quite a price difference, apple books.
(tbf it's similar from other sources.)
Screenshot of Apple Books pricing of "The Myth of Coequal Branches". e-book is $44.99, audiobook is $17.99.
Screenshot of Apple Books pricing of "The Myth of Coequal Branches". e-book is $44.99, audiobook is $17.99.
under this definition, hasn't Congress — the most important branch of the Federal government — been under "competitive authoritarianism" for decades?
see e.g. https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/reelection-rates
from #StevenLevitsky #LucanAhmendWay https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/path-american-authoritarianism-trump
ht @williamcb.bsky.social @casmudde.bsky.social
Text: But authoritarianism does not require the destruction of the constitutional order. What lies ahead is not fascist or single-party dictatorship but competitive authoritarianism—a system in which parties compete in elections but the incumbent’s abuse of power tilts the playing field against the opposition. Most autocracies that have emerged since the end of the Cold War fall into this category, including Alberto Fujimori’s Peru, Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela, and contemporary El Salvador, Hungary, India, Tunisia, and Turkey. Under competitive authoritarianism, the formal architecture of democracy, including multiparty elections, remains intact. Opposition forces are legal and aboveground, and they contest seriously for power. Elections are often fiercely contested battles in which incumbents have to sweat it out. And once in a while, incumbents lose, as they did in Malaysia in 2018 and in Poland in 2023. But the system is not democratic, because incumbents rig the game by deploying the machinery of government to attack opponents and co-opt critics. Competition is real but unfair.
from @Chronotope https://aramzs.xyz/thoughts/roost-must-prove-itself-good-thats-a-reasonable-request/
Text: It is reasonable to ask if this is the right approach at all. Should we be building tools to try and moderate at huge scale, even though moderating at scale has generally proven to be an impossible task to get fully right, and the training of models is expensive and bad for the climate? Hasn't the last decade proven to us that moderating at massive scale isn't just a technical problem but a market capture one? Once we have big scale and standard tools these platforms no longer are reliably on the side of the people subject to them. The incentives for both the users and the owners no longer align with good moderation. I suspect that others, like myself, can't help but imagine a better use for the money standing up Roost. Especially when money for media and community is tighter than it has ever been and getting more sparse with each executive order. Would it be a better use of this money to support and fund smaller online communities? Ones who might not even need these types of tools?
if you wanna know why current US authorities may come after Internet Archive, here's an example of the kind of history they might like erased https://www.muskwatch.com/p/doge-teen-ran-image-sharing-site
the United States is too small and fragile a basket for the Internet Archive to keep all our history in.
the part of the Federal government that is most dysfunctional and in need of radical change is Congress. it has been optimized for job security and internal stability at the expense of effective governance.
but the only take on electoral reform from this administration is Trump should have a 3rd term.
@Mojeek so i'd like to transition my mobile (iphone) search to your app, but the problem i have is that when i find something, i often want to copy the URL to share, or save an image i've found to Photos, and i haven't figured out how reliably to do those things. i feel like i must be dumb, but i've had a hard time with these things and end up twitching back to Gulf of America.
people don't like their franchise transgressed, i guess. it's fun when accusations of "judicial coup" issue from the people pursuing the more old fashioned kind.
@ShiitakeToast i’m friends with some of them. it’s difficult. “mistake the country’s failures for its goals” is an excellent summary.
on the anti-US-imperialist left (“tankies”), i wonder if part of Trump’s appeal, perhaps only semiconsciously, is that he’d be openly as bad as they were always sure the United States always was. they’d be proven right, and no more of what they perceived as hypocritical sanctimony.
“We’re gonna shit in the swamp!”
this is like a cartoon where the legion of doom wins and takes over the world.
in the cartoon such moments are always brief interregna. may life imitate art.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/10/trump-order-foreign-bribery-act
ht @T0nyyates
the George Carlin bit is gonna be really catchy. https://mas.to/@markwyner/113984319867071750
i put a few bucks in the freezer and i don't see what the big deal is.
Please take the stakeholder survey.
without comment.
source: https://xcancel.com/ggreenwald/status/1888965357714416072
Screenshot of tweet from Glenn Greenwald: Text: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is one of the very few tools ordinary Americans have to fight against the onslaught of abuses from massive corporate power. How is it consistent with the stated MAGA agenda to empower ordinary Americans to cripple it or shut it down?
"While it appears that it has never been easier for anyone to freely share their opinions with the world, the apparatus that shapes the public’s thoughts and sentiments has never been in the hands of fewer men. (And yes, they are all men.)" #JohnGanz https://www.thenation.com/article/society/last-days-discourse-electronic-plebescite/
"The pattern here is impossible to miss: Take money from USAID, sabotage their Ukraine efforts, face investigation, launch an attack on the agency’s credibility, use your newfound illegitimate government power to shut it down, and cap it off by amplifying Russian disinformation about USAID." @mmasnick https://www.techdirt.com/2025/02/10/as-elon-musk-continues-to-repeat-lies-about-who-and-what-usaid-funded-turns-out-it-funded-elon-musk/ ht @glynmoody @onepict
@Linux_Is_Best@misskey.de i think the correlation between “asshole” or sociopathy and extraordinary “success” under current institutions is very strong and positive.
the puzzle, the outliers we need to learn from, are when decent people extravagantly succeed.
i kind of hate when people talk about "tech" because if you asked people who they think the worst people in the world are, people like Musk and Andreeson would be dramatically disproportionate on lists named by programmers.
the NRx and TESCREAL bullshit subsists within a rich, powerful sliver of the tech community. there is a reason why those motherfuckers hate their workforces so much. most workers welcome their hatred, but fear losing their jobs.