T.W. Simpson
@simpsontw.bsky.social
Now building @skysquare.app, Semiological Guerrilla Warrior doing Industrial Semiotics @symbolscape.com. Find me somewhere between California & Taiwan. Exploring narrative, culture, and the architecture of the public discourse. Protocols, not platforms.
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The rules of the game have changed. Because of you, Michigan. We cannot be bought. Onto November.
"If Abdul El-Sayed can win this fall, he’ll have handed his party a roadmap," writes @peterbeinart.bsky.social. "Democrats across the country should be taking notes."
Abdul El-Sayed offers a template for Democrats to defeat Trumpism | Peter Beinart
The candidate has crafted a progressive nationalism and shown his party how to turn Republicans’ financial advantage against them
theguardian.com
El-Sayed, Lawrence and McKinney all won progressive campaigns in Michigan last night by talking about climate and clean energy like it was a kitchen-table issue — because skyrocketing energy bills and endless wildfire smoke matter to people.
Thought this a few times but pretty clear now that AES is intentionally channeling Obama's rhetorical lanes. Some absolutely unhinged nonsense on @cnn.com last night suggesting that "movement" as a lexicon suggests "far-leftism." GOP establishment are very afraid of this brand of liberal politics.
Abdul El-Sayed@abdulelsayed.bsky.social · 4h agoMike Rogers wants us divided. But there is so much more that unites us than sets us apart. The power is ours. This land was made for you and me.
Makes me want to spin up macromedia and write some flash...
Soul 2000
YouTube video by Seba - Topic
youtube.com
"New cultural technologies, like language itself, are transformative, for good and ill. Writing and reading transform cognition—they reshape your brain.… Cultural technologies transform societies as well as minds.…" from @alisongopnik.bsky.social humanistreview.ai/issue-1/gopn...
What Children Can Do and AI Can't
Psychologist Alison Gopnik tells three stories about intelligence — a golem, a pot of stone soup, and a digital child — to explain what AI still can't do.
humanistreview.ai
“If we wanna be the party of working people, we have to be the party for working people, which means that we've got to stop taking money from the people who are nickel-and-diming them.” Vox’s Astead Herndon looks back at his recent interview with Michigan progressive Abdul El-Sayed.
Food, man. Food is so much better than it was in 1986. All of it. Poor-people food, restaurant food, fresh food, frozen food. Food is just a hell of a lot better.
The irony of the Taipei Times website reporting on China's "united front" activities to influence Taiwan while allowing for Xiaohungshu (rednote) ads 🚩
The cat showed the guy who the boss was 😂 #Cat #Cats #Catsofbluesky #Caturday #LifuX
1/5 I went back to China to parse what is real tech from what is hype. The clearest fact: the depth of an alternative technological universe: ubiquitous E.V.s, more clinical trials than the U.S.; A.I. systems reaching into workplaces, schools, and even neighborhood trash bins.
BREAKING NBC News projects that @abdulelsayed.bsky.social will win the Democratic U.S. Senate primary in Michigan.
Just something very comforting and satisfying about watching election-night news coverage. The rhythms of the broadcast talk, the hot takes, the stakes, the flashy visual design, the people expressing their will at the polls. Banal perhaps, but nonetheless a magical thing. God bless America 🙏
Yes just me posting even more @chicagoreader.com content chicagoreader.com/city-life/an...
Chicago’s new indie print publications want to highlight today's cultural scene - Chicago Reader
New publications like Gab, Write That Down!, the pub, The Issue, and more are invoking the long history of creating outside mainstream media.
chicagoreader.com
A towering Buddha statue demolished by Chinese authorities and transformed into a horse-racing track named after the Red Army. A Buddhist school razed to the ground. Our latest report reveals how sacred places are being repurposed to erase memory and identity in Tibet: tibetwatch.org/tibetan-budd...
Tibetan Buddhist landmark transformed into racecourse
Once home to a 99-foot Buddha statue in Sengdeng Village, the sacred site has been converted since 2023 into a racecourse.
tibetwatch.org
Much of Sigmund Freud’s work has been dismissed as quackery, Scott Stossel writes—but it might align with modern brain research more than we think.
What if Freud Was Right?
A neuroscientist dares to argue that old-fashioned psychoanalysis holds the key to curing mental illness.
bit.ly
You're not going to believe this but Gavin Newsom is taking the side of capital over workers. In this case it's tricky because he's backing the very MAGA allies his cosplaying X account claims he's fighting. www.wsj.com/business/med...
Exclusive | Newsom Expresses Concerns About State Antitrust Suit Against Paramount
The California governor has told people involved in the suit that blocking the $81 billion deal could harm Hollywood jobs.
wsj.com
“.. it’s one thing for Trump to have a personal fascination with one of the world’s most expensive metals. It’s another for the president to flaunt it at a time when many Americans are struggling to pay rent ..” @theatlantic.com www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...
The advent of reading “altered people’s consciousness and politics, along with the intellectual feats they were capable of,” @rosehorowitch.bsky.social argues—and the decline of reading will bring about changes of the same magnitude:
The Age of Reading Is Over
Can civilization survive the postliterate era?
bit.ly
"I'd like you to consider that legality is more about power and risk tolerance than it is about morality. That's how your upstream corporate platform opponents think about it, and it's one of the reasons they keep winning."
Adversarial internecting
How to move data to the Atmosphere and screw over someone else's valuation in the process
permadeath.com
The left rightly condemns #colonialism ... until the colonising power is China. In #Tibet, forced assimilation becomes “modernisation” and occupation becomes “liberation.” Anti-colonialism that depends on the identity of the empire is not anti-colonialism at all.
Tenam བསྟན་རྣམ།@tenam.bsky.social · yesterdaySi l’anticolonialisme ne s’applique que lorsqu’il est politiquement commode, alors ce n’est pas vraiment de l’anticolonialisme. Si la solidarité dépend de l’identité de l’empire plutôt que de la condition des opprimés, alors ce n’est pas vraiment de la solidarité. blogs.mediapart.fr/rangzen/blog...
I should be clear that the architecture of Bluesky makes it the social media place I most like to be. I'm not on social media to be an influencer or instigator; I want to hang out with folks and have an enjoyable time. This place delivers on that. I hope it continues to do so for a long time.
@tibetwatch.org documents the continued remaking of #Tibetan sacred space in #Drago: the site of the demolished 99-foot Maitreya Buddha is now a horse racing track, & the nearby Geden Buddhist School has been replaced with new buildings. tibetwatch.org/tibetan-budd...
Tibetan Buddhist landmark transformed into racecourse
Once home to a 99-foot Buddha statue in Sengdeng Village, the sacred site has been converted since 2023 into a racecourse.
tibetwatch.org
CNN tells the rare story of a Tibetan's daring escape from #Tibet, including his imprisonment at the age of 8, the shuttering of private Tibetan schools and Xi Jinping's crackdown on religion and #Tibetan language education edition.cnn.com/2026/08/02/c...
A young Tibetan flees his homeland – and reveals how China is eroding his culture | CNN
Xi has mounted what critics say are intensified efforts to suppress dissent and tighten control of China’s ethnic minorities.
edition.cnn.com
China’s new Ethnic Unity Law doesn’t just target dissent at home, it claims the right to pursue critics abroad. A concise explanation of why Article 63 matters for #Tibetan, #Uyghur, & other diaspora communities in Canada theconversation.com/china-is-cla...
China is claiming the right to punish its critics anywhere on Earth
China’s new ethnic unity law reaches across borders. The danger is not that it does so. It is what it criminalizes, whom it targets, and how it enforces.
theconversation.com
