iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Sarah Taber @sarahtaber.bsky.social · 5h

Hot take: I don't think social media made people dumber. We've been dumb this whole time. It's just that you used to have to have a job that people sent their dumb letters to, to notice. This made "Engaging with fools" an occupational hazard rather than the 24/7 experience it is presently.

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Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

What they’re hoping for and acting for is germinating the seeds of extreme acts of violence against South Asians. That’s why they use the explicitly Nazi framing of the ‘Indian question’. They want the same results. Their followers are pretty open it on social media, too.

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Bill @bill-of-lefts.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

lot of people on x trying to explain why it’s a okay for six guys to walk into a room with a drunk naked girl in a k-hole.

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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

There is a moment at the very very end of Abdul El-Sayed's podcast with Ezra Klein (book recommendation section) where he talks about the idea of "speaking truth to pain" and this will be staying with me for an extremely long time. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/25/o...

But there’s also something about truth to pain. We talk a lot about truth to power, but I think it’s actually a lot harder to speak truth to pain. I say that as someone who went to medical school, realizing that in a lot of our politics right now, we’ve got to get a lot better at speaking truth to pain if we’re going to get through some of these challenges that we have.

What does “truth to pain” mean?

It’s one thing to look power in the eye and say: You’re wrong about this. But there’s a way in which pain is very difficult to reason with. Because when somebody is in their pain, they’re in their trauma. They see that pain, and they may not see what’s causing it.

I remember just very explicitly being in a trauma ward with a gunshot wound patient and watching this big guy with his hand on his gunshot wound. All the folks are trying to pull his hand off his pain, that point of his gunshot wound, this clear vulnerability.

And this emergency room doctor had the presence of mind to be like: Everyone, stop. And she looks him in the eyes, and she’s like: I get that really hurts, and I’m so sorry that you’re here. You don’t want to be here. We don’t want you to be here. But if you don’t let us fix this, you could die. So I’m going to take your hand, and I’m going to move it off, OK? Because I need to get there so that you can live.

She was speaking truth to pain. He understands he’s at the hospital, he needs care, but he also doesn’t want anybody to touch the wound. Which is a natural thing. And I think it is a really great metaphor for how we think about a lot of these challenges we talked about today.

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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

One thing I end up going back to over and over again is: while the criminal justice system could do so much better in protecting rights, the only thing that can adequately address a pervasive problem like this is social/cultural change. Rape arises from and reasserts rape culture/patriarchy.

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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Campus rape is really widespread; statistics suggest a significant percent of women who go to college will be raped there; feminism opened up a good conversation about it around 2012-13; it's weird when people treated Cornell like an isolated rather than dramatic example of a pervasive problem.

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Andrew Lawrence @ndrew.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

the two big ai stories to kick off the week are - meta ai giving your address to strangers on fb marketplace - stole a scientific breakthrough and presented it as its own work this is what we get instead of healthcare or third spaces or public transportation or pick literally anything else

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Mike Boylan-Kolchin @mbkplus.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Once again, I gotta say: you cannot treat anything you’re feeding into an AI as anonymous. There are enormous ethics implications for, e.g. referees who are clearly uploading others’ unpublished papers without consent, let alone health care professionals or law enforcement

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Butt Praxis @buttpraxis.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I will vote, make calls, knock doors, take up arms for whoever destroys the online gambling industry

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Erin Biba @erinbiba.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Aaaaaaanyway this whole thing is a perfect example of how disabled and chronically ill and marginalized people are forced out of society and then if they make a tiny enclave together where they try and make space for each other the society that forced them out tells them they can’t have that either.

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Erin Biba @erinbiba.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Hey so uhhhhh that Boston Globe story about the lesbian bar relaxing its covid rules is an *absolute fucking hit piece* targeting the disabled, chronically ill, and covid-conscious and it would be great if folks sharing and joking about it could recognize that framing.

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max graves @maximumgraves.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

as a transgender person i have to admit i hold journalists in a very low level of esteem bc as a class they kind of did all hop on board with manufacturing consent for the project of exterminating the minority group im a part of

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Isaac Samuel @rhaplord.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Travels of a 17th century Abolitionist from Angola to the Vatican

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Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I stayed off this place for a while because I saw so many of you sneering at masks and those who wear them, and after losing my mother to COVID complications in 2025 partly because she didn't/refused to mask while vulnerable, my emotions re masking are more than a little unstable.

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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

It's great to see tailoring accommodate such extreme movement today. This level of tailoring was a bit more common in the past, as you can see in old films featuring Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly, but many modern suits will lift off the wearer's neck even when they're just walking.

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Ryan North @ryannorth.ca · 23/09/2026

Pompeii is a UNESCO world heritage site not because it was remarkable in its prime, but because it survived to our era untouched: one moment, preserved for all time. But future generations won't know what OUR world was like unless we do the same. This is why we MUST bury Toronto with a volcano

Picture of the streets of Pompeii, from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pompei_-_panoramio_(26).jpg. Taken by Tanya Dedyukhina, used under CC

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NCC (北米日本研究資料調整協議会) @nccjapaninfo.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

It’s Respect for the Aged Day #敬老の日 in Japan! Elderly figures, often auspicious, appear in many arts. This wooden mask of an elderly man from the 18th century was used for noh theater. Held by the Tokyo National Museum: colbase.nich.go.jp/collection_i...

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Jan Kirsch, M.D., M.P.H. @drjanicekirsch.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Enforce Quarantines for Cases A passenger with measles passed through at least six counties on Amtrak – Alameda, Butte, Kern, Los Angeles, Sacramento and San Joaquin – while making multiple transfers. www.ktvu.com/news/califor...

ktvu.com

California health department notifies of measles exposure from unvaccinated Amtrak passenger

The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) is urging residents to get their measles vaccination after notifying the public of an exposure from an Amtrak passenger who traveled on the rail syste...

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Rose Ivy @cityscape-skltns.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

I firmly believe its a psyop. The whole narrative aims to engineer social consensus that these parties should be "regulated" . The regulation here in question is going to be essentially receiving government protections, making a bail out more likely when the bubble pops

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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 21/09/2026

One strange way I've noticed my writing reflexively shift in the Anslopocene is that I've become obsessed with mercilessly editing myself. People are just hurling 5,000 word essays into comment sections, all thoughtless, corporatised, dark grey gruel.

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CLAYFACE: CELEBRITY DIRT #3 out now @judedoyle.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

It's Monday morning, and I am reluctantly entering into the discussion about what The Democrats should do about The Trans, most of which translates to "believe in something, for once in your life, for fuck's sake." No paywall on this guy: jude-doyle.ghost.io/transformer-...

jude-doyle.ghost.io

Transformer: Velvet Goldmine (Todd Haynes, 1998)

A few thoughts on the queer post-apocalypse.

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Travis @someforeignfield.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

I agree but you can't talk about the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait without the Iran-Iraq War, which was also very much a Gulf War. So whether you want it to start with the 1979 Iranian Revolution or the Iraqi invasion of Khuzestan, I feel like it's gotta be included.

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Noah Berlatsky @nberlat.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Oh hey, there's a new subscriber. As promised, here are pictures of cat in box. help me feed large cat and keep scribbling! support the newsletter; it's $50/yr, $5/month. www.everythingishorribble.net/subscribe

big orange cat resting chin on edge of box; eyes have opened.

cat in box; all you can see is an ear and a bit of floof poking over the edge

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Sarah Taber @sarahtaber.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

So that's the thing. I grew up Mormon. And there are ~progressive poly folks~ who insist "Oh but haha we're not doing it BAD like those crazy Mormons did, we're GOOD people!" and then merrily describe doing shit that "oppressed Mormon sister wives in the 1860s" 100% would not have put up with.

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Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

I say this both as a disabled person and as someone who does disability studies, we don't get to be uncritical of the technologies that use our bodies and identities to silence dissent around Big Tech, even if they are useful for some of us. Thats not how any of this works.

“I have really thought it was responsible,” Currier told me. I asked Currier about privacy concerns around Meta glasses; he told me he was not “real invested in knowing what any sort of policy or answer should be moving forward,” but feels the positives outweigh the negatives.

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Amy Hoy @amyhoy.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

one of the clearest use cases for “technology” has long been to give the lazy and craven a way out of doing the moderately challenging work of making decisions, such as “how should i communicate this?” or “how do i reach customers?” or “will anyone give a shit?” it’s so pathetically transparent

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SE Gyges @segyges.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I feel about this roughly the same way I would feel about all the pharmaceutical companies getting together to say they wanted to waive anti-trust laws so they could form a cartel to ban medical research: these people are the enemies of humanity.

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SE Gyges @segyges.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

This all most recently came together over the weekend, and they got Dario Amodei and Sam Altman and Elon Musk and Demis Hassabis all onto the same page to say they wanted to WAIVE ANTI-TRUST LAWS so that they could "pace", or slow down, research.

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Nirupama Chandrasekhar @niruchandra.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Anyway, more than ever, these past couple of months have convinced me to move Malcolm Harris's Palo Alto up to the top of my reading list. We must know our enemy. Since Big Tech have very much declared itself an ally to fascists, they thus are our enemies.

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Nirupama Chandrasekhar @niruchandra.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

I feel like this ties very nicely into what I was saying yesterday, actually. Anyway, all this to say—nightmare world where apparently expertise on analyzing a mediocre HP fanfic, gives us insight into the crazies that run Silicon Valley.

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Nirupama Chandrasekhar @niruchandra.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Their pathological terror and horror at the thought of death, and the various insane things they pursue because the thought of just...dying like a normal person is so antithetical to their internal heroic narratives of themselves. Better the world ends than I die normally, like a normal person.

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Nirupama Chandrasekhar @niruchandra.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

How death was the enemy and had to be fought and defeated at all costs, that this was the true pursuit of a scientist. I remember thinking at the time (14, filled with chunibyou energy) that this was Very Cool. Now, I can't help but feel it is the madness that makes SV tech bros absolutely awful.

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Nirupama Chandrasekhar @niruchandra.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

A crucial thing I remember about the fic is how Harry, mouthpiece of the author (who only becomes an actual character separate from Yudkowsky's opinions around Chapter 60--this man was BAD at writing when he started) went on rants about how acceptance of everybody's inevitable death was madness.

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Nirupama Chandrasekhar @niruchandra.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

It's kind of fascinating, because when I read HPMoR back in the day, I remember being like "this is a conservative weirdo who recognizes feminism is good yet cannot actually overcome his overwhelming male focus to write any woman compellingly. Sad." And it's just. So much worse now.

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Elizabeth Sandifer @eruditorumpress.com · 15/09/2026

The problem is that "while you weren't looking the tech industry was comprehensively taken over by a cult based around a piece of Harry Potter fanfic" is self-evidently an absolutely ridiculous claim that can't possibly have happened, which is a real problem given that it 100% did happen.

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Caitlin G. DeAngelis @caitlindeangelis.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

I do not want an AI agent. I want every corporation/doctor/school to stop offloading their administrative tasks onto me.

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Nirupama Chandrasekhar @niruchandra.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

And the bright future cannot be achieved by a great culling or apocalyptic event. There are no nerdy heroes necessary to save us. Nor do we need to pre-emptively lie down and submit to AI Gods (who can't currently figure out what an appetizing burger looks like).

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Nirupama Chandrasekhar @niruchandra.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

The guilt and shame and fear that motivates this line of thinking is important to understand and combat! We do not have to let apocalyptic thinking prevail! It is patently false and is the sort of useless rhetoric we must root out! The AI is not going to kill us like in Terminator.

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Nirupama Chandrasekhar @niruchandra.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

If you can save people from the threat of AI taking over the world (a threat that YOU inadvertantly created, but let's not overthink that too much! AI was inevitable—if you didn't make it, somebody else would have), you can fulfill the mythos of techie heroism and intelligence.

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Nirupama Chandrasekhar @niruchandra.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

The underlying guilt and worry that secretly plagues the minds of people I know in tech spaces, that perhaps they are not solving the big important problems of the world, that maybe they ARE the big important problem, is assuaged by AI evangelicism and belief in AI supremacy.

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Nirupama Chandrasekhar @niruchandra.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

There is a helplessness there, of course! Many people hope and pray for the end of the world, because the thought of fixing this one is too big and terrifying—and confronting your own culpability is even scarier—easier to imagine yourself as a chosen one whose belief is enough to exculpate you!

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Nirupama Chandrasekhar @niruchandra.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Idk. The evangelical terminology and frameworks of Bay Area tech spaces increasingly alarms me, because I think the patterns of engagement with reality encourages by evangelicals is harmful to a functioning civil society! We cannot build a better world with apocalypists who want it to end soon!

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Nirupama Chandrasekhar @niruchandra.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

They speak of it in alarmist, conformist terms because it is a grift and they need other people to buy-in to the illusion! But they do themselves believe! It's comforting to imagine a world where you, the true believer, are rewarded for your beliefs and convictions by a higher power!

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Nirupama Chandrasekhar @niruchandra.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

consider themselves atheist, in practise, U.S. financial and businesses spaces are steeped in Protestant and evangelical approaches to morality that is inescapable. As such, they imagine the end of the world as catalyst for a techno-utopia, where they are the privileged upper class!

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Nirupama Chandrasekhar @niruchandra.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Something that observers of the previous techno-financial scams have been noting (NFTs, the mementos, the SaaS stuff) is an increasing millenarianism. That is—the apocalypse as something desirable and necessary to make the perfect utopia! Although I think most AI defenders and producers would

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Nirupama Chandrasekhar @niruchandra.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

All of the "AI will kill us all and we must pacify it in advance" discourse is obviously a financial grift to get a bailout/create legislation that is beneficial to their company's interests, as folks like Ed Zitron have been saying. But we shouldn't underplay the phenomena of techno-evangelicism!

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