"...a somewhat annoying habit has developed where scientists will weigh-in on questions related to Covid NPIs or climate policy that involve complicated multi-dimensional tradeoffs as if 'the science' settles rather than informs these debates. This is bad."
Not the main idea of this piece but I'm highlighting it because I remember saying essentially the exact same thing a while ago.
"Trump's war on science" by Matthew Yglesias in Slow Boring https://www.slowboring.com/p/trumps-war-on-science
The USPTO is making it harder to challenge bad patents. That’s great for patent trolls—terrible for everyone else. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/03/new-uspto-memo-makes-fighting-patent-trolls-even-harder
US politics (DEI)
"...none of these five dogmas is entirely false. The problem is that they are not entirely true either, as a result of which their widespread promulgation generates completely unnecessary suspicion and controversy."
"The Five Dogmas of DEI" by Joseph Heath in Persuasion https://www.persuasion.community/p/the-five-dogmas-of-dei
US politics
"In my view, the right lesson from 2024 is that presidential elections are not about policy in the first place. ...[I]nsofar as election outcomes can be controlled, winning probably has more to do with charisma, authenticity, relatability, and responsiveness to the national mood, all of which can be leveraged in service of almost any policy platform."
"Move past the progressive v. moderate framing" from Exasperated Alien https://exasperatedalien.substack.com/p/move-past-the-progressive-v-moderate
#USPolitics
I've noticed a few times where people reference a #Bluesky account as simply "@ example" instead of (I assume) "@ example.bsky.social". Bluesky handles are domain names, so it's important to distinguish between, say, example.bsky.social and example.com.
Also, I again encourage anyone who's using Bluesky and has their own domain name/website to look into making it their handle instead of just relying on bsky.social.
US politics
"What Went Wrong In The 2024 Election?" by Ryan Beard https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPTQWEoKz_4
As Beard says, it's not the most significant factor in Trump's victory, but it's honestly refreshing to hear the left-wing infighting being called out by someone to my left. I'm reminded of Freddie deBoer's criticism of a certain section of social-justice advocates who believe they are "exempt from politics" ( https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/social-justice-advocates-dont-get ); Beard's criticism of certain online leftists seems similar.
COS's California Ballot: https://collectedoverspread.tumblr.com/post/767355442735284224/coss-california-ballot-2024
Rather late post where I talk about how I voted for ballot measures in California this past election. #CaliforniaPolitics #USPolitics
I have been making a conscious effort to Post About Politics less post-Twitter. I no longer feel convinced blasting fancy words to people who don't care, already agree with me, already voted, or are German citizens, is helpful.
But this election is making me feel torn apart (if Harris loses, it may no longer be safe for me to move back to the USA) so if you feel personally open to listening to someone's pitch on the election, here are some spoiler-tagged tiny arguments for the night before:
The Vanishing Culture report arrives today at a critical moment: While Internet Archive recovers from a cyberattack, it’s a reminder of how fragile our access to knowledge can be. Preserving culture & history requires resilience—and collective action.
https://blog.archive.org/2024/10/30/vanishing-culture-a-report-on-our-fragile-cultural-record/
The Internet Archive was breached again, this time on their Zendesk email support platform after repeated warnings that threat actors stole exposed GitLab authentication tokens.
"Why kick the cat?" - @brewsterkahle, speaking to Daniel Wu of the Washington Post about the attacks against the Internet Archive https://wapo.st/4f998w2
The usefulness of blocks after this change will depend on how you use the block function and to what ends.
Is it just me or are some people misunderstanding the upcoming changes to #Twitter 's block function? There's certainly legitimate criticism to be made, but I think it's important to recognize what is actually changing and what isn't.
Currently, if you block someone, that means:
1. You can't see their posts
2. You can't interact with their posts
3. They can't see your posts
4. They can't interact with your posts
Only #3 is changing.
Culture war (transgender)
In the spirit of "fronting the 'of course' a little more" as Freddie deBoer puts it ( https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/perhaps-if-youre-a-of-course-trans ):
I believe trans people should be free to live their lives as their identified gender and receive the healthcare they need (and I don't just mean gender-affirming care; this also extends to things like gynecological care for trans men which from my understanding can be a struggle). Trans people deserve the same protections against discrimination as others do with regards to sex and gender and they absolutely do not deserve harassment, ostracism, and violence simply for identifying in a particular way.
Culture war (transgender)
"I won't speak for the conservative critics who don't believe trans people are real. I think one of the main concerns among the liberal critics is the conflict between multiple frames of trans acceptance." https://old.reddit.com/r/IntellectualDarkWeb/comments/1566zx2/my_latest_at_queer_majority_about_the_reactionary/jtn0j3q/
The portion about the second frame/paradigm is worth highlighting. If we don't want to limit the concept of transgender to those who experience gender dysphoria (which I don't), then I think we need to consider that just *maybe* gender identities, including transgender identities, are influenced by societal concepts of gender including, yes, gender roles. And I do recognize that that conflicts with the ideal of removing gender roles and stereotypes, but until we live in some sort of "post-gender" society this is going to be a point of contention.
From another comment in the thread: "Anyway, that's about 8 paragraphs of saying, 'I think we're reinforcing stereotypes here'." https://old.reddit.com/r/IntellectualDarkWeb/comments/1566zx2/my_latest_at_queer_majority_about_the_reactionary/jts07wx/
I just noticed that I mentioned an "update" without actually explaining what I was referring to. It's the update to my latest Tumblr post: https://collectedoverspread.tumblr.com/post/752240801304723456/things-i-hate-about-the-internet-when-the
Maybe you can appreciate why I'd like to give it some more separation.
US (California) politics
One thing I'm curious about is service charges specifically for large parties, which some reporting (e.g. https://www.latimes.com/food/story/2024-02-15/new-california-hidden-fees-law-service-fee-ban ) suggests would also need to be included in the advertised price.
I actually feel like this should be considered a fee for an optional service (in the words of the AG's guidance), that is, the service of waiting on/serving a large group of customers. Consider this: If you were a glutton and ordered ten dishes for yourself, in theory you wouldn't have to pay that charge, whereas a group of ten who ordered the same dishes would have to.
If the exemption doesn't pass, I'd like to see more specific guidance from the AG on this.
(Mostly unqualified) thoughts on technology and social dynamics from a software developer. Longer thoughts on https://collectedoverspread.tumblr.com/ Formerly @collectedoverspread@mastodon.host