Daniel Abraham

I don't think this is limited to elite pundits, writers, etc. I think it's a common trap to get to a certain point in your life believing you'd be in one future, and discovering you're in another, and then failing to plan how to move through that actual future.

A friend writes:

I saw someone's post somewhere that talked about how their
nine-year-old and all his friends have started using "That's AI"
instead of "I don't believe you."

Mom: "We're having dinosaur meat for dinner tonight."
Kid: "That's AI."

Important info on scams for authors here.

…The scapegoat, eventually, is released, to death: his murderer continues to live. The suffering of the scapegoat has resulted in seas of blood, and yet not one sinner has been saved, or changed, by this despairing ritual?

~ James Baldwin as quoted by Christopher Hunt:

Cover of Hunt’s “Jimmy’s Faith”

James Baldwin:

That the scapegoat pays for the sins of others is well known, but this is only legend, and a revealing one at that. In fact, however the scapegoat may be made to suffer, his suffering cannot purify the sinner; it merely incriminates him more, and it seals his damnation…

I respect their optimism.

With respect, @hakeem-jeffries.bsky.social, you might get better engagement with:

"Why is Trump talking about illegally deploying troops against American citizens?

Insurance costs spiking? The Epstein files? That ridiculous UN speech?

We're tracking all of it, Donnie. #dems #nodistractions"

Leave the relationship unrepaired.

The only right any of us have in any relationship is the right to walk away from it. Everything else is negotiated.

I think you can repair a lot if you can come together as equals, be realistic about the damage, and sincere about the ask for forgiveness.

Without those, you can get past it. But you can't repair the relationship.

Oh, no. I love Jesus as a philosopher, not a supernatural being. You could fit my faith in a thimble and have room for cream.

It's not really the hurt that bugs. It's the broken relationship. I miss the people I had before they did the thing.

We understand the term differently.

I can come to a place with no anger or pain -- a place of letting go -- but it's not what I mean when I say forgiveness. Forgiveness (to me) is the reparation of a relationship.

What you're describing, I would call "exhaustion" or "no longer giving a fuck." 🤣

I live Jesus, but His fandom can be might sus.

I have a couple people I would love to forgive for some things, but I don't think I can because I don't think they care. So I find other ways to let it go.

Fire away.

Seems to me you don't know whether you can forgive really someone until they ask for forgiveness.

Good thread. Can recommend. Will vouch for the fact that a human wrote and posted it.

Vought and Trump say they'll destroy the federal government if it shuts down.

That's like saying, if you don't let me break this toy, I'll break it anyway.

No shit. But that's on you guys.

My kid’s favorite superhero cartoon just laid out a plain simple truth the adults are REALLY struggling with:

“He’s an influencer. By definition he’s not there to inform people, he’s there to INFLUENCE them!”

I have a book of Asa Baber essays.

Fascinating old economist quote perhaps relevant to AI:

You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics.
~ Robert Solow (1987)

And I am looking forward to it.

And it was Asa Baber for a while before that. But that's dating myself.

And sometimes Dan Savage.

Yup.

Money is a really good point, though. I left that out. I should include it.

I feel like this might be covered in the etiquette guide to courtship and relationship.

There are a *lot* of forces pressing against a full and open expression of male emotions. IncludIng, I’m sorry to report, a lot of girlfriends.

It’s a conundrum, but that’s why the boundaries conversation

I feel like “essay“ could be spoken instead of strictly written too. Interviews and podcasts work.

You have to meet the boys where they are.

Agreed (see entry #4)

...gender and gender identity in ways that speak to the messy boundaries and physical implications that the rest of us are prone to overlook.

I expect trans women who transitioned late in life to especially have interesting perspectives about living under the expectations of masculinity.

Trans folks are the ones who have (and I generalize here) the greatest personal experience moving between hormone environments as adults. Trans men and trans women may be going in different directions, but they're all part of that Tiresias project, and they have all had to come to grips with...

That's enough for now.