Alison Smaalders

@vividwings.bsky.social

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Archaeology major, currently working in P&C insurance. Gamer, LARPer, general nerd, cat lover. She/her.

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Alison Smaalders

Long elections waste immense amounts of money. they harass potential voters into apathy. They play into the horse-race, scandal-fed view of politics that feeds deeply unserious media coverage. They NOT INCIDENTALLY make it difficult/impossible for campaigns to deal with last-minute surprises.

note how long it took the French from calling the election to holding not 1 but 2 votes? and organizing the shit out of the second one? LESS THAN ONE MONTH A national election does not have to be a painful 1.5-2 year process! the US election campaign should quite honestly not even have started yet!!

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Alison Smaalders

"And the cause of liberal democracy in Europe, which did NOT die..."

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Alison Smaalders

I do love how GOP donors write policy and make candidates dance for them, and Democratic donors come up with unrealistic game show style nomination shenanigans which are untethered from the very real, very normal, very legal nomination process managed by regular ass lawyers and delegates.

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Alison Smaalders

Conservative supporters show higher susceptibility to Russian disinformation: survey: Conservative Party supporters in Canada are more likely to believe pro-Kremlin narratives than Liberals and New Democrats, poll suggests

Conservative supporters show higher susceptibility to Russian disinformation: surveywww.theglobeandmail.com Conservative Party supporters in Canada are more likely to believe pro-Kremlin narratives than Liberals and New Democrats, poll suggests

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Alison Smaalders

Organizers got enough signatures to put a measure protecting abortion on the ballot in Arkansas. In *Arkansas*. They had *no national support*. Ignore the pundits melting down over not being treated as Very Special Boys. Dobbs has fundamentally changed elections. Everything they know is wrong.

Arkansas abortion rights groups collect enough signatures to advance ballot measurewww.nbcnews.com A measure to enshrine abortion rights in the ruby red state’s constitution is now one step closer to making the November ballot — but major obstacles remain.

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Alison Smaalders

apropos of uhhhhhhh everything, reposting this again

As well-meaning publishers try to navigate the coming storm of state laws against diversity, I hope they'll consider Timothy Snyder's Rule #1 (from his slim book ON TYRANNY).

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Alison Smaalders

For the same reason handlers of search & rescue dogs occasionally have volunteers put themselves in a position to be "found" alive in a grim disaster scene -- to keep up morale so that these dogs keep working -- I give you this screen shot from the BOP showing the current location of Steve Bannon.

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Alison Smaalders

Maybe I'm super fucked up but having the supreme court declare that J6 was fine and good actually feels worse than J6

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Alison Smaalders

This isn’t “hypocrisy,” he was lying about what he believes so they would confirm him

The hypocrisy, it burns.

Justice John Roberts Saying The President Is 'Bound By The Law' During Confirmation Hearing Resurfaces After Immunity Rulingbit.ly John Roberts previously said presidents are "bound by the law" during his confirmation hearing.

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Alison Smaalders

Conceding the premise that the presidency is a show and all that matters is how it’s perceived and not what it can do has infected our entire politics, and given Republicans carte blanche to be incompetent because it doesn’t matter that they fail it only matters that they can sell it as success

And, as much as I hate Joe Biden (and I do!), the man is a six term US Senator, a former VP who actually did something, and an extremely capable administrator. If we were focused on the job of president and not the spectacle of it then this would be obvious, but we keep getting caught in the circus

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Alison Smaalders

Finally, because I know this is coming: I have an adult’s relationship with politicians. I grew up with them and I know they are people. They are not my friends. They are means to an end. I don’t defend Hillary because she has made egregious mistakes but because I expect all politicians to make them

A lot of people forget that Hillary’s campaign had more Black women staffed on it than any other before or since in US history, but I certainly don’t. There is a *reason* for that loyalty despite her dipshit comments, but not a single person cares to ask. Says a lot about them, I think.

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Alison Smaalders

surged 48%. for a mass plagiarism tool that tells you to eat rocks and glue.

Google says its greenhouse gas emissions have surged 48% in the past five years due to the expansion of the data centers that underpin its AI efforts (Financial Times) Main Link | Techmeme Permalink

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Alison Smaalders

Google is just straight up getting less functional and I don't mean that search returns a bunch of garbage, I mean that searching my Gmail inbox doesn't work right, when I click on links they sometimes freeze instead of forwarding, etc.

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Alison Smaalders

I am reading Hannah Arendt right now and she makes this point. Over and over. With a freakin hammer. There are a LOT OF PEOPLE in the world very eager to pick a group and blame it for their problems, esp when they don't have a strong grasp of where those problems really come from.

Everyone is always afraid to say why people like Trump or Marie Le Pen have some level of popularity and it’s just that there’s a lot of people in the world who believe in racism. You end up with these goofy ass explanations for Trump where it’s NAFTA or shit and it’s like no you know what it is

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Alison Smaalders

The next president appoints 2-3 Supreme Court spots. That's a huge reason I'm showing up in November. This shit's gotta stop and that's the quickest way to do that.

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Alison Smaalders

The thing I can't stop thinking about is this: I'm 48, and in my adult lifetime there has been one Republican who won the popular vote. But I will probably spend the rest of my life under the authority of a Supreme Court dominated by hard right conservatives. How is that democracy?

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Alison Smaalders

Yup. The Constitution includes a narrowly-defined legal immunity for members of Congress in a specific circumstance. Not one word about Presidential or Supreme Court Justice immunity. Those parts were made up out of thin air.

Not that anyone particularly cares about original meaning, but think folks should still say it out loud: For all of the things that are unclear in the founding documents and unknowabilities of what the Founders intended, "the President can kill anyone or commit a coup" was *never* legally arguable

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Alison Smaalders

Reminder that there are five ways to address the current SCOTUS problem. 1. Impeach some justices 2. Impose term limits 3. Expand the courts 4. Pass legislation limiting court prerogatives 5. Keep winning the presidency for the next 16 years or so while periodically also holding the senate.

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Alison Smaalders

PERFORMATIVE DESPAIR IS NOT A POLITICAL STRATEGY. Do not conjure your own imagined demise. In particular, don't do it collectively, on a communication system meant to amplify emotional contagion. (simpler/more esoteric: don't do death magic at collective scale on your own minds, for fuck's sake)

Personal Me: performative despair is not a political strategy. You do not need to read it, boost it, otherwise encourage it or absorb it. Taking time offline is a super good idea today.

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Alison Smaalders

they should've been in handcuffs by the end of Biden's inaguration speech. Failing to act immediately might be the decision that dooms the Republic.

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Alison Smaalders

It's hard to explain how widespread the repercussions of overturning Chevron deference will be. Even if you narrow the scope down to tech policy, you're left wrangling a super-explainer on a friday afternoon www.theverge.com/24188365/che...

What SCOTUS just did to net neutrality, the right to repair, the environment, and morewww.theverge.com The end of Chevron deference will touch on everything from broadband policy to climate change.

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Alison Smaalders

"Wasn't this an episode of..." You know what, yes. It was an episode of everything. Do not do THIS SHIT SPECIFICALLY is an entire genre of sci fi.

oh my god now there's a "future of prison" startup that says it will use AI and brain implants to plant fake memories into the brains of criminals, "rehabilitating" them in minutes instead of years and I am going to spend the rest of the day screaming now sciencetimes.com/articles/509...

Cognify: Revolutionary Prison Concept Uses AI and Brain Implants to Fast-Track Criminal Rehabilitationsciencetimes.com Discover how AI and brain implants are transforming rehabilitation. Read more on Cognify's innovative prison concept now!

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Alison Smaalders

You can tell who did and who did not moderate IRC/phpBB/whatever back in the day, because all of us who did learned the true shape of online group culture: your culture is the shittiest person you don't ban

yeah, it is entirely possible to have a Normal Functional Discord!

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Alison Smaalders

Is praying for death the new quiet quitting?

just got a push notification with the headline “Is ‘tradwife’ the new ‘girlboss?’” and I am ready for death to take me

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Alison Smaalders

Mask bans are evil and dystopian and I am appalled that they’re even being proposed. Wearing masks to protect your health and the health of others needs to be recognized as a right for all and an absolutely essential protection for those who would otherwise be unable to participate in society

Where are we on mask bans? www.patreon.com/posts/mask-b...

Mask Bans | Matthew Cortlandwww.patreon.com Get more from Matthew Cortland on Patreon

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Alison Smaalders

There’s a group of kids on the corner selling lemonade. They yell “LEMONADE” at every passing vehicle, but the only people I have seen stop for a drink so far are on foot or bike. There is no shortage of free parking on the street. Maybe this is analogous to local business districts. 😉

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Alison Smaalders

Feels like we're going to hit the tipping point between "I wouldn't actually recommend ecoterrorism, but" and "is there any solution other than ecoterrorism available?" very soon

these assholes are going to start a resource war

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Alison Smaalders

Reply to

Yell In a War

The AI facility in Musk’s new Gigafactory in Texas will house 50,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs. Each one consumes about 3,740 kWh annually. So *just to power the GPUs,* Musk will need 187GWh per year. This is higher annual consumption than some entire countries.

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Alison Smaalders

for America, for society, we need Kendrick to go after Elon

New secret Musk baby just dropped www.bloomberg.com/features/202...

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Alison Smaalders

I guess I’ve become sort of a science-hype debunker so as far as this goes, let me just say: it’s real. Really really real. You could soon get a shot every six months that would basically eliminate your chance of getting HIV. Taken a step further: we have the tools to eliminate HIV in our lifetime.

Gilead’s twice-yearly shot to prevent HIV succeeds in late-stage trialwww.cnbc.com Gilead's experimental twice-yearly medicine to prevent HIV was 100% effective in a late-stage trial, the company said Thursday.