Even if biologically it was the correct call given the new variants, it failed to account for the political backlash that accelerated the MAHA crowd, who are now causing generational damage to American (and global) public health.

My actual hot take is that the second “shutdown” after hot vax summer was a serious policy mistake. Folks got vaccinated and as promised went back outside and tried to return to normal after a year indoors and socially isolated. It was telling someone they had to get back with their toxic ex.

The shutdown was necessary to survive, but surviving isn’t living and it comes with costs. At some point we forgot that real policy has tradeoffs.

I was OCONUS when it broke. We got hit about a month before the US did. I distinctly remember sending my future boss a signal message about how unprepared we were there and how bad it would be for the States. We at least figured it out.

I came back stateside that summer and was just dumbstruck.

It’s also worth remembering that many Americans love their jobs for reasons beyond the financial ones. A good job gives you an identity, status, community, and a reason to leave the house. In other words, it gives you dignity, and that’s not something that a public wealth fund can substitute for. UBI may still be worth doing; should vast numbers of Americans become unemployed due to AI, some form of it may well be necessary. In the meantime, though, I suspect AI companies will find that gauzy promises of future welfare payments will help them about as much as their gauzy promises of future cancer cures — which is to say, not much. What Americans actually want, it’s not clear that AI can give them. And the sooner that AI executives understand that, the better off we’ll all be.

I wrote about tech companies' move to promote universal basic income to calm the AI backlash and why it's probably not going to work www.platformer.news/ubi-ai-publi...

Interesting role given Tim Cook was very explicitly called out in Apple in China (which everyone should read) as being the guy who really made the deals with Beijing happen and who was all in on the sweatshops

Read: “we’re putting an engineer in charge now and in order to make sure they don’t screw it up, Tim here will do all the talking.”

Another thing: you know how you can tell this wasn't planned and was a result of pete drunk dialing meink and demanding the brrt plane gets to fly forever?

Not only was it not in the just fucking released PB but it's 8 hours later and SAF/PA has zero stories up about it

I was just forced to learn all of the Call Her Daddy media drama and subsequent commentary (which includes a comparison to Hamilton), and ya know, the internet was a mistake.

I declare….DPA!

Poaster brain corrupts, absolute poaster brain corrupts absolutely.

Yahoo person is the stealth

Also, let’s put the ChatGPT writing aside for a second, Iran as a global power?

Sure buddy.

Strike another one for IR as a field burning itself to the ground

AI slop.

Pape proudly posting partially plagiarized pablum professionally.

From “The Simpsons” house genius John Swartzwelder, interviewed in The New Yorker by Mike Sacks

Absolutely incredible.

NASA Astronaut Reid Wiseman, who commanded Artemis II, took this footage from the far side of the Moon with his iPhone.

Watch with sound on.

“Yes you’re correct, there are plenty of reports of black dogs throughout history, the one you’re talking to is probably real.”

I’ve been in and out of therapy for years and I’ve had good ones and bad ones, I’ve outgrown some, and ya know what, it takes a lot of work. Reading a book is not the same as digesting it, and going to therapy is not the same as growing from it.

If you just want someone to affirm you, human (real) therapists would probably have something to say about that.

This is borne of the problem I always had with the “just go to therapy” crowd who took no interest in examining therapist quality.

So I’m gonna say something mean here but if you find comfort in the computer as your therapist over a human, this may indicate some other issues and you should go see a real therapist.

Short of fusion coming online; wind, solar, and SMRs are the future of power bc you can scale by region and demand w/ minimal impact to the environment. Only the largest metropoles and compute projects will be able to justify large reactors. Hydrocarbons probably have another 30-50 years left.

The thing about UBI is that it seems to be effective as assistance for lower income folks but when it becomes assistance for the bulk of the population what you’re accidentally creating is a company town.

Go listens to War Talk's latest episode on Mythos to better understand why this is BS with @uticaeric.bsky.social @tonystark.bsky.social

A must read

New military thriller out in June.

Conducting a waterborne infiltration across one of the most environmentally dynamic and sensor saturated waterways into an urban environment? Yeah I’ll give it to them, they’re got balls.

My hope is what is borne from the ashes is something more critical and real, like a scientific revolution. I have my doubts.

No singular field has collapsed in terms of respect and analytic quality like international relations.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s still folks out there doing work but good lord, it’s like the collapse of alchemy.

Its actually incredible how the entire field of IR just set itself on fire and was populated with entire sleeper cells of brain-wormed academics.