Brian Beach has moved @bwbeach@qoto.org

ChatGPT is awesome for drafting blog posts and newsletters. First, I give it all my bullet points and ask it for a draft. Then, I hate what it wrote _so much_ that I get off my ass and write the thing myself, like I should have done in the first place.

🔗 https://justin.searls.co/takes/2024-06-02-11h17m10s/

Improv would be better if it had an "e" at the end.

Signal strongly opposes the newest #ChatControl proposal in Europe.

Let there be no doubt: we will leave the EU market rather than undermine our privacy guarantees.

This proposal--if passed and enforced against us--would require us to make this choice.

It's surveillance wine in safety bottles.

See more: https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/majority-for-chat-control-possible-users-who-refuse-scanning-to-be-prevented-from-sharing-photos-and-links/ @echo_pbreyer

"Once more let me remind you what fascism is. It need not wear a brown shirt or a green shirt. It may even wear a dress shirt. Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power and special privilege."

- Tommy Douglas.

A journalist *almost* takes responsibility for the misinformed public: "Many commentators...blame the media for the public’s economic illiteracy." But then she turns the blame on us: "If the media has a bad-news bias, that’s because our audiences have a bad-news bias, too." Journalists are incapable of meaningful self-reflection, incapable of taking responsibility.
Nearly everything Americans believe about the economy is wrong https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/05/28/economy-gloom-voters-inflation/

Two things I despise about Biden's policy stances: his consistent support of the Israeli govt and of cops, regardless of the endless crimes against humanity of both.

Trump, a fascist cult leader & Russian asset, will be a million times worse in those areas.

Meanwhile, Biden has signed a long list of progressive executive orders & enacted hugely, positively impactful laws. Trump would do the opposite of all of that and openly promises to harm millions of people. Think about it. #VoteBlue

It was always exciting and important when as a child I’d pepper some adult with questions and (at last) they would say “you know what? I don’t know. Let’s ask this other person or let’s look it up!”

LLMs are like the kind of adult who just makes up some plausible BS rather than say “I don’t know” those kinds of adults didn’t really think my questions mattered they didn’t think I remember or notice that they’d lied to me. I *always* noticed. I think these systems trigger me because of it LMAO.

Once you could count on some things posted online probably being true because, well, why would anyone bother to put out misinformation about a topic so obscure or uncontroversial? now the simple fact that someone might want to know a bit of information makes it worth faking if it can get their eyeballs on an ad— or improve the search ranking for some company. The harmless act of *being curious* about the world causes misinformation to spring to life. We have made wanting to learn destructive.

Some pretty incredible writing here.

"I’ve been in this position so many times that it exhausts me just to write about it. Sometimes, it’s not that I’m afraid of men; I’m just really, really tired."

https://bikepacking.com/plog/man-or-bear-debate/

Seeing people toot that they're bummed about how little coverage there was of the Voyager 1 fix, and I want to reply WE'RE HAVING A KEYNOTE TALK AT @bangbangcon ABOUT IT!!!!!!! but they're strangers and that might be rude

I’m just gonna say it — this “Genocide Joe” thing is the dumbest fucking liberal shit I have seen in years.

Joe Biden can do more to *try* to rein in Israel, but Biden doesn’t run Israel. He isn’t CIC for IDF. He isn’t deciding what hospital to bomb. He isn’t deciding what border crossings to close.

You know who is pushing the Genocide Joe narrative? The fucking Russians and the Israelis. Why is that? Well, it’s an election year, and Trump is a hard right, pro-Israel puppet.

In case anyone missed it - @trishgreenhalgh dropped a HUGE multi disciplinary study on masks & respirators yesterday.

This study involved people from all over the world and tackled everything from are masks effective against COVID (spoiler -
They are), why were there bad RCTs saying the opposite and what were their flaws, what are the sociological barriers to masking (with input from @DALupton).

It was exactly the kind of gold standard, irrefutable study on masks and respirators that we need to counter the “masks don’t work” crowd. Unfortunately I realize many of them won’t ever read it - but it still feels wonderful to see it laid out so clearly.

If any of the other contributors are on here - please drop a comment so I can find & follow you!

https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/cmr.00124-23

#CovidIsAirborne #CovidIsNotOver #CovidCautious #sarscov2 #maskup #WearAMask #CleanAir #Pandemic #Disability #accessibility #DisabilityRights #N95s

@tylervu @MisuseCase @SailorDisco @GottaLaff
I don't understand not voting. Power will be distributed. No matter how bad your choices, how does not participating help?

Sure, work to change the system. But on the day, you still vote.

“The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.”
― Mary Oliver Ugh- that one hits me hard.

And I will never understand why so many Americans are dead set against making access to education and opportunities so fucking hard for so many. (I mean, logically, I know they are stuck in the just-world hypothesis, but still, as a human, I don't *get it*). I will never understand why people won't do things like make school lunch free, healthcare accessible by all, education affordable by everyone--exactly what kind of world do they think this makes?

I have so many interview requests that I'm actually starting to lose track of them at this point...

But I'm really glad there is so much interest. This is terrifying stuff: SpaceX and other companies are dumping stuff on the ground that could very easily kill people. Countries need to enforce the rules that already exist, and the regulations NEED to be updated to take into account how terrifyingly many re-entries are happening now.

Since 1970, there has been a:
49% decline in marine life
50% decline in insects
63% decline in Irish birds
66% decline in wildlife
69% decline in vertebrates
83% decline in freshwater species

Dams and mining key cause of freshwater fish collapse.

Dams?

Is that where we get our sustainable, clean, green energy from?

Mining?

Don't we have to mine those green metals?

The Green Transition: killing everything on earth so humans can keep consuming, sorry, devouring

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/21/living-planet-index-migratory-freshwater-fish-populations-decline-dams-weirs-mining-water-abstraction-pollution-threat-aoe

"AI companies are worried that they're going to run out of data to train their LLMs and energy to power their data centers. This is a strange way to discuss a fundamental design flaw. It's not some quirk or fluke that a product is constrained by reality, but the core of all engineering and science, though this is considered so self-evident that it normally remains unsaid."

https://theluddite.org/#!post/ai-hype