iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dave Kartunen @davekartunen.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Elizabethtown. I will die on this hill. It was billed as a romcom and flopped. It’s a dark comedy about failure and grief. Anyone who has experienced either—and has an ounce of self-awareness—will laugh and cry.

ELIZABETHTOWN movie poster featuring Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst.

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Dave Kartunen @davekartunen.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Leave it to @davekarpf.bsky.social — One of the most pernicious tropes of the AI Boom (and our economy over the past 50 years) is that “we can’t slow innovation.” It’s one of the best tricks capital has used to get people to vote against their self-interests. davekarpf.beehiiv.com/p/the-infini...

davekarpf.beehiiv.com

The Infinite Money Trick

Guarded skepticism about AI product releases

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Dave Kartunen @davekartunen.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

About 90 days to subpoena time, unless his friend Hakim steps in.

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Joe Dunman @joedunman.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

The funding imbalance in American politics is just astounding. Running a homeless shelter? Sorry, your last 50k grant just ran out and now your lights are off. Want to start a podcast for racists who eat paint? Here's $50 million, no strings, go have fun.

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Dave Kartunen @davekartunen.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Always read George Packer, but this one is particularly good. People hate data centers because they show how we’ve lost our agency. That we have no redress. And that our system no longer relies on consent of the governed. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...

theatlantic.com

The Great Data-Center Rebellion

Could a new populist movement help save American democracy?

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Dave Kartunen @davekartunen.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Nothing in the bible supports loving your child? One of us might need a re-read.

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Dave Kartunen @davekartunen.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Ah yes, there are no two greater issues our President would know about than self-regulation and morally-bound behavior.

NBC NEWS headline:
“After summit with tech titans, Trump calls for ‘tremendous self-regulation’ by AI companies.”

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Dave Kartunen @davekartunen.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

💯 They know the bubble is going to pop. They just got a bailout in advance.

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Dave Kartunen @davekartunen.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

This didn't work in 2018, but have at it.

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Dave Kartunen @davekartunen.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I’m trying to lay off the hopium but if we have: 250 seats in the House 55 seats in the Senate And Dem Govs. in OH, TX, KS and FL… Do you think Schumer and Jeffries would actually fight? I mean… even I‘m not THAT optimistic.

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Dave Kartunen @davekartunen.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Being blackballed from a fraternity on bid day was one of the most positive course corrections in my life.

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Dave Kartunen @davekartunen.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I’m old enough to remember when ABC led investigations like this.

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Dave Kartunen @davekartunen.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Nice to see independent media having an impact.

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Dave Kartunen @davekartunen.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Let’s take the $1T of CapEx and pay/train teachers what they’re worth, feed kids and provide them healthcare, and build a mental health system that’s the envy of the world. You won’t believe what they’ll be able to learn.

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Dave Kartunen @davekartunen.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

@adambecker.bsky.social IT’S HAPPENING! Data centers in space! Complete with a science fiction inspired origin story! And stay for the journalistic “to be sure” throwaway graf about [waves hands at everything] the challenge of a larger data center in space: www.nytimes.com/2026/09/24/t...

nytimes.com

Google Takes the A.I. Data Center Race to Outer Space

Next Thursday, Google is sending an experimental satellite into orbit that will have enough computing power to answer simple A.I. queries from space.

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ProPublica @propublica.org · 26/09/2026

Hey, ProPublica reporter Jake Pearson here. I’m taking over the account to tell you about my new story. For months, I posed as a problem gambler on DraftKings to test the company's "responsible gaming" safeguards. Spoiler alert: They made me a VIP — and I lost $10K. Here's how it all went down. 🧵

Selfie taken by ProPublica reporter Jake Pearson, a man wearing a backwards baseball cap and an orange T-shirt.

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Dave Kartunen @davekartunen.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

In this time of Dario Amodeis and Sam Altmans, be a Stanislav Petrov.

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Dave Kartunen @davekartunen.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

The most concerning part of this article isn't AI Doom, its: - the influence people like Soares have on policymakers. - that a publication like NYMag and a reporter like Stieb are presenting him as an objective expert, without context. nymag.com/intelligence...

nymag.com

The Democrats’ Mad Scramble to Get AI Right

Greg Casar wants his party to seize the debate as it vies retake Congress.

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Dave Kartunen @davekartunen.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I think my bit would be to turn every conventional wisdom premise they invoke back at them. “Why do you use that phrase?” “Why do you presume that?” “Why do you state this as a given?”

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Dave Kartunen @davekartunen.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

How did I not know what the ballot-stealing sheriff looked like AND OF COURSE HE DOES.

Sheriff Chad Blanco, looking like a Looney Tunes villain.

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Courtney Milan @courtneymilan.com · 24/09/2026

Look, we know for fucking sure that my dog is sapient and also unpredictable and it turns out of he mauls someone I’m liable and he can be put down.

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Dave Kartunen @davekartunen.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I see that Big Boss Man has found a second act in his native Cobb County, Ga.

1980's WWF wrestler BIG BOSS MAN, an archetypal, abusive law enforcer who hailed from Cobb County, Ga.

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Dave Kartunen @davekartunen.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Maybe the Senate won’t convict, but they damn well better call witnesses this time.

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The Pains of Being Chocolat @stvnlunsford.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

When you look at it even a little bit deeper it becomes clear that the entire thing is “we’re the smartest and coolest and deserve all the money” and worked back from there for a rationale of why they should control it all

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Dave Kartunen @davekartunen.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I question the strategy but the impact is dead-on.

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Dave Kartunen @davekartunen.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Feels really weird to be in total agreement with smoky eyes but here we are.

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Dave Kartunen @davekartunen.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

They‘re colluding because they can’t control costs. ”Slowing down” because they know consumers won’t pay the actual price. Antitrust + collusion + market manipulation + accounting fraud. I’m missing a few. It’s like an unregulated airline industry led by cultists. apnews.com/article/anti...

apnews.com

Lawsuit says Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI and Google made illegal agreement on AI slowdown

A new lawsuit claims that Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI and Google illegally agreed to slow their AI development. Filed Friday in the U.S.

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Dave Kartunen @davekartunen.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Venues pre-approving content with performers?! If only someone could take a stand against this! Anyway, thanks for coming!

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April Wolfe @aprilwolfe.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

You ever see your hospital or insurance company with a huge ad at an MLB stadium and think wow thats wild I wonder where they got all that money to spend on baseball

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Patrick Andelic @pkandelic.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

The Muppets have to put on a show to save the Kennedy Center. There you go, Disney, that's your premise.

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Dave Kartunen @davekartunen.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Kremlin seizes Nestlé’s assets in Russia? [too many memes to choose just one]

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Rich Raho @richraho.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Pope Leo to Special Olympics: “Our world is greatly in need of people who, like you, remind everyone of the true values of life; of men and women who, through their example, show that the path of sharing and love is the only path that truly leads to happiness and peace.”

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Dave Kartunen @davekartunen.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

They depleted the stockpile of missiles so they’re taking inventory of their swords.

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Dave Karpf @davekarpf.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Based upon their documented behavior over the past few years, the tech industry is less afraid of the potential ramifications of Artificial Superintelligence than they are of Lina Khan.

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Starfire’s Deranged Neocon Foreign Policy Podcast @irhottakes.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

It’s very simple. A reality TV host became dictator because he turned down a role for Sharknado 4 and that’s why the king of outer space, who cheats at Diablo, got to kill Africa. Now the economy is controlled by a sex cult that has something to do with Harry Potter fanfic because of robots.

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Dave Kartunen @davekartunen.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

The gift of hospice: we did this last year for my mother, who had Alzheimer’s and FTD. There are two things I would add to this reflection by @matthewcort.land —

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Dave Kartunen @davekartunen.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Our Democratic leaders still don’t seem to understand the moment here.

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Adam Becker @adambecker.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Just absolutely wild to see so many people discovering the massive influence of the rationalists in real time and say things like "I wish I could unlearn what I've learned in the last 24 hours." I, and others, have been researching these people for YEARS. There is so much I wish I could unlearn.

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SE Gyges @segyges.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

This industry frames its regulations in this way because it has, at its core, a millenarian death cult that worships and fears AI as the cause of the end of the world, that feels compelled to create AI, and that at least somewhat wants to destroy AI as a field.

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SE Gyges @segyges.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

If you've got a sex cult and a nice compound that was given to you for free with stolen money because you preached the gospel of doom really well, how could you stop preaching it? If elaborating upon doomsday prophesies is worth money -- and it is -- you will get more of them.

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SE Gyges @segyges.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

This idea seems to be the most infectious because it activates the same neurosis that every apocalyptic or millenarian cult does. The world is going to end, and only I and my special group of people in the know can maybe stop it. (Also, you should give me money and have sex with me.)

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