iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 03/11/2025

@hankgreen.bsky.social re: shutdown. We need liberal and progressive mayors across the country gathering in a continental congress to create a union of municipalities to replace the institutions Trump is destroying, and we need it last year.

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

There's no such thing as a constructivist.

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

I know this sounds like a good idea in your head, you probably think this will lead to cognitive dissonance, but it doesn’t. It leads to comfort and acceptance, to identification. When people "own their racism" the world does not get better, it gets much worse. "Us vs them" is their game.

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

Running government like a business: Maximize revenue (taxes) Increase customer base (immigration) Keep customers happy (services) Profits go to shareholders (UBI) It doesn't sound ALL bad. Maybe we just shouldn't run government like a Trump business.

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

I feel like at this point it would be better to keep your job and be really bad at it. They'll replace these people with loyalists... who will also be bad at if... but who will go down with the ship instead of being in the right place when they're needed.

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

Oh, would you believe actual crack? Yeah, they love it!

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 26/04/2025

And while there are some issues that have to be universal, like civil and human rights, there's a lot more we could be doing to embrace our cultural and ideological diversity as a country rather than imagining ourselves to be "one people".

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 26/04/2025

Liberals could accomplish so much in every city nd town in the US if they stopped asking for the permission and involvement of mostly rural conservatives who mostly want to be left alone.

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 26/04/2025

@hankgreen.bsky.social I have a better blind spot than birth rate decline. Tyranny of the majority. Liberals love to talk about what policies would be "best" by their modes of analysis but can't acknowledge that national adoption would _require_ disenfranchising conservatives.

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

Sure! And ditto. I think I'm being civil and it's weird you don't get what I'm saying. That's kinda how perspective works!

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

What's the taxonomy from your perspective?

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

It's a scale of an inverse relationship between reliability and accessibility, where deep understandinng of the primary souce cannon is on one end, llms are on the other, and wikipedia is somewhere in the middle.

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

That's not an equivocation. It's a single statement and one I've heard more than a few people make. I used it to construct a metaphor, which is not the same as an equivocation. I don't think they're the same, I think there are similarities.

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

Right! I think that's a big problem with how people see/use them. They require a healthy level of skepticism, you should just trust something an llm tells you. Which is fine! Good even. But yeah, a lot of people just want to believe everything they read, despite the internet being 2 generations old.

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

Sometimes people say Wikipedia is bad because you should be using the original sources. Yes, it's better to understand the original sources but there's value in a quick overview. Same idea. Docs are vital, but they can't always answer direct questions as quickly, easily, or practically as an llm.

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

I'm curious, how do you feel about Wikipedia?

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

Because I'm actually interested in the conversation not in just giving NPC tier retorts.

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

Specifically I find it useful in three contexts. It does a good job of explaining a new concept, which I find useful for myself and for teaching children how to learn independently, it writes really good *first pass* code, and it's a good sounding board for new ideas.

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

Thanks, I'll reply to that thread.

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

That makes sense. It's more useful in situations where you might be going to stack overflow or documentation. It also makes a good first pass at a new function or query. It annoys me though when I pass it existing code and it reformats or rewrites it pointlessly. I had it the way I like it!

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

This is the correct take. People who think LLMs can replace human labor are silly, they have limitations. But people who understand that and assume it means they are useless are equally silly. It's like saying we shouldn't have factories because they use energy and people still work there.

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

They are game changingly useful in software development, reducing the time/frustration of common tasks by an order of magnitude. This makes sense because code has logical grammar and is often well documented. It can't replace human developers because it's not good at debugging, but it is useful.

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 20/04/2025

Well it's like a dick is harder and more intrusive while a prick is just there taking up your sightline when least expected, and it's just like ew

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 20/04/2025

But they said mean things about them 😭, isn't that the real threat to science!

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 15/04/2025

I think it's good for small businesses, because as a small business owner I can tell you that it's hard and stressful, and we'd all be better off giving up on our deams and submitting to the oligarchy.

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

But they hurt people's feelings by asking them to think about other people's feelings before speaking, so it's vital for the sake of the 1st amendment that the government act now to stop people from being allowed to say things that make people feel bad about saying things that make people feel bad!

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 31/03/2025

This is nonsense at every level. It's the same argument Republicans use against the expansion of human rights, and using that argument undermines those battles. It simultaneously understates the actual reality we're facing. They aren't "breaking norms", they're seizing power.

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 08/03/2025

He was just elected! It's 1936.

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 06/03/2025

Mice moms are attentive to their babies while mice dads usually aren't. Sounds like gender roles.

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 23/02/2025

You seem to be agreeing with each other.

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

Yes, I half think they're waiting for an excuse to escalate a crackdown on political speech as the next step in dividing us and consolidating power. That's why the PR of it is so important. It would need to be sold to Trump supporters. It needs to not look like a secession or a strike.

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

Less likely if it's a union of cities. The pitch is "You don't want the federal gov doing all that? No worries we'll be out of your way over here doing it ourselves. Let us know if you want in." Keep in mind cities produce the vast majority of the country's gdp. It's time to stop asking permission.

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

Exactly, which is why it needs to be undermined. "We just have to win every election forever" is not a viable strategy for advancing progressive value. Advance the ball through a union of liberal cities while fighting for a limited federal government that exists to protect civil rights.

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

Republicans ran on culture war in 2022 and lost. Most Trump voters don't want your son dead, though I'm making some assumptions in saying that. Trump led a big tent unified by opposition to rule by the liberal establishment. It might be easier to push civil rights without that unifying force.

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

It starts by acknowledging that we are a nation of diverse values and beliefs and that there doesn't have to be one solution to every problem. We should form a union of cities, in both red and blue states, to take over the functions of government that Musk is dismantling, and asap to limit harm.

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

Agree 100%, but there's a deeper subtext. If they were content they wouldn't be so eager to find someone to blame. If spite and economic anxiety are a distraction, what are they a distraction from? I think that it's really about cultural erasure, about feeling powerless. Do you follow so far?

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

There's another way out but it requires undermining the fascist power base by acknowledging the real motivations of their supporters and being willing to accept their right to self governance even when you deeply disagree with their policies. Let me know if you need help with that!

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

That's what they're waiting for. They need someone to blame for their incompetence, an excuse for why things keep getting worse while they wring every dollar they can out of the government for their own personal gain.

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

That's a massive underestimate. You're not adding the corruption and fraud, the attempts to buy support from us when the economy begins to collapse, the increased police state when society unravels. In the end our debt will be $0 because we'll default. The $ will be worth about the same.

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

You need a better psychologist! They just called you mentally ill and left it at that? That's not a diagnosis! Sad.

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

Okay, but who enforces the courts decisions? And what happens if it goes to the supreme court and they once again rule in favor of the unitary executive theory?

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

Yeah, sure, he'll cut social programs. But that's just out of spite. Spending will increase to buy supporters and beef up the police state. Bread riots are more expensive than food stamps. No, the tax cuts are just going to come out of the debt. Directly from our future to his supporters.

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

You're a good person Hank...

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

You know, this was legal and acceptable, patriotic even, according to the current president. I'm just saying, he's the one with the mandate right? So everyone should probably be doing what he says is patriotic.

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

Yes. Regulation is "socialism". Buying tik tok is a public/private partnership, it's a different kind of populism. It doesn't use the power of the people to keep the elites in check, it's the elites working together to "MAGA". It's about opposition to democracy.

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

Sorry for everyone that will die from the famine that will result from all the unpicked crops, produce left to rot on the border, and general economic collapse, but how are scociopathic fascists supposed to learn if innocent bystanders don't suffer and die?

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owlsieve @owlsieve.bsky.social · 01/02/2025

If you study post war Germany the majority of Germans never really turned against the nazi regime. The nazi movement didn't end through regret or contrition. It ended because it was forced to. Unfortunately MAGA is likely to only get worse. I'm not sure what to do about that.

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