Yeah okay, but his "identity" consisted mostly of attempting to turn the concepts of truth and justice inside out & upside down in the US for the purpose of personally enriching himself as much as he possibly could.
Maybe he should take this as a sign from the universe that he needs a new identity.
Not complaining
Seeking perspective & information
I tried to make that clear, but the character limit makes it difficult sometimes
It sounds like you're complaining, though. Would you like to further specify your complaint?
If you have experience w/ or knowledge of Rabhi's work I'm here for it 🙂
A big part of what I'm chasing after is how well he works w/ others because TBH from what little I've heard so far he seems like kind of a "everyone who disagrees w/ me is either passively incorrect or actively corrupt" character. I'm not excited to see that in council mtgs for 4 years.
Am I wrong?
Is the #a2council space here an appropriate one to discuss the past work of mayoral candidate Rabhi?
I know he's worked in government for over a decade, but what I'm able to find online about his career reads like a resume & I'd like to see some information that feels less like self-promotion.
I feel like, as with many words that he uses (and attempts to weaponize in ways that, if successful, would benefit no one but himself), he has created his own personal definitions of the following words:
Progressive
Dogwhistle
Socialist
All these monitoring & recording devices create an incredible opportunity for every expression of identity to become purely performative.
Hopefully this potential will be realized & will result in an unprecedented level of ego loss as people realize that all identity is, in fact, a performance.
Jealous of all the people who 5 years from now will be like, "I just found out what the site "Infowars" used to be like, OMG!"
1. Silicon Valley owes a moral debt to the country that made its rise possible. The engineering elite of Silicon Valley has an affirmative obligation to participate in the defense of the nation. 2. We must rebel against the tyranny of the apps. Is the iPhone our greatest creative if not crowning achievement as a civilization? The object has changed our lives, but it may also now be limiting and constraining our sense of the possible. 3. Free email is not enough. The decadence of a culture or civilization, and indeed its ruling class, will be forgiven only if that culture is capable of delivering economic growth and security for the public. 4. The limits of soft power, of soaring rhetoric alone, have been exposed. The ability of free and democratic societies to prevail requires something more than moral appeal. It requires hard power, and hard power in this century will be built on software. 5. The question is not whether A.I. weapons will be built; it is who will build them and for what purpose. Our adversaries will not pause to indulge in theatrical debates about the merits of developing technologies with critical military and national security applications. They will proceed. 6. National service should be a universal duty. We should, as a society, seriously consider moving away from an all-volunteer force and only fight the next war if everyone shares in the risk and the cost.
7. If a U.S. Marine asks for a better rifle, we should build it; and the same goes for software. We should as a country be capable of continuing a debate about the appropriateness of military action abroad while remaining unflinching in our commitment to those we have asked to step into harm’s way. 8. Public servants need not be our priests. Any business that compensated its employees in the way that the federal government compensates public servants would struggle to survive. 9. We should show far more grace towards those who have subjected themselves to public life. The eradication of any space for forgiveness—a jettisoning of any tolerance for the complexities and contradictions of the human psyche—may leave us with a cast of characters at the helm we will grow to regret. 10. The psychologization of modern politics is leading us astray. Those who look to the political arena to nourish their soul and sense of self, who rely too heavily on their internal life finding expression in people they may never meet, will be left disappointed. 11. Our society has grown too eager to hasten, and is often gleeful at, the demise of its enemies. The vanquishing of an opponent is a moment to pause, not rejoice. 12. The atomic age is ending. One age of deterrence, the atomic age, is ending, and a new era of deterrence built on A.I. is set to begin.
13. No other country in the history of the world has advanced progressive values more than this one. The United States is far from perfect. But it is easy to forget how much more opportunity exists in this country for those who are not hereditary elites than in any other nation on the planet. 14. American power has made possible an extraordinarily long peace. Too many have forgotten or perhaps take for granted that nearly a century of some version of peace has prevailed in the world without a great power military conflict. At least three generations — billions of people and their children and now grandchildren — have never known a world war. 15. The postwar neutering of Germany and Japan must be undone. The defanging of Germany was an overcorrection for which Europe is now paying a heavy price. A similar and highly theatrical commitment to Japanese pacifism will, if maintained, also threaten to shift the balance of power in Asia. 16. We should applaud those who attempt to build where the market has failed to act. The culture almost snickers at Musk’s interest in grand narrative, as if billionaires ought to simply stay in their lane of enriching themselves . . . . Any curiosity or genuine interest in the value of what he has created is essentially dismissed, or perhaps lurks from beneath a thinly veiled scorn. 17. Silicon Valley must play a role in addressing violent crime. Many politicians across the United States have essentially shrugged when it comes to violent crime, abandoning any serious efforts to address the problem or take on any risk with their constituencies or donors in coming up with solutions and experiments in what should be a desperate bid to save lives.
18. The ruthless exposure of the private lives of public figures drives far too much talent away from government service. The public arena—and the shallow and petty assaults against those who dare to do something other than enrich themselves—has become so unforgiving that the republic is left with a significant roster of ineffectual, empty vessels whose ambition one would forgive if there were any genuine belief structure lurking within. 19. The caution in public life that we unwittingly encourage is corrosive. Those who say nothing wrong often say nothing much at all. 20. The pervasive intolerance of religious belief in certain circles must be resisted. The elite’s intolerance of religious belief is perhaps one of the most telling signs that its political project constitutes a less open intellectual movement than many within it would claim. 21. Some cultures have produced vital advances; others remain dysfunctional and regressive. All cultures are now equal. Criticism and value judgments are forbidden. Yet this new dogma glosses over the fact that certain cultures and indeed subcultures . . . have produced wonders. Others have proven middling, and worse, regressive and harmful. 22. We must resist the shallow temptation of a vacant and hollow pluralism. We, in America and more broadly the West, have for the past half century resisted defining national cultures in the name of inclusivity. But inclusion into what?
Just because I'm not seeing it posted plainly here in this way yet (also because I like source texts better than summaries, & this is already one step removed from the actual source) here's that Palantir "manifesto" post in full with ALT text.
Copied from here: www.engadget.com/big-tech/pal...
I mean, I'm glad machines do repetitive tasks well, but that's kinda their whole purpose so the "pitting them against people" part isn't helpful.
"machine does repetitive task continuously for under an hour"
...there's your actual headline
Put another way: people who are afraid of multiplexes going up in their neighborhoods are actively happy that there's a housing crisis because it makes them feel smugly self-satisfied that they have housing (which is increasing in value) and are therefore safe from the housing crisis.
4. What’s one issue in politics that you’ve changed your mind about? The role of the private market in housing construction. How so? I clearly recognize now that there is a very important role to be played, and one that city government must facilitate through the increasing of density around mass transit hubs, the ending of the requirement to build parking lots, as well as the need to up-zone neighborhoods that have historically not contributed to affordable housing production — namely, wealthier neighborhoods. I think all these things, in tandem with a muscular role for the public sector. But that is a changing opinion over time that I’ve been in office. From: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/10/nyregion/zohran-mamdani-interview.html
The DSA dust jacket on the NIMBY playbook is bizarre to me.
The most prominent Socialist in the US right now, Zohran Mamdani, is notably leading the way here even though some Left-NIMBYs like Rabhi and his thickheaded but thin skinned fellow travelers have yet to come around.
The quotes from Rabhi in the A² News article alarmed me because he comes across like he has unresolved anger management issues.
I guess rhetoric that's empty but angry appeals to some.
But chronically angry ppl don't work well w/ others, as we saw w/ several former #a2council members.
Also:
bsky.app/profile/2327...
youtu.be/lkfwdlv2Uu4
He also arrived late to and departed early from the other More Neighbors A2 meeting he came to this year.
It's a bit off-putting.
Is he interested in community building or isn't he?
I wonder what the NIMBYs who are against commodity housing think about the NIMBYs who are against density because they fear it will bring their property values down?
Not defending them, but their actual rulebook is 83 pages long.
I suspect the more predatory your business model is, the more rules you need to make up in order to provide legal cover for your predatory business model.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
kalshi-public-docs.s3.amazonaws.com/regulatory/r...
Aging nicely so far.
Happy sudden summer to all who celebrate 🎈🎉
...they might not get as high of a price as they would from a "greedy developer" 🙄
There's no telling how heavily mortgaged their properties are either, so they could possibly take a loss by selling.
I wonder if landlords in this sort of situation could sell their properties to the A² Housing Commission to add them to our affordable housing stock?
I don't think so, no. Erica likes to run the film prints as much as possible.
In the ongoing council & mayor campaigns we MUST ask candidates clear, direct questions abt how they would have voted when significant things like this came before council & how they will vote in the future.
Candidates can't be given a pass for the kind of hollow populist rhetoric some are spewing.
What can we do about all these people whose hearts are so filled with vicious cruelty?
The problem will require a multivariate approach, and more of us have to start doing things to help kindness and compassion rise up within people's hearts.
I agree with what you are saying here as far as it goes, but I think that in your position of power you need to go even further if you really want prevent a catastrophe.
