Pluralistic: Google’s new phones can’t stop phoning home (08 Oct 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
The scandal of food waste and how we can stop it
The long read: Every informed observer agrees that food waste and loss must be reduced if we are to feed all humans. What’s stopping us?
Pluralistic: China hacked Verizon, AT&T and Lumen using the FBI’s backdoor (07 Oct 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
How did the GOP become the party of cranks, crackpots, and fruitcakes?
Friends,
Pluralistic: Prime’s enshittified advertising (03 Oct 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People
The astonishing story of how a movement’s quest for rural simplicity drifted into a formula for mass death By George Monbiot, published on monbiot.com, 4th October 2023 Tourism sells to you the story of what it has taken away. It markets the “traditional” and “unchanging” and, in doing so, changes it. As the old joke…
It’s Time to Stop Taking Sam Altman at His Word
Understand AI for what it is, not what it might become.
Why trolls, extremists, and others spread conspiracy theories they don’t believe - Ars Technica
Some just want to promote conflict, cause chaos, or even just get attention.
What the Heck Is Going On At OpenAI?
As executives flee with warnings of danger, the company says it will plow ahead.
Supercon 2023: [Cory Doctorow] With An Audacious Plan To Halt The Internet’s Enshittification And Throw It Into Reverse
Those of us old enough to remember BBS servers or even rainbow banners often go down the nostalgia hole about how the internet was better “back in the day” than it is now as a handful o…
Pluralistic: Everyday homeowners are human shields for Wall Street’s Internet of Shit slumlords (01 Oct 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Making a Vote Forward checklist
In How and why to write letters to voters I discussed Vote Forward, my favorite way for those of us who aren’t in swing states to reach out to voters in swing states. The site works really we…
Sean Combs - Wikipedia
Sean John Combs, also known by his stage names Diddy, Puff Daddy, and P. Diddy, is an American rapper, record producer, and record executive. A three-time Grammy Award winner, he is credited with the discovery and development of musical artists including the Notorious B.I.G., Mary J. Blige, and Usher. In September 2024, he was arrested on charges of racketeering, sex trafficking by force, and transportation for purposes of prostitution.
Your School Doesn't Have Clean Air Because that Money Was Spent on Yachts, Sports Cars, Drones, and Armored Vehicles.
It's the biggest fraud in modern history.
How Extreme Weather Enables Voter Suppression
On primary election day in Arizona, voters cast ballots in 110-degree heat.
"Area of interest" is the portrayal of guilt
By: Fatma Aydemir / The Guardian Translation: Telegrafi.com There is something uncomfortable when you sit in a German theater and laugh at the Nazis. How disturbing it is depends on the type of humor that causes the laughter. Is it intended to separate the audience from the stage action, or does the laughter stem from worry...
Loneliness Is A Communal Experience In 'Seek You'
Kristen Radtke's Seek You looks at isolation as a problem — and investigates where it comes from, how it shapes us, and why we should battle against it.
OCTOBER SURPRISE
The Month When Evil Elves Get Very Busy
I don't have LinkedIn
Why is US health care like this?
America unintentionally built a health care system that is hard to fix.
The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age | The Walrus
Why are we letting algorithms rewrite the rules of art, work, and life?
I investigated millions of tweets from the Kremlin’s ‘troll factory’ and discovered classic propaganda techniques reimagined for the social media age
Tailored messaging, repeated exposure, and false grassroots campaigns are classic propaganda techniques, now used widely by state-back trolls.
What Right-Libertarians Fail to Grasp About the Last 100 Years
At Foundation for Economic Education, Preston Brashers — commenting on a statement by Bernie Sanders that this country can’t afford a billionaire class which is at war with working families — replied (“What the Socialist Left Fails to Grasp about Wealth and Innovation in America,” June 28): But when you consider the vital economic activities...
AI Safety Culture Confronts Capitalism
SB1047’s veto, OpenAI’s turnover, and a constant treadmill pushing AI startups to be all too similar to big technology name brands.
OpenAI Is A Bad Business
OpenAI, a non-profit AI company that will lose anywhere from $4 billion to $5 billion this year, will at some point in the next six or so months convert into a for-profit AI company, at which point it will continue to lose money in exactly the same way. Shortly after
Soil to bury our dead
I was on the treadmill when all of the TVs at Planet Fitness switched to coverage of Iran's strike on Israel. I'd never seen them do that kind of thing before. Even the ones that usually show commercials for Planet Fitness while you're at Planet Fitness. Almost all of them
Eight Scientists, a Billion Dollars, and the Moonshot Agency Trying to Make Britain Great Again
The Advanced Research and Invention Agency—ARIA—is the UK's answer to Darpa. But can it put the country back on the scientific map?
Hurricane Helene Shows How Broken the US Insurance System Is
Many homeowners in North Carolina won’t be insured against flooding or landslides due to the fragmented way in which disasters are covered.
Pluralistic: Epic Systems, a lethal health record monopolist (02 Oct 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Jumpstart: The fight over how to spend Seattle’s big-business tax
Mayor Harrell has proposed redirecting more than half the 2025 Jumpstart revenue to balance the city budget. But how has it been spent in the past?