@needleminder.bsky.social
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have y'all seen this one before
September 10, 2026 at 11:15 PM
have y'all seen this one before
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This process has already started, of course. And all the headlines saying that the doom is all but inevitable are just softening up the public to shrug their shoulders at each incremental negative outcome and give corporations infinitely more leeway to “fix” their “mistakes”
September 10, 2026 at 11:58 AM
This process has already started, of course. And all the headlines saying that the doom is all but inevitable are just softening up the public to shrug their shoulders at each incremental negative outcome and give corporations infinitely more leeway to “fix” their “mistakes”
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The way AI is going to “kill everyone” is just by manufacturing consent for ever worse outcomes & conditions, like many governments do.
It is a governing technology after all. And like bureaucracy it launders responsibility so the people & institutions who deploy it aren’t accountable for the harms
It is a governing technology after all. And like bureaucracy it launders responsibility so the people & institutions who deploy it aren’t accountable for the harms
September 10, 2026 at 11:55 AM
The way AI is going to “kill everyone” is just by manufacturing consent for ever worse outcomes & conditions, like many governments do.
It is a governing technology after all. And like bureaucracy it launders responsibility so the people & institutions who deploy it aren’t accountable for the harms
It is a governing technology after all. And like bureaucracy it launders responsibility so the people & institutions who deploy it aren’t accountable for the harms
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Therrrre it is.
EXCLUSIVE: Sam Altman met with top power utilities to discuss ways to secure the electrical grid.
He also offered one possible solution to the cybersecurity risks: OpenAI’s own cyber services.
He also offered one possible solution to the cybersecurity risks: OpenAI’s own cyber services.
Sam Altman pitches utilities on AI grid defense
The previously unreported meetings have come as utility companies grapple the risks posed to the grid by autonomous hacks.
www.politico.com
September 10, 2026 at 9:33 PM
Therrrre it is.
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Democratic politicians stumbling over themselves to perform transphobia in order to signal palpability to certain groups... Gee kind of reminds me of Democratic politicians falling over themselves to perform anti-Blackness in 2021 and 2022 in order t- *signal cuts off*
Black Americans have to deal with the most intense manifestations of transphobia, xenophobia, sexism, ableism, etc. But a lot of folks are still committed to pretending like there's nothing to learn from thinking deeply about structural anti-Blackness...
This app is often someone going "America has NEVER treated people this badly just because of their identity", meanwhile they're describing a type of treatment Black Americans have been receiving for centuries
September 10, 2026 at 5:43 PM
Democratic politicians stumbling over themselves to perform transphobia in order to signal palpability to certain groups... Gee kind of reminds me of Democratic politicians falling over themselves to perform anti-Blackness in 2021 and 2022 in order t- *signal cuts off*
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You have got to step aside from this rhetoric and start listening to the people the science consistently backs up: repeat Covid infections pose a serious, ongoing danger to every person’s health at every age, and not just because of deaths via acute disease.
September 10, 2026 at 8:43 PM
You have got to step aside from this rhetoric and start listening to the people the science consistently backs up: repeat Covid infections pose a serious, ongoing danger to every person’s health at every age, and not just because of deaths via acute disease.
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Science keeps telling us that getting covid in your body, over and over again, can jumpstart anything from diabetes to cancer. For a culture obsessed with things like food dyes for a minuscule risk of later illness, you’d think this would have an impact. It hasn’t.
September 10, 2026 at 8:41 PM
Science keeps telling us that getting covid in your body, over and over again, can jumpstart anything from diabetes to cancer. For a culture obsessed with things like food dyes for a minuscule risk of later illness, you’d think this would have an impact. It hasn’t.
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Just as a thought experiment, if you are someone who is not transgender, how would you feel about being forced to transition by the state? Does the corollary of what you propose trans people should endure feel acceptable? I just wonder do cis people imagine what they themselves ask of us?
September 10, 2026 at 3:40 PM
Just as a thought experiment, if you are someone who is not transgender, how would you feel about being forced to transition by the state? Does the corollary of what you propose trans people should endure feel acceptable? I just wonder do cis people imagine what they themselves ask of us?
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I kinda wonder how cis people who feel comfortable abandoning trans people would feel if, theoretically, they were subject to forced transition against their will on pain of torture and potentially death by a political party? Because that's the mirror of what they expect trans people to be ok with.
September 10, 2026 at 3:33 PM
I kinda wonder how cis people who feel comfortable abandoning trans people would feel if, theoretically, they were subject to forced transition against their will on pain of torture and potentially death by a political party? Because that's the mirror of what they expect trans people to be ok with.
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trying to get people to understand that the trans women in sports debate isn’t really about sports but a meta narrative pushed by the right all about slowly getting all trans people out of public life is truly impossible
September 10, 2026 at 6:47 PM
trying to get people to understand that the trans women in sports debate isn’t really about sports but a meta narrative pushed by the right all about slowly getting all trans people out of public life is truly impossible
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As both an academic and a writer, I am repelled by the "this looks like a long document. Would you like me to summarize it for you?" that seems to appear at the top of every pdf viewer now.
NO. The *entire point* of good writing (either books or journal papers) is that every sentence has a purpose.
NO. The *entire point* of good writing (either books or journal papers) is that every sentence has a purpose.
September 10, 2026 at 6:39 PM
As both an academic and a writer, I am repelled by the "this looks like a long document. Would you like me to summarize it for you?" that seems to appear at the top of every pdf viewer now.
NO. The *entire point* of good writing (either books or journal papers) is that every sentence has a purpose.
NO. The *entire point* of good writing (either books or journal papers) is that every sentence has a purpose.
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look, the fact is, a lot of swing voters looooove torturing the omelas kid. they want to put more kids in the hole, actually, yeah. but not YOUR kid--oh, okay. well. still, big picture, thinking about the electoral map--
September 10, 2026 at 5:48 PM
look, the fact is, a lot of swing voters looooove torturing the omelas kid. they want to put more kids in the hole, actually, yeah. but not YOUR kid--oh, okay. well. still, big picture, thinking about the electoral map--
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sorry, but torturing the omelas kid is just a smart move, polling-wise. i personally wish there wasn't a kid in the omelas hole--of course i do!--but let's not get distracted by purity tests, here.
September 10, 2026 at 5:44 PM
sorry, but torturing the omelas kid is just a smart move, polling-wise. i personally wish there wasn't a kid in the omelas hole--of course i do!--but let's not get distracted by purity tests, here.
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I want a world where people are savvy enough not to think that police will arrest or reprimand ICE but where folks understand they are the same. I don’t want to dunk on people who don’t get it, I don’t want to snarkily comment that reports like this aren’t surprising, I just want people to get it.
How is ICE making record arrests?
I found the answer in Pa. coal country, where cops lured by a promise of federal $$$ have embraced ICE's 287(g) and are throwing up checkpoints, raiding job sites, arresting 100s, and terrorizing their communities
My special report www.inquirer.com/opinion/penn...
I found the answer in Pa. coal country, where cops lured by a promise of federal $$$ have embraced ICE's 287(g) and are throwing up checkpoints, raiding job sites, arresting 100s, and terrorizing their communities
My special report www.inquirer.com/opinion/penn...
In Pa. coal country, local police join with ICE to bring arrests, fear | Will Bunch
Pa.'s Schuylkill County is the new face of Trump's mass deportation, as local cops lured by federal cash bust scores of migrants.
www.inquirer.com
September 10, 2026 at 7:12 PM
I want a world where people are savvy enough not to think that police will arrest or reprimand ICE but where folks understand they are the same. I don’t want to dunk on people who don’t get it, I don’t want to snarkily comment that reports like this aren’t surprising, I just want people to get it.
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I, the only data reporter at the Charlotte Observer, am among the McClatchy layoffs in the bloodbath today. The HR person asked me not to talk about it! AMA.
Anyway, here’s a link to one of my most important stories this year.
www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/a...
Anyway, here’s a link to one of my most important stories this year.
www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/a...
A Black teen found hanged near Charlotte church was a suicide, police say. Questions remain
In May, 16-year-old Juliana Nzita was found dead in a Charlotte churchyard. CMPD called it a suicide. Her family isn’t so sure.
www.charlotteobserver.com
September 10, 2026 at 3:32 PM
I, the only data reporter at the Charlotte Observer, am among the McClatchy layoffs in the bloodbath today. The HR person asked me not to talk about it! AMA.
Anyway, here’s a link to one of my most important stories this year.
www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/a...
Anyway, here’s a link to one of my most important stories this year.
www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/a...
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I don't care "what wins in texas", doing this essentially cedes the argument on the biggest attention issue your opponent has argued.
September 10, 2026 at 12:11 PM
I don't care "what wins in texas", doing this essentially cedes the argument on the biggest attention issue your opponent has argued.
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i don't care what the issue is, if your election opponent is running millions of dollars in ads about one single issue, you cannot, under any circumstances, say that your opponent is right about the issue.
September 10, 2026 at 12:09 PM
i don't care what the issue is, if your election opponent is running millions of dollars in ads about one single issue, you cannot, under any circumstances, say that your opponent is right about the issue.
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That guy has disabled replies so I can’t let him know. But a professor of linguistics wrote a social history of the term which he might find instructive… makingsciencepublic.com/2026/01/02/f...
From sloppers to slopocalypse: The lexical productivity of AI slop
At the end of last year, I wrote a blog post in which I dissected the word ‘enshittification’, a staple of AI slang. At the beginning of 2026, I want to do the same for enshittification’s conceptua…
makingsciencepublic.com
September 10, 2026 at 5:25 PM
That guy has disabled replies so I can’t let him know. But a professor of linguistics wrote a social history of the term which he might find instructive… makingsciencepublic.com/2026/01/02/f...
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There is no definition of slop, either formal or informal, that just means unreliable source or dubious quality. I'm going to die on this hill. That is not what the critical response to new media forms of knowledge was about.
This era did actually happen, for various definitions of "slop," @tressiemcphd.bsky.social.
There was quite a while where Wikipedia was considered unreliable, blogs were considered highly questionable if not sketchy, & podcasts - if they knew what they were at all - were…
bsky.app/profile/tres...
There was quite a while where Wikipedia was considered unreliable, blogs were considered highly questionable if not sketchy, & podcasts - if they knew what they were at all - were…
bsky.app/profile/tres...
How old is everybody on this app? what memory are we talking about here? Because this never happened.
September 10, 2026 at 3:22 PM
There is no definition of slop, either formal or informal, that just means unreliable source or dubious quality. I'm going to die on this hill. That is not what the critical response to new media forms of knowledge was about.
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it’s midnight EST
September 10, 2026 at 4:01 AM
it’s midnight EST
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"It really sucks because I would love this exploitation if it weren't for all the exploitation"
September 9, 2026 at 9:03 PM
"It really sucks because I would love this exploitation if it weren't for all the exploitation"
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A meaningless assertion. The technology doesn’t and cannot exist in a vacuum. It is what it is because of the context in which it was created. Outside of Capitalism, no one would build it, because it’s literally built on extraction.
Separating things from their context is never helpful.
Separating things from their context is never helpful.
One of the things that also pisses me off is that in a vacuum, this technology is value-neutral. It's development in conjunction with the profit motive is what causes the worst aspect of it to manifest. The problem is not the technology itself, but is and has always been Capitalism.
September 10, 2026 at 1:05 AM
A meaningless assertion. The technology doesn’t and cannot exist in a vacuum. It is what it is because of the context in which it was created. Outside of Capitalism, no one would build it, because it’s literally built on extraction.
Separating things from their context is never helpful.
Separating things from their context is never helpful.
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I can't emphasize this enough: most of the "attraction flags" men think women want are things they admire IN OTHER MEN. The Tate's Potemkin Villa wasn't about attracting women, it was a flex at *men* and convincing them that "you could have these things too", as though it brought the women TOO.
September 9, 2026 at 4:34 PM
I can't emphasize this enough: most of the "attraction flags" men think women want are things they admire IN OTHER MEN. The Tate's Potemkin Villa wasn't about attracting women, it was a flex at *men* and convincing them that "you could have these things too", as though it brought the women TOO.
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Team Blue No Matter Who is going to have their work cut out for them because I for one refuse to entertain voting for or even saying nice things about someone who wants to compromise on trans rights.
Like get the fuck away from me.
Like get the fuck away from me.
September 9, 2026 at 9:04 PM
Team Blue No Matter Who is going to have their work cut out for them because I for one refuse to entertain voting for or even saying nice things about someone who wants to compromise on trans rights.
Like get the fuck away from me.
Like get the fuck away from me.
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"Purity tests are what brought us MAGA."
No that's white people, actually. 
No that's white people, actually. 
September 9, 2026 at 10:34 PM
"Purity tests are what brought us MAGA."
No that's white people, actually. 
No that's white people, actually.