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Richard Becker

@rbb360.bsky.social
2K followers 4.3K following 392 posts

Union negotiator, writer, artist, and birder. Formerly Kentucky, now PNW.

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Richard Becker @rbb360.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
“What, after all, will we do when A.I. frees us from doing our jobs and thinking our thoughts and, ultimately, leading our lives? Use more A.I. so that we can use our newfound free time to—use more A.I.? The result is a kind of Ponzi scheme that bottoms out in nothing.”
newyorker.com
The Humanism Driving the Anti-A.I. Movement
At the Pro-Human Assembly in Washington, D.C., attendees talked less about jobs and policy, and more about their philosophy of life.
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public health guy @publichealthguy1.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
so we just nearly started a war with china (a nuclear state) because of genAI use
The intelligence report, circulated across the US military this spring in the midst of the war with Iran, immediately set off alarm bells: A Chinese ship in the Middle East was transporting components of a nuclear weapons program.
The US military swung into action with plans to intercept the vessel, according to four sources familiar with the episode.
According to two of the sources, armed members of the US military were preparing to board the ship. Military planes were in the air, one of those sources and another source familiar with the incident said.
It was only just before the planned operation that officials dug deeper into the report put together by a special operations command analyst and found it had been generated with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) — and that a chatbot the analyst had used inaccurately identified the material the ship was carrying. CNN was not able to learn what the misidentified cargo was.
The report, according to one of the sources, was "entirely false." But it also "almost started a war," the source said. Any US operation against a Chinese vessel could have risked spiraling into an armed conflict between the two nations.
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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 18/09/2026
Why talk about how nuts the AI rationalist sex cult is, and not just focus on the (very real) risks and harms of AI? Well, when we're discussing "who should get to regulate AI, and how," I think it's VERY relevant to talk about the antisocial, unsettling ways many people running US AI think.
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 17/09/2026
I know I am not the median voter. But when I watch Trump performances like the one we just endured in North Carolina, I can't escape the feeling that our problems go much deeper than "affordability" and we're whistling past the graveyard if we reduce our politics to that issue.
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W.E.D.em Boyz @leftistwonk.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair wearing eye black with Hind Rajab’s name on it.
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W.E.D.em Boyz @leftistwonk.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
It’s so awesome that every billionaire is insanely stupid
Mark Cuban: Hey @grok, which is more likely to create a human extinction event or series of events in the next 25 years, Al or Climate Change ?
Assign a probability to each
If the answer to either is yes, do your best to put a timeline for when you think it happens
If the answer is no. Explain why
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 10/09/2026
Trump: "Only I can make this promise to you: If the Republicans win the House and Senate, I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000"
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Jennifer Harris @jwharris.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
I feel like Star Wars and, to a lesser extent, Star Trek lawyers should be having a word with the Administration here.
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shauna @goldengateblond.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
chess dot com probably doesn’t have much money but they clearly have enough to own the world’s richest man
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Andrew Lawrence @ndrew.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
[cop that just spent his entire six hour shift using flock cameras to stalk his ex]: alright frank have a good weekend, stay safe brotha
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Joe Sonka 😐 @joesonka.lpm.org · 04/09/2026
NEW: According to the owner of the property, former Gov. Matt Bevin was playing a "featured extra" in the Christmas movie being filmed there when the sheriff's office arrested him. She says they knew he was there because he posted a photo of himself with the lead actor.
lpm.org
Former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin arrested, booked in Louisville jail
The Bourbon County Sheriff’s Office arrested former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin Thursday at a film set in Paris, Kentucky.
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Dan Froomkin/Press Watch/Heads Up News @froomkin.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Not one word here about how it’s a deal at gunpoint, how kidnapping Maduro was illegal, how this is inevitably corrupt, not one word from a critic, or an environmentalist. Three reporters who should be embarrassed. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/28/b...
nytimes.com
Trump Says U.S. Has Deal for Control of Large Share of Venezuela’s Oil
The president said an agreement between the countries involved “a partnership with private business” and more than 65 billion barrels of reserves.
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Kelsey Atherton @atherton.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Department of State V @StateDept
X.com
It was brought to our attention that Lake America was erroneously labeled as Lake "Ontario" on our website.
We have corrected this mistake and apologize for deadnaming the lake.
VQ三
- OUR LOCATION
U.S. Consulate Toronto 360 University Avenue
Toronto, Ontario M5G 154
(YYZ)
ETOBICOKE
360 University
Ave
凶
回
Lake
America
U.S. Consulate TorontoEntertainment
Marilyn Manson Now Going Door-To-Door Trying To Shock People
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Russ McSpadden @peccarynotpig.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
BREAKING: Armed and masked agents of the U.S. government have invaded the sovereign Tohono O'odham Nation.
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Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 26/08/2026
zuck sucks and I think it would be a really nice thing for the internet if this company completely collapsed
reuters.com
Mark Zuckerberg had a bold plan to replace Meta staff with AI. Here’s how it imploded.
To make its workforce “AI native,” Meta explored slashing the size of many teams across the company by as much as 60% in two waves, internal documents show. Staff revolted - and hours before a big lay...
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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 26/08/2026
this meme has been haunting my thoughts, unwanted and unbidden, all week
YEAH, I HAVE A PHD
A PILE OF HOT DOGS
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Norm Eisen @normeisen.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Please don't overreact to Roberts Court decision on the contemplated USPS ballot moves They simply held that the injunction came too early in the process, before there was a final rule👇 Now we HAVE a final rule & we will litigate it. I'm as confident in our arguments here as in any of our cases!
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Richard Becker @rbb360.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
SCOTUS is openly mocking us
nytimes.com
Supreme Court Allows Trump Plan to Restrict Mail-In Voting, for Now
The administration asked the court to clear the way for President Trump’s order that creates “state citizenship lists” and directs the Postal Service to decide who gets a mail-in ballot.
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Gillian Brockell @gillianbrockell.com · 24/08/2026
If and when we make it through this we need a constitutional convention, because the fact that this insane person hasn’t been impeached and removed 47 times over — and indeed that no one ever has in 238 years — proves the mechanism DOES NOT WORK.
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🍂k a r e n🍂 @andthenisleep.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Why do 8 data centers in Gary, Indiana have power BUT MOST OF THE RESIDENTS HAVEN'T HAD POWER OR WATER IN DAYS.
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jon rosenberg @jonrosenberg.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Maybe I'm in the minority here but if people who support AI are being shamed into silence then it's working. The shame is working as intended. The left's biggest problem is that it's afraid to hurt the feelings of folks who need to have their feelings hurt. Let them experience introspection for once
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[No//Thrones] @krakoan-lorax.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Diarrhea in the lettuce, glass in the popsicles, E. Coli in the berries, screw worms in the beef, salmonella in the chicken & eggs, listeria in everything else. Man I love deregulation. Libertarianism is such a great philosophy.
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Return of the Cmonstermacques @cmonmaque.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
I’ll never tire of seeing a calm woman explaining something very basic to a hysterical man
Kaitlin Is Just Getting S... @gotha... • 55m
I mean, I'm deeply skeptical. But I literally cannot think of anything I do that could be helped by this technology. I truly require suggestions to even conceive of some task that could be helped.
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austin• @aparker.io • 54m
you're a writer and you can't think of a use for having a machine that can do research for you?
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Kaitlin Is Just Getting S... @gotha... • 47m
You know, when I was a kid, I hated research. I struggled to understand why it mattered. As I got older and got better at doing research, the process of finding made me a better writer. I would never take a shortcut because the journey is the point for me.
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austin• @aparker.io • 46m
it's not a shortcut?austin
@aparker.io • 46m
it's not a shortcut?
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Kaitlin Is Just Getting S... @gotha... • 42m
It is? Like, I didn't know that Jackie Robinson had an opinion column until I searched a library archive trying to find his rejection of the GOP. In the process of looking that up, I ended up going through dozens of his articles. That wouldn't have happened if I had gotten a summarized answer.
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austin
@aparker.io • 40m
Well, that's why I said you use it as a research aide, not as a summarizing tool?
Like, you ask it to find sources, then you read them?austin• @aparker.io • 40m
Well, that's why I said you use it as a research aide, not as a summarizing tool?
Like, you ask it to find sources, then you read them?
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Kaitlin Is Just Getting Sta...
@gothamgirlblue.com
X
But I don't want to do that? Because I generally know where to find information and also when I seek something, I find that I discover things along the way that are actually more pertinent to my thinking than what I originally intended.
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Richard Becker @rbb360.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Yeah or the journalists have written about it but people are so reflexive and impatient they don’t even check first, content in their rightness in spite of reality
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Crystal Fincher @finchfrii.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
This is the way.
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Bryce Covert @brycecovert.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Yikes. Women accounted for all of the job losses and all of the labor force decline in July, according to @nwlc.org
WASHINGTON — Women accounted for 100 percent of the decline in the labor force in July, according to a National Women’s Law Center jobs analysis of monthly data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That brings the total net number of women who have left the labor force since January this year to 845,000. In comparison, there are 406,000 fewer men in the labor force now than in January. 

A total of 165,000 women, aged 20 and over, left the labor force last month — meaning they are neither working nor looking for work — while men's labor force participation was unchanged. Overall, the economy lost 23,000 jobs in July. Women accounted for all of these losses, losing 32,000 jobs, while men gained 9,000 jobs. Women make up 50.1% of the workforce.
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Richard Becker @rbb360.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Just…trying to Google reviews of a book. And 75% of the results screen was this.
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Richard Becker @rbb360.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
I’d enjoy autocorrect going back to being only moderately annoying instead of actively sabotaging my personal communications, among other things
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Bodhi Boo 👩🏻‍🌾🌿 (Cara) @bodhiboo.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
I’d like to thank @drdind.bsky.social @michaeljgolub.bsky.social and @williamphamilton.bsky.social for their kindness, time, and thoughtful explanations.
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Asawin Suebsaeng @swin24.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
“Overwhelmingly, these sources said that what was most unsettling to them was that for many months, they’ve been wargaming & meticulously planning how to defend their upcoming elections from Trump in ways that mirror how they’d plan to protect elections from a foreign adversary, not the president…”
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Linotype Pilgrim @symbo1ics.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Do… they think we USE it??
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Richard Becker @rbb360.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
It’s time for a @daveweigel.bsky.social “ok I’ve seen enough”
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Richard Becker @rbb360.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Cool cool www.nytimes.com/2026/08/04/u...
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Jonzor @jonzor.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
It's fucking stunning that people act like it's impossible to do this without AI anymore when that's exactly what they were doing like three fucking years ago. It's like if you found out the Door Dash guys were spitting in your food and you were like "WELL GREAT, NOW HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO EAT?!"
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Richard Becker @rbb360.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
"Maybe some people do loathe me. And that's probably true. I don't care," said Musk. I can assure him that a great many of us do, in fact, loathe him deeply.
gizmodo.com
Elon Musk Melts Down Over Perfectly Normal Questions in Wild New Interview
"Maybe some people do loathe me. And that's probably true. I don't care," said Musk.
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Richard Becker @rbb360.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Today I learned that I am older than the concept of credit scores
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Professa Murray @kalimurray.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
Everyone coming on my feed and explaining to me that all is lost, I note what I have noted before, that there are no Negro Spirituals entitled, “Welp, I Guess It All Sucks and I Am Giving Up.”
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Richard Becker @rbb360.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Step 1: something awful happens Step 2: Minority-caucus senator makes comment all decent people should agree with Step 3: everyone on this cursed app mocks said senator and demands they DO SOMETHING but somehow always decline to say what the thing they should do is
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Richard Becker @rbb360.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
Incidentally, the heat wave also transformed them into turkeys.
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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
When people ask me what the phrase "artificial intelligence" means, my short answer is, it means "venture capitalists, give me some money". But OUP asked me for a longer answer, given here and summarized in the section headings: doi.org/10.1093/9780...
Screencap of page for linked article, reading: 

Contents
Introduction
AI Is a Research Field
AI Is an Approach to Cognitive Science
AI Is a Parlor Trick
AI Is an Ideology
AI Is a Way to Hide and Devalue Human Labor
AI Is a Way to Shift Accountability
AI Is a Way to Centralize Power
Conclusion
Notes
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Amy Hoy @amyhoy.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
"you are a human making a mistake and i love you!!!" is the real stuff. like toolmarks on a carving or a thumbprint in an antique brick. "inhuman perfection" used to be a goal but then it was everywhere…
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Sam Lloyd @llamsoyd.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
AMERICA: check this shit out motherfucker (America slides one foot out from under it and falls on its ass, it’s not clear what move America was trying to do)
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Jordan Uhl @jordanuhl.com · 05/07/2026
Trump is watching the Fox News feed of himself watching Fox News
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Matt Binder @mattbinder.bsky.social · 05/07/2026
this guy is the co-founder of Airbnb
Joe Gebbia
@jgebbia
👇
John Birch Society
@The_JBS • Jun 30
Your taxes are paying for an Illegal Alien with an Anchor
Baby to live in the starter home your American kids can't
afford.
Last edited 10:40 PM • Jun 30, 2026 • 25.5K Views
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Anthony's Spinning Circles here too! @circlesspinning.bsky.social · 05/07/2026
Maga taking shelter in the National Museum of African-American History And Culture!
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John Brown’s Body @jbrownsbody.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
The US is unlivable at a fundamental level: It is a castle built on quicksand. This country’s calling cards are anger, fear, prejudice, greed, complacency, and superficiality. America is a failed state in all but name.
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Philip N Cohen @philipncohen.com · 29/06/2026
Checking in on MAHA day at the American State Fair. Managed to get pretty close to the stage
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the babahuck @tylerhuckabee.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
my god
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