Reposted by Nicholas Payne
I was extremely naive in my twenties and early thirties, took people very much at their word when it came to values, and absolutely destroyed my mental health (and my career) thinking I could publicly demand accountability and survive it whole.
(1/?)
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the Epstein files make it very clear why the MeToo backlash was so extreme and why so much of elite society preferred Donald Trump ruling us like a king to the barest hint of accountability
February 2, 2026 at 1:06 AM
I was extremely naive in my twenties and early thirties, took people very much at their word when it came to values, and absolutely destroyed my mental health (and my career) thinking I could publicly demand accountability and survive it whole.
(1/?)
(1/?)
My general philosophy is to not openly criticize the efficacy of individual protest actions, but I am gonna need people to really think through what purely voluntary, disorganized, short notice “economic blackouts” and the like are and are not doing.
entire social media feed is small shops and restaurants posting about why they will won’t be closing and the effect a single day closure will have on them…we are cooked if there’s ever an actual general strike and this is exactly why it’s something that needs time and preparation
we have somehow invented a general strike with no demand and only coffee and yarn stores are closing
January 30, 2026 at 2:30 PM
My general philosophy is to not openly criticize the efficacy of individual protest actions, but I am gonna need people to really think through what purely voluntary, disorganized, short notice “economic blackouts” and the like are and are not doing.
When censorship comes for your site, you *will* know, I promise. You do not need to fight every ghost you see in the meantime.
SCOOP
Meta has started blocking links to ICE List on Facebook, Instagram and Threads
www.wired.com/story/meta-i...
Meta has started blocking links to ICE List on Facebook, Instagram and Threads
www.wired.com/story/meta-i...
Meta Is Blocking Users From Sharing Website Listing ICE Agents
Users of Facebook, Instagram, and Threads can no longer share links to ICE List, a website listing what it claims are the names of thousands of DHS employees.
www.wired.com
January 27, 2026 at 8:18 PM
When censorship comes for your site, you *will* know, I promise. You do not need to fight every ghost you see in the meantime.
This “evidence” isn’t compelling, it’s embarrassing. GenAI is a societal catastrophe in so many ways and it deserves better critics. If you can’t understand how AI could do this without directly storing anything, you don’t understand it well enough to critique it on a technical level.
Big new piece: @alexreisner.bsky.social presents the most compelling evidence yet that generative AI directly stores and reproduces training material—it does not "learn," not really. This could have substantial legal consequences for the tech industry.
AI’s Memorization Crisis
Large language models don’t “learn”—they copy. And that could change everything for the tech industry.
www.theatlantic.com
January 9, 2026 at 11:09 PM
This “evidence” isn’t compelling, it’s embarrassing. GenAI is a societal catastrophe in so many ways and it deserves better critics. If you can’t understand how AI could do this without directly storing anything, you don’t understand it well enough to critique it on a technical level.
There’s no future unless these ghouls are brought to justice and every elected who chides “look forward” is pushed out of public life. And I can’t see the path to either through our sclerotic leadership and the vile machine they’ve built to retain but never wield power. It’s a very bleak road ahead.
January 9, 2026 at 7:56 PM
There’s no future unless these ghouls are brought to justice and every elected who chides “look forward” is pushed out of public life. And I can’t see the path to either through our sclerotic leadership and the vile machine they’ve built to retain but never wield power. It’s a very bleak road ahead.
Not sure exactly how to phrase this but I find it alarming the speed with which people default to moral/ethical shortcuts now. Like they don’t consider the specifics or context of a thing, they look for the markers that tell them Good or Bad, Us or Them, discard the rest and fully entrench there.
December 22, 2025 at 2:10 PM
Not sure exactly how to phrase this but I find it alarming the speed with which people default to moral/ethical shortcuts now. Like they don’t consider the specifics or context of a thing, they look for the markers that tell them Good or Bad, Us or Them, discard the rest and fully entrench there.
Reposted by Nicholas Payne
Pluribus rules because it’s forcing people who wanna see a bunch of sci fi lore dumps to instead watch amazing actors have incredibly interesting conversations about what it means to be a person
December 21, 2025 at 11:34 PM
Pluribus rules because it’s forcing people who wanna see a bunch of sci fi lore dumps to instead watch amazing actors have incredibly interesting conversations about what it means to be a person
Reposted by Nicholas Payne
This is one of those things that I think is quietly important – when these people are talking shit about cities, Portland or Minneapolis or New York or Charlotte or wherever, you have to loudly say, “no, fuck you, you’re lying, that town and its people whip ass and you’re the asshole”
“I walk around Portland, and I go, ‘Fuck you, assholes. Portland is fine.’” - John Darnielle, @themountaingoats.bsky.social. We're proud to claim you as a Portlander, sir.
The Mountain Goats Ascend to Revolution Hall
Mountain Goats frontman John Darnielle discusses musicals, his new album, and why he keeps coming home to Portland.
www.wweek.com
December 3, 2025 at 4:46 PM
This is one of those things that I think is quietly important – when these people are talking shit about cities, Portland or Minneapolis or New York or Charlotte or wherever, you have to loudly say, “no, fuck you, you’re lying, that town and its people whip ass and you’re the asshole”
Pimping AI article narration on the “scope of the AI bubble” article is incredibly fucking funny
November 20, 2025 at 4:32 PM
Pimping AI article narration on the “scope of the AI bubble” article is incredibly fucking funny
I wouldn’t say it’s a new stance, but seeing these jackboots run roughshod over my city with impunity has crystallized for me that everyone involved in this from top to bottom facing charges is the moderate, sensible position. Willingness to execute on that is now the minimum bar for Dem electeds.
November 17, 2025 at 7:00 PM
I wouldn’t say it’s a new stance, but seeing these jackboots run roughshod over my city with impunity has crystallized for me that everyone involved in this from top to bottom facing charges is the moderate, sensible position. Willingness to execute on that is now the minimum bar for Dem electeds.
I too am excited about all the other wins, but Charlotte also had a transit referendum that was very much uncertain and it passed and I am so happy to live in a city that’s actually investing in becoming livable without a car.
November 5, 2025 at 3:27 AM
I too am excited about all the other wins, but Charlotte also had a transit referendum that was very much uncertain and it passed and I am so happy to live in a city that’s actually investing in becoming livable without a car.
Many people’s experience of public life is now that everyone else is in your way, a threat, or both. Taking the most dangerous, hostile, and isolating activity and replacing it with one where we all share the same goal goes a long way towards not becoming an antisocial misanthrope about the commons.
i think if you ride public transit enough you learn that most weird behavior is not dangerous, and conversely i think driving a car teaches you that everyone is trying to kill you at all times
October 29, 2025 at 5:57 PM
Many people’s experience of public life is now that everyone else is in your way, a threat, or both. Taking the most dangerous, hostile, and isolating activity and replacing it with one where we all share the same goal goes a long way towards not becoming an antisocial misanthrope about the commons.
Reposted by Nicholas Payne
Furthermore public transit teaches you how to live with temporary minor annoyances and cars teach you that you're god's most special baby and your moment-to-moment comfort is the only important thing in the world
October 29, 2025 at 5:15 PM
Furthermore public transit teaches you how to live with temporary minor annoyances and cars teach you that you're god's most special baby and your moment-to-moment comfort is the only important thing in the world
Reposted by Nicholas Payne
i think if you ride public transit enough you learn that most weird behavior is not dangerous, and conversely i think driving a car teaches you that everyone is trying to kill you at all times
October 29, 2025 at 4:49 PM
i think if you ride public transit enough you learn that most weird behavior is not dangerous, and conversely i think driving a car teaches you that everyone is trying to kill you at all times
What is baseball even about
October 28, 2025 at 6:28 AM
What is baseball even about
Reposted by Nicholas Payne
The question now and always is whether we continue to yoke the country to propagandized electoral minorities largely insensitive to material conditions and new information or whether we enact the reforms necessary to become a more democratic society. That is the choice.
I think this probably hurts Trump. Is it a reckoning? The counties hardest hit by COVID in 2020 also went the most strongly for Trump. People are fully capable of watching their friends and loved ones literally die as a consequence of his actions, rationalizing it, and backing him anyway.
Since SNAP benefits are gone next month and the new ACA enrollment hikes also start to reveal themselves to consumers... it's wild to think that both programs are tilted towards states AND demographics that favored Trump in '24
The stove beckons
The stove beckons
October 27, 2025 at 5:05 PM
The question now and always is whether we continue to yoke the country to propagandized electoral minorities largely insensitive to material conditions and new information or whether we enact the reforms necessary to become a more democratic society. That is the choice.
Gotta stress the extent to which it really is everyone (at middle manager or below, anyways). I’ve yet to meet an exception who hasn’t personally bet the farm on the AI delusion.
Okay, for the folks who asked: here's the majority AI view, writing up the reasonable, thoughtful view on AI that the vast majority of people in tech hold, that gets overshadowed by the bluster and hype of the tycoons trying to shill their nonsense. anildash.com/2025/10/17/t... Please share!
The Majority AI View - Anil Dash
A blog about making culture. Since 1999.
anildash.com
October 17, 2025 at 9:24 PM
Gotta stress the extent to which it really is everyone (at middle manager or below, anyways). I’ve yet to meet an exception who hasn’t personally bet the farm on the AI delusion.
Reposted by Nicholas Payne
Okay, for the folks who asked: here's the majority AI view, writing up the reasonable, thoughtful view on AI that the vast majority of people in tech hold, that gets overshadowed by the bluster and hype of the tycoons trying to shill their nonsense. anildash.com/2025/10/17/t... Please share!
The Majority AI View - Anil Dash
A blog about making culture. Since 1999.
anildash.com
October 17, 2025 at 7:29 PM
Okay, for the folks who asked: here's the majority AI view, writing up the reasonable, thoughtful view on AI that the vast majority of people in tech hold, that gets overshadowed by the bluster and hype of the tycoons trying to shill their nonsense. anildash.com/2025/10/17/t... Please share!
Reposted by Nicholas Payne
I think the way dog people simultaneously stopped making an effort to train them and insisted their dogs must be present everywhere was an early indicator that many Americans started to no longer think we live in a society
October 10, 2025 at 9:31 PM
I think the way dog people simultaneously stopped making an effort to train them and insisted their dogs must be present everywhere was an early indicator that many Americans started to no longer think we live in a society
Reposted by Nicholas Payne
there's more to it all than this, and Schmitt of course was a theorist interested and then complicit in how such control shifts to self-declared dictators subverting the rules of liberal democracy, but we're already at a stage of assumed impunity to federal goons. Contesting it is what's left.
October 4, 2025 at 8:05 PM
there's more to it all than this, and Schmitt of course was a theorist interested and then complicit in how such control shifts to self-declared dictators subverting the rules of liberal democracy, but we're already at a stage of assumed impunity to federal goons. Contesting it is what's left.
Reposted by Nicholas Payne
wrote about a great writer thealexpress.substack.com/p/kaleb-horton
Kaleb Horton
Writing can be beautiful.
thealexpress.substack.com
September 29, 2025 at 6:27 PM
wrote about a great writer thealexpress.substack.com/p/kaleb-horton
Man. I didn’t know him so it feels crude to chime in, but he was on the shortlist of writers on here I was always eager to read, and it never added up why finding places for that writing seemed like pulling teeth. Incredibly sad loss.
It seems that Kaleb Horton has passed away. A devastating loss. One of the best writers of this generation. Kaleb was a friend for ten years and in all our conversations I was trying to convince him how good he was, something he seemed to know but also never fully believe. I am going to go cry now.
September 27, 2025 at 3:29 PM
Man. I didn’t know him so it feels crude to chime in, but he was on the shortlist of writers on here I was always eager to read, and it never added up why finding places for that writing seemed like pulling teeth. Incredibly sad loss.
The “fetish for getting yelled at” meme is too liberally deployed, but given both the content and ubiquity of rejection of this take, it might be the most it has ever applied.
my most unpopular opinion is that it's a sign of defective moral character if you point blank refuse to answer phone calls from unknown numbers. it's not that hard to hang up on spam/scammers, and you are probably missing important calls!
September 24, 2025 at 1:32 PM
The “fetish for getting yelled at” meme is too liberally deployed, but given both the content and ubiquity of rejection of this take, it might be the most it has ever applied.
Reposted by Nicholas Payne
This is simply untenable. There is no way forward with media and political classes captured by the right. Every time someone commits a crime you have to pray it's not an undesirable or it's purge time, then when it turns out to be themselves again they just shrug and wait for the next one.
September 12, 2025 at 7:55 PM
This is simply untenable. There is no way forward with media and political classes captured by the right. Every time someone commits a crime you have to pray it's not an undesirable or it's purge time, then when it turns out to be themselves again they just shrug and wait for the next one.
Reposted by Nicholas Payne
Kill recreational nihilism — wherever it comes from, whatever ideological mask it happens to be wearing. Do not engage in it. Do not indulge it. It makes you weak and it makes you stupid. If you haven't found meaning in something, don't make the void you have chosen everyone else's problem.
September 12, 2025 at 4:37 PM
Kill recreational nihilism — wherever it comes from, whatever ideological mask it happens to be wearing. Do not engage in it. Do not indulge it. It makes you weak and it makes you stupid. If you haven't found meaning in something, don't make the void you have chosen everyone else's problem.