Benjamin Harnett
@benjaminharnett.com
Sometime poet, historian, software engineer, novelist, union man. https://www.benjaminharnett.com https://thehappyvalleynovel.com
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Benjamin Harnett
@benjaminharnett.com
· Jun 20
I interviewed 300 high achievers about their morning routine, and you will never believe, they all have inherited family wealth.
Reposted by Benjamin Harnett
ChatGPT Told Me It Was Sensing a ‘C’ — Maybe a Clive or a Claire or a Catherine — Who Had Passed Over Recently
September 16, 2026 at 9:32 PM
ChatGPT Told Me It Was Sensing a ‘C’ — Maybe a Clive or a Claire or a Catherine — Who Had Passed Over Recently
Reposted by Benjamin Harnett
Rich people aren’t like you or me, ~*%they’re dumb as shit%*~!
I like how much of the “low information” working or middle class voter discussion implicitly goes hard at the idea that they’re poorer and more susceptible to bad, dumb (mis)info, and I’m not saying people aren’t, but have u seen how rich highly educated people vote?
September 16, 2026 at 1:03 PM
Rich people aren’t like you or me, ~*%they’re dumb as shit%*~!
Reposted by Benjamin Harnett
Sure, “AI has thoughts” in the way the stone imagines falling when you open your hand to drop it.
The psychology of people convincing themselves the computer is alive as a way of dodging any real investigation into the mystery of existence and the horror of selfhood and death is pretty basic.
September 16, 2026 at 3:21 PM
Sure, “AI has thoughts” in the way the stone imagines falling when you open your hand to drop it.
Reposted by Benjamin Harnett
HaJ3FgupAm8RrDJW3MHgT9X7Ft27eVaD
What is that? That's a hard-coded API token that Flock cameras use to identify themselves and get OAuth credentials, which can then be used to talk to Flock's production servers. Like, anyone on the internet can probably do this right now.
What is that? That's a hard-coded API token that Flock cameras use to identify themselves and get OAuth credentials, which can then be used to talk to Flock's production servers. Like, anyone on the internet can probably do this right now.
September 16, 2026 at 9:09 PM
HaJ3FgupAm8RrDJW3MHgT9X7Ft27eVaD
What is that? That's a hard-coded API token that Flock cameras use to identify themselves and get OAuth credentials, which can then be used to talk to Flock's production servers. Like, anyone on the internet can probably do this right now.
What is that? That's a hard-coded API token that Flock cameras use to identify themselves and get OAuth credentials, which can then be used to talk to Flock's production servers. Like, anyone on the internet can probably do this right now.
Reposted by Benjamin Harnett
“are you going to the AI summit at work today?”
me:
me:
September 16, 2026 at 3:47 PM
“are you going to the AI summit at work today?”
me:
me:
Reposted by Benjamin Harnett
"I wrote the piece and Claude found the links relevant to my claims" is, even without the AI, such an admission of poor thinking and argumentation. your claims should emerge from the evidence!
Less shocking to me was reading this bit at the end, where Erickson - whose entire day-to-day job is just wanking out a bit of punditry once or twice a week - has handed much of that over to AI.
September 16, 2026 at 4:45 PM
"I wrote the piece and Claude found the links relevant to my claims" is, even without the AI, such an admission of poor thinking and argumentation. your claims should emerge from the evidence!
Reposted by Benjamin Harnett
The one minor blessing of Twitter is that we can see the Masters of the Universe are sub-literate lunatics
September 16, 2026 at 1:27 PM
The one minor blessing of Twitter is that we can see the Masters of the Universe are sub-literate lunatics
Sure, “AI has thoughts” in the way the stone imagines falling when you open your hand to drop it.
The psychology of people convincing themselves the computer is alive as a way of dodging any real investigation into the mystery of existence and the horror of selfhood and death is pretty basic.
September 16, 2026 at 3:21 PM
Sure, “AI has thoughts” in the way the stone imagines falling when you open your hand to drop it.
The psychology of people convincing themselves the computer is alive as a way of dodging any real investigation into the mystery of existence and the horror of selfhood and death is pretty basic.
September 16, 2026 at 3:20 PM
The psychology of people convincing themselves the computer is alive as a way of dodging any real investigation into the mystery of existence and the horror of selfhood and death is pretty basic.
These people are a bunch of grade-D thinkers with poster’s disease. It’s like if you gave trillions of dollars to the worst people you met at college. (Oh wait that’s been our entire society for a hundred years.)
"AI folks have spent a long time talking to one another, and their explanations not just for what they’re attempting to build but why they have to build it are layered, heavily contingent thought experiments, rich in metaphor, full of prediction, and articulated in terms of game theory."
Why Everyone’s Talking About the AI Apocalypse
The AI-safety people finally have the public’s attention. Now what?
nymag.com
September 16, 2026 at 2:55 PM
These people are a bunch of grade-D thinkers with poster’s disease. It’s like if you gave trillions of dollars to the worst people you met at college. (Oh wait that’s been our entire society for a hundred years.)
Reposted by Benjamin Harnett
Last thing Im gonna say promise: one of the most exciting things about the 2016 Bernie campaign is that it turned out lots of 1st time voters— folks o/w checked out— it just doesn’t make any sense to say those votes were then owed to Clinton. Political operatives develop a theory of mind challenge!
September 16, 2026 at 2:30 PM
Last thing Im gonna say promise: one of the most exciting things about the 2016 Bernie campaign is that it turned out lots of 1st time voters— folks o/w checked out— it just doesn’t make any sense to say those votes were then owed to Clinton. Political operatives develop a theory of mind challenge!
Reposted by Benjamin Harnett
If you want to understand where a very large swathe of "AI" is, today, then you very seriously need to engage w/ religious studies & mythology — & understand I don't mean "mythology" in the pejorative sense of "falseness" or "fantasy;" I mean "animating beliefs," or "fundamental guiding narrative."
November 21, 2023 at 11:37 PM
If you want to understand where a very large swathe of "AI" is, today, then you very seriously need to engage w/ religious studies & mythology — & understand I don't mean "mythology" in the pejorative sense of "falseness" or "fantasy;" I mean "animating beliefs," or "fundamental guiding narrative."
I’m sorry you were born without an imagination. It’s tragic but don’t take it out on the world.
What AI-freaks don’t get is that that statement is enough. You don’t actually have to generate some abominable freak show version to look at. You see the words, imagine it, and done.
September 16, 2026 at 1:14 PM
I’m sorry you were born without an imagination. It’s tragic but don’t take it out on the world.
Rich people aren’t like you or me, ~*%they’re dumb as shit%*~!
I like how much of the “low information” working or middle class voter discussion implicitly goes hard at the idea that they’re poorer and more susceptible to bad, dumb (mis)info, and I’m not saying people aren’t, but have u seen how rich highly educated people vote?
September 16, 2026 at 1:03 PM
Rich people aren’t like you or me, ~*%they’re dumb as shit%*~!
*Spencer Tracy dramatically slapping two books together at the end of Inherit the Wind*
Earlier, my brain mixed-up Peskin and Schroeder with Piven and Cloward—blurring two very different approaches to understanding how the world works (Quantum Electrodynamics and Political Theory).
September 16, 2026 at 12:55 PM
*Spencer Tracy dramatically slapping two books together at the end of Inherit the Wind*
Earlier, my brain mixed-up Peskin and Schroeder with Piven and Cloward—blurring two very different approaches to understanding how the world works (Quantum Electrodynamics and Political Theory).
September 16, 2026 at 12:52 PM
Earlier, my brain mixed-up Peskin and Schroeder with Piven and Cloward—blurring two very different approaches to understanding how the world works (Quantum Electrodynamics and Political Theory).
Reposted by Benjamin Harnett
Reposted by Benjamin Harnett
It's also very much untrue to say that generative AI systems have to be a "success" to draw huge volume of electrical energy.
Eg: both microsoft and google now have to consume materially more energy to make the same unit of revenue. Is that a "success"?
bsky.app/profile/keta...
Eg: both microsoft and google now have to consume materially more energy to make the same unit of revenue. Is that a "success"?
bsky.app/profile/keta...
Google basically say: it's all worth it.
But is it? Google now has to burn 1.5x as much energy to make the same $1m in revenue.
Compared to 2021, are you getting 2x the value out of Google's services, to justify 2x the climate disasters they'll cause? Is this a good trade-off, to you?
But is it? Google now has to burn 1.5x as much energy to make the same $1m in revenue.
Compared to 2021, are you getting 2x the value out of Google's services, to justify 2x the climate disasters they'll cause? Is this a good trade-off, to you?
September 16, 2026 at 11:48 AM
It's also very much untrue to say that generative AI systems have to be a "success" to draw huge volume of electrical energy.
Eg: both microsoft and google now have to consume materially more energy to make the same unit of revenue. Is that a "success"?
bsky.app/profile/keta...
Eg: both microsoft and google now have to consume materially more energy to make the same unit of revenue. Is that a "success"?
bsky.app/profile/keta...
The thing Democrats are afraid of most in November is too big a win. It won’t be as easy to dampen expectations of action and many candidates with views that aren’t controlled by party leadership and donors would win, making it more likely that the status quo will be challenged. So let’s do it!
September 16, 2026 at 12:10 PM
The thing Democrats are afraid of most in November is too big a win. It won’t be as easy to dampen expectations of action and many candidates with views that aren’t controlled by party leadership and donors would win, making it more likely that the status quo will be challenged. So let’s do it!
Reposted by Benjamin Harnett
Roko’s basilisk isn’t real but the people who think it is are very real & will hurt you
September 16, 2026 at 2:50 AM
Roko’s basilisk isn’t real but the people who think it is are very real & will hurt you
Remember that brief moment when everybody lost their minds and attributed motives, goals, reasoning to a bunch of computer scripts? That was weird. At least it distracted us from doing anything about any of the multiple real existential problems we faced.
September 16, 2026 at 11:46 AM
Remember that brief moment when everybody lost their minds and attributed motives, goals, reasoning to a bunch of computer scripts? That was weird. At least it distracted us from doing anything about any of the multiple real existential problems we faced.
Reposted by Benjamin Harnett
Loss of the radiodontids is really going to hurt.
The Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event (GOBE) has now withdrawn from the Ed Sheeran tour.
September 16, 2026 at 1:15 AM
Loss of the radiodontids is really going to hurt.
Reposted by Benjamin Harnett
Reposted by Benjamin Harnett
That NYT/Siena poll also has Mamdani +5 *nationally* among likely voters. Newsom nationally is like -8, Harris -7.
2025 was such a wacky time for the Democratic Party consultant-pundits, who called Mamdani one of the "most unpopular Democrats in the country"
2025 was such a wacky time for the Democratic Party consultant-pundits, who called Mamdani one of the "most unpopular Democrats in the country"
September 15, 2026 at 10:49 PM
That NYT/Siena poll also has Mamdani +5 *nationally* among likely voters. Newsom nationally is like -8, Harris -7.
2025 was such a wacky time for the Democratic Party consultant-pundits, who called Mamdani one of the "most unpopular Democrats in the country"
2025 was such a wacky time for the Democratic Party consultant-pundits, who called Mamdani one of the "most unpopular Democrats in the country"