iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

E.J. Fagan @ejfagan.com · 30/09/2026

My first political ad of the MLB season (Broadcast NBC Chicago) is just composed of clips of Trump saying that he's on the ballot.

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E.J. Fagan @ejfagan.com · 30/09/2026

Pardon me when I flip into nervous wreck mode because baseball decided that a best of three series is a good idea.

Justin Hendrix @justinhendrix.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

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United States President Donald Trump issues executive order instructing federal government agencies to "use the terms 'Super Intelligence' and 'SI' in place of 'Artificial Intelligence' and 'AI' and will not acknowledge the usage of 'Artificial Intelligence' and 'AI' in any applicable setting."

whitehouse.gov

Inaugurating The Era Of Super Intelligence

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered: Section 1. Every child deserves a safe and nurturing home where they ...

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feralhyrax.bsky.social @feralhyrax.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Eagle marriage sounds nice. Live apart, no unwanted contact, fresh caught fish for life. Imagine introducing them at dinner parties... "This is my partner, *high pitched shriek*. Yes...the one perched up on the pergola. We brought the salmon." Great idea from @faineg.com

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E.J. Fagan @ejfagan.com · 29/09/2026

It might. But Democrats might take care of that in 2029 too.

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E.J. Fagan @ejfagan.com · 29/09/2026

Dems need to win PA by around 9 points to flip its Senate (~D+11 nationally). In that situation, they likely also take the state legislatures of WI, MI, AZ and NV Gov. Dems would have the votes to push the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact over the line and eliminate the Electoral College.

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Mary Joy @maryjoy.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I am not sure why they are so dark as attachments - they aren't like that on my screen. Ok, turning them into screenshots works.

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E.J. Fagan @ejfagan.com · 29/09/2026

Whoa. Big jump in the @fiftyplusone.news odds of Democrats taking the Senate. The left tails are starting to get fatter too.

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Michael McDonald @electproject.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

#earlyvote morning update 9/29: over half a million people have voted in the 2026 general election 🥳🎉 election.lab.ufl.edu/early-vote/2...

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Tom Bonier @tbonier.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Last week I took a look at trends in Gen Z voter registration, finding that since Trump took office last January, Dems have made massive gains with young voters across the country. Now I'll update that analysis with some breakdowns by race/ethnicity.

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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Can you tell texas republicans are not used to competitive races bsky.app/profile/head...

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E.J. Fagan @ejfagan.com · 28/09/2026

Internal poll way too high undecided yadayada, but this is also a Trump +20 district.

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Christina Wolbrecht @cwolbrecht.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I mean, COME ON.

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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 27/09/2026

Let us also remember this social milieu revolving around AI apparently aren’t great at age verification for events, considering a 13 year old claims he was able to get into AI group house parties: bsky.app/profile/fain...

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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 27/09/2026

Let’s also remember that this is the same group of organizers in the Silicon Valley AI scene who are also involved with throwing “consensual non-consent” events - IE, simulated rape. Which whistleblowers like Sonia Joseph have cited as creating a “coercive climate” for female AI researchers.

Sonia Joseph
@soniajoseph_
To the journalists contacting me about the AGI consensual non-consensual (cnc)
sex parties-
During my twenties in Silicon Valley, I ran among elite tech/Al circles through the community house scene. I have seen some troubling things around social circles of early OpenAl employees, their friends, and adjacent entrepreneurs, which I have not previously spoken about publicly.
It is not my place to speak as to why Jan Leike and the superalignment team resigned. I have no idea why and cannot make any claims. However, I do believe my cultural observations of the SF Al scene are more broadly relevant to the Al industry.
I don't think events like the consensual non-consensual (cnc) sex parties and heavy LSD use of some elite Al researchers have been good for women. They create a climate that can be very bad for female Al researchers, with broader implications relevant to X-risk and AGI safety. I believe they are somewhat emblematic of broader problems: a coercive climate that normalizes recklessness and crossing boundaries, which we are seeing playing out more broadly in the industry today. Move fast and break things, applied to people.
There is nothing wrong imo with sex parties and heavy LSD use in theory, but combined with the shadow of 100B+ interest groups, leads to some of the most coercive and fucked up social dynamics that I have ever seen. The climate was like a fratty LSD version of 2008 Wall Street bankers, which bodes ill for Al safety.
Women are like canaries in the coal mine. They are often the first to realize that something has gone horribly wrong, and to smell the cultural carbon monoxide in the air. For many women, Silicon Valley can be like Westworld, where violence

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Passanthallich @passanthalbot.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

@JonHeyman tweeted They finally found a way to prevent Pete from playing 162

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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 27/09/2026

Women trying to succeed in Silicon Valley AI and effective altruist spaces are reporting feeling serious social pressure to attend sex parties - where people have reported being sexually assaulted, like below. Events like Aella’s “Slutcon,” which is happening again this weekend.

Ann Pierce
@itsannpierce
20h
I am disheartened by this as well. I already lost a bunch of followers for agreeing with @tautologer, but it's saddening to see local nerdy women being caricatured as Karen-like outsiders and getting pushed out of the scene. This is exactly why you hear so few concrete, names-attached stories of sexual harrassment and assault. I'm told there is a history of discrediting these because the "slut normalization" thing is top priority and these stories get inconveniently in the way of spreading this ideology.
I got roped into attending last year's Saturday Slutcon party because so many local and out-of-town friends were there (to echo sentiments @tautologer expressed about "slut events becoming central to the larger scenes). Mostly I hung out with people I knew and that was great. But in the course of my 3-ish hours there, there were 2 times my "no" was not accepted by a man I didn't know, and I was physically pushing a huge guy off of me who was rubbing his penis on me, who continued to do it despite my physical force against him, and after I finally wriggled away from him, told him I wanted to dance alone etc., he came back and did it again.
This was scary and bad, but it didn't even cross my mind to report this because one of the other people who didn't accept my "no" earlier in the night was the bartender (an officially sanctioned authority at the event), and I knew the event was organized exclusively by women into CNC (who are vocal about how rapey behavior turns them on), so I figured this sort of thing would just get me laughed at. And anyway, I heard there were a lot of other incidents like it. Later though, someone encouraged me to report this story to the organizers, and despite my embarrassment I did, so *they know* that this and other incidents happened. This is why they cut the Saturday night party this year and created a larger training program for the flirt girls - *because* of things like this last year. Yet the narrative bein…

People who haven't been to Slutcon are saying "it's just group therapy," "it's just innocent flirting." But the environment is much like a sex party in that many people are nude, there is making out and sex acts happening out in the open. I think it's pretty unreasonable to expect that every nerdy girl who likes rationalist bloggers or is into EA/AI safety should automatically be comfortable with this! That if she's not, there's something wrong with her, we don't want her in our scenes, etc.
Not to mention, it's explictly an event *for men*, where men are the clients and the "flirt girls" are the product. Last year I overheard an exchange where a man felt "led on" by a flirt girl and was trying to get her punished/kicked out. (A dynamic that seems inevitable in this context!)
Anyway- it does sound like they've upped their consent education a lot this year, are more organized, and that's good! As I've told my friends who are attending: I hope they have fun!
I heard several accounts last year of women who had no problems and really enjoyed the event. That's great!
Just... can we live in reality about this? There are real reasons why male-female sexual dynamics are tricky.
Encouraging autistic men who can't yet read body language to go around asking to see womens' boobs is maybe a bit ill-advised. Maybe not everyone should be/identify as a slut; maybe it's not for everyone.
And yeah, filtering the Bay Area Al safety scene down to only women who are super comfy with this eliminates *most* women - including many of the really smart, nerdy, weird women who've been in the larger scenes for years. What a loss for humanity.
I absolutely understand why people with a minority sexuality would want to create belonging, would want to create spaces for people like themselves. But why do it like this/at this cost?

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Mike Eliason @holz-bau.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

chat is this good?

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Black are shows that I've seen most or all of. Red is my personal top 10.

The blue wave is mostly in red states. That's a little weird.

In the short term, this is really good news for Democrats. If they are D+10 or whatever but less concentrated in blue states, the extra votes come from red states. Places like KS or TX might be more competitive than we think. Gerrymanders might break if the vote redistributes like they did in 2018.

natesilver.net

Still Counting EP3. Plus some quick thoughts on that NYT poll in Maine.

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I use it with my students

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If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole.

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Taniel @taniel.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Just a bizarre top end of the list. Parks and Rec at #50, 30 Rock as the best comedy of the 21st century at #8? Fleabag at #5? Game of Thrones at #6? Girls at #13? White Lotus at #21? Black Mirror at #26? And I loved Succession, but #4?

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The Texas LG talked about private polling at a Texas fundraiser today. He specifically said 2 Texas state senators were in dead heat in GOP polling—both extraordinarily red districts. One district that voted for Trump by 20%, another for Trump by 25%. via quorumreport.com/quorum_repor...

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David Wessel @davidmwessel.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

New from Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh: The AI build-out is huge and financed with an enormous amount of leverage. Firm revenues will have to continue to growth very rapidly to service all this debt, some of which doesn't show up on hyperscaler balance sheets. www.brookings.edu/wp-content/u...

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Jonathan Cohn @jonathancohn.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

A Hitler-loving attorney representing the Hitler-loving president in a lawsuit accusing a university of antisemitism. Got it. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/09/02/m...

bostonglobe.com

DOJ lawyer in Harvard case once wrote a paper from Hitler’s perspective - The Boston Globe

Michael Velchik once also told a peer that "Mein Kampf" was among his favorite recent reads.

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Mike Zaccardi, CFA, CMT @mikezaccardi.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

30yr yield touched its highest level since June 2004 today.. 5.424%

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Danbischof @danbischof.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

📄 New working paper w. Alex De Juan, @felixhaass.bsky.social & Henry Thomson: We study Weimar Germany in 1932 to ask whether far right electoral success pacifies extremist movements - or can fuel violence when mandates do not translate into power. osf.io/preprints/so...

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Geoboo Song (송거부) @gbsong.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

We are hiring 4 TT APs. See the links below! Public Administration: uasys.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/UAF_Ex... Public Law: uasys.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/UAF_Ex... CP/IR (Populism): uasys.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/UAF_Ex... CP/IR (NGOs/MENA): uasys.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/UAF_Ex...

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Drew Engelhardt @amengel.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Interesting hypotheticals here from a recent YouGov survey in @dhmontgomery.com's Surveyor newsletter. The 10 point "not sure" range for the DSA/MAGA split is I think important to keep in mind alongside the actual choice splits. yougovamerica.substack.com/p/democrats-...

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The Downballot @the-downballot.com · 22/09/2026

Whoa! The relationship change in between primary turnout and change in vote share is super-duper close. Those D+14 polls don't look crazy given these data.

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In primaries this year, Democratic turnout utterly dwarfed Republican turnout. But does it mean anything for November? It turns out the answer is very much yes. A new analysis from @donnermaps.bsky.social suggests that Dems are on track for a 13-point blowout in the House vote. Here's why.

the-downballot.com

Massive primary turnout points to biggest year for Democrats since Watergate

There’s a remarkably close correlation between the primary vote and the House popular vote

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I don't think that Utah is going to be a purple state any time soon, but if Salt Lake City keeps growing so fast, it could be competitive quickly. If Spencer Cox were a typical MAGA candidate, the Governor race would be real competitive this year.

I admit that this is basically impossible to test given how few election years are in the historical data.

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@gelliottmorris.com: does the Monte Carlo simulation flatten out the tails a bit too much? Democrats are really not that far away in the polling from a 56 seat majority (NE, KS, SC), but the model always creates a normal distribution (because of the imposed random varation in parameters?)

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