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Gene B.

@gene-b.bsky.social
130 followers 394 following 30 posts

Teetering on the edge of Nihilism.

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Reposted by Gene B.
rimidar @rimidar.au · 04/09/2026
Spending any amount of time on Bluesky means you already know this is just true
4. Peace: The power of mutual enemies
It is natural to want friends that are kind to us, but our friends interact with others in the world in ways that can affect our lives. Dr Jaimie Krems at the University of California, Los Angeles, showed there's plenty of room for attack dogs in our friendship groups, as long as they target those we dislike.
"Sometimes we want our friends to be more vicious and indifferent when they interact with our enemies," she said. "I've felt, in many instances, incredibly loved when people have carried my hate for me and been willing to have my back."
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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
Animals commonly use a bit of shape fakery in the natural world to scare off enemies. These are dangerous times, so along with improved aesthetics, I think Miller would do better in a longer jacket and more padding. Then he wouldn't have to look for enemies behind him.
Stephen Miller in a blue suit. He's looking behind him. A pufferfish puffed up.
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Raider @iwillnotbesilenced.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
Texas voters just sent the book banners packing. Not in California. Not in New York. In Texas. Across the state, voters went to the polls and threw out right-wing school board members who built their local political brands on book bans, anti-LGBTQ policies and Christian nationalist culture-war panic
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Nara Monteiro @notesfromnara.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
T&F is a precious space in a dark world. Let’s keep it alive. Stay tuned for this 💚
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ElieNYC @elienyc.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
“Oh but Republicans would…” Lemme stop you right there. I know that Republicans are okay voting for men accused of sexual assault. Republicans are also okay with voting for racists, child rapists, genocidal maniacs, and whatever the fuck pathology is a “Ted Cruz.” So miss me with that argument.
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Cristian Farias @cristianfarias.com · 20/02/2026
Don't congratulate John Roberts or the Supreme Court. Congratulate Rick Woldenberg, the Chicago-area leader of Learning Resources, an educadtional toy company that had the courage to sue the president of the United States to save his family business. As well as everyone else who stepped up.
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 23/01/2026
This is the first example I’ve seen of an American government using AI to meaningfully misrepresent actual events with the intent to deceive the public. We are at Stalinesque levels of propaganda. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/past-the-b...
two images of an arrest, one digitally altered by the White House to make it look like the arrestee is crying
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Abe Goldfarb @abegoldfarb.bsky.social · 30/11/2025
when someone tells me not to use em dashes because AI uses em dashes
Scene from OFFICE SPACE with Michael Bolton replying to Samir Nagheenanajar:

“No way. Why should I change?
He's the one who sucks.”
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one dozen bats at a keyboard @panasonicdx4500.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
QANON CULTIST IN 2017: "In this 1,879 page thread I will unravel the byzantine system of codewords and phrases the global elite use to mask their pedophile cabal." JEFFREY EPSTEIN WRITING AN EMAIL AT THE SAME TIME: "helo its me jeff had fun cmmitting sex crimes wit u lst weeknd"
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Deborah Pearlstein @debpearlstein.bsky.social · 05/11/2025
For the remarkable number of folks in excellent law firms, corporate suites, non-legal academia who still aren't really sure "where we are" country-wise, I'm just not sure how much clearer he can be. Countries in which opponents of the government can "never obtain power" are not democracies.
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Gene B. @gene-b.bsky.social · 26/10/2025
This is a beautifully written reflection. I have been thinking about some of these things A LOT lately.
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Grace Blakeley @graceblakeley.substack.com · 25/10/2025
Bonuses on Wall Street are expected to break records this year as big bank profits soar. Bubbles are everywhere - from tech stocks, to corporate bonds - and the banks are profiting. But they won't be the ones to pay when the crash finally comes. graceblakeley.substack.com/p/what-i-rea...
graceblakeley.substack.com
What I Read this Week
Booming bank profits, the race for critical minerals, and how climate breakdown is driving inflation.
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Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla.bsky.social · 13/10/2025
My colleagues & I have taken a huge gamble to set up @thenerve.news We’re trying to build a new independent publication from the ground up. Social media is our only distribution for now. Sharing this article in your networks would make a huge difference. Thank you! 🙏🙏🙏
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Gareth L. Powell / G.L. Powell @garethlpowell.bsky.social · 21/07/2025
Does anyone else find it crazy that you can walk into a bookshop and be charged £9.99 for a paperback novel that took the author a year to complete, but £17.99 for a completely blank notebook?
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Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 22/07/2025
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Allison Gill @muellershewrote.com · 21/07/2025
Why did Kash Patel and Pam Bondi want the Epstein Victim names? My latest: open.substack.com/pub/muellers...
open.substack.com
The Epstein Cover-Up at the FBI
Inside the chaotic review process of the Epstein and Maxwell files at the Bureau
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Maia @maiamindel.bsky.social · 15/07/2025
someunpleasant.substack.com/p/leviathan-... Read theory
someunpleasant.substack.com
Leviathan and Behemoth
The Abundance agenda is just a rehash of neoliberalism. That's good
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David M. Perry @lollardfish.bsky.social · 22/06/2025
WASHINGTON—With the United States facing a daunting array of problems, leading historians reminded the nation that when making tough choices, it never hurts to stop, take a look at similar situations from the past, and then think about whether the decisions people made back then were good or bad.
theonion.com
Historians Politely Remind Nation To Check What's Happened In Past Before Making Any Big Decisions
WASHINGTON—With the United States facing a daunting array of problems at home and abroad, leading historians courteously reminded the nation Thursday that when making tough choices, it never hurts to ...
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Kathryn Anne Edwards @kedseconomist.com · 19/06/2025
Time for some tax bill graphletics!!! One Big Beautiful Bill Act is policy design at its worst. In this thread, I show through some charts just how much MORE expensive it is to give a tax break to rich people than it is to provide services to poor ones. 1/
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Sir Vrika MacPherson-Wolf, OMS @vrika.bsky.social · 08/06/2025
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Maia @maiamindel.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
New Substack post: Donald Trump’s tariffs have been called a threat to the US’s role as the “world banker”. How real is this? What, exactly could happen? And is it as bad as 2008 - or 1929? open.substack.com/pub/someunpl...
open.substack.com
Check Your Exorbitant Privilege!
The MAGA embrace of Thelma and Louise Economics
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Andrea @andreakremer.bsky.social · 28/04/2025
...“a tremendous amount of the verboten conversations can now shift back into public view,” Andreessen told Fridman. “It’s much healthier to live in a society in which people are literally not scared of what they’re saying.” Secret group chats with some of the worst people, plus Marc Cuban.
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Brevity / Dinty W. Moore @dintywmoore.bsky.social · 18/04/2025
"A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people." ~Thomas Mann
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Adam Gurri @adamgurri.liberalcurrents.com · 09/04/2025
Why settle for inaccurate history when you can just settle for made up stuff
ancient constitutionalism, example The Spirit of Laws by Montesquieu
<stern looking wojak> "Fuck off I don't believe in that made up nonsense"
Big grin wojak looking at Social Contract Theory, example Two Treatises of Government  by Locke: "So true!!!"
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CJ @cjeanmartini.bsky.social · 06/04/2025
One more incredibly creative protester ... #HandsOff #SaveOurDemocracy #LFG
They're eating the checks, they're eating the balances. Sign held by a Bill
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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 03/04/2025
Historians of white supremacy passing the flame to historians of the Great Depression in the world's saddest Olympic torch relay.
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Isaac Chotiner @ichotiner.bsky.social · 01/04/2025
New Interview: I talked to the Southern Baptist leader Albert Mohler about how his views on Donald Trump have evolved since the President's first term, and why conservatives are turning against empathy. www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a...
newyorker.com
How Donald Trump Is Teaching Christians to Abandon Empathy
The head of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary says that it is “used politically in ways that are very destructive and manipulative.”
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The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 23/03/2025
PSA: Good parents don’t say things like this about their children. Speaks volumes about who he is as a person.
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Molly Jong-Fast @mollyjongfast.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
Correct, this is exactly who they are
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Timothy Hyde @hydetimothy.bsky.social · 14/02/2025
Allegory alert!
Photo of a bald eagle under the headline "Bald eagle in Massachusetts euthanized after testing positive for bird flu"
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Amanda Wyss @amandawyss.bsky.social · 22/01/2025
Recrudescence: The return of something terrible after a time of reprieve. (17th century)
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Chris Bertram @crookedfootball.bsky.social · 06/01/2025
How come “tough conversations” and “moral courage” never involve standing up to bigots and authoritarians? #badenoch
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Puck the Puddle Pilot @puckthepilot.bsky.social · 04/01/2025
Shocking. The single 1 hour HQ directed PowerPoint presentation about extremism did absolutely nothing. Relying on Os to identify and respond to extremism within the service is... Flawed. Most can't articulate article 88 let alone dance around it.
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Susie Dent @susiedentwords.bsky.social · 28/12/2024
Word of the day is a favourite for this time of year. To be ‘crambazzled’, in old Yorkshire dialect, is to be prematurely aged by excess drinking or partying.
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Keith Frankish @keithfrankish.com · 29/12/2024
There once was a boy who kept playing tricks on the people of his village by shouting that a wolf was coming to eat him. Then one day a wolf really did come--and because of all the practice they had had with the false alarms, the villagers chased it away in no time, and the boy was a hero.
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Justin Weinberg @dailynous.com · 16/12/2024
If the ambivalence many seem to feel about the recent killing of a health insurance CEO is mistaken, we may want to know not just what the mistake is, but why people might be drawn to it, or why they might think it's not a mistake...
dailynous.com
Complications: The Ethics of the Killing of a Health Insurance CEO (guest post) - Daily Nous
The killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson earlier this month has ignited moral debate around the world. Many have condemned the killing as they would any other murder. Others, though, have th...
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Hoodlum 🇺🇸 @nothoodlum.bsky.social · 29/11/2024
“But the eggs were just so expensive.”
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