iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Ben Taylor

Morgan Johnson @poormojo.bsky.social · 11h

No joke. I think this is the most important video I have ever seen about mobile games. This guy breaks down how this game psychologically profiles you, and makes the game harder or easier in order to show you ads

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Ben Taylor @vox-dei.bsky.social · 10h

I don't think that's an accident. If you use a broad definition as "Jews deserve a homeland in the Levant" then declaring Zionism invalid for any reason automatically invalidates the state of Israel. Either the motion's adherents haven't thought about what they're advocating or that's deliberate.

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Ben Taylor @vox-dei.bsky.social · 11h

But that isn't the criticism. "I think the ZiR motion has massive problems" is an entirely different statement to "I am a Zionist". It's perfectly possible to believe the first without yourself being a Zionist, however you want to define that.

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Ben Taylor @vox-dei.bsky.social · 11h

Yeah, there's certainly a fair bit of that around. It's still just such an obviously ridiculous thing to say though - "You believe A therefore you must also believe unrelated thing B" - that I don't get why it's appearing so much. It's obviously stupid as a purity test, even.

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Ben Taylor @vox-dei.bsky.social · 11h

They do. I don't entirely get why though. I guess just an attempt to silence opposition by making people scared of appearing to take an untenable position? That doesn't quite make sense though because any neutral observer is surely going to think "But they didn't say that".

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Ben Taylor @vox-dei.bsky.social · 14h

"All was subjugated to the City" I'm not sure I'd considered it that way, but...

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Ben Taylor @vox-dei.bsky.social · 15h

Yeah, a very large number of supporters of the ZiR motion respond to criticism of it with "You must support Israeli genocide then". And I can only conclude that is bad-faith, because it's such an obvious conflation of two distinct things.

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Ben Taylor @vox-dei.bsky.social · 15h

I wonder. Would Jenrick be willing to pull the trigger himself? Pointing a rifle at a boat in the channel and either leaving those on board to drown or else directly murdering those on board? He's very quick to suggest traumatising the Royal Marines by ordering them to massacre unarmed civilians.

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Ben Taylor @vox-dei.bsky.social · 18h

Is there an approved list or can you claim any book as your holy book? What if I wanted to highlight the ridiculousness by swearing on the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy? (Not an MP, sadly, so can't)

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Ben Taylor @vox-dei.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

I appreciate that, thank you. FWIW I had an outbreak of civility at the end of that too! bsky.app/profile/vox-...

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Ben Taylor @vox-dei.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

We need content warnings or something. I'm glad I know he did this, I did not want or need to see the video.

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Ben Taylor @vox-dei.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

If he does that can the BBC recover costs? Speaking as a British taxpayer I object to public money having to be spent on fighting frivolous lawsuits from Donald Trump.

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Ben Taylor @vox-dei.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Meh. You know what? I never used to get into fights on here and this is twice in a week, maybe bsky ain't great for brain poisoning either. So: My apologies, we should be on the same team, I will stop. Be well.

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Ben Taylor @vox-dei.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Also: You're accusing me of being a troll for expressing an opinion that I don't think this is a good ad. I mean, I didn't think that was going to be an opinion that started an argument, I've got to say - I wasn't insulting anyone and nobody forced you to answer me. But *I'm* the troll?

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Ben Taylor @vox-dei.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

I mean seriously, find me anyone not on X or Bluesky who will voluntarily watch two minutes of political advertising if they can skip it?

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Ben Taylor @vox-dei.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

I mean, that's like everybody who isn't that bothered about politics. Not "make a decision based on it" but who the hell makes decisions about anything based on political ads? And yet they keep making them because the vibes are effective. But sure, ignore 95% of the population.

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Ben Taylor @vox-dei.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Believe me, I would be *very very happy* if I didn't have to give a shit about American politics and you could all burn in your own happy little dictatorship. But unfortunately it doesn't work that way.

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Ben Taylor @vox-dei.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Why? The rest of us get exposed to your electoral politics, both the toxic bullshit that you insist on exporting and the effects of morons like Trump who accelerate climate change and start stupid wars that spike oil prices. We might not get a vote but you'd better believe we've got an interest.

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Ben Taylor @vox-dei.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Yup, agreed. The point I keep making and nobody really wants to engage with is that *most people will not watch it as far as the point where the ghost says those things.*

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Ben Taylor @vox-dei.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

That's fine, then we have a disagreement. If you think it's the funniest thing ever then I think you've had a lobotomy some time without noticing, but sure, could be you're right and everyone will watch the whole thing. Or it could be it was a waste of money and time. It's not my problem either way.

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Ben Taylor @vox-dei.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

This one is your problem, I'm not American. However, trying to appeal only to your own base is a chronic problem of political parties across the world. You have to have a pretty big base before you win elections that way.

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Ben Taylor @vox-dei.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Yep, I did. For the umpteenth time, the target audience will only watch the start. And the start a) yes, is obviously not serious, but is also not funny and b) associates the DSA with being stalkers. Nobody will think it's serious, obvs, but they don't need to to think it makes the DSA look creepy.

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Ben Taylor @vox-dei.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Why, because you don't like what I'm saying? It's clever, and it's at best ineffective for its target audience because they won't watch it, or counterproductive because they will watch the start and what will stick is "DSA = Stalkers". If you can't or don't want to see that, it's not my problem.

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Ben Taylor @vox-dei.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

TBH if I was Zelenskyy I think I would call this out. Say publicly that you believe that's the point of the exercise. Then when Trump starts calling you names later you can say "See? I said this was his plan from the start."

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Ben Taylor @vox-dei.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

They're fine. They're not going to sell anything to the US, or at least maybe a token amount to make it look like they're trying. The point is to make Ukraine look like the bad guys for preventing the US getting diesel.

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Ben Taylor @vox-dei.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

The start is literally someone being cold called by the DSA and then being stalked by them for not wanting to talk. It's not funny until the *end*. And even then it's not all that funny, it's just clever. They won't watch it.

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Ben Taylor @vox-dei.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Yup. I get it. It's very clever. Again, *if you watch the whole thing* it's very clever. If you watch only the beginning, it's the DSA cold-calling someone and then psychotically stalking them for not wanting to be cold called.

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Ben Taylor @vox-dei.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

The number of times I see political ads that think they're clever, and the first thing they do is either make themselves look bad or put the other guy's name in big letters. I'm not a marketer but I wish people would watch these things as someone coming to it cold and watching only the start.

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Ben Taylor @vox-dei.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

@garius.bsky.social This feels like the kind of thing you'd have an opinion on, albeit yay American political ads, but still. Bluesky seems to think this ad is clever. I think it's doing the other side's work for them by portraying your side as psychopaths for the first half of the ad. Any opinion?

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Ben Taylor @vox-dei.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

If you watch all of it. If you only watch the first twenty seconds, it says the DSA are horror movie bad guys. Your target audience is unlikely to watch a two minute political ad if they have any choice.

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Ben Taylor @vox-dei.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

If as the DSA your target audience who will watch and get the ad is chronically online Blueskyers, you've badly misread who you should be trying to reach. Bluesky will think you're clever. Joe Floating Voter will think you're weird.

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Ben Taylor @vox-dei.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

No, I'm not saying "calm down, be normal", I'm saying that as basic marketing your "please vote for me" ad should not make you look like a psychopath. Even if you're being funny. People watch the first 20 seconds and their takeaway is that you're a psychopath, they don't get the aren't-I-clever.

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Reposted by Ben Taylor

Dave Vetter @davidrvetter.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

Feels like not enough people are aware of how fully cooked the internal combustion engine is. My mum's old diesel Honda currently costs £120 to fill up, on which it'll do just under 300 miles. My sister's EV costs £6 for a full charge which will take her 280 miles.

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Ben Taylor @vox-dei.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Well this looks up my street. Sold.

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Ben Taylor @vox-dei.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

I hope this is true but "the first casualty of war is the truth" and I wouldn't believe a Russian general saying the opposite, so I feel like a pinch of salt is warranted here. It feels like quite an assertion to say that Russia can't and won't be able to advance even with additional mobilisation.

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Ben Taylor @vox-dei.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

I mean, it's good, but I'm unsure that portraying your own side as psychotic horror baddies is going to convince anyone who isn't already convinced. Especially since you have to watch the whole two minutes before you get to the version that isn't psychotic, and you've lost your audience before that.

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Reposted by Ben Taylor

Raphael Wimmer @raphaelwimmer.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Currently, a diagram is making the rounds that is claimed to show a significant reduction in Russian disinformation bot activity after Ukrainian drones hit Yandex data centers. There is no evidence that this plot shows real data. I suspect that this image is AI-generated.

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Ben Taylor @vox-dei.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Would be interesting if we could identify accounts that stopped posting at the time the data centre got hit and don't resume for a while before resuming at their previous intensity as if nothing had happened.

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Reposted by Ben Taylor

"Seamus O'Reilly" 🇺🇦🇬🇧🇮🇪🇦🇺🇬🇱 @jimbobuk.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

In the observer; Andy Burnham has said "UK authorities are “clear” that there was Russian interference in the Brexit vote: this is the first time a prime minister has confirmed Kremlin involvement in the 2016 referendum." Finally.... What we all knew...

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Reposted by Ben Taylor

Alastair Millar @skriptorium.info · 11/10/2026

Trump's betrayal of 🇺🇦 was planned well in advance. Over on Substack, @rshereme.bsky.social shows that the first 🇷🇺 diesel shipment arrived less than 24 hours after Trump's announcement; it left St Petersburg on Sept. 22nd and the ship immediately set course for the US east coast.

substack.com

Roman Sheremeta (@romansheremeta)

The first russian diesel shipment for the US is arriving on the east coast less than 24 hours after Trump announces deal with a war criminal Putin. The MINERVA ZEN left St. Petersburg, russia on Sept...

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Ben Taylor @vox-dei.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

It's trying to scare Burnham *off* calling an election, IMO. The Tories need time to beat Reform, so an election now would be disastrous for them regardless of what it does to Labour. She wants the full three years.

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Reposted by Ben Taylor

Stuart Webb @inflatabledalek.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

#TrekADay Back to the films! The goal here was to introduce the TNG crew to cinema goers who watched the movies but not the shows, with another passing of the torch and a plot required to do things like "The gold man is a robot."

The title card for Star Trek Generations.

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Ben Taylor @vox-dei.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Called it. bsky.app/profile/vox-...

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Ben Taylor @vox-dei.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Right, who had the possessed airliner on their 2026 bingo card?

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Ben Taylor @vox-dei.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Russia can't supply its own armed forces with diesel reliably. How are they going to export it?

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Ben Taylor @vox-dei.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Morally that may be true, legally speaking though they have neither given the orders nor pulled the trigger, and Israel isn't an ICC member anyway so their part didn't happen on Palestinian soil. You wouldn't get the ICC to indict them.

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