Tristan Olson
@tristanolson.bsky.social
Author and occasional poster of funny things.
www.tristanolsonbooks.com
www.tristanolsonbooks.com
Pinned
Reposted by Tristan Olson
Her combination of youth, economic populism, and social progressivism is a perfect contrast to Trump.
TNR's poll of Democratic voters released last week indicates they may be hungry for a progressive candidate in a way that they weren’t six years ago... trib.al/Qfx6y77
TNR's poll of Democratic voters released last week indicates they may be hungry for a progressive candidate in a way that they weren’t six years ago... trib.al/Qfx6y77
February 16, 2026 at 6:15 PM
Her combination of youth, economic populism, and social progressivism is a perfect contrast to Trump.
TNR's poll of Democratic voters released last week indicates they may be hungry for a progressive candidate in a way that they weren’t six years ago... trib.al/Qfx6y77
TNR's poll of Democratic voters released last week indicates they may be hungry for a progressive candidate in a way that they weren’t six years ago... trib.al/Qfx6y77
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The rewriting of history of artists being elitist gatekeepers who won't share their magic with the common folks who work in ai app development (and make more money than any of us fucking up the planet) is disgusting.
Art is and always was for the working class. Ai is for dudes who can't boil water
Art is and always was for the working class. Ai is for dudes who can't boil water
What do we think about the assertion in this meme? I know, we think it's asinine, but I'm looking for specific arguments as to why it's asinine.
February 16, 2026 at 5:47 PM
The rewriting of history of artists being elitist gatekeepers who won't share their magic with the common folks who work in ai app development (and make more money than any of us fucking up the planet) is disgusting.
Art is and always was for the working class. Ai is for dudes who can't boil water
Art is and always was for the working class. Ai is for dudes who can't boil water
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SO MUCH this whole thread and this in particular:
February 16, 2026 at 4:09 PM
SO MUCH this whole thread and this in particular:
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Democrats should get behind a voter ID law that only goes into effect when 99.9% of the eligible population has a valid ID and automatically pauses when the number falls below that. The fact that Republicans would never accept this would make clear what the real point of voter ID laws is.
February 16, 2026 at 4:39 PM
Democrats should get behind a voter ID law that only goes into effect when 99.9% of the eligible population has a valid ID and automatically pauses when the number falls below that. The fact that Republicans would never accept this would make clear what the real point of voter ID laws is.
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Remember when Roe was settled law? Remember when birthright citizenship was just an unquestioned feature of the 14th amendment? Remember when states and localities regulated guns all the time because of course the 2nd amendment wasn’t about individual self-defense?
February 16, 2026 at 4:25 AM
Remember when Roe was settled law? Remember when birthright citizenship was just an unquestioned feature of the 14th amendment? Remember when states and localities regulated guns all the time because of course the 2nd amendment wasn’t about individual self-defense?
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One of the hardest things to wrap one’s mind around is that these dudes can write this shit utterly convinced that they’re not having an emotion.
I’ve seen this person get retweeted by MAGA influencers like Benny Johnson. He’s not kidding. This is a real political goal he is pursuing. He has 425,000 followers on Facebook.
February 16, 2026 at 4:42 AM
One of the hardest things to wrap one’s mind around is that these dudes can write this shit utterly convinced that they’re not having an emotion.
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Gang.
GANG.
LLM DETECTORS ARE ALSO LLMs AND PRONE TO THE EXACT SAME ERRORS.
STOP USING THEM.
GANG.
LLM DETECTORS ARE ALSO LLMs AND PRONE TO THE EXACT SAME ERRORS.
STOP USING THEM.
Just because I keep seeing those "I checked this piece and it's written by AI" - this is an old article of mine, before AI was available. So could we not?
February 16, 2026 at 4:34 PM
Gang.
GANG.
LLM DETECTORS ARE ALSO LLMs AND PRONE TO THE EXACT SAME ERRORS.
STOP USING THEM.
GANG.
LLM DETECTORS ARE ALSO LLMs AND PRONE TO THE EXACT SAME ERRORS.
STOP USING THEM.
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Bluesky was literally meant to be a cryptobro social network for grifters, LinkedIn sludge, and libertarians who know way too much about age of consent laws.
Jack Dorsey *left* when instead of weird and off-putting cryptonerds, trans people started hanging out here.
Jack Dorsey *left* when instead of weird and off-putting cryptonerds, trans people started hanging out here.
Can you think of examples where people use technologies differently from what the developers intended, whether unintentionally or as an act of resistance?
February 15, 2026 at 10:50 PM
Bluesky was literally meant to be a cryptobro social network for grifters, LinkedIn sludge, and libertarians who know way too much about age of consent laws.
Jack Dorsey *left* when instead of weird and off-putting cryptonerds, trans people started hanging out here.
Jack Dorsey *left* when instead of weird and off-putting cryptonerds, trans people started hanging out here.
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Elimination of emissions standards was one of the pretty clear policy stakes of the 2024 election and it received about 1% as much coverage as whether Tim Walz retiring from the national guard after 21 years was cowardly.
“The U.S. no longer has emission standards of any meaning,” said Margo T. Oge, who served as the E.P.A.’s top vehicle emissions regulator under three presidents and has since advised both automakers and environmental groups…
“Nothing. Zero,” she added. “Not many countries have zero.”
“Nothing. Zero,” she added. “Not many countries have zero.”
With Latest Rollback, the U.S. Essentially Has No Clean-Car Rules
www.nytimes.com
February 16, 2026 at 2:33 PM
Elimination of emissions standards was one of the pretty clear policy stakes of the 2024 election and it received about 1% as much coverage as whether Tim Walz retiring from the national guard after 21 years was cowardly.
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Just a reminder that ChatGPT cannot betray anyone because it doesn’t have feelings or motives or thoughts
ChatGPT promised to help her find her soulmate. Then it betrayed her
ChatGPT sent screenwriter Micky Small down a fantastical rabbit hole. Now, she's finding her way out.
www.npr.org
February 16, 2026 at 4:47 AM
Just a reminder that ChatGPT cannot betray anyone because it doesn’t have feelings or motives or thoughts
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Sweden curling set up a sting operation to catch Canada cheating i’m fucking losing it
February 16, 2026 at 1:52 AM
Sweden curling set up a sting operation to catch Canada cheating i’m fucking losing it
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Urge your reps to ban Surveillance Pricing and boycott any business that uses it. If it’s allowed to take root, you will be robbed for the rest of your lives.
(1/11) If you live in NY, you’ve probably started seeing a new warning: “THIS PRICE WAS SET BY AN ALGORITHM USING YOUR PERSONAL DATA.” This mandatory disclosure went into effect late last year, and it’s the first attempt by a US state to grapple with a new generation of surveillance pricing.
February 15, 2026 at 7:21 PM
Urge your reps to ban Surveillance Pricing and boycott any business that uses it. If it’s allowed to take root, you will be robbed for the rest of your lives.
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For all the eye rolling that happens when Black people say we're here because you abandoned Reconstruction, positions like this make a lot more sense if you look at them as attempts to heal that political rift between white people FOR white people, the rest of us be damned.
This isn't a left-right ideological issue. But it blows me away that anyone who is actually anti-Trump would think running back Joe Biden/Merrick Garland 2.0 will work the second time. No political party can tolerate a very large, armed secret police force committed to murdering its voters.
January 19, 2026 at 2:37 PM
For all the eye rolling that happens when Black people say we're here because you abandoned Reconstruction, positions like this make a lot more sense if you look at them as attempts to heal that political rift between white people FOR white people, the rest of us be damned.
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douglas adams was our most accurate futurist
We are at an airport restaurant. A robot just drove up to us with our food, said, "Hi! Here I am!" and then drove away with our food.
February 15, 2026 at 10:10 PM
douglas adams was our most accurate futurist
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Everyone makes fun of the incel "government redistribution of girlfriends" proposal but the state did in fact force women to marry mediocre men by not letting them have a bank account or own property in their name and they don't have to take us that many steps backwards to get there.
February 15, 2026 at 7:54 PM
Everyone makes fun of the incel "government redistribution of girlfriends" proposal but the state did in fact force women to marry mediocre men by not letting them have a bank account or own property in their name and they don't have to take us that many steps backwards to get there.
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it's so wild that people on here will label you a narcissist for controlling your replies when they are basically asserting that you should have to read whatever they want to say
February 15, 2026 at 6:00 PM
it's so wild that people on here will label you a narcissist for controlling your replies when they are basically asserting that you should have to read whatever they want to say
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I hadn't heard this shit until now and finding out Platner was all in on "black people don't tip" makes way too much sense. And it's a huge red flag for anyone who works in hospitality because it's not true. Everyone who's worked behind the stick knows who undertips and it's not the black community
February 15, 2026 at 8:43 PM
I hadn't heard this shit until now and finding out Platner was all in on "black people don't tip" makes way too much sense. And it's a huge red flag for anyone who works in hospitality because it's not true. Everyone who's worked behind the stick knows who undertips and it's not the black community
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the Black Panthers were right
February 15, 2026 at 5:47 PM
the Black Panthers were right
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Jaywalking in the United States is a made up "crime" that was literally a psyop campaign....
funded by automakers
because their cars were killing pedestrians
So they turned it back around on the victims. "Jay" was a negative slang at the time for someone who was a gullible rural person.
funded by automakers
because their cars were killing pedestrians
So they turned it back around on the victims. "Jay" was a negative slang at the time for someone who was a gullible rural person.
I'm not especially opposed to driverless cabs, but I'm fucked if I'm giving up my ancestral British right to cross the road anywhere if it's safe for me to do so. "Jaywalking" isn't a thing or a crime here, techbros, so your magic cars will have to learn to deal with that.
Politics London discussing driverless taxis casually referring to “jaywalking pedestrians”.
Jaywalking is not a thing in UK law.
Transport for London and Government had better not be asleep at the wheel on this.
Jaywalking is not a thing in UK law.
Transport for London and Government had better not be asleep at the wheel on this.
February 15, 2026 at 1:53 PM
Jaywalking in the United States is a made up "crime" that was literally a psyop campaign....
funded by automakers
because their cars were killing pedestrians
So they turned it back around on the victims. "Jay" was a negative slang at the time for someone who was a gullible rural person.
funded by automakers
because their cars were killing pedestrians
So they turned it back around on the victims. "Jay" was a negative slang at the time for someone who was a gullible rural person.
Reposted by Tristan Olson
“We need to run people with a middle class idea of a WWC aesthetic!!” / “We need to get more racist!!” - meanwhile the last British or American politician to win a general election thanks in large part to disproportionate white working class support was a Black cosmopolitan liberal from Hawaii.
February 15, 2026 at 5:50 PM
“We need to run people with a middle class idea of a WWC aesthetic!!” / “We need to get more racist!!” - meanwhile the last British or American politician to win a general election thanks in large part to disproportionate white working class support was a Black cosmopolitan liberal from Hawaii.
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That's why the incremental shit is so insane. We have the ability to make these sweeping changes and take swings to make life better but instead we play footsie with the opposition and let them set the terms and beg for scraps
Someone has sure already made this observation but the fact they can convert all those empty warehouses into prison camps means they could have converted them into housing, community centers, job training centers or, hell, libraries or schools all along. It’s always a matter of will not resources.
February 15, 2026 at 5:50 PM
That's why the incremental shit is so insane. We have the ability to make these sweeping changes and take swings to make life better but instead we play footsie with the opposition and let them set the terms and beg for scraps
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American culture of the 1840’s would have been *very fucking surprised* to see the Irish considered as co-founders.
Elon’s an ahistorical dipshit, but its always worth saying some stuff out loud: if you‘re a fellow Irish-American and you aren’t 100% pro-immigrant, you’re a fucking embarassment.
Elon’s an ahistorical dipshit, but its always worth saying some stuff out loud: if you‘re a fellow Irish-American and you aren’t 100% pro-immigrant, you’re a fucking embarassment.
1/3 What Musk is really referring to here is, of course “race” - that construct that served to define the hierarchies of wealth & power structured by modern colonialism. Like other far right racists though, he uses the word “culture” as a seemingly less pernicious synonym.
February 15, 2026 at 5:44 PM
American culture of the 1840’s would have been *very fucking surprised* to see the Irish considered as co-founders.
Elon’s an ahistorical dipshit, but its always worth saying some stuff out loud: if you‘re a fellow Irish-American and you aren’t 100% pro-immigrant, you’re a fucking embarassment.
Elon’s an ahistorical dipshit, but its always worth saying some stuff out loud: if you‘re a fellow Irish-American and you aren’t 100% pro-immigrant, you’re a fucking embarassment.
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People saying "but if we defined 'middle class' that way there would basically BE no middle class in America!!"
Me:
Me:
February 15, 2026 at 2:31 PM
People saying "but if we defined 'middle class' that way there would basically BE no middle class in America!!"
Me:
Me:
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This is blackout poetry to me
February 14, 2026 at 2:26 PM
This is blackout poetry to me