Unproductive Radical 🇵🇸
@jstscottthings.bsky.social
He/him, occasional writer, even less occasional musician.
Reposted by Unproductive Radical 🇵🇸
there's that now-famous internet line about how climate change means watching clips of climate disasters on people's phones until you're the one filming it, and it feels like there's some parallel about watching fascist deportation goon squad videos until it's filmed on the streets you recognize
November 26, 2025 at 4:24 AM
there's that now-famous internet line about how climate change means watching clips of climate disasters on people's phones until you're the one filming it, and it feels like there's some parallel about watching fascist deportation goon squad videos until it's filmed on the streets you recognize
Reposted by Unproductive Radical 🇵🇸
"Generative AI is just like calculators and people criticised them too!!!!"
NO
www.instagram.com/reel/DRQAZDj...
NO
www.instagram.com/reel/DRQAZDj...
November 25, 2025 at 8:10 AM
"Generative AI is just like calculators and people criticised them too!!!!"
NO
www.instagram.com/reel/DRQAZDj...
NO
www.instagram.com/reel/DRQAZDj...
Reposted by Unproductive Radical 🇵🇸
Reposted by Unproductive Radical 🇵🇸
“Meta shut down internal research into the mental health effects of Facebook after finding causal evidence that its products harmed users’ mental health, according to unredacted filings in a lawsuit by U.S. school districts against Meta and other social media platforms.”
Meta buried 'causal' evidence of social media harm, US court filings allege - The Economic Times
Meta reportedly halted internal research into the mental health impacts of Facebook and Instagram after finding causal evidence of harm. Internal documents revealed users reported lower depression and...
m.economictimes.com
November 23, 2025 at 4:46 PM
“Meta shut down internal research into the mental health effects of Facebook after finding causal evidence that its products harmed users’ mental health, according to unredacted filings in a lawsuit by U.S. school districts against Meta and other social media platforms.”
Reposted by Unproductive Radical 🇵🇸
She sees your fandom as affirmation, your money as funding for the harm she causes to trans people.
It doesn't matter how you feel about her work, whether it was a formative touchstone or not. If you still buy the merch or hype up Harry Potter, you are complicit.
It doesn't matter how you feel about her work, whether it was a formative touchstone or not. If you still buy the merch or hype up Harry Potter, you are complicit.
Hey yall not what I wanted to do on my birthday but let it be clear
"Death of the artist" is all well & good but you cannot Seperate the art from the artist when the artist is still alive, a terf & every penny they recieve reinforces their beliefs & is used to actively harm Trans folks!
Let it Go!
"Death of the artist" is all well & good but you cannot Seperate the art from the artist when the artist is still alive, a terf & every penny they recieve reinforces their beliefs & is used to actively harm Trans folks!
Let it Go!
'Harry Potter' author J.K. Rowling says 'a ton' of fans are 'still with me' after trans remarks
J.K. Rowling addressed her controversial comments about transgender women on 'The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling' podcast, saying many 'Harry Potter' fans were 'grateful that I'd said what I said,' and ...
share.google
November 23, 2025 at 3:01 PM
She sees your fandom as affirmation, your money as funding for the harm she causes to trans people.
It doesn't matter how you feel about her work, whether it was a formative touchstone or not. If you still buy the merch or hype up Harry Potter, you are complicit.
It doesn't matter how you feel about her work, whether it was a formative touchstone or not. If you still buy the merch or hype up Harry Potter, you are complicit.
Reposted by Unproductive Radical 🇵🇸
Journalist challenge: Use “Machine Learning” when you mean machine learning and “LLM” when you mean LLM. Ditch “AI” as a catch-all term, it’s not useful for readers and it helps companies trying to confuse the public by obscuring the roles played by different technologies. 🧪
November 22, 2025 at 4:50 PM
Journalist challenge: Use “Machine Learning” when you mean machine learning and “LLM” when you mean LLM. Ditch “AI” as a catch-all term, it’s not useful for readers and it helps companies trying to confuse the public by obscuring the roles played by different technologies. 🧪
Reposted by Unproductive Radical 🇵🇸
Reposted by Unproductive Radical 🇵🇸
‘Around a quarter of all clothing manufactured is never sold, and the rates of return within the refund window can be as high as 50 per cent. Most of this unwanted stock is buried or burned.’
@brettchristophers.bsky.social on why we can’t get rid of our waste.
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
@brettchristophers.bsky.social on why we can’t get rid of our waste.
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Brett Christophers · Assume the worst: Where our waste goes
Just as Big Oil has repeatedly failed to deliver on pledges to begin decarbonising, so too the promises of plastics...
www.lrb.co.uk
November 22, 2025 at 6:30 PM
‘Around a quarter of all clothing manufactured is never sold, and the rates of return within the refund window can be as high as 50 per cent. Most of this unwanted stock is buried or burned.’
@brettchristophers.bsky.social on why we can’t get rid of our waste.
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
@brettchristophers.bsky.social on why we can’t get rid of our waste.
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Reposted by Unproductive Radical 🇵🇸
Regret to report that there has been another good linkedin post
November 22, 2025 at 11:18 AM
Regret to report that there has been another good linkedin post
Something that will annoy me when AI goes belly up over the next day/week/month/year is that it being financially unsustainable was not a common enough critique because there were so many other very pressing critiques of it and yet it still was 40% of US GDP
November 22, 2025 at 4:33 AM
Something that will annoy me when AI goes belly up over the next day/week/month/year is that it being financially unsustainable was not a common enough critique because there were so many other very pressing critiques of it and yet it still was 40% of US GDP
Almost verbatim what one of the Squid Game competitors says
it's actually really good our stock is down $500 billion, you fool, you absolute simpleton
www.businessinsider.com/jensen-huang...
www.businessinsider.com/jensen-huang...
November 22, 2025 at 4:31 AM
Almost verbatim what one of the Squid Game competitors says
Reposted by Unproductive Radical 🇵🇸
When you default to assuming you're in the sky not on the ground.
I hate this sort of meme.
“The only difference between the parties is whether the power to destroy human civilization rests in the hands of leaders who think gays, women, and black people should have their rights acknowledged.”
Even if true, how is Rainbow B-52 not infinitely preferable?
“The only difference between the parties is whether the power to destroy human civilization rests in the hands of leaders who think gays, women, and black people should have their rights acknowledged.”
Even if true, how is Rainbow B-52 not infinitely preferable?
November 21, 2025 at 12:23 AM
When you default to assuming you're in the sky not on the ground.
Reposted by Unproductive Radical 🇵🇸
Imagine a country so delightfully fucked up that our entire history has been about adjudicating, “when you said ‘all men are created equal,’ exactly why doesn’t that apply to me?”
November 21, 2025 at 1:01 AM
Imagine a country so delightfully fucked up that our entire history has been about adjudicating, “when you said ‘all men are created equal,’ exactly why doesn’t that apply to me?”
Reposted by Unproductive Radical 🇵🇸
Reposted by Unproductive Radical 🇵🇸
This is the problem with trying to inspire hope using the message "we have the solutions": such a message may inspire the kind of techno-optimism that actually fosters political *dis*engagement.
1/n
1/n
⚠️ When “technology will save us” becomes a climate risk!
A new paper from great colleagues takes a careful look at techno-optimism — the belief that technology will largely solve climate change — and what it means for real-world climate action.
(1/4)👇
osf.io/preprints/ps...
A new paper from great colleagues takes a careful look at techno-optimism — the belief that technology will largely solve climate change — and what it means for real-world climate action.
(1/4)👇
osf.io/preprints/ps...
November 19, 2025 at 7:32 PM
This is the problem with trying to inspire hope using the message "we have the solutions": such a message may inspire the kind of techno-optimism that actually fosters political *dis*engagement.
1/n
1/n
Reposted by Unproductive Radical 🇵🇸
The people who make Shein's clothes labor for ten to twelve hours per day (in violation of China's labor laws), some up to seven days a week, and earn as little as 15 to 30 cents per t-shirt.
![Excerpt from a BBC article: ""We usually work, 10, 11 or 12 hours a day," says a 49-year-old woman from Jiangxi unwilling to give her name. "On Sundays we work around three hours less."
She is in an alleyway, where a dozen people are huddled around a row of bulletin boards.
They are reading the job ads on the board, while examining the stitching on a pair of chinos draped over it.
This is Shein's supply chain. The factories are contracted to make clothes on order - some small, some big. If the chinos are a hit, orders will ramp up and so must production. Factories then hire temporary workers to meet the demand their permanent staff cannot fulfil.
The migrant worker from Jiangxi is looking for a short-term contract - and the chinos are an option.
"We earn so little. The cost of living is now so high," she says, adding that she hopes to make enough to send back to her two children who are living with their grandparents.
"We get paid per piece," she explains. "It depends how difficult the item is. Something simple like a t-shirt is one-two yuan [less than a dollar] per piece and I can make around a dozen in an hour.""](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ks3gpa6ftoyaq7hmf6c4qx4c/bafkreiber7g4o5pujmzmjjzsp5dkz7blfexburuwjispfpv6dki7akjb7a@jpeg)
November 20, 2025 at 12:07 AM
The people who make Shein's clothes labor for ten to twelve hours per day (in violation of China's labor laws), some up to seven days a week, and earn as little as 15 to 30 cents per t-shirt.
Reposted by Unproductive Radical 🇵🇸
Australia (an increasingly authoritarian petrostate) did quite a lot of bullying of its own. Internationally and domestically. Australia has been gaming COPs for decades. COP31 would have been no different. We are just better at greenwashing 🙂
November 19, 2025 at 9:34 AM
Australia (an increasingly authoritarian petrostate) did quite a lot of bullying of its own. Internationally and domestically. Australia has been gaming COPs for decades. COP31 would have been no different. We are just better at greenwashing 🙂
Reposted by Unproductive Radical 🇵🇸
Reposted by Unproductive Radical 🇵🇸
There's a typo in @karenhao.bsky.social's 'Empire of AI' book around water consumption for one data centre, and she's already working on a correction.
But what stuns me is effective altruist Andy Masley here saying "In reality, it's 22% of the city's water" as if that's fine????
THAT'S A LOT
But what stuns me is effective altruist Andy Masley here saying "In reality, it's 22% of the city's water" as if that's fine????
THAT'S A LOT
November 19, 2025 at 8:55 AM
There's a typo in @karenhao.bsky.social's 'Empire of AI' book around water consumption for one data centre, and she's already working on a correction.
But what stuns me is effective altruist Andy Masley here saying "In reality, it's 22% of the city's water" as if that's fine????
THAT'S A LOT
But what stuns me is effective altruist Andy Masley here saying "In reality, it's 22% of the city's water" as if that's fine????
THAT'S A LOT
Reposted by Unproductive Radical 🇵🇸
can’t stop thinking about “quiet piggy” and what an uproar that would’ve caused in any other news environment
November 18, 2025 at 8:58 PM
can’t stop thinking about “quiet piggy” and what an uproar that would’ve caused in any other news environment
Reposted by Unproductive Radical 🇵🇸
Oh god this is a true Smiling Man moment. The Era of Smiles begins
November 19, 2025 at 4:21 AM
Oh god this is a true Smiling Man moment. The Era of Smiles begins
I submitted the final essay for my Masters on the economic circumstances that enables the AI bubble on Friday. Will the bubble have fully burst before it's graded is what I want to know.
November 18, 2025 at 2:21 PM
I submitted the final essay for my Masters on the economic circumstances that enables the AI bubble on Friday. Will the bubble have fully burst before it's graded is what I want to know.
Reposted by Unproductive Radical 🇵🇸
NYT: A wise and deeply moving letter to the editor from a retired history teacher Liz Zucker.
“Ignorance is not bliss. It’s just ignorance.”
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/17/o...
“Ignorance is not bliss. It’s just ignorance.”
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/17/o...
November 17, 2025 at 11:16 PM
NYT: A wise and deeply moving letter to the editor from a retired history teacher Liz Zucker.
“Ignorance is not bliss. It’s just ignorance.”
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/17/o...
“Ignorance is not bliss. It’s just ignorance.”
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/17/o...
Reposted by Unproductive Radical 🇵🇸
Pope Leo absolutely cooking
November 16, 2025 at 7:47 AM
Pope Leo absolutely cooking
Reposted by Unproductive Radical 🇵🇸
Love to bike to work through the middle of the vehicular manslaughter arms race
![4-panel vertical comic. (1) 100 Years Ago [two people standing next to bicycle with small car nearby] PERSON 1: It’s too dangerous riding a bike with these cars around. I should get a car, too. (2) 50 Years Ago [two people between smaller car and bigger car] PERSON 2 with short hair: Small cars are less safe in collisions with larger vehicles, so I should get a bigger one. (3) Today [two people between big car and even bigger car] PERSON 1: Everyone has huge SUVs now. If I don’t get the biggest one, I’m putting my family at risk. (4) Soon [two people next to large armored car with spiked clubs attached] PERSON 2: If I don’t install more whirling spike clubs, I’ll be destroyed by all the other drivers who...](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:cz73r7iyiqn26upot4jtjdhk/bafkreiby6can6k76yzfmv2czxs4pu2l7zie7bqbrpswi7h3ifmiadkuqvu@jpeg)
November 14, 2025 at 9:51 PM
Love to bike to work through the middle of the vehicular manslaughter arms race