every time someone posts their Spotify Wrapped, a military drone gets its wings

or: why I can't subscribe to most substacks

The sticky truth about self-promotion during THESE TIMES is that my family, and the families of all working artists and freelancers, still need to eat under fascism.

I know times are tough and we all find joy where we can, but watching people get excited about Gavin Newsom is painful.

[worst possible stuff happening everywhere] man why do I feel bad

Interlocutor. What a word!

The entire approach to business owners, especially in tech, is ridiculous. These people are selling us a product and the product fucking stinks! Put aside however you feel about generative AI for a second and face one very simple point: it doesn’t do enough, it’s really not cool at all, and we’re being forced to use it. I realize that some of you may want them to succeed, or want to be the person who tells everybody that they did so. I get that there are rewards for you — promotions, new positions, TV appearances repeating exactly what the powerful did and why they did it, or a plush role as that company’s head of communications — but I am telling you, your readers and viewers are waking up to it, and they feel like you have contempt for them and contempt for the truth. It’s easy — and common! — to try and dismiss my work as some sort of hater’s screed, a “cynical” approach to a tech industry that’s trying “brave new things” or whatever. In my opinion, there’s nothing more cynical than watching billions of people get shipped increasingly-shitty and expensive solutions and then get defensive of the people shipping them, and hostile to the people who are complaining that the products they use suck. I am angry at these companies because they have, at scale, torn down a tech industry that allowed me to be who I am today, and their intentional and disgraceful moves fill me full of disgust. I have watched the tech media move away from covering “technology” and more toward covering the people behind it, to the point that the actual outputs — the software and hardware we use every day — have taken a backseat to stories about whether Elon Musk does or doesn’t use a computer, which is meaningless, empty gossip journalism built to be shared by peers and nothing else. And please, please do not talk about optimism. If you are blindly saying that everything OpenAI does is cool and awesome and interesting, you aren’t being optimistic — you’re telling other people to be op…

You are not a "pessimist" or "cynic" if you look at the state of modern tech and find yourself disgusted. Conversely, being defensive of OpenAI or Anthropic doesn't make you an optimist - it makes you a propagandist working for the powerful.
www.wheresyoured.at/make-fun-of-them/

Adam Serwer on America's "new dark age" "They see this as a long-term investment in a more ignorant population reliant on sources of information they can control."

New in PN: Adam Serwer on America's "new dark age"

"They see this as a long-term investment in a more ignorant population reliant on sources of information they can control — a docile population that can be easily manipulated." — @adamserwer.bsky.social

has Roger Waters ever been to therapy

it would be funny watching these two horrible man-children feud with each other as we all predicted they eventually would, but for the sense that we’re all gonna be worse off for it in the end

People have focused on the kook aspects of RFK Jr in a way that obscured his authoritarianism and cruelty.

But he’s genuinely an enemy of freedom and basic decency. He’s a narcissist, a eugenicist, and a predator.

the whole standing ovation thing at Cannes is cringe

McDonald's golden arches sign

💥 NEWS: McDonald's shareholders voted Tues. to reject an anti-DEI proposal, 99-1 percent. McDonald's Board said the proposal "unduly interferes" with the company's "flexibility and judgment." MCD: "Our success in the future builds on our history of embracing diversity as a competitive advantage."

Just as chanting “free Palestine” does not make something antisemitic, yelling it doesn’t magically mean that targeting a Jewish professionals event in a Jewish space isn’t antisemitic (or violent, or senseless, or craven).

bookseller thought: now and then publishers raise the prices of individual books. recently Pema Chodron's When Things Fall Apart was raised from $16.95 to $18.95. then, just a few weeks later, it was raised to $19.95! which, given the state of Things Falling Apart Now, seems rather predatory to me!

bookseller thought: now and then publishers raise the prices of individual books. recently Pema Chodron's When Things Fall Apart was raised from $16.95 to $18.95. then, just a few weeks later, it was raised to $19.95! which, given the state of Things Falling Apart Now, seems rather predatory to me!

So let me get this straight: masks are bad and un-American if worn to fight a pandemic, but good if worn by people claiming to be government agents when they kidnap people off the street

this guy hates this country, its laws and its traditions

In a democracy, the agents of the state should not be able to conceal their identity. The entire purpose of these actions is to escape accountability.

who called it woke pope and not Opus DEI

I’ve known Robert Prevost for years as one of the main figures in online TMNT fandom, where no one has a bad word to say about him. He probably won’t have as much time to contribute to Turtles wikis with his new gig but I though his choice of “Pope Leo” was a lovely nod to the community

It’s weird to live in a time when basic principles like cruelty is wrong, cheating is empty & the idea that curiosity, generosity, originality, the satisfaction of earned accomplishments & loving intimacy are the center of a good life feel like countercultural concepts

I am here for Lilly Dancyger's war on AI. O Captain, My Captain.

“I asked ChatGPT,” well I asked your mom and she said you’ve always been a disappointment

Except for one key difference: using GenAI doesn't make you look cool, it makes you look like a dork-ass loser

omg Daniel just text them already, they don't hate you for taking so long but you're being incredibly rude!!

one thing I am known for among friends is being excellent at keeping in touch with a lot of people; but every once in a while I leave a message unread as a reminder to get back to it and then weeks drag on, and I go down an incredible shame spiral about how long it's taken, and it just KEEPS GOING

oh hm maybe we shouldn’t just toss trans people under the bus, even if it’s just a couple of them

Y'all's investment in these men sitting behind microphones in little cluttered rooms is deeply concerning, and I don't understand it

Of course the NYPD has waged a decades-long war on cyclists, while also literally weaponizing bicycles (cf. the militarized Strategic Response Group's use of bikes to kettle & bludgeon protestors). But this new policy is clearly aimed at the city's deliveristas—to aid ICE's crackdown on migrants.