Scott D. Strader 😐

@janhoglund@mastodon.nu "I asked a the president of a billion-dollar tech enterprise, what would you teach your sons? He said he wouldn’t teach his children to use AI, because it will prepare them for nothing. He would teach them the humanities. Teach them who we are, who we have been, what we can make. The FT’s Gillian Tett reported that a senior financier’s New York firm now seeks out humanities students, because “AI-native” Stem graduates are entering the job market with “alarmingly shallow ideas”."

@Dougfir@m.ai6yr.org @kim_harding@mastodon.scot Because some humans are social animals even if you don't chat while at the cafe. Ordering a coffee, people-watching while drinking it, having a pastry you otherwise wouldn't have at home, all while out enjoying good weather and out for a walk. There's existing, and then there's living.

@LAG_Netzpolitik_BW@linke.social @palin@mastodon.social From what I've read this has nothing to do with AI, so mysterious-Substack-man might be conflating issues. I'm not sure without being able to read the source. The "Blade Runners" are taking down traffic enforcement cameras because they believe they represent "state overreach and punitive motoring taxes". Sure, AI may be used downstream with that data, but taking photos of license plates is probably the key gripe. https://automology.com/blade-runners-uk-camera-sabotage/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra_Low_Emission_Zone#Vandalism

@petrillic@hachyderm.io @robpike@hachyderm.io The recent Timothy Snyder essay on "Superpower Suicide" was posted/re-posted a lot this weekend. "Empires have risen and failed before, but to my knowledge no state has ever chosen to kill its own power, and succeeded with such rapidity." I hate to be susceptible to trying to make everything-look-like-everything-else but these two rots feel related if not foundationally then at least spiritually. https://snyder.substack.com/p/on-superpower-suicide

@dbattistella@mstdn.ca The binary thought processes of simple minds. First there was no plow; then there was plow.

@yrrsinn @wwahammy @k3ym0 From the article: "The surveillance state runs on volunteers: people who do the implementation work for free, out of genuine conviction, with no paper trail connecting them to the money that wrote the laws."

@xankarn@mastodon.online Holy shit those comments at NYP. I was about to invoke Poe's Law but the earnestness made it clear these people were serious. "Two of the families in my church had one of their kids develop epilepsy instantly after the shot. One of those died. The other is alive, but unable to get going in life. ..." "my mom beat cancer a decade ago. well in 2020-2021 her checkups were not deemed medically necessary ... weeks later she passed." And on and on. Our society is too dumb to exist.

@jeffmcneill @Strandjunker I hate that you beat me to this, but I appreciate that some truths--such as the Old El Paso Taco Girl--are eternal.

@flyingpenguin "The chain has no end. Three documents, all Anthropic, citing each other, with the quantification landing farthest from the technical document that would have to defend it. It is a weirdly short and closed loop." Sounds like a business plan.

@gedankenstuecke@scholar.social @Gusted@social.linux.pizza @fnetX@social.anoxinon.de This is a very thoughtful explanation of Codeberg's position and a really good primer on the negative environmental, social, and cultural repercussions of LLMs in general. I'll be sharing this with some non-technical friends. Thanks.

@anildash@me.dm They treat the open web like they treat the environment. Theirs to conquer and destroy and then define the rules of access for others.

@broadwaybabyto “I never told you in the past because I wasn’t allowed. Now I am.” 😶 I bet he also thinks he has to apologize for being white. My biggest shock is (and this sounds like a dig on you, but it's not) how was he a friend for so long and this didn't come out? How much presumed "assault" on their existence are these angry people suppressing and for how long. Were suppressing.

@Daojoan@mastodon.social This is one of those too-much-quotable-material essays. I'll just take one: "The social media platforms built by people who believed behavioral data was a reliable substitute for understanding human psychology produced a decade of engagement metrics while user wellbeing declined and our entire social order decayed. ... Goodhart's Law exacted its toll." We forget what catastrophe can result from a forced and incorrect model of the world, pushed on us by the powerful.

@ErikJonker I'm seeing a lot of "Lancet is just as bad as pseudoscience because Wakefield" arguments here. Watching Wakefield become the Sokal of modern medical inquiry is some Soviet-level jiujitsu.

@shansterable@ohai.social @CiaraNi@mastodon.green The "kids don't dance" part of the discussion immediately made me think of video artifacts like this (I think more of videos from 70s/80s punk shows, but mutatis mutandis) and--although the fact that the loss of young people being able to experience the freedom of reckless youth is generationally tragic--I feel an equally tragic loss of anthropology. I hate the 80s, and this video is still wonderful.

@jaredwhite That felt a little like Bernie had had many previous conversations with Claude and that, to a certain degree, Claude had his number and knew how to suck up. Even that great pause at the end seemed like a pivot only because it encountered pushback and needed to agree more with Bernie in order to keep him engaged.

@mmiasma@mastodon.sdf.org They must have prompted wrong.

@tzimmer_history It's simple: if there were no protests, people would say "well, I guess everyone's ok with this..."

@faduda There're not enough what the fucks for this story. Again, we'd anticipated the acts of their amorality but still numb when having to actually face the cruelty of those soulless assholes. Let the gods of journalism keep her safe.

@MissConstrue@mefi.social And, as he links to in this article, back in Sep 2024 he predicted it would happen: https://www.wheresyoured.at/subprimeai/

@ClickyMcTicker @madduci @QasimRashid Esquire has an unvarnished report, published two days ago: "The Trump Administration Is Blackmailing Vulnerable Countries into Giving Us Rare Minerals" https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a71138475/zambia-hiv-usaid-minerals-trump/

@jonhendry@iosdev.space @mattblaze@federate.social @kern@iosdev.space All day that quote from him has been cracking me up. It's a ray of sunshine in an otherwise idiotic day.

@thecampbell@mastodon.social @augieray@mastodon.social I would say it's who you would've expected but... well, that doesn't really narrow it down. WaPo: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/08/20/texas-gerrymander-redistricting-midterms-backfire/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/04/22/virginia-gerrymandering-referendum-passes-it-will-take-toll/

@lynnesbian Did Microsoft Office just invent quantum computing?!

@carrideen Jesus Christ that's some bleak McSweeney's shit.

@onepict@chaos.social I've been thinking a lot about Internet Explorer trying to kill/own the web with its IE-only HTML dialect that triggered OCXs back in the day, breaking websites for non-IE browsers. Devs could do so much more if they fell in line, so they did. It's a constant battle.

@nixCraft@mastodon.social I can't believe that this is real. I believe that this is real.

@georgetakei@universeodon.com My spouse (generally well-informed) wasn't aware of that Cornell West bullshit. I told her. She will now tell others. That is sooooo important. People who otherwise should know but don't because "life happened" for justifiable reasons may need to be told. And when told, they will then know and will then pass the warning on to others. This feels important. Don't be quiet.

@ernie@writing.exchange ahhhhh, duh. . Internet Archive is one of the few sites from the Halcyon days of early tech optimism that truly has lived up to what we all dreamt of. Goddamn these corporations

@starlily@mastodon.social @QasimRashid@mastodon.social #IAmVeryIntelligent

RE: https://thepit.social/@peter/115824339431975101 @caseynewton@mastodon.social This is the Mastodon thread where I learned of it: https://masto.ai/@peter@thepit.social/115824339755190396

@ernie@writing.exchange omg I hate to be the lazy non-reseacher, but... I knew of the issue with loaning books, but does "a near-extinction-level event" mean the entire site is under threat?!

@stux@mstdn.social Love what you're doing. Thanks so much!

@inpc Me: this is an hilarious post Also me: why the fuck with the AI smoothing on her face?!?1?

@jensorensen@mastodon.social They'll eventually brand it that way themselves... and then insist it's always been that way and we're just catching up.

@badastro@mastodon.social 1st of all to people who say "bUt SpAcE iS sO bIg AnD sAtElLiTeS aRe SmAlL". stfu. "with 500k in orbit, at least one would contaminate every observation taken by Hubble." 2nd: "These satellites will fail after a few years and will need to be replaced. In the end, upkeep for this notional million-satellite mega constellation could take on the order of 10 Starship launches per day, forever. A single Starship launch emits 76,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent" 3rd: Kessler

@gleick@mas.to Anytime he causes chaos I immediately know that it's simply a way for him to make money and not solely a child's base, reactive impulses. I'm not always sure how he's making money or the breadth of those he's gifted his national security insider trading, but the impetus is money. Thank you for suffering through the details of this latest, and maybe the bleakest, grift.

@Manigarm@mastodon.social Similarly, algorithms aren't flawed because they are gender or racially biased, only the unexamined assumptions of programmers can cause that.

@tante@tldr.nettime.org "Imagine a world where you don't have to wait to buy onions."