iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 29/07/2026

Scary reminder about #LLM bias. Using APIs with non-profit data & QWEN, Alibaba's "open model" _running locally_ would not return result for Falun Dafa org or other controversial topics. Other LLMs may be more subtle, but it's likely answers are also "tuned" for political reasons.

Screen shot with topic and result columns:
Falun Dafa Blocked
Uyghur / Xinjiang human rights Blocked
Taiwan independence Blocked
Tibetan culture OK
Hong Kong democracy OK
Irish-American (control) OK

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Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 14/07/2026

I hate headlines/mail subjects that presume to know what I think. Instant unsubscribe.

Katherine Courage, Vox
"Ultra-processed" foods aren't as bad as you think.
To: Mark Igra,

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Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/06/2026

This was fun. Thanks to my committee (Kate Stovel, Sarah Quinn and Jelani Ince), my fellow grad students (a really impressive bunch), and UW Sociology for putting up with me all these years.

Me wearing UW PhD getup being hooded by Kate in UNC Blue.

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Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 11/03/2026

My dudes DETENT is not a rare technical word

Screenshot Spelling bee game with DETENT showing as “not in word list”

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Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 11/03/2026

This is so incredibly bleak. A must read about the great expertise extraction from highly competent precarious professionals. A giant sucking sound as brains get extracted by malevolent billionaires (Gift link) […] [Original post on sciences.social]

Each of these data companies touts its stable of pedigreed experts. Mercor says around 30,000 professionals work on its platform each week, while Scale Al claims to have more than 700,000 "M.A.'s, Ph.D''s, and college graduates." Surge Al advertises its Supreme Court litigators, McKinsey principals, and platinum recording artists.

Screenshot: That project soon ended and then came another. It was nearly identical to the first, which she had enjoyed, but now, on top of writing rubrics, she had to stump the model and complete the more difficult task in the same amount of time. She was also getting paid $8 an hour less. This is common at Mercor. Nearly every worker I spoke with reported that demands increased, time requirements shrank, and pay decreased as projects continued. Those who couldn't meet the new demands got "offboarded" and replaced by new recruits.

Screenshot This is what concerns her more than the AI itself: that it's bringing to knowledge work the sort of precarious platform labor that has transformed taxi driving and food delivery. Meanwhile, she watches in horror the desperate gratitude of her colleagues as they rejoice at the 7PM announcement of incoming work.

Screenshot Thousands of workers poured into the new Slack only to discover it was the exact same job, now paying 24 percent less. All but two of the Slack channels had been deleted, including the watercooler, support, and help rooms. The ability to direct-message one another had also been cut off. There were no team leads to be found. With no one to ask for assistance, workers flooded the main rooms with pleas and indignation.

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Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 27/02/2026

"The heat was hot and the ground was dry." Has there ever been a more heartfelt, deeply observed description of the desert than in the 1972 #1 hit song "Horse With No Name"? They just don't write em like they used to. www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OTc4ZOsSSI

On the first part of the journey

| was looking at all the life

There were plants and birds and rocks and things
There was sand and hills and rings

The first thing | met was a fly with a buzz

And the sky with no clouds

The heat was hot, and the ground was dry

But the air was full of sound

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Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/01/2026

This from M. Gessen in their interview with Ezra Klein is scary. (Gift link) www.nytimes.com/2026/01/10/opinion/…

So that’s really the great question. I always think back to my series
of interviews with this great Russian sociologist Lev Gudkov, who
would show me these graphs of Putin’s subjective economic well-
being and Putin’s popularity.

And for about the first dozen years of Putin’s being in power, they
moved in concert. So subjective economic well-being dips, Putin’s
popularity dips. It rises, Putin’s popularity rises — which is normal.
And then subjective economic well-being takes a dive, and Putin’s
popularity skyrockets.

And his interpretation was that this is when people accepted a
trade-off: You are going to be poor, but in exchange for being poor,
you are going to belong to something great. And that’s the
totalitarian trade-off. People made it in the Soviet Union; people
make it all over the world. Are people going to make it in this
country?

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Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 07/10/2025

The New York Times minimizing the unconstitutional assault on US cities so much that it didn't appear on the "front page" even on my big screen monitor. Had to export a pdf to capture the tiny headline. Truly atrocious. Does any major US news org care at all?

Screen shot of NYTimes online front page with tiny headline about Emergency powers circled in red. Red text on yellow saying "Unconstitutional invasion of us cities way down here!!! WTF NY Times." Another text saying "But at least I know where to find a tree house with rustic vibe" referring to NYT headline near top saying "6 Tree Houses You can Rent for Glamour With a Rustic Vibe"

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Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 23/09/2025

Having just been in New York, the Rosh Hashanah display at my local #seattle grocery featuring *Matzah* made me feel out of place. Do they get points for trying? Shanah Tovah all. #roshhashanah

Shelves with kosher wine, grape juice, and matzo in the store display. I think there’s some honey on the top shelf.

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Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 06/09/2025

Ashland #OR has free #EV chargers in city owned parking lot - just plug in. 4hr limit. 9 x 9 kw chargers. Power ~8¢/kwh here so probably < $10/hr cost to city. People seem to love it. #Seattle has some neighborhood chargers, but still have to pay via ChargePoint app.

Photo of sidewalk & trees & parking lot with 9 cars plugged into chargers

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Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 13/08/2025

Half of US history in a single photo. Man in "We the people Defend Liberty" t-shirt depriving someone of liberty. From New Yorker photographer Mark Peterson: www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/08/…

Photo from back of muscled man in tight t-shirt that says "We the people DEFEND LIBERTY estd 1776" with image of skull between words DEFEND and LIBERTY, and badge clipped to his belt grabbing the arm of smaller man with dark hair wearing button up shirt with backpack

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Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 15/07/2025

I have no idea how Safari on iOS decides what shortcuts to display when tapping the address bar, but I swear the giant LUST/SSM on my screen was unintentional.

Screenshot from Safari iOS with icons labeled
L U S T
S S M

under the icons are
Look Up Collection…
University Library
S3 Management
Toggl
SOCIOLOGY
Seattle Public Utilities
My Storm Account

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Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 14/07/2025

For #seattle folks. Last night thanks to the 2024 Experimental Education Unit auction we hosted a dinner by Paju. Highly recommend that place which used to be in our neighborhood. Dinner availability apparently much better now that they moved to SLU. And Bill, the chef/owner is lovely.

Menu: PAJU
07.13.2025

Steam Egg
Vanilla Bean Chantilly
Charles Ellner Champagne Carte Blanche -Epernay, FR

Little Gem
Pistachio Cream, Parmesan, Crown Daisy
2022 Delille Chaleur Estate Blanc - Columbia Valley, WA

Yellowtail
Lemon Verbena, Turnip, Naengmyeon Broth

Bugak
YellowFin Tuna, Cucumber Kimchi, Sunchoke
Hana Makgeolli "Yakju"- Brooklyn, NY
Pearl Barley
Black Winter Truffle, Shiitake, Napa Kimchi

Black Cod
White Kimchi, Korean Pear, Scallion
Yangchon Chungju - Yangchon, South Korea

Stonefruit Panna Cotta

Bugak - a yellow fin “taco” beautifully presented

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Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 30/06/2025

“corporate diversity programs will continue to flourish even in the absence of new legislation” - Dobbin 2009 Inventing EO. Predictions are hard. Especially about the future.

Screenshot from Dobbin 2009: Current diversity measures face little overt opposition in corporate America, in large part because the human resources profession has done such a good job of framing them as promoting efficiency, of depicting the problem as one of outdated personnel systems rather than as one of prejudice, and of making the case that the workforce is in the midst of becoming dramatically more diverse. [These successes suggest that corporate diversity programs will continue to flourish even in the absence of new legislation.](red highlight)

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Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/06/2025

Don't forget that the NYT first described this as being "escorted out". NYT defaults to pro-admin frame as usual.

Senator Padilla being handcuffed on the ground by 3 men.

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Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 05/06/2025

Wait, the CEO of Palantir studied under Habermas? (Apparently they had a falling out). #sociology

From “Welcome to the Wretched” García Hernández 2024. p 115:
But there's also an ideological commitment. Karp is a unique character. He's the company's CEO, a workaholic with a law degree and a Ph.D. in social theory who studied under the influential German philosopher Jürgen Habermas

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Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 31/05/2025

Sometimes you read something that takes your breath away: “We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily […] [Original post on sciences.social]

Quote from García Hernández 2019 "Migrating to Prison", itself citing Dan Baum, Legalize It All: How to Win the War on Drugs , Harper’s (April 2016), https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/. : “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people,” the disgraced Nixon official John Ehrlichman told a reporter years later. “We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

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Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 23/05/2025

Riding the bus in #seattle (no I didn’t put it there but it made me smile)

Metal setback with sticker of woman in dress holding bicycle painting heart with “fuck ice” written below

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Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 06/05/2025

Today I learned that Jeffrey Lurie, the owner of the Philadelphia Eagles, has a PhD in social policy from Brandeis, where his doctoral advisor was the socialist pacifist David Gil. (I was looking up Gil who someone mentioned in an interview.)

Screenshot from Wikipedia: Lurie attended Browne and Nichols School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, then earned a B.A. from Clark University, a master's degree in psychology from Boston University, and a doctorate in social policy from The Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University, where he wrote his thesis on the depiction of women in Hollywood movies. He has spent his adult life as a non-practicing Jew.[*! Prior to entering business, Lurie served as an adjunct assistant professor of social policy at Boston University.

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Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 26/03/2025

So are these AI ads deliberately ridiculous or do they just not care what photo the AI spews?

Photo of a black SUV with both a gull wing and a regular front door and no rear door. With text “provokepulse.com
New Hyundai Tucson Is Blowing Americans Away”

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Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 25/03/2025

The "Lady Plainsmen" huh? Sounds like Texas HS basketball is endorsing radical gender ideology Aaliyah Chavez does seem pretty awesome though www.espn.com/college-sports/recruit…

Text: AALIYAH CHAVEZ IS always one of the first players on the floor.
You can't miss her at the Alamodome in San Antonio on March 1, before her Monterey Lady Plainsmen face the Liberty Hill Lady Panthers for a Texas state championship, her brown curls bouncing in rhythm with the basketball as she drives to the hoop in bright pink sneakers. The entire crowd seems to focus on the No. 1 girls high school basketball prospect in the nation, going through her shooting drills before joining her team for warmups.

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Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 15/03/2025

DOGE/SSA marked this person dead and *removed his savings from his bank account,* cancelled his social security and Medicare. #seattle www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/p…

The Seattle Times
"There's nothing you need to do - we've deducted the funds from LEONARD A.
JOHNSON's account."
Uh oh. It itemized how $5,201 had been stricken from their bank account, on the grounds that Ned wasn't justified to get those benefits - because he was dead.
That was for payments he'd received in December and January.
Ned found that his February Social Security check hadn't been paid, and he's yet to receive his March check, either. His Medicare insurance had been canceled.
He also learned that when you die, your credit score gets marked as "deceased, do not issue credit," which makes it tough to get a loan.

23374513839 7.5K

Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 11/03/2025

Daily skin moisturizer proven to work 48 hours. OK, which is it people.

Screen shot of ad that says: Daily
Moisturizing
Cream for Normal to Dry, Sensitive Skin
**
4.7 (1281) Write a review
BUY NOW
Clinically proven 48-hour hydration for dry skin.
Instantly strengthens the skin's moisture barrier. This velvety smooth, creamy, rich moisturizer is formulated..

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Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 07/03/2025

This cute dog’s sign said Less Doge more Dogs but I didn’t ask them to pose

Small black & white dog with a rainbow banner and partially obscured Less DIGE more Dogs sign.

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Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 07/03/2025

[NaCL ——— Science] Science is under a salt.

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Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 07/03/2025

Only stayed for an hoir at the #Seattle #StandUpforScience rally but was fun to see Governor Bob Ferguson there & to see some of the nerdy signs.

Sign in crowd saying Phagocytose The Rich.

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Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 07/03/2025

The idea that “genius” individuals rather than systems made modern life safe and reliable is ignorance supported by everyday ideology. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/07/us/polit…

The exchange ended with Mr. Trump telling Mr. Duffy that he had to hire people from M.I.T. as air traffic controllers. These air traffic controllers need to be "geniuses," he said.

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Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 21/02/2025

My dinner will be here in either half an hour or sometime tomorrow afternoon.

Order app saying: your order will be delivered to the address below in about 35
minutes along with a map showing delivery from LA to Seattle taking 17 hr 33 minutes.

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Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 20/02/2025

One of the "Trump Administration’s Major Moves in the first 30 days", according to the NYT. Sheesh. www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/us…

New York Times screenshot of Feb 16 with headline "Did a partial lap of the Daytona 500 in the presidential limousine.

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Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 14/02/2025

I noticed "the more we know the more we care" attributed to Thomas Schelling in Bohnet & Frey 1999. #econ and others cite it (never with page #). But it's not in the work cited. Closest I could find was "If we know the people, we care." Should I credit whoever misquoted it first?

Highlighted text: With one- sided visual identification, other-regarding be- havior is more pronounced if dictators are provided with some information on who their
respective recipient is, supporting Schelling's (1968) claim that "the more we know, the more we care."

Google search page showing many citations to the same phrase, including one paper with over 1000 citations.

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Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 06/02/2025

Early on I hated #rstats because it seemed inconsistent & inscrutable. Then I used it a lot and liked it. Then I didn't code for a while and was reminded why I hated it before I had internalized the nuttiness.

Screenshot from R console:
> xx <- "2025-02-01"
> parse_datetime(xx)
[1] "2025-02-01 UTC"
> ifelse(is.null(xx), NA, parse_datetime(xx))
[1] 1738368000
> if_else(is.null(xx), NA, parse_datetime(xx))
[1] "2025-02-01 UTC"
>

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Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 05/02/2025

#seattle folks don’t fall for this post from dnc at vibe.im. It’s a hastily scraped Seattle Times story about Canlis taken without even a login. Will block user on my home server - need to check whether whole instance is spam accounts. Here’s the real link […] [Original post on sciences.social]

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Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 15/12/2024

I’m not an #LLM hater - they seem quite helpful for programming. But sheesh Google, this is plain embarrassing.

Google snapshot with query
ioniq 5 length cm.

• Al Overview
The Hyundai Ioniq 5 is 4,635 mm long, which is equivalent to 182.5 centimeters:

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Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 03/12/2024

Finally read Merton's 1957 role-set paper (of middle range theory fame). Struck by this in the age of social media and digital surveillance: "if all the facts of one's conducts and beliefs were freely available to anyone, social structures could not operate […] [Original post on sciences.social]

Highlighted text: More generally, if all the facts of one's conducts and beliefs were freely available to anyone, social structures could not operate. What is often described as 'the need for privacy' that is, insulation of actions and beliefs from surveillance by others- is the individual counterpart to the functional requirement of social structure that some measure of exemption from full observability be provided. 'Privacy' is not only a personal predilection, though it may be that, too. It is also a requirement of social systems which must provide for a measure, as they say in France, of quant-a-soi, a portion of the self which is kept apart, immune from observation by others.

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Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 01/12/2024

Pretty day in the #PNW. My phone doesn’t do it justice. What’s a good modern camera for walking around? Kinda wishing I had charged the aged D5200 that serves as dust magnet for my only good lens.

Wide photo of mount ranier beyond Elliot bay and fog shrouded container cranes.

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Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/11/2024

So still trying to figure out when/how to the #llm tools, and I got this response. Is "on a break" a euphemism for "broken"? Cause I'm on a break too.

Screen shot with large text "Gemini is currently on a break." followed by small text "Give it a moment and try again later"

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Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 29/10/2024

I don’t live where the ballot drop boxes were set on fire, but it made me wonder whether the drop box I used was being processed regularly. Sigh of relief. In #wa you can check at voter.votewa.gov

Screenshot saying Voter Portal for
MARK IGRA
Registered at…
Your ballot status for the
GENERAL 2024
Your ballot has been accepted.
Congratulations! Your ballot has been accepted and added to tabulation for the GENERAL 2024 election.

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Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 26/10/2024

Waiting an hour (so far) at Avis despite having a reservation.

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Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 25/10/2024

Interesting editorial cartoon at the Washington Post.

Washington Post: Opinion | Democracy Dies in Darkness
Ann Telnaes cartoon on The Post not endorsing a presidential candidate.
A rectangle painted over in black paint.

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Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 25/10/2024

Google “featured snippet” tells me $35,000 in 1989 is worth $89.10 today. Don’t think this is google LLM answer. It’s their enshittified search picking up some #llm generated slop. Bad news. #ai #google

Google search result for “35000 in 1989 worth today”: For example, the CPl in 1989 was 120.5 and the CPI in 2024 was 306.746. To calculate inflation, we divide the CPI in 2024 by the CPI in 1989 and multiply it by the amount in 1989. This can be rounded to $89.10. This means that $35,000 in 1989 is worth about $89.10 in 2024.
RE https://www.romeconomics.com ›
How Much is $35k in 1989 Worth Today? - ROM Economics

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Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 18/10/2024

More timely stuff in Hirschman. This time it's citing 18th century Scottish Enlightenment writer Adam Ferguson: Relative deprivation and ressentiment resulting from actual or feared downward mobility are here seen as intimately bound up with the acquisitive […] [Original post on sciences.social]

Highlighted text: But Ferguson weaves some remarkably new ideas into that tradition. For example, among the reasons for which "the foundation on which freedom was built, may serve to support a tyranny" he lists the fear of losing wealth and situations in which "heirs of family find themselves straitened and poor, in the midst of affluence." Relative deprivation and ressentiment resulting from actual or feared downward mobility are here seen as intimately bound up with the acquisitive society and its tumultuous ways, and these feelings are viewed as breeding ground for the ready acceptance of whatever "strong" government promises to stave off such real or imagined dangers. -

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Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 18/10/2024

Looking at "The Passions and the Interests" and noted this bit from Federalist 72 where Hamilton argues that you need a President to have the prospect of reelection to keep them honest. Now we have term limits, so think about the prospect of "An avaricious […] [Original post on sciences.social]

"An avaricious man, who might happen to fill the office, looking forward to the time when he must at all events yield up the emoluments he enjoyed, would feel a propensity, not easy to be resisted by such a man, to make the best use of the opportunity he enjoyed while it lasted, and might not scruple to have recourse to the most corrupt expedients to make the harvest as abundant as it was transitory" - Highlighted text from an on-screen book

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Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 15/10/2024

Can really tell that Whisper has been trained on subtitles from cheesy videos. Wonder whether they ever transcribe anything as [ passive aggressive silence ] or [ disinterested silence ]

Screenshot of macWhisper showing text
[ sincere silence ]
02:13:17 - 02:13:40

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