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Sascha_Vykos2

@saschavykos.bsky.social
2.5K followers 1.4K following 10K posts

She/her. I swear a lot.

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Alex Ip 葉清霖 @alexip718.com · 10h
Jesus Christ Cornell
What use was it to bring the writer and activist Chanel Miller to campus in the spring just for fraternity brothers to scroll, bored, on their phones as she movingly shared her experience as Emily Doe, the victim of Brock Turner? As I wrote at the time, I was floored and dismayed as I sat in the audience with one of my brilliant undergraduates; we heard Miller’s shattering account of being sexually assaulted by Turner behind a dumpster at Stanford University after a fraternity party. Her talk was riveting, and there was so much to learn from it. And yet many of the male students who hailed predominantly from fraternities — 15 percent of each chapter was required to be in attendance — were so tuned out that Miller commented ruefully: “You know, this has been my hardest gig, because they didn’t turn down the house lights. I’m not sure how you professors do it, because it’s so hard looking out at this sea of mildly disgruntled faces. I mean, I’m sure you’re all very moved, but …,” Miller smiled. The implication being, it didn’t seem like it, from her angle.
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Paul Rieckhoff @rieckhoff.bsky.social · 5h
Today in NYC at 12ET, I’m suing the state of NY. On behalf of @indyvetsofamerica.bsky.social and thousands of independent veteran voters. And millions of Independents across the state who don’t have an equal vote in the state we love. independentveteransofamerica.org/rieckhoff-iv...
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Patricia 🇺🇸🌻🇺🇦🏳️‍🌈 @theshrk22.bsky.social · 5h
This is abhorrent!
The Washington Post
+
Trump administration considers building baseball park in Grand Teton National Park
Story by Jake Spring, Stephanie Apstein • 
Trump administration considers building baseball park in
Grand Teton National Park
Major League Baseball has approached the Trump administration about hosting a game at a national park, officials from the White House and MLB confirmed Saturday.
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Jacobin @jacobinmag.bsky.social · 17h
Already a master at surveilling workers, Amazon is set to roll out new tech that will further extend its watch over its delivery drivers. Collective worker action is the solution to the company’s dehumanizing modus operandi.
jacobin.com
Amazon Is Perfecting Total Surveillance of Its Workforce
Amazon has long been synonymous with workplace surveillance. With the introduction of “smart delivery glasses,” the logistics giant may soon ensure that not a moment of its drivers’ time on the clock will go unwatched.
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The Kyiv Independent @kyivindependent.com · 8h
⚡️Russian attacks kill at least 6, injure 34 across Ukraine as Kyiv faces another overnight missile, drone attack The Air Force said Russia attacked Ukraine overnight with Zircon and Onyx anti-ship missiles, Iskander-M and S-400 ballistic missiles, and 188 attack drones of various types.
kyivindependent.com
Russian attacks kill at least 6, injure 34 across Ukraine as Kyiv faces another overnight missile, drone attack
The Air Force said Russia attacked Ukraine overnight with Zircon and Onyx anti-ship missiles, Iskander-M and S-400 ballistic missiles, and 188 attack drones of various types.
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Peter Huestis @peterhuestis.bsky.social · 7h
Broccoli hair isn't a new thing! The Limbourg Brothers, c. 1412-1416:
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Aaron Sojourner @aaronsojourner.org · 7h
We need a War on White Collar Crime
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Anonymous @youranoncentral.bsky.social · 10h
Genocide supporters are real life ghouls. They revel in cruelty and abuse, they get satisfaction from torturing and dehumanizing others. They’ll cheer mass murder in Palestine, Ukraine, or anywhere else the moment they feel safe to publicly indulge that cruelty.
A collage of images juxtaposing political leaders with the devastating human toll of war.
The top half contains three prominent color portraits of political figures: Russian President Vladimir Putin on the left in a dark suit with a red tie, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the center with a dark suit and red tie, and U.S. President Donald Trump on the right smiling in a dark suit and red tie in front of an American flag. Interspersed between and around these portraits are smaller, grim photos showing destroyed concrete buildings, rubble, crying civilians, and an injured baby.
The bottom half consists of three large aerial photographs depicting mass casualties: the left shows rows of blue body bags laid out on dirt ground next to a military encampment; the middle shows white-shrouded bodies lined up in the sand surrounded by people; the right shows a massive grid of open graves dug into a hillside with crowds of onlookers gathered around them.
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Ian Bray @aciumaficionado.bsky.social · 29/01/2026
Another one we all need to start asking about a LOT of stuff: Are we sure our corporate insurances covers any expenses that arise from secondary exposure? Example: our X account gets hacked and starts distributing Grok slop smut of a real person. We get sued by that person. Who is on the hook?
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Anil Dash @anildash.com · 29/01/2026
Just heard from a smart friend who manages public-facing social for a very respected org and this exact tactic worked for them! So this approach has been effective for others for a while — it’s worth a try.
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Anil Dash @anildash.com · 29/01/2026
More directly, “Should I forward any of the child sexual abuse material that I am forced to encounter in the course of carrying out the duties of my role to HR or legal or both, and may I CC my own legal counsel when I contact the appropriate authorities?” Raise the temperature. Make them say it.
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Anil Dash @anildash.com · 29/01/2026
You can be brief: “Hey boss, you know Musk forces his account on everyone on Twitter, and he retweets a guy who he pays to be on there who makes child porn, and who has been suspended for it before, but who Musk wanted back. Can you verify that I’m supposed to be there for when he does it again?”
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Anil Dash @anildash.com · 29/01/2026
* Mention that X has been banned in multiple countries over this * Ask whether your emotional or legal risks from exposure to this kind of material will be covered * Confirm that they know Musk restores the accounts of, retweets & PAYS those suspended for CSAM violations www.cnbc.com/2026/01/05/i...
cnbc.com
Elon Musk's X faces probes in Europe, India, Malaysia after Grok generated explicit images of women and children
Regulators in Europe, India and Malaysia are scrutinizing X after exploitative images created with the Grok chatbot went viral on Elon Musk's social network.
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Anil Dash @anildash.com · 29/01/2026
If you are a person who works in social media, and your job requires you to manage an account on Twitter/X, please ask your boss, in writing, to verify that you are required as a responsibility of your position to be on a platform that knowingly creates and monetizes child sexual abuse material …
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Raider @iwillnotbesilenced.bsky.social · 15h
🚨 You need to see this.
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Robert Evans (the Only Robert Evans) @iwriteok.bsky.social · 18h
Last week the Portland Police made a huge deal about a K9 killed in the line of duty apprehending a dangerous suspect. Turns out that K9 was shot and killed by...the Portland Police www.kgw.com/article/news...
kgw.com
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Kelly @justkelly.bsky.social · 18h
The Cornell victim has been doxxed on X. So worried for her. I hate this planet.
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Mark Zuckerberg's Jet @zuckjet.grndcntrl.net · 15h
~ 1,809 gallons (6,847 liters). ~ 12,122 lbs (5,499 kg) of jet fuel used. ~ $13,602 cost of fuel. ~ 19 tons of CO2 emissions.
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Charles Gaba ✡️ @charlesgaba.com · 29/09/2026
2. The ad "frames" the arrest on the $50 instead of her "total" debts to Marshall...of $3,600 at 18% interest. Holy crap. Marshall was charging her 18% INTEREST??? Yeah, I'd call that "preying on low-income families."
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Ray Beckerman @raybeckerman.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Texas GOP Candidate Has Long History of Calling for Public Executions newrepublic.com/post/215925/...
newrepublic.com
Texas GOP Candidate Has Long History of Calling for Public Executions
Bo French may have deleted his posts—but the internet never forgets.
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Ian Dunt @iandunt.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
The promise of Israel is somewhere that Jews can be safe, no matter what else happens in the world. The mobs and death threats against the filmakers and their families suggest that, under Netanyahu, this only applies to Jews who support the government and armed forces.
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Ian Dunt @iandunt.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Absolutely unhinged response from the Israeli government, trying to revoke the citizenship of people who make critical films about the armed forces. Symptomatic of a national descent into far-right authoritarianism www.theguardian.com/world/2026/s...
theguardian.com
Netanyahu seeks to strip citizenship from Israelis as threats to NAZA film directors intensify
Israeli prime minister to pursue new laws as directors of Guardian-produced film face threats from far-right officials and activists
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Duncan Money @mininghistory.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
We launched the report earlier this week with residents from Kabwe. It is one thing to research and present what I think is a compelling historical argument. It is another to listen to people who live with the realities of lead poisoning in the soil and their bodies.
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Duncan Money @mininghistory.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
The question of responsibility for historic mining pollution can be an extremely difficult and contested one. In a new report for @actsa-uk.bsky.social, I use archive research to examine Anglo American's role in mining in Kabwe, one of the world's most polluted towns: actsa.org/new-report-h...
actsa.org
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 26/09/2026
9/ A month in, I was betting so much that DraftKings’ quick-tap deposit buttons had increased to $500, $750 and $950, making it even easier to mindlessly transfer money into my account. I was also getting pummeled with push alerts inviting me to bet more.
A pile of phone notifications from DraftKings layered on top of one another. Each notification offers a promotion or boost.A dropdown menu reads “Deposit” and shows dollar amounts for $500, $750, $950 and Other, along with a “Slide to Deposit” button.
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 26/09/2026
8/ As the @nytimes.com reported, DraftKings uses machine learning and data scientists to entice losing customers with promos to keep them going — even if those are the customers at risk of becoming addicts. The company says it doesn’t unfairly target people.
nytimes.com
How DraftKings Uses A.I. to Target the Gamblers Likeliest to Lose
Data science helps determine who receives betting incentives, but the company has resisted using similar technology to protect gamblers at risk of addiction.
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 26/09/2026
4/ But over the next 10 weeks, I’d mimic the patterns of a problem gambler with the help of a panel of gambling experts and learn just how much DraftKings would encourage my recklessness — and just how little pushback I’d get as I spiraled downward.
propublica.org
I Deliberately Bet Like a Problem Gambler. DraftKings Made Me a VIP.
Amid growing public health concerns, operators like DraftKings have touted “responsible gaming” tools and prompts. But as I went off the deep end, I found they were no match for the incentives and pro...
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 26/09/2026
2/ Why now? More people are betting on sports than ever. But as the industry soars close to $17B in revenue, calls to gambling helplines have also skyrocketed.
Article excerpt: Since 2018, when the Supreme Court allowed states to legalize sports betting, Americans have put more than $600 billion into play. Sports betting is now legal in 39 states and Washington, D.C. Add in prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket, and more people are betting on sports than ever before.  

That explosive growth has come with consequences: About a quarter of active sportsbook account holders surveyed by the Siena Research Institute this year said that they’d lost enough on a bet that they’d have trouble meeting their financial obligations. As a result, regulators and lawmakers from Colorado to Massachusetts are starting to question whether things have gone too far — and some are now proposing stricter consumer protections.
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 26/09/2026
Hey, ProPublica reporter Jake Pearson here. I’m taking over the account to tell you about my new story. For months, I posed as a problem gambler on DraftKings to test the company's "responsible gaming" safeguards. Spoiler alert: They made me a VIP — and I lost $10K. Here's how it all went down. 🧵
Selfie taken by ProPublica reporter Jake Pearson, a man wearing a backwards baseball cap and an orange T-shirt.
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Solomon @solomonrmissouri.com · 27/09/2026
For a “movement” to end… it would have to first begin
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Senator Sheldon Whitehouse @whitehouse.senate.gov · 27/09/2026
rhowardstone.substack.com/p/conservati...
rhowardstone.substack.com
Conservative Journalist Shared Unredacted Trump Accuser FBI Notes That DOJ Hasn’t Released
He wrote about the missing files. He never mentioned the ones that he publicly posted – and shared with a random person.
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Senator Sheldon Whitehouse @whitehouse.senate.gov · 27/09/2026
Meanwhile it appears DOJ some time ago leaked the 37 pages to a Trump-friendly reporter. I wonder if they disclosed that to the judge. “So secret we can’t show you but we leaked them” is not a good look. meidasnews.com/news/trump-d...
meidasnews.com
Trump DOJ Claims It Complied With Latest Epstein Order in Katie Phang Case
Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered Attorney General Todd Blanche to submit unredacted FBI notes and support disputed victim redactions, while a temporary appellate pause now blocks foreign-language file rev...
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Colorado Springs Anti-Fascists @cosantifascists.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
GDL is like the Westboro Baptist Church, but with a body count and 40x the membership. Anyone clutching their pearls about these people experiencing negative consequences is telling on themselves.
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Colorado Springs Anti-Fascists @cosantifascists.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Data Republican is mad that we unmasked some of the most heinous people in the world.
“The goal of GDL Exposed is to push back against the neo-Nazi organization Goyim Defense League by unmasking their activists who travel around the country harassing people,” a representative of the site told Raw Story. “The GDL is led by Jon Minadeo, whose primary source of income is video chatting with children and rebroadcasting those recordings to thousands of angry neo-Nazis, without the knowledge or consent of the children or their parents.

“These videos have included support for mass shooters such as the Antioch High School shooter in Nashville, who was found to have shared a GDL flyer. Data Republican is right. We do hope to ruin these people’s lives. They are predators who would kill every non-white and Jewish person on earth if they could.”
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🗽LOLGOP🗽 @lolgop.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
At this moment Elon Musk alone is worth $893,449,882,001
macfarlanenews.substack.com
“They don’t understand the scale of the hunger!”- An unfolding crisis at the nation’s food banks
Weeks before the midterm elections, the cost crisis is hammering food pantries in red and blue states
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Abdul El-Sayed @abdulelsayed.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Mike Rogers and Donald Trump think that their proximity to power is worth more than your ability to live your life. It’s why we have to stand up to Bad Men…
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Brennan Center @brennancenter.org · 27/09/2026
Why is so much untraceable dark money flooding elections? Because the Supreme Court demolished campaign finance laws. bit.ly/4d1GYVr
brennancenter.org
$1 Billion in Secret Cash Is Reshaping the Midterms
We may never know where most of the money came from.
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 27/09/2026
At least 79 kids have been harmed by tear gas or pepper spray during Trump’s immigration crackdown. In most cases, they were going about their days when officers shot chemical munitions near their homes and schools and into their cars. (Published May)
propublica.org
Kids Are Being Harmed by Tear Gas, Pepper Spray Under Trump. There Could Be Long-Term Consequences.
In several cities, judges have chastised federal immigration officers, saying they used excessive force. One former DHS leader called ProPublica’s findings a “bright red flag.”
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Alex Segura @alexsegura.com · 27/09/2026
Here's a gift article of the @nytimes.com piece by @georgegustines.bsky.social on our KNOW YOUR RIGHTS comic book! www.nytimes.com/2026/09/16/a...
nytimes.com
A New York City Comic Book Offers Tips on Rights and ICE Encounters
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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 27/09/2026
“What I personally find so frustrating is no one is ever given an ounce of grace for the understandable ways these conversations might blur. Whereas, men who act poorly are given a delusional amount of cover & protection. They say illogical things and get polite responses.” - on sexism in AI spaces.
Frances Lorenz @frances__lorenz
17h
One dynamic to be aware of in the current discourse: I do agree that there is sometimes a motte & bailey where people are slut-shaming, only to retreat to concerns around second-order harassment. However, I would like to discuss this dynamic in a different way.
Sep 26, 2026 • 10:59 PM UTC
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Frances Lorenz @frances__lorenz
I will get to my main point by 3). To set context: 1) it is very difficult to be heard within some EA, rationalist, & Al safety spaces when you discuss sexism, harm, and harassment. You have to use specific framings and language. You have to be
"precise." You cannot misstep.
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Frances Lorenz @frances__lorenz
17h
2) You have to spend time inspecting a number of illogical assumptions that govern these spaces, "if autistic men harass you, they do not mean itỊ(?) Distress is always reduced to
"discomfort," regardless of the inciting incident, abuse is a "norm differenceỊietc.
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Frances Lorenz @frances_
_lorenz
17h
3) right now, for various reasons, there is sustained & wider discourse about sexism in these spaces. This means women who have never really had their experiences taken seriously may use this as an opportunity to share.
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Frances Lorenz @frances__lorenz
17h
Yes, some people are doing a motte & bailey. Some people have also simply felt prompted to start discussing real harms they've been concerned about for months or years. Predictably, these two threads are colliding and blurring in a messy way.
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56 ll 735Frances Lorenz @frances lorenz
17h
What I personally find so frustrating is that no one is ever given an ounce of grace for the understandable ways these conversations might blur. Whereas, men who act poorly are given a delusional amount of cover & protection. They say illogical things and get polite responses.
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Frances Lorenz @frances_lorenz
17h
There are people who have existed in these spaces for years and years, who have consistently and relentlessly made it difficult for any real, empathetic, productive discussion on sexism to occur.
They are doing a motte & bailey too, and they will continue to do
it.
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Frances Lorenz @frances
lorenz
17h
They know what happens in these spaces, that there are legitimate issues, and they will take those and chuck them under slut-shaming or "women being sensitive & not liking it when men ask them out because they have no agency boo hooạỊi
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Frances Lorenz @frances_lorenz
17h
The thing I really want to say is: regardless of the current discourse, there are legitimate accounts of harm that the community has not reckoned with. In Al safety, I know of: a hiring manager asking out an applicant in their hiring round, while the round was still underway.
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Frances Lorenz @frances__lorenz
17h
Multiple fellowship mentors reported as consistently making women mentees uncomfortable, still returninh as a mentors. A man discussing explicit sexual content, including attending orgies, at an explicitly professional event, in front of people they'd never met.
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Frances Lorenz @frances_lorenz
17h
None of these accounts are public and more detail can't be given or they'd be identifiable. And then there are more severe accounts that are specific and cannot be shared at all, even in an anonymised or vague way, due to theirFrances Lorenz @frances__lorenz
And there are always reasons and rationalizations and no one really takes it that seriously, except for those of us who do and are disgusted. Lament about precision all you want, but the precise issues exist and they are ignored.
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Frances Lorenz @frances_lorenz
If this field is going to grow, then it will need women, and if more women come on, the field may need an actual reckoning, and that reckoning will not be about consensual sex parties.
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Frances Lorenz @frances lorenz
17h
At the risk of being insufferable, I am one of the few experienced event organisers operating in this space and I'm very worried about Al. I would love to just spend all my time working, hanging out with my wife & friends, & writing nice stuff, but I am worried about the girls
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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 27/09/2026
The bizarre culture that’s sprung up around Silicon Valley AI companies - which overlaps hugely with rationalist and effective altruist circles - appears to be seriously pressuring some women into attending sex parties for the sake of networking. This is, needless to say, horrifying.
taco belle
@ animalologist
Multiple things can be true at once
22h
The purpose of SlutCon is to help ease men who are scared of approaching women, and for women who simply enjoy flirting to be in an environment where that happens a lot, since there's generally a dearth of that
At the same time, many - probably most! - women do Not want to be flirted with or propositioned by men they don't know. When a small scene only has a handful of large, well-known events, each one has disproportionate impact on everybody's ideas of acceptable behavior among other members of their milieu.
Attending the same events = specific shared context. Means
you're somewhat on the same page.
I suspect that the men who publicly raised concerns about SlutCon's impact on the scene are being megaphones for private objections and distresses they've heard from women in the scene who would NOT be comfortable at an event like that, but who don't voice it publicly because they suspect they'd suffer socially for doing so. That going to SlutCon to be flirted with gives women social cachet, and squirming at the idea means you're [not cool, can't get with the program, are probably a wokescold or a prude etc etc other pejoratives] and therefore, that you'll be excluded or held at a distance
Now, if this scene were purely a social scene, that'd be perfectly fine. Don't go to parties that don't suit you!! The issue arises because it's NOT purely a social scene. This scene is inarguably tied up with Al safety, research, and the SF tech scene in general.
When consistently being invited to the right parties is professionally advantageous, and when SlutCon itself **is** going to be an excellent networking opportunity for people in those fields, it's not neutral that {sexual proclivities} are the filtering mechanism that determines who's in the room. It means that promiscuity & forwardness is explicitly professionally advantageous.
And, if the norms of SlutCon influence the norms of that milieu outside of the e…My suspicion is that men come out of the event more bold, more forward, and with the expectation that events attended by former flirt-girls are fair game for SlutCon-style forwardness. This creates a hostile environment for women who just want to socialize and work with these men, without being propositioned. And without pretending that they're cool with being sexualized for the sake of their inclusion in the scene.
I don't think we have solutions yet, but it's important that we can talk about it, at least.
Jakeup • @ myhandle
Sep 25
the purpose of SlutCon is to help men who are scared of women to start liking women, by putting them in proximity to women who like men and aren't scared of men
I'm not attending or involved in any way, but this is very aligned to my own mission and I'm rooting for their success
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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 27/09/2026
Women trying to succeed in Silicon Valley AI and effective altruist spaces are reporting feeling serious social pressure to attend sex parties - where people have reported being sexually assaulted, like below. Events like Aella’s “Slutcon,” which is happening again this weekend.
Ann Pierce
@itsannpierce
20h
I am disheartened by this as well. I already lost a bunch of followers for agreeing with @tautologer, but it's saddening to see local nerdy women being caricatured as Karen-like outsiders and getting pushed out of the scene. This is exactly why you hear so few concrete, names-attached stories of sexual harrassment and assault. I'm told there is a history of discrediting these because the "slut normalization" thing is top priority and these stories get inconveniently in the way of spreading this ideology.
I got roped into attending last year's Saturday Slutcon party because so many local and out-of-town friends were there (to echo sentiments @tautologer expressed about "slut events becoming central to the larger scenes). Mostly I hung out with people I knew and that was great. But in the course of my 3-ish hours there, there were 2 times my "no" was not accepted by a man I didn't know, and I was physically pushing a huge guy off of me who was rubbing his penis on me, who continued to do it despite my physical force against him, and after I finally wriggled away from him, told him I wanted to dance alone etc., he came back and did it again.
This was scary and bad, but it didn't even cross my mind to report this because one of the other people who didn't accept my "no" earlier in the night was the bartender (an officially sanctioned authority at the event), and I knew the event was organized exclusively by women into CNC (who are vocal about how rapey behavior turns them on), so I figured this sort of thing would just get me laughed at. And anyway, I heard there were a lot of other incidents like it. Later though, someone encouraged me to report this story to the organizers, and despite my embarrassment I did, so *they know* that this and other incidents happened. This is why they cut the Saturday night party this year and created a larger training program for the flirt girls - *because* of things like this last year. Yet the narrative bein…People who haven't been to Slutcon are saying "it's just group therapy," "it's just innocent flirting." But the environment is much like a sex party in that many people are nude, there is making out and sex acts happening out in the open. I think it's pretty unreasonable to expect that every nerdy girl who likes rationalist bloggers or is into EA/AI safety should automatically be comfortable with this! That if she's not, there's something wrong with her, we don't want her in our scenes, etc.
Not to mention, it's explictly an event *for men*, where men are the clients and the "flirt girls" are the product. Last year I overheard an exchange where a man felt "led on" by a flirt girl and was trying to get her punished/kicked out. (A dynamic that seems inevitable in this context!)
Anyway- it does sound like they've upped their consent education a lot this year, are more organized, and that's good! As I've told my friends who are attending: I hope they have fun!
I heard several accounts last year of women who had no problems and really enjoyed the event. That's great!
Just... can we live in reality about this? There are real reasons why male-female sexual dynamics are tricky.
Encouraging autistic men who can't yet read body language to go around asking to see womens' boobs is maybe a bit ill-advised. Maybe not everyone should be/identify as a slut; maybe it's not for everyone.
And yeah, filtering the Bay Area Al safety scene down to only women who are super comfy with this eliminates *most* women - including many of the really smart, nerdy, weird women who've been in the larger scenes for years. What a loss for humanity.
I absolutely understand why people with a minority sexuality would want to create belonging, would want to create spaces for people like themselves. But why do it like this/at this cost?
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404 Media @404media.co · 27/09/2026
While people around the U.S. are tearing down Flock cameras, one group of hackers went a step further: extracting the camera's software too. Heres what we now know: www.404media.co/hackers-stol...
404media.co
Hackers Stole Flock’s Camera Software, Revealing How the Company Tracks Cars and People
While people around the U.S. are tearing down Flock cameras, one group of hackers went a step further: extracting the camera's software too.
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Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
To me this is the crux of the public disconnect re: "The Law" - the second important point is that people believe that courts of law are courts of justice... and this really fucks people up. "This is a court of law, young man, not a court of justice" - Oliver Wendell Holmes
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BostonJoan 🏳️‍🌈 🦫 @bostonjoan.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
If you’re trying to understand why a small lgbtq performance and event space in western MA became everyone’s top story this weekend, then you should read “Lolcows and the mediation of digital freakshows” by @jessrauchberg.bsky.social journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... It is ragebait, to be sure
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Abstract
Emerging in the early 2000s, the lolcow is a vulnerable Internet persona whose digital presence is exploited by online audiences for entertainment and pleasure. Through a case study of one such lolcow, popular TikTok creator and livestreamer Joshua Block (@WorldOfTShirts), this short essay argues that the lolcow's growing mainstream presence reflects a rise in authoritarian politics and eugenics where disabled people are openly dehumanized. Although disability as amusement object carries a long-standing history in western culture through the 'fool' and 'freak', the essay's theoretical analysis and close reading of social media artifacts suggest digital affordances and audience practices render the lolcow into a 'digital freakshow'.
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Pete Buttigieg @petebuttigieg.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
U.S. manufacturing jobs are down under Trump, including in the auto industry. His strategy failed, and so will this. Lowering standards will accelerate what he has already been doing: handing the clean tech future to China and forcing Americans to pay more at the pump.
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Auschwitz Memorial @auschwitzmemorial.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
26 September 1936 | A Dutch Jewish girl, Anne Groenteman (right) was born in Amsterdam. In 1942 she was deported to #Auschwitz with her mother Lena and siblings Jeanette & John. All were probably murdered together in a gas chamber. --- Gas chambers of Auschwitz: youtu.be/-A05i25j9Ck
Three young children posing closely for a black and white photo. The boy on the left has styled hair and wears a sweater, the middle child has short hair and a turtleneck, and the girl on the right has a bob haircut and also wears a sweater.
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Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 26/09/2026
OpenAI took 20 million ChatGPT responses and had one of its experts search for chunks of text—specifically chunks of 25 words in a row- that were identical between ChatGPT’s responses and a news article. They found more than 400,000 of these 25-word overlaps between ChatGPT and our articles.
motherjones.com
AI exec: We may have pulled off “the largest theft of labor in human history.”
Documents from our lawsuit reveal how tech leaders talk when they think no one is listening.
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MJ @bstnboy.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
💥💥BOOM💥💥 Costco took its $184M in rebate refund and used it to lower costs targeting products that would have the most impact for members!! Kudos Costco!! www.seattletimes.com/business/cos...
seattletimes.com
Costco clinches $184M in tariff refunds, with more expected
The big-box retailer said the money was reinvested to give "value back to our members." It’s more than a third of the total tariff refunds the company expects.
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