Bard spotting on Bluesky 10 January 2025

Ms. Penny Oaken, SkyWitch (@skywitches.net):

There have been times when I've paused and re-evaluated and tore myself up over the choice to say, " / the GOP are inescapably White Identity Extremists", because what if …

and then days like today happen. They open their mouths and erase any doubt.

Ms. Penny Oaken, SkyWitch (@skywitches.net):

The "magic talent" of the Seiðr, to see into the future, isn't mystic. It's just the certain knowledge that history rhymes, and that a lot of people are just humming along to the tune

The Fascist Question (@thefascistquestion.bsky.social):

I hate when I -a person of med/hi intelligence- can predict the future is about to repeat a dark chapter of hx.

Since watching GWB gear up with his yellow cake BS, it's just been one long slow-motion train wreck.

Anybody with open eyes can fairly predict what's next. That is profoundly sad

jamelle (@jamellebouie.net):

i don't understand how, psychologically, a person gets to a place where they interpret sign language as some kind of attack or imposition on their life. like, what the frick is wrong with you?

Tony Martin (@tonymartin.bsky.social):

Sign language is woke now.

Ms. Penny Oaken, SkyWitch (@skywitches.net):

It's a medium of communication and community which he cannot understand and cannot use a computer to translate to him, nor index and then leverage.

Someone might be using it to affirm the worth of a LGBTQ person, or oppose fascism

Anymouse (@anymouse.bsky.social):

He could learn ASL.

Libertarian fascists would rather force you to live life the way they want you to (and kill disabled people, which is why eugenics is so popular with Libertarians).

Ms. Penny Oaken, SkyWitch (@skywitches.net):

If he learned ASL, his world would melt.

Because the ASL sign for "transgender" is a calque of "who you are inside" / "beautiful on the inside". I read it as "beauty in the heart".

And so many other signs are equally lovely. And independent of his philosophy.

Demosz (@demosz.bsky.social):

Real??? That's so cool!

Ms. Penny Oaken, SkyWitch (@skywitches.net):

Nazism (and Fascism, for that matter) is, at its core, the notion that society lacks true culture as embodied by "masculine energy" and the eschewing of the feminine and that perceived as neutered. A celebration of aggression, and violence.

Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla.bsky.social):

(Bloomberg) -- Mark Zuckerberg lamented the rise of "culturally neutered" companies that have sought to distance themselves from "masculine energy," adding that it's good if a culture "celebrates the aggression a bit more."

@bloomberg.com $META

Ms. Penny Oaken, SkyWitch (@skywitches.net):

Literally rejecting any pretense to neutrality and authenticity of diverse communities, and a policy of subsuming all society on the platform under a unified policy of the Herrenvolk

The Fascist Question (@thefascistquestion.bsky.social):

👆great word (Herrenvolk). Been needing one to describe the self-anointed prime specimen class. Schmucks wasn't quite doing it.

Ms. Penny Oaken, SkyWitch (@skywitches.net):

It's used interchangeably with "Deutscher" & "Aryanischer" in Nazi literature, but it's literally "the Race of Men", where "Men" means both "Humans" and "Males".

It's exactly what they've been bought out to push, ideologically

Ms. Penny Oaken, SkyWitch (@skywitches.net):

I know I clowned on the Thiel editorial in FT, but as I read it and re-read it, it crystallised in my mind what he was intimating: that social media moderation is suppression of his White culture, that moderators are Bolshevists, etc.

Ms. Penny Oaken, SkyWitch (@skywitches.net):

In case anyone is in any doubt, it was literally the explicit philosophical political position of the Nazi party, that independent women were the downfall of culture.

In case anyone is mystified by why Meta would exempt speech that reduces women to household appliances from its hate speech policies

Ms. Penny Oaken, SkyWitch (@skywitches.net):

For all his screeching about Identity Politics and how The Internet Set Free will Liberate Us From Them, he can never escape the identity politics of Weimar Germany and a desperate desire to justify them

Ms. Penny Oaken, SkyWitch (@skywitches.net):

He espouses, essentially, the demand of all Holocaust deniers — that he and his ilk be given all license to relitigate things society has moved past, to violate boundaries, to smear their nauseating hatepaste into every void, until the hostages begin to bargain

Ms. Penny Oaken, SkyWitch (@skywitches.net):

To Teach the Controversy

It is incredibly important that those of us who are uninterested in oligarchic fascism learn to reject that request, absolutely

Ms. Penny Oaken, SkyWitch (@skywitches.net):

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Ms. Penny Oaken, SkyWitch (@skywitches.net):

In case anyone is in any doubt, it was literally the explicit philosophical political position of the Nazi party, that independent women were the downfall of culture.

In case anyone is mystified by why Meta would exempt speech that reduces women to household appliances from its hate speech policies

Ms. Penny Oaken, SkyWitch (@skywitches.net):

In case anyone wants to know why Thiel believes that women voting destroyed American governance; in case anyone wants to know why Curtis Yarvin wants democracy replaced with a monarchy.

Sheryl Weikal (The Leftist Lawyer) (@leftistlawyer.com):

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Mike Masnick (@mmasnick.bsky.social):

Justice Alito: well, surely the government can shut down any newspaper, magazine, or website without any 1st Amendment issue, because the market will step up to replace it.

(tbf he does say it might not impact the constitutional argument, but...)

Ms. Penny Oaken, SkyWitch (@skywitches.net):

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh (down a third octave)

Emily St. James (@emilystjams.bsky.social):

It feels to me like many, many, many corporations are living in the handful of days post-election when it seemed like Trump had won by a much larger margin than he had. Maybe that's the safe bet, and I know these guys think trans people are annoying, but it seems like doing capitalism wrong to me.

kate conger (@kateconger.com):

internally at Meta:

-trans and nonbinary themes stripped from Messenger

-enforcement policy now allows for the denial of trans people's existence

-tampons removed from men's restrooms

-DEI programs shuttered

-Kaplan briefed top conservative influencers the night before policy changes were announced

Ms. Penny Oaken, SkyWitch (@skywitches.net):

Thiel & the GOP is Meta's revenue stream, now. They're going to be an online complement to Fox News, a propaganda mouthpiece for the GOP

https://skyview.social/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fbsky.app%2Fprofile%2Fgiolovesyou.bsky.social%2Fpost%2F3lfgbu2jocs25

Oh, yes. It's on. Zuck wants as much power and money as he can get. The problem with that: he'll always have to live in fear when outside of his bubble. He'll always require bodyguards. He's basically giving the world a giant FU.

rahaeli (@rahaeli.bsky.social):

Oh god SAY IT TWICE

Dave Willner (@dwillner.bsky.social):

First: Meta will not try to proactively detect "lesser" violations, instead relying on user reports. It is unclear (probably intentionally) exactly what this includes, but it definitely includes hate speech. Unfortunately, user reports are crap, have always been crap, and will always be crap.🧵 2/11

rahaeli (@rahaeli.bsky.social):

(And here's why: bsky.app/profile/dwil... )

Dave Willner (@dwillner.bsky.social):

There are two reasons user reports are crap. Users report emotionally, not rationally, so reports are very noisy. Users also don't report bad stuff they like. So reports are both over and under inclusive. This is widely known in the industry, and undoubtedly known by Meta. 🧵 3/11

Tony Wong (@thevballdude.bsky.social):

Since users don't report bad stuff they like, can this be used to measure the popularity of a policy/rule? i.e. if users aren't reporting violations of a particular rule, then the rule is unpopular, and perhaps we can reevaluate whether that rule is necessary in the first place.

rahaeli (@rahaeli.bsky.social):

Misunderstanding of "bad stuff they like". Dave is talking about "nobody reports dozing and SWATTing/death threats against the people they dislike but they sure do report anything that uses even slightly violent language directed at them"

Ms. Penny Oaken, SkyWitch (@skywitches.net):

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Micah (@rincewind.run):

Discworld QOTD, from Equal Rites

"The entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks."

Micah (@rincewind.run):

Discworld QOTD, from The Truth

"So... we have what the people are interested in, and human interest stories, which is what humans are interested in, and the public interest, which no one is interested in."

Ms. Penny Oaken, SkyWitch (@skywitches.net):

IIRC Equal Rites was the book immediately after The Light Fantastic, which featured the first incarnation of Trolls

Ms. Penny Oaken, SkyWitch (@skywitches.net):

Dallas' Light Rail transit system had a ridership volume of 2.5 million …

For the entire month of January 2024

Meanwhile, construction of the ramps off I-635 to Garland have been ongoing continuously for a decade

Stephen Parkhurst (@sparkhurst.bsky.social):

400,000 more people rode the NYC subways in a single day and it was barely noticeable. the equivalent population of Tampa piled into transit and it was a blip.

almost like transit is a more efficient mode of conveyance than automobiles

Miss Nicki Brie (@transgirlinsea.bsky.social):

They keep widening the highways like that ever fixed a darn thing

Ms. Penny Oaken, SkyWitch (@skywitches.net):

Thiel's Op-Ed should be read in a Mister Burns voice, occasionally interjected with "…, Smithers!".

Ms. Penny Oaken, SkyWitch (@skywitches.net):

"Perhaps an exceptional country could have continued to ignore such questions, but as Roosevelt understood in 1912, America is not an exceptional country. It is no longer even a great one, Smithers!"

"Yes, Mr. Burns."

Ms. Penny Oaken, SkyWitch (@skywitches.net):

"… the UK, which has arrested hundreds of people a year for online speech triggering, among other things, 'annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety', Smithers?"

"No, Mr Burns"

"Well why not, Smithers? Such annoys and vexes me. Its architects deserve jailtime!"

"Yes, Mr Burns"

Ms. Penny Oaken, SkyWitch (@skywitches.net):

"The future demands fresh and strange blood, Smithers!"

Ms. Penny Oaken, SkyWitch (@skywitches.net):

"2016 shook their historicist faith in the arc of the moral universe but by 2020 they hoped to write Trump off as an aberration … There will be no reactionary restoration of the pre-internet past, Smithers."

———

cough so yeah, full-on "Frick your Civil Rights Movement" villain monologue by Thiel

Kernighan (@kernighan.bsky.social):

It's interesting how many of the worst people in the world got their money from Paypal (Thiel, Musk, etc)

Ms. Penny Oaken, SkyWitch (@skywitches.net):

I am not driving anywhere today, brain. No. Nooo.

"Cautiously Optimistic" Garak Tailor (@comfortingmoo.online):

Just heard AI generated Ska and i am so sad.

Ms. Penny Oaken, SkyWitch (@skywitches.net):

picks up the flambone which server farm are we burning down

"Cautiously Optimistic" Garak Tailor (@comfortingmoo.online):

Company that did this too me was called Open Droids.

Ms. Penny Oaken, SkyWitch (@skywitches.net):

Raaahr

Ms. Penny Oaken, SkyWitch (@skywitches.net):

In this day and age, who's to say this will kill such a bill

In days past, this alone would

Erin Reed (@erininthemorning.com):

Rep to sponsor: "Will this come with funding for implementation"

Sekins-Crowe: "No"

Staccata (@stacy.is.relentlessly.online):

I would work for the Merovingian in the matrix. You show up to talk to him without any real idea of why and he patiently explains that to you and gives you new orders since it's clear you need explicit instructions. You can't beat someone that sees your needs and works with you at that level

Staccata (@stacy.is.relentlessly.online):

downside is you'll almost certainly be eaten by a werewolf program or one of the ghost twins

Ms. Penny Oaken, SkyWitch (@skywitches.net):

… 🫢

Staccata (@stacy.is.relentlessly.online):

Ok but now I'm curious which one you'd want to be eaten by lol

Ms. Penny Oaken, SkyWitch (@skywitches.net):

The ghosts seem like the type to take their time with it

Staccata (@stacy.is.relentlessly.online):

You know, I'm starting to understand more of the context around your response here 😉

bsky.app/profile/skyw...

Ms. Penny Oaken, SkyWitch (@skywitches.net):

I want her to run me through with a sharp knife

Deth Veggie (@dethveggie.bsky.social):

I was just thinking about that this morning. The LA fires are going to result in incredible demand on the construction industry (and materials industry!), all at a time when the incoming extreme right-wing administration is planning on mass deportations of people who work in those industries.

Rebecca Solnit (@rebeccasolnit.bsky.social):

Subject for a journ*list: how will the Trump attacks on immigrants undermine the labor force in the construction industry, specifically as Los Angeles endeavors to rebuild? A pretty high percentage of construction workers in California are immigrants (and L.A. is close to 50% Latinx/a).

Ms. Penny Oaken, SkyWitch (@skywitches.net):

Resulting in higher labour costs, which will allow insurance companies to (in a few years' time b/c of regulations preventing sharp increases year to year) escalate rates further

Deth Veggie (@dethveggie.bsky.social):

Absolutely... although I think what will happen with insurance companies is that more of them will stop doing business in California at all... that's already started, leaving the state government as "insurer of last resort".

Ms. Penny Oaken, SkyWitch (@skywitches.net):

"The Nazis nationalised businesses and industry" yeah motherlover, with whose businesses and during what era of geopolitical relations did they do those things

Claiming the Nazis were communist / socialist has big "Atheists have to believe in God to deny Him" energy

Deth Veggie (@dethveggie.bsky.social):

Hear, motherfricking hear. The whole "B-b-but they had 'socialist' in their name!!!1!!one!" argument is so ludicrous.

Yes, fools, and North Korea has calls themselves a Democracy, too, but it doesn't make that true, either.

p o t z {er} - 🏳️⚧️🐉🦝 (@potzer.xyz):

good morning!

today is the start of week 52 of being on HRT 😍

Ms. Penny Oaken, SkyWitch (@skywitches.net):

Yearnaversary!

p o t z {er} - 🏳️⚧️🐉🦝 (@potzer.xyz):

next friday!

Ms. Penny Oaken, SkyWitch (@skywitches.net):

"Godspeed" it up

janny with a mop. janny with a mop.

Granny panties and a dress. Granny panties and a dress.

6 foot 4 and a mugshot. 6 foot 4 and a mugshot.

Child abuse and no job. Child abuse and no job.

Living in mama's sunroom. Living in mama's sunroom.

Giant pale hands and lipstick. Giant pale hands and lipstick.