Just reached the 210,000 follower milestone. Thank you! To celebrate the occasion, and every one of you, I've made a donation to Undue Medical Debt (formerly known as RIP Medical Debt), which buys medical debt for cheap and then wipes out that debt for the people who owe it. unduemedicaldebt.org - ThreadSky

scalzi.com • 88 days ago

Just reached the 210,000 follower milestone. Thank you! To celebrate the occasion, and every one of you, I've made a donation to Undue Medical Debt (formerly known as RIP Medical Debt), which buys medical debt for cheap and then wipes out that debt for the people who owe it.

https://unduemedicaldebt.org/

Comments

gdeweese.bsky.social•88 days ago

Hurray! I have 124 followers, though only maybe 5 seem real. Amazing how many of the young, pretty women who follow me are named Bella! I didn't know the illuminati could follow you. And if I have questions about crypto, I've got followers who seem eager to tell me.

Is my experience typical here?

bfgaloot.bsky.social•88 days ago

yeah, but I block those young pretty women. They're scammers.

gdeweese.bsky.social•88 days ago

But has the illuminati followed you? That's when you know you've made it as a bot magnet!

bfgaloot.bsky.social•88 days ago

I've not had that honor! I bow to your brilliance.

chomiji.bsky.social•88 days ago

I get handsome mature men instead. Blockity blockity into the void...

markmorey5.bsky.social•88 days ago

Bluesky is like a sewer. There are blocklists and other tools but it's too hard and too time consuming to find them. I just want the Illuminate to stop harassing me!

aletheakontis.com•88 days ago

Very kind of you, sir. 🩵🦋

edwardthethird.bsky.social•88 days ago

Congratulations Old Man. Thank you for being such a great follow. I’m one of your many huge fans. I appreciate your insight and support for your fellow writers.

jay4.bsky.social•88 days ago

That sounds like an awesome organization! Donated. <3
https://unduemedicaldebt.org

uneasyrhetoric.net•88 days ago

Add that to the list of nonprofits that shouldn't have to exist (but I am glad they do).

bfgaloot.bsky.social•88 days ago

Thank you for doing this, sir!

magnificom.bsky.social•88 days ago

👏

mephits.bsky.social•88 days ago

This is a good thing to do, thank you for doing it.

sanitynotincluded.bsky.social•88 days ago

I spent years fighting the insurance company over a debt they should have covered when the insurance company pulled the dirty trick of selling the debt to a collection agency for pennies. Plot twist: they sold it to Undue, who cancelled it.

babsallday.bsky.social•88 days ago

nice. this is one of my annual donations

neighborscott.bsky.social•88 days ago

Well done JS!

jzelten.bsky.social•88 days ago

It's great that you did this. And when can we as a country address the fact that we are the only developed nation where this is even necessary?

I'm reminded of the time I had to explain to my German friends why St. Jude Childrens' Hospital providing free cancer care to kids was so remarkable...

wiggsian.bsky.social•88 days ago

Thank you John. I've had the pleasure of serving on the board of directors for Undue Medical Debt over the last two years. Love that you did this!

scalzi.com•88 days ago

PS: I've already expunged three "reply bots" on this thread and more may crop up so if you see some rando account congratulating me but saying we should address root causes instead, in a way that makes you want to reply because it's clueless, just stop and leave it to me, there's no one there anyway

cuil.world•88 days ago

those bots seem to be getting deleted by the mods pretty actively at least

scalzi.com•88 days ago

They're easy to spot. Vigilance is the price for a clear blue sky!

duaecat.bsky.social•88 days ago

I love to see it. I have reported so many "Hello beautiful..." spam comments on the book of faces only to get "we have reviewed this content and found that it's fine, maybe try being less sensitive?" so active moderation is a breath of fresh air

qhstone.bsky.social•88 days ago

I was going to create a Reply Bot block list but they get suspended so quickly that it's not worth it.

A big thanks to the Bluesky moderation team.

tarkeel.bsky.social•88 days ago

There's also an army of spammy porn bots going around, with new instances being added daily. I'm playing wack-a-mole with them here:

cdwhitefield.bsky.social•88 days ago

I wonder how many bots you could catch by posting jailbreak prompts out of the blue.

yukonjohn.bsky.social•88 days ago

You're too fast for me and I miss all the action. I only hear about these bots after they've been killed off.

evilcylon.bsky.social•88 days ago

I had one DM me on a thread about pumpkin bread recipes and the bot simply refused to share their own recipe.

goaskalis.bsky.social•88 days ago

I think we DO have to address root causes and in that spirit I am inventing a language

Updates will be forthcoming

kalicat.bsky.social•88 days ago

Can someone please explain to me what a “reply bot” is? I tried to search for an explanation, but I couldn’t find any helpful results.

instantapathy.bsky.social•88 days ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/BlueskySocial/comments/1h67amt/reply_guy_bots_made_with_llms_are_invading_bluesky/

alcinaus.bsky.social•88 days ago

Interesting how they never offer options for addressing root causes of bots -- we need to train them to eat themselves.

rainwalkerak.bsky.social•88 days ago

I found out about them in a WaPo story of a lady who died of cancer and had wanted to spread the word about them before she left us. For the past year, they’ve been on my recurring monthly donation list. Love what they do for people who are struggling enough already. ❤️👍

lickydrone56.bsky.social•88 days ago

Thank you!

kathieblog.bsky.social•88 days ago

📌

pragma-once.bsky.social•88 days ago

What's medical debt?

noborderline.bsky.social•88 days ago

That reply clearly marks you as non-American. Since we do not participate in a civilized service like Universal or Nationalized Healthcare and Healthcare and insurance providers have been able to run riot with pricing, it's very easy to get massive bills from even simple medical care.

worldjustice7.bsky.social•88 days ago

You're a good, kind-heareed man. Thank you, and thanks for sharing as well.

mrvinbone.bsky.social•88 days ago

Chipped in a few bucks - thanks, didn’t know about this sort of help.

rainbowwar71.bsky.social•88 days ago

Congrats . You over your Twitter peak IIRC.

scalzi.com•88 days ago

By a non-trivial amount, yes

erstwhilehero.bsky.social•88 days ago

Followed for this, and your writing of "Redshirts" but this celebration was the thing that kicked me to do it. Hope your follower account grows like Tribbles.

kauantai.bsky.social•88 days ago

I'm going to need a monitor with deeper blacks to better stare at this deep a shade

And thank you

kipwilliams.bsky.social•88 days ago

Any deeper and it stares back, you know.

kauantai.bsky.social•88 days ago

Shhhh, you're blowing in photons

tomfromnottm.bsky.social•88 days ago

The thought of medical debt is repugnant. Despite its flaws, I'm so grateful for our NHS .. I wouldn't be here without it.

jlthla.bsky.social•88 days ago

Medical care in this country shouldn't depend on the kindness of strangers.

rsbell07.bsky.social•88 days ago

That charity is an indictment on your society….(sorry) 😭

wingland.wxexw.com•88 days ago

Brilliant move. Thank you.

seirim.com•88 days ago

That’s awesome!

theshaggyshepherd.bsky.social•88 days ago

That’s such a cool organization! I’ve never heard of them before. Gonna check them out too.

boomboomvaldez.bsky.social•87 days ago

thanks. i had never heard of undue - i think i will donate as well

dprdonuts.bsky.social•88 days ago

I'm happy your in my orbit, Mr scalzi

eicol.bsky.social•88 days ago

I just got a notice a month ago that my debt was cleared by Undue. It was $417 from about a decade ago. I had honestly forgotten it existed but it's nice to know it's gone.

mjdavis1988.bsky.social•88 days ago

Love it here. Lake of hate, diversity of people and posts. Feel free to give me a follow. Happy to FB!

heatheryarbrough.bsky.social•88 days ago

That's awesome!

betsycooley.bsky.social•88 days ago

Great choice for the donation!

gardengremlin.bsky.social•88 days ago

How can a person’s medical debt be bought? Literally asking for a friend who has medical debt.

rookknight.bsky.social•88 days ago

Once a hospital system or clinic or whatever has the debt on record, they often don't want to go through the specific effort to collect it themselves, do they sell it to 3rd parties for some percentage of the total amount -usually pennies on the dollar- for money immediately.

rookknight.bsky.social•88 days ago

The debt is packaged together so it's basically-impossible to buy a specific person's debt to forgive, but orgs like Undue Medical Debt are able to buy it and then straight up forgive it.

dawggone.bsky.social•88 days ago

❤️❤️❤️

readergeek.bsky.social•88 days ago

You're such a kind person as well as being so creative. Thanks for being you.

morchower.bsky.social•86 days ago

add +1 more followers, my friend.

kbok003.bsky.social•88 days ago

Thank you. We recently had some of our medical debt paid by Undue Medical Debt. It really did help our family.

rsillsley.bsky.social•88 days ago

Just hit 54 :-(

rsillsley.bsky.social•88 days ago

Show off! I have 50 :-(

qhstone.bsky.social•88 days ago

Don't forget to fill out your profile so people can know a little more about you.

rsillsley.bsky.social•88 days ago

Done.

rsillsley.bsky.social•88 days ago

Ok!

jenny2024475.bsky.social•88 days ago

Well done!

djohns1989.bsky.social•88 days ago

Congrats. I'll be your next follower!!

rwalens.bsky.social•88 days ago

This is so kind of you! 🥰

orkhugs.bsky.social•88 days ago

Was it $210,000?? 😁

notgiovannaok.bsky.social•88 days ago

goot evening, John.

just ran across this article and found it very thought provoking

as a Gen Jones boomer, looking at remnants of the "space age" as archeological sites is a lot ... I don't even want to rummage for words ...

https://zoharesque.blogspot.com/2011/11/communicating-archaeology-of.html