lanebecker.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

I will repeat myself: there is a persistent belief that popular government should be based on convincing people by argumentative debate, when its true basis is the negotiation of rational compromises between people of different beliefs.

submitted 1 day ago • 3 comments

“You can learn a lot about a state's freedom of expression by how it treats Wikipedia. Censoring the site indicates that a significant erosion of rights has already taken place. Tracking how states treat Wikipedia provides a useful signal for those trying to counter rising authoritarianism.”

submitted 32 days ago • 1 comment

Not to be too pro technocrat, but it is astounding how much this country depended on the selflessness of like a few hundred thousand highly educated public servants who, for peanuts, made sure our food and medicine and environment etc were safe. And in return these servants were demonized.

submitted 40 days ago • 176 comments

An excellent review of Sinners. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, I would HIGHLY recommend it. And all the commentary and ink spilled about Ryan Coogler’s deal underlines one of the central points of the story.

submitted 44 days ago • 1 comment

Anybody out there who can connect me to someone at Cloudflare working on AI Labyrinth? We're intrigued over in Wikimedia-land and want to learn more. blog.cloudflare.com/ai-labyrinth/

submitted 63 days ago • 2 comments

Manischewitz Jell-O shots replaced the third cup of wine this fine Passover night. We saved the last one for Elijah.

submitted 65 days ago • 0 comments

One of the sources of rot running through our political, intellectual, and media institutions is the total triumph of the idea that democracy means outsourcing your morality and point of view to a fuzzily incoherent view of what's popular. Total rejection of the idea of morality as personal virtue.

submitted 67 days ago • 61 comments

Spotted eagle ray has all the chill #spottedeagleray #eagleray #stingraysofcoralcity #stingray #chill #takeiteasy #flow #venomousfish #barb #elasmobranch #coral #coralcitycamera #miami #portmiami #biscaynebay #coralcity #civicpridethroughbiodiversity #glennnevis #coralcityfoundation #ccf #kbcf

submitted 68 days ago • 52 comments

“Find me a moment in history when Jews anywhere benefited from a mix of rampant nationalism and repression. You’ll be looking awhile.” www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

submitted 75 days ago • 0 comments

JUST BECAUSE THE CLOWN CAR GOES VERY FAST DOES NOT MEAN IT ISN’T FULL OF CLOWNS

submitted 83 days ago • 56 comments

Hard to imagine that if Americans ever understand the incredibly creepy implications of this EO—centralizing your sensitive private data so that the DOGEshirts can do whatever they want with it—that they’ll approve in any way, shape, or form. Big if there, though. www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/...

submitted 86 days ago • 1 comment

an impressive number of people have tried to use the computer to get out of the basic existential situation of being human over the last fifteen or twenty years and it keeps getting wilder to watch

submitted 88 days ago • 1 comment

Setting aside the fact that centralizing procurement in this way is a terrible idea, can someone explain to me why the Trump admin relentlessly misspells words that even the least capable spellchecker would catch? Asking as an American taxpaer. www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

submitted 88 days ago • 2 comments

When Team Democracy is back in charge it will be critical to remember what the billionaires did to this country when it was defenseless.

submitted 88 days ago • 141 comments

“Slouching across land simply because it is there uplifts neither the land nor the people on it. Abundance did a disservice to the US by drawing it into an absence of experience — the peculiar desolation of too much.” www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

submitted 89 days ago • 0 comments

“Federal employees keep planes from crashing, deliver our mail, send Social Security checks, ensure we don’t lose all our savings, let us know when we could be poisoned or are susceptible to a spreading flu, to name just a few things we cannot do without their help.” newrepublic.com/article/1909...

submitted 94 days ago • 1 comment

“AI companies should recognize their vampiric relationship with the commons, which they rely on for sustenance. Their adversarial & disrespectful relationships with creators reduce the incentives for anyone to make their work publicly available going forward.” www.citationneeded.news/free-and-ope...

submitted 94 days ago • 1 comment

I’ll take my moral guidance from someone who isn’t a literal fucking arms dealer, thank you very much www.wired.com/story/christ...

submitted 94 days ago • 1 comment

“Democracy will be preserved or lost in the next three months. And democracy will be won or lost via a nonpartisan political fight over whether enough Americans want to preserve their way of life to fight back, in a coalition that includes far more than Democrats.” www.emptywheel.net/2025/03/14/d...

submitted 94 days ago • 0 comments

“The survival I came to was different. It was about letting yourself be affected as the world changes around you. Not riding it out, but adapting, molting. Not the luxury of despair but keeping a foothold in possibility. Not blocking the world out, but letting it in.” www.nytimes.com/2025/03/11/m...

submitted 95 days ago • 1 comment

THIS IS HUGE! Researchers at Stanford University have developed a dual-antibody treatment that remains effective against ALL SARS-CoV-2 variants by targeting a less-mutable part of the virus. This breakthrough could lead to longer-lasting therapies that OUTPACE viral evolution. 🧪🧵⬇️

submitted 99 days ago • 587 comments

BRB, checking the history books to find out whether “tyrant starts redefining peoples’ citizenship status” usually ends well for the Jews

submitted 99 days ago • 128 comments

“Move fast and break the things that belong to billionaires.” — @pluralistic.net.web.brid.gy

submitted 100 days ago • 0 comments

When I worked (briefly) for the 1st Trump admin, we called this the “oil and water” effect. Talented people, whose pay wouldn’t change, dropped down a level or 4 in the agency hierarchy to avoid the worst, & then the least competent slithered up to the top, knowing it was their only chance to climb.

submitted 100 days ago • 1 comment

Something that should happen but won’t (especially since NYT no longer has a public editor): a public reckoning among American journalists over how the structure of most mainstream Trump coverage excuses and even rewards these kinds of threats.

submitted 100 days ago • 8 comments

At this rate, there’s a non-zero chance I’m not going to be allowed to cross the border to visit my family in Winnipeg this summer. WTF

submitted 101 days ago • 0 comments

Musk’s insane ketamine god-high combined with the resources available to the very rich is a wildly dangerous combo. Reminds me of how Zappos Tony Hsieh’s ketamine addiction led him to build an impenetrable fantasy compound stocked with yes-people & ultimately caused him to literally self-immolate.

submitted 102 days ago • 1 comment

“It is hard to describe Trump’s first month and a half in office as something other than a retribution campaign against the American people.” www.nytimes.com/2025/03/05/o...

submitted 103 days ago • 1 comment

It’s surreal that I have to go to a foreign leader to hear someone describe the full derangement and malignancy of my own president in plain language, because our own “free press” and opposition leaders won’t do it. Bravo Trudeau

submitted 104 days ago • 106 comments

Update: Getting conflicting messages on the 10x end, and as I said, I'm no longer there, so hopefully it's not the case. Removing the post in the hopes that I was misinformed!

submitted 104 days ago • 0 comments

In happier news, we're hosting an "Open House for an Open Future" event, sponsored by Wikimedia and Creative Commons, this weekend at SXSW. Details here: enterprise.wikimedia.com/blog/sxsw-20... and sign up here: pretix.eu/wikimedia/op...

submitted 104 days ago • 1 comment

As others have pointed out (and as I clocked myself) it’s extremely disconcerting to see Nazis write about a “final” anything.

submitted 104 days ago • 53 comments