Melanie

I'm partial to the Great Leap Backwards

I genuinely think one thing that trips up folks on the left is that they can't imagine not sharing certain core values. Lemme explain. Here's an intuition pump:

Say you're in negotiations with counterparty X. And there are two possible deals on the table ...

Ex-farm worker here.

We need to talk about this whole "But a living wage for farm workers would spike the cost of food!" thing.

Not true AT ALL.

Y'all don't understand how fast experienced farm workers are.

The average tomato picker pulls 650lbs per hour.

At $20/hr, that's $0.03/lb for labor.

One reason Trump says & does whatever he wants is because every societal institution, including the media, has completely normalized & internalized the idea that the laws, the Constitution, & the international treaties we have signed & ratified simply don’t apply to this one guy. It’s maddening.

What Immigration is NOT

@amsickofpollies.bsky.social - thanks for spotting this.
I reformatted it and also have a four-up PDF if anyone wants it.

So Long Systems, Come on Conspiracies MAGA campaign conspiracies are becoming federal and state policy

I've been thinking about why so many prefer conspiracy thinking to systems thinking, how MAGA turned systems theory like CRT into a conspiracy, and how conspiracies like these are making the leap from campaign to official policy.

I'm hoping that "Trump cease fire" gets picked up as slang for a situation where a leader completely misunderstands and misjudges a situation.

Chart showing Iranian nuclear centrifuge from 2011 to 2025

In a more serious country, unilaterally withdrawing from the JCPOA would have immediately ended Trump's first presidency & destroyed the GOP's reputation on national security policy for a generation 🧐

the thing about this is that these guys don’t actually want blunt talk; blunt talk would be things like “you’re a sexist and a bigot whose contributions to culture have been overwhelmingly negative, and you frequently respond to mild criticism like a child”

I'm wondering about the implications of this principle as well...

It definitely feels like a logical progression to the next step. Replace bothersome employees *and* pesky customers with AI.

Direct air capture of CO2 seems like one of those technologies we ought to be working on and developing, but not pinning our hopes on.

Is there any information about *why* these machines aren't working as expected? That seems pretty important to assessing the future of this tech.

Just out! Our peer-reviewed critique of the Cass Review has been published by BMC Medical Research Methodology. Please read and share. We show that the Cass Review is fatally flawed and should not be the basis for policy or practice in transgender healthcare.

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

1) Medical transition is one of the most remarkable advancements of modern science.
It saves lives, improves mental health, and helps people live as themselves.
But we almost never talk about it that way. Let’s fix that. 🧵

Over the past several months, I’ve spent many hours in conversations with people who have experienced firsthand a flip from democracy to dictatorship.🧵

The land grant university system, the research university innovation engine, the national lab system, America perfected these. They are as American as apple pie. We don’t have a king. These are America’s Crown Jewels.

Answering the "island question " (what would I do if alone on an island and had everything available) is what helped clarify to myself that I am actually transgender. If I didn't have to think about the reaction of others, the answer was remarkably simple.

Americans succeeded at creating a social material environment of (relative) safety but failed to produce a learning environment that would successfully communicate the reasons to maintain an environment of safety after the normal harms of the world passed out of common memory

With the cuts to science research, health research, and damage to the economy, will future historians refer to the time in the US as "The Great Leap Backwards"

"genuinely idiotic for the white house to" ...
That pretty much means he's going to do it, then, doesn't it.

Democratic leaders act like time travelers afraid to do anything that might change the future

Screenshot with two bluesky posts. The first post, by Duncan Jones, says "On the plus side, by breaking everything all at once, think of all the new potential scams waiting to be discovered". Followed by a second post, which is by "Pokemon Gems" with a picture of a pokemon with the text "Eevee wants your credit card details".

The bluesky discover feed has you covered...

People don't seem to understand that the existence of fair laws and open courts perceived as just, and the end of vigilante justice/violence as dispute resolution aren't independent and coincidental occurrences.

I never cared much about how I dressed, except for a brief phase of trying to deal with gender dysphoria by dressing more fashionably. (Spoiler: it didn't work)

I like what he writes, and I'd be into his advice, but alas, I don't care about men's fashion for myself anymore.

The Real Goal of Trump's War on Universities It isn't about stopping antisemitism. It's about power.

Trump's war on universities isn't about antisemitism, it's about power.

My latest newsletter:

paulwaldman.substack.com/p/the-real-g...

It is always interesting to me how people never seem to demand evidence that cruelty will be good for "the economy" but no matter how.many studies of kinder things like UBI or housing first we do those who talk about "the economy" refuse to believe they are beneficial.

less than five hundred years ago even the most powerful monarch was at the mercy of childhood disease and weather. now we can do literal concrete things about both and are in fact actively choosing to die of childhood disease and weather

Critical messaging for Dems if they're being forced into a shutdown. Undo the cuts to Social Security, VA health care, cancer care research. Put the DOGE boys into a boxes w chaperones if the Republican want help. NEED TO BE CRYSTAL CLEAR about what's at stake immediately in peoples lives.