Mar 23 2026

Naomi Alderman’s The Power meets Monty Python’s “Hell’s Grannies”

A man struts and huffs and puffs and expands like a blowfish, but all the old women close their eyes. Deny him the female gaze. Refuse to be a witness to his Almighty Greatness, let alone a cheerleader.

And not only does he deflate, he disappears in a puff of, well, nothingness. Existential nothingness. Beauvoir would be delighted.

Camus would be pissed though.

Cool. So … very cool.

Yeah, it’s not that we’ve stopped reflecting men at twice their size, thank you Dale Spender and Sally Cline; we’ve stopped reflecting them at all.

*

She kills him.

WTF!

He consented. She paused. Did anyone hear him say ‘No’?

Next time she drugs him. Then kills him.

WTF!

He consented. She poked at his inert body. He didn’t resist.

Next time, she asks him. I’d really like to kill you.

What?

Do you consent?

What?

She looks at the others. I swear half of them are too stupid to live.

She shoots him.

WTF!

Relax, no one saw me. I’m an old woman. Invisible.

Unfuckable.

Same thing.

Yeah.

Mar 08 2026

The blink. This is perfect.

“She blinks at me. … The blink isn’t confusion. It’s not processing. It’s a screensaver. It’s her brain going into standby mode because the incoming information doesn’t match the preset programming.”

from a repost with no author name

 

 

Mar 08 2026

“… these guys have no idea how stupid they look.”

“The camera closes in on two cops standing beside the tank, each with an assault rifle.  Both weigh over three hundred pounds.  One is wearing a uniform of green-and-gray camouflage, as if he were hunting deer in the woods.  The other is wearing a uniform in brown-and-beige camouflage, as if he were hunting insurgents in the desert.  These two clowns are standing in the driveway of a suburban home about fifteen minutes from downtown, in a well-developed city of a million people, and they’re wearing camouflage.  The sad and scary thing about this image is that these guys have no idea how stupid they look.  Instead, they’re proud, arrogant.  They’re on display, tough guys fighting bad guys.”   from Rogue Lawyer, John Grisham (p125)

Mar 03 2026

Claude’s Constitution

https://www.anthropic.com/constitution

I’m half way through and just can’t …

To this point, I have two questions:

1. Have any of the authors prepared a comparable constitution for their own child/ren?  If not, why not?  If so, could I read it?

2. Have any of the authors taken just ONE philosophy course in Ethics?

 

 

Mar 02 2026

Non-Experts are Training AI

https://www.darioamodei.com/essay/the-adolescence-of-technology

The really scarey thing is that those who are training AI have themselves no training in training.   No Education degree.

Let alone a Psychology degree and a Philosophy degree.  And they’re juggling concepts like autonomy and morality?  WTF?!

And considering the range of applications (unlimited), it’s alarming that they have no Humanities knowledge.  Nor Social Science knowledge.  Nor even Physical Science.

They’re coders.  Guys who’ve lived in their parents’ basements for most of their lives.  And do what they do either for the giggles or the money.

Successfully “growing” a human being (a member of their own species) should be a prerequisite for these guys.  Have any of them done that?  Even just 10 hours a day?

‘Raising’ an AI is like raising a child with no nervous system (no capacity to feel pain) (and so no basis for empathy) and, of course, no morality.  Oh, and a super-IQ that’s off the charts.  Who among us is up to that task?  I mean, what can possibly go wrong?  (And did I mention doing it FOR THE MONEY?)

But what we’re seeing is a bunch of guys just fuckin’ around.   (And why am I surprised at their … unpreparedness?  When they fuck around with their meat-dicks and through utter negligence fertilize an egg, do they step up?  No.  So many just … walk away.)

 

 

Mar 02 2026

What if the typical worker’s pay had risen like CEO’s pay?

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/what-if-the-typical-workers-pay-had

Jan 29 2026

“But tell us again how women are too emotional for …”

“Women can give birth. Women regulate and manage their emotions far better than men. Women tend to be less power hungry and corrupt in politics than men are. Women are far less likely to abuse children, both physically and sexually. They commit far fewer rapes than men and account for only 1 to 2% of all mass shooters.

“But tell us again how women are too emotional for __________.”

 

from https://themouthyrenegadewriter.substack.com/p/traitor-trump-is-waging-a-sexist

Jan 25 2026

“Future Canadian Resistance Tactics” – hilarious list at Sweeneys

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/future-canadian-resistance-tactics

 

Jan 24 2026

George Carlin on abortion

Jan 17 2026

“What is the point of countries when …”

“What was the point of countries when civilization was only a generation away from extinction?”

from Permafrost, Alastair Reynolds

We aren’t that rational though. So we’ll have national wars right up to the end. We’ll be putting money into winning–nothing. Money that could have gone into surviving. Ditto sports. And entertainment.