I wish there were a group of cis men who would be willing to open-carry where it's legal, on demand, and accompany any trans person to and from anywhere they gotta go. I'd do it if I weren't a pacifist, but maybe it's still useful even to just have a walking buddy.

It's a shame that this is where we are as a society, but then again, I'm just using the same argument I've been fed my whole life about guns being critical towards creating a more polite society.

i think that these tools will probably be foundational to discovering more about the human mind and how words or images are received, stored, and assembled in the brain, but people like sam altman and elon musk are convinced that there is nothing else to a ‘person’ beyond that.

‘humanity’ is an emergent phenomenon, and that is what makes it special. a few other animals have the beginning of it, but none have all of it like we do. you don’t need a god or any kind of religion to understand this. as far as we know, we might be one of the least likely things to ever happen in the universe, ever.

Y'all are way overthinking it. Just say "thanks dawg" to everyone you meet. It even works on dogs!

I also will petition the masses to entertain my personal hill to die on: "dude" is a gender neutral term, and can be so again. As the 1900s-era philosopher Keluardo Joharæon Rice Mitchell, "I'm a dude, she's a dude, he's a dude, cus we're all dudes, hey!"

Fair enough. 👌

The Square Root of the 3rd Amendment

The one I personally have experience with is telemarketing. I worked at an agency whose business it was to call businesses and gather information about what IT tech they use, and at what point they were likely at the highest propensity to buy new stuff. We'd sell those leads to tech companies like Dell or HP for their sales teams to reference.

There was another "agency" out there that did the same thing we did with American young adults, but with prison labor paid something like $1-$3/day. It basically put our agency out of business, which good riddance, but also, it was at least a living for hundreds of people. Now those jobs don't exist, pretty much.

I love how this gag has grown and adapted to the new era. Back when I was in college (late aughties), the joke in our social circle was to say something ridiculous, then say, "what? It's true. You're saying you don't trust eaglepatriot1776 dot blogspot dot com?

That was the only real answer.

Congrats on your new baby, Beto O'Rourke.

cheap, too. it's just processed Clostridium botulinum poison; you can brew that in large vats for pennies on the dose. In some cases, it's cheaper to make than pills.

To be honest, this is just kind of how jobs reports have tended to work since Bush. It is kind of a consequence of both how reporting has failed to really contextualize how jobs reports tend to release in the US, as well as some (arguable) juking of the stats that make it easier to show positive growth in one area and then use the correctance to show the worse numbers.

Basically the Bureau of Labor and Statistics releases a monthly report, and at the beginning of the year it is based more on statistical modeling ("hockey stick growth! I got $5 today to mow the lawn, and $10 the next day to do it. If this rate keeps up, by next year I'll be pulling in a couple billion."), then they issue corrections as the actual data rolls in and either confirms or denies their modeling.

24 hour news (cable and online) got into the habit of basically reporting on the monthly reports like they are gospel, when realistically they are only reliable around November or December. I think the Fed encourages it too because it's quietly one of the levers they can use to inspire foreign investment.

But, it is difficult to adequately describe how seriously the nerds at the BLS take their jobs. They gather and report real-ass data that you can go look at pretty much back to the 60s. This rhythm must be their compromise with the partisan pressures of the executive.

my first world problem is that my commute is too short to finish a full podcast 😩😭