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Jon Steinman

@jonsteinman.bsky.social
11K followers 786 following 1.1K posts

dad, dog walker, Nebraskan Democracy advocate *and because time is short, cofounder of workfour.org Skeets my own

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Reposted by Jon Steinman
Matt Ford @mford.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Ezra Klein asked Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang about AI making kids worse at math and reading. Huang’s reply: “Does it matter?” Then he said he doesn’t know his own address or phone number. “We’re going to lose some fine intellectual dexterity.” www.nytimes.com/2026/09/23/o...
So the message of this research out of China, where you were seeing a lot of kids using A.I. to help them, was that when they were using the A.I., they were getting things done faster. But it turned out that the skills they were learning were not holding, that their actual personal performance, at least in the way we traditionally measure it, was degrading.

What do you think when you hear that?

The last part — I completely agree. Try to get a kid to do long division right now. The multiplication table is starting to be forgotten. Doing square roots, my goodness. Basic math is being forgotten. Does it matter?

That’s my question for you.

Yeah. I don’t think it does. I don’t think it does.

But there must be some set of skills that matter.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But maybe not those. We’re going to discover new ones. Just maybe not those.

There are a lot of skills that don’t matter. My first confession, I actually don’t know my address.And I ——

I don’t really believe that to be true.

It’s completely true. Janine will tell you and Lori will tell you.

One day I had to pump gas — it was a few years ago. They needed my ZIP code, and I panicked. I didn’t know my ZIP code. I don’t know my telephone number. I forget these things. I can live with it.

But let me take the other side because I don’t want to fall into a thing where, because some skills can be safely offloaded ——

Yeah.

I also can’t get anywhere without a mapping system now. Never could, frankly. But I’m a big reader. And one of the skills I really value, one of the capacities I have that I really value is an attention span formed on physical books.

You’re a big reader. I’ve read about the kind of reading you do. And there is, prior to A.I., a lot of concern and noticing among college professors and others that the way people use the internet has probably shortened attention spans.
Some skills can be safely given away. Others are valuable. They are capacities that are needed for that flexibility, for that creative thinking, for that focus. It can’t be the case that everything can be traded off.Some skills can be safely given away. Others are valuable. They are capacities that are needed for that flexibility, for that creative thinking, for that focus. It can’t be the case that everything can be traded off.

Yeah. Well, I think that we’re going to lose some finer intellectual dexterity, but we’re going to be better systems thinkers.

Today’s engineers are far better systems thinkers than I was when I graduated from school. But I was a much better transistor thinker.

What do you mean by systems thinker?

They think of large systems. Today’s computers have trillions, hundreds of trillions of transistors in them. When I first graduated from school, the first chip I worked on had 200 transistors. I knew every one of them by name. No engineer does that today. Most engineers now work well above the transistor, well above the functionality, and they’re cobbling things together to do things.

So you need to think much more about systems and interactions of systems. So some of the lower-level knowledge is gone.
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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 19/09/2026
Innocent civilians are being murdered with dirt-cheap and essentially impossible to ban tiny flying robots at shocking numbers globally (read our piece below). We have REAL, CURRENT cyberpunk horrors to deal with right now, and we don’t need to waste our time on hypothetical AI basilisks.
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Jon Steinman @jonsteinman.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
This summer, as my family worried over recalls and slashed federal inspection capacity, I built a recall service that indexes over 100 sources, including retailers, state agencies, and overseas authorities. Check it out. Stay safe! www.recall411.com
recall411.com
Recall411 — Your Recall Report, by state
Recalls and safety warnings that can reach you — by state, cited to the official notice. More than 100 official sources, checked three times a day.
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Jon Steinman @jonsteinman.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
The socioeconomic impact of the Inquisition can still be measured in Spain.
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PBS News @pbsnews.org · 11/09/2026
After President Donald Trump told attendees at the Republican midterm convention Thursday night that "we want honesty in our elections," he led them in a pledge to "cheat like hell" and "go out and vote" in the midterm elections. to.pbs.org/4yTjfzl
to.pbs.org
WATCH: Trump leads RNC in pledge to 'cheat like hell' in November elections
After President Donald Trump told attendees at the Republican midterm convention Thursday night that “we want honesty in our elections,” he led them in a pledge to “cheat like hell” and “go out and vo...
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Allison Gill @muellershewrote.com · 05/09/2026
Just an FYI: the judge didn’t block the USPS ballot scanning rule from going into effect, she blocked them from making it mandatory. Make sure you have a back up plan to vote.
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Olivia of Troye @oliviaoftroye.com · 05/09/2026
The CDC updated its national measles tracker Friday. Pennsylvania’s two reported deaths are still missing. I watched Trump & his team pressure the CDC from inside the White House in 2020. I know what it looks like when politics starts colliding with public health. Déjà vu, anyone?👇
livingitwitholiviatroye.com
Saturday Covfefe: Wait, They Can Do That?
Secret government gigs, CDC déjà vu, and the feds want your REI shopping history.
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Norm Eisen @normeisen.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
BREAKING: hundreds of DHS agents have been pulled off human trafficking & terrorism cases to hunt for noncitizen voters 👉 www.nytimes.com/2026/09/02/u... We called it: @DDAction_ & @LULAC took apart the myth this rests on  Our report👇
democracydefendersaction.org
The Big Lie aka La Gran Mentira
This analysis exposes Donald Trump and his allies’ disinformation campaign around immigrants and voting.
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Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Grotesque
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Nora Benavidez @attorneynora.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Drumroll update ... I have been appointed to the Board of Directors at @benandjerrys.bsky.social. 1/
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Ryan Goodman @rgoodlaw.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Judge Eric Tostrud (Trump appointee): "Plaintiffs have made a clear showing that Defendants have adopted a POLICY authorizing federal immigration officers to conduct investigatory stops based on ethnicity or race without reasonable suspicion."
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Dawn Summers real or fake @dawnsummers.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
If you can find common ground with Jared kusher, but not zohran mamdani, you shouldn't be in democratic leadership
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Dare Obasanjo @carnage4life.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 19/08/2026
one part “my green room friends thought it was mean,” one part debilitating fear of backlash. inability to see that ossof successfully goaded the white house into *being reactive* and thus revealing that there is a story here
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Jacob Harris @jacobharr.is · 19/08/2026
This costs $3 million a day
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Too Big to Fail @toobigtofail.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
It's fun that Trump is abandoning South Korea at a moment when RAM is the single biggest bottleneck in the thing that's eaten the global economy, and 70% of global RAM production is in South Korea.
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Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
The fundraising texts you delete are working on someone. It’s infuriating and heartbreaking. An 85yo in Ohio gave more than double the value of his home. A 91yo in an Indianapolis senior facility gave 25K times. The DCCC/DSCC don’t just tolerate the spammers who exploit seniors. They take part.
data4democracy.substack.com
Hook and Squeeze
How Democratic consultants, committees, and party leaders built a fundraising spam pipeline that funnels money from a captive pool of elderly donors into their own operations.
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Jon Steinman @jonsteinman.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
He didn’t do it on porpoise
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Another day, another impeachable offense: The White House ordered federal agencies to block resources to Colorado because it had punished an election denier. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/14/u...
As President Trump fumed late last year over Colorado's imprisonment of Tina Peters, a convicted election denier, a White House special assistant organized an urgent "brainstorm call."
The goal, outlined in an email sent to officials at five federal agencies, was to "prioritize Colorado for the purposes of ensuring grants and federal support are in line with administration priorities," the assistant, Emily Underwood, wrote on Dec.
15.
"Please come prepared to discuss immediate actions that your department or agency can take with respect to Colorado," Ms. Underwood added.
The next day, the Department of Transportation and the Department of Energy, whose representatives were invited to the brainstorm, announced they were canceling hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants for Colorado projects.
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Acyn @acyn.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Reporter: Family members of service members are concerned about conditions on the LIncoln. Trump: No they’re not. Reporter: Has the deployment gone on too long? Trump: No. Not nearly long enough.
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Catherine Rampell @crampell.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Trump promised Americans a new golden age. Unfortunately, it turns out to be a golden age for diarrhea and white-collar crime www.thebulwark.com/p/trumps-gif...
thebulwark.com
Trump’s Gift to the Money Launderers
Treasury isn’t merely shutting down an anti-corruption database. It’s deleting the data so future investigators can’t use it.
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Max Berger @maxberger.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
The ADL has a website dedicated to attacking Mamdani staffers—including my friend Waleed Shahid. The ADL is applying a level of scrutiny to him they aren’t applying to literal neo-Nazis working in the federal government. Waleed has a Jewish wife and child. The ADL is a disgrace.
mamdanimonitor.com
Personnel
We expect the Mamdani administration to uphold a simple, non-negotiable standard: no one with a history of antisemitism or hostility toward Jews, Zionists, Israelis or Jewish institutions should be ap...
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Jon Steinman @jonsteinman.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
This administration is hostile to alliances and careless about crucial munitions, but also fatal to troop morale. www.militarytimes.com/news/your-mi...
militarytimes.com
Multiple USS Abraham Lincoln sailors have tried to go overboard amid extended deployment, families say
Multiple sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln have attempted to go overboard as the carrier's deployment stretches into its ninth month.
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Ed Burmila @edburmila.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
You don’t have to like this guy‘s politics to recognize that everyone who has insisted for decades that The Issues are almost all too complicated and too nuanced to explain to voters let alone address was lying to you.
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Justin Hendrix @justinhendrix.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
static.klipy.com
This Is Fine Meme
ALT: This Is Fine Meme
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Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum.wsocial.eu · 05/08/2026
The experience of being chased by a murderous kamikaze drone, a flying machine that behaves as if it were alive, is not one that humans are equipped to understand: www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
theatlantic.com
The Dystopian Future Dawns in Kherson
Putin’s human safari in Ukraine is the beginning of a grim new normal.
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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 04/08/2026
Small drones are killing more civilians than ever before - and we need to act. Here’s my thoughts on what we need to do, like establishing a center dedicated to evaluating and investigating drone attacks, training investigators, and explaining how IHL applies to self-defense against drones:
little-flying-robots.ghost.io
What Can We Do About Drone Attacks on Civilians? Some Thoughts
Lately, I've been spending a lot of time analyzing, reporting on, and researching the horrifying global uptick in the use of small, cheap, short-range drones to intentionally target and kill civilians...
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Jon Steinman @jonsteinman.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Interesting plea from the getaway driver
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Jon Steinman @jonsteinman.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
“The Dow is over 50,000 right now” wasn’t our first clue she didn’t think Justice was her job cmarmitage.substack.com/p/pam-bondi-...
cmarmitage.substack.com
Pam Bondi Implicated in As Much As $5.5 Million in Insider Trading
But what can be done about it?
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emptywheel @emptywheel.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Friday: Capital One reveals they debanked Trump debanked bc he was laundering money. Sunday: Acting Attorney General solidifies promise Trump's tax crimes won't be punished.
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Aaron Sojourner @aaronsojourner.org · 02/08/2026
"You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive." --James Baldwin
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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
This is not just about rewriting the past; it's also an effort to make any future effort to hold this administration responsible for its brazen criminality seem like more "weaponization of the justice system"
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
A single interest group whose primary mission is to represent the interests of another country has spent $30 million on a *primary race* www.ap.org/news-highlig....
ap.org
AIPAC has spent a record amount on Michigan's Senate primary, the biggest test of its influence yet | The Associated Press
Senate candidate Haley Stevens talks often about manufacturing, taking on President Donald Trump and why she’s the Democrat best positioned to
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Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
A U.S. government map of Africa mislabeled every country during a state department presentation at a ⁠global conference www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
A U.S. government map of Africa mislabeled every country during a state department presentation at a ⁠global conference
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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
This is all a crazy effort to rewrite the past, yes. But what's really terrifying is hearing these people tell us how badly they're going to fuck up the *next* pandemic they're now creating without that nerd Fauci holding them back.
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 28/07/2026
Israel is giving Trump's former campaign manager millions of dollars to fill the internet with pro-Israel articles written by AI, not so that anyone will actually read them, but so that *LLMs will train on them* & regurgitate their perspective. This is the future of the information environment.
dropsitenews.com
Israel Is Paying Millions to Train AI Chatbots How to Talk About Gaza. It's Working.
Former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale is overseeing an operation posting hundreds of blog posts on behalf of Israel, with the goal of infiltrating artificial intelligence.
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Professa Murray @kalimurray.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
Hegseth is a national embarrassment, who again, was not the host of Fox and Friends, but the WEEKEND host of Fox and Friends. He was not even the most qualified leader of Fox and Friends.
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
I do find it amazing that even in this moment, the Dems can't come up with some sort of "Contract for America" like language that offers an alternative to Trump. Maybe they have it, but whatever governing vision they have is lost in the noise.
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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
Things will get worse as more students secretly use AI to do homework. There has always been a divide between those who care about education for its own sake and those who only care about grades, but AI will worsen this divide, leaving fewer people with the ability to do causal reasoning.
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Thor Benson @thorbenson.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
I think a party that can welcome anti-Trump Republicans can also embrace members of the DSA. I think it should, actually
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Ana Marie Cox @anamariecox.com · 22/07/2026
“All of them said very strongly, ‘Finish that ballroom.’”
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Joey Politano🏳️‍🌈 @josephpolitano.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Someone in DC set up a “little free blockbuster” with DVDs inside instead of books lol
A picture of a box styled like a little free library but with blockbuster movies
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Quinta Jurecic @qjurecic.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Sometimes I imagine the administration spinning a big wheel like on The Price Is Right each morning, waiting to see what provision of the Constitution they should violate today
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Jon Steinman @jonsteinman.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
What happens when a Fox News host runs a war for a president who calls our troops “suckers.”
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elia ayoub @ayoub.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
So nice of Argentina to occasionally stop being violent in order to play football
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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
Not many people know this, but if you're the defending champions they can't give you any yellow cards
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shauna @goldengateblond.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
run them out of every part of polite society. years ago sarah huckabee sanders was asked to leave a restaurant and there was much clutching of pearls, but this is exactly what SHOULD happen when you enable a fascist regime.
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Ryan Goodman @rgoodlaw.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
"Under the change, responsibility for investigating cases involving federal immigration officers would likely fall to Homeland Security Investigations, an arm of ICE, effectively leaving the agency to investigate itself, according to guidance circulated among F.B.I. and ICE agents."
nytimes.com
Federal Agents Were Told FBI Will No Longer Investigate ICE Confrontations
Senior officials deny such a change is in the works, despite guidance shared with agents around the country in recent days.
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Jon Steinman @jonsteinman.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
The same dangerous dingdongs claimed the Mueller report was a total exoneration, because if they’re confident about anything it’s that their base doesn’t read
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