iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

The ladder pulling in the big labor unions has been apparent for some time as there are no longer *small independent*, hard floor labor unions to compete with anymore. All of this said, I believe in labor organization, but the left does need to be careful with old-line unions.

030

Under Biden, and in the wake of COVID labor shortages, many unions (including the Teamsters and the UAW) saw *outstanding* labor wins that I thought impossible. So with those contracts in hand, and a 4-6 year gap until the next one, many rank-and-file were free to surface their conservative side.

120

Immigration has *always* been a touchy issue. Racism and misogyny are *pervasive* in manufacturing. And LGBTQ+ folks have always been virtually locked out. After Reagan, many consolidated and prioritized labor organization protections and pushed down these conservative desires temporarily.

100

Anyway. It is important to realize that many old-line manufacturing and labor unions are pretty conservative in their rank-and-file. This is true of USW, IBEW and UAW and good portions of the Teamsters. They are blue insofar as protecting labor organization rights and the benefits of that.

100

Tensions Brew In Teamsters After Leader Speaks At RNC, Endorses Anti-LGBTQ+ Views

A few things, since I have been working hard floors since I was 16. For Sean O’Brien specifically… That shithead is a scab. That shit has been shining his seat its whole life. What set it off this past presidential election? His transgender bigotry - as @erininthemorning.com noted at the time.

erininthemorning.com

On Tuesday Night, the Teamsters Union posted a tweet criticizing President Sean O'Brien over anti-trans article endorsement. This comes after O'Brien spoke at the RNC, a first for the union.

130

Reposted by Adam Cook

Captain Fantastic @grubert.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

The post u r quoting is not correct. The small business in the defense industry do not directly manufacture products but supply parts. These parts are stored in advance of the production schedule. This schedule is set by the government months or even years in advance and is tied to Congress $$$.

111

Reposted by Adam Cook

markpalko.bsky.social @markpalko.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

On the Death of Expertise, I'd look more to Andreessen and the Techno-Optimist Manifesto than to Musk, though the latter has certainly taken the ball and run with it.

111

Reposted by Adam Cook

Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 03/10/2026

Higher ed leaders are doing "decline of public trust" discourse in order to avoid talking about all the things they've done to undermine their institutions, including exploiting contingent faculty labor, attacking student protest, and underfunding the humanities

7594165

Yup! And I got another thing coming soon on that.

010

It is still a non-trivial CapEx generally to sure, but indeed, you got alot of the big guys already doing alot more since the Great Financial Crisis.

000

Evan Williams @evanwritescars.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

The thing that alot of this bros don't realize is that machine tools and industrial automation has become so much more accessible in price and at precision levels that were once unthinkable when I entered the industry some 30 years ago.

110

Reposted by Adam Cook

Also seems to completely ignore manufacturers and assembly plants that do their own machining, which is probably also a big number

121

These shops take on custom, high-mix and low-volume jobs that are a very poor fit for extensive automation - and over-automation is a major business risk given the CapEx involved. They are, in fact, highly-resistant to any foreseeable automation. a16z seeks to destroy that I guess. Figures.

151

One could argue that there are *some* areas of large-scale #manufacturing that the US should seek to re-onshore. But one of US manufacturing's unique strengths *is* how a very small and very wide collection of small manufacturers moved *up* the value chain in response to foreign competition.

130

Taniel @taniel.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Oh no. How horrible. We can't have small manufacturers below 5 employees. Time to deploy dimwitted Silicon Valley capital to crush them.

571

Reposted by Adam Cook

Voter registration deadlines are SUNDAY in Alaska, Rhode Island, South Carolina. And MONDAY in: Arizona, Arkansas Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee, and *Texas*. If you live in these states, verify your registration now, literally.

2821441965

Frankly, part of the long arc of few taking Detroit seriously - public officials and much of the electorate alike. The city council is a complete joke. There is no competence or leadership there. We can’t have accountability if the city is habitually unserious.

000

Maybe an aside, but this is actually been part of a long slide towards the Death of Expertise that Musk and the VCs that orbit Musk have been working on for more than a decade. And it has clearly materialized physically now given who is running the highest levels of US government and public health.

140

Tim Price @timprice.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I think that *a lot * of the LLM conversation space is full of nonsense, frankly. Much more than any previous technology cycle. LLMs provide a false image of near-magical qualities to laypeople across a myriad of domains. And so. If no one is an expert in anything anymore, why try to keep up?

170

Reposted by Adam Cook

Oh yeah that’s the good stuff

2002718529

Unfortunately, where the BIG money is now - given the whole “Department of War” bullshit. Robotics, my field, is getting consumed by it too. VCs are spending heavy on it and pretty much all government small business grants are oriented towards it. Dark times.

011

Captain Fantastic @grubert.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

True except, in her entire term, she has not once offered even passable economic reform leadership - notably, burying the Growing Michigan Together report. So we are weak today by her hand (in conjunction with a lazy electorate, granted).

110

Reposted by Adam Cook

Every few years a fraternity gets in trouble because its part of the American culture. No one is talking about changing the culture. There should be a conversation about why fraternities exist and what value do they bring to college when its a small fraction of students.

121

Pretty shocking how #Michigan Governor Whitmer has just gone AWOL for the last 6 months or so while I keep getting *bombarded* with news of huge wins happening in #Illinois under the leadership of JB. Really not a mystery why we keep losing folks to #Chicago.

211

Remember when GM had a BrightDrop BEV delivery van business way back in 2021? And FedEx was one of the first BrightDrop customers. And then GM shitcanned it in 2025? A market now ceded to a manufacturer based in California. GM cannot run a long-term capital program to save its life.

020

Boeing should have used that. Regulators bought it with Tesla’s so-called “Full Self-Driving” feature.

000

Fuck Eminem too. It’s all money with these assholes.

020

Why not commit to opening up an Amazon *engineering* office in Downtown #Detroit? Detroit has not benefitted much, to date, from the Internet Age. But Amazon is not offering *those* wages, benefits and other high-value economic components. I thought that we were all equals in this together?

2. Providing Jobs & Economic Benefit
We create thousands of skilled jobs between construction and long-term data center operations, supporting local families and helping local small businesses thrive.
We pay nationally competitive wages that often exceed the local and national median, and provide healthcare benefits from day one on the job.
We prioritize local hiring and procurement wherever possible, providing economic opportunity and impact to residents, local contractors and service providers.

010

Really crystalizes my point about datacenter buildouts in already-economically distressed regions where out-of-control sprawl is *THE* primary cause of the structural distress.

100