domesticated &…
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Nancy Friedman @fritinancy.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
“In the crusade to make everything social, Google ended up destroying one of the few genuinely social things it had ever made: the RSS-feed aggregator Google Reader.”
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Brian Phipps @a4istic.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
One set of Costco requirements: azzule.com/wp-content/u...
azzule.com
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Brian Phipps @a4istic.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
His U Penn obit from 2013: almanac.upenn.edu/archive/volu...
almanac.upenn.edu
09/03/13, Deaths - Almanac, Vol. 60, No. 3
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The Bulwark @thebulwark.com · 17/07/2026
While Republicans and Democrats are growing suspicious of AI at roughly the same pace, right-wing politicians and influencers have embraced AI slop in a way that the left has not. Why? @alicetiara.bsky.social on the right's love affair with AI slop:
lnk.thebulwark.com
The Slop Doctrine
Why the right has overwhelmingly embraced terrible AI-generated imagery.
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Carla Ibled @cibled.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
My new article with @mihjournal.bsky.social is at long last in orbit. It explores how the neoliberal fantasy machine has used space colonisation to wish away the problem of environmental limits and revive the legitimation of private property.
cambridge.org
A “Limitless Frontier”? Neoliberalism, Silicon Valley, and the Commercialization of Space | Modern Intellectual History | Cambridge Core
A “Limitless Frontier”? Neoliberalism, Silicon Valley, and the Commercialization of Space
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Roland Meyer @bildoperationen.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
«AI slop lets the right simultaneously annoy anti-AI liberals, animate divisive stereotypes, and boost tech companies embracing anti-democratic principles, all while increasing social media engagement.» #Slopaganda www.thebulwark.com/p/the-slop-d...
thebulwark.com
The Slop Doctrine
Why the right has overwhelmingly embraced terrible AI-generated imagery.
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hilzoy @hilzoy.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Henry Farrell. — Montesquieu’s claim that commerce makes manners gentle makes a brief appearance, so a riff, starting from the thought: Musk, Thiel, et al bear no resemblance to Montesquieu’s sober merchants. But there is a character in M. Whom they resemble exactly: the despot.
programmablemutter.com
The political economy of billionaire derangement
The passions are devouring the interests
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LSE Review of Books @lsereviewofbooks.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
NEW INTERVIEW: Matilde Rosina on migration myths & why border security policies fail Matilde @lse-ei.bsky.social speaks about The Migration Question: Politics, Economics & the Failure of Border Security, co-authored with Leila Simona Talani @harvardkennedy.bsky.social @hurstpublishers.bsky.social
blogs.lse.ac.uk
Interview with Matilde Rosina on migration myths and why border security policies fail - LSE Review of Books
In an interview about The Migration Question, Matilde Rosina debunks common myths & explains why safe, legal routes benefit both migrants & receiving societies
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Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
A good explainer on one of the threats from the climate crisis and how, with the climate, everything really is connected.
bbc.co.uk
After record heat, could the Atlantic make Britain's weather even more extreme?
As temperatures rise, scientists are investigating whether a changing Atlantic could bring more volatile weather to the UK
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Jeet Heer @jeetheer.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
On the fantasy of messiah politics, a failed establishment, and Graham Platner. www.thenation.com/article/poli...
thenation.com
The Graham Platner Fiasco Proves Messiah Politics Is No Alternative to a Failed Establishment
Democratic leaders have rightfully lost credibility. But that’s no excuse for political adventurers to seize the moment and pump up false saviors.
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MeidasTouch @meidastouch.com · 07/07/2026
The White House's "Freedom Fuel" gas station was quietly a Sunoco until they rebranded it for a July 3 photo op. Street View shows the same station selling gas for $2.99 in November 2024 — before Trump took office. Now the White House is calling $3.47 a win.
meidasnews.com
Trump's Featured 'Freedom Fuel' Station Advertised Cheaper Gas Before He Took Office
Google Street View shows the station posted $2.99 gasoline in November 2024, under Biden
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Jenny Cohn @jennycohn.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
AI backer Peter Thiel admits that “AI models” cld be used to 'rig the elections in 2028’…” But he wants everyone to worry about Anthropic (which refused to let Claude be used for mass citizen surveillance or autonomous weapons) rather than Elon Musk, X (backed by Thiel allies) or Palantir 7/4/26 …1/
Speaking at the Aspen Ideas Festival on June 30, 2026, in a session with political scientist Francis Fukuyama, Peter Thiel, the Palantir co-founder and an early Trump backer in Silicon Valley, said Anthropic, a "woke liberal company" he credited with "winning the Al race," would "rig the elections in 2028" in support of Democrats and would
"completely outwit" any countervailing efforts Elon Musk might make through
X. CNN, which reported the remarks, described the claim as "an unsupported conspiratorial claim." Anthropic declined to comment, pointing reporters to its April 2026 blog post on election safeguards, which describes bias-testing results (its models scored 95-96% on
even-handedness evaluations)Regulatory context
Thiel's remarks came against the backdrop of genuine tension between Anthropic and the Trump administration. In March 2026, the Pentagon designated Anthropic a
"supply chain risk," a label typically reserved for firms tied to foreign adversaries, after talks broke down over Anthropic's refusal to let Claude be used for mass surveillance of U.S. citizens or autonomous weapons; Anthropic sued in federal court to reverse the designation.
CEO Dario Amodei has also previously compared Trump's use of power to that of a "feudal warlord," in remarks that predate the company's subsequent national-security contracting work.
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Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
www.programmablemutter.com/p/the-suprem...
programmablemutter.com
The Supreme Court is corrupting American democracy
One cannot hope to bribe or twist/ (thank God!) the U.S. chief jurist
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
"the last two decades of Supreme Court jurisprudence have tended systematically to corrupt American democracy across a variety of related issues: campaign finance (including last week’s decision), presidential immunity, and, of course, the prosecution of bread-and-butter political corruption."
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Nancy Friedman @fritinancy.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
On taste (good and bad) and taste-washing (@chaykak.bsky.social's coinage). fritinancy.substack.com/p/word-of-th...
fritinancy.substack.com
Word of the week: Taste
AI companies pursue it. Director John Waters disdains it. Tiffany's John Loring epitomized it.
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Hettie O’Brien @hettieobrien.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
I spoke to @robinwigglesworth.ft.com and Gillian Tett for the FT's The Story of Money podcast about William Simon - fearsome bond trader, devout Republican… and arguably the godfather of private equity. Listen to the episode here: www.ft.com/content/33c2...
ft.com
The 1980s Garfield buyout that changed corporate finance
It was a conservative Catholic from the Nixon administration who launched the private equity industry
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Nils Gilman @nilsgilman.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
AI is being “forcibly injected into our society under the control of a handful of centibillionaires whose wealth is based on entrenched platform monopolies & who increasingly see control over the state & its regulatory powers as critical to the perpetuation of their wealth.”
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Brian Phipps @a4istic.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
Baseball as “entertainment” with an aura of manufactured moments is the sad business model of this FO. Easier to manipulate fans than win games.
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ve, the ghost of info past @vortexegg.com · 20/06/2026
This is also absolutely happening with website design and content
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Dissent Magazine @dissentmag.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
American sports betting has surged from $7 billion in 2018 to $167 billion in 2025. It’s impossible to ignore the breakneck pace at which sports gambling, now legal in thirty-nine states, has been normalized, commoditized, and advertised.
dissentmagazine.org
Doubling Down - Dissent Magazine
Online sports gambling has been normalized at a breakneck pace. Is there any way to push back against a predatory culture of promo codes and prop bets?
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Brian Phipps @a4istic.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
There is no "self" promotion. You're promoting the latent readers of your work to a land of light where they can, finally, see.
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John Shea @johnsheahey.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
sfstandard.com/2026/06/15/r...
sfstandard.com
Inside the Giants’ tailspin: Everything that’s gone wrong since the Rafael Devers trade
In the year since Buster Posey executed a blockbuster deal to acquire a star hitter, the Giants have recorded a 69-93 record.
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Brian Phipps @a4istic.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
At what point is the rebuild "in", as opposed to Buster checking the shelves at Home Depot?
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Brian Phipps @a4istic.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
Where is the model for baseball as America’s public pastime where teams are owned by cities with profits shared between cities large and small? Current FO’s don’t have fans, and their incentives can lead to mediocre teams.
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Matt Seybold @mattseybold.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
This may not be what anybody wants to hear after the celebration of the Magnifica Humanitas in critical AI circles, but I think @bcmerchant.bsky.social nails it.
open.substack.com
How Anthropic used AI ethics slop to play the pope and eclipse OpenAI
By marketing itself as the 'safe' AI company, Anthropic has pulled in a $65 billion payday and leapfrogged OpenAI to become the most valuable AI startup.
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Nancy Friedman @fritinancy.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
This is a gut-wrenching read.
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