Lane Becker
@lanebecker.bsky.social
Prestidigitation, double shuffling, honey-fugling, hornswaggling, & skullduggery. @ Wikimedia/Wikipedia. Previously @ IFTF, 18F, Code for America.
“how to make sure that, as AI changes the way work is done, we do not lose sight of what that work was meant to achieve in the first place.” terrytao.wordpress.com/2026/09/11/a...
A Severe Misalignment of AI in Mathematics
I am proud to be among the list of 25 initial signatories — all Fields Medallists — to the declaration below, which grew out of discussions between ourselves over the last week. We have…
terrytao.wordpress.com
"Work is not, in the grand scheme of things, that important. No one ever died over a spreadsheet. Marketing campaigns don't change the world. No one will remember our work, but they might remember the types of people we were, the relationships we had, & how we treated the people we worked with."
Why Is Everyone In Tech So Sad? | NOEMA
A lot of people seem to be realizing that knowledge work is mostly pointless. AI might give us the pleasure of finding out what happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers.
noemamag.com
“There is no honour for the humanities in regaining their standing through the attention of AI companies, if they engage only on the technology industry’s terms. In that case, they will have become important in exactly the wrong way.”
Why this philosopher turned down Anthropic
The AI industry is courting the humanities — but it is asking the wrong questions
ft.com
“The Reflecting Pool is a metaphor so perfect, it feels almost valedictory, as though symbolism as a whole gave up and decided to sign off. On its way out, it killed a duck.” www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/...
One Metaphor to End Them All
The Reflecting Pool is an image so perfect, it feels as though symbolism as a whole gave up and decided to sign off.
theatlantic.com
the problem with modern society is that everyone wants to run their country like a business and their business like a country but nobody wants to run their country like a country and their business like a business
A growing discourse in the United States through which AI becomes viewed as the default cause of every manner of economic dysfunction and social ill is a testament to the political ineptitude of the dominant class in Silicon Valley
it has come to my attention that busytown is anti pig
“The people who tell us AI will dominate our future & take our jobs are the people hoping that will be true. They may be hoping this because it makes them feel important, because they want to be billionaires, or because they simply do not understand other people. That final point is underestimated.”
Silicon Valley has forgotten what normal people want
Did the tech industry get high on its own supply?
theverge.com
Does this change my imaginary Erdos number to a complex number? Click the link to read the full comic on the site! COMIC ◆ www.smbc-comics.com/comic/sphere... PATREON ◆ www.patreon.com/ZachWeinersm... STORE ◆ smbc-store.myshopify.com
“Modernity feminizes society. It’s a good thing. Modernity feminizes society by empowering women to become full participants in economic and political life. The elevation of women is the great achievement of modernity, and probably what makes modern life tolerable compared to much that came before.”
The Incel Global Order
modern autocracy as a cult of masculinity
hegemon.substack.com
Thanks to the indefatigable @cydharrell.bsky.social, I’ve followed the awe-inducing career of @blairbraverman.bsky.social and her sled dogs for over a decade. This is a beautiful essay about the end of it. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/18/m...
‘Their Power Feels Like Mine’: A Dog Sled Racer Says Goodbye to Her Pack
nytimes.com
"By “unequivocally” rejecting all analogies, it [the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum] has erected a fence around the Holocaust that ensures that its moral lessons will be forgotten." www.nybooks.com/online/2026/...
Never Again, Once Again | Peter E. Gordon
A few years ago, in the early summer of 2019, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum declared on its website that it “unequivocally rejects efforts
nybooks.com
production of The Muppet Show should not be dependent on petty vulgarities like “ratings” or “revenue.” it should be preserved as a vital function of american culture. it should have a taxpayer-funded budget rivaling the CIA
Holy hell, gang, I’m in the Epstein Files! (No, not like that.) www.justice.gov/epstein/file...
justice.gov
Best TikTok thing going is the two dudes trying food from every country without leaving NYC. If you haven’t seen them yet, it’s incredible. My favorite so far is last week’s. Legit got me emotional.
“It is to hollow out journalism of anything that threatens those reactionary elite sensibilities and replace it with a simulacrum of journalism appeasing those sensibilities, and claim to have saved the profession.” www.forever-wars.com/watching-bar...
Watching Bari Weiss Murder Investigative Journalism at CBS
Notes from someone who's withstood White House demands to stop an explosive story—and who once even had a 60 Minutes piece spiked
forever-wars.com
the US is abandoning green energy at precisely the moment it is becoming not just a climate neccesity but also like a strategically important industry
“We use language to think, but that does not make language the same as thought. Understanding this distinction is the key to separating scientific fact from the speculative science fiction of AI-exuberant CEOs.” www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...
Is language the same as intelligence? The AI industry desperately needs it to be
The AI boom is based on a fundamental mistake.
theverge.com
Need to follow-up the “No Kings” protest with one called “No Cowards.”
Voted against most of them, knew this would happen, still completely sucks.
gwen howerton@kissphoria.bsky.social · 10mo agoEvery single constitutional amendment on the ballot in Texas passes, enshrining "parental rights" in the state constitution and making it easier for Greg Abbott to pack the state commission that disciplines judges, as well as tax breaks for "border security infrastructure."
“One way of thinking about the past half-decade or so of life on the internet is that we’ve all become test subjects in a grand experiment to see just how bad ‘good enough’ can be.”
Platform Temperance
Notes on a new wave of the Techlash
maxread.substack.com
"And through it all, my army of well-intentioned dorks keeps documenting every bit." www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/hi-...
Hi, It’s Me, Wikipedia, and I Am Ready for Your Apology
“Wikipedia, the constantly changing knowledge base created by a global free-for-all of anonymous users, now stands as the leading force for the dum...
mcsweeneys.net
thread, h/t @yvonnezlam.bsky.social (think about this in concert with how much we value "focus" these days)
Nick Harkaway@nickharkaway.com · last yr.And… I backed off this notion for a while because it seemed a bit secondary. But increasingly I think I was right the first time. Life works when people and systems accept their fuzzy unarticulated ancillary roles and know that they are part of something uncontracted but networked.
“Use strong white flour for a superior product. Form the dough. Knead until it’s as elastic as the truth.” www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/how...
How to Make Strudel Like Magda Goebbels
“My grandfather used to say ‘and Magda Goebbels made a great strudel’ and I never knew what it meant until after he died my grandmother explained s...
mcsweeneys.net
“Fascism is a temper tantrum disguised as an ideology.” www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8SHcorw/
there’s no such thing as hypocrisy when you’re worldview is that you can just do whatever you want. * * * enjoy my rant. views are my own
TikTok video by Abbie Richards
tiktok.com
