"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Parsonages on fire off the shoulder of Hertfordshire. I watched carriages glitter in the dark near the Pemberley gates. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain... time to die."
The Independent@the-independent.com · last wk.Netflix’s Pride and Prejudice hands Jane Austen’s iconic line to one of its characters for the first time
Resharing this great piece of reporting, which reveals that three-quarters of the money raised this way goes toward funding more fundraising. newrepublic.com/article/2163...
How the Consulting Class Is Eating the Democratic Party
Fundraising costs gobble up most of the funds raised. Billions are spent on TV ads that have virtually no impact. Candidates may win or lose—but the consulting class always wins.
newrepublic.com
It's astonishing how many companies think people want to use AI to eliminate any remaining/potential social contacts they might have in an already very atomized culture. Genuinely who is the audience for "get the AI to read to your kid," "use AI to avoid speaking to a barista"?
More Perfect Union@moreperfectunion.bsky.social · 7d agoStarbucks CEO says the company is planning to focus more on AI and tech, including a adding system that would recognize customers as they arrive in stores to "present personalized digital menus."
Just got an email announcing that Princeton is offering ChatGPT accounts to all undergrads next semester. Looking forward to other helpful innovations lIke giving them unlimited heroin or free handguns
“What’s fascinating to me is that in the process of trying to make authors obsolete by using AI, the publishers are rendering themselves obsolete.”
Adam Morgan@adamm0rgan.bsky.social · last wk.For @wired.com, I spoke with Macmillan and PRH staff about AI at the rest of the Big Five. I also spoke with bestselling authors who've gone to "war" with publishers over AI use and are now demanding disclosures and threatening to leave their publishers altogether. www.wired.com/story/macmil...
I know that Big Publishers are owned by corporations but there probably needs to be an understanding that in the future some products will be more valuable because they are not made by AI, the way that organic food is more expensive because it is not produced with that very useful tool, pesticides.
There are not many things that 97% of Americans have in common. High school English is one of them.
"To the oft-asked question, “Why is there no socialism in America?” Gude’s book offers us an easy rejoinder: There’s been plenty of it" @davidmarcus.bsky.social on Eugene Debs in the NYT: www.nytimes.com/2026/10/27/b...
Book Review: ‘American Socialist,’ by Shawn Gude
In “American Socialist,” Shawn Gude tracks the rise and fall of the movement led by the left-wing presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs.
nytimes.com
If you convince yourself it's ok to have an AI assistant tuck your kids into bed at night, what else are you going to be ok with? pjmaciak.substack.com/p/just-read-...
Just Read to Your Kids, Man
The Work of Parenting in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
pjmaciak.substack.com
David Gura@davidgura.bsky.social · 2w agocool, cool
I have been thinking about this nonstop: "In the classroom, she has noticed students asking for more food, or for leftovers of a friend’s meal. Sometimes the free school meals are the only ones students get, she said."
Rainesford Stauffer@rainesford.bsky.social · 2w agoCuts to SNAP benefits have profoundly impacted children and families. The effects are stretching beyond homes and into schools. For @ms.now, I reported on how SNAP cuts are impacting schools, educators working to close gaps, and what experts say about the need for free school meals for all.
It's so romantic during a wedding ceremony when the woman promises to love, honor, obey, "answer questions, perform tasks and make suggestions" and serve as an "emotional labor bot" 🥹
Amanda Katz@katzish.bsky.social · 2w agoIt’s hard to decide what part of this story on Marissa Mayer’s new startup is most loathsome, but this “women need a wife or, in other words, a digital servant” construction makes me want to flip over an actual table www.nytimes.com/2026/10/25/s...
never mind having a personal AI assistant, whatever that might be, or outsourcing loving your children to it.... i need to know why you would name your personal AI assistant 'Dazzle'
Not to obsess over Marissa Mayer but what a weird profile. Written in a fawning tone, while it reproduces some of the dumbest and most harmful attitudes to childbirth and post-partum you could imagine. Wtf happened here?
I'm halfway through Ruth Schwartz Cowan's More Work For Mother, and so far the tldr is technology that promises solve for the problem of women doing most of the work in the home has a funny way of simply generating even more work to fill up the new space www.nytimes.com/2026/10/25/s...
Can Marissa Mayer, Yahoo’s Former CEO, Help Fix A.I.’s Gender Problem? (Gift Article)
Marissa Mayer made her name as a pioneer at Google, then as chief executive at Yahoo. Now Mayer is entering the crowded marketplace for A.I. assistants — and hoping to draw in more women.
nytimes.com
AOC: "As AI begins to encroach in our society, their goal is to take your cognition away from you. AI's goal is to take your thoughts away from you, your ability to think away from you, so that you become dependent on a machine ... reading books is active resistance"
seems like some people went to you can see everything wanting to see alex gibney's musk documentary. you bought the wrong ticket big dog
It's odd for people to act as if treating the subject of a documentary or a book etc. as a human being is some sort of mitigating artistic choice. In fact, it's the necessary first step to telling a worthwhile story about a person.
This is very interesting because when I hear from parents in my neighborhood they don't seem to feel this way at all www.nytimes.com/2026/10/19/o...
Opinion | Applying to High School in New York City Is a Soul-Destroying Nightmare (Gift Article)
I thought my worst New York City experience was getting punched in the face. That was before I started trying to get my kid into a public high school.
nytimes.com
This is also a bit of a straw man. Look for instance at the reporting of Justine Van Der Leun: newrepublic.com/article/1605... newrepublic.com/article/2119...
“No Choice but to Do It”: Why Women Go to Prison
Many of the 230,000 women and girls in U.S. jails and prisons were abuse survivors before they entered the system. And at least 30 percent of those serving time on murder or manslaughter charges were ...
newrepublic.com
Zito@zeets.bsky.social · 2w agoHow many non-white and blonde mothers who get thrown into prison, for crimes they didn’t commit or for harsh sentences do we do this sentimental act for? It’s a very politically charged thing to do, on the basis of identity. Everything about that movie depends on you wanting to sympathize with her.
I think it's possible to hold in our minds two things: 1 - a person committed a crime, is to receive the punishment our society has agreed on for that 2 - we can still be interested in what happens next; not all of our interactions with them (and their families) need to take the form of condemnation
Zito@zeets.bsky.social · 2w agoI think this is a failure of the film, though. Malcolm Harris and John Carreyrou have been pushing back against this because this framing of “knowing the human” is inherently sympathetic and it achieves this by ignoring so many of the hard facts. For one, she chased that public attention.
"It’s a portrait of a woman who broke the law and isn’t even close to sorry about it, but it’s also a film about a mother leaving her newborn baby while she is still breastfeeding and entering the largest prison system in the world."
Laura Marsh@lauramarsh.bsky.social · 2w agoWrote about You Can See Everything, a film that is much sadder than I expected newrepublic.com/article/2167...
What I like here is the suggestion I've seen rarely elsewhere and what I've been thinking about most: the film is pretty cruel! There seems to be a sense of glee around this cruelty, as if by exposing the way some mistreat Holmes that the film couldn't possibly do the same.
Laura Marsh@lauramarsh.bsky.social · 2w agoWrote about You Can See Everything, a film that is much sadder than I expected newrepublic.com/article/2167...
“What started out as a straight documentary turns into an almost absurd, almost distasteful experiment, and an argument that the only real way to know something is not through hours of faithful recording but through an elaborate artifice.” @lauramarsh.bsky.social newrepublic.com/article/2167...
You Can See Everything Is Unexpectedly Heartbreaking
Without making excuses for the Theranos fraud, Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s documentary insists on Elizabeth Holmes’s humanity.
newrepublic.com
I couldn't fit this into the piece but you really appreciate how distant Fielder is later when Amanda Seyfried immediately tells Elizabeth Holmes "you're wonderful!" out of sheer politeness
Wrote about You Can See Everything, a film that is much sadder than I expected newrepublic.com/article/2167...
You Can See Everything Is Unexpectedly Heartbreaking
Without making excuses for the Theranos fraud, Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s documentary insists on Elizabeth Holmes’s humanity.
newrepublic.com
I wrote about Sharon Horgan's latest dazzling masterpiece, YOUTH. A show about being a woman, alive, and fifty all at once. newrepublic.com/article/2163...
“Youth” Is a Devastating Comedy About an Overlooked Stage of Motherhood
Sharon Horgan’s new show on HBO is a triumphant, unexpected follow-up to “Motherland.”
newrepublic.com
a double review of DIGGER and THE SOCIAL RECKONING, two flawed films about whether it's ever too late to tell the story that needs telling thanks as always to @newrepublic.com and @lauramarsh.bsky.social newrepublic.com/article/2163...
The Unbearable, Unstoppable Moguls of Digger and The Social Reckoning
Two movies, two unfolding catastrophes. And in both movies, holding the rich to account is an epic struggle.
newrepublic.com
