Tootfinder

TL;DR: what if instead of denying the harms of fascism, we denied its suppressive threats of punishment
Many of us have really sharpened our denial skills since the advent of the ongoing pandemic (perhaps you even hesitated at the word "ongoing" there and thought "maybe I won't read this one, it seems like it'll be tiresome"). I don't say this as a preface to a fiery condemnation or a plea to "sanity" or a bunch of evidence of how bad things are, because I too have honed my denial skills in these recent years, and I feel like talking about that development.
Denial comes in many forms, including strategic information avoidance ("I don't have time to look that up right now", "I keep forgetting to look into that", "well this author made a tiny mistake, so I'll click away and read something else", "I'm so tired of hearing about this, let me scroll farther", etc.) strategic dismissal ("look, there's a bit of uncertainty here, I should ignore this", "this doesn't line up perfectly with my anecdotal experience, it must be completely wrong", etc.) and strategic forgetting ("I don't remember what that one study said exactly; it was painful to think about", "I forgot exactly what my friend was saying when we got into that argument", etc.). It's in fact a kind of skill that you can get better at, along with the complementary skill of compartmentalization. It can of course be incredibly harmful, and a huge genre of fables exists precisely to highlight its harms, but it also has some short-term psychological benefits, chiefly in the form of muting anxiety. This is not an endorsement of denial (the harms can be catastrophic), but I want to acknowledge that there *are* short-term benefits. Via compartmentalization, it's even possible to be honest with ourselves about some of our own denials without giving them up immediately.
But as I said earlier, I'm not here to talk you out of your denials. Instead, given that we are so good at denial now, I'm here to ask you to be strategic about it. In particular, we live in a world awash with propaganda/advertising that serves both political and commercial ends. Why not use some of our denial skills to counteract that?
For example, I know quite a few people in complete denial of our current political situation, but those who aren't (including myself) often express consternation about just how many people in the country are supporting literal fascism. Of course, logically that appearance of widespread support is going to be partly a lie, given how much our public media is beholden to the fascists or outright in their side. Finding better facts on the true level of support is hard, but in the meantime, why not be in denial about the "fact" that Trump has widespread popular support?
To give another example: advertisers constantly barrage us with messages about our bodies and weight, trying to keep us insecure (and thus in the mood to spend money to "fix" the problem). For sure cutting through that bullshit by reading about body positivity etc. is a better solution, but in the meantime, why not be in denial about there being anything wrong with your body?
This kind of intentional denial certainly has its own risks (our bodies do actually need regular maintenance, for example, so complete denial on that front is risky) but there's definitely a whole lot of misinformation out there that it would be better to ignore. To the extent such denial expands to a more general denial of underlying problems, this idea of intentional denial is probably just bad. But I sure wish that in a world where people (including myself) routinely deny significant widespread dangers like COVID-19's long-term risks or the ongoing harms of escalating fascism, they'd at least also deny some of the propaganda keeping them unhappy and passive. Instead of being in denial about US-run concentration camps, why not be in denial that the state will be able to punish you for resisting them?

Quantum reservoir computing for predicting and characterizing chaotic maps
Qingyu Li, Chiranjib Mukhopadhyay, Ludovico Minati, Abolfazl Bayat
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.12071 ht…

Quantum reservoir computing for predicting and characterizing chaotic maps
Quantum reservoir computing has emerged as a promising paradigm for harnessing quantum systems to process temporal data efficiently by bypassing the costly training of gradient-based learning methods. Here, we demonstrate the capability of this approach to predict and characterize chaotic dynamics in discrete nonlinear maps, exemplified through the logistic and Hénon maps. While achieving excellent predictive accuracy, we also demonstrate the optimization of training hyperparameters of the qua…

Heralded Emission Detection in Quantum Dot Solids under Twin-Photon Excitation
Chieh Tsao, Xiang Li, Alex Hinkle, Yifan Chen, Elvar Oskarsson, Uri Banin, Hendrik Utzat
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.11704 …

Heralded Emission Detection in Quantum Dot Solids under Twin-Photon Excitation
Harnessing quantum correlations between photons is an emerging direction in optical spectroscopy, but experimental progress has thus far been limited to fluorescence-detected studies of molecular systems at room temperature. Here, we demonstrate heralded emission detection (HED) under continuous-wave (CW) entangled-photon excitation of near-infrared (NIR)-emitting colloidal III-V quantum dots (QDs) at low temperatures. We use superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) and large-a…

"Es ist eine Weile her, dass ein gewisser Rezo ... zum Rundumschlag gegen die Unions­parteien ausholte. Die #CDU ließ sich damals zu einer herablassenden Antwort hinreißen: „Die Währung von YouTubern sind Klickraten. Die Währung einer Volkspartei ist Vertrauen.“ Die Christdemokraten erinnerten an ihre Verpflichtung „allen Menschen in Deutschland“ gegenüber und an das Gebot von „Maß und Mitte“, n…

Demokratie unter Überwachung: Die Zerstörung der liberalen CDU
Familienministerin Karin Prien droht Demokratieprojekten mit dem Verfassungsschutz. Das zeigt, wie getrieben und leichtfertig ihre Union ist.

Here's a picture collage of actors who are dead to me now 😡
https://deadline.com/2025/09/harry-potter-audiobooks-cast-kit-harington-keira-knightley-1236513662/

Trump's contempt for the law further played out in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday,
where Attorney General Pam Bondi repeatedly defied Senate Democrats’ attempts to ask her basic questions about the operations of her office.
https://www.thenation.com/article/politic…

Pam Bondi’s Shameless Message to Democrats
You have no power.

Speculative politics
As an anarchist (okay, maybe not in practice), I'm tired of hearing why we have to suffer X and Y indignity to "preserve the rule of law" or "maintain Democratic norms." So here's an example of what representative democracy (a form of government that I believe is inherently flawed) could look like if its proponents had even an ounce of imagination, and/or weren't actively trying to rig it to favor a rich donor class:
1. Unicameral legislature, where representatives pass laws directly. Each state elects 3 statewide representatives: the three most-popular candidates in a statewide race where each person votes for one candidate (ranked preference voting would be even better but might not be necessary, and is not a solution by itself). Instead of each representative getting one vote in the chamber, they get N votes, where N is the number of people who voted for them. This means that in a close race, instead of the winner getting all the power, the power is split. Having 3 representatives trades off between leisure size and ensuring that two parties can't dominate together.
2. Any individual citizen can contact their local election office to switch or withdraw their vote at any time (maybe with a 3-day delay or something). Voting power of representatives can thus shift even without an election. They are limited to choosing one of the three elected representatives, or "none of the above." If the "none of the above" fraction exceeds 20% of eligible voters, a new election is triggered for that state. If turnout is less than 80%, a second election happens immediately, with results being final even at lower turnout until 6 months later (some better mechanism for turnout management might be needed).
3. All elections allow mail-in ballots, and in-person voting happens Sunday-Tuesday with the Monday being a mandatory holiday. (Yes, election integrity is not better in this system and that's a big weakness.)
4. Separate nationwide elections elect three positions for head-of-state: one with diplomatic/administrative powers, another with military powers, and a third with veto power. For each position, the top three candidates serve together, with only the first-place winner having actual power until vote switches or withdrawals change who that is. Once one of these heads loses their first-place status, they cannot get it again until another election, even if voters switch preferences back (to avoid dithering). An election for one of these positions is triggered when 20% have withdrawn their votes, or if all three people initially elected have been disqualified by losing their lead in the vote count.
5. Laws that involve spending money are packaged with specific taxes to pay for them, and may only be paid for by those specific revenues. Each tax may be opted into or out of by each taxpayer; where possible opting out of the tax also opts you out of the service. (I'm well aware of a lot of the drawbacks of this, but also feel like they'd not necessarily be worse than the drawbacks of our current system.) A small mandatory tax would cover election expenses.
6. I'm running out of attention, but similar multi-winner elections could elect panels of judges from which a subset is chosen randomly to preside in each case.
Now I'll point out once again that this system, in not directly confronting capitalism, racism, patriarchy, etc., is probably doomed to the same failures as our current system. But if you profess to want a "representative democracy" as opposed to something more libratory, I hope you'll at least advocate for something like this that actually includes meaningful representation as opposed to the current US system that's engineered to quash it.
Key questions: "Why should we have winner-take-all elections when winners-take-proportionately-to-votes is right there?" and "Why should elected officials get to ignore their constituents' approval except during elections, when vote-withdrawal or -switching is possible?"
2/2
#Democracy

"Ich kann nicht, wenn alle zuschauen. Machst Du das mit dem Zelt?" #CampingContent

"Accurate Energetic Systems" was hiring at $19 an hr in Bucksnort Tennessee = those jobs ( and people that worked there ) all now GONE!
#Mlitary contractor #explosives plant endorsed by #GOP Governor Bill Lee vanishes…

Former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director
Susan Monarez is scheduled to testify about her high-profile firing from the agency at a hearing next Wednesday before the
Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.
Chair Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said the hearing will allow lawmakers on the committee to directly learn about the circumstances surrounding Monarez’s ouster and the resignations of other top officials at the CDC.
Cassidy said his commit…