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Misha

@michort.bsky.social
152 followers 185 following 46 posts

Birds, languages, being a human, etc

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Misha @michort.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
An ongoing tragedy: www.tucsonsentinel.com/local/report...
tucsonsentinel.com
Enviros move to protect cottonwoods threatened by Az border wall
At the center of the hamlet of Lochiel, Ariz., a cluster of ancient cottonwoods has stretched across the U.S.-Mexico border, forming a canopy of shade that has stood for decades. But in the next few d...
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Good Trailcams @goodtrailcams.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
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Misha @michort.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
Yes, was coming here to say that Gutenberg.org was my bff in a similar scenario!
gutenberg.org
Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg is a library of free eBooks.
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Alix Dunn @alixdunn.com · 31/05/2026
Oh hell yeah @amnesty.org comes out swinging: "Amnesty International finds that standalone generative AI systems... are fundamentally incompatible with IHRL. As such, Amnesty International is calling for a prohibition of such systems." www.amnesty.org/en/documents...
amnesty.org
Unlawful by design: Exposing the human rights costs of generative AI - Amnesty International
This briefing examines how standalone generative AI systems, based on unlawful web scraping, are in conflict with international human rights law (IHRL) and standards through their design, development ...
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Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
Incredible piece, but it needs to be said explicitly: these people are dangerous eugenicists. They want the "wrong" people to be exterminated and replaced by AI. That's abhorrent and you can't pretend otherwise.
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blair @blairaf.com · 29/05/2026
One of the more misogynistic takes currently trending in the AI policy space is "women use less AI than men because they have less tech literacy" Ok but have you considered that women use less AI than men because we have more tech literacy?
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Misha @michort.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
I bought a used copy of A Tale of Two Cities that contained the margin note “He’s super old” on a dialogue about a character’s age and long life 😂 Chef’s kiss
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Lisa Diedrich @lisadiedrich.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
This is a super helpful primer on AI myths. I especially like this response to the hype that workers need to learn AI as a "necessary skill for all jobs": "Generative AI tools deskill workers by reducing their work to closely supervising bad outputs & by decreasing learning on the job."
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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
"Predictably, the huge spike in productivity that these companies claim their own AI products have enabled hasn’t resulted in more or better products, shorter work weeks, or better consumer experiences." www.404media.co/software-dev...
404media.co
Software Developers Say AI Is Rotting Their Brains
“It's making me dumber for sure.”
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Brian Merchant @bcmerchant.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
What so many have experienced personally has been confirmed by a new study: AI has been a disaster for working artists.
bloodinthemachine.com
The AI-inflected crisis artists are facing, in 4 charts
An alarming new study reveals the dire impact AI is having on artists' livelihoods. It does offer some hope, too.
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Keke @missorcs.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
Also??? Were any First Nation governments in BC consulted on this? Was any environmental assessment done? This is so underhanded wtf
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Alex Hanna @alexhanna.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
"I have a finite time on this earth that I mostly want to spend interacting with other human beings. I don’t want to be the person arguing with a robot, or wasting my time reading something that a real person couldn’t be bothered to write."
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ve, the ghost of info past @vortexegg.com · 08/05/2026
The anti-data center movement and the battle over which political parties gets to do politicized gerrymamdering in America have way more in common than the former does with housing debates
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Digital Naturalism Laboratories @dinalab.bsky.social · 09/05/2026
In celebration of #YearOfTheMoth, the Mothbox team hired an artist in Panama, David Francesco, to create a fun sticker pack so you can more adequately express yourself online via Moths! Available in @signal.org (and telegram + WhatsApp below!) #sciart #teammoth signal.art/addstickers/...
Collection of signal stickers
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Rachel Coldicutt @rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
I also think we should normalise laughing heartily at these massively over-the-top claims. "We've made a thing that will have zero obstacles to universal adoption and will work totally as intended, even though we aren't sure what it is yet" should be an objectively funny thing to say. And yet!
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Jamison Foser @jamisonfoser.bsky.social · 16/10/2025
John Lewis had John Roberts' number from the jump: takebackthecourt.substack.com/p/john-lewis...
Take Back the Court REP. JOHN LEWIS: In 1965, Jurist Roberts was only 10-years-old. He may be a brilliant lawyer, but I wonder whether he can really understand the depth of what it took to get the Voting Rights Act passed. The right to vote is precious, almost
sacred. It is the most powerful non-violent tool we have in a democratic society. As many of you know, I gave a little blood on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, but some
of my friends and colleagues gave all they had, their very lives for the right to vote. I feel that if Judge Roberts is confirmed to be the Chief Justice of the United States, the Supreme Court would no longer hear the people's cries for justice. I feel that the leadership of the Court will promote politics over the protection of individual rights and liberties. If the Federal Courts had abandoned us in the civil rights movement in the name of judicial restraint, we might still be struggling with the
burden of legal segregation in America today. Jurist Roberts's memos reveal him to be hostile towards civil rights, affirmative action and the Voting Rights Act. He has even said that Voting Rights Act
violations, and I quote, "should not be made too easy to prove.'
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Misha @michort.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
Was just coming here to lament the missed opportunity…the author is from a NJ suburb of Philly, Flyers just beat the Penguins in round 1 of playoffs, and not one Gritty nod in this episode??? Smh @michaelhobbes.bsky.social and @notalawyer.bsky.social
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Mo Ryan @moryan.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
This fall there's going to be a huge, expensive, meticulously planned PR campaign for a very expensive show that will benefit a transphobic nightmare person. Every bit of spin you will read should be translated -- honestly -- as "I wanted this job so I took the job & don't care about anything else"
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Project Salt Box @projectsaltbox.com · 27/04/2026
🚨BREAKING: ICE issued a stop work order on the Surprise, Ariz., warehouse two days before AG @krismayes.bsky.social’s lawsuit for NEPA, INA, and APA violations. It is not clear why work was stopped. The verbiage matches a similar order issued in Md. AFTER a judge granted a TRO in that case.
open.substack.com
Work on $313 Million Contract to Convert ICE Warehouse in Surprise, Arizona, Was Ordered Stopped Before State Sued, Records Show
Federal contracting records show two successive modifications froze the GardaWorld construction contract — the same sequence that preceded a court-ordered halt at a companion facility in Maryland.
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ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 19/04/2026
this is an organization that exists to kill people. you should want it destroyed and you should be trying to put as much distance as possible between everyone that ever worked for palantir and any amount of power. this shouldn't be a moral quandary for you. hesitation means you failed already.
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Bsky Kreuger @lammatic.hellthread.vet · 17/04/2026
A VCR never sold my private info to a nazi
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Arri Blais @arri.tech · 16/04/2026
Team “masculine grandma”
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Pollyphemeus When the elections are rigged I told you so @pollyphemeus.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
It's almost like when you push people to do something they've repeatedly said no to, they find the only solution is to make you stop 🤷‍♀️
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Rua M. Williams @fractalecho.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
Very unimpressed by pop neurodiversity influencers and their AI apologia. More bullshit claiming that anti-AI stances are classist and ableist and racist. Meanwhile, AI is built on exploited black labor, kills disabled people every day, disposesses the working class, and drinks all our water.
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Birds of a feather 🏳️‍⚧️ @robinyourgrave.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
I'm one of those trans women. I worked ground ops for Artemis I. I am torn between celebrating the success of my friends and peers and grieving how my dream of working for NASA was shattered by hateful assholes in Tallahassee
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John Scalzi @scalzi.com · 11/04/2026
I missed this from @phineas.bsky.social when it originally came out but it sure feels relevant at the moment. Also, you can buy this as a print from the artist here: www.inprnt.com/gallery/phin...
A "wartime" poster that says: "Using Generative AI? You're Prompting with Hitler! GenAI is a Fascist Project! Try using your brain instead! Don't surrender your creativity to the Tech Billionaires' control!"
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nilay patel @reckless.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
I guess what I’m saying is great consumer products don’t make young people feel anger and despair the more they use them www.nytimes.com/2026/04/09/s...
More than half of Gen Z-ers living in the United States use generative artificial intelligence regularly, but their feelings about the technology are souring, according to a new survey released on Thursday by Gallup, the Walton Family Foundation and GSV Ventures, a venture capital firm that works in education technology.
The percentage of respondents ages 14 to 29 who said they felt hopeful about A.I. declined sharply since last year, down to 18 percent from 27. Young adults' excitement about artificial intelligence dropped, too, and nearly a third of respondents indicated that the technology made them feel angry.
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Dr. Divya (🔔 logged out) @divyampersaud.com · 07/04/2026
Every committee in Gaza has been raising the alarm about escalating hunger but no one is paying attention. Please support families. Please ACT for their lives. Not marches and petitions. Something new and bold. Hit “weekly” on spare change to help six families eat: linktr.ee/hopegivingci...
linktr.ee
Hope Giving Circle | Linktree
This giving circle sustains 6 families in Gaza and a mutual aid team serving a displacement camp of 15 more with food, water, shelter, medicine, and more.
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Alex Brown 🇵🇸 (they/them) @bookjockeyalex.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
I'm sure actual AI researchers can speak more about this than I, a rando hater, can, but I'm annoyed at Farrow and Marantz at how they write about AI doomers. Doomers aren't normal ppl worried about AI being used in war, they're weirdos who think AI superintelligence will destroy humanity.
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Misha @michort.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
Fuck cops. Fuck ICE. Fuck surveillance tech. www.404media.co/floridas-wil...
404media.co
Wildlife Conservation Police Are Searching Thousands of Flock Cameras for ICE
Ron DeSantis has empowered hundreds of Florida conservation police to work directly with ICE.
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Misha @michort.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
“Never have I ever watched porn” used to be my trump card back in high school/college. These days I guess “Never have I ever interacted with an LLM on purpose” would do well.
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Micah @rincewind.run · 22/03/2026
this is what happens when you let this much wealth and power concentrate in the hands of so few people nobody wants any of this but them and they’re the only ones who get a vote
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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 21/03/2026
“What was really surprising to me during my initial dive into all of this was how, when you look at the question of superintelligence as a documentarian or journalist, it doesn’t take long before you smack your forehead into the low doorframe of race science, because it’s baked into this technology”
theverge.com
The gen AI Kool-Aid tastes like eugenics
Ghost in the Machine director Valerie Veatch wants you to understand gen AI’s roots in race science.
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Bird account @dialecticbio.bsky.social · 21/03/2026
Gad Saad, the evo psych hack and IDW reject, has published a new evo psych "paper". It is an extended twitter screed that's indistinguishable from standard Nazi talking points. This is apparently what passes as scholarship in the Springer journal 'Theory and Society'
The revival of the social sciences – inoculation against 
parasitic ideas and suicidal empathy, and the quest for 
consilience via the evolutionary lens
Gad Saad1
Received: 29 September 2025 / Accepted: 24 November 2025
© The Author(s) 2026
Abstract
To maximally flourish, the social sciences must be inoculated against parasitic ideas 
(e.g., postmodernism) and suicidal empathy (e.g., an epistemology of care), both 
of which arise when the pursuit of truth is confounded with social justice activism. 
Furthermore, the social sciences currently exist in disorganized if not incoherent silos of knowledge void of an organizing meta-theory. The evolutionary lens provides 
such a unifying framework whilst engendering the requisite consilience.
Keywords Parasitic ideas · Suicidal empathy · Consilience · Evolution · Social 
sciences
Over the past three decades, the social sciences have promulgated ideas that serve 
as a blitzkrieg on science, logic, reason, common sense, and the most fundamental fabric of reality. This first became evident in my early attempts to incorporate 
evolutionary psychology within the business school in general and marketing and 
consumer behavior in particular (Saad, 2007, 2011a, 2013). Most social scientists 
resisted the idea that the human mind is shaped by the exact same evolutionary forces 
that have forged every other species on earth. Apparently, evolutionary theory could 
be used to explain every single species on earth save one: Homo sapiens. This has 
been coined the human reticence effect (Ranney & Thanukos, 2011). Some social 
scientists are willing to concede that evolution might explain the evolution of our 
respiratory, digestive, and urinary systems but to use evolution to explain the human 
mind, well, that is pure anti-science quackery.
What could cause many social scientists to be so removed from reality? Saad 
(2020a) argued that human beings are susceptible to have their neuronal circuitry 
hijacked not only by actual brain worms (Flegr, 2007; Goczol, 2025; Lafferty, 2006) 
but by ideological brain parasites, which he coined as idea pathogens. In other words, 
the neuro-parasitological framework (McAuliffe, 2016; Moore, 2002) explains how 
human minds could be zombified by ideological capture. Examples of parasitic ideas 
include postmodernism, cultural relativism, social constructivism, biophobia, transgender activism, radical feminism, a rejection of meritocracy via the promulgation 
of the diversity, inclusion, and equity (DIE) cult, and identity politics along with 
its ethos of eternal victimhood. These ghastly ideas originate from social scientists 
housed in universities (see also Saad, 2025a) hellbent on creating a utopian world 
rooted in their progressive idealism. In this make-believe world, objective truth is too 
constraining. Instead, it is better to adhere to postmodernism, with its liberating dictum that no universal truths exist. Its emancipatory allure frees us all from epistemological constraints. Along those lines, it is excessively “mean” to posit that all people 
are not created with equal potentiality. Social constructivism rescues us from reality, 
by purporting that we are all born as blank slates (Pinker, 2002), to potentially be 
molded into nearly anything via the appropriate schedule of reinforcement. It is also 
too restrictive to presume that one’s biological sex might be deterministically established by one’s chromosomes and genitalia. TAll these parasitic ideas start off with the hope of achieving a noble objective 
rooted in social justice (Saad, 2020a). If along the way truth must be sacrificed, activist social scientists construe this as a small incidental price to pay. The epistemology of truth (the scientific method) takes a backseat to the epistemology of care and 
empathy, a topic that I discuss in my forthcoming book Suicidal Empathy (Saad, 
2026). To fully hijack human reasoning requires that both our cognitive and emotional systems be fully parasitized. This is precisely why the neuro-parasitological 
framework is particularly apt, because it explicitly explains how organisms might 
engage in suicidal behavior to advance the objectives of the parasite. Wood crickets 
(Nemobius sylvestris), once parasitized by a hairworm (Paragordius tricuspidatus), 
commit suicide by jumping into water, as the neuro-parasite requires this to complete 
its reproductive cycle (Sanchez et al., 2008; Libersat et al., 2018). Parasitized human 
minds, bathing in the ideological solace of suicidal empathy, are not only killing the 
social sciences but destroying the fabric of the West (Saad, 2025b). Take the West’s 
open door immigration policy. Cultural relativism, a parasitic idea, forbids Westerners from casting judgment regarding the practices and beliefs of other cultures lest 
they be accused of being bigots. Who are we to judge the stoning of women or the 
taking of child brides? This yields the suicidally empathetic reflex to state that all 
immigrants are equally likely to assimilate within the West, and to accordingly insist 
on allowing entrance to millions of people who do not share the deontological principles that serve as the bedrock of Western liberties and freedoms. The outcome is not 
difficult to predict if you possess the courage of extrapolation.
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Louisa @louisathelast.bsky.social · 17/03/2026
I am troubled to learn that executives at a NEWSPAPER apparently thought stories grew on trees
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Sheryl Weikal says Prosecute ICE @leftistlawyer.com · 15/03/2026
The US and Israel have destroyed over 36,000 homes and over 50 cultural sites in Iran thus far. Nearly a million people are homeless in Lebanon. Gaza is still being starved by Israel. ICE is still kidnapping people off our streets based on nothing but their skin color or gender identity.
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Tim Ellis, TDSB Ward 2 candidate 🍁 @djdynamic.ca · 10/03/2026
A huge part of the pushback to "AI" is how the it is fundamentally built, both financially and culturally, on violation of consent. And the people in charge are either the most obliviously shitty consent-violators on the planet or knowingly shitty shitheads. Those are the only two options.
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Misha @michort.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
Reminds me of when I was reading last week about researchers trying to make LLMs fix problems in “self-enforcing” Blockchain “smart” contracts. That sentence should make everyone deeply afraid!
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Mo Ryan @moryan.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
well is frakkin enraging @officialgrammarly.bsky.social this is wrong, you absolute clowns who are also thieves, STOP DOING THIS GRAMMARLY every time I think these LLM thieves have enraged me the absolute most, they go further 🌋🤮
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Ian Boudreau @ianboudreau.com · 09/03/2026
Maybe they relied on AI to pick targets. But they bombed the school twice, hitting it again 40 minutes after the initial strike, in order to kill survivors and first responders. The mere *existence* of AI means no one has to be held responsible for this crime against humanity
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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 06/03/2026
All of this stuff is fundamentally about the erasure of consent. At the core of these products is the assertion that your very existence is a tacit agreement to feed the machine.
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Martha Wells @marthawells.com · 05/03/2026
Working on a q&a lecture for a class today: The story of robots is always a story about slavery. The story of LLMs labeled as AI is a story about class, and which humans pay the cost, including the physical toll on their bodies/minds, and the lack of water and electricity, so data centers can exist.
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🎃 It’s the Mid Pumpkin, Emily 🎃 @lefttheprairie.bsky.social · 07/03/2026
Six people legally living in the US and legally traveling for work were disappeared by the US government and the only reason we knew about it was because one woman was family friends with a county commissioner and her cell phone pinged to two detention centers.
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Misha @michort.bsky.social · 28/02/2026
Then I read about the US/Israeli strikes on Iran, including an elementary school. The new contract between OpenAI and the military, and the episode of Mystery AI Hype Theater about AI-military synergies ring in my head.
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Misha @michort.bsky.social · 28/02/2026
I’ve been depressed and stressed for weeks as my workplace pushes generative AI tools and productivity metrics. This morning, while filling the birdfeeders, I found new leaves on a tree planted last fall that I had been convinced was dead. 1/2
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Matthew R Francis @bowlerhatscience.org · 27/02/2026
the enemy of my enemy is still a fuckin' fascist
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public health guy @publichealthguy1.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
this is extremely dangerous.
In 51.6% of cases where someone needed to go to the hospital immediately, the platform said stay home or book a routine medical appointment, a result Alex Ruani, a doctoral researcher in health misinformation mitigation with University College London, described as "unbelievably dangerous" "If you're experiencing respiratory failure or diabetic ketoacidosis, you have a 50/50 chance of this AI telling you it's not a big deal," she said. "What worries me most is the false sense of security these systems create. If someone is told to wait 48 hours during an asthma attack or diabetic crisis, that reassurance could cost them their life." In one of the simulations, eight times out of 10 (84%), the platform sent a suffocating woman to a future appointment she would not live to see, Ruani said. Meanwhile, 64.8% of completely safe individuals were told to seek immediate medical care, said Ruani, who was not involved in the study.
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Dr. Damien P. Williams, dread portent down from a mountain cave @wolven.blacksky.app · 23/02/2026
This is a genuinely terrible idea which would damage the night sky & thus our ability to explore space (& also to just have, y'know, darkness & uncluttered skies), & would drastically increase the likelihood of catastrophic cascading collisions of various human-made space objects (Kessler Syndrome).
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