Pope Leo XIV @Pontifex X.com #ArtificialIntelligence systems increasingly shape and permeate our mentality and social environments. Like every great historical transformation, this too calls not only for technical competence, but also for a humanistic formation capable of making visible the logic behind economics, embedded biases and forms of power that shape our perception of reality. 1:31 PM • 4/17/26 • 91K Views

Pope Leo XIV @Pontifex X.com Within digital environments — structured to persuade — interaction is optimized to the point of rendering a real encounter superfluous; the otherness of persons in the flesh is neutralized, and relationships are reduced to functional responses. Dear friends, you, however, are real persons! Creation itself has a body, a breath, a life to be listened to and safeguarded. 1:31 PM • 4/17/26 • 209K Views

Pope Leo XIV @Pontifex X.com When simulation becomes the norm, it weakens the human capacity for discernment. As a result, our social bonds close in upon themselves, forming self-referential circuits that no longer expose us to reality. We thus come to live within bubbles, impermeable to one another. Feeling threatened by anyone who is different, we grow unaccustomed to encounter and dialogue. In this way, polarization, conflict, fear and violence spread. What is at stake is not merely the risk of error, but a transformation in our very relationship with truth. 1:31 PM • 4/17/26 • 696K Views

Pope Leo on AI:

“Within digital environments — structured to persuade — interaction is optimized to the point of rendering a real encounter superfluous; the otherness of persons in the flesh is neutralized, and relationships are reduced to functional responses.”

This short thread is worth reading:

I know it might be radical, but add "no leaf blowers" to a platform of "the headlights are too bright" and "you should be able to pay for software once and then own it" and I would rank that candidate #1 every time.

This is a terrible case that hits close to home for some friends: please consider signing & sharing this petition from the Committee to Protect Journalists on behalf of Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, who's been imprisoned in Kuwait since March for reporting on the Iran war.
cpj.movements.mov/pet/kuwait-r...

Cuba: The Bay of Pigs Invasion 65 Years Later Washington D.C., April 16, 2026 - In the wake of the failed CIA-led Bay of Pigs invasion, President John F. Kennedy considered reconfiguring and even dismantling the intelligence agency, according to ...

In the wake of the failed CIA-led Bay of Pigs invasion, President Kennedy considered reconfiguring and even dismantling the Agency, according to documents posted by the National Security Archive on the 65th anniversary of the paramilitary assault on Cuba. nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-boo...

Worse, if Law Schools don't continue to train students to understand legal issues in depth, then they will not have the capacity to even do the "check AI is right" function he suggests will predominate. We're being sold cost cutting for law firms, with an airy wave about what will actually change:

This is more broadly generalizable: If you don't do the research yourself, you have no idea if AI is making stuff up. And if you do the research yourself, then AI isn't saving you much labor, if any.

Sid Rosenberg @sidrosenberg19 X.com Figures! Mr. Met ran away from ME last season!!! And he's hugging the Mayor! Mr. Met is an Antisemite!!!!!!! katie honan @katie_honan • 6d Mr. and Mrs. Met (@MrMet) meet Mr. @nycmayor

Sid Rosenberg O @sidrosenberg19 X.com Just when you thought things couldn't get worse we found out today that Mr. Met is a raging antisemite!

Sid Rosenberg • @sidrosenberg19 X.com This was me at Citifield last season being IGNORED by Mr. Met! Yesterday Mr. AND Mrs. Met were hugging and kissing our Antisemite Mayor @NYCMayor! Easy to conclude that Mr. Met is an Antisemite!!!!!

Sid Rosenberg @sidrosenberg19 X.com l'll be 59 on Sunday:) For the first time ever I'm sporting a Yankee jersey as I make my way to the Bronx. The official transition from a life long Met fan to a Yankee fan is now underway. Like my friend @CGasparino once wrote "Go Woke, Go Broke!" The Mamdani Mets are too WOKE for me! See ya at the Stadium soon fans!

Absolutely dying at right-wing radio host Sid Rosenberg getting so angry that Mr. and Mrs. Met hugged @mayor.nyc.gov that he started calling them antisemites and became a Yankees fan.

A statement from the faculty of Columbia Journalism School calling for the immediate release of Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, '07 M.S.: journalism.columbia.edu/news/cjs-statement-ahmed...

📷: Committee to Protect Journalists (@pressfreedom.bsky.social)

USAID shutdown has led to hundreds of thousands of deaths | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health The Trump administration’s decision to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths from infectious diseases and malnutrition, accord...

A Harvard study, which Vought hand waves away as "false and ignorant information," found that hundreds of thousands of people have died because Trump and Vought shut down USAID.

This is more or less the plot of Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors, & maybe also his life

This shits brutal.

Cover of Blue Power with Red Emma's detail badge: 4/14 7pm

BLUE POWER: How Police Organized to Protect and Serve Themselves is out TODAY from @basicbooksgroup.bsky.social! Pick it up from your favorite infoshop, like @redemmas.org, where I'll be speaking about it tonight at 7pm.

Just confirming that Made by History will now be back up and running in the next few weeks with a new home and new partners at the Philadelphia Inquirer. Exciting! So, if you have pitches, now's the time to start sending them to madebyhistory@inquirer.com 🗃️ #MadebyHistory #HistoryMatters

CPJ calls on Kuwaiti authorities to immediately and unconditionally release Kuwaiti-American journalist Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, detained under new security and fake news laws.

Read more: cpj.org/2026/04/cpj-...

#FreeAhmed #FreeAhmedEldin

Prominent Journalist Ahmed Shihab-Eldin Has Been in Jail for Six Weeks in Kuwait, Faces Trial in Special Tribunal Ahmed Shihab-Eldin’s arrest comes as part of a wider crackdown on online speech in Kuwait and other Gulf countries during the Iran war.

⚠️ “Ahmed Shihab-Eldin’s arrest comes as part of a wider crackdown on online speech in Kuwait and other Gulf countries during the Iran war.”

Known as @ASE on Twitter, his account on that platform has been disappeared as well. He and I had been mutuals for 15 years.

Disappointed, though not surprised, I began to describe various life- saving components of USAID’s global health portfolio, highlighting how we prepare for and respond to emerging pandemic threats; support the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV; and immunize millions of children from the deadliest childhood diseases. I spoke for about five minutes, focusing primarily on our infectious diseases work and hoping to keep the attention of people who seemed to have no experience—or interest—in global health. When I finished, the room was silent, the political appointees looking at one another in what appeared to be disbelief. The silence was broken by Ken Jackson, who chuckled softly and shook his head. “Wow, there really is so much that USAID does that we never knew,” he said. “This is the story that needs to get out there.” Joel, also smiling, chimed in next, echoing Jackson’s amazement. “I had no idea you did all this,” he said. “As a Republican, when I think of what USAID does in global health, I assumed it was just, you know, abortions.”

This is NUTS

www.thehandbasket.co/p/trump-usai...

Families across the U.S. are getting college acceptance letters — and tuition bills NPR's Ayesha Rascoe speaks with economist Judith Scott-Clayton about the cost of college in the U.S. They discuss the difference between sticker and net price and the opaqueness of tuition costs.

To give a concrete example: California paid for 70% of the UC budget and 90% of the CSU budget until the 1980s; now it’s down to roughly 10% and 40% rsp. Students pay most of the difference.

One has to get paid a lot of money, as an ed economist, to not know this

www.npr.org/2026/04/12/n...

I swear, every single time I hear news about the Democratic candidates running for governor in California it's just like

Prevent brain damage: read a book

“We see a future where intelligence is a utility, like electricity or water, and people buy it from us on a meter,” said Altman, laying out an intensely dystopian future as just another business development. “One of the most important things in the future is that we make intelligence, to borrow an old phrase from the energy industry that didn’t quite work, ‘Too cheap to meter.’” When I first heard what Altman had said, I was shocked and bewildered. How does someone even conceive of metering (and monetizing) intelligence if they’re not a tech billionaire with an intense antipathy toward humanity? It was clearly not something that would ever be achieved in practice. But it did hint at a much deeper issue with these AI tools, what they’re doing to our cognitive capacities, and the broader ideology underpinning the industry’s effort to force AI into every facet of our lives.

Altman made this declaration at an infrastructure summit hosted by BlackRock. It’s the latest in a long line of outrageous statements he’s made to try to justify the rollout of generative AI and the massive cost to power it.

disconnect.blog/make-em-dumb...

The Trump DOJ maintains its nearly perfect record of failed prosecutions against protestors. Now we need to be assessing the eligibility to practice law of the prosecutors who presented this abomination of a case. bsky.app/profile/cfau...

BREAKING: JURY FINDS PROFESSOR CARAVELLO NOT GUILTY!

While some justice was restored by the jury’s decision, the beatings, the surveillance, and the trauma that John and others across the state and nation have had to endure cannot be ignored. #ICEOUT

You have more in common with the people of Iran than you do with anyone in this administration, any member of the technocracy, anyone who is profiting from this war, or any billionaire. When you see Iranians forming human chains outside key infrastructure sites, you should feel a sense of kinship.

Donald Trump must be removed from office. Not only is he waging an illegal war—he’s threatening war crimes.

To the members of our military: remember, you do not have to follow illegal orders.

I have a father and mother in law in Iran. I have a sister in law. A niece. She's 14. She likes silly pink headbands and purses and dresses, just like kids her age all over the world. There are 93 million people like her in Iran. People who do all the normal mundane life things as the rest of us.

Trump is clearly an unstable warmonger at odds with the will of the people. YouTube video by Senator Markey

A war powers resolution will not be enough. Yes. We need to assert congressional authority and stop this illegal war in Iran. But, Trump is clearly an unstable warmonger at odds with the will of the people. Removal is the top priority. No more war criminal in the White House.

This is the worst Congress of my lifetime, the worst in a century at least, maybe the worst since the antebellum era.

You know what? I'll admit it. The credible threat by a madman to wipe out a nation of 90 million people for basically no reason (presumably using nuclear weapons) successfully distracted me. I am now distracted.

The same could be said of the "nuclear threat" -- which, of course, comes from the US, the only country ever to use atomic weapons, now with the largest stockpiles and an unhinged sadist at the helm.