Adrian

I love this so much

Right-Wing Attacks on James Talarico Are a Reminder That Christian Extremism Is Official Republican Policy The reaction to Talarico's Christian rhetoric demonstrates the ways in which far-right theology is about underwriting misogyny and racism.

The right's attacks on James Talarico reveal the "ever-stronger fusion between extremist right-wing Christianity and the Republican Party."

Great from @aselrod.bsky.social. Really underscores importance of his campaign as an antidote to Christian nationalism:
www.liberalcurrents.com/right-wing-a...

Upholding Liberal Education Love of the world, not meaningless tests, must be the heart of liberal education.

“The indispensability of a liberal education is the freedom from being tied to the zeitgeist of one’s age or situation to love what is true, good, and beautiful, and to be initiated into the world while cultivating a love for it.” www.liberalcurrents.com/upholding-li...

Pervert Politics: Trumpism’s Body Obsessions How Republicans went from the party of prudes to the party of perversion.

“The body is the primary subject of Trumpian politics. This is true both in the affirmative sense of right-wing aesthetics and in the punitive sense of managing the bodies of others to display power and contempt.” www.liberalcurrents.com/pervert-poli...

International Relations Is Not a Morality Play: What to Expect From the War With Iran The Trump administration has no plan and no path to a good outcome.

"'If the U.S. ends up withdrawing' from the Iran nuclear deal, I wrote in March 2017, 'it sets the Middle East on a path to two possible futures: (1) A nuclear Iran. (2) War. Both are much worse than the status quo.' Nine years later, America launched a war on Iran."

What Elon Has Done Elon Musk's destruction of USAID has faded from public consciousness in America, despite leaving death and destruction in its wake.

Today, @mckay4senate.bsky.social urges us not to forget what Elon Musk do to USAID, something that is still likely to have the highest body count of the administration’s actions. McKay documents just what Elon has done in detail www.liberalcurrents.com/what-elon-ha...

Old enough to remember when Republicans thought armed agents pointing a gun at a scared little Latino boy was an outrage. "Stormtroopers," they said. "Jackbooted thugs."

a man in a suit and tie stands in a crowd ALT: a man in a suit and tie stands in a crowd

I like that framing a lot better; some of my best friends are functionalists!

I don’t know if that’s quite as egregious as getting into a conversation about this stuff without ever having heard of the entire field of philosophy of mind 😜

In any case, if Askell said LLMs feel, I disagree at this point. Doesn’t really take away from any of the broader AI points though.

I could be mistaken here but “measuring intelligence by how closely its outputs resemble the human mind” is behaviorism not functionalism.

Granted, your point about training and reinforcement is on target (I just don’t think functionalism is the target here—functionalism is catching strays!)

We’ve got another @sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com banger on our hands folks

The Opposition Report #10 The occupation of Minneapolis, imperialism, MAHA, and more.

“The “physicians” and other folks now running the CDC and FDA, as well as the constellation of various advisory panels and committees, are now openly saying that they will accept a world where more children die of preventable diseases in the name of their anti-vaccine crusades.”

As more comes out in the Epstein files, it’s again remarkable how many very rich and very powerful and very connected people place no stock in having a worthy character or cultivating anything like virtue, and instead wallow in moral wretchedness and seek to socialize with others who do the same.

The original article said “AI.” Did Askell argue the point about LLMs specifically?

The fixed version.

Historians, feel free to use this for the cover of your books on the modern conservative movement.

Regardless of Askell’s specific views, the larger point, which you seemed to have skirted at this point, is that this is indeed a real discussion in philosophy and it poses serious questions not only about AI but about humans as well.

Nothing novel here, but it is absolutely infuriating—bordering on absurdity—that the movement that has been “anti-government” for a half a century is utterly silent in the face of government agents murdering citizens.

You can take your “don’t tread on me” flags down now. They’re useless.

I’m not sure what to tell you at this point other than you are mistaken. These conversations in philosophy have been happening since at least the mid-20th century. It’s an entire debate in philosophy of mind. And it’s fascinating; you should look into it.

“copy, cut, randomize, paste tied to a complex recognize and store algorithm”

Pretty sure you described most of what humans do just in purposely pejorative mechanic language.

Where’d you get that definition of philosophy?

In the UK at least since the run up to Brexit, in the US maybe longer, we've just been watching the Right become progressively more and more openly wacky authoritarians and yet receive the same "maybe the left need to listen to their reasonable concerns!?" treatment from a certain kinda centrist.

We Have Organized, and More Must Do So Minneapolis has shown us the path.

“Today, almost 58 years after MLK was murdered, more than 97 years after he was born, and as we approach the 250th anniversary of our founding, ordinary Americans are coming together again to protect our way of life. Many of us have organized towards that end, and more of us are doing so every day.”

So, How’s the Occupation Going for You? What’s it like to live in America with a domestic military occupation? Minnesota has the answer.

“The physical machinations of the occupation are nearly impossible to avoid. ICE stops people randomly on the street. ICE rams cars, sometimes through intersections, and sometimes pulls someone out and leaves the car right in the street.” www.liberalcurrents.com/so-hows-the-...

Return of the Silver Shirts In ICE's invasion of Minneapolis, an echo of a dark past.

Really good historical perspective. If you don’t read @liberalcurrents.com , you should.

www.liberalcurrents.com/return-of-th...

close readers of me will know that i am a dewey guy (and a william james guy)

Mamdani Teaches Us How to Speak the Language of Illegitimacy How should that next Democratic government act on the belief that Trump's second term was lawless and illegitimate?

"Trump is a usurper. He is not, right now, the lawful president, because the same law that creates the office of president also disqualifies Trump from holding any office, high or low." www.liberalcurrents.com/mamdani-teac...

every thousand years or so the ancient ones show up all pissed off cause of some crap they've been stewing about for an eon and it's like, hey yog sothoth, nobody knows what the fuck you're talking about

Call me a rube, but I didn’t really get One Battle After Another. I assume me not getting it is tied to me also not understanding the near-universal acclaim and praise it’s getting.

This was a pretty good one