Friday’s Finds

On the last Friday of each month I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

“If you are staying on a corporate social media platform because the people you follow are still there, consider others are also staying there because you are still there. Someone needs to start the move. Be that person.
Leave X for good.
Leave Facebook forever.
Remember blue skies eventually turn grey.
Embrace the social media that cannot get sold to a billionaire. Embrace the Fediverse“
—@Em

“Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege.” —Tommy Douglas

“Remember when you were a kid and adults used to ask you what you would do if everyone else you knew was jumping off a cliff? Would you jump too? Now you know.” —@JeremyMallin

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On the last Friday of each month I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

“You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia, via @Susan Kaye Quinn

“To those who can hear me, I say do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed — the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.” —Charlie Chaplin The Final Speech from The Great Dictator, 1940

George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf

Nevertheless, simply on the internal evidence of Mein Kampf, it is difficult to believe that any real change has taken place in Hitler’s aims and opinions. When one compares his utterances of a year or so ago with those made fifteen years earlier, a thing that strikes one is the rigidity of his mind, the way in which his world-view doesn’t develop. It is the fixed vision of a monomaniac and not likely to be much affected by the temporary manoeuvres of power politics.

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On the last Friday of each month I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

“Capitalism is what happens when you believe glorified fishmongers should chart the course for humanity.” —@aral

“11 yrs ago I found this funny: ‘How many Microsoft designers does it take to change a light bulb? None. They just define darkness as ‘industry standard’. But now I can’t unsee this: ‘How many huge companies does it take to fix the climate? None. They just define global warming as ‘industry standard’.” —@HelenCzerski

“it’s easy to propose a solution if you only understand 10% of the problem” —@tef

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On the last Friday of each month I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

“I am well in body although considerably rumpled up in spirit” — Anne Shirley, Anne of Green Gables, via @FelicityShoulders

“Maybe one of the Hall of Fame-level cons of all time was economists dressing up their discipline as an exact science, fake Nobel and all.”—@brunoc

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On the last Friday of each month I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

“Grand Theft Autocomplete is my new favourite term for LLMs.” —@ben

Marvin Minsky, a pioneer in the field of AI, was quoted in Life magazine — in 1970, “In from three to eight years we will have a machine with the general intelligence of an average human being.” —AIWS.net

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On the last Friday of each month I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

“Listen, generative LLMs and art imaging tools will get better and better over time. If your opposition is based on crappy outputs, that problem will get solved.

Problems such as unsustainable resource consumption, unfair labour practices, accelerating wealth inequity and the absolute death of joyful creativity, however, will not be fixed.” —@barsoomcore

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On the last Friday of each month I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

I was in Long Beach in 2012 when Nick Hanauer gave his, “It’s absolute bullshit that the rich are job creators” TED talk. I was so eager to share it with co-workers and friends, I checked the TED site every day waiting for them to post it. I gave up after six months

It eventually showed up on YouTube but I don’t think TED ever put it on their site or even linked to it. I’m surprised they welcomed him back to the main stage just a couple years later. —@kims

Video: Rich people don’t create jobs

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On the last Friday of each month I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

Note: Regular readers may have noticed that my blog posts are rather infrequent at this time. I am taking a break from blogging through the Summer and intend to be back this Autumn. There are over 3,500 older posts always available to peruse here.

“Everyone is tired because individually we’re trying to do all the things that can only really be achieved by communal living.” via @gemelliz

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” —John Kenneth Galbraith (2002)

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On the last Friday of each month I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

Note: Regular readers may have noticed that my blog posts are rather infrequent at this time. I am taking a break from blogging through the Summer and intend to be back this Autumn. There are over 3,500 older posts always available to peruse here.

“The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.” —Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD)

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On the last Friday of each month I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

“Q. You know what AI is best at?

A. Propaganda”
—@GeorgeSnorwell

“I saw a post that asked: why is divestment political but investment is not? And I can’t stop thinking about it.” —@JackieGardina

“When you invent the ship, you also invent the shipwreck; when you invent the plane you also invent the plane crash; and when you invent electricity, you invent electrocution … Every technology carries its own negativity, which is invented at the same time as technical progress.” —Paul Virilio, Philippe Petit, Sylvère Lotringer (1999) Politics of the Very Worst

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