Reposted by William DobbinsStrategic Butter Reserve @euphoria5l.bsky.social · 15h"We are going for the killshot. You want in?" is a hell of a fundraising pitch, not gonna lie. 325513
Reposted by William DobbinsWill Weldon @oldmanweldon.bsky.social · 10/10/2026Top ten most foreboding sentence I've ever read. 10282011291
William Dobbins @wcdobbins.bsky.social · 09/10/2026If the photo is recent Pip is a kitten. I think random chomping is pretty standard kitten behavior. 110
William Dobbins @wcdobbins.bsky.social · 09/10/2026I'm half way though a astronomy stack exchange on the topic so IDK, but the rate of decay or radio transmissions seems like something Fermi and then Sagan would have thought about. 000
William Dobbins @wcdobbins.bsky.social · 09/10/2026Wasn't fermi talking about the apparent radio silence more than lack of visitors. 260
Reposted by William DobbinsNafnlaus 🇮🇸🇪🇺🇺🇦 @nafnlaus.bsky.social · 09/10/2026Working on concept art for an edutainment electoral system game (you design your electoral system, run it through a full campaign, and then citizens (who strategic vote and have varied stances on hot-button issues) vote; your goal is to get the highest majoritarian and utilitarian satisfaction. 071
Reposted by William DobbinsMichael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 06/10/202647% of the seats with 28% of the vote 15% of the seats with 21% of the vote 0% of the seats with 13% of the vote Seriously what the hell kinda way to elect a government is this (numbers are preliminary) 1121
Reposted by William DobbinsPatrick Chovanec @prchovanec.bsky.social · 05/10/2026And the fact that some of these ads originally ran AS CAMPAIGN ADS in 2024 kinds of seals the deal. 18410
William Dobbins @wcdobbins.bsky.social · 05/10/2026I'm running for office on a platform of job guarantees and climate nihilism. If you need a job you're going to be paid a fair wage to go out and sequence the genomes of species we're about to loose. 000
William Dobbins @wcdobbins.bsky.social · 05/10/2026bsky.app/profile/riog... This guy does not think the tradeoffs in the permitting bill are worth it. 210
Reposted by William Dobbinsryan cooper @ryanlcooper.com · 05/10/2026"The most important fact they establish is that the traditional narrative of Marbury v. Madison—the decision that supposedly established judicial supremacy in the United States, as taught in high schools across the country—is an invented tradition." prospect.org/2026/10/05/o...prospect.orgThe Supreme Court’s Power Is Based on the Lie of Its Supremacy - The American ProspectThe Constitution does not establish a judicial dictatorship. 1012840
Reposted by William DobbinsJohn Gramlich @johngramlich.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Most political independents in the US lean toward one party, but it might be more accurate to say that they lean *away from* the other party, as this new @pewresearch.org chart shows. www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/... 181
William Dobbins @wcdobbins.bsky.social · 04/10/2026Its a thought experiment you can draw the boundaries as you see fit. You can imagine a nervous system in a vat if you'd like. 000
William Dobbins @wcdobbins.bsky.social · 03/10/2026Huh I guess they call it a thought experiment not a thought guarantee for a reason. AIs have made quite a bit of need recently for doing things they weren't "programmed" to do. 110
William Dobbins @wcdobbins.bsky.social · 02/10/2026Ultimately all of brains are just sitting in dark vats of CSF getting "zapped" by the inputs of our nervous system. 260
William Dobbins @wcdobbins.bsky.social · 02/10/2026What about the middle ground, a brain in the vat? If human brain in a vat receives from a computer the exact electrical inputs that would come from being connected to eyes looking at a sunset or a tongue and jaw chewing up a steak would that also just be a simulation or would it then be real? 030
Reposted by William DobbinsColin @colin-fraser.net · 12/09/2026The Bostrom story has this weird dichotomy where “intelligence” operates over this incredibly rich and nuanced space such that the AI can predict and optimize over the full open universe, but “final goals” are specified in these blunt Midas-like terms like “maximize paperclips”. 318415
Reposted by William DobbinsWill Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 01/10/2026I prefer the incremental solution that can be implemented through bare-majority legislation (240 Supreme Court justices) to Third Way's radical plan, which requires fully amending the Constitution (term limits) 3551260
Reposted by William Dobbinsmattie lubchansky @mattielubchansky.com · 29/09/2026awoke this morning with a Vision 49103221829
William Dobbins @wcdobbins.bsky.social · 29/09/2026I believe that's the thesis of the article he wrote. 131
William Dobbins @wcdobbins.bsky.social · 28/09/2026My socio-intellectual movement is going to be called "Intelligent people who make good decisions" and then in 15 years we're going to be doing some pretty weird stuff. 150
William Dobbins @wcdobbins.bsky.social · 27/09/2026I'm extremely impressed. You're playing your part to a T. 130
Reposted by William DobbinsAubrey Gilleran @aubreygilleran.bsky.social · 27/09/2026When a Billboard chart-topper used to break records, you didn't have to write articles in "Rolling Stone" scolding people for not having heard it. Because it truly was inescapable. Media just doesn't work that way anymore. 1182
William Dobbins @wcdobbins.bsky.social · 27/09/2026Why focus on addressing the real issues around by data centers when I can get entrenched in fights about a red herring issue that will have very little impact impact no matter the outcome? 190
William Dobbins @wcdobbins.bsky.social · 27/09/2026Is there an article you can find? The SpaceX data center in Memphis is running a bunch of natural gas turbines and doing regular old air and noise pollution. On the whole water usage dwarfs all industrial water usage. 2200
William Dobbins @wcdobbins.bsky.social · 27/09/2026After years of studying this issue from a distance, the gay agenda seems to be to make the boyfriend of the birthday girl uncomfortable at the bar. 000
Reposted by William DobbinsJonathan Ladd @jonathanmladd.com · 23/09/2026The biggest challenge for the US political system is reforming itself so that it can work with regular alternation in party control without either party trying to murder the other party's voters with secret police outside the law or, more generally, ignoring our Constitution. 923747
Reposted by William DobbinsRobert Black @hurricanexyz.bsky.social · 23/09/2026Yeah. The thing is that the backlash to Trump is probably going to be the best chance we get for a while to fix some of the stuff that needs fixing but has immense inertia protecting it 213710
Reposted by William DobbinsProPublica @propublica.org · 22/09/202613/ By the end of 2024, FBI agents had enough evidence to pursue a sweeping bribery probe that could ensnare top lawmakers of both political parties. They asked their supervisors to approve a new investigation. Then Trump returned to the White House. 51244248
Reposted by William DobbinsProPublica @propublica.org · 22/09/2026Sen. Susan Collins helped steer millions in federal defense contracts to Navatek, whose CEO illegally funneled thousands of dollars to her campaign. The FBI sought to launch a probe and was eyeing Collins and other lawmakers. Then Trump gutted the unit in charge. THREAD 🧵 412114466106
William Dobbins @wcdobbins.bsky.social · 22/09/2026I'm sorry for telling you to kill your self over a small disagreement on bluesky. That was unhinged of me. I'm going to log off and reflect on how on how I got to this point in my... Wait a second that was you who did that! bsky.app/profile/beep... 100
William Dobbins @wcdobbins.bsky.social · 22/09/2026Perhaps my position hasn't changed and you just read too fast b/c you were a bit too excited to get that sweet sweet *like* from a bluesky dunk? 100
William Dobbins @wcdobbins.bsky.social · 22/09/2026I don't want to get too dug in reaction to your snark, but has Snake Island has been decisive for either side? My point was that, just like last time Russian units were fighting in Ukraine the vast majority of the action is on land. Did Berdiansk fall to amphibious invasion? How about Mariupol? 100
William Dobbins @wcdobbins.bsky.social · 22/09/2026Thanks! If that $35,000 is true, I need to get less cynical about defense acquisition. 100
William Dobbins @wcdobbins.bsky.social · 22/09/2026If that's counts as a major role to you so be it. 100
William Dobbins @wcdobbins.bsky.social · 21/09/2026Hard to think of an era where big warships would play a major role in a Russian invasion of Ukraine. But ability to produce 100 shahed style drones for the cost of one tomahawk missile does seem pretty important. Not if clear US defense acquisition would emulate even if it could. 3110
Reposted by William Dobbinsjamelle @jamellebouie.net · 21/09/2026this is a bit of an obsession of mine especially here in charlottesville. the cost of commercial real estate is prohibitive if you want to experiment and the city seems categorically opposed to small lots and small units that could allow people to start businesses without a huge capital investment 1483693470
William Dobbins @wcdobbins.bsky.social · 20/09/2026Yeah the next dem trifecta will have to decide whether they want to write a few big spending bills that get largely repealed by the next R trifecta or take a shot breaking the doom loop. 001
William Dobbins @wcdobbins.bsky.social · 20/09/2026Sounds like a short window to transition to multiparty democracy then. 100
Reposted by William DobbinsScout Finch @oldedemocrat.bsky.social · 17/09/2026I have trouble keeping up with the AI issues. What's the significance of this map? 101
William Dobbins @wcdobbins.bsky.social · 16/09/2026I would have mostly agreed with this take until Trump kidnapped the president of Columbia and installed Rubio as the shadow president and diverted the oil revenue. The two airwars with Iran two years aren't great either. 230
Reposted by William DobbinsZeke Hausfather @zekehausfather.com · 16/09/2026All the September dynamical ENSO models (including SINTEX) are now in, and they give a 100% chance of a record event this year using the Oceanic Niño Index (ONI) metric: 110146
