iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Roman Fire

Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

It doesn’t make sense to pose it as a contradiction: you have to be a very impressive explorer to bring about an encounter across the Atlantic that led, just as a factual matter, to both colonization and genocide. It’s odd to frame these points as contradictory when one is required for the other.

2811

Roman Fire @romanfire.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Having spent the bulk of the week responding to people pasting paragraphs of unsourced ChatGPT analysis into an email and saying "look into this," not surprising if this is also wasting code reviewers' time.

010

Roman Fire @romanfire.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Classic move in AI discourse: - AI super intelligence is an existential threat to humanity - maybe, because of the impact of data centers in climate change - [ignores climate change] actually, I saw a chart of exponential growth that could happen to AI intelligence and you need to acknowledge this!!

110

Roman Fire @romanfire.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

This whole story is a missed opportunity to actually engage with how these purported Trump swing voters actually experience politics. At a minimum, they think of political issues as being mainly about them and are surrounded by people who dogmatically parrot the party line re:immigration.

100

Roman Fire @romanfire.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I'm supposed to be taking home a six figure salary, but how can I do that if I never leave the house!?!

000

Roman Fire @romanfire.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Even people critical of this take are normally being too nice to AI music. There are so many untalented human artists who think Road to Nowhere would be improved by singing it at half tempo with a piano backing it like an Adele breakup song. But at least they created bad art themselves.

101

Roman Fire @romanfire.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Theres going to be a phenomenon with these gimmicky AI bots where these businesses just revert to using a website or platform to do this so they don't have to deal with the hassle of interacting with chatbots.

100

Reposted by Roman Fire

Ian Boudreau @ianboudreau.com · 26/09/2026

Genuinely, half of me thinks the main area of AI experimentation going on right now is in how fully the concept of an "ai agent" can legally indemnify its operators

527063

Reposted by Roman Fire

dr. rich traditions, JD @helldude.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

if you don't know your own address it's because you specifically don't have to know it. people that detached from reality shouldn't be in a position to drive social policy for those of us living in reality

331809351

Roman Fire @romanfire.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

One of the more frustrating things about AI getting pushed into work is that workers are asked to do a task with AI, it does it badly, and it's ignored until a client picks up on the quality issues. At which point it's too late.

100

Roman Fire @romanfire.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Pretty interesting, and this is a kind of Neoliberalism Trap situation for private businesses. Hypothetically, maybe you want to make good quality affordable tacos, so you start doing that successfully. You need cash to expand, sell out a bit to PE, and this means your business goals change a bit...

theguardian.com

‘Don’t spend $20 on an acai bowl’: gen Z are shunning private equity’s restaurant takeover

As more PE firms invest in food establishments, people are bemoaning the ‘same-ification’ of NYC’s restaurant scene

100

Roman Fire @romanfire.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Makes you wonder whether this is happening as often if not more in China's intelligence apparatus. We likely wouldn't hear about it if it did, but the Chinese navy isn't exactly doing this kind of operation nearly as often.

001

Roman Fire @romanfire.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

It's funny watching Francis Fukuyama doing the podcast circuit and saying "You don't understand, The End of History doesn't mean history ended. Obviously that's wrong. I meant to make a point about megalothymia. Look, it's actually in the book where I'm making a point that is also wrong."

100

Reposted by Roman Fire

bendwalsh.bsky.social @bendwalsh.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

the main thing about popular country music is that on it's highly produced pop targeted at the median suburba/ex-urban American and made by a small elite cadre of industrial artists who by and large work for the same few large corporations. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/13/o...

nytimes.com

Opinion | Ella Langley. ‘Landman.’ The Rural Vibe Shift Is Real. (Gift Article)

Social marginalization means something different today.

4536

Roman Fire @romanfire.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

I'm just going to say about Talarico that last year he was getting talked up by Moderate Democrats as someone who could wrap inclusive politics in a package that could appeal to a swing voter. That would be cool if your goal is for Democrats to win in Texas.

100

Reposted by Roman Fire

Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

READ: If you read (& perhaps clutched your pearls over) that Tyler Austin Harper piece in The Atlantic about DEI and Bates College, then I hope you’ll have the integrity to read this rejoinder by Andrew Baker, a Black male professor who preceded Harper at Bates. open.substack.com/pub/thedrift...

open.substack.com

Racism and labor at Bates: the other side of the story

Andrew Baker responds to Tyler Austin Harper

5511187

Reposted by Roman Fire

Maia @maiamindel.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Socialists: Joseph Stalin would be in the DSA and love Mamdani!! ︀︀Other Socialists: NO! He would hate WOkeness!! ︀︀Josef Stalin in 2026: Comrade Ezra Klein, thank you for having me on your show. I'm a massive fan of your recent book. We need a Five Year Abundance Plan.

211551163

Roman Fire @romanfire.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Had a hot take this morning that the Woke 1 backlash idea is largely a convenient excuse that older millennials and GenX can use to fully drop commitments to social causes they now find inconvenient as relatively secure members of the middle class.

100

Roman Fire @romanfire.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

I started reading this thinking it was overstated, but then got to this section, which is effectively killed the business model for an old client I had.

121

Reposted by Roman Fire

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 28/08/2026

it is in fact just the media, which has devoted more attention to this than it has to the fact that multiple republican lawmakers are dealing with “we hired nazis” scandals and that the “we hired nazis” problem extends to the white house

17257531330

Roman Fire @romanfire.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

This is a great article and basically gets two of my favorite pet issues about driving- Most drivers really don't care about driving well regardless of their intentions. You don't have all this freedom to go anywhere anytime because a car forces you to think about traffic and parking.

100

Reposted by Roman Fire

Brandon Bishop @brandontbishop.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

I hope I do not need to layout how *mass movement politics* and *Führerprinzip* are only things you get in a very specific, very modern context--both of which are literally unthinkable before more or less Napoleon--not remotely things you get from divine right absolutism let alone earlier things.

5593

Reposted by Roman Fire

"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

I want to expand on this in a short thread. Fascism sucks. It is also not going away: it is an effectively permanent part of modern representative politics because it is an effectively permanent part of human nature. We have to be prepared to push back against it, basically forever.

601829398

Roman Fire @romanfire.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

"Huh, people seem to hate AI and its boosters. I have a solution - let's publicly fantasize about using AI to deny insurance claims for petty irrelevant reasons. That should fix the problem."

050

Reposted by Roman Fire

mtsw @mtsw.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Like a type of music that has deep roots in American folk music and harkens back to classic country music exists and the audience for it is educated urban hipsters. The volk hate that shit and instead like mainstream country music, a hideous behind-the-times pastiche of other top 40 pop genres

281810128

Reposted by Roman Fire

Innsmouth Looksmaxxing @gonebabygone.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Yes popular opinion on an issue that directly affects hundreds of communities down to the air they breathe is more urgent than on an issue that affects so few people that it currently centers on the WNBA, a league with no trans athletes

11078157

Roman Fire @romanfire.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Definitely appreciate Jasmine Sun making the podcast rounds lately since this is kind of a Political Economy 101 on data centers. This interview is especially interesting talking about contractors who are supportive of the projects but generally not living where the projects are actually built.

bloomberg.com

Odd Lots: Jasmine Sun on What the AI Industry Got Wrong About the Public Backlash - Bloomberg

Understand every aspect of the global economy – and know how to make your next move.

100

Reposted by Roman Fire

Christopher Mims @mims.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

I don’t begrudge anyone their fear and loathing of AI. And I don’t condescend by asserting that it‘s merely a symbol. Americans fear AI because they know our lawmakers can no longer be trusted to rein in the worst aspects of new technologies. Look at Flock, or at secret deals for new data centers.

322834

Roman Fire @romanfire.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

The AI can cure cancer line is also pretty disingenuous in that most people don't have the expertise to use the tool to do that even if it could. Scientists (hopefully) validate the output. Most people are being told to use "AI" as a magic box that will do a task correctly and completely.

101

Reposted by Roman Fire

Celestial Witch 🏳️‍⚧️ @staroutofspace.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

There's a post that compares "legitimate use of AI" to arson and baking, but I think it's more appropriate to say that this is like responding "but bricks are used to build houses" when everyone's saying we should stop giving bricks of cocaine to children.

6726143

Reposted by Roman Fire

Matthew Sheffield @matthew.flux.community · 19/08/2026

But there is the immediate reason as well: Trump is a deranged and decrepit moron who thinks magnets are ruined by water and that wind turbines cause cancer. In his first term, there were a sufficient number of rational people around Trump that his infantile desires were ignored. Now they're gone.

51017127

Reposted by Roman Fire

Ian Boudreau @ianboudreau.com · 16/08/2026

Guys like Yglesias keep using the "HR training" and "HR lady" shorthand because it's less obviously odious than honestly saying that they don't think racism or misogyny are important issues worth dealing with and only matter as "luxury beliefs" for prudish upper class people

513032515

Roman Fire @romanfire.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

I mean, I'd like to also make myself unelectable and say that the whole cancel Thanksgiving Tweet that started this is completely correct. It's a kind of shit holiday the way it's done now.

100

Reposted by Roman Fire

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

I think part of the pundit crack-up has been that they missed the big call of their lifetimes about which was the bigger threat to America: wokeness or authoritarianism. And rather than admitting that, they are doubling down on wokeness, while ignoring an authoritarianism that does not threaten them

942914655

Reposted by Roman Fire

Peter @notalawyer.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

the actual order of events from 2020-2024 gets strategically jumbled by reactionary centrists all the time. They love to blame 2024 on wokeness while skipping over the fact that Dems won in 2020. They talk about early COVID Iike it was a failure of Dem policy when Trump was in office.

362026326

Roman Fire @romanfire.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

My big takeaway from this discourse on Woke 1 is that rehashing this debate just shows how much critics of it are not actually responding to substantive problems of illiberalism or overreach anymore and just attacking people they see as rivals or just cringe.

100

Roman Fire @romanfire.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

I've been rewatching Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and there is a lot of hamfisted Woke 1 themed plot in that show. It is unfortunately also the only part of the series where they seem to be comfortable actually making a clear statement about any of the themes of the series.

100

Reposted by Roman Fire

Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

The excesses of the Woke 1 era mostly amount to cringe public statements, harmless vocabulary updates and loss of prestige for public figures. The backlash to Woke 1, on the other hand, is imprisoning dissidents, dismantling public education and eroding democracy. That's what needs reckoning

242891604

Reposted by Roman Fire

Geoffrey Hughes @geofffhughes.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

The interpretive key here is that educational attainment and class always had a tenuous relationship. A food service worker is a lumpen, but so is a grad student. I should know as I have been both. A guy with a high school diploma who inherited his dad's dealership is, despite his protests, not...

232425

Reposted by Roman Fire

Ida B Wells' Winchester Rifle @dytsras.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

For YEARS, I been waiting for this to happen every time I watch the news

227103381967

Roman Fire @romanfire.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

It would be really amazing to be able to share major milestones in life like buying a house with extended family without running the risk of getting sent an ugly ass AI caricature of someone with a tool belt and a moving box outside of a generic house.

120

Roman Fire @romanfire.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Seems like at some point, basic media literacy is going to have to include automatically assuming any data provided by a company using genAI is just fake. "Oh, I googled this" should sound as serious as "Well the National Enquirer said..."

000

Roman Fire @romanfire.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

I would love to see a series of stories about the evolution of thought inside companies like Substack around GenAI. So many text and writing heavy industries seem to have spent the past year shifting their mindset from thinking AI increases their output to AI cheapens their product.

110

Reposted by Roman Fire

Philip Bump @pbump.com · 28/07/2026

[guy who reportedly makes seven figures arguing for centrist positions]:

2015256645

Roman Fire @romanfire.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Listening to The Daily talking about Trump accounts, and just, damn, you say the Trump administration made a policy that they say will help working families but in practice isn't helping them? Crazy stuff. Wild how that keeps happening.

110

Reposted by Roman Fire

I Scare You Like Sound Dog @chadstanton.blacksky.app · 23/07/2026

Anyway while this constant back and forth is happening in public the same crowd gets upset when their “good intentions” aren’t instantly trusted by the very people being targeted by them.

0671