Sign in

Utopian Incrementalist

@meliorist.bsky.social
657 followers 321 following 2.6K posts

Liberal, pragmatist, humanist, democrat, reformist, meliorist, American, cosmopolite. "To be ignorant of the past is to remain forever a child." -- Cicero

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Utopian Incrementalist
Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 4h
Establish that violations of the Emoluments Clauses and the Establishment Clause are impeachable. Establish that war crimes are impeachable. None of these require the mens rea questions that so sidetracked the first two Trump impeachments. The facts are the facts.
745472
Reposted by Utopian Incrementalist
Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 4h
such that the impeachment votes could be held seriatim on day one of a new Congress. There could be fifty different charges against Trump. Let the Senate try ' em all. Establish that violations of the War Powers Act, the Budget and Impoundment Act, or the Antideficiency Act are impeachable.
143664
Reposted by Utopian Incrementalist
Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 4h
I'm not naive enough to actually believe this will happen, but Democrats could be preparing, right now, lists of impeachment charges against (at a bare minimum) Hegseth, Kennedy, Mullin, Patel, Blanche, & Trump, as well as Bondi, Bovino, & Noem (still worth doing!) that rely purely on public facts,
401595320
Utopian Incrementalist @meliorist.bsky.social · 17h
AI bros have gone AI kawaii to smuggle their world-conquering ambitions inside stuffies and plushies.
010
Reposted by Utopian Incrementalist
James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
The GOP cut funding to the IRS because *audits work* and they fundamentally don't believe rich people should have to play by the rules.
Line chart titled "Revenue per audit," subtitled "In-person audits, 2010-2014." It plots average revenue and average cost per audit by taxpayer income percentile, poorer to richer, from the 0–5th percentile to the top 0.1%. Source: Boning et al. 2023, "A Welfare Analysis of Tax Audits Across the Income Distribution."

Across the bottom half of the income distribution, revenue and cost track closely, both around $3,000–$6,000 per audit. Above the median, revenue pulls ahead of cost: about $10,000 vs. $5,000 near the 90th percentile, and about $17,000 vs. $8,000 at the 95th–99th. At the top, revenue jumps to about $31,000 for the 99–99.9th percentile and about $90,000 for the top 0.1%.
273298771
Reposted by Utopian Incrementalist
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
What's a good way to visualize how the AI boom/bubble is propping up the economy? Ah, thanks.
12706190
Reposted by Utopian Incrementalist
Scott Lemieux @lemieuxlgm.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
The hot argument of Green Lantern/Murc's Law social media is that the word "codify" means that Congress can pass magic super-legislation that cannot be filibustered and is not subject to judicial review or repeal by future Congresses
511812
Reposted by Utopian Incrementalist
The Globe and Mail @theglobeandmail.com · 24/09/2026
theglobeandmail.com
Connecting the dots to explain Angine de Poitrine’s Polaris Music Prize win
The Quebec experimental rock duo won the Polaris Music Prize for their album Vol. II and the SOCAN Polaris Song Prize for Fabienk
0162
Reposted by Utopian Incrementalist
"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
It remains true that if the Russians went home tomorrow, the drone strikes would stop, no Ukrainian would follow them over the border and the war would be over. They can just *go home* and be at peace. The war persists because Putin wants it to.
437353
Reposted by Utopian Incrementalist
Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 18/09/2026
This is the far more likely pathway for how AI will end us all, btw. Not via some superintelligent swarm of paperclip maximizers, but by a cascading sequence of dumb fuckups driven by human beings who have arranged things to be fast-moving and catastrophically fragile while also being really lazy.
17391150
Utopian Incrementalist @meliorist.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
We are being ruled by President Smaug.
000
Reposted by Utopian Incrementalist
Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 15/09/2026
Looking forward to when tech isn’t mostly surveillance, scam, fraud, or gambling (or all of the above).
theverge.com
Voicemod’s new pocket-friendly device brings real-time voice changing to your phone
Voicemod’s real-time voice changing comes to iOS and Android.
78719
Utopian Incrementalist @meliorist.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
A basic asymmetry that doesn't get discussed much: GOP voters are much more chill when their candidates tell strategic fibs during the campaign, while there is always some faction of left-leaning voters that scream bloody murder when Dem candidates try to do it.
150
Reposted by Utopian Incrementalist
Matt Weiner @mattweiner19.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Talarico's recent remarks are bad and people should be angry about them. what I am about to say is directed only at people who argue that it would be better for him and other Dems to lose: the "if Republicans win, Democrats will learn a lesson" theory of change has been tried. It has not worked.
57212
Reposted by Utopian Incrementalist
Scott Lemieux @lemieuxlgm.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
I can't stand this kind of "I'm not saying I want the Republican to win, I'm just saying I want the Democrat to lose" evasive non-sequitur, but it's also a dispositive tell that the person making the argument knows perfectly well that they're advocating an indefensible position
59873144
Reposted by Utopian Incrementalist
Rick Hasen @rickhasen.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Breaking: Supreme Court, with Justices Thomas and Alito Publicly Dissenting, Continue Block on USPS Rule Through the Midterm Elections [Now updated with Analysis] electionlawblog.org/2026/breakin...
electionlawblog.org
Breaking: Supreme Court, with Justices Thomas and Alito Publicly Dissenting, Continue Block on USPS Rule Through the Midterm Elections [Now updated with Analysis] #ELB
You can find the ruling at this link. The Supreme Court, with the noted dissents of Justices Kavanaugh and Thomas, has rejected the government’s mendacious attempt to put its USPS mail ballot rule in ...
1732796
Reposted by Utopian Incrementalist
PBS News @pbsnews.org · 15/09/2026
The Supreme Court on Monday rejected President Donald Trump's bid to restrict mail ballots for the midterm elections. The decision allows states to continue sending out mail ballots under the same processes they've used for years. to.pbs.org/4gTQyfj
pbs.org
Supreme Court rejects Trump mail ballot restrictions ahead of midterms
The decision allows states to continue sending ballots under existing processes used by nearly one-third of voters.
622836
Reposted by Utopian Incrementalist
BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
I do not remember anybody 'screaming' this at cis women, because it didn't happen; in fact one of the *repeated* points of the Clinton 2016 campaign was that the supreme court was at stake. Joe Biden's personal views also had exactly nothing to do with Roe being repealed.
1482881
Reposted by Utopian Incrementalist
Eleanor Courtemanche @ecourtem.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Completely not a novel but I just saw a PBS NOVA ep that dramatized how completely random Athenian democracy was, by rebuilding the lottery machine (“kleroterion”) they used to choose citizens *every day* for civic tasks It was amazing Fantastic way to crush an oligarchy
pbs.org
Athens: Birth of Democracy
Archaeologists investigate the dramatic origins of democracy in ancient Greece 2,500 years ago.
2122
Reposted by Utopian Incrementalist
BWJones @bwjones.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
More efforts at killing higher education in the United States. Good luck filling any of the specialized medicine training programs. And basic science? The engine that drives everything? This is bad. I’d argue even worse for businesses.
1119683
Utopian Incrementalist @meliorist.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
My unpopular take after 9/11 was (1) it was a fluke terrorist success that would not happen again once we wised up. (2) that most Americans were not thinking rationally about how to respond, and (3) the Bush admin would opportunistically do a bunch of stupid things they could now get away with.
131
Utopian Incrementalist @meliorist.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Causal explanations for this decline have to encompass the past 15 years or so and falling scores nearly everywhere in the world.
000
Reposted by Utopian Incrementalist
Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Unprecedented corruption www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
692576879
Reposted by Utopian Incrementalist
Matthew Hay Brown @matthewhaybrown.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
MORE FUN WITH GEOGRAPHY The U.N. General Assembly voted 164-1 to encourage use of the Equal Earth map, which depicts the relative size of Africa more accurately than the Mercator projection. The United States was the sole no vote www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/0...
1124371
Reposted by Utopian Incrementalist
Mark Jacob @markjacob.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Biden took the short stairs up to Air Force One instead of the long stairs and it was headline news. Trump publicly fantasizes about conquering neighboring countries and their 170+ million people and the news media will hardly mention it.
Map shows an imagined USA that incudes the current country plus Canada, Mexico, Cuba, Greenland etc.
841336438
Utopian Incrementalist @meliorist.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
As it turns out, I am already blocking 22 of these influential posters and following one of the them.
100
Reposted by Utopian Incrementalist
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
From the start, the path to peace—and not just a temporary ceasefire, but a just peace that can last—has been convincing Russia that its aggression cannot succeed. By helping Ukraine’s defense. Diplomacy based on assuming a poor, reasonable, peace-minded Putin has always been a recipe for more war.
319426
Reposted by Utopian Incrementalist
Jake Berman @lostsubways.com · 06/09/2026
As I wrote in my own book, CEQA is used mostly as a weapon against environmentally friendly things like new transit, housing and bike lanes. Most CEQA litigation is meant to drive up the cost of construction, in the hope that legal delays will make things too expensive to build. It often works.
The centerpiece of the post– Freeway Revolt re-
forms was a state law called the California Envi-
ronmental Quality Act (CEQA, pronounced seek-
wha). Signed by future president Ronald Reagan in
1970, CEQA requires state and local governments
to study and mitigate potential environmental im-
pacts of government decisions. In theory, CEQA
is a look- before- you- leap law. In practice, it allows
anybody with enough free time to bring billion-
dollar public works projects and multimillion-
dollar apartment buildings to a halt, by claiming
that the government hasn’t studied a particular
issue enough. Anyone can bring a CEQA law-
suit and there are no consequences for bringing
frivolous CEQA suits. Unsurprisingly, abuse of
the process is rife. In 2020, nearly half of all new
housing in the state of California was the target of
CEQA litigation. As my old professor Troy McK-
enzie used to say, “procedure is the last refuge of
the scoundrel.”
315728
Reposted by Utopian Incrementalist
JK @miniver.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
❝ Trump thinks that if you pay somebody $10 for a burrito than you have lost the $10, like it has been stolen from you. He’s not pretending; this is literally the basis of his trade policy. ❞
15715
Utopian Incrementalist @meliorist.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
I get irrationally angry at newspaper headlines that include the phrase "Here's Why" or "Here's How." My mind recoils every time I see this clickbaity degradation of language.
000
Utopian Incrementalist @meliorist.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
True story: I used to play football as a kid. I loved the sport. But I quit playing when I was around 14 because I was worried about damaging my brain. This was in the mid 1980s, and I had never heard anyone mention any risk of brain damage associated with playing football.
110
Utopian Incrementalist @meliorist.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Some of the most simplistic criticisms of Democrats are a refusal to understand who the electorate is. These critics have convinced themselves that a fantasy version of the American electorate would enthusiastically support liberal and leftists policies if we just had the right people and messages.
110
Reposted by Utopian Incrementalist
The New York Times @nytimes.com · 01/09/2026
Breaking News: A whistle-blower at the U.S. Postal Service said Trump officials were defying court orders with a “secretive, rushed” effort affecting voting by mail.
nyti.ms
Whistle-Blower Says Trump Officials Are Defying Court Orders on Voting by Mail
A report detailed “grave concerns” that a new system being rushed into use by the U.S. Postal Service could imperil millions of mail ballots ahead of the midterm elections.
16298170
Reposted by Utopian Incrementalist
NPR @npr.org · 01/09/2026
A whistleblower says the U.S. Postal Service is rushing out an online system for President Trump's push to restrict mail voting that could "derail" the midterm election if courts allow it to proceed. n.pr/4xvMl7f
n.pr
Whistleblower claims USPS plan for Trump's mail voting order could 'derail' midterms
A whistleblower says the U.S. Postal Service is rushing out an online system for President Trump's push to restrict mail voting that could "derail" the midterm election if courts allow it to proceed.
59883492
Reposted by Utopian Incrementalist
Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 30/08/2026
I’ll admit that I initially hate clicked, but it was not what I expected.
usatoday.com
Data centers are great and we should fully embrace them | Opinion
When I learned a data center was being built near my town or city, I stood up on my human chair and cheered.
76716
Reposted by Utopian Incrementalist
Liberal Currents @liberalcurrents.com · 30/08/2026
"Dirtbagism repackages antisocial and crankish attitudes as progressive authenticity. Rather than being strictly about substance, it’s an affective thing—an approach to politics that relishes aggression, mean-spiritedness, and heterodoxy as virtues unto themselves."
liberalcurrents.com
The Dirtbags Won’t Save Us
There is no path out of our present crisis offered by the exaltation of callousness.
510717
Reposted by Utopian Incrementalist
Scott Lemieux @lemieuxlgm.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Not a fan of Hasan Piker but he's a guy who streams monologues to a small audience. Elon spends hundreds of millions of dollars trying to get Republicans elected and was for weeks the second most powerful member of the federal government, but oddly Republicans are rarely grilled about his views
632323480
Reposted by Utopian Incrementalist
Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 29/08/2026
Data centers “get a lot of attention for their intensive water and energy usage, but their constant noise emission has nearby residents up in arms too.”
bloomberg.com
Unlikely Winners of the Data Center Boom: Sound Consultants
The sprawling facilities get a lot of attention for their water and energy usage, but it’s the threat of constant noise emission that has nearby residents up in arms. That’s where the acousticians com...
17325
Reposted by Utopian Incrementalist
Brian Honan @brianhonan.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Happy Skynet day to all those who celebrate
6252251727
Utopian Incrementalist @meliorist.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Another anecdote to add to the file marked "democracy for realists."
051
Utopian Incrementalist @meliorist.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Ah, I see social media addicts are having another meltdown over something most normal people would react to by shrugging their shoulders. Helpful reminder to self: spend less time on social media.
030
Reposted by Utopian Incrementalist
M. Sims @peltast1.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Oreos becoming so dangerously FUDGY that the universe may be at risk, Nabisco CEO says.
0325
Reposted by Utopian Incrementalist
Daniel Gilmore @gilmored85.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
I continue to be absolutely amazed that the conspiracy theory Jake Tapper & Alex Thompson alleged was happening under Biden—an enfeebled elderly president is being secretly managed by his aides who are hiding his declining health—is actually happening under Trump & theyve mostly just shrugged.
22577147
Reposted by Utopian Incrementalist
Matt Seybold @mattseybold.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Anybody who’s still advocating putting these tools anywhere near a school is not doing so despite the cognitive collapse they cause, but because of it. dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn...
Abstract
Using 30 months of panel data on 26,811 Chinese students in grades 7-12, we study how generative Al affects homework productivity and learning. The data combine monthly closed-book exams, high-school and college entrance exams, and homework scores and completion time across nine subjects. We exploit staggered Al adoption in a difference-in-differences design. Al adoption raises homework scores by 18% and reduces completion time by 30%, but lowers monthly exam scores by 20% within six months.
High-stakes entrance-exam scores fall by 18 and 24%, with the full penalty emerging only after about two years. The losses are largest in social science subjects, followed by STEM and languages, and are especially large for junior students, high-achieving students, and boys. The learning losses are concentrated among roughly 80% of Al users whose behavior is consistent with homework outsourcing, as indicated by exceptionally short homework completion time coupled with high homework scores. Al users who maintain similar homework completion time as non-Al users experience small learning losses.
131226461
Reposted by Utopian Incrementalist
The Guardian @theguardian.com · 22/08/2026
‘She’s not afraid of anyone’: the prison writings of one of Hong Kong’s last outspoken democracy activists
theguardian.com
‘She’s not afraid of anyone’: the prison writings of one of Hong Kong’s last outspoken democracy activists
Chow Hang-tung has been detained since 2021, and written about everything from clothes to Tiananmen Square and the meaning of freedom
29232
Reposted by Utopian Incrementalist
Sean Hecht @seanbhecht.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Imagine what the national news outlets would’ve said if Joe Biden had, seemingly through free association, suggested “military intervention” as a way to address turmoil in the bond market
172
Reposted by Utopian Incrementalist
Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
“.. Adam Mockler of MeidasTouch responded, ‘Uh, I don’t know, honestly.’” @mediaite.com www.mediaite.com/media/tv/wha...
48885213
Utopian Incrementalist @meliorist.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Also obliterated is the polite fiction that expert witnesses are expected to be neutral and impartial,
110
Reposted by Utopian Incrementalist
Bobby Kogan @bbkogan.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
You can’t talk about debt without talking about how we got into a bad predicament, and there’s only one correct answer: tax cuts enacted this century
U.S. debt is on track to reach historic levels
Debt held by the public as a percentage of the gross domestic product, 1792-2055
- Historical - • Projected → Without Bush and Trump tax cuts
187.55%
180%
160
140
120|
100
80
99.38%
60
• 47.85%
40
20
0
1800|
1820 1840 1860|
1880
1900 1920 1940|
1960|
1980 2000 2020 2040|
Hover or click to see values.
• Notes:
Source: Authors' calculations using data from the Congressional Budget Office, the Joint Committee on Taxation, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, the U.S. Census Bureau, the Federal Reserve, the Yale Budget Lab, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. A full list of sources is available here.
Chart: Center for American Progress
7234441179
Reposted by Utopian Incrementalist
Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 17/08/2026
“Writing builds our working memory, executive planning skills and metacognition — the ability to think about our thinking, weigh alternate viewpoints and revise for clarity and style. It takes decades to develop writing skills, from toddlerhood into adulthood.”
nytimes.com
What Do Students Lose When They Stop Writing?
Educators are worried that many students can no longer write essays without A.I. And it’s costing more than just grammar skills.
5366133