Wannabe Apparatchik
@apparatchikwannabe.bsky.social
he/him
History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.
History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.
Reposted by Wannabe Apparatchik
The Atlantic is Atlanticking extremely hard this morning
February 12, 2026 at 4:21 PM
The Atlantic is Atlanticking extremely hard this morning
Reposted by Wannabe Apparatchik
"Your favorite game genre is probably not going to survive capitalism"
I think if someone talks about capitalism as if it were something which has come into existence since the invention of most genres of video game they should not be treated with any respect for their ignorant dumbass opinion.
I think if someone talks about capitalism as if it were something which has come into existence since the invention of most genres of video game they should not be treated with any respect for their ignorant dumbass opinion.
February 12, 2026 at 9:42 AM
"Your favorite game genre is probably not going to survive capitalism"
I think if someone talks about capitalism as if it were something which has come into existence since the invention of most genres of video game they should not be treated with any respect for their ignorant dumbass opinion.
I think if someone talks about capitalism as if it were something which has come into existence since the invention of most genres of video game they should not be treated with any respect for their ignorant dumbass opinion.
Reposted by Wannabe Apparatchik
When people read current writing on immigration a few decades from now, it'll hit the same as a reading the way people wrote about "the Jewish problem" in the 1930s. Just loads of well-educated and seemingly normal people accepting a monstrous normative frame as though it's natural.
really interesting to me how many professional political commentators have basically retconned the draconian immigration enforcement policies of Obama and Biden out of existence and have completely swallowed the right wing narrative of immigration enforcement
Not going to read them all because jesus fucking christ but this is nasty work from Friedersdorf
February 12, 2026 at 4:48 PM
When people read current writing on immigration a few decades from now, it'll hit the same as a reading the way people wrote about "the Jewish problem" in the 1930s. Just loads of well-educated and seemingly normal people accepting a monstrous normative frame as though it's natural.
Reposted by Wannabe Apparatchik
The “us manufacturing renaissance” remains greatly exaggerated
“.. US manufacturing accounted for 11% of GDP before this one-man war on trade began in 2018. By the second quarter of 2025, manufacturing had shrunk to 9.4% of GDP.” 👀
February 12, 2026 at 4:45 PM
The “us manufacturing renaissance” remains greatly exaggerated
Reposted by Wannabe Apparatchik
Biden actually did a lot more border enforcement but as usual the Biden presidency either existed or did not to suit whatever point is being made
Not going to read them all because jesus fucking christ but this is nasty work from Friedersdorf
February 12, 2026 at 4:47 PM
Biden actually did a lot more border enforcement but as usual the Biden presidency either existed or did not to suit whatever point is being made
Reposted by Wannabe Apparatchik
you don’t have a secret cure to aging, you simply are aging and have a fortune that many people around you would like a piece of
February 12, 2026 at 12:29 PM
you don’t have a secret cure to aging, you simply are aging and have a fortune that many people around you would like a piece of
Reposted by Wannabe Apparatchik
one thing that makes you understand how the world really works is hearing about medical treatments rich people get to treat ailments that science does not actually regard as treatable.
maybe they know something we don’t, but a better explanation is they don’t know little but have a lot of money
maybe they know something we don’t, but a better explanation is they don’t know little but have a lot of money
Rich people think they live in a higher tier of society full of better and more brilliant people, but it’s actually just the same society except the people have more money to waste and lose. So much of what they do is just wealth-induced hallucination
February 12, 2026 at 12:28 PM
one thing that makes you understand how the world really works is hearing about medical treatments rich people get to treat ailments that science does not actually regard as treatable.
maybe they know something we don’t, but a better explanation is they don’t know little but have a lot of money
maybe they know something we don’t, but a better explanation is they don’t know little but have a lot of money
Reposted by Wannabe Apparatchik
A very nasty bit of slight-of-hand is that they now completely ignore the actual question of "security" or "enforcement" and have adopted fully the Trump/Vance grievances about TPS and asylum. The narrative isn't about the border anymore or "legality", it's about undesirable racial populations.
really interesting to me how many professional political commentators have basically retconned the draconian immigration enforcement policies of Obama and Biden out of existence and have completely swallowed the right wing narrative of immigration enforcement
Not going to read them all because jesus fucking christ but this is nasty work from Friedersdorf
February 12, 2026 at 4:37 PM
A very nasty bit of slight-of-hand is that they now completely ignore the actual question of "security" or "enforcement" and have adopted fully the Trump/Vance grievances about TPS and asylum. The narrative isn't about the border anymore or "legality", it's about undesirable racial populations.
Reposted by Wannabe Apparatchik
(i don’t have a grok account, to be clear
i am just accessing the model
also, keep in mind that Grok *on the app where Dort probably uses it* has psychotic instructions
i absolutely think he generates this stuff. holy shit
i am just accessing the model
also, keep in mind that Grok *on the app where Dort probably uses it* has psychotic instructions
i absolutely think he generates this stuff. holy shit
February 12, 2026 at 3:13 AM
(i don’t have a grok account, to be clear
i am just accessing the model
also, keep in mind that Grok *on the app where Dort probably uses it* has psychotic instructions
i absolutely think he generates this stuff. holy shit
i am just accessing the model
also, keep in mind that Grok *on the app where Dort probably uses it* has psychotic instructions
i absolutely think he generates this stuff. holy shit
Reposted by Wannabe Apparatchik
Good news: there's no durable majority for fascism
Bad news: we are locked in a life or death struggle against fascism and our victory depends on people with less understanding of how the world functions than my 14-month old
Bad news: we are locked in a life or death struggle against fascism and our victory depends on people with less understanding of how the world functions than my 14-month old
New poll: In 2024, low-engagement voters went for Trump over Harris by 11 percentage points. But now they disapprove of the way he's handling the presidency by 13. They have moved 25 points against Trump — 2x as large as the shift for high-knowledge voters www.gelliottmorris.com/p/trump-lost...
Trump has lost the voters who weren’t paying attention in 2024
The least-engaged Americans have swung 25 points against him since 2024 — about twice the shift among everyone else. Trump has flattened the engagement gap.
www.gelliottmorris.com
February 12, 2026 at 3:01 PM
Good news: there's no durable majority for fascism
Bad news: we are locked in a life or death struggle against fascism and our victory depends on people with less understanding of how the world functions than my 14-month old
Bad news: we are locked in a life or death struggle against fascism and our victory depends on people with less understanding of how the world functions than my 14-month old
Reposted by Wannabe Apparatchik
For the record, this is my position on the Constitution
February 12, 2026 at 3:56 PM
For the record, this is my position on the Constitution
Reposted by Wannabe Apparatchik
there may be some very rare contexts in which homeschooling is preferable but for the vast, vast majority of people, you should not be taking your child out of the public school system.
February 12, 2026 at 2:57 PM
there may be some very rare contexts in which homeschooling is preferable but for the vast, vast majority of people, you should not be taking your child out of the public school system.
Reposted by Wannabe Apparatchik
Media: We can‘t just make people care about a story. You simply lack the savvy to understand electoral politics.
Also Media: Dumb whore’s email server heroically leaked by Russia. Real Americans in Ohio greasy spoon outraged.
Also Media: Dumb whore’s email server heroically leaked by Russia. Real Americans in Ohio greasy spoon outraged.
Wow, almost like the media and journalism profession failed in some sort of professional duty to actually inform these low-engagement voters about what Trump was saying he wanted to do and the consequences of those plans.
There is a moral-failure-of-the-voters here, but it's not the only one.
There is a moral-failure-of-the-voters here, but it's not the only one.
New poll: In 2024, low-engagement voters went for Trump over Harris by 11 percentage points. But now they disapprove of the way he's handling the presidency by 13. They have moved 25 points against Trump — 2x as large as the shift for high-knowledge voters www.gelliottmorris.com/p/trump-lost...
February 12, 2026 at 3:03 PM
Media: We can‘t just make people care about a story. You simply lack the savvy to understand electoral politics.
Also Media: Dumb whore’s email server heroically leaked by Russia. Real Americans in Ohio greasy spoon outraged.
Also Media: Dumb whore’s email server heroically leaked by Russia. Real Americans in Ohio greasy spoon outraged.
Reposted by Wannabe Apparatchik
sam altman raped his sister and she went to the news about it and he said he didn't and that was the end of that
February 12, 2026 at 7:53 AM
sam altman raped his sister and she went to the news about it and he said he didn't and that was the end of that
Reposted by Wannabe Apparatchik
firing her for reverse discrimination is just raw Trumpist hubris by a guy who sexually abused his sister
Wait really? That might no shit be one of the most evil acts I’ve ever heard of a company committing.
February 12, 2026 at 7:49 AM
firing her for reverse discrimination is just raw Trumpist hubris by a guy who sexually abused his sister
Reposted by Wannabe Apparatchik
they fired the OpenAI product policy VP for "sexually discriminating against a male colleague" after she opposed reorienting the product towards porn. having seen precision/recall numbers for large production abuse systems you do not want to tune for precision.
February 12, 2026 at 7:40 AM
they fired the OpenAI product policy VP for "sexually discriminating against a male colleague" after she opposed reorienting the product towards porn. having seen precision/recall numbers for large production abuse systems you do not want to tune for precision.
Reposted by Wannabe Apparatchik
it helps a lot in the Nepal cases that these objects were illegally acquired from communities where they were on public display for veneration in the first place, and so they can be restored to their original function relatively cleanly and easily to everyone's benefit
February 12, 2026 at 3:38 PM
it helps a lot in the Nepal cases that these objects were illegally acquired from communities where they were on public display for veneration in the first place, and so they can be restored to their original function relatively cleanly and easily to everyone's benefit
Reposted by Wannabe Apparatchik
(contrast the Nepal Heritage Recovery Campaign, for instance, which has a much stronger record of success in managing returned pieces)
February 12, 2026 at 3:23 PM
(contrast the Nepal Heritage Recovery Campaign, for instance, which has a much stronger record of success in managing returned pieces)
Reposted by Wannabe Apparatchik
the restoration has been a total fucking mess that has gotten mired in corruption and left these pieces entirely out of the public eye, with many likely returning to the art black market
www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte...
www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte...
Restitution row: how Nigeria’s new home for the Benin bronzes ended up with clay replicas
The public display of artefacts looted by British colonial forces at the new Museum of West African Art was supposed to be the crowning glory of a decades-long restitution effort. What went wrong?
www.theguardian.com
February 12, 2026 at 3:21 PM
the restoration has been a total fucking mess that has gotten mired in corruption and left these pieces entirely out of the public eye, with many likely returning to the art black market
www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte...
www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte...
Reposted by Wannabe Apparatchik
a lot of people, even if they consiously reject the premise, express a view that when distilled amounts to the idea that ai will just go away because it doesnt work
and im sorry but thats not true. revenge porn apps marketed to highschoolers via IG are extremely popular prescisely bc they “work”
and im sorry but thats not true. revenge porn apps marketed to highschoolers via IG are extremely popular prescisely bc they “work”
February 12, 2026 at 3:10 PM
a lot of people, even if they consiously reject the premise, express a view that when distilled amounts to the idea that ai will just go away because it doesnt work
and im sorry but thats not true. revenge porn apps marketed to highschoolers via IG are extremely popular prescisely bc they “work”
and im sorry but thats not true. revenge porn apps marketed to highschoolers via IG are extremely popular prescisely bc they “work”
Reposted by Wannabe Apparatchik
another soldier lost to The People online misunderstanding descriptive vs normative
I confess I do not understand why “the left should prepare for the worst case scenario with AI and jobs” seems to have elicited such a strong negative reaction bsky.app/profile/chri...
I understand why people are exhausted by AI hype, and why those of us squarely in the corner of "human dignity uber alles" see AI doomerism as self-serving hype, but I *really* think people on the left broadly need to start thinking seriously about the possibiltiy of the hype being...true.
February 12, 2026 at 3:04 PM
another soldier lost to The People online misunderstanding descriptive vs normative
Reposted by Wannabe Apparatchik
There should be a national database with the full name and face of every ICE and CBP agent who served in the Trump 2.0 period and every other participant (from any US govt, state, or local service, or private contractors) in the abuses ICE and CBP have committed.
Some children in Dilley were so distraught they cut themselves or talked about suicide, parents told ProPublica.
They said kids lost their appetites after finding worms and mold on their food, had trouble sleeping, and were constantly sick.
They said kids lost their appetites after finding worms and mold on their food, had trouble sleeping, and were constantly sick.
The Kids Trump Sent to ICE’s Dilley Detention Center
ProPublica went inside the immigrant detention center for families in Dilley, Texas. Children held there told us about the anguish of being ripped from their lives in the United States and the fear of...
www.propublica.org
February 12, 2026 at 3:13 PM
There should be a national database with the full name and face of every ICE and CBP agent who served in the Trump 2.0 period and every other participant (from any US govt, state, or local service, or private contractors) in the abuses ICE and CBP have committed.
Reposted by Wannabe Apparatchik
A self-defeating measure for a society in decline
February 12, 2026 at 1:47 PM
A self-defeating measure for a society in decline
Reposted by Wannabe Apparatchik
Now: It is too early to speculate, and certainly there are many subtle nuances to this that strident identity-politics warriors such as myself cannot understand, but could this whole thing be... about gender????
Fuentes, yesterday: “Our #1 political enemy is women because women constrain everything, every conversation, every man, everything. They have to be imprisoned. They are the ones that are hurting the fertility rate. They're the ones making us sympathetic to poor people, which are also brown people.”
Nick Fuentes: “The number one political enemy in America is women. … They have to be imprisoned.”
www.mediamatters.org
February 12, 2026 at 2:22 PM
Now: It is too early to speculate, and certainly there are many subtle nuances to this that strident identity-politics warriors such as myself cannot understand, but could this whole thing be... about gender????
Reposted by Wannabe Apparatchik
As I sit here, high atop ANTIFA Tower, located somewhere in Minneapolis this season (it moves, Howl's was a documentary), stroking my fluffy white cat, I worry: What if Will tells the feds where the giant tower is?
February 12, 2026 at 2:03 PM
As I sit here, high atop ANTIFA Tower, located somewhere in Minneapolis this season (it moves, Howl's was a documentary), stroking my fluffy white cat, I worry: What if Will tells the feds where the giant tower is?