Jonathan Stray

You're Probably Wrong About The Deportations We've switched from mostly arresting criminals to mostly not. Obama was deporting just as many. But interior enforcement has exploded - BCB #181

Either ICE has started cruelly arresting beloved community members, or ICE is merely enforcing existing laws to remove murderers and rapists.

Both of these are only half-right. Whatever side you’re on, you probably have something to learn.

www.betterconflictbulletin.org/p/annoying-f...

Media is fiction when everything is recorded first, selected later.
Media literacy is understanding that the popular is extreme.
Trustworthy sources are better at modeling and communicating the true distribution of events.
Narratives define what counts as an event.

Yep, new version is on github. I'll have more to say about that soon. But this 16% I got from scraping my own feed... with a three sentence prompt to Claude Cowork. Amazing!

I'm reverse engineering the Twitter algorithm from the source code and experiments. On my own For You feed, only 16% (1 in 6) of posts are from people I follow. This used to be set at 50% in old Twitter. So that's one reason it feels like we've lost our communities there.

I RTed this this morning before reading it (my partner hates that I bookmark that way!), because I hadn’t seen anyone else talking about solutions/ what’s next. I’ve read it now and think solution 2 is both a good and a plausible next step — states choose & perform their own migration strategy. 1/

How Things Could End Well In Minneapolis Gaming out the ways the ICE conflict can end without further violence - BCB #180

What's the endgame for ICE protests? As far as I can tell, I'm the only one who has publicly proposed the use of targeted civil resistance to force negotiation of an immigration policy compromise that might appeal to all Americans. Here's my analysis... www.betterconflictbulletin.org/p/what-would...

I am thinking a lot today, like many days but more so, about what information an algorithm should show you during a crisis. What will inform, calm, show us all a way through regardless of where each of us stands?

Math Sky, I just learned about Robinson's infinitesimals and I am shook, just shook to learn that you can do calculus entirely without taking limits. Newton and Leibniz were right, they just couldn't prove it.

Ah crap they asked me to area chair.

SUV marked for Canton (MA) Animal Control parked in a driveway. A large tabby housecat with a collar is hanging on the rear passenger door and peering in suspiciously at the inside of the cabin.

Become ungovernable

We Have to Talk About Immigration Tips and facts for a sensible conversation - BCB #168

Yes. This is the problem. ICE is unpopular. But deportations for people with criminal records are popular, it's a mistake to pretend they aren't. Happily, path to citizenship is also popular.
www.betterconflictbulletin.org/p/we-have-to...

Improving Quality of Recommended Content through Pinner Surveys Rudraksh Kapil | Machine Learning Engineer I; Michal Giemza | Senior Machine Learning Engineer; Devan Srinivasan | Machine Learning…

Optimizing for engagement alone can lead to bad results for social media and LLMs. So what's the alternative? You can just ask your users what you actually want to know! Here's Pinterest explaining how they did just that...
medium.com/pinterest-en...

nope!

1-year risks of cancers associated with COVID-19 vaccination: a large population-based cohort study in South Korea - Biomarker Research The oncogenic potential of SARS-CoV-2 has been hypothetically proposed, but real-world data on COVID-19 infection and vaccination are insufficient. Therefore, this large-scale population-based retrosp...

Anyone got a take on this study suggesting COVID vaccines (both mRNA and other) increase the risk for some types on cancer? It seems well designed and plausible, but it does have an editor's note saying "concerns have been raised."
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

The Sagrada Familia is every bit as awe inspiring as you’ve heard.

I’ve just discovered King Tubby and my understanding of music history is changed forever. He invented dub and pioneered the producer-as-creator… in the 1970s

To a first approximation, the problem is that they were never invited.

If true, all the more reason they should be in the conversation.

Ok. I love this conference but my first and probably biggest criticism of #buildpeace2025 is that, although “plurality” is a recurring theme, pretty much everyone here has strongly progressive politics. A lot of talking *about* the other, not *with* them.

Awesome. I’m really missing the back channel for this conference (remember when we used to do that on Twitter?) so shall we use #buildpeace25?

Ola! I’m here in Barcelona for #buildpeace26
Who else is here? I see @loreleikelly.bsky.social

Reviewing papers for IASEAI 26 is exciting! Lots of groundbreaking AI safety work! But I can’t help shake a certain imposter syndrome… I am now literally a gatekeeper in my field.

I saw Bugonia and wow.
Not for the faint of heart, but incredible.

Thanks for this Petter. I don't understand, though, how this graph can be squared with the graph in the top top post, showing that X is still majority Dem (58%) in 2024?

Also what's the source? Or did you make these yourself?

I... what?

What You Can Learn from 4,000 Conversations Between Israelis and Palestinians Adam Becker is building an AI-powered platform for difficult conversations - BCB #171

So I met this guy who’s meditated 4000 conversations between Israelis and Palestinians since October 7th. And he’s building an AI powered platform for difficult conversations. Here’s what he’s learned. www.betterconflictbulletin.org/p/what-you-c...

This date could have been a sext.

ATProto is just a 21st century NNTP, amirite?

@lawfaremedia.org where are you on this? I need expert Sandwich Guy legal analysis. The fate of our nation depends upon it.

I don't know it, do tell