iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ron Pressler @pressron.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

What wasn't known, for example, was how easily SCOTUS would hand over control of agencies to the president. I don't think even long-time SCOTUS-watchers predicted that with much certainty. I don't think they can predict now what the court will do regarding the Fed.

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Ron Pressler @pressron.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

The issue wasn't the intent but Trump's typically shambolic execution that made predicting what he would actually accomplish in a short timeframe difficult. The effectiveness of institutional resistance was also unclear. The point is that what's surprising is the execution, not the goals.

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Ron Pressler @pressron.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

I'm confused. JVL predicted that, too, just not the extent to which it would be done in a few months. It's the first item in his summary of his predictions (I don't have access to see the original from last year):

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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 28/09/2025

Trump: “Some of the highest quality 24 Karat Gold used in the Oval Office and Cabinet Room of the White House. Foreign Leaders, and everyone else, “freak out” when they see the quality and beauty. Best Oval Office ever, in terms of success and look!!! President DJT”

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John Ganz @lioneltrolling.bsky.social · 04/09/2025

Eric Schmitt's speech was cribbed from Samuel T. Francis.— www.unpopularfront.news/p/the-schmit...

unpopularfront.news

The Schmittian Enemy

What's up at the NatC Conference

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fesshole 🧻 @fesshole.bsky.social · 10/08/2025

When I was a kid, I overheard one of my dad's mates referring to him as a "lady killer". I spent the rest of my of my childhood worrying that my dad was a serial killer, expecting him to be taken away every time I heard a police siren.

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VictorianLondon @victorianlondon.bsky.social · 10/08/2025

almost archetypal Victorian humour here

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fesshole 🧻 @fesshole.bsky.social · 05/08/2025

When my wife annoys me, the next time I make her a sandwich, I'll make the two slices of bread "point" in opposite directions knowing full well she'll hate the lack of symmetry but can't exactly complain about something made for her.

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Ron Pressler @pressron.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

Ethno-cultural nationalism has existed in Europe, of course, but (over time) as the exception rather than the rule

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Ron Pressler @pressron.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

Also, associating Europe - a continent that, for millennia, has been governed by super-national institutions, from the Roman Empire, through the Church, to royal dynasties - with ethno-cultural nationalism is mythical projection.

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Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 07/07/2025

behold, Curtis Yarvin, the intellectual titan of the far right, whose erudition has awed vice presidents and billionaires

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fesshole 🧻 @fesshole.bsky.social · 08/07/2025

I was nervous about doing a presentation in work. So I went the pub at lunch & had a few pints to calm the nerves. I then smashed the presentation. I was confident & funny. Problem is i've been asked to repeat it for all our branches & I'm concerned I'll turn into an alcoholic

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Kieron Gillen @kierongillen.bsky.social · 08/07/2025

I’m petrified about today’s science news. Genetically modifying crabs to have cheetah genes? This could go sideways fast.

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LJ @coffeecurls.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

I have a new hero. This owl stole a child's hobby horse and flies around with it!

Image shows an owl with a hobby horse - looks like a witch on a broomstick

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Ron Pressler @pressron.bsky.social · 09/06/2025

This is very confusing. So if, in your serious reading of history, the founders were the richest men in the world and authoritarian reactionaries with control over the world's largest military power, who were the British, or the French, or the Spanish?

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Ron Pressler @pressron.bsky.social · 07/06/2025

Yeah, constantly saying, "hey everyone, look how moderate I am on issue X" is a strange strategy of courting the voters who, you believe, find X to be a very important problem.

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Ron Pressler @pressron.bsky.social · 06/06/2025

I would qualify that. People have always been given both real and fictitious "information". What's changed is their ability to separate truth from fiction (and the shades in between). It's a much bigger problem than the information. Something has broken in the people and their epistemology.

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Ron Pressler @pressron.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

Yarvin cannot tear himself away from his “spherical cow” mode of thinking even in his engineering work, which is why he’s so bad at it. His big project, Urbit, is just as stupid and as ill-conceived as his social ideas. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spheric...

en.wikipedia.org

Spherical cow - Wikipedia

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Sam Brody @samuelhayimbrody.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

unions: they get the job done

IWW IU 520 (Railroad Workers) PRESENTS:

TROLLEY PROBLEM SOLUTION

“Slip the switch” by flipping it while the trolley’s front wheels have passed through, but before the back wheels do. This will cause a controlled derailment bringing the trolley to a safe halt.

Thank a rail worker today!

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Ron Pressler @pressron.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

When people lose economic status, it could be argued that they become more susceptible to messages that suggest they may find some status elsewhere, as in sexism, racism etc., and grow more resentful of the educated people who have moved a few rungs up the ladder.

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Ron Pressler @pressron.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

It's not so simple, because growing inequality leads to a real and significant loss of economic status, and being able to buy two TV sets is no consolation. Wealth isn't just about stuff; it's also about status and dignity.

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Ron Pressler @pressron.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

Plus, they voted for Trump despite his declared inflationary policies. So even if they did authentically care about inflation, they didn’t understand it, which goes to show, according to Will, that how people are made to understand the world is more important than what’s actually happening.

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Ron Pressler @pressron.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

I *think* he's saying that voters say inflation is why they voted for Trump not necessarily because it was the issue that directly affected them personally the most, but because that was the message they had absorbed that stuck with them the most.

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Ron Pressler @pressron.bsky.social · 25/05/2025

Yes, but it’s more than that. There’s a basic logical error here. It’s like noticing that the stocks that do well are those that everyone is buying and concluding that to do well in the market, you should look at which stocks everyone is buying and then buy those.

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Ron Pressler @pressron.bsky.social · 25/05/2025

Without even getting into the substance of this approach, the thought that a repeated game could have a risk-free winning strategy that both sides could easily follow seems problematic to me just on the mathematics of it.

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Ron Pressler @pressron.bsky.social · 25/05/2025

I'm not a political operative, but as an engineer, this sounds as questionable to me as saying that to do well in the stock market, simply respond to market movements once they become clear. When opponents of similar skill play any competitive game, winning usually involves taking risks.

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Ron Pressler @pressron.bsky.social · 25/05/2025

A winning strategy will virtually always be a risky one (or at least non-obvious, which is pretty much the same as a non-obvious strategy will be one that appears risky).

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Ron Pressler @pressron.bsky.social · 25/05/2025

The problem isn't just with the merits of this particular approach. Even ignoring all the particulars of politics or of this approach, a competitive game -- especially one that's played over and over -- cannot have a "winning strategy" that both sides can easily follow.

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Ron Pressler @pressron.bsky.social · 25/05/2025

To the extent that there can be a winning strategy in a competitive game, it cannot be one that both sides can easily follow (or they'd both have followed it already, thus making it not a winning strategy).

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Ron Pressler @pressron.bsky.social · 25/05/2025

Is it, though? It's pretty obvious that politicians win when their positions align with majority views, but the politicians that win are usually those who'd held those positions *before* they were the majority views (especially on decisive issues).

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Ron Pressler @pressron.bsky.social · 25/05/2025

Why "especially on social and moral values"?

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Ron Pressler @pressron.bsky.social · 19/05/2025

Put another way, I think that "how does Marxism explain this moment?" is a valid question (as it was in the 1930s).

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Ron Pressler @pressron.bsky.social · 19/05/2025

But didn't fascism also pose a challenge to Marxist analysis a century ago? It's one thing to say that the impact of contemporary communication technology doesn't disprove Marxism, and another thing to say that Marxism offers the most useful analysis of the present moment.

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Ron Pressler @pressron.bsky.social · 19/05/2025

Because the mechanism of including Jackson (or other libraries for that matter) in the JDK - jlink - is already delivered. But a dependency doesn't disappear if it's pre-linked into the JDK, and this is for those who don't want the dependency.

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Ron Pressler @pressron.bsky.social · 19/05/2025

Our bodies exist in a context defined by the laws of physics, yet when we're ill we see a doctor, not a physicist. The question isn't whether material conditions are a powerful force, but whether it is most useful to analyse the current political environment through a material lens.

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Ron Pressler @pressron.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

(and I'm not saying *I* believe such an analysis would be irrelevant, I'm saying Will Stancil believes it would be less useful than the expressive one)

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Ron Pressler @pressron.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

Yes, because it seems that's what Will Stancil is referring to.

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Ron Pressler @pressron.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

it's all in the midichlorians

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Ron Pressler @pressron.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

For example, it's not that people who were personally negatively impacted by inflation voted for Trump, but rather people who identify with groups that support Trump talked about inflation because that's one of the things those groups talked about.

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Ron Pressler @pressron.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

In this view, social media may be said to help coalesce such groups as well as amplify questionable beliefs in echo chambers that isolate people from an independent perception of the world.

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Ron Pressler @pressron.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

I think Stancil subscribes to "expressive politics", the theory that people's political choices are motivated by the desire to express an affiliation with social groups that share their beliefs about the world more than by their material interests (informed by independent perception of reality).

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Ron Pressler @pressron.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

If we ignore Stancil's dismissive tone, I think his point is that the material perspective is not the most useful one to understanding some of the most prevailing current dynamics. Maybe he's wrong, but I'd love to see the material analysis that answers his criticism.

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Ron Pressler @pressron.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

but do you think it would be the most useful analysis?

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