As far as I can recall, the audience laughed just three times at the Perth preview of Raoul Peck’s new documentary, Orwell: 2+2=5: once when the cinema manager, introducing the film, almost said ‘Enjoy!’, before correcting course and wishing us ‘a meaningful experience’; once on hearing Orwell confess his desire to give Sartre ‘a kick up the arse’ in his review of Antisemite and Jew; and once at some footage of a Trump supporter batting away a reporter’s questions on the basis that any criticism of her President was fake news.
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As neologisms go, ‘enshittification’ is not the most efficient specimen. Unlike, say, ‘nearlywed’ or ‘broligarch’, it is neither wholly self-defining nor reminiscent of some other word to which it is related in meaning. Clearly the term has struck a chord: both the American Dialect Society and Macquarie Dictionary have bestowed word-of-the-year status on it in recent times. But what, specifically, is going to shit, and what are the processes by which it does so?
Note: I have not published blog posts about my academic papers over the past few years. To ensure that my blog contains a more comprehensive record of my published papers and to surface these for folks who missed them, I will be periodically (re)publishing blog posts about some “older” published projects. This post is closely …
Continue reading "What makes online groups vulnerable to governance capture?"
Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – February 22, 2026 by Tony Wikrent Don’t Be Fooled By the Corrupt Court’s Tariff Decision Josh Marshall, February 20, 2026 [Talking Points Memo] The depth of the Supreme Court’s corruption has forced us to find new language to describe its actions. Today’s decision, undoing Trump’s massive array of tariffs that […]
The justice’s tariff-decision concurrence underscores a broader truth: The Supreme Court is no less political — or conniving — than everyone else in power.
Epstein whistleblowers, Olympic vultures, and more from The Lever this week.
According to Financial Times, Amazon Web Services experienced at least two minor outages in the final few months of last year, all caused by their internal “AI” tooling malfunctions. The article quoted one senior AWS employee describing them as “entirely foreseeable”.
Amazon is going hard on slop generators. LLMs are extremely complex systems. And complexity creates real risk. I recently wrote about how the real danger of LLM-based tools is less about “autonomous” attacks, and more about introducing massive additional complexity, and thus additional risk, into existing systems.
These outages are a great example of exactly that.
Kiro AI
Based on FT’s reporting, one specific outage in December was directly caused by Amazon’s tool called Kiro AI, which unexpectedly deleted and re-created a whole environment from scratch.
Oregon enhances rights for hikers and hunters, ICE loses a mega detention center, Missouri cracks down on illegal gambling, and Amazon cancels a spy-camera deal.
Use to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts.
När Finanspolitiska rådet med den väne Lars Heikensten i spetsen riktade kritik mot att regeringen inte följt sitt eget ekonomiska regelverk, kunde inte Mikael Damberg hålla sig. Han gick rätt i fällan, bekräftandes bilden att pengarna är slut. Men fakta är att Sverige har en mycket låg statsskuld. Vi har stora investeringsbehov. Och nationen Sverige […]
Not long after Trump took office, I observed that the status of the US as the “indispensable nation” could not be sustained. A year later, the US, considered strictly as a state actor, is already dispensable and has, in fact, been largely dispensed with, by Europe in particular. The standing ovation given to Rubio in Munich […]
Just north of the Alps, on the border between Germany and Switzerland, lies beautiful Lake Constance. And on the northwest shore of the lake is the lovely small city of Constance, Germany. Constance is well worth a visit. A lot of German cities have rather bland or unattractive centers, thanks to the American and British […]
The ICE contractor’s Colorado exodus comes as Florida expands employers’ ability to enforce noncompete agreements — and as Palantir fights former workers in court.
Test your knowledge of betting markets, Epstein whistleblowers, and other issues that really matter.
A prominent Epstein guest recalls meeting the Buddhist teacher at Epstein’s Manhattan mansion, scene of many of his most serious sex crimes.
The post The Dalai Lama – Epstein Connection appeared first on MintPress News.
“The Supreme Court dealt a major blow to President Trump’s economic policy on Friday, ruling that he had exceeded his authority when he imposed tariffs on nearly every U.S. trading partner.” — New York Times
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Thank you for bringing this issue to the Supreme Court’s attention. We all know how important the rule of law has been during the first solar cycle of President Nyarlathotep’s re-ascendancy. Without us, the Dread Lord would have likely found Himself unnecessarily hindered by bureaucratic red tape, jurisprudence, and antiquated notions of everyday logic. We also firmly established that the Crawling Chaos is legally allowed to gut the fabric of reality however He sees fit—but only while He continues to occupy the Presidency. It clearly says so in the Constitution. Or, at least, it did before Nyarlathotep used the document as toilet paper for one of his many festering orifices.
The world is on fire – and I’ve often been at a loss for how to constructively contribute to public discourse. For decades, I have shared knowledge gained through fieldwork to offer a different perspective on complex sociotechnical matters. Too often these days, I find myself banging my head against the wall while navigating the […]
Fourteen million people going hungry in the UK is a national disgrace and it is clear that food poverty has become a blight on British society. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights Philip Alston issued a damning report on the austerity policies of the Coalition and Tory […]
It’s an idea we create over time that gets imprinted in the brain
The post Home Really Is Where the Heart Is appeared first on Nautilus.
The dramatic find sheds new light on the diversity of spinosaurs
The post “Hell Heron”: New Dinosaur Species with A Head-mounted Sword Discovered in Africa appeared first on Nautilus.
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Reporting poolside from Don Nelson’s home on Maui, where the Hall of Fame NBA coach is enjoying a dog-filled and largely barefoot retirement.
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I call Don Nelson from my rental car, which I’ve parked by some food trucks near the Kahului Airport. It rings through, which means I’m welcomed to the island by a sardonic voicemail: “Hey, you’ve reached Nellie. I’m veeeery, veeeery buuuusy… on Maui.” Three weeks earlier, the Hall of Famer, who retired in 2010 as the all-time winningest NBA coach, agreed via text to an interview with a single word: “Anytime.” Now, a bit before 11 a.m., I start to wonder if he remembers who I am. He calls right back, voice gravelly and subdued, but friendly enough. “Come on by,” he says, giving me his address. “I’ll be in the poker room. Above the garage!”
A new study of bonobos shows that they grin during vigorous socio-sexual interactions
The post Grinning During Sex Isn’t Contagious, But It Does Require Tempo appeared first on Nautilus.
He lives with your family, and he’s sort of your brother.
Not a red flag. Because he’s not your actual brother, and everyone has already met the parents.
He is repeatedly bullied by your actual brother.
Not a red flag. Kids are resilient, and there is no evidence that individuals who were persistently dehumanized by a jealous/racist quasi-sibling are more likely to become Byronic antiheroes than those who were not.
He keeps track of the number of days you spend with him and the number you spend with the boy next door.
Not a red flag. Keeping track of the household calendar is unpaid labor, and if this is new information for you, what else have you been taking for granted?
He hurls a tureen of boiling applesauce at the boy next door.
Not a red flag. A good reminder that commenting on another person’s hair is not without risk, and a testament to the dangers of serving applesauce unchilled.
Over the past fortnight, Keir Starmer’s government has been rocked by scandal — a sentence that could have been written at any point since Labour’s 2024 landslide win. The latest, however, threatens to be the most damaging yet, not only because the prime minister has been weakened by nineteen months of self-inflicted crisis, but because […]
