Tootfinder

“Once upon a time, there were six blind men, who had never disagreed with one another.
One day, they were presented with an elephant, which they had never perceived or known about in their lives.
One by one, they approached and felt this strange creature, coincidentally feeling a different part of the beast.
From this, they each likened this ‘elephant’ to a different object, creating their first disagreement, and forever driving apart these six men,
for each believed …

The conflation of Jews and Israel is dangerous antisemitism.
And yet it’s harder to fight back as the mainstream Jewish establishment insists that Zionism is nearly as integral to Jewish identity as circumcision.
Increasingly, though, many Jews are searching for another point of view:
Feelings about Israel are wobbling within the community
— and disapproval is rising among the young;
pro-Palestinian Jewish groups are growing, and more and more Jews view “Zionis…

Book Review: ‘Here Where We Live Is Our Country,’ by Molly Crabapple
In “Here Where We Live Is Our Country,” Molly Crabapple tells the story of a Jewish labor movement that fought antisemitism and nationalism with equal fervor.

I spend a lot of time being worried or angry or annoyed at the way that generative ai fervor is undermining our ecosystems (environmental, cultural, epistemic, digital, etc).
But right now I'm just feeling mournful. Seeing project after project, institution after institution run enthusiastically into a future where we boil our oceans to better insulate ourselves from one another is ... tragic. We're losing a lot right now, and we're going to have to come to terms with that.…

I have some sketches of an essay that I need to write, but I think it's worth brain-dumping a bit more in the mean time.
#LLMs are an attempt to make tech grow forever. But like, how many "your mom/a friend, but done by a precarious worker instead" apps do we really need? Everything right now is in the AI grift hole, but there's almost nothing of interest (even if you ignore the ethical concerns). Like, no, I don't fucking want a robot to lie to me about my groceries. That doesn't sound like a useful feature. There's a lot of useless shit being pumped out to prop up the bottom line, and a lot of people just want to be able to use their old phone for more than a couple of years.
No one is happy with this. No one wants this. Except the billionaires who are forcing us all to drink the capitalism koolaid, because they'd rather exterminate life on earth than live in a world where they experience consequences.
Nothing grows forever. That's not how literally anything in reality works, or has ever worked, at all in history. Some people think that the universe itself may work like that, but that's only an educated guess. Finite things don't grow forever. Every organism, every society, every technology, every dynamic and adaptive system we have ever known goes through a growth phase and then goes in to a stabilization phase. Or, following a Malthusian pattern, grows until it reaches a catastrophic point and collapses. Like lemmings. Or reindeer. Or cancer.

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on KEXP's #VarietyMix
The Chemical Brothers:
🎵 Let Forever Be
#TheChemicalBrothers
https://vaaticanrecords.bandcamp.com/track/the-chemical-brothers-let-forever-be-flying-lotus-garmonbozia
https://open.spotify.com/track/3m1JFLpKLYgMi1jf6Bu16P

“Perhaps, nothing is abnormal about Operation Epic Fury. It’s what ‘forever wars’ America does; especially when led by a psychologically impaired president. Perhaps, however, something more disturbing is at issue. America is in decline … What is ‘epic’ about American ‘fury’ is that [it] is the murderous folly of a flailing, failing empire.”

Epic Fury: Attack of the Coalition of the Genocidal Couple
…control oil … control nations. – Attributed to Henry Kissinger, 1970s The future of our security -and our planet- is held hostage to our dependence on

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on #BBC6Music's #6Musics90sForever
The Chemical Brothers:
🎵 Let Forever Be (feat. Noel Gallagher)
#TheChemicalBrothers
https://vaaticanrecords.bandcamp.com/track/the-chemical-brothers-let-forever-be-flying-lotus-garmonbozia
https://open.spotify.com/track/3m1JFLpKLYgMi1jf6Bu16P

Man I love how "Diamonds Are Forever" just picks up like OHMSS never existed.
Also, speedrunning the 60s via these films, interesting to watch culture and fashion changing so much in like 7 years.

⚠️ AI can generate a feeling of intimacy that exceeds human connections
I discovered 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 for myself in my ill-fated research project of 2021!
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-01-ai-generate-intimacy-exceeds-human.html

AI can generate a feeling of intimacy that exceeds human connections
People can develop emotional closeness to artificial intelligence (AI)—under certain conditions, even more so than to other people. This is shown by a new study conducted by a research team led by Prof. Dr. Markus Heinrichs and Dr. Tobias Kleinert from the Department of Psychology at the University of Freiburg and Prof. Dr. Bastian Schiller from Heidelberg University's Institute of Psychology. Participants felt a sense of closeness especially when they did not know that they were communicatin…

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on #BBC6Music's #HuwStephens
The Chemical Brothers:
🎵 Let Forever Be (feat. Noel Gallagher)
#TheChemicalBrothers
https://vaaticanrecords.bandcamp.com/track/the-chemical-brothers-let-forever-be-flying-lotus-garmonbozia
https://open.spotify.com/track/3m1JFLpKLYgMi1jf6Bu16P