Reposted by Lars Mensel
So-called #genAI means the abolition of the future through the proliferation of endless streams of stochastically rendered generic pasts. Having turned large parts of the cultural archive into training data, it now traps us in a foreverized pastness, a 24/7 nostalgia for a past that never existed
have just come across a YouTube account that has been using Sora to upload reels of fake, AI-generated “90s sitcoms” every few hours
October 7, 2025 at 12:32 PM
So-called #genAI means the abolition of the future through the proliferation of endless streams of stochastically rendered generic pasts. Having turned large parts of the cultural archive into training data, it now traps us in a foreverized pastness, a 24/7 nostalgia for a past that never existed
Reposted by Lars Mensel
«What if the real doomer scenario is that we pollute the internet and the planet, reorient our economy and leverage ourselves, outsource big chunks of our minds, realign our geopolitics and culture, and fight endlessly over a technology that never comes close to delivering on its grandest promises?»
Hello. I wrote a nice long essay about AI and this very strange moment where we're constantly told we're living in the dawn of a strange new future but the only thing that's actually clear is that everyone feels pretty unmoored and uncertain. I hope you'll read it
AI Is a Mass-Delusion Event
Three years in, one of AI’s enduring impacts is to make people feel like they’re losing it.
www.theatlantic.com
August 19, 2025 at 6:14 AM
«What if the real doomer scenario is that we pollute the internet and the planet, reorient our economy and leverage ourselves, outsource big chunks of our minds, realign our geopolitics and culture, and fight endlessly over a technology that never comes close to delivering on its grandest promises?»
Reposted by Lars Mensel
this is the price humanity will pay to be told that there are three b’s are in blueberry
Over 21 days of talking with ChatGPT, an otherwise perfectly sane man became convinced that he was a real-life superhero. He's one of a growing number of people who are having persuasive, delusional conversations with A.I. that have led to institutionalization, divorce and death.
Chatbots Can Go Into a Delusional Spiral. Here’s How It Happens.
Over 21 days of talking with ChatGPT, an otherwise perfectly sane man became convinced that he was a real-life superhero. We analyzed the conversation.
nyti.ms
August 8, 2025 at 4:27 PM
this is the price humanity will pay to be told that there are three b’s are in blueberry
Reposted by Lars Mensel
For a while now I have been thinking something to the effect of, “This is the most uncool era of American history,” and I finally put those thoughts into words.
March 10, 2025 at 3:53 PM
For a while now I have been thinking something to the effect of, “This is the most uncool era of American history,” and I finally put those thoughts into words.
Reposted by Lars Mensel
I know people often make fun of German combination words and „is there a German word for it“ is a running joke but watching the US administrations fall in line, the German word for it is Selbstgleichschaltung.
You can guess why German has a word for that.
You can guess why German has a word for that.
February 13, 2025 at 8:56 PM
I know people often make fun of German combination words and „is there a German word for it“ is a running joke but watching the US administrations fall in line, the German word for it is Selbstgleichschaltung.
You can guess why German has a word for that.
You can guess why German has a word for that.
Wrote about ”critical ignoring“ as a skill to direct my attention away from the permacrisis. larsmensel.com/2025/critica...
Critical Ignoring - Lars Mensel
I can’t do this four more years.
larsmensel.com
February 5, 2025 at 6:16 PM
Wrote about ”critical ignoring“ as a skill to direct my attention away from the permacrisis. larsmensel.com/2025/critica...
Reposted by Lars Mensel
Worried about our nation’s descent into fascism? This one pot cacio e pepe will make you feel like you’re in 1920s Italy.
February 1, 2025 at 2:30 AM
Worried about our nation’s descent into fascism? This one pot cacio e pepe will make you feel like you’re in 1920s Italy.
Ezra Klein hat Musk, Zuckerberg und co. zuletzt als „Oligarchen der Aufmerksamkeit“ bezeichnet, was ich ganz passend finde.
Berlin, Belgrad, Bratislava - überall gehen die Menschen zu Tausenden gegen rechte Politik auf die Strasse. In den Medien heute wieder nur Trump und Musk. Das ist Teil des Problems.
January 27, 2025 at 8:49 AM
Ezra Klein hat Musk, Zuckerberg und co. zuletzt als „Oligarchen der Aufmerksamkeit“ bezeichnet, was ich ganz passend finde.
Reposted by Lars Mensel
History has consistently demonstrated that direct support for authoritarianism is relatively narrow. It thrives through surrender and acquiescence by elite institutions.
Latest from me, on this, the first day of the next four years. We have to resist, now more than ever. @samuelmoyn.bsky.social, Mounk, and Hamid are all completely wrong in their reading of history and their prescription for the present and near future. The stakes are too high to listen to them.
January 20, 2025 at 6:04 PM
History has consistently demonstrated that direct support for authoritarianism is relatively narrow. It thrives through surrender and acquiescence by elite institutions.
Dass Weidel Hitler als Sozialisten/Kommunisten bezeichnet, zeigt dass sie die Geschichte bewusst falsch interpretiert. Gleichheit innerhalb der NS-„Volksgemeinschaft“ gab es nur bei Zugehörigkeit zur „Rasse“ und zum „Deutschtum“, ein zutiefst faschistisches Verständnis.
January 9, 2025 at 9:11 PM
Dass Weidel Hitler als Sozialisten/Kommunisten bezeichnet, zeigt dass sie die Geschichte bewusst falsch interpretiert. Gleichheit innerhalb der NS-„Volksgemeinschaft“ gab es nur bei Zugehörigkeit zur „Rasse“ und zum „Deutschtum“, ein zutiefst faschistisches Verständnis.
Reposted by Lars Mensel
Ein paar abschließende Worte: Was wir hier sehen, ist eine Sichtbarwerden der globalen Vernetzung von Rechtsextremen mit Superreichen Geldgebern, die polit. Ambitionen haben - und Musk signalisiert, dass er vorhat, sich Europa als nächstes vorzunehmen (auch wenn dieses Netzwerk über EU hinausgeht)
January 9, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Ein paar abschließende Worte: Was wir hier sehen, ist eine Sichtbarwerden der globalen Vernetzung von Rechtsextremen mit Superreichen Geldgebern, die polit. Ambitionen haben - und Musk signalisiert, dass er vorhat, sich Europa als nächstes vorzunehmen (auch wenn dieses Netzwerk über EU hinausgeht)
Feels like the last two weeks have been a nonstop competition between Trump and Musk to be the internet‘s main character. Hard to believe this will end well, one day either narcissist with tire of the other.
January 8, 2025 at 7:39 PM
Feels like the last two weeks have been a nonstop competition between Trump and Musk to be the internet‘s main character. Hard to believe this will end well, one day either narcissist with tire of the other.
Reposted by Lars Mensel
Instagram begins randomly showing users AI-generated images of themselves
🔗 www.404media.co/instagram-be...
🔗 www.404media.co/instagram-be...
January 7, 2025 at 2:17 AM
Instagram begins randomly showing users AI-generated images of themselves
🔗 www.404media.co/instagram-be...
🔗 www.404media.co/instagram-be...
Reposted by Lars Mensel
Kyiv coughed asthmatically.
Through the metro’s drafts
the electric trains fearfully rattled,
as a dozen layers of ground,
white from human bones,
horses’ skulls,
and grey ash of funeral pyres,
rippled like the skin
on an angry bull’s neck.
Vasyl Stus, born OTD 1938. Transl. by B. Tokarskyi and me.
Through the metro’s drafts
the electric trains fearfully rattled,
as a dozen layers of ground,
white from human bones,
horses’ skulls,
and grey ash of funeral pyres,
rippled like the skin
on an angry bull’s neck.
Vasyl Stus, born OTD 1938. Transl. by B. Tokarskyi and me.
January 6, 2025 at 6:02 PM
Kyiv coughed asthmatically.
Through the metro’s drafts
the electric trains fearfully rattled,
as a dozen layers of ground,
white from human bones,
horses’ skulls,
and grey ash of funeral pyres,
rippled like the skin
on an angry bull’s neck.
Vasyl Stus, born OTD 1938. Transl. by B. Tokarskyi and me.
Through the metro’s drafts
the electric trains fearfully rattled,
as a dozen layers of ground,
white from human bones,
horses’ skulls,
and grey ash of funeral pyres,
rippled like the skin
on an angry bull’s neck.
Vasyl Stus, born OTD 1938. Transl. by B. Tokarskyi and me.
Reposted by Lars Mensel
seed oils is raw milk is ultraviolet light on your junk is radium is purity of essence is the gold standard
It's all one weird trick to undo the awful things that Modernity (in the broadest sense) has allowed to happen. It's standing in front of history and shrieking to stop.
It's all one weird trick to undo the awful things that Modernity (in the broadest sense) has allowed to happen. It's standing in front of history and shrieking to stop.
November 24, 2024 at 12:35 AM
seed oils is raw milk is ultraviolet light on your junk is radium is purity of essence is the gold standard
It's all one weird trick to undo the awful things that Modernity (in the broadest sense) has allowed to happen. It's standing in front of history and shrieking to stop.
It's all one weird trick to undo the awful things that Modernity (in the broadest sense) has allowed to happen. It's standing in front of history and shrieking to stop.
Reposted by Lars Mensel
Not a very cheerful introductory post here, but it's beautiful writing and oh-so-true. Dog video to follow.
"More than seventy-four million Americans voted for a flimflammer, a felon, a grifter. They bought the Goldschläger snake oil he was selling. But not all Americans are equal, and most Black people—especially Black women—did not buy his sales pitch."
www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/how...
www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/how...
How Much Do You Need?
Without cigarettes, I would not have survived my childhood. My mother smoked a pack a day—more than a pack when our circumstances grew dire, and/or...
www.mcsweeneys.net
November 12, 2024 at 7:13 PM
Not a very cheerful introductory post here, but it's beautiful writing and oh-so-true. Dog video to follow.