iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Theoderic @theoderic.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Found the rarest thing of all, a good tweet

Ilya Sukhar, an investor bro, tweets: I do not support pacing frontier models. If I am going to die at the hands of killer Al, I want it to be American, not Chinese. Buy American, Die American.

@TheyThemItalian quote tweets: you read this on a terminal in fallout

Theoderic @theoderic.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Basically two possibilities here: • AI labs are consciously ignoring well-founded warnings from their own experts • AI labs see x-risk as a way to hype their own capabilities and so indulge some pontification by eccentric employees Can’t wait to find out which one it is!! (My bet is 75% hype.)

Matt Yglesias tweet: This from OpenAl's chief scientist is very thoughtful but also completely at odds with what OpenAl's lobbyists say in Congress and state legislatures, and how the superpac money associated with OpenAl behaves.

Quoting

Jakub Pachocki @ @merettm - 1d
I wrote about the state of Al, why I'm concerned about the next few years, and the choices we need to make to keep the future in humanity's hands.

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Theoderic @theoderic.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

<surveying a vast historical landscape showing the catastrophic, corrosive consequences of inequality and concentrated wealth> Americans:

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Theoderic @theoderic.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

It is 1789. Young people frustrated with inequality and unaccountable elites have turned to radical ideas. It is 1848. Young people frustrated with inequality and unaccountable elites have turned to radical ideas. It is 2026. Young people frustrated with inequality and unaccountable elites have

CNBC ARTICLE

New CNBC Generation Lab poll shows almost half of
18- to 34-year-olds favor democratic socialism
PUBLISHED THU, AUG 13 2026•7:00 AM EDT
UPDATED 4 HOURS AGO
Jason Gewirtz
@JASONGEWIRTZ
WATCH LIVE
KEY POINTS
• Younger Americans view Democratic
Socialism positively.
• The majority of 18- to 34 year-olds in the U.S. have a very negative view of the American economy.

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Theoderic @theoderic.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Even when it "works," billing in the American healthcare system makes no sense whatsoever

EOB for one month of a medicine. Billed at $43,994.12 and yet by some miracle patient responsibility is $0

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Theoderic @theoderic.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

Magic players should opt out of this debate

The magic the gathering card “opt,” featuring the keyword Scry

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Theoderic @theoderic.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Trump: “if you don’t let me massively restrict voting rights then I’ll have to stop doing mass surveillance” Me:

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Theoderic @theoderic.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

Tech bro read a book like a normal person challenge Difficulty: Impossible

r/ClaudeAI post

Reading books like a caveman vs after being terminal-pilled
Recently realized that my current stack for reading e-books and blogs is somewhat unique:
• ghostty terminal with split panes
• bookokrat - TUI ebook reader I built (epub/pdf/ divu, ~feature-complete)
• claude code in the right pane to summarize, answer questions, do research and quiz me at the end.
Cozy and wholesome.
The reader has shortcuts to copy current chapter in markdown into the buffer to make interaction with Claude easy and smooth.
bookokrat is a bit under a year old at this point, fairly mature.
V

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Theoderic @theoderic.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

Gordon Lightfoot discovers AI

Claude entry screen with the question, Does anyone know where the love of God goes, when the waves turn the minutes to hours?

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Theoderic @theoderic.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

Utterly meaningless headline, impressive even by latter-day NYT standards

NYT

With Iran Setting Limits, Strait of Hormuz Remains Thorny Politically

Even after a cease-fire, Iran is keeping a chokehold on traffic, forcing countries to cut deals that could put them at odds with the U.S.

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Theoderic @theoderic.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

Raffi is clearly right but worth noting Kalshi currently gives a 41% chance of Trump not finishing his term. Markets opened and surged in the days after the Greenland threat. Note: “Yes” does not pay out if he dies. This is just if he leaves office.

Kalshi betting odds showing “Donald Trump out as President” at 41% by 2029, 31% before 2028.

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Theoderic @theoderic.bsky.social · 29/03/2026

I don’t know who Hasan Piker is it but my thinking on all YouTube politics grifters is simple and absolute

Batman breaking a gun, this is the weapon of the enemy, we do not need it we will not use it

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Theoderic @theoderic.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

The angled and predatory shape of the eagle wings is also more imperial and (yes) fascist than the traditional American design. Compare:

Obverse of the traditional Washington quarter. The eagle’s wings are spread and lowered as if fluffing them while resting on a branch.

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Theoderic @theoderic.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

MAGA foreign policy treats Congress as irrelevant, to the extent that they don’t know or don’t care about the Constitution’s clear words. Incredible moment from a recent Ezra Klein Show. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/10/o...

EZRA KLEIN: So, in general, you really don't believe there's a role for Congress before these conflicts?

NADIA SCHADLOW: I believe the president can make a case directly to the American people, and Congress's role is the power of the purse.

EZRA KLEIN: So the case for Congress is, once we have gone to war, if they don't like it, they can remove the money?

NADIA SCHADLOW: Congress does not have a constitutional role in the declaration of war. Congress has a role in cutting off funds for wars, which it has threatened to do. And the president doesn't have to get permission.
But yes, you can debate, you can decide.
That's his choice in how he wants to do it.

EZRA KLEIN: I mean, here I will quote the Constitution:
"The Congress shall have power to declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water"

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Theoderic @theoderic.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

Gambling slop invades Venmo. Who asked for this??

“Claim your free lottery ticket!
Get your first Powerball® or other lottery ticket today on Lotto.com™”

Push message on completing a Venmo payment to a friend

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Theoderic @theoderic.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

Two tech oligarchs struggling to articulate the value of human life

X2Y post with embedded video of Sam Altman.

SAM ALTMAN: "People talk about how much energy it takes to train an Al model ... But it also takes a lot of energy to train a human. It takes like 20 years of life and all of the food you eat during that time before you get smart."

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Theoderic @theoderic.bsky.social · 28/02/2026

OpenAI, 2015: We’re a new nonprofit founded to promote transparency and safety in AI technology 😃 OpenAI, 2026: We’ve reached an exciting new agreement with the Department of War, which pinky-promised us not to do mass surveillance or automate their nuclear missiles 😇

Sam Altman wall of text

Tonight, we reached an agreement with the Department of War to deploy our models in their classified network.
...
In all of our interactions, the DoW displayed a deep respect for safety and a desire to partner to achieve the best possible outcome.
Al safety and wide distribution of benefits are the core of our mission. Two of our most important safety principles are prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems. The DoW agrees with these principles, reflects them in law and policy, and we put them into our agreement.
We also will build technical safeguards to ensure our models behave as they should, which the DoW also wanted. We will deploy FDEs to help with our models and to ensure their safety, we will deploy on cloud networks only.
We are asking the DoW to offer these same terms to all Al companies, which in our opinion we think everyone should be willing to accept. We have expressed our strong desire to see things de-escalate away from legal and governmental actions and towards reasonable agreements.
We remain committed to serve all of humanity as best we can. The world is a complicated, messy, and sometimes dangerous place.

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Theoderic @theoderic.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

Two comments — • This design made for great atmospherics in Fallout 3’s post-apocalyptic DC • DC subway station design beats NYC by a country mile

A destroyed DC metro station from the video game Fallout 3. The scene has a vaguely green tint. A wrecked train sits in the station and the trademark vaulted ceiling is pierced by a hole that allows in a little light. It looks like a zombie is about to jump out of the shadows. It is.

Union Square 4/5/6 station in New York City. A solid wall of steel, the side of the train, pushes up against a narrow and curved platform.

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Theoderic @theoderic.bsky.social · 20/01/2026

In her inaugural address, NJ Governor Mikie Sherrill quotes the Declaration of Independence and notes “parallels” with the Trump Administration’s abuses of powers. www.insidernj.com/sherrill-swo...

Our Declaration denounced tyranny, and listed those attacks on our rights committed by England's king:
The list of grievances in our Declaration of Independence included these charges against the king:
He has refused his assent to laws.
He has obstructed the administration of justice.
alone.
He has made judges dependent on his will
He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures.
This election proved that the people of New Jersey recognize the parallels. That we see a president illegally usurping power. He has unconstitutionally enacted a tariff regime to make billions for himself and his family, while everyone else sees costs go higher and higher.
Here, we demand people in public service actually serve the public instead of extorting money to benefit themselves and their cronies.

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Theoderic @theoderic.bsky.social · 12/01/2026

Call me an optimist but this latest blitz — Minneapolis, Venezuela, the Fed — feels like desperation, not power. That makes them more dangerous for now, but beatable. Context:

Economist poll showing Trump approval at -17%, below his first term and Biden’s first year in office

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Theoderic @theoderic.bsky.social · 29/12/2025

New entry in the classic “horrible people rehab” genre

NYT article: “Glenn Beck is sorry about all that.” Beck is pictured with a pose that suggests a frat boy saying “my bad” after funneling beer onto your laptop

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Theoderic @theoderic.bsky.social · 23/12/2025

The defender of family separation has found her red line and the it appears to be the renaming of buildings

Sarah Isgur, former DOJ spokesperson under Trump I, argues on Twitter that renaming Kennedy center is illegal. The precise content isn’t particularly important.

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Theoderic @theoderic.bsky.social · 23/12/2025

Trump calls it a “battleship” — a flashy but wildly out-of-date ship type — but it’s actually a frigate built on a Coast Guard hull with no missile defense system. Layers of incompetence and vanity. archive.is/202512230144...

Mark Montgomery, a former rear admiral who is senior director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, criticized the Golden Fleet plan as
"exactly what we don't need," and noted that each new battleship will cost at least $5 billion.
"We do not need ships that are not optimized to provide lethality against the Chinese threat," Montgomery said, adding that the new frigate has "zero tactical use" because it won't be equipped with a vertical launch system or the Aegis ballistic defense system.
"That is not what these are focused on -they are focused on the president's visual that a battleship is a cool-looking ship," he said.
Over the past few months, a Navy team developed and approved requirements for the new class of "large surface combatant," according to a U.S. official. The new ship will weigh 30,000 tons to 40,000 tons, Trump said, larger than current destroyers. He said the ships would carry nuclear cruise missiles. The ships will have the ability to add future weapons such as rail guns and directed energy, according to one of the people familiar with the discussions.

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Theoderic @theoderic.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

Retail on Wall Street being replaced with empty storefronts slathered in crypto ads seems a little on the nose as a metaphor for the American economy but here we are

The south side of Wall Street in New York. Next to Tiffany’s is a vacant storefront with an ad for Solano, a cryptocurrency.

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Theoderic @theoderic.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

This is just great opinion writing

It's as if the sheer scale of this wealth, which beggars even the riches of the Gilded Age, has induced a kind of class sociopathy.
Peter Thiel, the crucial funder of JD Vance's ascent, talks extensively about his desire to escape democracy (and politics generally) in favor of some kind of bizarre techno-libertarian future. Balaji Srinivasan, the investor and former crypto exec, calls for tech elites to take control of cities and states — or build their own - and run them as quasi-private entities. Alex Karp, who along with Thiel founded the high-flying military intelligence company Palantir, shares his predictions about an apocalyptic clash of civilizations, >>BEGIN HIGHLIGHTED TEXT<< pausing to brag, "I think I'm the highest-ranked tai chi practitioner in the business world." >>END HIGHLIGHTED TEXT<< In another era, this would all be laughable. But as the MAGA moment emboldens them to drop any pretense of civic virtue and just go full will-to-power, their nutty ideas are now borderline plausible. And terrifying.

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Theoderic @theoderic.bsky.social · 13/12/2025

All I can think of when I see his title

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Theoderic @theoderic.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

Please remember — Republican have been promising their own healthcare plan for SIXTEEN YEARS.

Politico playbook email

THE PATH TO NOWHERE: It's looking all but certain that the Affordable Care Act subsidies - which have emerged as a campaign cudgel for Democrats and health care headache for Republicans - will expire at the end of the month. Though lawmakers have devised multiple solutions, none have brought real consensus.
That reality was evident during the briefing that Speaker Mike Johnson delivered to House Republicans this morning, where he presented his conference with a list of 10 different possible policies that could get votes in the coming weeks or months, POLITICO's Meredith Lee Hill reports. "Some were more specific, such as an expansion of health savings accounts and an overhaul of pharmaceutical benefit manager oversight. Others were vague, including one bullet point that simply said, 'Innovation.' The list did not include an extension of the expiring tax credits.

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Theoderic @theoderic.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

Big Tech’s PR work around AI has been a masterclass in how not to communicate with the public about technology

Comedy raven meme. The raven says “AI is so powerful it might destroy humanity.” The audience says “sounds terrible! We don’t want it!” Sweating, the raven fumbles prompt cards saying “ai will take your job,” “ai will replace art,” and “ai reads your emails.”

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Theoderic @theoderic.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

You will be visited by three spirits

Busts of Octavian (with creepy eyes), Antony, and Lepidus — the second triumvirate

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Theoderic @theoderic.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

Is it good if the stock market tracks a speculative asset with no inherent value? 🫧

CNBC article — stock futures climb as bitcoin bounce continues

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Theoderic @theoderic.bsky.social · 01/12/2025

I’ve always believed that Gödel had the pardon power in mind too, but I welcome dissents. (Once heard a claim that he was thinking of the amendment process, but this makes no sense to me as it collapses to an assertion that mass popular support can achieve anything. No kidding.)

There has always been this odd little mystery - the mathematician Kurt Gödel claimed he had found a "loophole" in the Constitution to legally turn the US into a dictatorship. The story goes that Gödel explained his theory to his pals Albert Einstein and Oskar Morgenstern, who tactfully suggested Gödel not bring it up when taking his citizenship exam.
Nobody ever revealed what Gödel was worried about. Always imagined him reading the constitution to prepare for his test and flipping the pages back and forth in horror when he gets to the pardon power. "How can zis be?! Der iz no limit?! My gat! I vill call Albert."

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Theoderic @theoderic.bsky.social · 29/11/2025

Nearly a million views on a completely made up, obviously false claim (Cook + LA make up <10% of murders, not half). Zero fact checking from the Free Press and a pitiful “community note” added by Twitter hours after it went viral.

Wall Street Apes tweet

This is actually insane
52% of all murders in the United States come from only 2 counties
1) Cook County, Illinois (Chicago and surrounding area)
2) Los Angeles County, California
Repeat offenders in Chicago, the same 1400 people commit over 86% of the crimes. The same repeat offenders according to the superintendent of Chicago police

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Theoderic @theoderic.bsky.social · 25/11/2025

Curses, hornswoggled again!! If only the, ahem, United States Senate had some power to intervene here!

Chuck Grassley tweet: “Scty RFKjr hired Calley Means to advise him.
Calley is crusading to stop pesticide use in ag
RFK PROMISED NOT TO ADVISE ON FARMING
He better not follow CALLEY ON PESTICIDES”

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Theoderic @theoderic.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

Elder millennials watching a bumbling Republican president cheer on and deregulate speculative assets as big firms start dropping hints about bailouts

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