Justin Raden

The Trump 2.0 smash and grab really does put the lie to the notion that there is a “fix” to the current crisis of accumulation. The options appear to be managed decline or accelerationist carnage.

Grok, did you test the O-ring seal before launch?

Yes! Absolutely—the O-ring is a key component in ensuring a safe & epic ride on any SpaceX™️rocket. Enjoy your trip! 👍

Cover image of Jean Paulhan’s book, les fleurs de tarbes. It features an illustration of a man sitting at a desk with a book with Jean Paulhan’s head superimposed on the image.

Hot take: Jean Paulhan’s Les Fleurs de Tarbes (1941) is the best book on generative AI out there.

Flier for a company that offers AI tutors that purport to tell you what happened in classes you missed. How they do this—is someone illegally recording the class?—isn’t made clear.

Just found this tacked up at the college at which I teach, which has recently signed a deal with Anthropic, which stole 6 of my books and books by 131 colleagues.

If you thought Bovino’s demotion would change anything, you fell for it

How Silicon Valley built AI: Buying, scanning and destroying millions of books Court filings reveal how AI companies raced to obtain more books to feed chatbots, including by buying, scanning and disposing of millions of titles.

New: Unsealed court docs detail Big Tech’s yearslong, secret race to ingest the collective works of humanity, including Anthropic’s project to “destructively scan all the books in the world.”

Gift link: wapo.st/4rjXAMQ

Sorry, no, this is not a “political realignment.” This is very much in keeping with the techno-libertarianism that has dominated Silicon Valley’s executive class for decades. They were naming their kids and companies after Ayn Rand characters back in the 90s.

Silicon Empires w/ Nick Srnicek Nick Srnicek on Silicon Empires: The Fight for the Future of AI. A deep exploration of the political economy of AI: the fulcrum of the authoritarian tech oligarchy—and of global contests for economic ...

The Dig you’ve been waiting for to understand the political economy of AI as it becomes fulcrum of global contests and conflicts over economic and military dominance. My interview w/ @nsrnicek.bsky.social on his book Silicon Empires: The Fight for the Future of AI www.thedigradio.com/podcast/sili...

Calling all the PhDs I know to make monumental annoyances of themselves (and honestly, who better)

It’s a banger!

Bernstein beefing with Eagleton!?

“I’m sorry!”

People better equipped than me to think about this: how does the Trump regulatory picture on AI dovetail with the Brenner/Riley articulation of “political capitalism”?

I’m currently visiting my parents, which is the only time I really watch any TV, so this is the first time I’m learning everyone is evidently obsessed with electrolytes!?

Iran

thedigradio.com/History%20of...

Good time for people who haven’t to listen to @thedigradio.bsky.social 5 part series on the political and social history of modern iran with @eskandarsadeghi.bsky.social and golnar nikpour

“the message is clear, to ICE agents and everyone else: Nothing constrains these agents except whatever inhibits any individual one of them, personally, from brutalizing and murdering any person who disobeys them.”

“Spraying bullets at a civilian's head is not a reasonable or defensible response to a brief feeling of danger on the part of someone entrusted by the government to carry deadly weaponry and enforce laws. Moreover the ICE agents' very presence in Minneapolis is an outrage.”

ICE Agent Kills Woman, DHS Tells Obvious, Insane Lies About It | Defector On Wednesday in Minneapolis, masked government agents apparently representing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) surrounded a stationary vehicle stopped in the middle of a residential street. O...

“What the driver was or wasn't doing with her vehicle is irrelevant; so are the ICE agent's feelings about it. The agents never had to be clustered around the woman's vehicle in the first place. They never had to try to extract her from it.“

ICE is recycling the same bullshit story they used in Chicago to cover up yet another murder.

Just gonna put this here, for no reason

Nah I’ve got a pdf of the old one. Don’t think Fowkes is out until the spring. Already putting feelers out for a reading group!

My decision to start the new year by reading Hilferding is suddenly looking very auspicious, unfortunately

This is the technology our schools are encouraging our children to use.

I went to a talk he gave at NYU in maybe 2013 and he made a joke in the Q&A about grants being hard to get and I swear I nearly witnessed a murder

Universities embracing generative AI be like:

☠️☠️☠️

Opinion | The Billionaires Have Gone Full Louis XV

Late to the party, but allow me to suggest that the apposite (French) historical point of comparison is the 1871 commune, not the French Revolution. Tho I’m happy to retain the guillotine. 😎

an AI generated map of the US showing cities in bizarre locations

Google Gemini Pro: please generate a map of the western united states showing cities of over 250K population

Jameson Monopoly, a thread. 1/9