iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

This interview was genuinely alarming. Everything said was gibberish or obfuscation to the point of gibberish. It was difficult to listen to. If he is representative of the people leading this “transition,” I fear for humanity.

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

This is getting to be shame-on-me territory but trying and failing to impeach a bunch of people isn’t solving the political problem. And sending people to jail doesn’t require impeachment first - thankfully, since we won’t be able to impeach any of them!

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Duty should demand actual consequences for illegality lol my point is dems should figure out how to actually hold these cretins accountable, not conduct failed show votes to make people feel good that they “did something.” IMO, the focus shouldn’t be political anyway. It should be legal

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I’m also not saying that impeachment without the guarantee of conviction is always bad. Trump’s impeachment after 1/6 was the correct action to take. Just saying that conducting a bunch of failed impeachments of cabinet secretaries etc may not have the effect you guys think it will.

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

The reason Mike skipped town to avoid the vote has nothing to do with Pete Hegseth being concerned about being impeached. They adjourned because the vote would split the caucus and embarrass the president before the midterms. Those dynamics would be reversed if dems control the house.

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I can understand the impulse but not sure a bunch of failed impeachment attempts show people that “laws still exist.” Seems at least just as likely it shows the opposite. Also, with no hope for conviction, not sure how this would make any of them sweat. Can almost guarantee most would relish it.

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Yeah, if china knows they have to buy in the next 3 ish months, and has concluded the disruptions are only going to get worse, coupled with their own buying signal immediately trapping the market higher, seems like aggressive front loading is the rational move. No need for exotic IR motives

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Not to pile on, but this is the dunk equivalent of “this guy thinks the earth is round!”

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

The point is that as these systems become more sophisticated, they will, at a minimum, be able to successfully imitate internal states of being. Given the difficulty in even proving human internal states of being, this is going to obviously create some difficult questions!

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

What did acton say that equated being trans with some sort of deficiency?

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Give me a single example of a prominent or even semi prominent democratic politician who has equated trans people with being inherently bad or wrong in someway, like the hypothetical you offered.

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

What democratic politician is saying anything remotely similar to this about trans people?

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

No one is doing that. Trans rights, like gay rights previously, are controversial. It took 50 years to secure full rights for gay people, which was deeply unfair. Would it have been better tho to pursue a pure, but unsuccessful path to those rights instead of the compromised, but successful one?

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

This is an illustrative response. The idea here is that trans rights exist and I’m asking for them to be relinquished. It’s the opposite tho. I’m arguing to pursue the most likely path for securing full civil rights for trans people. There’s a path from here to there that must be *traversed*

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

An impossible truth for folks to admit is the path most likely to limit harm and push progress is the grubby one - the one that requires the offense of their own sensibilities. Not to psychologize but the ad hominems just seem like displaced anger that the world is not how they wish it to be.

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

AI and its discourse does seem unusually well-suited to this sort of can-kicking, with anticipated, then achieved, states of being seamlessly absorbed into an ever-impending NWO. Given the timelines tho, not sure if this is some much needed sobriety or merely cope in the face of a barreling train

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Given the past 20+ years of what the tech industry has wrought, not sure opposition to an obvious synecdoche of the industry should be seen as “social paranoia”

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

As a gay man living in the Midwest, this unfortunately is a stereotype all its own lol

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

It’s unintuitive because you’re managing 8 or 10 burners with no active visual cue. You’re looking back to a bank of numbers, which in a fast-paced, complex dynamic is a mess. The tech will likely develop better visual UI but rn it’s still lacking.

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

The interfaces for those systems are not intuitive to use in complex and fast-paced environments like a restaurant pasta station like gas is. They’re just not. And using a laser thermometer to manage cooking surface temp is…not workable. The UI will likely improve but rn it still is lacking.

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Yeah, it’s a good point. Unfortunately, the UI on these systems hasn’t caught up to the needs of most professional kitchens yet. But I think you’re right that there are probably some creative engineering solutions for solving the major issues eventually, which would be great.

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

For home cooks, there are much fewer reasons to prefer gas but for restaurant kitchens, managing 8 or 10 active orders can be difficult without the visual cues and reactivity of a flame. It’s a real structural limitation to electric in general.

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

As a lifelong cook currently building out a restaurant kitchen of my own, there are genuine trade-offs that aren’t “but mah wok.” Just like with cooking over coals vs gas grills, there are real pros and cons. Gas is a health hazard but induction has some real shortcomings too, unfortunately

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on the volatility seen in the data.

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Absolutely. We still have people litigating the senate primary here in Michigan, demanding bridge-mending etc in the face of fascism. Same shit happens with leftists undermining moderates in the run-up to elections. The whole party and its leadership needs to start acting like we’re in an emergency.

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Two-ish months out from a midterm election isn’t the time to litigate intra-party issues, I agree. That being said, feckless and ineffective opposition leadership should be aggressively pressured, especially amidst authoritarian pushes. Policing your own is important work, esp in difficult moments

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

…the point of the article is to highlight the impacts of echo chambers on political movements. To think this is some sort of moral “both-sidesism” is, frankly, brain dead.

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Yeah, I don’t necessarily disagree. I just think it’s much less likely to lead to a stable equilibrium compared to, say, expanding the number of states. SC reform might be a necessary intermediate step but imo it doesn’t feel like an enduring structural change like added states would be.

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Added states are likely to be durable and unlikely to cause an escalation trap. Expanding the court seems to be the opposite. Not sure how a restructured SC doesn’t end up gutted and re-restructured under a different congress/wh.

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Wow John Ossoff is going to be president lol

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Some deeply weird, Freudian stuff going on here…

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Does feel like there’s real risk for them rn that both markets and the wider global order come to the comically long-delayed conclusion that these are, in fact, not serious people. Will be interesting to see what the consequences are of that realization are…

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

This isn’t terribly insightful at this point but it’s difficult to come up with a word that describes the ethos of this admin more than rape. Personal, environment, financial, civic rape as a governing and moral philosophy.

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Reposted by Michael Smith

Simon McGarr @tupped.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

laurenleek.substack.com/p/temperatur... An excellent and easily readable essay on the creeping effects of sameness on streets, music and culture as a whole (and the actual one weird regulatory trick to break out). Don’t let the graph image put you off, this is a good one.

laurenleek.substack.com

Temperature Zero for Culture: Why Everything Is Starting to Look the Same

What 640 London shopping streets, 4,000 Billboard hits, a million films and synthetic AI personas tell us about why everything is flattening into sameness and how to regulate the algorithms behind it.

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Regardless of the merits of M4A, it just makes no sense to center this issue in this campaign. He has three months to make his case and I sincerely hope he doesn’t spend a good chunk of it litigating the most politically fraught policy question of our time. This first week is making me nervous tho..

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

I understand the impulse here but stating the plainly obvious fact that, beyond everything else, ending up in a much weaker position after starting our absurd war of choice is humiliating is just flatly true. Acknowledging the humiliation doesn’t need to equate to want for more war.

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

I hope people will be able to put it behind them but it’s going to be extremely painful, regardless of who comes out on top. Haven’t seen a primary like this in quite a while

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

Being on the ground here, this whole primary has felt like watching a slow motion car crash and it looks like that’s going to continue right thru to the primary results. Like constructed in a lab to cause maximum harm.

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

I promise, no one is having fun here lol

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Yeah, actually I’m confident @dieworkwear.bsky.social has thoughts on this topic lol

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Degradation of quality runs the gamut across consumer goods but especially in apparel. Even the highest end products have seen a substantial decrease in craftsmanship and material quality. Even the luxury houses have to pursue access and convenience at the expense of quality.

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

You’re talking about technological innovation here, which is an entirely different topic and is orthogonal to the one we’re actually discussing.

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

…ok, I have a feeling you’re dumb so shame on me but the metrics are - again, quality of craftsmanship and materials. The number of man-hours spent, the quality of construction of the garments/footwear. The expertise of the crafspeople themselves. Again, it’s an immensely well-documented trend lol

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Based on quality of craftsmanship and materials. There’s a lot of work that’s been done on the topic. Dana Thomas wrote a whole book on it about a decade ago called Deluxe: how luxury lost its luster. Dozens of articles and write-ups over the years. It’s a well-established reality in the industry

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

These trends are consistent across all segments of the consumer economy, including for the most rarefied products. Luxury apparel, for example, has seen its standards degrade substantially over the past 100 years, due to these exact same forces.

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Def no ideal time in the past and comparing is fraught. I wouldn’t even argue that “value” of goods has decreased. Everything moves in one direction over time tho - cheaper, more convenient, more choices. Over a long horizon, things can start to feel bleak even amidst a sea of preferred outcomes

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

People obviously prefer cheap and convenient. It’s not some conspiracy by the capitalists. Those prefs tho have 100% led to a secular decline in the quality, longevity, and aesthetics of essentially everything. Rational choices can, and often do, lead to sub-optimal outcomes in the aggregate.

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Well, I’m sure if we just calmly explain to the GOP voters she’ll need to win that SC isn’t a border state anyway, she’s a shoe-in! If a dem in SC is going to ask for scarce dollar resources for her campaign, she better be willing to run a campaign that at least nominally has winning as the goal

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

I think people like Steve Jobs and Julia Child felt more like characters from a movie already, sort of set apart from real life. Even if you didn’t actually know Tony, like myself, you felt like you did. You could really see him, even if he didn’t necessarily always mean to be in full view.

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Michael Smith @michaelsmithd.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

There does seem to be something about this sort of schoolyard, purposefully obtuse taunting that has a sort of fascist inflection to it. There’s a sort of giddiness that revels in the absurdity and purposeful slander of it and the chance at domination it offers.

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