Ari (they/them)🌿🌾🏳️‍🌈🍉

This is a quote from the article summing up both studies in Technology Review: "A multi-university team of researchers has found that chatting with a politically biased AI model was more effective than political advertisements at nudging both Democrats and Republicans to support presidential candidates of the opposing party. The chatbots swayed opinions by citing facts and evidence, but they were not always accurate—in fact, the researchers found, the most persuasive models said the most untrue things."

Two independent studies found that AI chatbots were better at persuading voters than political ads. The most persuasive bots also lied the most. This is something that humans working in psyops have known for decades. AI is psyops at scale. www.technologyreview.com/2025/12/04/1...

Stay based, Seattle.

"He speculated the city might be the epicenter of anti-AI sentiment among major U.S. tech hubs."

It's giving bisexual couch

They should invent a clock that doesn't make you late

🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈I dream of the day when the world can become a place where transgender people can live proudly and freely as themselves, and where they can love freely

As a mascot, I see human love as beautiful and wonderful.
I love you all today as well♡

Joint Statement on the Acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery by Netflix The world's largest streaming company swallowing one of its biggest competitors is what antitrust laws were designed to prevent. The outcome would eliminate jobs, push down wages, worsen conditions for all entertainment workers, raise prices for consumers, and reduce the volume and diversity of content for all viewers. Industry workers along with the public are already impacted by only a few powerful companies maintaining tight control over what consumers can watch on television, on streaming, and in theaters. This merger must be blocked.

The following is a statement from the WGA on the Acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery by Netflix.

"All is lost" narratives are popular because people generally do not want to take action. Taking action is tiring so if all is lost, you are off the hook. Nothing is more seductive than not having to do anything.

once again, "the supreme court will act as a bunch of partisan republican hacks" is the single most accurate heuristic for predicting its behavior, putting any coherent legal theory to shame

because fuck you, that's why

hi i'm a billionaire my company, which will definitely not murder everyone, is named SauronMurdersEveryone Inc after the beloved jrr tolkien character sauron whom i have always admired for his disruptive use of world changing technology and for murdering everyone

Love that every software update is now a humiliation ritual

You know what makes companies leave? Seeing us not properly taking care of our beautiful state and its residents.
Massachusetts taxed the rich and they didn’t leave. Washington should too

"The regular early morning yell of horror was the sound of Arthur Dent waking up and suddenly remembering where he was"
-Douglas Adams

Saved by Stoppard Sir, In 1993 my wife and I went to see the first production of Arcadia by Tom Stoppard (obituary, Dec I), and in the interval I experienced a Damascene conversion. As a clinical scientist I was trying to understand the enigma of the behaviour of breast cancer, the assumption being that it grew in a linear trajectory spitting off metastases on its way. In the first act of Arcadia, Thomasina asks her tutor, Septimus: "If there is an equation for a curve like a bell, there must be an equation for one like a bluebell, and if a bluebell, why not a rose?" With that Stoppard explains chaos theory, which better explains the behaviour of breast cancer. At the point of diagnosis, the cancer must have already scattered cancer cells into the circulation that nest latent in distant organs. The consequence of that hypothesis was the birth of "adjuvant systemic chemotherapy", ", and rapidly we saw a striking fall of the curve that illustrated patients' survival. Stoppard never learnt how many lives he saved by writing Arcadia. Michael Baum Professor emeritus of surgery; visiting professor of medical humanities, UCL r.

Alt text for those who need it. This is amazing.

when Michael Phelps was dominating US swimming there was endless coverage of all his genetic advantages. His wingspan, the way his body processed lactic acid, on and on and on. Nobody, not one person, floated the idea of kicking him out of the sport for genetic advantages

The real question is not "Why is Bluesky so left-coded," the real question is "Why can't the right exist in a social media environment without algorithmic assistance, where people can ignore them"

Oh! I've been reading about this one

NIMBY electeds endorsed by the Seattle Times Editorial Board have priced out working families who don’t have a college degree.

Einstein's works enter public domain next year! at last we get a queer retelling of the theory of relativity

It sucks that meeting a new class now involves not just going over the syllabus, setting expectations, and trying to establish a rapport, but also trying to deduce whether any of your new students are vigilante right wing operatives out to seek viral controversy at the expense of your job

A college student complaining about a grade on a paper is not national news. Not even close. The details have minimal import outside the class itself.

Well-funded political activists targeting profs and TAs—in this case because they're trans—with the help of elected state officials? National issue.

Wow. Having to work sucks

Gilded Age political cartoon titled "the protectors of our industries" A mass of workers strain under the weight of supporting a boat containing rich top-hatted monocle wearing capitalists sitting atop huge sacks of cash

"Strong floor, no ceiling" is very literally the basis of like every Gilded Age political cartoon

Belsize Village in London. Tables and chairs spilling out onto the plaza. Photo by me.

My dream, which I’ve been working on for a few years, is for Seattle to have a pedestrian plaza in the heart of every neighborhood.

Strong floor. Sharp guillotine

Media offenders Jerry

There is a direct correlation between how fake your job is and how much value you see in AI

... if we really want people to be held accountable this time, we will be fighting against the media, against billionaires, against big business, against the consultant class, against D leadership, against practically the entire apparatus of US politics. The architecture is *built for impunity*.

HELP! I'm at a party, but I thought the "play" stood for platonic

I'm an "A.i." abolitionist.

No consumer-facing LLMs or generative "A.i." in anything.

Sure, machine learning in science and a few other limited applications is fine.

But consumer-facing LLMs and generative "A.i." that are based on theft, push disinfo, and can be manipulated by billionaires?

No.

As you’re preparing for your Thanksgiving meal, remember the skilled work it took to get that food to your grocery store.

Tell us your favorite Thanksgiving dish, and we can share some of what we know about the work behind the ingredients.