Scott McLemee

I started to look up Diderot on Amazon and the first auto-fill result was “didoo for women,” which turned out to be exactly what you’d think. In Bezosistan even typos can make money.

Led by the Homintern?

it's less that sufficiently rich people are stupid, it's more that sufficiently rich people are incredibly bright toddlers in just weirdly adult-shaped bodies. "move fast and break things" is a description that essentially casts society as a day care service

With my final column now posted and nothing but open road ahead, it’s time to get oriented on this app , which still feels kind of strange— not yet intuitively navigable. If anyone knows of a good resource, please let me know.

Thanks, Jen. I appreciate this more than you can probably imagine.

Apologies to anyone who got far enough to notice some overlap between segments. It’s hard to chop up text for bluesky’s length restrictions.

/5/ the nation were exclusively occupied in the invention of such fantastic and costly pleasures as might best amuse their apathy, lull their remorse, or disguise their ruin.

4/ nor forethought enough to be ambitious. One by one the possessions of the state were abandoned to its enemies; one by one the channels of its trade were forsaken by its own languor, or occupied and closed against it by its more energetic rivals; and the time, the resources, and the thoughts of

/3: nor forethought enough to be ambitious. One by one the possessions of the state were abandoned to its enemies; one by one the channels of its trade were forsaken by its own languor,

/2/ During the last years of the existence of the state, the minds both of the nobility and the people seem to have been set simply upon the attainment of the means of self-indulgence. There was not strength enough in them to be proud,

/1/ Just came across this in the opening of the chapter on the Renaissance grotesque and it felt weirdly timely.

John Ruskin, The Stones of Venice, Vol. 3

A polite disagreement bot ring is flooding Bluesky — reply guy as a (dis)service On the Bluesky social network, you may notice a lot of drive-by responses from accounts that rarely or never post — they just reply to other accounts. The reply pattern starts with a phrase like “I…

this sounds right to me, it's would-be scammers and disinfo ops people pivot-to-ai.com/2024/12/07/a...

Wondering if Musk’s “Roman salute” will be a new MAGA behavioral norm.

Bleed the suckers of their last dollar and smile that dead-eyed smile.

I’ve had that nightmare.