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okaytrouble.bsky.social

@okaytrouble.bsky.social
126 followers 506 following 890 posts

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ae @aelkus.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
the thing that really annoys me a lot about Wilhoit's Law is that it is trivial -- really, utterly trivial -- to find progressives who behave in accordance with it. And the more you look at supposed "laws" of how conservatives and fascists supposedly behave and see the same, the more you see
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hikikomorphism @hikikomorphism.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
This leads to a credibility gap: to put it crudely, why should anyone trust AI safety analysis when y'all are partying with SPECTER and cashing checks from Blofeld? Why should anyone take analysis of lone wolf/PLA misuse of open-weight models seriously when there's no similar analysis of XAI?
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hikikomorphism @hikikomorphism.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
I'm coining a piece of AI safety terminology that I'd like to refer to as the Bond Villain problem. As a field, AI safety heavily leverages sci-fi pretty heavily, so I figure this should be fine.
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Senator Dr. John Brown stan account, Esq., PhD, MD, JD, LCSW @johnbrownstan.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
People are like "Why can't Hakeem Jeffries meet with Donald Trump and Mamdani can?" and the reason is stuff like this. If you're viewed as being part of the Dem establishment, you're viewed as having a connection with this kind of behavior.
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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Philosophers often bring up the "principle of charity": a willingness to assume good faith in an interlocutor and treat them accordingly. It's good to do in many circumstances. But it is worth formulating a principle of not being a fucking mark. If not during the rise of fascism, then when? 12/
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Bill Kristol @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
"Living through a global resurgence of fascism, the greatest difficulty has proved to be not arguing against it, but convincing non-fascists that fascism’s adherents mean it. They believe what they are telling us they believe—and they will act accordingly." www.liberalcurrents.com/fascists-rea...
liberalcurrents.com
Fascists Really Believe It
Millions could die because of ideas intellectually and morally equivalent to the ‘lizard people’ conspiracy theory.
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ArtButMakeItSports @artbutmakeitsports.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
Jealousy, by Edvard Munch, 1895
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e.w. niedermeyer @niedermeyer.online · 28/04/2026
Joseph Weizenbaum describes the clock as the first "autonomous machine": a tool that was no longer a prosthesis for our bodies, but which modeled something totally external from ourselves. The clock, he points out, overturned our relationship with tools: we came to serve it, rather than vise versa
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ArtButMakeItSports @artbutmakeitsports.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
Study of the Heads of Two Old Men, by Philippe de Champaigne, 17th c, 📸 by @adampantozzi
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Dan Kaszeta FRHistS @dankaszeta.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
There was literally a pangolin that flew combat sorties with the CIA in a dirty war in Laos that then died after drinking too much gin, so there’s at least one pangolin whose record is morally ambiguous
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ryan cooper @ryanlcooper.com · 10/04/2026
Ritchie Neal "disemboweled a central policy goal of the Democratic Party for decades for wholly corrupt reasons and then didn’t even get anything at the end of the process." prospect.org/2026/04/07/a...
prospect.org
A Retrospective on Bidenomics - The American Prospect
Joe Biden listened to the left on full employment. But the lasting effects were wanting, and the politics were brutal.
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NY Times Pitchbot @nytpitchbot.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
Bush started the Iraq war by falsely claiming Iraq had nuclear materials. Will Tump end the Iran war by falsely claiming that Iran doesn't have them?
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ryan cooper @ryanlcooper.com · 17/02/2026
once again pointing out that Trump vs. US is a treasonous decision--the Supreme Court equivalent of January 6--and the justices who voted for it have forfeited any claim to legitimacy (or indeed due process) whatsoever
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ryan cooper @ryanlcooper.com · 16/02/2026
we gotta vote in people who will destroy the fascist Cathedral
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olive consumer's floating skull @machete.gay · 04/02/2026
If the next President is not just "a Democrat" but someone committed to aggressively cutting back the gains made by the far right, rebuilding state capacity, and beginning a generational process of reaffirming trust in the state, this all ends in a shooting war in the streets.
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olive consumer's floating skull @machete.gay · 04/02/2026
What the online leftist fails to grasp is that, no, the entire game is not already lost and what the online liberal fails to grasp is that it does not matter whether or not the next President is a literal fascist, but that it is someone who can successfully halt and reverse this process.
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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 02/02/2026
The question is what precautions here look like. To me, it seems clear there needs to be an effort to track DHS goons close to the election and to be prepared to put (lawful!) crowds outside of (the legal limit of) polling places in key districts to discourage any ICE shenanigans or intimidation.
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Travis Reese (Against war with NATO) @ctreese2.bsky.social · 19/01/2026
I usually sum this up as form over function. Believers in "norms" often acted as if by following all the "forms" the norm would hold and they would be viewed as credible. What we are seeing clearly was it was all performance and they failed to maintain the actual "function" of laws, ethics, and<
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alex williams @atwilliams.bsky.social · 02/09/2025
this is one of the things that's most viscerally like, un- or even anti-keynesian about the way the goals of capital-A Abundance are structured
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Alex Says Stuff @alexsaysstuff.bsky.social · 27/08/2025
Also be prepared for the fact that this could be for all the marbles. Be prepared to pass rapid impeachment and removal of Trump & Vance, to swear in Jeffries as Acting President, and request Spanberger and Moore to send in the VA and MD National Guard.
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ElieNYC @elienyc.bsky.social · 20/03/2025
John Roberts is not "rebuking" Donald Trump. He's bending the knee. If you listen to what Roberts is *not* saying, you'll see he's telling Trump exactly what he wants to hear. We've seen this before from another Chief Justice, in Marbury v. Madison. My latest in @thenation.com
thenation.com
How a Case From 1803 Explains John Roberts’s Approach to Donald Trump
Roberts wasn’t “rebuking” Trump when he issued his statement against impeaching judges, he was bending the knee.
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Allen Tien, MD, MHS mdlogix.com 94,698 田一彦 @allentien.bsky.social · 14/03/2025
asknature.org/strategy/bra...
asknature.org
Information Gained, Stored, and Transferred Without Brains — Biological Strategy — AskNature
Despite the lack of a nervous system, slime molds can learn and share what they learn with other slime molds by joining together for a time.
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 03/03/2025
here is the thing, if you are thinking pragmatically, the response to trans health bans is to change the subject! “these people are targeting children so they can con you into stealing your social security and health care.” easy peasy! need a specific answer: “keep the government out of my family.”
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rev. howard arson @theophite.bsky.social · 21/02/2025
an accurate description of donald trump's character is per se libel. an accurate description of his policies is a call for revolution. one of his great superpowers is that he generates self-censoring facts.
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okaytrouble.bsky.social @okaytrouble.bsky.social · 20/02/2025
If enough of them would agree to go into hiding for a while democrats could put an end to this nightmare. Just crawl under a rock for your country, for humanity.
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Joshua J. Friedman @joshuajfriedman.com · 26/01/2025
This goes hard
Extremely long tweet by Colombian president Gutavo Petro, auto-translated from Spanish. Continued in next post.

Trump, I don't really like traveling to the US, it's a bit boring, but I confess that there are some worthy things, I like going to the black neighborhoods of Washington, there I saw an entire fight in the US capital between blacks and Latinos with barricades, which seemed like bullshit to me, because they should unite. I confess that I like Walt Whitman and Paul Simon and Noam Chomsky and Miller. I confess that Sacco and Vanzetti, who have my blood, in the history of the US, are memorable and I follow them. They were murdered by labor leaders with the electric chair, the fascists who are inside the US as well as inside my country. I don't like your oil, Trump, you are going to end the human species because of greed. Maybe one day, over a shot of whiskey, which I accept, despite my gastritis, we can talk frankly about this, but it's difficult because you consider me an inferior race and I am not, nor is any Colombian. So if you know someone who is stubborn, that's me, period. You can, with your economic strength and your arrogance, try to carry out a coup d'état as they did with Allende. But I will die in my law, 1 resisted torture and I resist you. I do not want slavers next to Colombia, we already had many and we freed ourselves. What I want next to Colombia are lovers of freedom. If you cannot accompany me, I will go elsewhere. Colombia is the heart of the world and you did not understand it, this is the land of the yellow butterflies, of the beauty of Remedios, but also of the colonels Aureliano Buendía, of whom I am one, perhaps the last. You will kill me, but I will survive in my town which is before yours, in the Americas. We are peoples of the winds, the mountains, the Caribbean Sea and of freedom. You do not like our freedom, okay. I do not shake hands with white slavers. I shake the
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Brian Beutler @brianbeutler.bsky.social · 17/01/2025
I don’t know precisely what Trump will say in his inaugural, but it will certainly be a bunch of insincere nonsense, delivered with ulterior motives. That’s enough for Democrats to offer a useful prebuttal—if they want to. www.offmessage.net/p/prebut-don...
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Brian Beutler @brianbeutler.bsky.social · 18/12/2024
Here’s a way for Dems to give an ethical form of populism and demagoguery a trial run: instead of playing savvy games vis a vis RFK, try just saying what makes him repulsive: he’s a scumbag who preys on innocent people and has cost many of them their lives.
offmessage.net
More On Ethical Populism
The sweet spot lies in demagogic appeals that can withstand factual scrutiny.
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 19/08/2024
what i fundamentally do not understand about this is that when we observe actual campaigns what we clearly see is that perceived moderation is only modestly about substance and a great deal about affect and appearance
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Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 12/08/2024
Seeing Like a Matt. The intellectual blind spots of anti-anti-neoliberalism. www.programmablemutter.com/p/seeing-lik...
programmablemutter.com
Seeing Like a Matt
The intellectual blind spots of anti-anti-neoliberalism
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Senator Dr. John Brown stan account, Esq., PhD, MD, JD, LCSW @johnbrownstan.bsky.social · 25/07/2024
The thing these burnout leftist morons don't understand is that a big part of the reason the pro-Hamas shit pisses me off is *because this shit really fucking matters*
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kilgore trout @kilgoretrout.bsky.social · 22/07/2024
jesus if things keep up at this pace trump is gonna start shopping around for incels to shoot him in the ear again
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e.w. niedermeyer @niedermeyer.online · 16/07/2024
righteous fury always tries to be as effective as possible, whereas wrapping your rudeness in ideology doesn't, which makes it easier to tell the difference between the two than a lot of people realize
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A.R. Moxon @juliusgoat.bsky.social · 05/07/2024
This will be one about hope, though maybe not "hope" as it is usually meant. Hope is a defiant act taken against those who would sabotage any act of reparation—and sabotaging repair is exactly what fascism does. For this reason, hope is what is needed right now. www.the-reframe.com/a-fools-hope/
the-reframe.com
A Fool's Hope
How to be hopeful people in this age of deliberate ignorance, empty optimism, lazy cynicism, and manufactured despair. A more useful definition of hope than these false ones we're offered.
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Timothy Burke @bubbaprog.xyz · 01/07/2024
hey Joe I am aware of some Laws that are not being faithfully executed can you please intervene on my behalf thanks
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Tom Nichols @radiofreetom.bsky.social · 29/06/2024
And rightly so: The GOP is now a cult. The Democrats are a coalition. Cults don't chance and won't respond to external pressures. Coalitions are fragile and have to be nimble. That's just how it is for now.
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John Barron Harkonnen @sigill.bsky.social · 29/06/2024
This guy called it
@revhowardarson on Twitter predicts Biden’s poll numbers will rise because “anxiety will improve the SNR in polled demographics with a low propensity to answer polls.”
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Brendel @brendelbored.bsky.social · 13/06/2024
For real though if I was a poor ass Toad living in the Mushroom Kingdom and saw Mario playing tennis with Bowser I’d be like “despite their pretend disagreements there really is only the uniparty”
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Brian Beutler @brianbeutler.bsky.social · 13/05/2024
Democrats have had a hard time adjusting to the the new right over many years now. And I think an unappreciated reason is that their impulse to chase the median vote typically wins out, even when doing so runs them into the pitfall of right-wing sabotage.
offmessage.net
Can Democrats Ever Learn From Experience?
When the "safe" middle path leads directly into a brick wall of right-wing sabotage, liberals will march down it anyhow.
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Dave Weigel @daveweigel.bsky.social · 19/12/2023
The incentives here for Bibi/Likud are just fantastic. 1) If Trump is president, you get whatever you want. 2) If a Democrat is president, you get whatever you want from Congress while his coalition peels apart over Israel and Trump comes back. www.nytimes.com/2023/12/19/u...
nytimes.com
How Much Is Biden’s Support of Israel Hurting Him With Young Voters?
Donald Trump leads him among those 18 to 29, a new poll shows.
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Helen De Cruz @helendecruz.net · 16/12/2023
Wittgenstein was dying of cancer, and his friends (including GEM Anscombe) came too late to say goodbye as he had already fallen into a coma and died shortly after. But he relayed this message to them, "Tell them I've had a wonderful life." Philippa Foot (Anscombe's friend) had this to say about it
It is evident, however, that what has been said so far is quite inadequate as an account of that sense of the word in which it can be said that happiness is humanity's good. For one recalls Wittgenstein's famous death-bed insistence that he had had a won-derful life, which I have never seen questioned as the truth. Interpreted in terms of happy states of mind it would, however, have been very puzzling indeed if a life as troubled as his had been described as a good life. What Wittgenstein said rang true because of the things he had done, with rare passion and genius, and especially on account of his philosophy. Did he not say elsewhere 'The joy of my thoughts is the joy of my own strange life?' Joy is of the essence of a good life, but is of course compatible with prolonged suffering. In this connection I think also of an old Quaker woman of whom I have read, who after much persecution and suffering spoke of her 'joyous life' preaching the Word. She did not speak of her life as a happy
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 14/12/2023
i think these two charts explain basically 80 to 90 percent of the behavior of republican and democratic lawmakers
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Jonathan Cohn @jonathancohn.bsky.social · 13/12/2023
84 Dems voted for Rep. Stefanik's cynical, overreaching amendment calling for the firing of university presidents. Great statement from Rep. Nadler: "But mostly, I'm voting against this resolution because the cynicism of it makes me sick." nadler.house.gov/news/documen... The 84:
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mtsw @mtsw.bsky.social · 13/12/2023
the entire strategy is to delay the trial until after the election or some Trumpist judge can swoop in and save him and it's working. Baffling why the Very Smart Lawyers continue chuckling at Trump's legal filings when by all appearences the strategy is working perfectly so far?
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Sarah ⚧ ✡︎ @sarahkorse.bsky.social · 08/12/2023
Arabic folklore has these small demons who attack your feet if you don't cover them when you sleep...
Clearly an Arabic demon caught in the act.
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