[jabbing my index finger at the front page] This is what happens when institutions optimize for psychopaths in positions of power
10.03.2026 12:58
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[jabbing my index finger at the front page] This is what happens when institutions optimize for psychopaths in positions of power
These bloodthirsty lunatics seem unfamiliar with the actual teachings of Christ.
US officers are telling troops that the war on Iran is “all part of God’s divine plan”. As one commander put it, “President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth.” jonathanlarsen.substack.com/p/us-troops-...
Such a great book. Made me see that our current tech discourse is basically just religion, not science.
hello minnesota and beyond! thank you for your kind messages. it is very weird to be the news when you cover the news. i love this beautiful state and journalism, and i am hopeful for better days. but we will be forever changed bc of the last two months.
The chatbot interface is an epic UX-design failure. Instead of approaching it as a digital tool that can do certain tasks, we mistake it for a human & expect it to act like one, which not only doesn't deliver the result we want but creates disastrous new problems. buttondown.com/apperceptive...
Great moment to create a tax on billionaires and corporations, one that keeps pace with any White House cuts to federal funding. Redirect the pain while refilling the budget. 🤑
Two NYCPS districts recently passed resolutions calling for a 2-year moratorium on AI in classrooms. That's exactly what we need: time and leverage. Instead of betraying our values, we have to insist on education tools that align with our values. Until vendors can deliver those tools, no dice.
That same superintendent argues for AI in our schools so that students can learn to use it "responsibly". But there is no responsible use of a technology that's unaccountable, opaque, prone to racial & gender bias, emotionally manipulative, environmentally harmful, and frequently wrong.
My kid is a NYC 1st grader, and her superintendent has embraced AI in order to "reduce redundancy" and make our schools "more efficient". As a union leader, you'll recognize the meaning behind his management-speak. The AI industry has developed these tools explicitly to undermine worker power.
I'm in a similar parents group at my kid's elementary school. But it's in the NYC Public Schools system, so our task is more complicated. Inspiring to see the progress you've made! Keep up the fight, because leaders sometimes use advisory groups as empty gestures toward accountability.
A timeless banger
Evidently his "etc" doesn't include anti-Muslim scaremongering
I'm working with other concerned families at my child's elementary school to slow down an expansion of digital platforms and AI software across the district. Your writing, and the work of the NEPC, has really helped us understand the issues at stake.
I wrote about the reality of individual guilt in a culture of moral disintegration.
darkforum.substack.com/p/how-to-liv...
If you don't have time for the full article, at least watch the embedded videos: dance clubs with tens of thousands of people standing absolutely still, all facing the stage, iPhones held aloft, as the DJs play their hit song "Move". Even when the bass drops, the crowd remains motionless.
It's about the success of white European DJs who are packing Ibiza mega-clubs, headlining big festivals, and topping streaming charts with their bland take on "afro house" (which has been scrubbed of any traces of Africa).
What you've written here and elsewhere about algorithms, normal slop, and neoliberal individualism are extremely relevant to this recent article by Rachel Grace Almeida: ra.co/features/4469
Also, "reduced" is not the word I want to see in this sentence:
"the teen account will automatically get additional content protections, including reduced graphic content, viral challenges, sexual, romantic or violent roleplay, and extreme beauty ideals"
I read this article when it came out a month ago, and I've thought about it every day since. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/28/o...
The defining lesson of this first year of Trump authoritarianism is that kowtowing & capitulating yields zero permanent benefit and only emboldens the admin to come after you more.
This critical lesson was first documented in the landmark political science treatise “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.”
Reproducing the polaroids larger than actual size was a peculiar decision. Also, I wish the book included some kind of text... although, well, of course it doesn’t.
I'm grateful for your excellent reporting. It has really helped us understand where our experience fits into recent developments across the country.
The district has organized a series of events to manufacture parental consent for these products. The first ended with parents shouting that they're not being heard. (Subsequent events have been on Zoom, presumably to prevent shouting.) Teachers are completely left out of the process.
I shared the article with a group I started at my kid's NYC public elementary school around the issue of AI ed tech. Amira is mandated in all classrooms in our district, a pilot program for the rest of the city. District administrators are pushing hard for it, but the teachers are not impressed.
But what iseducation? Embodied and enactive cognitive sciences remind us that knowledge is not something discrete that an individual possesses and passes down but an inherently dynamic and evolving endeavour that develops in the process of embodied, curious and engaged interaction through dialogue. The pinnacle of cognition, particularly ‘human knowing’, is inextricably interwoven with interactions we engage in
with each other and the physical, cultural and social world we inhabit, ‘so much so that individuals are not thinkable outside of their interactions and embeddedness in their (social) world’ (De Jaegher, 2019). Dialogic models of knowledge and education emphasize that interactions between a student and teacher and/or peer provide ‘scaffolding’ for how that child understands the world. The always in flux, active and continually transforming nature of human cognition necessitates that education be fundamentally an ongoing activity. Far from the reductionist view whereby ‘formal knowledge’ can be packaged and acquired from an LLM, the classroom is an environment where love, trust, empathy, care and humility are fostered and mutually cultivated through dialogical interactions
In this short piece, I lean on embodied cog sci to argue that we should refuse & resist llms in education (pp. 53-58) unesdoc.unesco.org/in/documentV...
"the classroom is an environment where love, trust, empathy, care & humility are fostered & mutually cultivated through dialogical interactions"
Whether you're participating in an authoritarian spectacle or just denying someone's health-insurance claim, "I was only following orders" doesn't absolve you of moral responsibility. open.substack.com/pub/darkforu...
Creating a perpetual sense of crisis is the whole point. Brilliant writing, as always, @nesrinemalik.bsky.social
The people stoking anti-immigrant hysteria aren't interested in adjusting immigration to an acceptable level, not even to zero, because hysteria is the point. "No matter what ever-escalating pledges, solutions or policies are offered, nothing will ever be enough." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Hate to break this to Mr. O'Hanlon, but "just doing the job he was told to do" isn't the excuse he thinks it is. open.substack.com/pub/darkforu...