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Chris James

@chris.whywhatsnext.com
42 followers 100 following 147 posts

+ indie web presence | - walled gardens + creating art to share | - commodified content + intentional futureshaping | - being tossed by algos + decentralization | - society's eggs in a single basket

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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 17/08/2026
It's a frictionless endless slot machine. It's McLuhan's 'Medium is the Message', where the consumption of the medium (or rather the _switching_ to the next piece of an endless pool of content) is frictionless. Combined with the slot machine of not know in what the next piece of content will be. 😔
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 15/08/2026
The word 'available' seems very modern until you actually look at the parts of it, and it suddenly turns archaic. What other words are like that?
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 20/07/2026
In cases of songwriting, novel writing, poetry, etc.: what we care about is the perspective of the person (the "sum of past subjective experiences" entity) who is expressing said perspective, trying to get you to share in what they see/feel. Until we get to Cylons, we're not there yet with AI :)
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 20/07/2026
I this case a difference I see: chess: testing one's own human performance against another. (or on other sports, against oneself) math: not a competition. The point of progress in the field is progress for progress' sake (tho there is beauty in a proof). So if AI can do it, why have humans try?
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 01/07/2026
Out of this wreckage, perhaps some leaner journalistic institutions will be created that are natively online (as opposed to broadcast studios trying to fit new media). Less bloat, with still high standards. (a la The Verge's 'you're buying our ethics policy when you subscribe'.)
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 30/06/2026
I want so bad for this to result in ranch dressing soon being available to buy here in Europe. If so, I'm calling it: FIFA Peace Prize - totally worth it.
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 27/06/2026
any way to build a layer for domain names/registry? Or is this a thing where I could take an existing domain and point it to the at:/ space via smth like Cloudflare? (or both?)
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 25/06/2026
Beautiful. There is smth profound and richly true about the 'shadow' world that runs parallel to the capitalism/GDP world. Shadow, not because it's less real, but that GDP metrics & 'the market' doesn't directly see it. But it's where real life happens. Capitalism was meant to serve it-it flipped.
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 25/06/2026
Beautiful. There is smth profound and richly true about the 'shadow' world that runs parallel to the capitalism/GDP world. Shadow, not because it's less real, but that GDP metrics & 'the market' doesn't directly see it. But it's where real life happens. Capitalism was meant to serve it-it flipped.
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Reposted by Chris James
glamlizard @glamlizard.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
I think the theologians call this “hydrostatic union.”
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 24/06/2026
Task someone to watch what Hungary is doing for post-Orban reconstruction. There will be plenty of do's and don'ts.
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 24/06/2026
PSA: Unfortunately the "Every accusation is a confession" rhetorical response does nothing to convince. To the ears of those across the aisle, it equals: "I know you are, but what am I?" - only snooty-soundier. It may, however be useful as an internal heuristic to create a theory-of-mind.
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 24/06/2026
😁 Thoughtful parenting is hard. Our approach is "We could afford that, but are choosing not to spend our money on that." (Backed up by: "the reason we _could_ afford it is _because_ we've spent 10+ years being selective on spending") By the age the 1st argument is understandable, the 2nd is too.
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 24/06/2026
Yeah. I grew up in a house with a 'computer room' then laptops. Active engagement and not passive endless consumption. Not constant notifications. Trying to preserve some of that friction . But its hard because frictionless is convenient. But different formfactors/UX encourage different behaviors.
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 24/06/2026
A leghatásosabb egészségügyi reform ami történhet az kulturális: ha végre eü dolgozók úgy kezelnék az embereket mintha emberek lennénk. De gondolom egymás között is úgy bánnak egymással mintha kasztrendszer lenne. Hány évtized mire kineveljük magunkból? 2026 van már. Már nem foghatom szovjetekre.
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 24/06/2026
We're trying dumb till 10, then smartphone for ebooks, music, photo purposes. Messenger only on computer. 12: Messenger on phone. (our country FB messenger is popular) No insta or others till 16. Difficulty: HS students use insta for dms and group chats. So I'm about to add Beeper for chats only
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 24/06/2026
Nah, it's all good. There are truths in it - but there's a difference between observing/verbalizing normal behavior and commending it as normative. The nuance between normal and normative has been lost in the social media age when we 'must' practice defensive posting and throat-clearing.
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 24/06/2026
I think the 'jokes' are: Penguins: The female had an egg she had to sit on. Boring. "Hey Henry! C'mere!"... "Can you hold this for me? kthxbye!" Seahorse: look what happens when the incompetent dad parents. He delivers them directly to be eaten.
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 24/06/2026
Visit any Midwestern farming community, it's still that way, because it determines both immediate plans for the day/week and those choices impact that year's income. Actually impactful stuff, the weather.
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 24/06/2026
Hard disagree. How else are you supposed to get cooking instructions and recipes for eggs benedict, if not for ChatGPT?
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 24/06/2026
We had 2 other close families with similar aged kids who were also 'no smartphones'. (last holdout in the grade) Made our position easier for our kids to accept. Then they both changed their mind one week to the next. 🤣 And we were the bad guys again. 🤣 Easing: Phone -> messaging -> social media
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 23/06/2026
All in all, to my ears, it sounds about on par with, say, Epic Fury? (Maybe 5%t lighter than that even?) /wordnerd out
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 23/06/2026
...the colloquial for purgatory. Which also sounds more dramatic in Engish because of the reification of the word being distanced from the Latin 'clean' (purgo). ('Purge' also is more dramatic in English) Since tisztítótűz is the typical HU term for purgatory, AND descriptive, it is not as reified.
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 23/06/2026
I would argue it sounds a bit more dramatic and explosive in English than it does in Hungarian. For a couple reasons cause I'm a word nerd. 'Cleansing fire' is the poetic English equiv, but it's the same word as cleaning. So it sounds only as extreme as 'Cleaning fire'. Plus it's the colloquial...
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Reposted by Chris James
Ben Folds @actualbenfolds.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
open.substack.com/pub/benjamin...
open.substack.com
Open Letter Regarding NSO
Hi all.
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 14/05/2026
Oh. You weren't asking about free vs premium addict. I like how I can set up episode retention to never delete favorited episodes, or episodes with bookmarks/notes. And custom retention periods for d/led episodes. Car player layout(Pic)should be the default UI for any player. And PA widgets are 👨‍🍳 👌
Podcast addict car player layou
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 14/05/2026
Most notable are no ads, playlist widget, and setting what screen it opens to. I don't have premium, and I can choose which screen I open to by tapping on the custom buttons I added to the Player Widget (see pic). I can't imagine needing real-time updates. I set mine @ 4 hrs, but 30min is there too
screenshot of podcast addict's premium featuresPodcast addict player widget
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 14/05/2026
Podcast Addict is the most customizable player I have ever tested. Dev made basically every meaningful behavior customizable - not just as a global setting, but even per-podcast overrides for speed, download/archive behavior and more. Over the years he implemented both my feature suggestions. GOAT
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 20/03/2026
Kids don't know what day of the week it is. Until one day begins an _unbroken streak_ of each day knowing what day it is. Sometimes 'oh, it felt like Thursday' - but to go through to the 2nd day of being wrong means your life has either fallen apart or you are doing so well, you are above society.
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 18/02/2026
🍿 I happened to be listening to the latest Vergecast's: Brendan Carr is a dummy when I saw the Colbert censorship thing pop up on reddit yesterday: www.youtube.com/watch?v=oh7D... Nilay's radicalization journey that started decades ago about to reach new heights, and I'm here for it. 🍿
youtube.com
Why CBS Didn't Broadcast Stephen Colbert's Interview With James Talarico
YouTube video by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 19/01/2026
Are there other possible operations in the spec? Not just changing, but a join/link/unlink? Link: I might want two pseudonymous accounts that aren't publicly linked. Later down the road I might want to verify that I am indeed both accounts. Unlink: Brand account temporary delegation. (e.g. POTUS?)
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 19/01/2026
In the case of did:plc, does the DID issuer also retain the ability to exercise control (e.g. deletion/transfer) over the keys? (I'm not an IT guy, but I *think* the question is essentially, does the issuer also have the private key to the account? or just the hash, to verify?)
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 19/01/2026
He just articulated it: It's because he didn't get the Nobel Prize. "Oh, I wasn't peaceful enough for you? Let's see how you like non-peace!" Typical abuser move.
President Trump has asked that the following message, shared with Prime
Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, be forwarded to your [named head of
government/state]

"Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel
Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation
to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now
think about what is good and proper for the United States of America.
Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they
have a "right of ownership" anyway? There are no written documents, it's
only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats
landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any other person since
its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The
World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of
Greenland. Thank you! President
DJT"
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 19/01/2026
IMHO the hardest parts of 'identity' are: - 'central authority issuance and maintenance' ( with the ability to lose my keys and not be able to regenerate them) and going forward: 'proof of personhood' Solve those, and we can solve app-interoperability and botspam. Best attempt so far is World Orb 😬
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 19/01/2026
Very helpful write up! But I'm still bothered by the last, hardest problem of identity - the ownership and final authority. IIUC, we're still trusting a central authority to issue and maintain the DID authentication? And if I lose my keys or pw, the central authority won't let me back in. Correct?
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 16/01/2026
Sounds like Jesse Welles' "Join ICE": "Well, I failed the academy, the cops weren't havin' me The Army didn't sound that fun So I found me a paramilitary operation That was keen to hand me a gun" www.youtube.com/watch?v=61I4...
youtube.com
"Join ICE" - Jesse Welles (LIVE on The Late Show)
YouTube video by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 15/01/2026
Hmmm. I think it was always making fun of the perspective it was writing from... Complaining about 'Y'all don't know what it's like Being male, middle-class and white' was satire a bit ahead of its time. Or am I missing something?
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 15/01/2026
Usenet to Blogrolls to subreddits to Bluesky custom algos to Fediverse - we keep discovering 'neighborhoods' - and then discovering how hard it is to keep them small with frictionless mass-posting. We need either limited identities per person (👎) or a posting speed-limit across your identities. (👍)
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 16/12/2025
But I fear it would be hard for an academic to seriously entertain any rigorous philosophizing about that without it seeming way to far off in left field. (And would attract the wrong crowd of followers.)
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 16/12/2025
Unfortunately, I think that brings an uncomfortable implication: if understanding _is_ essentially equivalent to (or emerges from) the embedded relationship between concepts, then we really do need to contend LLMs vector spaces, and whether 'processing' a prompt constitutes an 'experience'.
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 16/12/2025
In simple terms: If the man has the lookup in his head, then he _does_ by definition understand. But If the rules of Chinese are in a book in the room, then we might say that the Room understands Chinese, the person does not. Much like my tongue does not understand English, but my brain does.
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 16/12/2025
The Chinese room is helpful, but it sidesteps an important possibility. It assumes the possibility that "true understanding" can be separate from the "ability to do the lookups". That model precludes the possibility of consciousness/understanding being emergent from the structure of data processing.
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 15/12/2025
For those who have ideological or psychological objections to New Year’s Resolutions or rituals in general. whywhatsnext.com/b/KH
whywhatsnext.com
I am psychologically uncomfortable with New Year’s Resolutions
I have always been dismissive and even borderline derisive of New Year’s resolutions. The two contributing factors are 1) my disdain for ritual and 2) realism/cynicism.
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 10/09/2025
That is a very sneakily clever showcase of what bases is capable of. Gotta dive into it now. Obsidian has been my favorite piece of software in the past years. Thank you!
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 11/08/2025
That's actually much longer of a runway than I expected! However, I can't help but worry that the '10% growth forever' model that the developed world's economic system is based on, has been subsidized by the pop growth rate. And when the demographic pyramid inverts, the GDP gears start grinding.
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 11/08/2025
Ah, I think we might be talking about diff problems. I'm concerned about the 150-year global problem. I agree that immigration solves it for select countries, coming from developing countries. All dev. countries have followed the low tfr trajectory, then we run out. The Earth is a closed system.
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 10/08/2025
But isn't this time different? 19th c. childhood mortality meant eff. replacement rates were higher, right? Worries then were about going below 2.5 or 3. But we offset that with good healthcare, so 2.1 is a good rate. Can't offset sub-2.0 birthrate with healthcare. Only immortality. Where am I off?
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 01/08/2025
Caricature in US. Tuesday here in Hungary. bsky.app/profile/szab... At least US has a culture where that is outrageous. It means there's still hope.
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 01/08/2025
Thanks, will check the reference. I can't help but wonder if that statement will hold much past 2040 though. Not saying if that's good or bad, I just think that 1000s of years of legal framework and theory is based on humans being the primary agents. The future is weirdly different.
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Chris James @chris.whywhatsnext.com · 01/08/2025
The question of 1st Am. rights to 'express' is a hairy one when code is speech and corporations are people (thus corpo AI is people) - The 21st century needs to see a new framework. With pieces of current patent and copyright/license law reconfigured to a new bucket of "compuright."
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