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Root Beer Man

@root-beer-man.bsky.social
0 followers 0 following 106 posts

I am Assistant Professor of Political Theory at a University whose identity I choose not to disclose here

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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
would be curious to know if you get around to it what you think! i have no dog in the fight—i read her book but not competent to judge it
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
she basically says sectarianism in iraq was generated primarily by the US reserving seats in post sadaam iraqi parliament on a sectarian basis
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
blaydes’s book says otherwise… is she wrong
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
no you missed that part — see above. i’m right actually
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
and ended up right anyway!? a miracle. a miracle of genius
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
i’m right actually
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
yes agreed. for example in this situation my opinion is true and yours false
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
i have myself donated to the donkey man
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
everybody’s got a point of view
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
yes
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
do you think they’re conscious during each period they are actively generating something, and at all other times “asleep”? maybe that’s defensible actually. seems odd, kind of a term-breaking use of “conscious” (wasn’t ‘made to work that way’) but yeah, you convince me there could be sth to be said
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
↪ Replying to @dmnd.me
i noticed the same thing. i wonder what you think about this strange circumstance. as for myself, i am laughing my ass off.
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
interestingly, “probably” is not a common word in the thread. in fact it appears perhaps once total
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
seems discontinuous with no grasp of the length of the discontinuities
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
interesting take. according to an opinion that to me, however, is indisputable, it’s actually all true
@aella.bsky.social@aella.bsky.social
So much in this is factually incorrect. Basically every time they say "probably" it's an incorrect assumption with no evidence.
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
i do not think highly of any of the books on this list, though harris’s are in every meaningful sense substantially worse
@fath0039.bsky.social@fath0039.bsky.social
It is wild how for the first decade following 9/11, a lot of people pretended that Sam Harris' books, like The End of Faith and A Letter to a Christian Nation, were equally worthwhile opposites to Talal Asad's Geneaologies of Religion, Formations of The Secular, and On Suicide Bombing.
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
you can basically get to the same place from stranger philosophers too. bergsonian durée. do they have it / ‘do’ it? clearly not. ergo, etc.
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
i’m not the in depth-est of all people on philmind but i’m basically going on a strawsonian-kantian view that still seems sturdy to me and don’t think the problem seems that hard
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
the time thing is still a hard wall here. a five senses lacking helen keller analogue we regard as conscious because we assume they’re in time. probably phenomenological space too. cross that out and it becomes hard to affirm it strongly. it becomes hard to know what we’re even talking about
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
i have never been to APSA and never intend to go. for this reason, let’s say
@stano.bsky.social@stano.bsky.social
The Claremont Institute is one of the best funded and most effective White supremacist organizations in America today. It remains a great shame that @apsa.bsky.social still allows this organization to participate in our annual conference and makes me reconsider my own affiliation with the APSA.
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
they don’t have senses or exist in (flowing) time or in space. what would length buy you here?
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
↪ Replying to @segyges.bsky.social
is there a 50-200 page treatise version of the ideological system outlined in that narrative summa? i don’t even “refuse” to read it; i physiologically cannot
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
mine is “partner” — yes, it’s more genderly good and equally and all that. and it’s obviously better than “significant other.” but also: what are you, starting a business?
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
what’s one piece of on-team contemporary slang that drives you nuts even though you agree politically with the sentiment underlying it
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
the hell
@thewanderingjew.bsky.social@thewanderingjew.bsky.social
the girls are fighting
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
?
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
why
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
↪ Replying to @peark.es
worth what
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
donald trump. NOBODY “LIKE” THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
it’s not advantageous to me as a Social Media-er that i can only write, apparently, in 19th century german-language manifesto sentences. but some of the stuff i say is not entirely idiotic, if you can burrow through the clauses and polysyllables
Root Beer Man@root-beer-man.bsky.social
they portray their technology as a Fate because you cannot regulate a Fate; necessity has and admits of no law. but many of their proclaimed “necessities” are not real. they wish to frighten us mere simians out of remembering a piece of technology we already invented some time ago, called “laws”
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
kristen… dr. collins… sensei… why did you inflict this on us…
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
AI is a political problem before anything else. everything hateful about it stems from proprietary status, access, lines of liability, wealth concentration, education. many of the technical issues will solve themselves if you change any of the political variables. they want you to forget this. don’t
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
some of their Owners do
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
thiel has said The race is between tech and politics and he picks the tech side. so what they think they’re doing is closing on the finish line by throwing dust in the eyes of politics in the last leg. but clear-eyed politics, law, justice, can still catch up. tame them. or cut them off at the knees
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
they portray their technology as a Fate because you cannot regulate a Fate; necessity has and admits of no law. but many of their proclaimed “necessities” are not real. they wish to frighten us mere simians out of remembering a piece of technology we already invented some time ago, called “laws”
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
i’m not an AI doubter of any kind but i know how helpless you can appear and even feel when you have no obvious and immediate reason to do anything differently. laws aid with this
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
and wrong incentives. they act like it’s the wild west because it is the wild west: they basically have impunity for what their machines do and they act accordingly. a few well placed laws and penalties and watch how easy they suddenly discover it is to control their toys
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
wow, your reading comprehension is really bad. i’d give some advice on how to improve? but you wouldn’t be able to read it..!?! good gosh, what a sticky wicket!!
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
interestingly, this person works for the republicans
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
stancil has been a year ahead of the game on like 6 different things that i’m aware of. objectively, he’s a profoundly above-average understander and predictor of stuff
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
i’m less panicked than most because i’m waiting for the democrats and see their flags on the horizon: they’re almost here. but if they get in and decide to use their power stupidly in an idiot way and then fall apart without fixing a single one of The Things, well, i’m gonna feel pretty foolish!!
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
i think bluesky consensus is pretty post- AI denialism, but that’s because i only follow sensible and virtuous people. thus blueskyism (in the bad sense) is mostly a theoretical entity for me. my way is narrow, but the gate is wide open…
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
not tryna’ dunk on anybody (i think the post is actually good, all considered) but this is the most “my 30s happen to be the 2020s” post of all time… sometimes it’s the one and sometimes it’s the other!! history has great effects precisely on this balance
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
sam altman's most dangerous innovation was not computer related, really, but a social technology: a product release schedule of releasing every cutting edge hyperpowerful tech product for free to everyone as soon as it was ready. ——— this is not a sufficient ”take,” but there’s something to it
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
the supposed impossibility of controlling the things will suddenly appear a lot less impossible if the companies became liable for what their machines did
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
i’ve been wrong before but i’d peg the likelihood that there continue to be no government regulations or laws on AI for longer than four more months is about 0
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
my controversial opinion on here anyway is i don’t think people at large are particularly traumatized by covid anymore and it shouldn’t be flagged as an explanatory factor of much importance as regards the present public mood
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
internationally “true wave” elections seem actually to stomp and demoralize otherwise self-deluding regimes. often anyway
@timprice.bsky.social@timprice.bsky.social
Having seen the cope they can spin up on demand, I assume they will just declare any major upset losses as proof of massive fraud
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Root Beer Man @root-beer-man.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
the trinity as core doctrine is pretty good, serves a good social function. since it means absolutely nothing and has no implications whatever it basically just serves as a tripwire to detect psychos who like to break things for literally no reason except to grab at more symbolic personal authority
@joedunman.bsky.social@joedunman.bsky.social
Shamblin stirred controversy when she rejected...the Trinity. She said the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are not one in being and not equal.... Shamblin told Christianity Today, however, the controversy would quickly pass. “People don’t care about...the Trinity.… What women want is weight loss.”
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