iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social · 7h

Ahem. As an engineer whose first professional job, in 1989, was development and marketing of a neural network simulator, I can be reasonably argued to have been among the regretful midwives present at the birth of this monster. The birth name of this technology is "dot products".

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Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

(A little different) The Mummy The Mummy Returns The Mummy Forever The Mummy And Robin

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Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

The only counterpoint - and it's hopium - is TACO. He will chicken out from actually advocating mass executions.

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Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Best shot was 2016. Last shot may have been 2024. Not sure we have a shot now. But definitely the best *remaining* shot.

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Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Given the power he has to coopt and corrupt our executive functions, and the willingness he's already shown to use it, the final battle for our republic's future was likely 2024.

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Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Thing is, there really is no technical fix for a nation that, freely and of its own will, voted to dismantle its own democracy - not by electing one person but an entire majority of leadership unconcerned with our liberty. There's no technical solution to an educational and spiritual problem.

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Mike Fragassi @refrag.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

I maintain that "low-info voters" (aka the common clay of the new West) liked that he was saying outrageous stuff. But they assumed that 1) Mr. Good At Business was just doing so to make "elites" gasp & drop their monocles; 2) there were guardrails against him doing anything *really* bad. Whoopsie!

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Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

The problem isn't just him. He suggested the nation we're at war with could 'take out' Los Angeles or San Diego, and his crowd *cheered*. The problem isn't just him. That crowd wasn't American. I don't know what it was, but it wasn't American.

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Danny Cherry Jr (twitter/Insta/tiktok: @Deecherrywriter) @deecherrywriter.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

An opinion I’ve held for years that I don’t think I’ll ever change my mind on is that Americans have got to be one of the most propagandized populations in the world

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Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

There's still time. A lot of heads out there need anvils.

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Andrew Blum @ablum.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Urban homicides are at almost historic lows and still falling.

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Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Everyone noticed - that's why there's such a push to rehabilitate them and cast aspersions on their victim.

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Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Best rephrasing of chesterton's fence.

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Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

When I met my first Objectivist I realized that if we don't stop them, they could eat the world and every one of us would wind up in this shit. Nobody stopped them.

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austin (eeek!/ackkk! 👻) @thebadcode.com · 01/10/2026

hot take: software people are going to regret not unionizing when we could

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Dare Obasanjo @carnage4life.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I love that the U.S. government now has ideas so dumb that the fact checks are simply “yeah this isn’t a parody, it’s real”

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Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

"Imagine being the dumbest senator from your state when the other one is Josh Hawley." - @stevehofstetter.bsky.social

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Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

More to the point, do you want young men to be operating with the knowledge that sexual assault carries no consequence?

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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 26/09/2026

As a former pretentious little shit who grew out of it, rationalists (et al) annoy the piss out of me because they are adults with the mentality of tweens - they are somehow still convinced they are the greatest geniuses who have ever walked the earth. It is the worldview of an arrogant baby.

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Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I think we can do a little better. Here's what I wrote.

This not-very-bright dipshit senator definitely gets high on his own supply, and thinks there was and is a Grand Conspiracy To Weaponize Justice Against The Blameless Saint President For Life Donald Jesus Trump.

When you're in that mindset, you search for evidence. Two people independently prosecuting Trump for completely different crimes were having a romantic relationship - irrelevant to their jobs, but admittedly embarrassing. But said dipshit senator was *absolutely certain* that this was a case of Two People Fucking, which then absolutely had to be Part Of The Grand Conspiracy To Weaponize Justice Against President For Life Donald Jesus Trump. That Smith was not just part of but *in charge of*.

Therefore, said Senator Dipshit directed his dipshittage teams of mini-mes to comb through everything they could find, to ferret out any connection between Smith and these Two Nefarious People Who Both Tried To Prosecute President For Life Donald Jesus Trump And Also At The Same Time Were Fucking, Which Proves Shut Up That's What. They found what they *thought* was a visit by Smith to Atlanta on the day after said pair of prosecutors admitted to said relationship. Dun dun DUN!

The visit was not publicized. So obviously WRONG. If it had happened. And, in Senator Dipshit's tiny little brain, he was certain that Smith being there was specifically to Further The Grand Conspiracy Of Weaponizing Justice Against President For Life Donald Jesus Trump And Also Two People Fucking.

By asking him about it, Sen Dipshit wanted either (a) an admission he was there, or (b) denial he was there. Either way it's juice for them. If he admitted he was there, QUESTIONS COULD BE ASKED and the Grand Conspiracy To Weaponize Justice Against President For Life Donald Jesus Trump And Also Two People Fucking would be FINALLY UNMASKED. Or, if he denied it, *drumroll* PERJURY! PERJURY ABOUT FUCKING! THEY ONCE IMPEACHED A PRESIDENT OVER THIS! BIGGEST SCANDAL EVAR!

That was the plan.

Alas.

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Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

They're asking Times reporters. They're not asking current FBI intelligence officials. They're asking Times reporters.

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Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

It's exactly Antichrist theology, I will note. Despite being a humanist skeptic, I was raised in the neighborhood of people who took that shit seriously (until they started following shitler, who literally embodies it).

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Mae Nick Phra Khanong @nickjbrumfield.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

By virtue of their needed expertise, engineers possess real power to determine the structure of much of everyday life To not understand that power within its political and historical context is to reduce oneself to a blind tool for use by whoever is willing to pay

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Mae Nick Phra Khanong @nickjbrumfield.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

A systematic, critical understanding of history, especially the long history of technically skilled people either being used by elites or being blinded by their own high modernist ideology to do incredible harm, should in my opinion be a requirement of any technocratic profession

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stevempars.bsky.social @stevempars.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

fixation on vocational education is really a plague in this country. I would think especially in engineering, with technology accelerating, the ability to think. the ability to assess historical trends would actually be quite helpful vocationally. as well as making you a better human being.

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lastpositivist.bsky.social @lastpositivist.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Future utilitarians living in a solar punk utopia having anguished debates about the credit owed to President Trump for supercharging green transition.

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Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

who the fuck is this person and why the fuck should I or anyone care?

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Daniel Swain @weatherwest.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

And for the record, I don't think literal "apocalypse" is a likely outcome of either AI or CC, but the hyperfocus on that singular outcome in both realms makes far more plausible, and possibly still very bad, outcomes short of human extinction *more* likely, not less.

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Daniel Swain @weatherwest.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

To a remarkable degree, it really does seem to be surfacing latent fears surrounding lack of control. I guess that makes the notion of "choosing your own apocalypse" appealing to many.

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David_j_roth @davidjroth.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

It's too depressing and obnoxious to write about, but virtually all of the doomy/horny AI hyperventilating is transparently displaced anxiety about our fucked climate and political situation. Even rich idiots know it's bad and being permitted to get worse. They're trying to write their own ending.

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Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

You know, I am freshly reminded that Clinton and Reagan had starkly parallel popularity curves right up until Reagan hit iran-contra, which made his popularity plummet for the remainder of his term. Clinton was a more popular president than Reagan. History needs to say so.

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Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Remember when we were told this kind of thing couldn't happen in America because we had a second amendment?

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ghost malone ergo propter bones @proptermalone.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

if you are merely a dilettante that’s not cutting it. gotta be a camp-out-for-the-premiere, platinum tier bigot to care more about 8th grade sports than $8 diesel

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Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Now, I don't like that answer at all, but ... it does feel like that sometimes.

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Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

It is starting to seem less like we've made computers do something truly profound and more like we've given ourselves more reason to doubt that *we* are actually doing anything that profound, when we say we're thinking.

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Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

There's this point in several early Sherlock Holmes stories where he explains himself to Watson, and WAtson says something like "Oh, and here I thought you'd done something clever."

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Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I am tentatively coming round to the position that this is far less a conversation about artificial intelligence than it is about natural stupidity.

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

NEW: @apnews.com confirms that ICE has begun electronically "disappearing" people in the agency's custody who have final orders of removal. As of last week, anyone jailed by ICE with a final order of removal will NOT appear in the ICE Online Detainee Locator System, making them effectively vanish.

apnews.com

AP Exclusive: ICE hides locations of thousands of detainees with final removal orders

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has stopped publicly revealing where it is holding most detainees who are subject to final deportation orders, in a move that has made it harder for lawyers an...

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Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

I must officially disapprove of all uses of AI. I just won't *enthusiastically* disapprove of this one.

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Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

I'm in no way approving of people believing in glonzo. But they do.

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