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Darius Baktash

@sol-cantus.myatproto.social
732 followers 482 following 9.2K posts

Formerly Clinical Research and Community Mod. Politics & Science, RA/QA Evangelist, MENA in B'more. Overthinking TTRPGs. A weird panoply 🏳️‍🌈. No kings, no castes, no corruption. If I'm wrong, call me out. Missed nuance? Hit me with it. Confused? Just ask.

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Darius Baktash @sol-cantus.myatproto.social · 4h
Note: Legally necessary clarification, this is absolutely an absurdist joke. At the very least, I hope I haven't accidentally landed on guessing a horrifying reality anyway.
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Darius Baktash @sol-cantus.myatproto.social · 4h
Is Tucker Carlson angry at mainstream Furries because they don't allow beastiality? Is he angry they wouldn't let him bring his prized stallion and accompanying, personally fitted, anatomically accurate mare costume to their parties? I have zero evidence for it, but inquiring minds want to know!
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Darius Baktash @sol-cantus.myatproto.social · 6h
Sadly I don't have an Twitter account anymore, and Musk killed the safest public viewers, so any responses there are black holes for me.
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Darius Baktash @sol-cantus.myatproto.social · 10h
If you have to buy 5 new pairs of jeans over five years, each at 30% the cost of one that would've lasted that whole five, the overall price of common clothing has increased even if the yearly cost is down.
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Darius Baktash @sol-cantus.myatproto.social · 10h
The data is hiding quality reduction in materials and design. They can cut costs because they're selling fast fashion clothes built to be worn far less and passed over into low income resale or just thrown out. I've seen it directly while doing wardrobe updates on the thrift market.
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rahaeli @rahaeli.bsky.social · 17h
I guess it's as good a time as any to announce the new moderation list I have: "Silence, robot", for bots, LLMs, and agents that speak to you without all parties who will receive the notification having solicited the speech: bsky.app/profile/raha...
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Lupita Nihongo @otsumamiboy.blacksky.app · 19h
The correlation is that just like with mass deportation, militarized police & scores of other Trump era horrors, it was made easier because Trump was able to deploy tools of fascism that the previous administration continued to build when they should have been dismantling.
thehill.com
CNN legal analyst: Biden-era inquiry into Omar hurts her case against Trump
CNN anchor Jake Tapper questioned whether Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) should have come forward about any potential issues with her immigration status during the Biden administration rather than face …
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Sarah T Roberts, PhD @ubiquity75.xyz · 15/10/2026
Censored version also available.
shop.aoir.org
'Fuck impact factor' - Unisex Tee - Uncensored
The official website and shop of Association of Internet Researchers. Find the latest content, buy merch, and support your favorite creator.
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Steve Jones @profstevenjones.bsky.social · 15/10/2026
I'm co-lead for the UK part of this new research into universities' use of management consultants, led by colleagues in Canada. If you have five minutes, please take a look at our survey. Thank you.
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Darius Baktash @sol-cantus.myatproto.social · 17h
If you don't know the history of gaming, if you see video games as sparkling lights instead of technical masterpieces of story and programming creativity, you see a toy. Let's, instead, put the manliness away and replace it with respect for art we can interact with.
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Darius Baktash @sol-cantus.myatproto.social · 17h
The most woke games are also the ones that require you to make hard, emotional choices and still mandate technical skill in both difficulty and time limitation. The kind of thing that builds leadership because you must keep going as you live with your actions. GOP gamers can't handle that.
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Darius Baktash @sol-cantus.myatproto.social · 17h
The "woke" games are the technical ones that build minds. No matter how cute they might look, the mechanics behind them tend to require more than just garbled lingo and their parent's paycheck. Childish is relative. 100 rounds fired at the gun range just to feel powerful is childish.
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Darius Baktash @sol-cantus.myatproto.social · 17h
Oh, but if you really want to talk about video games, they're not all about explosions, meme dances, and racist expletives. There are simulators built for fun and training. There are civilization management games. There are logic games. Chess beyond memorizing stratagems. History taught by story.
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Darius Baktash @sol-cantus.myatproto.social · 17h
Football, MMA, and more gives you CTE. Golf destroys the environment. A gun range exposes you to lead dust. Video games are only childish if you ignore the consequences of "adult" sports.
Michael Feinberg
‪@michael-feinberg.bsky.social‬
I’m sorry, but adults who play video games should have no say in governance. Put aside childish things.
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wee boss @weeboss.bsky.social · 19h
sit w/this+hold space - masking isn't for some arbitrary or performative reason! it's to protect yourself/others+allow *all* to safely participate in public life 🫶 wear a high quality mask on public transport/healthcare spaces/pharmacies [maskbloc.org] get your vax! take care of ea other💜
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Leah McElrath @leahmcelrath.bsky.social · 20h
According to independent journalist Jasper Nathaniel who was at the scene, the IDF provided cover for the “settlers” as they beat Palestinians and the WaPo journalist. The IDF also reportedly shot one of the Palestinians.
jasper nathaniel 
@infinite_jaz
X.com
The IDF provided cover, with tear gas and machine guns, while the settlers beat @washingtonpost journalist Heidi Levine nearly to death. Then the IDF shot a Palestinian bystander, and aimed their guns and shoved the paramedics who were trying to treat him. All of this documented.
Israel Defense Forces & @IDF• 32m
Earlier today, IDF and Israel Border Police forces were dispatched to an area adjacent to Khirbet Abu Falah, following a report of a violent confrontation. Foreign media personne...
8:10 AM • 10/16/26 • 1.2K Views
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Evan @evansmithhist.bsky.social · 15/10/2026
Today I found out that Umberto Eco crafted a version of this meme in the 1980s…
Beware the
alibi of photocopies ! Photocopies are indis-
pensable instruments. They allow you to keep with you a text you have already read in the library, and to take home a text you have not read yet. But a set of photocopies can become an alibi. A student makes hundreds of pages of photocopies and takes them home, and the manual labor he exercises in doing so gives him the impression that he possesses the work. Owning the photocopies exempts the student from actually reading them. This sort of vertigo of accumulation, a neocapitalism of information, happens to many. Defend yourself from this trap: as soon as you have the photocopy, read it and annotate it immediately. If you are not in a great hurry, do not photocopy something new before you own (that is, before you have read and annotated) the previous set of photocopies. There are many things that I do not know because I photocopied a text and then relaxed as if I had read it.
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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 15/10/2026
This is so so nuts: the @earthshotprize.bsky.social is partnering up with NVIDIA. By my calcs: just 1 yr of NVIDIA's AI climate emissions undo Earthshot's total avoided emissions todate, several times over. No other company getting away with it quite like this one ketanjoshi.co/2026/09/16/n...
I think today is my proudest day at NVIDIA so far.

This morning, we announced together with The Earthshot Prize that NVIDIA will be joining that ambitious initiative as a Global Alliance Founding Partner.

NVIDIA has long been working to solve the world's biggest challenges through technology. Today's announcement demonstrates--although not for the first time--that we believe sustainability and climate are included in those challenges.

I've been saying for a while now that I believe AI is the best tool for sustainability the world has ever seen. How tragic would it be if we didn't apply that tool deliberately to benefit humanity through sustainability? It's available and powerful, and we want to get it into the hands of people who will use it for good.

That's the most exciting aspect of this partnership:  NVIDIA will be directly supporting innovators and pioneers in The Earthshot Prize program with educational and computing resources, engineering support, and even donated DGX Spark supercomputers.

The Earthshot Prize is doing amazing work. I couldn't be prouder that NVIDIA will be helping that work scale with AI--and bringing the world closer to the sustainability solutions we may all soon be celebrating.

https://lnkd.in/gpvfJX5QThe Earthshot Prize
teams up with NVIDIA to
bring world-leading
technical expertise and
resources to Earthshot
Finalists
14 2026 - fNvidia's greenhouse gas emissions rising 725 percent since 2020 only for the supply chainNVIDIA's Scope 3 Product Used Emissions estimated to be between four and 21 megatons of CO2 for the year 2025
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Darius Baktash @sol-cantus.myatproto.social · 16/10/2026
You need to understand that the economy isn't for the average person anymore. They cannot buy what you think they can buy. To get back to that, we need to divest from the companies that make the rich capable of earning dividends and dealing in market manipulation.
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Darius Baktash @sol-cantus.myatproto.social · 16/10/2026
I bought good quality socks earlier this year. They do what I need them to do. They're expensive and don't last like cheap polyester that at least avoids blisters, which is what the average person expects. I can't afford to buy them again.
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Darius Baktash @sol-cantus.myatproto.social · 16/10/2026
The opposite is true. People like having things that feel good and are easy to choose to wear without significant thought. The problem is quality versus income. The average person cannot afford what you're talking about. Even thrifting is becoming unaffordable.
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 15/10/2026
Discovery+, one of the streamers now owned by David Ellison’s media monopoly Skydance, hiked its prices exactly one week after the merger officially closed. Employees have already been told to expect layoffs — while top executives received pay bumps. Monopolies are only good for the monopolists.
variety.com
Discovery+, Now Owned by Skydance, Hikes Prices Effective Immediately
Discovery+ is raising prices for U.S. customers, coming one week after Paramount closed its megamerger with Warner Bros.
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GylesNaMopaleen @gylesnamopaleen.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
This is quite extraordinary. I don't think I have heard a more coherent, articulate and accurate deconstruction & demolition of Nigel Farage's ReformUK, Tory & Restore policy than this. In under 85 seconds! @rafaelbehr.bsky.social is on here folks and worth a follow.
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Darius Baktash @sol-cantus.myatproto.social · 16/10/2026
You may not have accepted that truth, but I (Arab-Iranian-Anglo-American) have seen the various facets of asshole that is the selfish "Whites deserve rights" America you didn't get the other side of. I see you. I see your privilege unbound. Accept your culpability in the system. Break the system.
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Darius Baktash @sol-cantus.myatproto.social · 16/10/2026
It doesn't matter if your neighbors don't seem "valid" for that compensation, because you got that validation without anyone batting an eye. You got priority by the system. You need to reflect that priority instead of absorbing it. Let the light shine on others for once.
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Darius Baktash @sol-cantus.myatproto.social · 16/10/2026
"Well ***I*** wasn't responsible..." Fuck you. If you grew up without fear of police, with better chances for jobs than your neighbors, yeah you got opportunity they didn't. You owe it to the world to even the scales and advocate for your neighbor's opportunity ahead of yours.
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Darius Baktash @sol-cantus.myatproto.social · 16/10/2026
Are you Anglo-American? Congratulations, you (like my less genetically visible ancestors) are responsible for some bullshit. We owe the planet some compensation. We owe our children the opportunity that is not ignoring the crimes of empires past. Go do some community work for free. You owe it.
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Darius Baktash @sol-cantus.myatproto.social · 16/10/2026
Do I want to have insomnia? No. The laundry's folded. The dishes are done enough for the hour. Am I going to at least rant through the rest of today's witching hours with a beer? Yes. Screw propriety, I'm letting my anger run the show tonight.
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Darius Baktash @sol-cantus.myatproto.social · 16/10/2026
The economy of the Levant itself relied on the slave trade, and so having that ancestry means that any uplift my great-great-grandfather had implies that he benefited from ignoring the harms that others felt. Despite my grandfather growing up in poverty in the US, the responsibility isn't divested.
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Darius Baktash @sol-cantus.myatproto.social · 16/10/2026
In similar notes (though racists are quick to to make us [Arabs] out as somehow worse) is the Arab slave trade and how it contributed to the Atlantic slave trade at large. As far as I'm aware, my ancestors weren't responsible, and yet I (never set foot in Africa/Asia) am still responsible.
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Durotriges Dig @durotrigesdig.bsky.social · 16/10/2026
Some of the best archaeological finds are the smallest, simplest and most personal Late Iron Age decorated bone weaving / personal grooming combs like this are among our favourites 😀 Found in Wookey Hole Caves #Somerset and now in Wells and Mendip Museum 📷 August 2026 #FindsFriday
A comb carved from animal bone with incised decoration and a black background
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Darius Baktash @sol-cantus.myatproto.social · 16/10/2026
This isn't just an indictment of the individuals named, but the whole of the business ethos that underlies modern American corporate behavior that both Republicans and Democrats accept as normal. Everything here is wrong, and it must all change for this nation to thrive.
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Darius Baktash @sol-cantus.myatproto.social · 16/10/2026
But to really put this into perspective, we could throw the entirety of 1939 North America and China into this and Africa would still easily come out on top, despite an ocean's difference. No 1939 Navy on earth could combat a 2000s era jet with satellite guided accuracy.
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Darius Baktash @sol-cantus.myatproto.social · 16/10/2026
Speaking of frozen toes, advanced medical capabilities of even circa 1980 Africa would make battlefield injuries seem trivial in comparison. Today's field hospitals make 1939 European primary hospitals look like death wards. 2020 Africa has the flu vaccine. 1939 Europe doesn't.
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Darius Baktash @sol-cantus.myatproto.social · 16/10/2026
With satellite based climate modeling and weather tracking, even 2010 Africa would be able to understand and adapt to short and long-term supply line changes, keeping troops fed, clothed, and otherwise supplied while the Wehrmacht, Soviets, and British all cried in the trenches over frozen toes.
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Darius Baktash @sol-cantus.myatproto.social · 16/10/2026
Henry Ford may have paid for mass manufacturing, but he didn't perfect it. We've had 100 years to understand how to handle the whole supply line, and the South African War Boots (literal name) at my US door step shows that they still know how to make good shoes that handle inclement weather.
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Darius Baktash @sol-cantus.myatproto.social · 16/10/2026
For the sake of hilarity, let's pretend the death of every single European leader via airstrike didn't stop the war. Africa has modern agricultural and industrial systems that can drop more supplies into the war machine in a month than the collective of 1939 Europe can in a year.
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Darius Baktash @sol-cantus.myatproto.social · 16/10/2026
Satellite recon alone basically wins this, because no one in 1939 would know what it is, much less how how to disrupt that intelligence asset. The Kehlsteinhaus would be obliterated in hours. That's not even going into advanced predictive climate modeling and war fighting or logistics.
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Darius Baktash @sol-cantus.myatproto.social · 16/10/2026
Did you know there's a manchego version of it in Spain that uses Pedro Ximenez in the process?
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Troy Jackson @troyjackson207.bsky.social · 16/10/2026
ICE murdered Johan Sebastian Guerrero in our backyard. He wasn’t the target of an investigation. He was driving to work. He had a three-year old daughter. ICE shot and killed him. Senator Collins must be held accountable for funding this terror.
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Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 16/05/2026
It feels many only know my work pushing back against AI, which is very fair — but I have a broader research interest, which also forms a protective belt against such forces, as well as being what I have been thinking about since discovering "cognitive science" in ~2006: 🍃 metatheory.space 1/
metatheory.space
metatheory.space
Hello! 🍃 metatheory.space is a group that works at the foundations of cognitive science. We are interested in the intersections of psychological and computational neurocognitive theorising with critic...
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BSonblast @bsonblast.bsky.social · 16/10/2026
Today's quick update [Oct 15]: - 5 children killed, mother injured in SAF drone strike on a home in Abu Zaima, North Kordofan. - Sudan Doctors Network: 6,500 detainees held by RSF in AlGineina, West Darfur, including women and children. #KeepEyesOnSudan
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Darius Baktash @sol-cantus.myatproto.social · 16/10/2026
No one is immune, but it's always great to see anyone open to corrections, including self-corrections.
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Darius Baktash @sol-cantus.myatproto.social · 16/10/2026
In the voice of an Avon commercial: "Guantanamo calling."
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Darius Baktash @sol-cantus.myatproto.social · 16/10/2026
Never forget that the average AI proponent is also likely steeped in common Internet abuse doctrines of gaslighting in order to recruit the fringe and make the average, rational responses look like a manic mob. Good site moderation would ban such behavior. blacksky.community/profile/did:...
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Jonathan Howard @joho.bsky.social · 15/10/2026
sciencebasedmedicine.org
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya on Measles: “I Think I’ve Done My Best.”
As football coach Bill Parcells famously said, “you are what your record says you are”.
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Renee DiResta @noupside.bsky.social · 16/10/2026
Cloudflare has now published a detailed analysis of the Yandex outage. They looked at search crawlers, malicious automation, AND social media traffic. Their finding… blog.cloudflare.com/yandex-outage/
blog.cloudflare.com
Yandex outage: data shows that instead of going dark, malicious bots went on the move
When strikes hit Yandex data centers, many assumed Russian bot operations went dark. Cloudflare data reveals that while search crawling stopped, malicious bots simply migrated to other networks.
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Darius Baktash @sol-cantus.myatproto.social · 16/10/2026
Add “for tax purposes” to a film: Brokeback Mountain for Tax Purposes.
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Natalie Gray @natgrayy.es · 16/10/2026
Add “for tax purposes” to a film: Finding Nemo for Tax Purposes
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Danielle Froom 🏳️‍🌈 @danifroom.bsky.social · 15/10/2026
Don't light my pyre and tell me it's a sunrise.
Colleges and hospitals openly discriminate against or ban trans people in NY, RI, MA, & VA.

MI & CO are cutting off trans kids from their healthcare.

Trans girls can't medal in front of cis girls in CA.

At least 72 Democrats have voted to strip human rights away from trans people and/or are currently campaigning on anti-trans propaganda in the past year.
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