Sign in

matthewlian.bsky.social

@matthewlian.bsky.social
245 followers 151 following 10 posts
PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
Jay Kuo @nycjayjay.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
This is a community note for the ages.
6659051173
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
Mr. Dan Zak @mrdanzak.com · 04/10/2026
A Haitian man legally immigrated to Ohio, then was given an ankle monitor bc Trump withdrew his status. He threw himself in front of truck. The trucker, who voted for Trump, is haunted. “Pierre was doing what he was supposed to do. We did not do right by him.” www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...
theatlantic.com
A Reckoning in Springfield
A truck driver out on his route confronts what the country has become.
37253281834
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
Spencer Ackerman @attackerman.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Ha ha that’s gross and should make everyone uncomfortable, anyway, Rahm presided over a Chicago police black site, lied about what it was and then I sued the Chicago police for its records that proved it:
theguardian.com
Homan Square revealed: how Chicago police 'disappeared' 7,000 people
Exclusive: Lawsuit exposes scale of detention at off-the-books interrogation warehouse while attorneys describe find-your-client chase ‘from a Bond movie’
9147841745
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
stevelevitsky.bsky.social @stevelevitsky.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Lucan Way and I have been writing about competitive authoritarianism for more than 25 years. We never thought we'd write this piece. www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/com...
journalofdemocracy.org
Competitive Authoritarianism in America | Journal of Democracy
The United States has slid into competitive authoritarianism. The slide has been modest and remains reversible—but it is real. Even after Donald Trump, American democracy will remain fragile.
10643342
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
Brigid Alverson @brigidalverson.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I think it is crucial for the health of the Democratic party that the entire consultant class from previous administrations, including and especially Clinton, be told to go home and stop bothering people. They are wrong about everything and have been holding the party back for decades.
151327228
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
Musa Okwonga @okwonga.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
This AI discourse is amazing. "We've created this very dangerous thing, based largely on the mass theft of labour, that we should stop developing" - okay, so that means that you should be treated like social and economic vandals, not revered as sages on podcasts.
12997213
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
Bill @bill-of-lefts.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Can we call it apartheid now
71461351
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
The video shows the agents literally just leaving the guy in the street and driving off.
552595991
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
🎃 Imani Gandy Corn 🎃 @angryblacklady.blacksky.app · 20/09/2026
I just honestly can't get over that Save Women Sports, an anti-trans group could only find five trans athletes competing K through 12. Five. The NCAA president testified a year and a half ago or so that there were less than 10 college level trans athletes. What the fuck are we doing, people
16886292302
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
Coach Finstock @coachfinstock.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
AI killing kids at home and abroad. Good job everyone. This is exactly what I mean when I have been saying that vibecoders and recreational AI users are the hunters and sportsmen of the debate. Same bullshit logic the NRA used to stop gun bans and meaningful reform.
323833
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
Rob Delaney @robdelaney.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
If you or someone in your house is not trans, the only thing you should ever think about trans kids is “How might I brighten their day should I come across one?” Beyond that, you’re a fucking weirdo who is extremely useful to nazis.
131837345
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 18/09/2026
This is why I hate "just a tool" so so so much. You can make a calculator without access to every calculation. You can make photoshop without access to all photos. Someone show me a genai tool that didn't require all of our labour in its production. It's plagiarism software.
3540711431
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
Greg Greene (he/him/his) @greene.haus · 19/09/2026
That uncanny feeling when Sonnet 4.6 evaluates the core cognitive failure uncovered in both stories with more acuity than the dingbats at the Pentagon:
Max's framing adds something important to what we've been saying — and Randy Herman's highlighted line is the knife in it. 

We've been talking about Al-in-the-loop as an accountability diffusion mechanism, which it is. But Max is pointing at something that might actually be worse: genuine, sincere cognitive abdication. Not cynically inserting Al to create cover, but actually believing the Al had done the thinking — actually treating the output as resolved judgment rather than as an input requiring scrutiny. 

"It is not clear why they had such expectations" is investigators' language for: we cannot find a rational basis for the degree of trust these operators placed in this system. That's not a coverup being constructed after the fact. That's people who genuinely outsourced their epistemic responsibility and did not know they had done so. 

Which brings it back to the hype environment with real force. When the vendors, the press, the culture around these tools spends years telling people that Al is smarter than humans, faster than humans, less biased than humans — when the entire discourse around adoption is framed as resistance to AI is the error — you produce operators who are not cynically hiding behind the output. They are sincerely trusting it in contexts where that trust is catastrophically unwarranted. 

McNamara's people at least understood they were constructing a measurement system. They argued about what it measured. These operators apparently didn't know they needed to ask. 

The IBM slide assumed the human in the loop would know they were in a loop. That assumption may no longer hold.

(Note: the aforementioned IBM slide is the famed one that reads: "A computer can never be held accountable. Therefore a computer must never make a management decision."
628461
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
Michelle Goldberg @michellegoldberg.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
www.nytimes.com/2026/09/18/o...
241397531
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
rev. howard arson @theophite.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
it is genuinely fascinating to see a man who is simply blind to everything other than exploitation and brutality. he has Steppe Warlord Brain
301411147
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
Amee Vanderpool @girlsreallyrule.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
It looks like ICE is freaking out over all of the unqualified, un-vetted, un-fingerprinted desperation hires, so now officials are mass firing everyone that should have never been hired in the first place. wapo.st/3VfSxCd
831390430
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
mike taddow @miketaddow.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
kudos to macklemore here for —right off the bat— the perspective and acknowledgment of who the real victims are
I'm not sure how to start this. So I'm going to speak from the heart and share the truth. Ed Sheeran and his team have made the decision to remove me from The Loop tour.

But before I get into it, I want to say something that should be obvious. In this moment I think it matters. I am not a victim. Ed Sheeran is not a victim. Pink is not a victim. We have careers, money, opportunities, safety and audiences around the world. Whatever consequences any of us face for what we say, we get to go home to our families.

The victims are the Palestinian people. The men, women and children who have been killed, starved, displaced and forced to live through unimaginable violence. More than 20,000 children have been killed in Gaza alone. People are being killed today, and people will be killed tomorrow. I want to make sure that as I tell this story, we don't lose sight of that.
3438081136
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
Ed Markey @edmarkey.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
In Massachusetts, we have a responsibility to protect the vulnerable and stand up for those who need it. We don’t throw trans kids under the bus for political points. We protect them—and all of our neighbors—because trans rights are human rights.
149107961820
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
daryl "rupert pumpkin" b 🏳️‍⚧️ @hypercubexl.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
GDT's reddit AMA spitting fire www.reddit.com/r/movies/com...
reddit comment: 

Hello! Did you intend the ending of Pan’s labyrinth to be real or in Ofelia’s mind?

Guillermo Del Toro's reply: 

My interpretation, and it's exclusively mine, is that it's real.

Because there's two things. One is what people call “The Shining Question.” The Shining Question is, Who opens the door for Jack to get out of the fridge? And Ofelia is in an attic with a guard outside her door, and she draws the door with the magic chalk, and she shows up in the labyrinth. So, the only way she could have gone into the labyrinth is the magic chalk. And the flower is real at the end. The flower that blooms in the dead tree. And the reason I think it’s real is because—and this is why I'm in favor of the human factor in art—I think that art does transform the world. You know?

Think about it for a second. One of the goals, with all this movement, is to make you believe that art is vulgar. That art is nothing special, and anybody can do art. That is like me telling you that I'm faster at running than Usain Bolt but I “run” in my motorcycle. Well, that's not the same. That’s not the same at all.

Art is important, and they want you to believe it isn't. It's part of the idea of control. The goal is not to have artificial intelligence. The goal is to foster natural stupidity. The goal is to foster you not looking for answers, and to trust yourself entirely to an engine. Look at the way we are dipping our toes into these things. We are starting to ask the machine, Is this true? For now, there's a correlation between reality and what the answers of the machine are. For now. But soon, we won't even investigate further. We will be told it's true. And if the machine is in the hands of somebody who should not be trusted, then your reality has been completely and utterly fucked. Because your intelligence ends at the question. You don't seek the answer. It's given to you.Q: You recently mentioned that AI creates 'semi-compelling screensavers' and that you'd 'rather die' than use it. As a filmmaker who relies heavily on practical effects and creature design, what do you think is the biggest thing lost when a computer generates an image instead of a human hand?

GDT:

The three quarters of the process that gave you the chance to think of the idea that people don't think about without that process. Meaning, AI can get you to the middle really fast, but there's a dialectic with the process that gets you to that top 10%. I'll give you an example with the Pale Man.

We sculpted it as an old man, with a face. And then I said, Let's take out the face. This happened because I saw a photo of a manta ray and the poster for Don Coscarelli’s Phantasm. That combination, which happened at two different times during a week or a month, are not permutations that are chemically part of an equation. They are alchemy. And then I said, Take out the face, and then I said, Let's put the eyes on the hands. This triangulation happens because I spent a month or two months living with the idea of this creature. And it's not linear.

AI is like a super-fast engine that makes semi-sentient permutations of things that are already done. Creation is things that have never been done. Coming to exist.

And the second thing is the loss of the apprenticeship that one has as an artist. You're never a master; you're always an apprentice. This is a kinship I have with, for example, Chris Nolan. When he showed me The Odyssey, there’s a scene when Matt Damon is floating in the stormy ocean and I asked him—because we were talking about practical effects, and how great it is and that we both always use a maquette or a model—and I asked him, How did you do it? He said, “We put him in a storm in the ocean.”

And you're gonna find that 30% of a great image occurs accidentally. You know, either a drop of water hits the lens, or the camera shakes. I remember when in 1993, '94, Jim…
2845501916
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 08/09/2026
“Elon Musk destroyed USAID as a mechanism for killing off as many of the global poor and non-white as he can before they kill him first (as he, insanely, believes)” is not a conspiracy theory. In truth, it’s very hard to conclude anything else.
7838601024
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
More Palestinians have been killed (1,300) since the so-called ceasefire began in Gaza on 10th October 2025 than Israelis were killed on 7th October 2023 - including ten times as many children (300!) as were killed on 10/7. This is what a 'ceasefire' looks like for Palestinians.
311516575
matthewlian.bsky.social @matthewlian.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
COYOTE VS.ACME is so pure and beautiful and hilarious…the idea that it was shelved for a write off is an incomprehensible affront. Go to your local cinema and spend 90 perfect minutes marveling at this inventive and brilliant masterpiece.
010
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
Common Sense Good Government @commonsensegoodgov.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
This is the top republican donor
20697126
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
There's no forgiving this. No living it down. It's a stain on our humanity. When all this is over, the monsters who did this should be pariahs. And the soulless thugs who cheered it on while dehumanizing Haitian immigrants should be reminded of what they did every day of their lives.
14584482882
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
Jeet Heer @jeetheer.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
How many fascist cronies can a politician have before it becomes suspicious? www.thenation.com/article/poli...
thenation.com
How Many Fascist Cronies Can One Republican Have?
Georgia Senate candidate Mike Collins seems determined to answer that question.
26311
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
Preeti Chhibber @runwithskizzers.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
When we hate on these disgusting immoral evil billionaires it’s bc just look at everything Dolly did. They could be doing that. They could just be helping people and every day they choose not to help people. They choose to harm. And when they die, we’ll dance and laugh and be thankful they’re gone.
570572101
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
Daniel Radosh @radosh.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Republicans have spent the last year trying to defund Dolly Parton
article about proposed GOP cuts to Imagination Library in Indianaarticle about proposed GOP cuts to Imagination Library in Kentuckyarticle about proposed GOP cuts to Imagination Library in Missouriiarticle about proposed GOP cuts to Imagination Library in Washington
7165572897
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
The Hollywood Reporter @thr.com · 24/08/2026
"A market ceases to function when competition disappears. And it’s disappearing," contends writer Mike Schur in a guest column for The Hollywood Reporter
bit.ly
Mike Schur: The Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger Is Existential for Writers
Let’s begin with a statement of fact: mega mergers in Hollywood are bad for writers. They’re also bad for actors and directors, for production designers and caterers, for carpenters and Teamsters and electricians and set decorators. They are bad for consumers, who get fewer choices in entertainment controlled by fewer bosses with narrower worldviews. Mergers are bad for local businesses, who lose paying customers from disappearing productions. They are bad for high level TV and film executives, and entry-level assistants, and everyone in between.
10745199
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
Bill @bill-of-lefts.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
there is no realistic option but to pack this court
934135
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
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
20385002230
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
Schooley @schooley.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Remember how they would drag their feet for months when it had the effect of keeping Trump from prosecution. But this? Emergency ballroom.
ms.now
Chief Justice Roberts backs Trump’s urgent bid to allow ballroom construction for now
A federal appellate panel ruled against Trump over dissent from a judge he appointed to the bench. His administration asked the justices to intervene.
943132767
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Some of the richest people in the world want a racial caste system, and they want scholarly backing for that in the form of racist pseudoscience. And a lot of ostensibly non racist people quietly agree, and don’t like to see those who peddle that pseudoscience excluded from mainstream institutions.
7855071452
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
Jen Taub @jentaub.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
“A single-payer universal health care system could cover every American, save more than 100,000 lives a year, and still cost $1 trillion less than the system it would replace, according to a new preprint study led by researchers at the Yale School of Public Health.” ysph.yale.edu/news-article...
ysph.yale.edu
Universal Health Coverage Could Save $1 Trillion and 114,000 Lives Every Year, Yale Study Projects
A single-payer universal health care system could cover every American, save more than 100,000 lives a year, and still cost $1 trillion less than the system it
595165447122
matthewlian.bsky.social @matthewlian.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
@kenwhite.bsky.social congrats on getting your very own special night!
000
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
eddietg51-42.bsky.social @eddietg51-42.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
More cops have been arrested for using flock cameras to stalk women than there are trans athletes in youth sports.
87101692921
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
Kim Masters @kimmasters.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
I cannot believe Ari Emanuel would write this and @wsj.com would publish it without disclosing that they are business partners, and Ari’s company TKO got $7 billion from David Ellison’s Paramount for UFC rights. www.wsj.com/opinion/the-...
wsj.com
Opinion | The Paramount-Warner Merger Could Save Hollywood
California’s attorney general ignores the reality of competition in the entertainment business.
401160415
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
Working Class History @workingclasshistory.com · 28/07/2026
#OtD 28 Jul 1932 the US government sent in the army to attack WWI vets and their families with tanks, fixed bayonets, teargas and sabres, killing three, when vets marched demanding wartime bonuses they were promised. stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1001...
313765
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
J🌹 @suburbansocialist.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
My revulsion at the mainstream media for participating in the WHCD tonight can’t be overstated. They’re laughing at his jokes and shaking his hand? Fuck off. The corporate press is an enemy addicted to access. And this was true before the Ellison’s started their takeover.
192085347
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
IrishStar.com @irishstar.com · 22/07/2026
President Donald Trump attended the dignified transfer of troops who were killed over the weekend in Jordan and Iraq.
irishstar.com
Donald Trump mocked after his 'diaper nurse' is spotted at dignified transfer
76111
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
tony romm @tonyromm.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
NEW: In a stunning admission, the Trump administration admitted in court documents that it canceled billions in energy grants to states "based solely" on politics -- and whether that state was represented by Democrats and backed Harris in 2024. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/24/b...
nytimes.com
Trump Administration Admits Canceling Grants to States That Did Not Vote for Him
Federal officials said in court documents that they halted billions of dollars in funding for energy projects to states “based solely” on whether they backed President Trump in the 2024 election.
28961182932
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
God @thegodshow.com · 21/07/2026
Seen in Philadelphia.
259142704699
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
David J. Bier @davidjbier.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
An ICE private prison guard shot Emma Landis as Emma protested on the sidewalk, while he was in his car waiting to enter the facility. He and all his ICE friends waiting to enter did nothing to help her, and she had to call 911 herself.
421385
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
fields. Instead, he apparently laced into the company. According to the Financial Times, Eggers told the staff:

“The effect of ChatGPT on educators’ lives is catastrophic. Whether you intended to do it or not, you’ve made every teacher’s life infinitely more difficult than it was two years ago. So, just let that settle in… If students are using it to compose, which is the biggest tragedy of all, they’ll never learn to write. And their voice is stolen from them. They’ll never have the ability to say their truth and tell their own story. And that’s silencing an entire generation or two.”
2861362183
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
Jay Willis @jaywillis.net · 17/07/2026
I found this quote from Riley Gaines to be really striking. Straight-up conceding that the purpose of trans sports bans is to normalize transphobia, and to give "ordinary" people "more cover" expressing it in public. ballsandstrikes.substack.com/p/anti-trans...
In the paragraph that follows, I am going to briefly subject you to something that, if I were not writing a newsletter, I would not ask my worst enemy to read: insights from the mind of Riley Gaines, whose ability to parlay a fifth-place finish at a college swim meet into a career as an anti-trans podcaster is a tribute to what late-stage capitalism can accomplish.

“I think we’re going to continue to see movement and allow the people’s voice to be heard, especially in some of those purple states,” Gaines told Politico last month, after the Supreme Court in West Virginia v. B.P.J. upheld state lawmakers’ power to bar trans girls from playing women’s sports. “Each major decision gives your ordinary person more cover to say something that…was the standard, like the default position to take, really not that long ago.”

In other words, B.P.J. is not (only) about keeping girls like 16-year-old Becky Pepper-Jackson from playing on the same team as her friends. It is about empowering people to feel more comfortable expressing rank bigotry in public.
392246605
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
actual gestapo shit. "Video posted on social media showed two plainclothes Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents appearing to handcuff a man at a Las Vegas airport while he screamed in terror."
nbcnews.com
ICE agents in plainclothes handcuff man at Las Vegas airport, shocking onlookers
After their actions attracted attention, the agents walked away, leaving Phu Nguyen with a handcuff attached to one arm. He was later arrested before his flight left Los Angeles International Airport
472328761
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
Emily (spooky) @emilyrose.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
It’s worth noting that Taco Bell identified the source before the FDA did, and promptly pulled it from their stores. The FDA didn’t even name the source until Taylor Farms outed themselves, and hasn’t issued a recall. Basically, Taco Bell is now a more reliable authority than the FDA.
10186897366
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
Patrick Cosmos @veryimportant.lawyer · 16/07/2026
every time trump is president you gotta wash your groceries
4375821720
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
Brian Beutler @brianbeutler.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Call me a cynic, but I simply think there’s a ~zero percent chance that two low-character fanatics on the Supreme Court have decided to stick it out for another term or two and hope the midterms go OK. www.offmessage.net/p/samuel-ali...
offmessage.net
How Low Would Sam Alito Go?
Brace yourself for LEGAL judicial election interference, and another heist.
22782148
Reposted by @matthewlian.bsky.social
Marcelius Braxton @marceliusb.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Their model: 1) Racism is largely individual not systemic. 2) Racism only exists if it’s egregious. 3) Racism is only egregious if it’s outlandish/one explicitly states their intent to be racist. 4) Even then, it’s probably just words that won’t extend to action, and they didn’t *really* mean it.
19701107