Some Interesting Things I Read Today (18 May)

I think one of the things that's missing in this is how the labour market is looking and how all this AI bullshit is really going to be problematic for these software developers. Prior to AI, we already had what felt like a surplus of software devs; now we're going to have a whole bunch who are fucked out work because some company is pretending AI is worth anything (when it isn't). Not to mention, this also means that there are going to be a lot more people who cannot eat or pay rent.

This should be showing people that the way the world works cannot sustain us, and it doesn't work. This should be showing unions that they need to be doing a lot more than status quo bullshit and actively doing stuff for an anti-work world. I'm not seeing this; most unions don't want to see their place in the world disappear, and that's a problem. (And most of these people aren't even unionised in the first place. But it's a two-pronged issue.)

The conversation goes something like this: trans rights, and in particular the specific fights around gender-affirming care for youth and trans women in sports, are polling badly with persuadable voters. The authoritarian project has chosen these issues with precision, not because they represent a serious policy concern but because they are effective wedges, generating visceral cultural anxiety that can be weaponized to separate the LGBTQ movement from potential allies and to make the movement as a whole appear extreme. And some people, some organizations, some funders are wondering whether the rest of the LGBTQ community – and by extension the broader progressive coalition – might be better served by a strategic retreat, by quietly distancing from trans rights, by deciding that this particular fight is not the hill to stand on right now.

I don't like that this article says this is happening “right now.” A lot of the better funded and more national/international queer organisations have been doing this for years, shutting out smaller and more local organisations entirely. You don't see this as often in smaller ones because those folks know each other, and they generally know they're only getting through this shit together. But this is an old problem. It's one that happened with organisations hyper-focusing on same-sex marriage while ignoring every concern that people had with regards to it or the support that we should've been giving to queer people who both didn't want to or could not assimilate.

Trans folks got hit by that shit a lot, and we've never really seen a good coalition for trans folks at all in any major organisation. So... not just “right now.” It's been always, and trans and gender non-conforming folks could easily tell you this.

The targeting of trans people – and specifically trans youth and trans women in sports – is not a policy agenda. It is a strategic operation. Understanding it as policy produces the wrong response. Understanding it as strategy produces the right one.

This is correct, though. It's not policy and never has been, but we've wasted decades acting like it was.

Anyway, decent piece with a few hiccups. Worth a read.

Lots of good one-liners, and it's correct about Harry Potter. Fuck it and fuck Rowling. Get over it. We're all old enough, and there are better things out there.

As one of the people tied to the train tracks in said artificial trolley problem, I’d like to raise a complaint: It is beneath my dignity to let myself be run over by any trolley, and particularly this trolley, burdened as it is by a cape and a stupid hat.

But adequately stigmatizing Rowling’s weaponization of childhood not only requires personal withdrawal for most people, it necessitates something much more difficult: being a giant fucking killjoy

However, I had to get an archive link to read the whole thing because I guess Defector cuts off older articles? No idea.

Another one that I had to get an archive for because of all the fucking paywalls. Honestly, what is the point of the internet anymore. Anyway...

“I didn’t know what the fuck was going on,” Hoffman told us. “We were looking for embezzlement, or sexual harassment, and I just found nothing.”

I mean, you could find something near at least one of these. Judges may have dismissed the case for his sister (though she's refiled), but I find it difficult to not believe her regarding him considering... I don't know, I can't fathom why any woman would willingly have to endure this legal and public opinion bullshit if they didn't have to. And it's not an uncommon thing for families to cover up familial abuse. (And any number of these people could actually put the money in to investigate that, but I'm guessing they wouldn't do that at all. Instead, we've just got weird ass Elon Musk trying to pretend Sam's worse than he is.)

One of Altman’s batch mates in the first Y Combinator cohort was Aaron Swartz, a brilliant but troubled coder who died by suicide in 2013 and is now remembered in many tech circles as something of a sage.

Ronan and Andrew, what the hell was happening to Aaron before he died by suicide? Would you like to fucking think about why people view him how they do? (I know they can't add it because the publication doesn't want to allow it and it'd require some degree of fighting, but still. Aaron deserves more than this flippant bullshit, especially in this timeline because the very people ruining our lives are stealing from everyone... including the access of work done “in our name.” But I also don't know that I'd trust Ronan or Andrew to include it, even if they were allowed.)

But, as Altman publicly welcomed regulation, he quietly lobbied against it.

Hey, a common thing among these Silicon Valley shitstains. Ugh. They're also part of the problem for a lot of lobbying around all the surveillance laws that pretend to care about kids.

But Clark, the former policy director, has said, “The system of capital markets says, Go faster.” He added, “The world gets to make this decision, not companies.”

Does anyone want to let these people know that capital markets are not “the world”? Fucking hell, fuck these people.

Long piece, annoying piece, very obvious in a lot of ways (sadly).