Chris Lay

Re LRS, shit like that is why I logged off from Facebook in the spring and haven't logged in again.

At this point 50% of my FB feed is comprised of entirely made up shit like this. I'm a historian who studies politics and media, so it's easy for me to be a critical consumer of this schlock. But for the average consumer, this sort of social media is like putting a stick blender in one's brain.

thank you @ossoff.senate.gov for leading this. so important

All of this can be broken.

A better world is possible and only a few thousand people are stopping it

A very clear lesson for Americans who oppose Trump and think the solution was "what if we just leaned into the whole xenophobia culture war thing to win back the Trumpists."

It... does not work.

A Gallup popularity chart showing the Pope at +46, Bernie at +11, AOC at -4, Trump at -16, Musk at -28.

Two most popular politicians on this list are Bernie (the rare double-digit positive opinion) and AOC. Elon Musk is one of the most unpopular people in the world.

BREAKING: The Oversight Committee has officially issued the Epstein Files subpoena we helped pass.

The subpoena is clear and airtight: the Trump DOJ must release the files by August 19.

As a survivor, I'll never stop fighting for healing, transparency, and accountability.

ILLINOIS GOV. J.B. PRITZKER (D): "If they're gonna cheat, then all of us have to take a hard look at what the effect of that cheating is on democracy . And that means we've all got to stand up and do the right thing. So as far as I'm concerned, everything is on the table."

F.B.I. Is Asked to Arrest Texas Democrats in Battle Over House Seats

The FBI? For enforcement of state disputes?

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/05/u...

Drivers will often build an imaginary scenario where they kill a cyclist speeding through a red light, but the reality is that the most common bike crashes are left and right hooks and dooring. Most cyclists who are hit are *not* breaking the law.

'therapy, but nothing serious' JFX get this redditor away from their keyboard.

The old holding hands meme: Democratic Party holding hands w/Hollywood in: Taking the wrong lesson from every success

The public isn't wrong.

I first worked on AI software back in 2008. And I know that real people will be harmed by this VC-driven hype cycle unless Congress steps up.

I am running for Congress because I think our Representatives should understand the tech they are regulating: bethfordemocracy.com

I want to host a “MAGA + libs” party where the two sides are not allowed to talk politics. Instead they do an activity, like boardgames. I want to witness the dawning horror as they find themselves getting along

again, this fails to take seriously the fact that MAGA fascists are in fact often sincere bigots who want to hurt people.

www.everythingishorrible.net/p/it-may-not...

And that is part of why we should be skeptical, as well as the potential for fun internet games to become systems of social control.

It’s only news when the Democrats play hardball too.

Dot-com 2.0 . After that bubble burst the overbuilt high-speed internet infrastructure remained & that was important to the next round of web startups. Those businesses are now standing on our necks, but maybe we can be more skeptical of the startups that find uses for all this overbuilt computing.

One neat thing about the AI data center buildout is how these companies know AI tech won't get more efficient, even a simple chatbot requires more GPU flops than any videogame. Edison-ass wires-everywhere craptech.

the unmet expectation of deference drives mediocre men batshit insane

Finally, a united nation.

The Trump administration has asked NASA employees to draw up plans to end at least two major satellite missions, according to current and former NASA staffers. If the plans are carried out, one of the missions would be permanently terminated, because the satellite would burn up in the atmosphere. The data the two missions collect is widely used, including by scientists, oil and gas companies and farmers who need detailed information about carbon dioxide and crop health. They are the only two federal satellite missions that were designed and built specifically to monitor planet-warming greenhouse gases.

Duffy to announce nuclear reactor on the moon This is the first major agency effort by the interim NASA administrator, who is also the Transportation secretary and a former Fox News host.

Today in space policy: kill a satellite that measures greenhouse gases, make up a pretend plan to build a nuclear reactor on the moon.

www.npr.org/2025/08/04/n...

www.politico.com/news/2025/08...

I just published an article with Boston College Law Review called “The Law of Digital Resurrection” on this topic.

Accessible here:

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Almost 40 Percent of Americans Trust Medical Advice From AI Chatbots A new survey finds that Americans are relying on ChatGPT and other AI programs to assess health symptoms and ask about medical treatments

💀

Opposition Party Decides to Oppose Today on TAP: Democrats are fighting in Washington and Austin, denying quick victories to authoritarians.

-Schumer wouldn't advance Trump noms without an end to illegal withholding of federal funds,so Senate Rs left town
-Trump couldn't do recess appointments because House Dems would force an Epstein vote if Rs returned to adjourn
-Texas Dems fled the state to deny Rs a quorum
Is our Democrats learning?

The 20 Elections to Watch in August - Bolts Out of 40 special elections for congressional and legislative seats so far in 2025, only two have seen flips; both were Democratic gains. That’s to be expected: Nationwide, most districts... Read More

It’s a huge Election Day tomorrow:

–Detroit votes for mayor
—Seattle votes for mayor
—Topeka votes for mayor
—South Tucson officials face a recall for caring about housing
—Dems defend two competitivish seats in DE & RI
—Seattle’s parks system is on the ballot
And… more!

Your cheat sheet:

I think that the other half of what happened with the printing press analogizes well too: Suddenly people of limited means could communicate at scale among each other, and organized around all kinds of novel and frankly batshit ideas.

I wonder if social media, of all things, landed us in a situation weirdly analogous to the printing revolution. A big new class of ppl suddenly gets to publicly tell the rich and powerful what they really think, then all hell breaks loose b/c it turns out rich ppl really do not like that.

Since the interviewee must remain anonymous, we are now calling this Moynihan's Law:
"The easier a governmental task looks to an outsider, the more likely it has been found to be impossible by many smart people in the past."

2019 – 2024 – Repeated denials and discovery stonewalling Through years of communications with the police, the plaintiffs and the court through the investigation and later the discovery process for the lawsuit, Tesla never mentioned that it had all the data that explained how Autopilot saw the crash, which everyone was seeking, sitting on its servers for years. The facts are: Tesla had the data on its servers within minutes of the crash When the police sought the data, Tesla redirected them toward other data When the police sought Tesla’s help in extracting it from the computer, Tesla falsely claimed it was “corrupted” Tesla invented an “auto-delete” feature that didn’t exist to try explain why it couldn’t originally find the data in the computer When the plaintiffs asked for the data, Tesla said that it didn’t exist Tesla only admitted to the existence of the data once presented with forensic evidence that it was created and transfered to its servers.

This whole story is insane. Tesla apparently did everything it could to avoid providing the data it had about its Autopilot crash. This is just a snippet and there's a lot more. electrek.co/2025/08/04/t...