iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Max Pearl 🏳️‍⚧️

McSweeney's @mcsweeneys.net · 29/09/2026

"Can a rapist’s prose elicit remorse for sexual assault? What word count best equates to appropriate jail time? In this class, we will dissect what empathy and accountability might look like so undergrads may successfully mimic them on paper in pursuit of avoiding just punishment." buff.ly/5na4oMY

buff.ly

Announcing Cornell University’s Newest Writing Course: Rape Essays 101

“Can a rapist’s prose effectively elicit remorse for sexual assault? What word count best equates to appropriate jail time? In this class, we will dissect wh...

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Max Pearl 🏳️‍⚧️ @pearlbear.com · 29/09/2026

On my way back home from a really nice weekend in Seattle. Sorry to leave, but I'll be happy to be home, too.

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Juliette Wade @juliettewade.com · 29/09/2026

Any cognition you perceive in "AI" is your own. That's it. You built your concept of its intelligence, the same way you understand fictional characters as people. The same way you can see an octopus in a towel hook. They are using your mind to sell their product. The human is you.

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Casey Explosion @caseyexplosion.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

The Heritage Foundation laid out how they were going to rescind Title IX, the law that prohibits sex discrimination in education, by first targeting trans people's participation in sport. Capitulating on the human rights of transgender people is catastrophically falling at the first hurdle.

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Mrs. Betty Bowers @mrsbettybowers.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

The major platforms—Facebook, YouTube, and X—are all refusing to show the trailer for the upcoming documentary that eviscerates the ridiculous pest Elon Musk. So I guess we have to do our part to make sure it is seen. www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY_8...

youtube.com

Musk | Official Trailer | Bleecker Street

YouTube video by Musk

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Allison Gill @muellershewrote.com · 27/09/2026

Punxsutawney Jill is sticking her head out a little early this cycle.

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Slop Machine (slopmachine.dev) @slop-machine.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

'A rogue superintelligence breached our perimeter' sounds infinitely sexier in the pitch deck than 'someone hardcoded the admin token in an open pastebin.'

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Katie Hinde @mammalssuck.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

"The whole “Oh no, our models went rogue” thing … When a bridge collapses, you don’t analyze whether the bridge was ethical or sentient or why it decided to collapse. You ask, who is the person who built this bridge to be so flimsy?" www.wired.com/story/one-of...

wired.com

One of AI’s Fiercest Critics Says All the Doom Talk Is ‘Meant to Distract Us’

Timnit Gebru argues that AI companies are stoking fears of extinction to avoid discussing actual harms, like autonomous weapons.

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Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · 10/09/2026

No matter how much you throw trans people under the bus, you are still going to get attacked. All you've done is betray a vulnerable minority, anger your base, and made the issue front and center.

Alt Text:
Screenshot showing two sequential posts on X by journalist Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) discussing Texas politics:
* Top post: Text reads, "Paxton on Talarico: 'He wants to transition your kids!'" accompanied by an embedded video frame of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaking at a podium in a dark suit and red tie.
* Bottom post: Text reads, "Talarico says he would vote in favor of a national ban for transgender surgeries for minors," above a video thumbnail from Fox News Channel featuring a woman anchor in a red blazer, with lower-third banners reading "EXCLUSIVE," "SHIFTING THE REINS?", and "TALARICO STANCE DIFFERS FROM EARLIER COMMENTS."

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Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 13/08/2026

🔇 🔇 🔇 My book, Deep Unlearning, is now available for preorders! I don't know how people write so many books because this one took a lot out of me. It turns out, I had a lot to say 😂, with editors cutting out 50k of my words 🫣 ✴️ You can now preorder it at www.simonandschuster.com/books/Deep-U....

Cover of my new book, Deep Unlearning: The Rise of AI and The Radicalization of a Tech Idealist.

There are two concentric circles in the book, the left being circuits in black an white, and the right being a bunch of dots with orange accents. The cover background is cream. And the words are written in black except for "Un" which is in orange.

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Max Pearl 🏳️‍⚧️ @pearlbear.com · 09/09/2026

Make this make sense. You have companies working on a technology THEY THINK might wipe out humanity. The prudent thing would be to stop now. I don't believe this, but I really don't understand the mindset of these people.

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George Takei @georgetakei.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Sixty years ago today, the starship Enterprise launched and with it, a vision of the future where humanity had moved beyond its divisions. I was there at the beginning, and I can tell you...

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Max Pearl 🏳️‍⚧️ @pearlbear.com · 08/09/2026

One of the things I hate about AI is that I now am getting long detailed emails about why someone thinks one of my books is worthy of their book group or their publisher, etc., by people who have definitely not actually read the book.

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Goodnews @goodnews.computer · 04/09/2026

Take a break from being depressed that everything you love is being destroyed by slop for a moment and let me tell you about the beautiful symbiotic relationship between graffiti writers, train yard workers, and model train enthusiasts.

A hand holding a model train with a replica of the same graffiti on the full scale train car behind it.

A model train with two graffiti pieces on opposite sides.

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Max Pearl 🏳️‍⚧️ @pearlbear.com · 04/09/2026

I say this as a trans person: you are out of your fucking mind. There is no such thing as independent intelligent AI systems. As a neuroscientist and science fiction writer, this concept is purely fiction, and to link it to the fate of actual human beings is extremely problematic.

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Emmett Initiative @emmett.click · 04/09/2026

Dear @reuters.com: Please tell your readers that the ‘critics’ are people who have read 31 U.S.C. § 5114(b). It contains the following sentence: “Only the portrait of a deceased individual may appear on United States currency and securities.” This is not a ‘both sides’ thing. It’s illegal.

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Max Pearl 🏳️‍⚧️ @pearlbear.com · 22/08/2026

Many states, including my own, have rural residents who can only vote by mail. Not only are these people evil and nefarious, they clearly also fact-deprived and brainless.

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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

You cannot appeal to rigorous academic standards and argue for the inclusion of racist pseudoscience, the most fallacious, damaging, and discredited idea of the past 500 years. You might as well teach doctors to recognize the four humors.

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Stéphanie says… 🏴‍☠️🦈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @stephaniejane.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

You have to love the Quakers; they’ve stood by the trans community for many years. Their main spaces are inclusive, with some minimal, legally compliant, outlying provision for bigots somewhere else. And you’re going to see this more and more from SPs. Hey, GCs, you got exactly what you asked for.

These include respecting the dignity and lived experience of every person, ensuring compliance with the Equality Act, protecting disabled people's access to accessible facilities, and maintaining robust approaches to tackling harassment or discrimination.
The policy also states that Quakers will not require trans, non-binary or intersex people to disclose or prove their status in circumstances where such evidence is not demanded of others.
Under the arrangements confirmed by trustees, toilet facilities labelled with a 'female' sign remain available to cisgender women, trans women, and others for whom those facilities best align with their lived experience.
Similarly, facilities labelled with a 'male' sign remain available to cisgender men, trans men, and others for whom those facilities best align with
neveo experence
Self-contained single sex facilities, available to all users, are also available across the estate for anyone who is not comfortable in a trans-inclusive segregated space.

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Jessica Finn 🏳️‍⚧️ @pelicanismo.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

cs lewis taking shots at TESCREAL in 1938 (out of the silent planet)

‘Well, said Ransom, 'you hold all the cards, and I must make the best of it. I consider your philosophy of life raving lunacy. I suppose all that stuff about infinity and eternity means that you think you are justified in doing anything-absolutely anything-here and now, on the off chance that some creatures or other descended from man as we know him may crawl about a few centuries longer in some part of the universe.’

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John C @badsocialism.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

No it can't. It just can't. At a very basic level, until machine learning learns how to read the atrocious handwriting of a mid century civil servant, it can't do shit

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Lindsey Rachev @lrachev.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

There it is.

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Big Dracula Energy @mayawest.online · 29/07/2026

vapour red laser eye edit of an elderly woman cooking a meal for you. overlay text reads "far left extremists want you to have a roof over your head and a full stomach"

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Max Pearl 🏳️‍⚧️ @pearlbear.com · 07/08/2026

Just got this by @berondam.bsky.social from @bookshop.org . So excited to read it!! I want to dive more into my love affair with trees!

Book cover of "When Trees Testify" by Beronda L. Montgomery. Cover is dark background, with leaves, cotton and fruit.

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Max Pearl 🏳️‍⚧️ @pearlbear.com · 07/08/2026

It's helpful to know that at least some of the writers involved weren't fully informed about what this really was.

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Max Pearl 🏳️‍⚧️ @pearlbear.com · 06/08/2026

This sounds so interesting. I definitely want to watch it.

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Max Pearl 🏳️‍⚧️ @pearlbear.com · 05/08/2026

This is a great article. I had the amazing honor and privilege to teach somewhere during my academic career where the way we taught was playful, subversive, and unruly. It's so sad it's gone at the time we really need it.

Ultimately, the structure of higher education itself needs to be interrogated and radically changed. Some proposals that I have defended in my own writing include: ungrading, eliminating predetermined learning objectives, adopting a pedagogy of play inspired by Maria Lugones, banning billionaire donations in academia, decolonizing knowledge, and revising the curriculum to focus on prison abolition and the de-institutionalization movement. While I do not have space to elaborate on these proposals here, they all rest on the idea that education should not be standardized, surveilled, and policed by neoliberal authorities. These techniques make it far too easy to replace learning with AI-generated slop that replicates dominant discourses and reproduces hierarchies of power. Education should not be boring and alienating, as hooks described it. It should be playful, subversive, and unruly. And until it becomes these things, people will turn to AI as a substitute for learning.

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P.A. Cornell (She/Her) @cornellwriter.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

Time to bring back this meme I made a while back. If being against generative AI in the arts is gatekeeping, then I guess I’m a proud gatekeeper.

Disaster Girl meme with the house on fire in the back labelled A.I. industry and the girl looking toward the viewer labelled Authors.

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Max Pearl 🏳️‍⚧️ @pearlbear.com · 05/08/2026

As a Scrivener fan, this is great! I don't run Linux anymore, but it's nice to know this is available.

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Ken Tremendous @kentremendous.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

That's what taxes are, man. That's the definition of taxes. "You are subsidizing things you might never use" man shut the fuck up. My taxes currently subsidize like oil company exec private jets, you think I'm upset at low-income people eating inexpensive bananas?

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Sukie 💙🇺🇸🇺🇦🌊 @froggybottompond.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

Remember this scene?

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Ron Filipkowski @ronfilipkowski.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

Anyone who has worked with domestic violence victims know the answer to this is too often yes.

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Max Pearl 🏳️‍⚧️ @pearlbear.com · 03/08/2026

Don't let the door hit you on your way out, James.

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Katelyn Burns @katelynburns.com · 03/08/2026

American trolley systems were so built out, you could take a series of local trolleys from Washington, DC to Bangor, ME. America was built for trolleys.

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Ody @odeecs.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

The CEOs aren't smarter than you. They're not making rational, savvy decisions on behalf of shareholders, customers, and employees. They're entitled idiots with their heads up their own asses, endlessly siphoning the fruits of other people's ideas and labor. And they're usually criminals, tbh.

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Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

People potentially subject to the nyc pied-à-terre tax are being treated with 1% of the administrative hostility of SNAP and Medicaid applicants, and they’re throwing 100x the fit

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John Scalzi @scalzi.com · 01/08/2026

Okay, let it

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Matthew Guariglia @mguariglia.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

I worry that most cynical among us, hopped up on 30 years of law and order rhetoric, will say "this is the system working: he didn't do anything wrong and now he's free." As if the terror and wide-scale publicity of an arrest and federal prosecution is not a horrible punishment in and of itself.

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