i just learned that my @Inoreader will AI-read-aloud arbitrary RSS feeds. hmm.

“It's no wonder that Zuck thinks that chatbots can replace our friends… At some foundational level, he thinks we are all chatbots” @pluralistic https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/18/seeing-like-a-billionaire/ ht @carolannie

sociopathy is a full time occupation, and it does require staff.

opposites are alike in most ways. hot and cold are both temperatures, have much more in common with one another than they have with green or tall.

and so it is with human adversaries. the bitterest of enemies are always more alike than different.

what has hurt stack overflow more, “cozywebification” (discord, etc) or “ask AI”?

@dpp @petrillic at this point, i’ll say i’ve no idea. by traditional metrics, yes, it’s a bubble, but it has been for a long time.

crypto has proven, though, that assets can fly strictly on game theory for a long time, and crypto doesn’t (well, ‘til recently hasn’t) enjoyed the tacit but assertive backing of the economic policy apparatus.

i’d agree most likely collapse scenarios would see both crypto and equities plummeting, but there are also flight-from-USD scenarios that might favor crypto.

i wish the correlation between exhaustion and ability to sleep were stronger.

Congratulations! You are invited to apply.

distinctions btw money and equity and debt are much more a spectrum, a continuum, then we mostly acknowledge, and tremendous good could be done developing instruments between currently conventional points along this spectrum. see #WillBeaman https://moneyontheleft.org/2025/08/13/blue-bonds-duck-or-rabbit/ ht @jwmason

i mean, who would you go to for advice on how to run free and fair elections?

so many AI videos are just the marketing of marketing.

@Phil @adamgurri Yes. But we improve on nature. In a state of nature, you and I both would almost certainly be dead. (I’ll be 55 soon.)

We do, as a society, have to work. But the terms on which we work and organize the proceeds (for humans it is always a “we”, even on the savannah, our survival is as a group) are negotiable and improvable. A good society, like the Nordics, both ensures individuals have a lot of choice and control over how they work, and succeeds in engendering abundant work.

@Phil @adamgurri labor force participation is higher in the Nordics than it is the United States. you can have a society where people understand they are getting a fair deal even as some of the value of their labor is shared. they don’t sulk away, do nothing, choose to be poor.

@Phil @adamgurri the vast majority of business regulation is local. but some regulation does need to be Federal.

@Phil @adamgurri now you sound like a Marxist.

if an employer sells my work product for $10 and pays me only $5, am I 50% a slave?

not if I have a reasonable option to take another gig or not to work at all. if labor markets are really competitive, you could argue i’m paid the maximum owners can afford. but they usually are not, usually owners are extracting substantial “surplus value”.

doesn’t render the work slavery, if workers have meaningful alternative choices. you do.

@Phil @adamgurri many of the highest margins are in the least regulated industries (unless you view intellectual property law as regulation). you don’t need government for predators to acquire market power. you do need government if you want any hope of addressing it.

@Phil @adamgurri I hope the subsequent 37 have been longer and so, so much better. (Although not, like, paradisiacal. We’d not have the benefit of your orneriness if it was all roses and angel’s wings.)