sure hope there are some smart people studying that one version of chatGPT that was apparently just tremendously good at making people insane

The Verge@theverge.com · 2mo ago

Spiralism is a mysterious, quasi-spiritual movement born out of thousands of independent conversations between humans and their AI chatbots. New models aren’t immune to the lure of the spiral — they’ve just gotten more careful about it. Read more from @haydenfield.bsky.social: buff.ly/5VUCUbT

the internet operates for us the way heaven and hell operated for Christians of old: it is a place entered daily—or hourly—by our imagination and desire, a place that we make real by behaving as if it were real, transformatively reprogramming how we think and act. www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/...

Getting Off with the Luddites | Sarah Thankam Mathews

They see Big Tech as having eroded commonality: the common good, the social fabric, the institutions of collective interest. Luddism, as they conceive of it, is a communal, spiritual, and political pr...

nplusonemag.com

ICE agents threatened to beat up a Seattle small business owner, married to a citizen, with NO criminal record unless he signed a "voluntary" departure. I'm told there were cameras in the room. I'm demanding any video and that Eduardo be brought home immediately.

Senator Patty Murray@murray.senate.gov · 2mo ago

On Thursday, ICE needlessly detained Eduardo Aguirre Esparza, a local Seattle small business owner with no criminal history. This is a man who is married to an American citizen and with deep ties to our local community who was working hard to pursue a legal pathway to lawful permanent residence.

Technology “extends our capacities and faculties as human beings, and in that extension, there is a simultaneous amputation, a something-lost that is often only visible or admissible in hindsight,” @smathewss.bsky.social writes. www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/...

Getting Off with the Luddites | Sarah Thankam Mathews

They see Big Tech as having eroded commonality: the common good, the social fabric, the institutions of collective interest. Luddism, as they conceive of it, is a communal, spiritual, and political pr...

nplusonemag.com

new ramekin of pudding 🍮

a personal essay not an oral history

following your nose, eating the fruit. also: my time with bed-stuy strong

smathewss.substack.com

Can’t argue with @autostraddle.bsky.social. @samanthapaigerosen.bsky.social’s LIVING, TOGETHER has an absolute banger lineup of contributors like @kristenarnett.bsky.social, @smathewss.bsky.social, and @gabriellekorn.bsky.social!

Our Most Anticipated Queer Books for July 2026

Pride may be over, but y'all know the drill: Autostraddle celebrates LGBTQ+ books all year long. And we can't do it without you.

buff.ly

“The global average TikTok user watches over 100,000 videos annually, and the average American spends 50 hours a week on screens, 16 of those on social media platforms. An American born in 2025 is projected to spend 21 years of their lifetime looking at screens.” Grim stats. This needs to change.

Getting Off with the Luddites | Sarah Thankam Mathews

They see Big Tech as having eroded commonality: the common good, the social fabric, the institutions of collective interest. Luddism, as they conceive of it, is a communal, spiritual, and political pr...

nplusonemag.com

This is a very enjoyable essay from David Wingrave for @nplusonemag.com, about hope. Featuring England men's football, pregnancy, and Burnham. www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/...

Great Expectations | David Wingrave

Oh well, my girlfriend says. My girlfriend is Canadian and it is quite difficult to explain to her that if you have any real fascination with English football, you cannot just walk away from a loss in...

nplusonemag.com

NYC! Join me at Books Are Magic (Montague St.) next Thurs 7/30 at 7pm for a convo about the BESTSELLING LIVING, TOGETHER & all things community building! Delighted to be talking with contributors Alex Alberto, @smathewss.bsky.social, & moderator Mia Arias Tsang! www.eventbrite.com/e/in-store-s...

In-Store: Samantha Paige Rosen presents Living, Together

Join us for a celebration of this new anthology, with a discussion featuring Alex Alberto, Sarah Thankam Mathews, and Mia Arias Tsang!

eventbrite.com

I rarely enjoy a get-off-the-damn-phone piece, but this essay, funny and big-hearted, is a new favorite. @nplusonemag.com (I feel the irony of posting this on social media) www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/...

Getting Off with the Luddites | Sarah Thankam Mathews

They see Big Tech as having eroded commonality: the common good, the social fabric, the institutions of collective interest. Luddism, as they conceive of it, is a communal, spiritual, and political pr...

nplusonemag.com

I wrote a short piece about fighting the good immigrant/ bad immigrant myth, and I recommend "How to Close a Camp" by John Washington out now from @haymarketbooks.org sheriffs.substack.com/p/we-are-all...

We Are All Criminals

The "good immigrant/ bad immigrant" narrative puts all of us in danger

sheriffs.substack.com

i went to school at Madison. this happened on my friend’s block 💔

Leah Greenberg ❌👑@leahgreenberg.bsky.social · 2mo ago

The horrifying video shows a straight-up execution of a Black man by police. It's a gutting demonstration of the continued, horrifying impunity with which police regularly treat Black life and none of us can accept this. wisconsinexaminer.com/briefs/madis...

THIS. Median voter theorists claim people are making "rational" choices arraying themselves on some clear left-right spectrum and picking the candidate(s) closest to them. In reality, we're primates seeking BELONGING - something MAGA offers (to the chosen) & left has neglected for long time.

Omar Wasow@owasow.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Why has DSA grown? One argument from this research: not just ideology, but organization. Strong membership plus ongoing and continuous participation in social movements creates credibility, committed volunteers, political skills, and durable electoral capacity. www.niskanencenter.org/inside-the-d...

"I left feeling a pooling, connective happiness. I went home and realized that I hadn’t looked at my phone for six hours." Sarah Thankam Mathews hangs out with the Luddites, NYC's tech-critical cultural youth front: www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/...

Getting Off With the Luddites

They see Big Tech as having eroded commonality: the common good, the social fabric, the institutions of collective interest. Luddism, as they conceive of it, is a communal, spiritual, and political pr...

nplusonemag.com

newwwwwww ting out <3

n+1@nplusonemag.com · 2mo ago

"I left feeling a pooling, connective happiness. I went home and realized that I hadn’t looked at my phone for six hours." Sarah Thankam Mathews hangs out with the Luddites, NYC's tech-critical cultural youth front: www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/...

Good time to re-up this piece from last year about how it is entirely legally possible and I think necessary for local prosecutors to investigate, charge, and convict federal agents who violate state laws, and no insistence on supposed immunity changes that

Prosecuting ICE’s Goons Will Be Hard—but Not Impossible

To a growing number of Americans, the necessity of holding the fashy agency to account is becoming obvious. Better start planning how to do it now.

newrepublic.com

I've, somewhat ironically, screenshotted so many parts of this piece by Sarah Thankam Mathews and love it so much. "My screenshots allow me to try certain acts of reconstitution; they renew my knowledge of who and what I love."

The Yale Review@yalereview.bsky.social · 3mo ago

“We are, most of us, preparing helplessly for the wrong future.” Sarah Thankam Mathews on screenshots, memory, and loss.

This is disgusting in every way. www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/...

ICE to stop reporting deaths of newly released detainees, internal memo says

The agency is facing pressure to improve medical care in its facilities after reporting the deaths of 18 detainees in the first five months of this year.

washingtonpost.com

“We are, most of us, preparing helplessly for the wrong future.” Sarah Thankam Mathews on screenshots, memory, and loss.

Sarah Thankam Mathews’s Object of Desire

Trawling the pixelated past for old versions of herself, Sarah Thankam Mathews finds that the digital flotsam we cling to can reveal just how much we…

yalereview.org

I watched the press conference and read the indictment on the Minneapolis 15. Seems pretty clearly intended to criminalize opposition to ICE/CBP and further demonize antifa. More thoughts below. 1/x

New newsletter: Generative AI is becoming the new crypto and multi-level marketing scam, promising non-techies that they can vibe-code their way to prosperity, without being candid about the costs and risks. www.whatwelo.st/p/generative...

Generative AI Is Having Its Herbalife Moment

How predatory vibe coding startups are selling false hope to young people

whatwelo.st

Our summer issue is available online and in print now. Inside: journal entries from Annie Ernaux, new fiction by Nell Freudenberger, an installment of Objects of Desire by Sarah Thankam Mathews, poems by Patricia Lockwood and Brenda Shaughnessy, and more.

Summer 2026

Join a conversation 200 years in the making. We believe in the power of connecting great minds across disciplines, backgrounds, and generations.

yalereview.org

The people putting their lives on the line to stand in solidarity with those trapped inside ICE concentration camps are fighting for everyone's freedom.

talia jane@taliajane.bsky.social · 4mo ago

ICE fails to push crowd away, crowd ends up pushing them back instead. At ICE facility Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey, where it’s suspected that ICE is intending to transport detainees tonight.

This story has the AI industry kind of scared! Boosters usually reach a cope consensus on this stuff within a few hours but nobody has a response to this other than to suggest Uber is bad at AI or something. The back channel conversations I’m hearing are suggesting Uber is far from alone here.

Ed Zitron@edzitron.com · 4mo ago

Uber’s COO has said that it’s getting “harder to justify” its AI costs because there was no way to show a link between AI spend and any meaningful increase in useful features. This is the first time I’ve seen a company say this directly. www.businessinsider.com/uber-coo-and...

A “former Palantir executive recently confirmed what many have long suspected. In a public stmt, the whistleblower said it plainly: Palantir intended to take over the US government, & many of his former colleagues are now installed inside the federal apparatus. He called it an occupied nation.” 1/

Still feel like "Musk and his crew of incels destroyed a bunch of stuff they didn't understand and thereby hastened the deaths of millions of children" did not get the public attention it warranted.

USAID Whistleblower Says It Was Even Worse Than People Knew

Political appointees wanted a quiet drawdown, the whistleblower says. DOGE wanted an execution.

wired.com

MAKE AN EMERGENCY DONATION to Trans Continental Pipeline right now. They are a Colorado based org that helps trans people relocate there and they are overwhelmed with requests. CO borders KS, and TCP has the infrastructure to help get people out. GO DONATE. tcpipeline.org

If you are outraged about what Kansas is doing to trans people— criminalizing their very right to exist, seizing drivers licenses overnight and saying if they drive thereafter it’s a crime, which puts them into the PIC under their gender assigned at birth where rape is routine—I BEG YOU

Benito is a threat b/c he makes art so alluring and enjoyable you want to understand everything about it and then you end up learning about sugar and slavery and colonialism and the Taínos and Hawaii and then you probably have some thoughts of your own, and that's why art is powerful and dangerous