brockoleur.com - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.

submitted 8 hours ago • 419 comments

Wild how the Fed chair saying that entire regions of the United States won’t be able to get a mortgage in the next decade barely registered as a news event

submitted 23 hours ago • 424 comments

So the Senate Reconciliation Bill is basically privatizing the American West. www.wilderness.org/articles/med... wilderness.maps.arcgis.com/apps/instant...

submitted 1 day ago • 39 comments

If random men in masks claiming to be ICE agents try to grab me, and they’re not really ICE, I have the legal right to defend myself against them, yes? And if they are ICE, I don’t? So how am I supposed to tell the difference? I’m supposed to give my masked kidnappers the benefit of the doubt??

submitted 2 days ago • 202 comments

Having a bit of a hard time with the concept that if a guy in a police uniform who has a police vehicle shows up I should lock the doors and call 911, but if a guy in a ski mask with an hGH gut appears to be kidnapping my neighbor, I shouldn’t ask who he is if I don’t want federal charges.

submitted 1 day ago • 541 comments

i know we're numb but it seems not great that an executive branch official is on a Russian asset's show spreading conspiracy theories about American elections being rigged

submitted 2 days ago • 146 comments

So the guy who can singlehandedly set US tariffs on smartphones is launching his own US smartphone company do I have that right

submitted 3 days ago • 345 comments

Remarkable. MSNC: "I want to reiterate this has been 100% peaceful." Seconds later, LA County sheriffs start firing on the crowd. Yet again, "law enforcement" deliberately escalated.

submitted 4 days ago • 1097 comments

"the widely accepted 'germ theory'" come on, do better, you don't have to hint that there might sorta be two sides here Like this: RFK embraces an entirely discredited theory of disease, completely disregarding centuries of medical knowledge

submitted 4 days ago • 33 comments

"Per the study, one glaring safety gap is the bots' inability to respond appropriately to users clearly at risk of self-harm or suicide." Trump's budget bill, currently in the Senate, would impose a 10-year moritorium on AI regulation. They have so little regard for human life.

submitted 5 days ago • 5 comments

NYT found the “big beautiful bill” would be the largest transfer from the poor to the rich in a single law since at least 1990. In fact, it would be the largest transfer ever. Reagan’s low-income cuts were MUCH smaller - and his tax cuts were done separately. And before him, nothing comes close.

submitted 6 days ago • 36 comments

This ICE agent tells an immigration attorney of her three clients: "I'm not picky so I'm giving you the options cause I have to take one. If not I'll take all." He is quite literally saying that ICE is simply deporting people at random to meet a quota. www.instagram.com/reel/DKzbcQe...

submitted 6 days ago • 203 comments

The Senate bill aims to effectively end all civil rights lawsuits against the federal government except by entities rich enough to potentially pay million/billions in fees. I am not making this up.

submitted 6 days ago • 128 comments

$160 billion in new spending on building jails, hiring more ICE 'agents' to carry out kidnappings & flying people to torture prisons. For comparison, the 2024 NIH budget, which funds essentially all US medical research, was $47.1 billion. Funding racism instead of research.

submitted 8 days ago • 4 comments

Contrast is so clear: Do you want to live in Trump's America where disease spread, free speech is physically attacked and everything from government contracts to science depends on the whim of the mad king OR do you want to live in a free country, with vaccines and decisions based on merit

submitted 8 days ago • 39 comments

Who needs cancer research or the prevention of famines when you can have this

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

Them doing this with gender-affirming care? That was the test run to see if it works. Now they know it does, they'll ban vaccines, birth control, medical abortion, and antidepressants, all under the pretext of "gold standard science." If you think that's hyperbole, punch yourself in the groin.

submitted 9 days ago • 1 comment

The Supreme Court says Big Balls can have access to everyone's Social Security records (and remember that they have been using that unlawful access to falsely declare living people to be dead so they can't hold a job or a bank account). 1/3

submitted 12 days ago • 17 comments

The child in this trustee’s scenario? Faculty. Who submitted their tenure files for consideration in accordance with the terms of their employment. Both sides have a responsibility in that contract, one to submit and one to review. I hope everyone really hears this.

submitted 15 days ago • 12 comments

If this is even remotely accurate, Elon Musk and Donald Trump have killed more people in several months than the Iraq war killed in a decade

submitted 20 days ago • 139 comments

Elon Musk doesn’t appear to be going anywhere — and according to federal workers, DOGE has been busier than ever: www.wired.com/story/doge-e...

submitted 20 days ago • 53 comments

Nature ran a piece finding that 25 million people could die as a result of ending USAID. This puts Trump and Musk in the category of the most brutal leaders of the 20th century in terms of unnecessary lives lost. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

submitted 20 days ago • 54 comments

RFK Jr's "MAHA" report is filled with references to studies that literally do not exist, or that completely misinterpret the studies' findings. “We did not publish a paper.. on this topic with that co-author group, or with that title,” says one cited researcher. www.notus.org/health-scien...

submitted 21 days ago • 111 comments

Emil Bove cannot become a federal judge. At Law Dork:

submitted 21 days ago • 14 comments

Stunning. May was brutal for Trump in federal court: 96% loss rate ⚖️. Even GOP-appointed judges have ruled against the admin 72% of the time. District courts are doing their job defending the Constitution. Soon the Supreme Court may be the only court unwilling to defend the rule of law.

submitted 26 days ago • 171 comments

Reminder: the Pentagon budget now tops $1 TRILLION per year while veterans sleep on the streets and VA funding is being cut.

submitted 24 days ago • 15 comments

the political project of our time is to defend democracy

submitted 24 days ago • 3 comments

This should be seen as evidence of the crisis: federal judges fear that Trump will order U.S. Marshals to stand down on securing the safety of judges whose decision they don’t like. This is just devastating. www.wsj.com/us-news/law/...

submitted 25 days ago • 126 comments

Ugly, ugly stuff. They're collapsing the Department of Veterans Affairs and the largest integrated healthcare system in America.

submitted 25 days ago • 33 comments

DOGE should absolutely be subject to FOIA. It has openly claimed and exerted independent legal authority. Trump has said Elon calls shots. They aren’t policy advisors. Congress just choosing to pretend DOGE isn’t using powers delegated to others is not evidence of anything but its own incompetence.

submitted 28 days ago • 19 comments

Apologies for yelling, but— SCOTUS COULDN’T DO ITS JOB BECAUSE TOO MANY JUSTICES HAVE BOOK DEALS WITH A PARTY IN A CASE

submitted 30 days ago • 105 comments

Just think of the real books whose champions are desperately trying to get word out for them & would die just to have that kind of platforming that was given to books that don't exist.

submitted 29 days ago • 0 comments

Yo Norm being a Mike Watt fan is fucking me up right now. These people all looking like they were 50 when they were in their 30s distorts that lens sometimes

submitted 29 days ago • 2 comments

This kind of thing, by the way, is exactly why a ten year moratorium on "AI" regulations would be a FUCKING TERRIBLE idea. Without meaningful regulations backing up an ability to sue for damages, there's not much to quickly force these people to stop making harmful tools.

submitted 30 days ago • 3 comments

BREAKING: FDA says covid boosters now only for those over 65 or with preconditions. www.statnews.com/2025/05/20/f...

submitted 30 days ago • 960 comments

Of the books named on this reading list, Brit Bennet, Isabel Allende, Andy Weir, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Min Jin Lee, Rumaan Alam, Rebecca Makkai, Maggie O'Farrell, Percival Everett, and Delia Owens' titles are all books that DO NOT EXIST!!! See Alt Text for more detail. Image by @tbretc.bsky.social

submitted 30 days ago • 75 comments

The thing about cancer is, Trump is making it easy for polluters to dump cancer-causing chemicals into our air and water, while defunding and firing people who work on cancer cures, while also ending millions of people’s ability to afford cancer treatment.

submitted 30 days ago • 16 comments

Cato has published my comprehensive review of the ~240 Venezuelans the US government renditioned 2 months ago to Salvador’s notorious prison. We identified FIFTY who came legally, never violated any immigration law, but are imprisoned at the US government’s request and at US taxpayer expense.

submitted 31 days ago • 262 comments

New, from me: The DOGE project was sold as tech disruptors who would revolutionize government. To try to understand why DOGE has failed, I point to lessons that other technologists who worked in government learned, but DOGE ignored. 🧵 donmoynihan.substack.com/p/what-doge-...

submitted 33 days ago • 71 comments

The Trump administration has settled on One Weird Trick to avoid judicial review: Kill nationwide injunctions, refuse to respect lower court rulings, and keep cases away from the Supreme Court indefinitely. Oddly, it was Kagan and BARRETT who hammered this yesterday. slate.com/news-and-pol...

submitted 34 days ago • 28 comments

the Marathon alpha released recently and its environments are covered with assets lifted from poster designs i made in 2017. @bungie.net @marathonthegame.bungie.net

submitted 35 days ago • 274 comments

This is a HUGE scandal. Elon Musk, JD Vance, and Trump are lying about Social Security fraud. Internal documents show DOGE found "no significant fraud"—but did slow retirement claim processing by 25%. Nothing efficient about making it harder for people to get their benefits.

submitted 34 days ago • 197 comments

BREAKING: Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. announced he has ordered the FDA to consider new nationwide restrictions on medication abortion — and that President Trump, not scientists or doctors, will make the final decision.

submitted 35 days ago • 224 comments

i am experiencing trauma

submitted 35 days ago • 65 comments