Third Thoughts

@thirdthoughts.bsky.social

834 Followers 242 Following

Ex-ac polisci. Queer & Enby. Ex-Catholic Jew. SF&F (especially Pratchett, Trek). 🏳️‍⚧️ rights are human rights. Nuance > Hot Takes. Youtube vids on political history and philosophy - https://www.youtube.com/@ThirdThoughtsYT

User blocked by "Bad takes on Ukraine" blocklist.

Source: https://www.dumbingofage.com/comic/allabout/

Dante amd Virgil in the circle of the Simoniacs, Gustav Dore

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

I was walking along the bank of a stream when I saw a mother otter with her cubs, a very endearing sight, I'm sure you'll agree. And even as I watched, the mother otter dived into the water and came up with a plump salmon, which she subdued and dragged onto a half submerged log. As she ate it, while of course it was still alive, the body split and I remember to this day the sweet pinkness of its roes as they spilled out, much to the delight of the baby otters, who scrambled over themselves to feed on the delicacy. One of nature's wonders, gentlemen. Mother and children dining upon mother and children. And that is when I first learned about evil. It is built into the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior.

-Terry Pratchett

A Wat, the religious building, in civ 6.

First Thoughts are the everyday thoughts. Everyone has those. Second Thoughts are the thoughts you think about the way you think. People who enjoy thinking have those. Third Thoughts are thoughts that watch the world and think all by themselves. They’re rare, and often troublesome. Listening to them is part of witchcraft.
Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky (Discworld, #32; Tiffany Aching, #2)

Strawberry chiffon roll cake and iced latte

All the old farts at my woodshed will, totally earnest and straightfaced, say things like 'it's easy once you know how to do it' yea CLINT you be been doing it longer than I've been ALIVE everything's easier when you're practised it since GEORGIAN ENGLAND

Federal Reserve of NY chart showing the expansion of unemployment gaps for younger workers since the pandemic. Early college graduate unemployment remains higher in remote-work compatible occupations.

Brooks has been making a version of this argument for nearly a decade: humans conflate performance with competence. “When you see a performance of an AI system or a robot on one thing,” he says, “that fools us into thinking that it has the same general competence as a human. And that’s a mistake people make.” If a human ran a half marathon, we would infer something about that person’s balance, perception and resilience. The robot’s feat doesn’t generalize that way. “If it was running in the crowd and it was safe, that would be amazing,” Brooks says. “But they’re nowhere near that.”

From Origins of Totalitarianism, page 97

One World, by Peter Singer, on "the ethics of globalization"

Picture of George Orwell saying "Did I stutter" next to a particularly "truthy" Truth Social post from Our Dear Leader