iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Utopian Incrementalist @meliorist.bsky.social · 2h

Marc Andreessen thinks that he is part of the cognitive elite, the only people that matter, and that the rest of humanity is a bunch of NPC's. All of his political beliefs follow from that basic premise.

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Utopian Incrementalist @meliorist.bsky.social · 3h

The real reading crisis, as I understand it, is mostly a cultural problem not an educational problem. Like adults, children and adolescents are increasingly less likely to read in their leisure time. That change shows up on reading test scores. Tinkering with schools will not solve the larger issue.

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

The targeting of one data center is proving a really useful natural experiment showing which sites and ideologies are an echo chamber of Russian propaganda

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Utopian Incrementalist @meliorist.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

I am currently reading "Strangers" by Belle Burden, and on page 193 she drops this sentence: "I hated his favorite band, Dinosaur Jr., and told him to turn it down, or turn it off, when he played their albums loudly from his laptop." Oh no!

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Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

I will not only be relieved but truly *ecstatic* to be wrong, if more and better studies soon start showing that AI actually improves learning and cognitive motivation. But so far they all show the opposite, and that is consistent with the evidence that I and other educators are seeing on the ground

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Bill Kristol @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Important report from the Civil Defense Institute: The Trump administration added 'Border Hawk News" to the White House press pool last month. Its editor-in-chief is an Alex Jones type conspiracist and an avid promoter of Great Replacement bigotry open.substack.com/pub/civildef...

open.substack.com

Border Hawk Media & The Legacy of the "Great Replacement" Theory

The White House gave a press pool seat to a news outlet built on the “great replacement” theory.

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Utopian Incrementalist @meliorist.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

So if the Democrats win Congress, it must be what the people want: it's a mandate.

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Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

NEW: Prime Minister Andy Burnham finally breaks a decade of UK govt silence…& reveals there was ‘clear’ Russian interference in the Brexit vote. 1/

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Utopian Incrementalist @meliorist.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

My blocking regimen must be working since I haven't seen any of these posts, only the responses.

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Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

So that is the critical question and we don’t know the answer. If you rely on AI during the years when your brain is at its peak learning capacity, and when intellectual formation happens, how lasting is the damage? Can it be reversed? Can you learn later how to think for yourself? How much later?

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Utopian Incrementalist @meliorist.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

I unleash my rage on the clanker so that I can be calm, civil, and pleasant when I finally talk to a real human being. It's a good way to vent.

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Utopian Incrementalist @meliorist.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Why can't politicians stop pretending this is a valuable idea rather than what it actually is, a sop to special interests?

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Eliot Higgins @eliothiggins.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Turning state violence into a public spectacle is a very fascist move BTW.

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Kai Ryssdal @kairyssdal.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Pay to play, baby...

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Utopian Incrementalist @meliorist.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Also, um, the ancient Greeks had gymnasiums. Look up the etymology of the term. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gymnasi...

en.wikipedia.org

Gymnasium (ancient Greece) - Wikipedia

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Utopian Incrementalist @meliorist.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Peter Pan Syndrome has swept over society.

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Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

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.

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Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

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.

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Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

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,

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Utopian Incrementalist @meliorist.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

A school's academic facilities are for the use and enjoyment of all students; that is what they are paying tuition for and what the school is obligated to give them access to. Blocking access to those facilities deprives other students of what they have the right to use.

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Utopian Incrementalist @meliorist.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

AI bros have gone AI kawaii to smuggle their world-conquering ambitions inside stuffies and plushies.

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Utopian Incrementalist @meliorist.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Pods or pucks, it's still bad coffee.

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Utopian Incrementalist @meliorist.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

I saw the trailer before watching the "Odyssey," and . . . . it looked like one of the most annoying films ever made. It was a complete turnoff.

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Utopian Incrementalist @meliorist.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

The difference between weighing yourself before or after a healthy leak.

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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%.

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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.

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Utopian Incrementalist @meliorist.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I had a different experience; I don't know if it was the time or the place. I took nothing but honors English class from 7th through 12th, and most of the students were nerdy or studious enough to enjoy the reading. I had one friend who wouldn't read, and I felt rather contemptuous of him.

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Utopian Incrementalist @meliorist.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I took AP European History about 35 odd years ago, but back then it felt like just another high school class. All of my AP classes felt that way to me; they were nothing like college classes. I have always felt it to be rather silly to get college credits for high school classes.

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Utopian Incrementalist @meliorist.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Feeling sorry for John Anzalone's spouse (if he has one).

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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

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Utopian Incrementalist @meliorist.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

You might want to update your list. The one about schooling and education is apparently apocryphal. marktwainstudies.com/the-apocryph...

marktwainstudies.com

I have never let schooling interfere with my education

Visit the post for more.

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"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.

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Utopian Incrementalist @meliorist.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

The creators of cutting-edge technology want a bunch of fucking management consultants to tell them how to control their technology?

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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.

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Utopian Incrementalist @meliorist.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Is that a lot of pus? I'm not really familiar with that sort of thing.

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Utopian Incrementalist @meliorist.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

We are being ruled by President Smaug.

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Utopian Incrementalist @meliorist.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Not that there is very much we can do about this dynamic. You cannot engineer a cultural shift like that just because it would be to your electoral advantage. It's just one more asymmetry that disfavors the Democrats.

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Utopian Incrementalist @meliorist.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Meanwhile, various factions on the lift are primed (in good faith or bad faith) to see the Democrats as feckless and corrupt sellouts who will throw them under the bus at the whenever convenience, and these factions are falling all over themselves to take a moral stand against the rotten Dems.

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Utopian Incrementalist @meliorist.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

I mean, GOP candidates almost never pay a price for lying on the campaign trail. They seem to know intuitively that once the election is over you can wipe the slate clean because few people will remember or care as soon as the post-election hurly-burly starts.

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Utopian Incrementalist @meliorist.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

On average, rightwingers are just more ruthless about gaining power and doing whatever it takes. It's a strategic disadvantage for Democrats.

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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.

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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.

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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

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Utopian Incrementalist @meliorist.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Social media platforms are machines for generating stochastic brainrot.

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