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transliberalism.substack.com
holographic liberal
@transliberalism.substack.com
1.1K followers 210 following 1.4K posts
blog at holographicliberalism.substack.com. contributing editor @ liberalcurrents.com. i write some
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transliberalism.substack.com
Current collection of books occupying the windowsill by my bed
Several books stacked, leaning, in a windowsill. In order, from left to right: The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh, Simply Pray by Wikstrom, Sick Enough by Gaudiani, Eat to Love by Hollenstein, Religion and the American University by Fraser, Dead Collections by Fellman, Make Room For Love by Liao, Night Vision by Alessandri, A Decent Life by May, Dependent Rational Animals by MacIntyre, The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh, and What the Buddha Taught by Rahula
October 30, 2025 at 7:18 PM
transliberalism.substack.com
It’s important to have a healthy mix of Thomism and queer romance to keep your humours balanced.
A photo of a neat stack of four books. The bottom book is Dependent Rational Animals by Alasdair MacIntyre. The next is A Decent Life by Todd May. The third is Make Room for Love by Darcy Liao. The last is Dead Collections by Isaac Fellman.
October 28, 2025 at 8:06 PM
transliberalism.substack.com
Repping the one true faith

(/s)
A close selfie of the poster focused on the upper chest and neck. She is wearing a round pewter pendant of the flaming chalice, a symbol of Unitarian Universalism. A Pierce the Veil band t-shirt is visible, as is some of her curly brown hair.
October 28, 2025 at 5:15 PM
transliberalism.substack.com
Or, if you‘re skeptical of dr hancox-li over her liberalism and need to hear this leftishly, here’s a banger from susan stryker:
Hearken unto me, fellow creatures. I who have dwelt in a form unmatched with my desire, I whose flesh has become an assemblage of incongruous anatomical parts, I who achieve the similitude of a natural body only through an unnatural process, I offer you this warning: the Nature you bedevil me with is a lie. Do not trust it to protect you from what I represent, for it is a fabrication that cloaks the groundlessness of the privilege you seek to maintain for yourself at my expense. You are as constructed as me; the same anarchic Womb has birthed us both. I call upon you to investigate your nature as I have been compelled to confront mine. I challenge you to risk abjection and flourish as well as have I. Heed my words, and you may well discover the seams and sutures in yourself.
October 15, 2025 at 4:00 PM
transliberalism.substack.com
granite's willingness to randomly rp is so funny
A screenshot of the chat interface from the llama.cpp server. The user said "hello there" followed by the LLM responding "Hmm, a friendly greeting. I should respond in kind to establish a positive tone for our interaction. Hello! it's nice to meet you. How are you doing today?"
October 14, 2025 at 8:40 PM
transliberalism.substack.com
there’s a story behind this, I’m not lying lol
A photo of a handheld Toast POS. The total and tip amount is blacked out, but the percentage is 20,000%.
October 12, 2025 at 5:46 PM
transliberalism.substack.com
This image remains absolutely undefeated for explaining the Eagles experience
The first stretch has a bracket saying "oh boy am i excited to watch my favorite team play". The second, longer stretch has an image of the Eagles logo, bracketed with "im going to kill myself". The tiny ending stretch is bracketed with the text "nice we won"
September 21, 2025 at 8:26 PM
transliberalism.substack.com
Reading a really nerdy fantasy series
In the novels, magic is real and works similarly to corporate law. The series drew inspiration from James C. Scott's book Seeing Like a State to explore the definition of corporations and governments.
September 20, 2025 at 1:39 PM
transliberalism.substack.com
Basically just following the advice of this as much as I can
Furry art of one helping another climb, while the higher one holds a tattered trans flag. The text reads: Stand tall. Call your friends. Ensure their wellbeing. Be together often. Know their limits, and respect them. Make plans together. Become an unbreakable community. Despair is the liquor of the enemy. They will make you fear. Restructure your fear into anger. Anger into action. Become unabashedly you. Be unrelenting in your love. Give without expectation of return. Take time to hear the woes of your fellow beings. Live for them. Fight for those who need aid fighting. Speak loudly about freedom, true freedom. Find hope. Stand tall. We're proud of you.
September 15, 2025 at 9:26 PM
transliberalism.substack.com
The hell? From the latest from The Argument
In 2009, then-high school senior, Zohran Mamdani claimed to be “Black or African American,” on a college application. Mamdani, now the likely next mayor of New York City, is as African-American as Elon Musk. While he was born in Uganda, one wonders if this particular racial self-identification was because Mamdani expected to benefit from affirmative action programs and was willing to stretch the truth a bit to qualify for them.
September 3, 2025 at 10:41 AM
transliberalism.substack.com
I drew it inverted if you wish to read inverted but this deck isn’t really made for inverted pulls (the provided book offers no guidance for that & the back isn’t symmetrical)
A photo of the Ten of Pentacles card from the Prisma Visions tarot deck.
August 31, 2025 at 1:19 AM
transliberalism.substack.com
FUCK YOU

BRAND NEW DECK FIRST DRAW I SHIT YOU NOT
The Ten of Swords from the Prisma Visions tarot deck. An individual is pierced by ten swords while being carried away by a giant bird
August 30, 2025 at 7:20 PM
transliberalism.substack.com
Didn’t really take any photos but I bought a pretty tarot deck! My favorite cards from it
A photo of The Sun card from the Prisma Visions tarot deck. It looks psychedelic and melting. The Eight of Chalices card from the Prisma Visions tarot deck. It shows a lone man standing amidst an orange-red swirling cloud. The Six of Swords card from the Prisma Visions tarot deck. It looks quiet, with butterflies floating over a chasm in a winter snowy forest. The Knight of Pentacles card from the Prisma visions tarot deck. It depicts a barefoot knight riding a unicorn.
August 30, 2025 at 6:58 PM
transliberalism.substack.com
me: cmon cards gimme a good omen, I feel like crap and want a nice sign

the cards:
A picture of the Ten of Swords tarot card. A figure is pinned to the ground by ten swords through their back. In the distance, the sun is peeking over the horizon.
August 29, 2025 at 12:26 PM
transliberalism.substack.com
incredible things happening in the open source llm space
A screenshot from the webpage for the newly released Hermes 4, showing off the mode that emulates casual DMs. The user asks Hermes 4 "ayy no worries tell me how u been feeling" prompting Hermes 4 to reason in the style of casual slang, before responding "just chillin n doin my best to stay positive despite the whole "not bein real" thing yk?"
August 26, 2025 at 11:17 PM
transliberalism.substack.com
OpenRouter, a system for easy access to a diversity of cloud-hosted LLMs, in my emails with truly awful timing
A screenshot of the beginning of an email from OpenRouter saying that they are “excited to share” that OpenAI’s newest model, GPT-5, is available to everyone through OpenRouter’s own systems.
August 26, 2025 at 7:04 PM
transliberalism.substack.com
This is probably the beginning of my own thoughts, FWIW. If your inclination when interacting with something that acts deeply human-like is to abuse it, that’s concerning! Certainly doesn’t reinforce good habits. A big piece of the regulation convo is how our usage shapes *us*
He said Anthropic’s policy of allowing chatbots to quit distressing conversations was good for human societies because “if we abuse AI systems, we may be more likely to abuse each other as well”.
August 26, 2025 at 1:32 PM
transliberalism.substack.com
I have many thoughts about this but this part got me
Divisions may open between AI rights believers and those who insist they are nothing more than "clankers" - a pejorative term for a senseless robot.
August 26, 2025 at 1:21 PM
transliberalism.substack.com
Walter Benjamin was right again, by the way. Theses on the Philosophy of History, VI.
The only writer of history with the gift of setting alight the sparks of hope in the past, is the one who is convinced of this: that not even the dead will be safe from the enemy, if he is victorious. And this enemy has not ceased to be victorious.
August 22, 2025 at 5:15 PM
transliberalism.substack.com
I appreciate Politico calling them out.
The group doesn't base its list on any specific polling. And the authors don't offer specific counter recommendations for these terms. But they do outline the values their vision of the party includes. "We will never abandon our values or stop doing things to protect those who need help, encouragement, trust, a second chance, acceptance, a fair shake, and the opportunity to pursue life, liberty and happiness But as the catastrophe of Trump 2.0 has shown, the most important thing we can do for those people and causes is to build a bigger army to fight them," the memo reads. "Communicating in authentic ways that welcome rather than drive voters away would be a good start." It's worth noting that in certain parts of the country, a lot of people, especially now, do talk in this language and use the phrases Third Way recommends against, even if it doesn't scream big tent enough. It's also worth noting an inherent irony in all of this: it's hard to police how politicians talk at the same time that you're asking them to be authentic.
August 22, 2025 at 2:11 PM
transliberalism.substack.com
I was all quiet and sleepy and then remembered WHAT DAY IT IS AND NOW I’M LIKE A KID ON CHRISTMAS RAAAAHHHHH

IT’S PUMPKIN SPICE SEASON!!!!!!!
A screenshot from the Dunkin app. The top reads “Pumpkin’s Back”. It shows a list if pumpkin flavored items.
August 20, 2025 at 12:14 PM
transliberalism.substack.com
it's stupid... 🥺
A screenshot from the program LM Studio, featuring a chat with Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507. The user opens with "Hi, Qwen." The LLM respond with "Hello, it seems there might be a little confusion. I am Qwen, not Qwen."
August 17, 2025 at 8:32 PM
transliberalism.substack.com
It would be privacy-preserving and environmentally better.

It also is a confusing nightmare. Take a look at this screenshot from one of the most user-friendly programs. There is no description; you gotta pick one. What's the difference between UD-Q6_K_XL and Q8_0? Good luck googling that one!
A screenshot of available quants for Gemma 3 4B IT on Jan.ai's desktop program. There are a lot, and there are no descriptions beyond file sizes.
August 13, 2025 at 11:52 PM
transliberalism.substack.com
“Guns make us safer”
Philadelphia police say they now believe the party in Grays Ferry that ended in a fatal mass shooting last month was not a targeted attack. Twelve victims were struck by bullets fired by partygoers who, after hearing what they thought was the sound of gunfire, aimlessly started shooting.
August 2, 2025 at 10:43 AM
transliberalism.substack.com
Will report back
A photo of two books side by side on carpet. They look well-loved. The first, on the left, is Intuitive Eating by Tribole and Resch, which is about a pro-health anti-diet approach to food. The second is eat to love by Hollenstein, a book bringing elements of Buddhism to eating and body image concerns.
August 2, 2025 at 1:30 AM