The Bi of Hormuz

@joshstein.bsky.social

10006 Followers 177 Following

Philosopher by training; cranky by nature. Professional in science and technology policy. Also photography, combatting antisemitism, politics, and ethics.

Families in the foreground. Washington Monument in the background.
People eating lunch in the foreground. Families walking in the background. Museum of the American Indian in the background.
Two members of the national guard in their green unis, standing in front of a large sign with a smiley face and the word FORGET. The photo was taken in the lower level of the Hirschhorn Gallery.
Ezra Klein “Nietzsche for Gooners” podcast n “the new rights very old vision of men”
The relativist does not say — and could not mean: Relativism about knowledge is true because it coheres with my background non-epistemic values. Once again, this would entail that someone who did not share those values would be free to repudiate the relativism and accept an objectivist conception of knowledge instead. And this would be something that the relativist herself would have to acknowledge because it’s entailed by her own view. But no relativist does — and arguably no relativist could — have such an attitude toward the view itself. In the excerpts cited above, it is said over and again that it has been shown by the finest philosophical thinking of our time that knowledge is always produced in a social context and inevitably reflects the values of those who produce it. This is not put forward simply as the claim that according to progressive values, all knowledge is socially constructed, but this need not be accepted by those who don’t share those values. It’s very clear that what’s being said is: Every person who is up on the most important developments in epistemology would know that all knowledge is socially constructed. Anyone, no matter what their background values, has reason to believe this.
The company’s hasty move to scrub an entire writer and their backlog from Sports Illustrated‘s site is significant in light of the iconic sports brand’s not-too-distant history of AI scandal. Back in 2023, Futurism published an investigation revealing that Sports Illustrated, then owned by The Arena Group, had published a huge number of product review articles bylined by completely fabricated writers with AI-generated profile pictures. The Arena Group said the articles had been published to Sports Illustrated‘s site by a third-party content provider called AdVon Commerce; former employees of AdVon told Futurism that the company was secretly using AI to generate large amounts of content. When we reached out to the Arena Group about the content, the entire section of the Sports Illustrated site where the articles had appeared was swiftly deleted.
Jew Jitsu, the Hebrew Hands of Fury
Billionaires rock. They’re great even when you don’t calculate what they contribute to the public weal, which is a lot. Add up the tax and the philanthropy, and the citizenry gets 59% of what billionaires earn, or 73% if you follow their fortunes into death. Estimates that billionaires pay lower tax rates than everyone else rest on distortions, tricks and lies.
ADL at the NFL draft with Robert Kraft.
Matt Goodwin: "AI didn't write my book"
Peter Dinklage in GOT, drinking with a beard.
B’Elanna Torres lighting candles in a tank top with comm badge.
Theo Francken: I think Orban is a traitor and I’m glad he lost. I also thought Vance’s support was a really dumb campaign move. Doesn’t help anyone in Hungary. I’m a right-wing politician and think the far-right is being really stupid. And the MAGA’s should really stop campaigning internationally because everyone and everything they support loses the elections. Lead instead of gold. Best advertisement for the left. Crazy.
Both paths - impeachment or the 25th Amendment - are seen by party leadership as a distraction from midterm campaigns on high costs and unchecked corruption.
Some Americans take comfort in China’s present woes. After all, their stumbling gives us more time to heal from our own self-inflicted wounds. By contrast, the economist and China expert Dan Wang longs for a competition that actually forces both sides to be more than they are. He has the right idea. We would be better off with an America that takes trade and industrial policy seriously, and actually learns from the objectively impressive accomplishments of what Wang calls the “engineering state,” while also trying to avoid its mistakes. We would be better off with a China that felt compelled to give up some of its social control in order to harness a greater dynamism to propel them to new heights. We would be better off with an America that felt pressured to actually make extensive use of our track record of successfully integrating large numbers of immigrants, in order to expand our labor pool and draw the world’s top talent. We would be better off if both sides pushed at the technoscientific knowledge frontier with as much institutional commitment as possible.
A 2028 Democratic candidate ought to lean into our rivalry with China not just because the international system is in shambles, and Republicans are to blame. The pressure of the first Cold War was successfully channeled into long needed reforms at home, helping to make America truly a liberal democracy for the first time—one that finally, through the Voting Rights Act, would begin to live up to the Fifteenth Amendment’s promise to enfranchise everyone regardless of their race.
Trump is a bad ally. To NATO members, to Ukraine, to liberal democracies in general. He kisses up to Putin and targets countries that cannot credibly threaten us. The 2028 candidate should run on actually making America’s strategic position in the world stronger, and specifically doing so by weakening China’s influence on the world. They should offer a vision of a new liberal international order. This should not mean unilateral deployments of our military forces against weak nations. It should mean that if Russia invaded a neighboring country, we provide that country with exactly what they need to win—something the Biden administration did not do after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. It should mean a willingness to draw a bright line around Taiwan and directly sink Chinese ships if they cross that line.
Dennis Hopper as Bowser. (I guess? He’s in a suit with cornrows. I dunno, man. Fiona Shaw is also in the movie.)
American flag and Straw Hat Pirate flag underneath, walking past the Lincoln Memorial.
Protesters on bridge, carrying effigy heads.
Trump wig and suit walking awkwardly down the street, cherry blossoms in the background.
"No Kings" banner, inflatable pig, American flag passing by the front of the Lincoln Memorial.
Amry posting about the Israeli bomb threats/swatting incidents in Australia (left) and then a headline collage with Wiesel trutherism, a bunch of cases (most of which don’t support the thesis) and an antisemitic cartoon. She did apologize for this, because of the cartoon, but insists on the content.
“When the perpetrator is an Islamist, the denunciations are intermingled with breathless assurances that they do not represent Islam, that Islam is a religion of peace, etc.” Ford wrote. “When the terrorists are white supremacists, that kind of soul-searching or attempts to understand the sources of their radicalization or their perverse moral reasoning is beyond the pale.” Ford complained that “anyone who shares even some of their views” gets “painted with the same brush.”
The National Mall (Washington Monument in the far distance. Middle ground lots of tourists and the grass of the mall. In the foreground, father and son walking away from the camera. The son is wearing a cape and crown. The dad is wearing a yellow hoodie.
As Seraj Assi wrote for Jacobin in 2024, Shapiro has a long track record on this issue, and it’s all bad. In college, he wrote opinion pieces about the Oslo Accords that were simply racist, saying that Palestinians as an ethnic group were “too battle-minded to be able to establish a peaceful homeland of their own.” As Pennsylvania’s attorney general, he went out of his way to support West Bank settlements exactly like the one Siyam was killed over, invoking anti-BDS laws to punish Ben and Jerry’s for refusing to sell ice cream there. As governor, he compared anti-genocide protesters who wear keffiyehs and other head coverings to the hoods of the KKK—though he also says you mustn’t compare ICE to Nazis. It’s obvious that he has an ideological commitment to Israel that clouds his judgment on the most basic moral and political issues, up to and including war crimes. So his shameful abandonment of his own dead constituent isn’t an aberration; it’s exactly who he is, and what he stands for.
FTC policy statement endorsing age verification. Community Note: Contrary to their claim, using age verification has numerous issues, including but not limited to: 1. Easily bypassed wired.com/story/robloxs-… pcgamer.com/hardware/someo… anapolweiss.com/blog/roblox-ju… 2. Risks of security data breach newamerica.org/oti/reports/ag… fortune.com/2026/02/24/dis… 3. Inaccuracies (Placing adults into underage groups, vice versa) usatoday.com/story/tech/202… theguardian.com/news/2025/sep/… And many more... (sigh, I need a break).
The startup isn’t the only one building an AI doctor. Lightspeed-backed Doctronic is one of the competitors. Lotus is differentiating itself — at least for now — by offering its entire suite of care completely free of charge. Dhaliwal said that eventual business models may include sponsored content or subscriptions, but the current focus remains entirely on product development and attracting patients rather than revenue.
entrance to a breezeway leading to the "medical" examination area in Terezin. My photo, Jan 2025
White single-bed cell, 5'8 or so. White walls. Photo is mind, from Jan 2025
The "arbeit macht frei" gate at Terezin, entering the blocks where the prisoners were housed. Photo is mine, Jan 2025
A photograph of the memorial stones at Terezin, with visitors in the midground and the fortress and Magen David in the background. My photo, Jan 2025
Rahm Emanuel smiles longingly at Elon Musk.
Bush43 in front of the Mission Accomplished banner.
Street photo, green house with walnut doors and orange house with tile roof. A few people sitting in front of the houses. Cloudy sky overhead.
Moderator: What do you think of him? George: I think it’s hilarious. I agree with a lot of his points. He definitely doesn’t care about how it’s gonna be reacted to, which I respect, but I also think it can be kind of dangerous. I think I read earlier that he’s not ever planning on running for political office, which I think is probably a good thing. There’s a lot of baggage attached to him. I just think he’s funny, honestly, and through that humor he’s saying a lot of things that I kinda align with. He said that all blacks should be in jail on Piers Morgan. And I was like, oh my god, this guy’s kind of a psycho. Ally: At its core I believe a lot of what he says, but I think the delivery is kind of poor. Like, I feel that way about Trump. [But] . . . He’s America First. He’s not anti-helping out other countries, but he’s like we can’t be putting our country at risk because of it, so I just think that general mindset is what I agree with. Atticus: I dig him. He knows his market. He’s not trying to please everybody. He’s definitely going after more of the shock value with some of his stuff. But as far as general beliefs or values, I sort of agree.
“Bolsonaro tested Brazil’s democracy. Its Supreme Court stepped in.
"I'm sure I'm not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, 'Hey, I think she just winked at me.' And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America. This is a quality that can't be learned; it's either something you have or you don't, and man, she's got it."
“We’re not just dealing with protests,” he said then. “We’re facing a hardened core of ideologically driven actors, empowered by digital amplification and real-world networks, who are reshaping campus discourse — and possibly campus safety — in deeply troubling ways.”
Anyone wonder why after Oct 7, there were suddenly massive threats to synagogues in the US? We funded increased security for all of them, yet very few instances of damage or injury? Usually cosmetic damage with trope slurs, never caught on camera or apprehended by “increased security”??
“Rick Weems is on team Marsha”
“It [China] just looks at the west and goes ‘wow these fuckers are being driven mad by their insane billionaire class and spreading that madness to others for free, better curb that fucking dumb ass white people shit.” China regulates influencers to restrict those with verified competence to speak on social media regarding medicine, finance, education, etc.
Frog eating ramen, tattoo.
Inflatable frog in front of national archive.
Dobbs: Those are all industries in which wages are declining. I don't hear that discussed on the Senate floor by the proponents of this amnesty legislation. Sanders: That's right. They have no good response. I read something today that a lot of people coming into this country are coming in as lifeguards. I guess we can't find - that's right. We can't American workers to work as lifeguards. And the H1B program has teachers, elementary school teachers. Well, you know.
New York City on fire with the words “paid for by Cuomo for NYC” over the top.
Father and son in the foreground, kid in a crown and red cape and carrying a sign. National Mall and Washington Monument in the background.
Foreground, people carrying American flags. Background, the Capitol building.
Unicorn inflatable suit next to someone dressed as Elphaba, holding a sign. Marching past a Smithsonian.
Protesters on the Mall carrying signs, women smiling and laughing while holding up their protest signs.
Ok this tweet about upcoming changes to ChatGPT blew up on the erotica point much more than I thought it was going to! It was meant to be just one example of us allowing user freedom for adults. Here is an effort to better communicate it. As we have said earlier, we are making a decision to prioritize safety over privacy and freedom for teenagers. And we are not loosening any policies related to mental health. This is a new and powerful technological and we believe minors should have significant protection. We also care very much about the principle of treating adult users like adults. As AI becomes more important in people's lives, allowing a lot of freedom for people to use AI in the ways that they want is an important part of our mission. It doesn't apply across the board of course: for example, we will still not allow things that cause harm to others, and we will treat users who are having mental health crises very different from users who are not. Without being paternalistic we will attempt to help users achieve their long-term goals. But we are not the elected moral police of the world. In the same way that society differentiates other appropriate boundaries (R-rated movies, for example) we want to do a similar thing here.
Anna Paulina Luna: My office just received word from the Russian Ambassador to the US that the ambassador from Russia to the United States will be hand delivering the Russian intelligence findings on who assassinated JFK to my office. This is a 350 page document. We will be uploading these documents as soon as we receive them working with Jefferson Morley to ensure that the American people have direct access to them immediately. It is important to note that Congress attempted to obtain these files in the 90s and was denied. We have been given access to them now for the first time in history. Aside: Morley is a conspiracy theorist who thinks the CIA assassinated JFK.
“I hate human-created short form videos, but I love AI slip videos. Why”
The heavily gilded office of former Turkmen dictator Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov.