Norbert Wiener Kreis

On the one hand, I don't really care about "the Epstein files", because it's perfectly obvious to me that Trump is a rapist and pedophile, and I don't know what new revelations would come to light here.

On the other hand, talking about the Epstein files is making him really mad, and I like that.

"And what does it say about our politics that the loss of employment is felt as a threat rather than as liberation? How does this specter of AI-caused job loss related to the Spinoza-Reich question: why do people fight for their servitude as if it were their freedom?"

"And what it does it say about capitalism that this replacement is eagerly anticipated by our aspiring technofeudal overlords?"

The questions we ought to be asking is not "will AI become smart enough take our jobs?" but rather "what does it say about the nature of contemporary employment that the same tasks can be performed by a machine with no self-awareness, needs, interests, and concerns?"

As foretold in the ancient texts, I have just started writing about consciousness! It's not yet a paper, but I'm giving it as a co-authored talk at the beginning of May!

Just finished The AI Mirror by @shannonvallor.bsky.social. Very highly recommended. Transcending the stale accelerationist/doomer debate, Vallor reminds us what technology is for, and where (some of the) true dangers of AI lie. Powerful stuff, eloquently written global.oup.com/academic/pro...

You don't hate AI, you hate technofeudalism.*

* inspired by the old "you don't hate Mondays, you hate capitalism".

I quite agree. But impeachment won't happen as long as GOP control both chambers, and I don't see that changing. So, total ruin it is.

In other words, it's when Jews disavow their affective investment in Whiteness by rejecting Zionism that we become the targets of persecution from which Israel was supposed to protect us.

We Jews don't support Israel because we need a refuge in the world when the white supremacists decide that we're not White enough to count; we support Israel so that the white supremacists will decide that we are White enough to count, and so won't persecute us.

But I also think this is true of Jews themselves: I think that Jews became Zionist in the course of becoming White (and conversely), and that this is the fault-line within the Jewish community today. Our attitudes towards Israel are bound up with our affective investment in Whiteness.

Anti-Zionists are the bad Jews because they are at least beginning to overcome their own affective investment in Whiteness.

It's as if, from the perspective of the global Right, Zionists are the good Jews because they are invested in Whiteness (Herrenvolk democracy, apartheid, settler colonialism, ethnic cleansing -- all the markers of Whiteness!).

One aspect of this (as many have noted) is that Jewish Zionists are both seen by many on the global Right as exemplary White people, and also that Jewish Zionists are themselves affectively invested in Whiteness.

I'm fascinated, terrified, and horrified at the rise of what's being called "pro-Israel antisemitism".

I like how you focus on what really matters.

Musk is a technological genius in precisely the same sense that Trump is a successful businessman.

Done!

It cannot be overstated how deeply the MAGA crowd hate the America of Emerson, Whitman, Dewey, and Baldwin.

Try turning the Internet off, then turning it on again. That fixes most computer problems.

It should be evident to everyone that Trump intends to do to Canada what Putin is doing to Ukraine, and for roughly the same reasons.

Every college and university president who does not loudly and publicly condemn Khalil's abduction should resign immediately.

Mahmoud Khalil practiced & preached non-violence. His only 'crime' being a Palestinian who demanded an end to American-sponsored genocide. He was abducted by agents of the fascist US government at the urging of fascist Zionists. If they can do this to him, they can do this to anyone. No one is safe.

Right. And I don't want to say that all of Trump's supporters are evil people. I rather want to say that Trumpism as a socio-political movement is evil, and that Trump supporters are consenting to it.

I think they are increasingly honest and transparent about their neo-eugenics directed at trans people and people with autism. People with depression, anxiety, and obesity are next.

Agreed.

The problem with Trump's statement is not that it is false but that is is dehumanizing.

Liberals need to accept that the problem with Trumpism is not that it's stupid, but that it is evil.

And one only says that if one believes that transgender people don't deserve the same level of basic rights and liberties that cisgender people are entitled to -- which is to say, they are not fully human.

The problem is that by saying it's a waste of taxpayer money to determine if hormone-replacement therapies are safe for humans, they are saying that transgender people don't deserve the healthcare they need in order to feel fully at home in their own bodies.

The problem isn't that Trump and his supporters are dumb ignorant hicks who don't know 'transgender' from 'transgenic'.