iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Graham Cummins

Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 20h

Part of why I don't like the AI-or-bust economy is the constant flopsweat of people on the news who say this HAS to work. Quit making everyone so anxious. Goddamn. If this is the next Google then why are you acting like this? I don't remember being told to buy an iPhone at gunpoint.

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Reposted by Graham Cummins

uosdɯᴉS ɐuɐꓷ 🦄 @danacorn.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

That candidate does not exist. We could nominate AOC, and the same people who spent the Biden administration screaming that he was trying to murder us all and then 2024 calling Harris a genocidal transphobe will say the same sorts of things about her.

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Reposted by Graham Cummins

Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

1. The headline, which we neither wrote nor got to review 2. The disclaimer that no other outlets beyond CNN have verified that story. >>

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Graham Cummins @grahamiancummins.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

We have a "project meridian" at work. I think now we'll need to rename it.

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Reposted by Graham Cummins

Michael Paulauski♨️ @mike10010100.com · 30/09/2026

Sure does explain how I was able to fact check her article so easily! bsky.app/profile/mike...

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Graham Cummins @grahamiancummins.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Nader wasn't the first or worst bad politician I encountered, but he's the first that I'd unquestionably call a betrayer. He did tremendous harm to every cause he claimed to stand for. He used voters' idealistic support for those causes to do it. At the time, I thought he was a fool, but...

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Graham Cummins @grahamiancummins.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I assumed "Descartes was horribly wrong" was a problem safe to ignore in the modern world, if only because essentially nobody even reads Descartes anymore, much less applies the worst of his ideas to anything that might matter. "Rationalists" Welp.

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Graham Cummins @grahamiancummins.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

We evidently didn't learn the lesson from the massive damage we took when a few too many Floridians swallowed the "both parties bad" hook in 2000, voted for Ralph fucking Nader, and screwed US progressivism for decades. We'd damn well better learn it this time.

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Graham Cummins @grahamiancummins.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Facing a probable end to our way of life is wierd and scary. I wouldn't have guessed that imagining an improbable end would be the comfort of choice for many people, but in retrospect it makes some sense

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Reposted by Graham Cummins

Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Can't understand the AI doomer shit without understanding that it is a way of **not dealing with climate change**

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Reposted by Graham Cummins

Graham Cummins @grahamiancummins.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

FWIW, some of the best experiences of my life come from a community not that unlike the CA Rationalists. We didn't make that a lifepath mostly because it never occurred to our wildest nightmares that we could get paid to do it. We couldn't agree on any non-evil plan that might make a living wage.

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Graham Cummins @grahamiancummins.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Question for people who think incremental improvements to society must be avoided because they reduce the drive to overthrow capitalism: Do you agree that you, personally, will almost certainly be in the 90% of people that will die in such a change? Do you really not fear death?

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Reposted by Graham Cummins

eevee @eev.ee · 27/09/2026

People are only saying they don't know several feldspars for one reason: cultural cachet

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Reposted by Graham Cummins

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

personally I think making your side of any dispute think worse for the tasty mcvibes of putting down an out group is rarely a good trade off, unless you have extremely powerful propaganda tech at your disposal or don't need your side's brains for anything later

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Graham Cummins @grahamiancummins.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I'm starting to see anti-Forstag mail, and man is it shitty slop. Most recently, Sam shown in front of protesters holding "Drag Shows for Kids" signs.

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Reposted by Graham Cummins

Erika Hall @erikahall.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

We address social media toxicity with safe streets, low rents, and physical third spaces.

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Graham Cummins @grahamiancummins.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Whether it's good to have a cyberpunk future really depends on whether you identify more with the Arasakas or with almost everyone else. Unfortunately, people making large-scale resource allocation decisions tend to be Arasakas

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Graham Cummins @grahamiancummins.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

My friends and I used to play a sort of party game where we'd invent new usages of words and communicate with indirect references. Sometimes fun. Sometimes generates real insight or nuance. Sometimes gets you kicked it the head. Social media is this without the safety net of in-person relationships

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Graham Cummins @grahamiancummins.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

If Bloomberg was as unprincipled as Musk is in terms of electoral tactics, there'd be a door-nocking campaign in GOP +15 Texas neighborhoods advocating this position that trans allies are obligated to support Paxton because at least he'll harm cis het white guys enough to force solidarity.

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Graham Cummins @grahamiancummins.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

@matthewdownhour.bsky.social, do you have a feeling for whether Dems have any chance in state house districts 4, 5, or 9? (Those are nearer you than me, IIRC)

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Graham Cummins @grahamiancummins.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

This is a central (and often ignored) point about the vibecession. It wasn't "econometrics (economy good) loses to personal experience (bad)." It was "personal experience (economy good) loses to perceptions about the broader situation (bad)"

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Graham Cummins @grahamiancummins.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Comparing state candidate records from last session in MT, and it's staggering how much gap there is between the worst Dem and the best GOP. I do like to bitch about Democrats, but HOLY SHIT! EVERY Republican in this state is apocalyptically terrible.

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Reposted by Graham Cummins

Lissa Harris 🌈🗑️🔥⚔️🐀 @lissaharris.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

yeah but for serious: I live in a medium rednecky rural place, where people often don’t care about climate change or have weird ideas of what’s causing it, and I have neighbors stopping me in the street curious about my heat pumps old dudes on the FD say “nice bike” it’s contagious

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Graham Cummins @grahamiancummins.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Even the insufferable colored-text emails ("OMG we can TAKE the SENATE! This is HUGE") don't list Montana is a winnable seat. I'm not sure why the set of non-MAGA voters here are so dead-set on throwing away a Senate seat, but I guess we're going to throw one away. :(

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Graham Cummins @grahamiancummins.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Every day here I learn about a new US political micro-faction composed of extremely different-than-cultural-norm that enthusiastically supports the Trump admin's efforts to outright murder different-than-cultural-norm people

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Graham Cummins @grahamiancummins.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Nothing pumps crypto more reliably than the need to spend a lot of dark money in a US election to ensure the continued expansion of authoritarianism.

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Graham Cummins @grahamiancummins.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Finished "Autocracy, Inc." Very relevant read. Recommended.

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Reposted by Graham Cummins

Super Shoe @shoe.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Ah well

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Graham Cummins @grahamiancummins.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Do I get a special low-tech-high-tech award for 3D printing a part for a fountain pen?

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Graham Cummins @grahamiancummins.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Policy debates are often obfuscated by participants refusing to state their true position clearly. "Rich kids should have enough structural advantage over poor kids to ensure class stability beteeen generations" is a policy goal. Half our electeds, and many voters hold it, but won't state it.

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Graham Cummins @grahamiancummins.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

The really hard problems aren't ones where the solutions are unknown. They're ones where the solutions are painfully obvious, but we ruled all the real solutions out for political reasons while framing the problem.

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Graham Cummins @grahamiancummins.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

If you live in Montana, check voter registration status here: voterportal.mt.gov/WhereToVote.... It's very easy to use. Just enter name and birthdate. It will also tell you your districts as well as confirm registration status.

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Graham Cummins @grahamiancummins.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Ranked choice voting would get rid of partisan extremism, but in addition it would get rid of all of this terrible game theory over elections, particularly the devastating belief that not voting is useful for messaging.

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Graham Cummins @grahamiancummins.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Some people advocating to let the GOP keep control on "progressive" grounds are just fools repeating the oldest and most costly mistake in US progressive politics. Not all of them, though. Some are promoting an effective, battle-tested strategy to keep conservatives in power because they want that

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Graham Cummins @grahamiancummins.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Bluesky objects to left-leaning policy progress as loudly as Twitter used to. The difference is that here the group objecting to paths that could progress calls themselves "leftists"

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Reposted by Graham Cummins

GreenEngineer @eubanksengineeringresearch.com · 13/09/2026

The proper response to a naked emperor is to point and laugh. Don’t debate the finer points of his garments - focus on the fact that he’s not wearing any. El-Sayed understands this. I wish more Democrats (politicians and voters) did.

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Graham Cummins @grahamiancummins.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Since Trump started a real war he needs to replace his TV casting guy with a real defense secretary.

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Graham Cummins @grahamiancummins.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

You might think Northwestern Energy would care about costs, but their incentives are reversed vs market incentives. Their profit is a (government funded) fixed percentage of their infrastructure investment. They get more profit when their equipment is more expensive.

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Graham Cummins @grahamiancummins.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

This seems to be the case across the board, not just about energy. People care intensely about _narratives_ about prices, but rarely care about actual prices enough to change narrative, much less change consumption choices.

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Reposted by Graham Cummins

Graham Cummins @grahamiancummins.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

If MT politics is indicative, people absolutely don't care about (or even notice) the actual price of energy, so this stays about who said what. We could just make the measurement (Judith Gap wind $33/MWh, Colstrip coal $62, Dave Gates gas $125), but real prices aren't of interest.

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Graham Cummins @grahamiancummins.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

A relevant political axis: You realize you are in a pyramid scheme. You: 1. try to stop it, leave it, convince others not to join it, expose the operators, etc. 2. ensure you aren't on the bottom tier

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Graham Cummins @grahamiancummins.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

The key information from AI company employees is that their company systems would certainly permit their product to kill everyone if it could (and chose to). That outcome is unlikely because they may not be as effective as they think they are, but not because they'll make better choices.

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Reposted by Graham Cummins

Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

This is in history books I think - or anyway I show it to me classes. The better question is: How did the language enclaves form? Why are there Siouan languages in the eastern Appalachian foothills, why do the Navajo & Apache speak Athabscan languages? I wonder that a lot of

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Graham Cummins @grahamiancummins.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Social thought experiment: How many media posts praising Trump for bravely raising oil prices would it take to get Trump to start bragging about how he raised oil prices (like nothing we've ever seen!) ?

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Reposted by Graham Cummins

Graham Cummins @grahamiancummins.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

I went with the serious answer first. The internet answer is: "We all know we aren't as cute as cats or as loyal as dogs"

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Reposted by Graham Cummins

Graham Cummins @grahamiancummins.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

I think you're right, in that what we call "virtue" is primarily the accumulated set of heuristics that allowed the success of a social species living in large communities over a long time.

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Reposted by Graham Cummins

ellie lockhart (she/they) @eleanor.lockhart.contact · 09/09/2026

something else I think is important to understand about people talking about AI x-risk is that those who believe in it believed in it prior to LLMs being viable or even existing; it is not a belief about current generative AI specifically, but about cognition as a whole

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Graham Cummins @grahamiancummins.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Related: to "treat people like dogs" is a hopelessly optimistic figure of speech. I don't know many humans who routinely approach strangers with enthusiasm and affection and unquestioningly provide any needed aid at their own expense when the strangers in question are humans.

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