Reposted by @spicywhite.bsky.socialWilliam Gillis 🏴 @rechelon.bsky.social · 05/05/2025I occasionally watch this travelogue by a good natured normie nerd, and it's astonishing how some people are totally just content with life. 1223 22
Reposted by @spicywhite.bsky.socialae @aelkus.bsky.social · 07/04/2025they all have little idea of how anything works at scale. they are just high tech versions of the feudal era craftsmen that the Industrial Revolution disrupted 4917 91
Reposted by @spicywhite.bsky.socialae @aelkus.bsky.social · 05/04/2025its a self-lobotimization. their forefathers also had much more of a ground truth connection to their companies. industrial magnate would actually be an engineer or close to the metal 3646 64
Reposted by @spicywhite.bsky.socialThe Murders in the Brian Ruh Morgue @brianruh.bsky.social · 29/03/2025In spite of the fundamental disconnect between Ghibli and AI, I think it shows that people desire a sort of enchantment to their lives that is hard to come by. People want a better world, full of wonder, and we need to work to find ethical, sustainable ways of crafting it. 0206 20
Reposted by @spicywhite.bsky.socialwint @dril.bsky.social · 20/03/2025blue sky is supreme because every time you post you get 100 school principals in the replies asking to see you in their office 258292743607 29.3K
Reposted by @spicywhite.bsky.socialSomethingAboutBooks23 @shonaholmes23.bsky.social · 20/03/2025Last week I visited Prague for a few days and had the best time, and of course there were book related trips with a visit to the Prague Municipal Library ‘Book Tunnel’ & some amazing bookshops!📚 Do you like visiting book shops whilst on holiday? 🗺️ #BookSky📚💙 0253 25
Reposted by @spicywhite.bsky.socialZoomer Antimillenarian @surcomplicated.bsky.social · 16/03/2025One problem with our now-longstanding cultural affectation for "Evil makes you powerful; Power makes you evil" narratives, not only in pop culture but in literal historical arguments, is that a lot of ppl just outright assume that pressing the button labeled "EVIL" will make them more powerful. 39923 99
spicywhite.bsky.social @spicywhite.bsky.social · 15/03/2025The Humanities is no different than any other field of knowledge. You can use the insights and capabilities it offers for virtually unlimited Good or Evil. 000 0
spicywhite.bsky.social @spicywhite.bsky.social · 13/03/2025You don't have to like the guy to admit he's insanely good at political survival. 100 1
Reposted by @spicywhite.bsky.socialChris Hayes @chrislhayes.bsky.social · 12/03/2025One thing you really see every day is the different risk appetites between MAGA-era Republicans and Democrats. Basically compulsive, reckless, dangerous constant risk-seeking, versus almost comical levels of risk-aversion. 2777364950 7.4K
spicywhite.bsky.social @spicywhite.bsky.social · 13/03/2025Structural Issues were boiling up prior, but it took a confluence of circumstances for a Democracy to make this choice, twice, that goes beyond just the individuals involved. 000 0
Reposted by @spicywhite.bsky.socialae @aelkus.bsky.social · 04/03/2025have not promoted this yet because news cycle doesn't favor it, but i wrote smtg yesterday about thinking about constraints on actor effectiveness adamelkus.com/posts/brigpowadamelkus.comImages Of Frictionthe hard thing about knowing about hard things 181 8
Reposted by @spicywhite.bsky.socialStarfire’s Deranged Neocon Foreign Policy Podcast @irhottakes.bsky.social · 02/03/2025If China takes over the world, we’re going to get 50,000 breathless takes about the famed ancient Oriental cunning required to “idk bro, honor the contracts you sign and don’t torch your entire state capacity and global standing because a crackhead and his pet teenagers told you to do so.” 1160286 602
spicywhite.bsky.social @spicywhite.bsky.social · 01/03/2025Agreed. Our machines already betray us. Naivety about the power of machines, projection of infallibility onto them, happens to us already both in scientific and in social contexts. AI will be no different. 000 0
spicywhite.bsky.social @spicywhite.bsky.social · 01/03/2025It's the conflation with folk understandings of intelligence with practical efficacy/agency, and that with survival. Our specific kind of intelligence has been useful to us to survive in our environment, but success doesn't require intelligence. 000 0
spicywhite.bsky.social @spicywhite.bsky.social · 01/03/2025I sense the intellectually serious NatCons will be marginalized or co-opted. Vance is case in point. Those with any integrity will get selected out of power at least for this cycle. 010 1
Reposted by @spicywhite.bsky.socialae @aelkus.bsky.social · 26/02/2025i think what is most uncomfortable about negative polarization is that it reveals how much politics is not so much about issues as it is trust in the benevolence/hostility or competence/incompetence of actual coalitions and people 2242 24
Reposted by @spicywhite.bsky.socialStarfire’s Deranged Neocon Foreign Policy Podcast @irhottakes.bsky.social · 24/02/2025People *hate* big smart strong athletic guys. Triggers the “that’s unfair, he’s cheating” part of the brain. Life is supposed to be like a points based RPG where being smarter means you have to be slower or weaker. You can’t just multiclass without being worse than a monoclass at each skill set. 41154 115
Reposted by @spicywhite.bsky.socialae @aelkus.bsky.social · 24/02/2025that is the lesson lurking in Simon’s paper on ill-structured problems 091 9
Reposted by @spicywhite.bsky.socialKevin Hell-iott @kjephd.bsky.social · 24/02/2025I got captured by his work on games this summer; met him back in December. He mentions in this great piece his work on value capture, which is outstanding and so deadly for the kind of approach the Silicon Valley right brings to basically everything: philpapers.org/archive/NGUV...philpapers.org 1101 10
Reposted by @spicywhite.bsky.socialAdam Gurri @adamgurri.liberalcurrents.com · 22/02/2025Like other aspects of our gerontocracy, SNL doesn't know when to retire for good 281045 104
Reposted by @spicywhite.bsky.socialae @aelkus.bsky.social · 22/02/2025its just a small step but it can make a difference. not when it is done publicly, to put someone on blast, but to say so privately and to do so as a personal appeal to decency with someone you have a meaningful relationship with, not a total stranger or internet frenemy 0171 17
spicywhite.bsky.social @spicywhite.bsky.social · 22/02/2025It really scares people that negative personality changes can happen in unpredictable ways! 000 0
Reposted by @spicywhite.bsky.socialae @aelkus.bsky.social · 22/02/2025when someone slips up and stops being able to maintain a normal public reputation it often really is a sign of a qualitative shift in their personality, even if they might have always had darker undercurrents running underneath 2503 50
Reposted by @spicywhite.bsky.socialae @aelkus.bsky.social · 21/02/2025ten years ago telling most people we would end up like this would get you locked up in an nuthouse. all of this makes me less convinced about the ability to project out political outcomes, especially ones that feel immutable in a moment we can't see past 1871156 711
Reposted by @spicywhite.bsky.socialae @aelkus.bsky.social · 20/02/2025speaking of autodidacts, Lynn Rees really was in hindsight the only good strategic theorist of the 21st century I've read, and he was a purely self-taught network engineer that blogged pseudo-anonymously for a while as "Joseph Fouche" 2323 32
Reposted by @spicywhite.bsky.socialae @aelkus.bsky.social · 20/02/2025i wrote this on my older blog but aelkus.github.io/culture/2019...aelkus.github.ioThe Accidental Masterpiece - Adam ElkusIn several days, the newest Star Wars film will hit cinemas across America. Quite naturally they will be interpreted primarily from the perspective of those ... 1143 14
Reposted by @spicywhite.bsky.socialSharon 🪳🌹 @sharonk.bsky.social · 19/02/2025bringing this classic back: you are not prepared for the Mike Flynn jumpscare in this music video 141219 121
Reposted by @spicywhite.bsky.socialDrinking with Skeletons @drinkwithskeletons.bsky.social · 18/02/2025My dad is a Vietnam veteran and retired as a full colonel, and his (insane) view has always been that Vietnam was winnable if we had just never left. Can't lose if you just never leave the field! 3301 30
spicywhite.bsky.social @spicywhite.bsky.social · 18/02/2025I love my violent anti-social killers, they embody the Spirit I am too cowardly to enact on the world. There could be no negative consequences from this stance. 100 1
spicywhite.bsky.social @spicywhite.bsky.social · 18/02/2025It's total disenchantment with ruling authority. Rebuilding credibility requires reform, but the notion of a need for reform even if entertained is staunchly rejected in practice. 100 1
spicywhite.bsky.social @spicywhite.bsky.social · 18/02/2025The cynicism of the people is a result of leadership and thought leaders treating it cynically. Their cynicism is a short-term rational response with bad long-term consequences. 000 0
Reposted by @spicywhite.bsky.socialJ. Cameron @jcameron.bsky.social · 16/02/2025I will never forget a conversation I had while leaving a wedding in VT: Guest(from out of state): where can I get a beer Me: lists great VT breweries Guest: no. I want a real beer. An American beer 0111 11
Reposted by @spicywhite.bsky.socialBouba's Delivery Service @fernmonkey.bsky.social · 16/02/2025And to Czechs it's considered a feminine-coded drink. 221 2
Reposted by @spicywhite.bsky.socialZoomer Antimillenarian @surcomplicated.bsky.social · 17/02/2025The internet never had any shortage of human-made slop and the AI slop surge is just the final stage of an enshittification profess that was nearing completion before ChatGPT and Stable Diffusion showed up. I understand why people feel the way they do. It doesn't make them right. 2111 11
Reposted by @spicywhite.bsky.socialPenPaladin Jules @penpaladin.bsky.social · 15/02/2025What a lovely day to be casually destroyed by a page in “The Echo Wife” by @sarahgailey.bsky.social 4476 47
Reposted by @spicywhite.bsky.socialJohn Daniels @justanalgorithm.bsky.social · 15/02/2025Good times pass away, but then so do the bad. Mutability is our tragedy, but it’s also our hope. The worst of times, like the best, are always passing away. -Boethius circa 524 AD 061 6
Reposted by @spicywhite.bsky.socialJohn Daniels @justanalgorithm.bsky.social · 15/02/2025It’s my belief that history is a wheel. ‘Inconstancy is my very essence,’ says the wheel. ‘Rise up on my spokes if you like but don’t complain when you’re cast back down into the depths. 161 6
spicywhite.bsky.social @spicywhite.bsky.social · 16/02/2025True in a sense though despite my hatred for Calvinism I wouldn't call him a charlatan. New media threatens the establishment, but there's nothing inherently superior about it. 000 0
Reposted by @spicywhite.bsky.socialThe Web of Evil @webofevil.bsky.social · 15/02/2025Not irrelevant here is what Robert Anton Wilson described as the secret of power: "A disciple is just an asshole looking for a human being to attach itself to." 231 3
spicywhite.bsky.social @spicywhite.bsky.social · 16/02/2025This is the game of Constitional Law. 010 1
