The Bi of Hormuz
@joshstein.bsky.social
Philosopher by training; cranky by nature. Professional in science and technology policy. Also photography, combatting antisemitism, politics, and ethics.
“I’m sorry, Harry Potter fanfic?” Something that’s been put to me three times in as many days.
Faine Greenwood@faineg.bsky.social · 1h agoThe U.S. AI industry is being run by a batshit rationalist sex cult, and no, I am not being hyperbolic - they’re genuinely Like That:
A longread on why Cofnas is doing pseudoscience, by yours truly. Many thanks to @forbetterscience.bsky.social for hosting the text!
Leonid Schneider@forbetterscience.bsky.social · 16h agoNathan Cofnas’s “race realism” is pseudoscience forbetterscience.com/2026/09/15/n...
AI doom or not, something has shifted with AI recently. The guardrails that kept AI sitting in a chatbox are gone, the models are better, there's more compute. AI agents are everywhere. They are annoying as hell. IMO the situation is going to get much worse www.404media.co/theres-a-100...
There’s a 100% Chance AI Agents Are Already Ruining the Internet
“AI agents” now have enough power and permission to be extremely annoying online.
404media.co
“If I didn’t spend all that money, it would’ve gone up 40 bazillion points!”
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 5h agoHIMES: You spent $10b to try to lower the yield on the 10 year bond. When you started, it was 4.8%. Today it's at a 20 year high of 5.04%. A 20 basis point rise. Was your intervention successful? BESSENT: Yes H: Wait- it went up by 20 points! B: There's a counterfactual of what would it have done
No jut universe would take Greg Giraldo from us and leave Adam Carolla.
Ana Marie Cox@anamariecox.com · 6h agoAdam Carolla on Talarico appearing on The Breakfast Club: “He's there to chug some black c*ck." If only cancelling someone was a real thing!
This is just amazing, since Kennedy is legitimately just doing the "why, why would you do that" meme
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 7h agoPATEL: The previous regulation automatically disqualified any individual who participated in either side of it KENNEDY: Either side of beastiality? So you disqualified the animal? P: Well, we have great canines, but we're not going to disqualify them K: I'm trying to understand why you did this.
Dems should put together a set of AI regulatory bills anyway, but assuming that the GOP continues to listen to Trump, they should just dump those bills on his desk in February and pressure a veto.
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 9h agoHassett: "What Elon & Sam said is that they are gonna themselves privately set up a system where there are independent observers within their companies making sure things aren't going south ... when you call for a govt that might someday be run by Dems to take over, then it's a recipe for disaster"
One thing that we should really emphasize more in this sudden AI risk conversation is that the x-risk chicken little bullshit is getting in the way of addressing real AI risks to cybersecurity, consumer welfare, labor protections, and (most importantly) civil rights.
shambibble@shambibble.com · yesterdayIf Anyone Assigns Agency To The Political Right, Everyone Dies
“Strong conventional allies that we can rely on…” Matt the patent troll attorney… we’ve spent the last 18 months threatening to invade those countries and engaging in erratic sanctions. They’re expanding their role in conventional defense because they don’t trust us. It’s not “our strategy.”
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 9h agoNATO Ambassador Whitaker: "We're working right now to have our European allies & Canada take over the convention defense of the European continent. That's going to free up the United States to project power globally and deal with things like the Pacific situations that we may confront in the future"
The GOP is a white supremacist organization. It really is that simple.
Christopher Mathias@letsgomathias.bsky.social · yesterdayTPM can reveal indications that Rawson used pseudonymous social media account on X — @RockOfDixie — to express even more extreme sentiments “Multiculturalism kills and public lynchings worked" — the GOP nominee for a seat in Florida's legislature talkingpointsmemo.com/news/florida...
"We're transparent! See how transparent we are!" said the org that hired a multi-billion-dollar fraudster under a pseudonym.
Brandon Downey@bdowney.bsky.social · 22h ago"Will you sell out a vulnerable population to [maybe] improve your odds of being elected?" is one of those questions that should appear on the political equivalent of a sociopath test.
The Associated Press@apnews.com · yesterdayAn increasing number of Democratic leaders have begun to push back against their party’s unflinching support for the transgender community this midterm season. The shift comes after years of Republican-backed attacks against Democrats on the issue of transgender athletes.
This seems especially obvious to me re: Talarico, who was very clearly pressured into taking a worse position, and can therefore also be pressured OUT of it. But you actually have to make a credible threat to do it!
Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi@rjelevi.bsky.social · 23h agoSomething that seems important re: not voting for anti-trans democrats is that: a. The threat to withhold one's vote is the main form of leverage people have on candidates. b. The election has not happened yet. c. Anti-trans candidates still have the option to stop being anti-trans.
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Donate to Support Glow's Mission for Justice, organized by Akiva Cohen
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A good rule of thumb is to assume there's at least one Nazi/Groyper working on every Republican campaign in the country. That is what the Teenage Republicans/College Republicans/Young Republicans have become. It's been this way for almost 10 years and people still don't get it.
Kevin M. Kruse@kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 2d agoI'm serious when I say I've lost track of all the recent revelations of literal Nazis working in high-level positions in Republican congressional campaigns and I would very much appreciate a journalist who took the time to detail as many of them as can fit into an article.
The President is a toddler throwing a temper tantrum. youtu.be/lO-zaQSf7zc?...
Kennedy Center warns bankruptcy imminent unless Trump's name is added to building
YouTube video by ABC News
youtu.be
No one should think that the behaviors of the Trump administration are rational, at this point, but Trump/Vance pushing against AI slowdown does correlate with the market’s dependence on the tech industry right now. www.reuters.com/business/ai-...
Wall St falls as AI anxiety batters Nvidia, chipmakers
Wall Street's main indexes fell on Monday, pummeled by a selloff in heavyweight AI stocks after top U.S. executives raised safety concerns and called for slowing the development of artificial-intelli...
reuters.com
Ah yes, the conspiracy to destroy US AI by [checks notes] the CEOs of the major US frontier AI companies.
Kyle Griffin@kylegriffin1.bsky.social · yesterdayWASHINGTON (AP) — Trump dismisses idea of new AI guardrails, says there is a 'SICK conspiracy' against AI and data centers.
TFW your entire country's path into the future gets fucking bodied by a 10-year-old named Riley Grunch
Carl Quintanilla@carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 2d ago“.. NYT asked a bunch of ten year olds what life will be like in 2050.” (via @shashj.bsky.social)
One of the greatest barriers to effective and responsible tech policy is the fact that doomers like Soares and Yudkowski (who are treated as the most knowledgeable figures on this) don't have a handle on risk factors, much less policy mechanisms for managing them. It's exhausting.
Owen Jones@owenjones.bsky.social · yesterdayHow the hell would AI actually kill us anyway?
It says a lot that someone like Murphy is messaging this way *on Newsmax*, where it's entirely possible to just lie to that audience because they're largely under GOP propaganda capture anyway. This suggests Murphy et al think even those voters are no longer accepting pivots on the economy.
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · yesterdayRep. Greg Murphy: "It's a challenge. The economy is challenging these days and I think a lot of people focus on that, but hopefully people focus more on the overall image, not just necessarily in the moment, of what the purpose of each party was."
"I don't think Americans should be afraid of anything" is quite a line coming from the guy on the "they're eating the cats; they're eating the dogs" ticket.
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · yesterdayJD Vance: "I have to say, just personally, I feel a little bit weird about the fact that you have so many frontier AI tech companies kind of coming to the government and begging the government to regulate them. It feels a little bit to me like a bit of a trojan horse."
"NEH grants this year prioritize right-wing political objectives such as 'classical humanities'…just an attempt to re-center literature and history back on to Europeans. The NEH was also roped into the 250th celebrations, mostly to focus on how important religion allegedly was to the Founders."
We Need a New Federal Writers Project
Drawing on and improving the model pioneered during the New Deal.
liberalcurrents.com
One of the things that I consistently find baffling is that technology companies don't see the straight line between these administrative policies and the unpopularity of data centers and the demand increase they produce. The average voter sees this connection way before Zuckerberg or Musk does.
Dr. Genevieve Guenther (she/they)@doctorvive.bsky.social · yesterday“If the move survives expected legal challenges, it could also prevent future administrations from regulating greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.” Absolutely fucking demonic. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/13/c...
Trump is going to sell his endorsement.
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 2d agoQ: Are you ready to throw your weight behind JD Vance? TRUMP: It's too early
Flock is trying to recruit ARTISTS on job recruiting sites. I saw this while helping an artist friend look for part-time jobs and nearly vomited. “Visual storytelling” — What in the Leni Riefenstahl is this shit?
I still wouldn't bet against Marshall in #kssen at even odds, but (a) there's good reason to think he's hurting, (b) the GOP spending money in KS is bad for them, and (c) any world where Marshall loses is a world where Dems have at least 53 votes in the Senate a huge House Majority.
