Tootfinder

At TrustCon 2025, trust and safety professionals expressed anxiety over the industry's retreat, but no leaders condemned platforms' rollback of safety policies (Casey Newton/Platformer)
https://www.platformer.news/trustcon-trust-safety-leadership-decline-20…

Is anyone left to defend trust and safety?
It’s under assault this year from users, politicians, and their own executives — but the industry has responded with silence

Court Declines US Tariff Relief on Low-Cost Goods, for Now (Zoe Tillman/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-28/court-declines-us-tariff-relief-on-low-cost-goods-for-now
http://www.memeorandum.com/250728/p65#a250728p65

Up until 2016, the sea ice in Antarctica seemed relatively stable.
Then everything started to change.
At first, the decline was mostly in line with climate models.
But suddenly, in 2023, there was an enormous drop.
About 2.5 million sq km of Antarctic sea ice went missing relative to the average before 2023.
The anomaly was of such a magnitude that it's quite hard for scientists to know what to make of it.
It has been described as a five sigma ev…

[disclaimer: not a political scientist, talking out of my ass]
For the two parties are going to divide up the electorate, if one is the fascist party, maybe the other •has• to be the anti-fascist party — not just philosophically, but for practical reasons. Maybe you just can’t maintain a viable coalition to oppose a fascist party without bringing everyone who opposes fascism into your coalition. Sure feels that way now.
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Modeling study finds early signs of widespread coastal marsh decline #environment

Modeling study finds early signs of widespread coastal marsh decline
Researchers have revealed the declining health of coastal marshes several years before visible signs of decline, providing an early warning and an opportunity to protect an ecosystem that serves as the first line of defense against coastal flooding.

6 Warning Signs of Cognitive Decline You Should Never Ignore https://www.womansworld.com/wellness/mental-health/warning-signs-of-cognitive-decline-…

6 Warning Signs of Cognitive Decline You Should Never Ignore | Woman's World
Learn about the early warning signs of cognitive decline, Alzheimer's and frontotemporal dementia, highlighted by Bruce Willis and Robin Williams.

Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez says age-related cognitive decline among elected officials is a major issue for voters.
Ms. Perez was hesitant to name any particular colleague, because she said the problem was bigger than any one person.
But she said she was “concerned” about what she had heard about Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton, 88,
the nonvoting delegate representing Washington, D.C., who is clinging to her seat despite clear signs of mental decline.

This Democrat Wants Cognitive Standards in Congress. Her Colleagues Disagree.
Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez says age-related cognitive decline among elected officials is a major issue for voters.

[disclaimer: not a political scientist, just riffing here]
Plurality voting forces a two-party system. There will always be two parties (or if a third forms, the system will rapidly collapse back to two; this happened twice in US history).
The role of the two parties can change, however. Parties are coalitions, and coalitions are heterogeneous. There are lots of ways to draw lines through the myriad political interests to form two coalitions of roughly equal size. And those lines can shift.
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It’s pretty clear that
-- in his desperation and decline
-- Trump is doing whatever it takes to save his ass,
And the corrupt Supreme Court and quisling Congress are doing everything they can to help him.
Trump’s weaponizing of the Department of Justice and FBI took a very dark and dangerous turn this week;
their lawless attempt to forge ideological control over universities and the media grew far more ambitious and malevolent;
his attempt to get Fed Ch…

Handing AI the keys
"if we continue on the current path ... we are basically playing Russian roulette with humanity"
-- Grace Huckins, MIT Technology Review
On May 6, 2010, at 2:32 p.m. Eastern time nearly a trillion dollars evaporated from the
US stock market within 20 minutes
-at the time, the fastest decline in history
Then. almost as suddenly, the market rebounded.
After months of investigation, regalators attributed much of the respon…