Minestrone Monster
@minstronemonster.bsky.social
Dancing with the devil in the pale moonlight
Pinned
"Where cruelty and injustice are concerned, hopelessness is submission, which I believe is immoral." — Edward Said.
I'm thinking about this quote a lot. How many of us have given up because something is too hard? How has that created a less just world? Are we ok with this immorality?
I'm thinking about this quote a lot. How many of us have given up because something is too hard? How has that created a less just world? Are we ok with this immorality?
For years I didn't understand why I had such a viscerally negative reaction to CBT. Turns out CBT can and does regularly re-traumatise people who have experienced real harm. The fact that it is offered almost universally on the NHS is very likely creating more pain and suffering.
Myalgic encephalomyelitis or chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) - NHS share.google/5rpmVK3ZqX8G...
The NHS website shows CBT as a treatment for ME.
The NHS website shows CBT as a treatment for ME.
September 21, 2026 at 3:47 PM
For years I didn't understand why I had such a viscerally negative reaction to CBT. Turns out CBT can and does regularly re-traumatise people who have experienced real harm. The fact that it is offered almost universally on the NHS is very likely creating more pain and suffering.
A harrowing thread of responses here demonstrating not just a failure to treat patients with ME, but an institutional insistence on persecuting, abusing, gaslighting and discrediting them.
People have died. People will die. Lives have been destroyed.
The scale of the injustice is staggering.
People have died. People will die. Lives have been destroyed.
The scale of the injustice is staggering.
Intending to write another column about the treatment of #ME/CFS patients this week, pegged to new research findings on the biological basis. My question for sufferers:
Are any of you still being offered inappropriate (psych/GET etc) "treatments"?
Please email george at monbiot dot info. Thanks.
Are any of you still being offered inappropriate (psych/GET etc) "treatments"?
Please email george at monbiot dot info. Thanks.
September 21, 2026 at 12:24 PM
A harrowing thread of responses here demonstrating not just a failure to treat patients with ME, but an institutional insistence on persecuting, abusing, gaslighting and discrediting them.
People have died. People will die. Lives have been destroyed.
The scale of the injustice is staggering.
People have died. People will die. Lives have been destroyed.
The scale of the injustice is staggering.
Reposted by Minestrone Monster
Reposted by Minestrone Monster
Software developers think "if AI automates coding, I will be able to spend less time on producing widgets, and more time on strategy and architecture."
Bosses think "if AI automates coding, I can get my devs to produce 100x more widgets."
Bosses think "if AI automates coding, I can get my devs to produce 100x more widgets."
Historically, automation tech has commonly made more work for people: the issue is WHICH people. Whether as an excuse for owners to increase the requirements for expectations in a given day, lessen the labor expected of men while raising the expectations for women, etc. "AI" isn't exceptional.
September 20, 2026 at 2:55 PM
Software developers think "if AI automates coding, I will be able to spend less time on producing widgets, and more time on strategy and architecture."
Bosses think "if AI automates coding, I can get my devs to produce 100x more widgets."
Bosses think "if AI automates coding, I can get my devs to produce 100x more widgets."
Reposted by Minestrone Monster
How the BBC Mainstreams the Right’s Anti-Migrant, Anti-British Agenda
www.adambienkov.co.uk/p/how-the-bb...
www.adambienkov.co.uk/p/how-the-bb...
How the BBC Mainstreams the Right’s Anti-Migrant, Anti-British Agenda
The BBC’s platforming of the bigoted views of billionaire tax exile Jim Ratcliffe is just the latest sign of a national broadcaster that has lost its way
www.adambienkov.co.uk
September 20, 2026 at 10:24 AM
How the BBC Mainstreams the Right’s Anti-Migrant, Anti-British Agenda
www.adambienkov.co.uk/p/how-the-bb...
www.adambienkov.co.uk/p/how-the-bb...
My LORD that car chase scene in One Battle After Another. Incredible.
September 19, 2026 at 8:38 PM
My LORD that car chase scene in One Battle After Another. Incredible.
Reposted by Minestrone Monster
Articles like these are emblematic of the institutional amnesia surrounding Covid-19. A pathogen that emerged less than seven years ago, which can cause fatigue during the acute infection and as a common long-term effect, not even mentioned.
Conspicuously absent.
www.nbcnews.com/health/menta...
Conspicuously absent.
www.nbcnews.com/health/menta...
Why are Americans so tired? CDC report highlights who’s feeling it most
Fatigue is one of the most common concerns reported in primary care visits, yet not much attention is given to how often adults in the U.S. are coping with it.
www.nbcnews.com
September 19, 2026 at 7:15 PM
Articles like these are emblematic of the institutional amnesia surrounding Covid-19. A pathogen that emerged less than seven years ago, which can cause fatigue during the acute infection and as a common long-term effect, not even mentioned.
Conspicuously absent.
www.nbcnews.com/health/menta...
Conspicuously absent.
www.nbcnews.com/health/menta...
Reposted by Minestrone Monster
Tallinn, who led Anthropic's series A, funds METR, the "auditing institute" people took seriously 🙄
After criticism that METR was laughably NOT independent, Anthropic announces they'll pay Accenture to "audit"
Accenture had acquired Tallinn firm which will be doing the "auditing"
Full circle 🙄
After criticism that METR was laughably NOT independent, Anthropic announces they'll pay Accenture to "audit"
Accenture had acquired Tallinn firm which will be doing the "auditing"
Full circle 🙄
I cannot repeat this enough. I'm seeing "haha, starched shirt consultants" takes on the Anthropic announcement of the Accenture embed, BUT Accenture acquired 'Faculty' in January, which originated as 'ASI Data Science' founded with financial backing from Jaan Tallinn. Just as like-minded as METR.
September 19, 2026 at 3:23 AM
Tallinn, who led Anthropic's series A, funds METR, the "auditing institute" people took seriously 🙄
After criticism that METR was laughably NOT independent, Anthropic announces they'll pay Accenture to "audit"
Accenture had acquired Tallinn firm which will be doing the "auditing"
Full circle 🙄
After criticism that METR was laughably NOT independent, Anthropic announces they'll pay Accenture to "audit"
Accenture had acquired Tallinn firm which will be doing the "auditing"
Full circle 🙄
Reposted by Minestrone Monster
Eye popping. Court just unsealed Summary Judgment motions in New York Times v OpenAI / Microsoft.
Easy to see why the AI companies had so many redactions (pink). Their own people wrote the lede for NYT, the "largest theft of labor in human history"... "more and more substitutive..." /1
Easy to see why the AI companies had so many redactions (pink). Their own people wrote the lede for NYT, the "largest theft of labor in human history"... "more and more substitutive..." /1
September 17, 2026 at 6:48 PM
Eye popping. Court just unsealed Summary Judgment motions in New York Times v OpenAI / Microsoft.
Easy to see why the AI companies had so many redactions (pink). Their own people wrote the lede for NYT, the "largest theft of labor in human history"... "more and more substitutive..." /1
Easy to see why the AI companies had so many redactions (pink). Their own people wrote the lede for NYT, the "largest theft of labor in human history"... "more and more substitutive..." /1
Reposted by Minestrone Monster
Reposted by Minestrone Monster
i’m sorry but this entire worldview seems not just evil but deeply stupid? the far future is fake! it doesn’t exist! what matters are people here and now!
Nick Beckstead, noted longtermist and "effective altruist,” just comes out and says it:
"But it now seems more plausible to me that saving a life in a rich country is substantially more important than saving a life in a poor country, other things being equal."
"But it now seems more plausible to me that saving a life in a rich country is substantially more important than saving a life in a poor country, other things being equal."
September 17, 2026 at 3:12 PM
i’m sorry but this entire worldview seems not just evil but deeply stupid? the far future is fake! it doesn’t exist! what matters are people here and now!
YES to all of this excellent piece. My line on this when asked is "I don't think disabled people will ever benefit from something that harms society as a whole".
For @motherjones.com, I looked into how Meta could be using disabled people to promote its Meta glasses to the masses. As one expert told me, “companies have used accessibility...as a Trojan horse for a tool that poses significant privacy and security threats.” www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
Is Meta using disabled people to promote its glasses?
AI glasses are a double-edged sword for disabled people, who face unique risks from surveillance.
www.motherjones.com
September 17, 2026 at 1:34 PM
YES to all of this excellent piece. My line on this when asked is "I don't think disabled people will ever benefit from something that harms society as a whole".
Reposted by Minestrone Monster
"Hid mistakes and made up data" used to be called by the cozy term "hallucination" up until it became vitally important for the IPO that AI is now evil
OpenAI on Wednesday disclosed six new instances in which artificial intelligence systems hid mistakes, made up data and moved files onto the open internet without permission, amid an ongoing industrywide debate about A.I. safety.
OpenAI Discloses Six New Incidents of ‘Concerning' A.I. Behavior
The artificial intelligence company also released a framework for reporting when its systems go wrong.
www.nytimes.com
September 17, 2026 at 2:02 AM
"Hid mistakes and made up data" used to be called by the cozy term "hallucination" up until it became vitally important for the IPO that AI is now evil
Reposted by Minestrone Monster
It's not neat. As an academic, I need to understand a text. I need to contextualise it for my fields with other people. A chatbot cannot even in the most charitable interpretation do anything but waste time and pollute in the pursuit of building within ourselves our unique understandings.
Also...
Also...
talking to the paper is neat until it invents the cutoff. a re-run you cannot audit is not reproducibility, keep the static artifact
This is the future of scientific papers.
Instead of a PDF, the paper is an AI agent that you can talk to, ask questions, run analyses.
No more digging through supplements - just ask the paper directly: "what p-value cutoff was used in Fig 3B? Re-run at 0.01."
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Instead of a PDF, the paper is an AI agent that you can talk to, ask questions, run analyses.
No more digging through supplements - just ask the paper directly: "what p-value cutoff was used in Fig 3B? Re-run at 0.01."
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
September 17, 2026 at 7:14 AM
It's not neat. As an academic, I need to understand a text. I need to contextualise it for my fields with other people. A chatbot cannot even in the most charitable interpretation do anything but waste time and pollute in the pursuit of building within ourselves our unique understandings.
Also...
Also...
Trickle down bullshit
September 17, 2026 at 10:38 AM
Trickle down bullshit
I remember about 8 years I had a conversation with a friend who worked for a big tech company. He was on a nice salary with loads of perks, and reluctant to join a union because he felt it wasn't necessary.
Anyway,
Anyway,
September 16, 2026 at 8:17 PM
I remember about 8 years I had a conversation with a friend who worked for a big tech company. He was on a nice salary with loads of perks, and reluctant to join a union because he felt it wasn't necessary.
Anyway,
Anyway,
Reposted by Minestrone Monster
“Blah,” said Toad.
September 16, 2026 at 7:37 PM
“Blah,” said Toad.
Muted the phrase 'Ed Sheeran' but news about him keeps bursting through my wall like the fucking Kool Aid Man because people are too lazy to use alt text 😵💫
September 16, 2026 at 5:57 PM
Muted the phrase 'Ed Sheeran' but news about him keeps bursting through my wall like the fucking Kool Aid Man because people are too lazy to use alt text 😵💫
Reposted by Minestrone Monster
After the recent spate of attacks on disabled people in the media, I wanted to write this week’s Press Access newsletter on how we might fight back.
Includes anecdotes about how many British columnists I’ve insulted in print (amongst other things). frances336.substack.com/p/how-to-cla...
Includes anecdotes about how many British columnists I’ve insulted in print (amongst other things). frances336.substack.com/p/how-to-cla...
How to clap back against the British media’s attacks on disabled people
And why the long game is sometimes the best
frances336.substack.com
September 16, 2026 at 11:34 AM
After the recent spate of attacks on disabled people in the media, I wanted to write this week’s Press Access newsletter on how we might fight back.
Includes anecdotes about how many British columnists I’ve insulted in print (amongst other things). frances336.substack.com/p/how-to-cla...
Includes anecdotes about how many British columnists I’ve insulted in print (amongst other things). frances336.substack.com/p/how-to-cla...
Reposted by Minestrone Monster
I think this is not accidental, but rather what people in the AI safety community have been talking about as the desirable outcome for many years (a global AI-powered surveillance state to regulate the use of emerging technologies by "those people")
Something I'm concerned about that I haven't really seen anyone addressing is how "AI safety" regs could end up being super authoritarian.
Like, if you truly believe that AI could kill all humans, it seems totally reasonable to install a government backdoor in every smartphone and computer.
Like, if you truly believe that AI could kill all humans, it seems totally reasonable to install a government backdoor in every smartphone and computer.
September 15, 2026 at 10:33 PM
I think this is not accidental, but rather what people in the AI safety community have been talking about as the desirable outcome for many years (a global AI-powered surveillance state to regulate the use of emerging technologies by "those people")
Reposted by Minestrone Monster
what you’re missing is that guys are a structural problem
Your 20s are for believing everything is structural and your 30s are for learning that actually it's often just some guy or small group of guys (gender neutral)
September 16, 2026 at 3:27 AM
what you’re missing is that guys are a structural problem
Reposted by Minestrone Monster
Timms review is seeking to narrow/reduce PIP!
Important: please complete this survey to help push back on this; benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/tell-us...
In my case, PIP needs doubling/tripling as our NHS isn't clinically supporting my disease (ME/CFS).
Important: please complete this survey to help push back on this; benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/tell-us...
In my case, PIP needs doubling/tripling as our NHS isn't clinically supporting my disease (ME/CFS).
Tell us if you support PIP awards based on disability costs
Get the benefits you're entitled to: help with personal independence payment (PIP), universal credit (UC), employment and support allowance (ESA),disability living allowance (DLA). Claims, assessments...
benefitsandwork.co.uk
September 16, 2026 at 9:17 AM
Timms review is seeking to narrow/reduce PIP!
Important: please complete this survey to help push back on this; benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/tell-us...
In my case, PIP needs doubling/tripling as our NHS isn't clinically supporting my disease (ME/CFS).
Important: please complete this survey to help push back on this; benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/tell-us...
In my case, PIP needs doubling/tripling as our NHS isn't clinically supporting my disease (ME/CFS).
Reposted by Minestrone Monster
Given all the *flails hands* you all deserve one of the most adorable pictures I took of Baby Bird Season 2026. A snowy ploverlet peeking through a little sand shrub.
Perhaps a once in a lifetime shot. 🪶 🐣
Perhaps a once in a lifetime shot. 🪶 🐣
September 15, 2026 at 4:23 AM
Given all the *flails hands* you all deserve one of the most adorable pictures I took of Baby Bird Season 2026. A snowy ploverlet peeking through a little sand shrub.
Perhaps a once in a lifetime shot. 🪶 🐣
Perhaps a once in a lifetime shot. 🪶 🐣
Well, two things: vaccines and masks!
Masks also have the wonderful advantage of being a jerk filter and hiding your* haggard Monday morning visage from the world.
*My
Masks also have the wonderful advantage of being a jerk filter and hiding your* haggard Monday morning visage from the world.
*My
It doesn’t matter if you eat organic foods.
It doesn’t matter if you exercise regularly.
It doesn’t matter if you inject peptides.
It doesn’t matter if you have “good genes”.
None of these things will prevent you from contracting vaccine-preventable diseases.
There is only one thing that will.
It doesn’t matter if you exercise regularly.
It doesn’t matter if you inject peptides.
It doesn’t matter if you have “good genes”.
None of these things will prevent you from contracting vaccine-preventable diseases.
There is only one thing that will.
September 14, 2026 at 9:42 AM
Well, two things: vaccines and masks!
Masks also have the wonderful advantage of being a jerk filter and hiding your* haggard Monday morning visage from the world.
*My
Masks also have the wonderful advantage of being a jerk filter and hiding your* haggard Monday morning visage from the world.
*My
Reposted by Minestrone Monster
Eugenics: a common thread throughout the MAHA Administration
Example: Bhattacharya & Memoli, who lead the NIH, say the US government should stop doing pandemic preparedness & instead the government must just urge individuals to get healthy so that at least the healthy survive the next pandemic 😳
Example: Bhattacharya & Memoli, who lead the NIH, say the US government should stop doing pandemic preparedness & instead the government must just urge individuals to get healthy so that at least the healthy survive the next pandemic 😳
And the outcomes he wants are explicitly eugenicist: the "culling" of the weak and vulnerable.
RFK Jr said he wanted to “give infectious diseases a break for 8 years”—that’s a crucial motivation for why he degraded or dismantled infectious disease control programs at the CDC, laid off so many experts in ID control, & accelerated his extreme anti-vaxx push. He’s getting the outcomes he wanted😢
September 13, 2026 at 9:57 PM
Eugenics: a common thread throughout the MAHA Administration
Example: Bhattacharya & Memoli, who lead the NIH, say the US government should stop doing pandemic preparedness & instead the government must just urge individuals to get healthy so that at least the healthy survive the next pandemic 😳
Example: Bhattacharya & Memoli, who lead the NIH, say the US government should stop doing pandemic preparedness & instead the government must just urge individuals to get healthy so that at least the healthy survive the next pandemic 😳