Sign in

Mark Masterson

@mastermark.me
532 followers 1.1K following 773 posts

Trying to do better. A hell of a lot less clever than I used to think I was. Recovering male human. CEO of Ito (itoworld.com)

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Mark Masterson
Sherrod Brown @sherrodbrownoh.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
NEW AD: Listen to this sh*t.
35285792628
Mark Masterson @mastermark.me · 29/09/2026
THIS 👇🏼 💯 absolutely THIS I dunno if I've been this every time I could've or should have (cause I'm so fucking blind to my own privilege so fucking often). But THIS IS THE WAY. And it's certainly who I'm trying to raise my son to be
110
Reposted by Mark Masterson
Loukas Christodoulou @loukas.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I think one major way you can miss seeing this as a man is all the work women around you are doing to navigate misogyny is invisible to you. There's a minefield that you only see when it blows up, and you wonder, how did that get there. "How did Bob turn into that."
325522
Reposted by Mark Masterson
ae @aelkus.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
another way to think about Zuckerberg at this point is as an digital slumlord, ruling over an e-favela, which is structurally ungovernable but also still managed by cyborg BOPE raids that keep the rabble in line
130244
Mark Masterson @mastermark.me · 26/09/2026
Agreed. Hands down the best thing on television in this century
020
Mark Masterson @mastermark.me · 25/09/2026
A goodharting problem 💀
000
Reposted by Mark Masterson
geoffrey @parsnip.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
genuinely think online replies to news pieces may have been a mistake. jingus in oklahoma saying “wow, virtue signaling much?” in response to a country announcing the change of its name to reflect its actual pronunciation rather than what occupiers found easy to say is not serving me as a reader
2323
Reposted by Mark Masterson
Sanho Tree @sanho.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Mandatory morning wood inspections are the kind of thing that can lead to rebellions and dangerous miscalculations (see above).
1135
Reposted by Mark Masterson
Dan Neidle @danneidle.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Why do so many care about inheritance tax when fewer than 5% of estates pay it? Because that statistic counts the dead. Our new model counts living pensioner households instead. 20% have enough assets to face the tax. Over 50% in parts of London. Thread:
1817964
Reposted by Mark Masterson
Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
The GOP has collapsed so far into far right authoritarianism that it has lost <checks notes> Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Liz Cheney, George Will, & Bill Kristol, & yet somehow our National Conversation™️ remains focused disproportionately on whether Democrats are veering too far left into socialism 🤷‍♂️🤦‍♂️
17516160
Reposted by Mark Masterson
Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
It’s a failure of imagination and wider reading on the part of tech guys to invent Roko’s Basilisk, a thought experiment about a vengeful god that will punish you for not cooperating, while their tech enrages Mother Nature, a vengeful god we’ve had available in our pantheon for millennia.
213341
Reposted by Mark Masterson
James Ball @jamesrball.com · 16/09/2026
I do think anyone who wants us to take Elizer Yudkowsky seriously as an authority on AI armageddon should be forced to testify on video that they have read the entirety of his 660,000 word rationalist Harry Potter fan fiction – written aged 30–34 – and still thinks the world needs his take.
32724122
Reposted by Mark Masterson
Christopher J Stevens @metaphysiology.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Re rise of AI, reading this historic event through the lens of Theuth & F451 gives us a concrete warning: identify *now* what cognitive skills AI risks atrophying, and ask if and how it is even possible to educate to maintain those skills in the AI-flooded environment we're creating. Caveat promptor
012
Reposted by Mark Masterson
Gregk Foley @gregk.co.uk · 16/09/2026
Fair play to the wife of a Caribbean man and mother of mixed race children being informed by the BBC reporter that she’s in the minority in her community regarding immigration and responding with, “Yes, I’m surrounded by bigots.”
675791286
Mark Masterson @mastermark.me · 16/09/2026
Amen (and obviously, for all things, not just 'AI')
133
Mark Masterson @mastermark.me · 16/09/2026
When they write the history books of our time, SpaceX will be regarded as shorthand for collective madness in exactly the same way we laugh in assumed superiority about the primitives falling for the Tulip Mania...
021
Reposted by Mark Masterson
Cethan Leahy @cethanleahy.com · 15/09/2026
Pretty funny that Ed Sheeran seemingly only hired Irish people and yet didn't see this coming.
544952664
Reposted by Mark Masterson
Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 15/09/2026
The U.S. AI industry is being run by a batshit rationalist sex cult, and no, I am not being hyperbolic - they’re genuinely Like That:
Erin Redwing
@realizingerin
I went to an rationalist/EA Al doomer event last night with the goal of meeting someone who could calmly explain to me the argument for how they get to the conclusion that Al will kill everyone.
Because these are rationalists, I expected to find people who could lay out a serious extinction pathway, walk through the assumptions and intermediate steps, identify choke points where negative pathways could potentially be regulated, and entertain disagreement about where their assumptions might break down.
My experience was the exact opposite.
The people I spoke to seemed psychologically unable to entertain the possibility that their conclusion (that Al literally kills everyone, which was a point that many would not even budge on) might be wrong.
Their most extreme conclusion was treated as an axiom.
I had multiple people walk out of conversations with me when I questioned their inevitable extinction premise.
At one point during a panel, the moderator asked everyone in the audience who was still skeptical of Al doom to raise their hands. About half the room did. He then told all of the skeptics to leave the panel and go with one of the speakers, who would answer their questions separately. They filtered out all the skeptics, and continued the panel only with the subset who accepted their extreme position.
I genuinely felt like a heretic just for questioning whether superintelligent Al inevitably leads to the extinction of humanity, or entertaining the possibility that the future might actually turn out well.
That does not mean Al safety is fake. Obviously there are serious questions about rapidly advancing Al systems and what happens as they become much more capable. Those are exactly the conversations I went there hoping to have.
But what I encountered was an apocalyptic death cult. These people are not rational. They are deeply afraid, they reinforce that fear in one another, and they have become so emotionally committed to apocalypse
28860751589
Mark Masterson @mastermark.me · 15/09/2026
Ah, that's not how I recall it (playing AD&D 45 years ago)... We inhaled those books and knew them by heart - it is true that the things at the edges drove some mad. See also 'falling damage' as the canonical example
100
Reposted by Mark Masterson
Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein @deepcuts.blog · 15/09/2026
When, in ten or twenty or fifty years time, we look back on the Trump era of politics, I do not think many of us will be proud of the stances we did and did not take, the actions we did and did not take. The sins committed by inaction, by centrism, by choosing a middle road between bigotry & sanity.
1434
Reposted by Mark Masterson
e.w. niedermeyer @niedermeyer.online · 15/09/2026
*slaps Cybertruck* this bad boy can hold so many Ls
2558861
Reposted by Mark Masterson
Sharon 🪳🌹 @sharonk.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
hey Whitaker what does the "NA" in "NATO" stand for
3631
Reposted by Mark Masterson
Colin Murray @colinmurray.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
A campaign for *MSF* to be banned as a terrorist group (on the paper thin basis of claims about 2 past employees) is the product of the UK Govt being willing to divorce any meaningful conception of societal threat from its use of proscription powers. Govt needs to wake up to the madness of this:
961916705
Mark Masterson @mastermark.me · 11/09/2026
One WEEK after 9/11, my middle class, university educated white, Northeastern US friends, people I'd known for years, were saying they'd get off a plane if any brown people were on it, and demand they be arrested. The US went insane, and ppl who say otherwise, generally, still are.
052
Mark Masterson @mastermark.me · 11/09/2026
Ah, DFW... So many layers of heartbreak in this piece...
000
Reposted by Mark Masterson
Otto English @ottoenglish.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
The balaclava blackshirted thugs are a result of a decade of politicians, tabloids and the broadcast media telling racists they have "legitimate concerns." The normalisation of actual fascism rhetoric and action has led to this and is a far greater "legitimate concern" than any migrant on a boat.
781709559
Reposted by Mark Masterson
Simon Pegg @simonpegg.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
This. This was the peak of a folding phone. Nothing you do now will compete.
51781216
Reposted by Mark Masterson
Rory Cellan-Jones @rorycj.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
share.google/AWA0QowotTF2... The RNLI is one of those institutions that make me proud to be British - join me in donating to show your support
share.google
Donate to the RNLI and help save lives at sea
Your donations really make a difference. We depend on your generosity to educate people to stay safe and prevent tragedies on and offshore. Donate here.
321155333
Reposted by Mark Masterson
#BruceSterling @bruces.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
*Oh come on, I'm 72 and find that stuff quite entertaining *Also the von Neumann "singularity" notion dates way back to 1958, when your dad was seven years old
1529
Reposted by Mark Masterson
Brian Finucane @bcfinucane.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Invoking 9/11 in connection with an unnecessary, illegal war in the Middle East over bogus WMD claims.
static.klipy.com
Back To The Future Marty Mcfly
ALT: Back To The Future Marty Mcfly
410227
Reposted by Mark Masterson
Eric Champnella @echamp.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
NEVER FORGET: On 9/11, Donald Trump bragged his building was now the tallest in NYC. Listen for yourself...
641252420
Reposted by Mark Masterson
Liz Fong-Jones (方禮真) @lizthegrey.com · 06/09/2026
people really need to disambiguate between "the code for X was coauthored with a language model" and "peoples' inputs into this app are fed into the language model as a subprocessor" because these are completely different concepts!
61436
Reposted by Mark Masterson
John Oxley @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 04/09/2026
The people who get caught for this, whether politics or criminality, is because they can't resist playing the Big Man to someone they perceived as important/helpful. As ever, real Gs move in silence, like lasagne.
1018422
Reposted by Mark Masterson
Shane Chowen @ukshane.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Good morning from Reform UK’s party conference in Birmingham where earlier today this delegate had his sword confiscated
110571151
Reposted by Mark Masterson
Duncan Weldon @duncanweldon.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
I think it’s under-appreciated how much there might be a first mover advantage for the UK in going for a broad based tax rise at this budget. In a world of shaky public finances, going first makes your debt more attractive.
213119
Reposted by Mark Masterson
Polly Pallister-Wilkins @pollypw.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Dear BBC News, If you'd like to actually fulfill your mandate to inform the public of the reasons people take small boats please feel free to invite me onto any of your shows. I'm a world expert in this with an award winning book on the topic. Or you can just have a man stood shouting in the sea.
16879250
Mark Masterson @mastermark.me · 04/09/2026
On my wife's side, one
000
Reposted by Mark Masterson
post malone ergo propter malone @proptermalone.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
how far back do you have to go in your family tree to someone who lived without indoor plumbing for me, that would be one (1)
18089182
Reposted by Mark Masterson
Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 02/09/2026
Who would like to guess why UK, US and European media outlets are not publishing 3,000 articles per minute about this www.dukechronicle.com/article/duke...
dukechronicle.com
‘Insane data’: Duke professor Dan Ariely accused of additional research fraud
New evidence released Monday shows that Dan Ariely, professor of business administration in the Fuqua School of Business, likely tampered with or fabricated data in an influential research paper from ...
502489756
Reposted by Mark Masterson
Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
I think the BBC needs to go hard on the Reform corruption story, as part of their attempts at “Balance”. They’ve spent years pretending Reform are somehow *not* a transparent treasonous grift by a bunch of looting Hoorays. So this could be the other side. Where you say they clearly are, cos, look.
615623
Reposted by Mark Masterson
Colin McMillen @mcmillen.dev · 28/01/2025
folks blaming google for "capitulating" on this don't understand that there are 195 countries on the planet & G shows different labels for geographical features to *everyone* depending on their language & country. why would they make a special exception for the US just because we voted in a dumbass
610611
Reposted by Mark Masterson
Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Just seen a screengrab of some right wing grifter objecting to being able to play as a female character in the new GTA, because it could lead to players wanting to transition into women in real life. Nobody tell this twat about novels. It’ll blow his fucking mind.
1611813
Reposted by Mark Masterson
Evan Bernick, a finite mode with a smol hooman and a lorg floof @evanbernick.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
we are reenacting the central political drama of Infinite Jest
921130
Reposted by Mark Masterson
Reconstructionist @unavaleable.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Dem in 2046: I'm Standing Better, Together Democrat™ GOP in 2046: I'd say I'm a MAGA cuck-goonmeister more than a siscon-trap Hoxhaist o
435235
Reposted by Mark Masterson
Jo Kibble (Political Animal) @politicanimal.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Most British thing ever is for the day it becomes legal to fit solar extremely easily to your home is the day the sun finally disappears after three months.
101145180
Reposted by Mark Masterson
Nahel Belgherze @wxnb.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
An incredibly well-timed Landsat 9 pass captured the effects of yesterday’s catastrophic glacier collapse near the Nepal–Tibet border. The event was so massive that it was detected by seismometers around the world.
211121560
Reposted by Mark Masterson
Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
refuting every claim anybody makes is not in fact how science, or any discipline, works discarding approaches that have proven fruitless or wrongheaded, not stopping to re-litigate them every time someone digs up a junk data set or a retracted article they wish were true, is how disciplines move
3486133
Mark Masterson @mastermark.me · 27/08/2026
I spent the first half of my career furious about the existence of the people, and have tried in the latter half to build places for people to work where they are not welcome or present. www.theguardian.com/science/2026...
theguardian.com
How to spot a psychopath: ‘It’s like the difference between a domestic cat and a wild cat’
People with persistent predatory personalities cause an inordinate amount of pain. Recently, our shared understanding of them has grown – and it could help protect us
100
Reposted by Mark Masterson
Andy Cowper @hpiandycowper.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
There seem to be many ways in which healthcare is nothing like traditional economic views of the consumption of typical consumer goods. The information asymmetry between providers and consumers is vast. Using healthcare is usually what the marketing industry describes as a ‘distress purchase’.
5254