“The point of Open-Source isn’t and has never been ‘source available’. That’s just a prerequisite and a nice to have. The purpose has always been giving users the freedom to use for whatever purpose, or to fork the software, which in turn translates to lower development costs for the software makers.” @alexelcu https://alexn.org/blog/2024/09/06/trusting-open-source/

“This absurd both-sidesing is inherent to our terrible journalism culture but there is also something else going on here. Even with Harris in the race, Trump still has a ~45% chance of winning it all. If he does win, these journos don’t want to be on the “enemies” list. And there will be an enemies list this time around for sure if Trump does take the prize.” #Chill #quoderat #EpiceneCyborg https://www.technologyasnature.com/2024/09/06/president-evil/

Since Trump is a narcissist, he assumes the more that people see him, the more they will like him, so he’s unafraid of ad-libbing. In fact he’s terrible, but still his “indiscipline” communicates a kind of openness, he his what he is he has nothing to hide.

Kamala’s campaign is professional, “disciplined”. Which does prevent potentially costly gaffes! But the public does perceive the stage management, knows she is not “letting it all hang out”, wonders then if she might have something to hide.

one flew over a (privatized) cuckoo’s nest. https://x.com/moreperfectus/status/1832055707908370915

i liked it better when “the facts of life” referred to sex stuff.

if you vote early or by mail, but then die before election day, does/should your vote count?

netanyahu and sinwar have gotten exactly what they wanted all along. it’s only everybody else who suffers.

Given the news about Tenet Media — a DoJ indictment alleges $10M in secret Russian funding to support people like Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, Lauren Southern, etc — has anyone looked into the possibility that Substack subscriptions to very lucrative newsletters may not reflect organic subscribers, but may be sock-puppeted by sponsors interested in financing sympathetic media personalities?

A good piece on tensions btw democracy at a human scale and the mass/social-media circuses “Our Democracy” has become at a national level.

Person-to-person interaction is the core and essence of a democratic polity. Democracy is an ethos of mutual respect and curiosity. Inevitable institutional imperfections will be more than sufficient to break it if you don’t have that. “Professional” is to politics as it is to wrestling. by #WillStancil https://www.offmessage.net/p/what-i-learned-running-for-office-stancil ht @ryanlcooper

It’s only been 16 hours, AT&T. Np.

reading lol is not as infectious as hearing you lol.

was it a pivot or a flip-flop?

in Russia as in the West, the people at the top of the social pecking order become obsessed with life extension research. people used to getting whatever they want still face mortality like the least of us. they do not like it. http://www.rferl.org/a/33104121.html ht @SocraticEthics

“Predicting the future is almost impossible, but one of the few predictions that I feel very confident in is that, a century or so down the road, people will look at modern car-centric America with the same disgust that we feel when we hear about old timey cities without modern sewage systems, where everyone just dumped their chamber pots in the street.” #HamiltonNolan https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/cars-have-fucked-up-this-country

“All this is leading to the emergence of new economic divides between those who control the means of summarization, and those whose properties or livelihood risks being summarized into effective non-existence. Large swathes of our old political economy risk being torn up at the roots, as maps infect the territories they delineate.” @henryfarrell https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/the-political-economy-of-ai ht @ryanlcooper

we are always in collapse. we are always in renewal. it’s all about adjusting the relative pace.

[new draft post] Income driven repayment of fixed capital https://drafts.interfluidity.com/2024/09/04/income-driven-repayment-of-fixed-capital/index.html

Can you be a bad-faith actor if you don’t know you are a bad-faith actor?

A good industrial policy endows competitive industries, not national champions.

#economics

“Generative models support the idea that the ‘completed page’ is a commodity, whose value is in what someone else pays for it and not in the subjective experience of whoever produced it or consumed it.” @robhorning https://robhorning.substack.com/p/commodified-incuriosity