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I enjoy simulation arguments, but I can't shake the feeling that they're a crude Silicon Valley version of theism.

Crude theism is "the world was created by a being (or beings) like us, BUT BIGGER!"

Simulation is that same impulse, but the "us" is programmers.
I have no more information on this than anyone else, but I suspect whatever is going on behind the universe is just way weirder than anything we can comprehend, or understand by analogy to our own lives and motivations.
This is a good place to recommend @seanmcarroll's new book "Something Deeply Hidden," which is great if you like feeling very confused about the nature of reality, which I guess I do amazon.com/dp/B07NTYJJDX/…
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Ezra Klein
@ezraklein
On Friday, I sat down with Cory Booker for 90 minutes. It was, simultaneously, one of the most inspiring and maddening interviews I’ve done with a presidential candidate.

podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/an-…
Inspiring because there is a moral radicalism and spiritual generosity to Booker’s politics that sets him apart from other politicians. Maddening because Booker shies away from drawing bright lines, his answers double back to blur out potential offense.
Booker lives his politics in a rare way. He lived for decades in a housing project to face the problems he wanted to solve. He’s led hunger strikes. He’s vegan. He builds coalitions that cause him real political friction. He takes hard roads.
Read 10 tweets
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Ezra Klein
@ezraklein
Rather than amplify a baldfaced lie just going to reiterate the truth: Republicans, including Donald Trump, have engaged in an unrelenting campaign to rip health insurance, including protections for preexisting conditions, from tens of millions of people.
As we speak, the Trump administration is trying to convince the courts to declare the entirety of Obamacare unconstitutional, leaving nothing but chaos in its place.
Meanwhile, every single Democrat running for President has a plan to expand health insurance coverage for tens of millions of people.

On healthcare, the parties offer a clear and consistent choice. There’s no fuzzing it.
Read 3 tweets
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Ezra Klein
@ezraklein
One of many weird effects of polarization inside a system that requires compromise to function: as the intensity and stakes of disagreements rise, the ability to resolve them collapses.
One reason you can't resolve them is because people are locked into position in terms of what they believe and who they fear, so it's very hard to create the swings in public opinion necessary to move the system.
But a reason people are locked into position is that elite cues are powerful, and polarization locks elites into position, which stops public opinion swings from happening. Frances Lee's work is great on the dynamics here: vox.com/policy-and-pol…
Read 7 tweets

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Louis Hyman
@louishyman
1/ My recent book TEMP was largely a history of how management consultants, especially ##McKinsey, destroyed the American Dream of job security.

#McKinsey helped teach corporations how to use outsourced labor.
2/ But McKinsey also learned how to do that in Silicon Valley, and then school the world.

This #thread is long, but so is #history.
3/

From top to bottom, the post-1970s job insecurity, legitimated by #McKinsey ideas, intertwined with the industrial undocumented workforce that made #Silicon Valley possible.
Read 74 tweets
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Tobias Rose-Stockwell
@TobiasRose
In this piece for @TheAtlantic, @jonhaidt and I explore how social media has upended our institutions in the last 10 years. We seek to answer: Why does it feel like everything has gone haywire? And what can be done to fix it? 1/x theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
@TheAtlantic @JonHaidt The founders of the United States thought a lot about human psychology, and included mechanisms in the Constitution to let passions cool & encourage reflection and deliberation. Many of social media’s features today do exactly the opposite. 2/x
On social media, outrageous content is naturally more viral than other types of content. And indignant disagreement garners nearly twice as much engagement. 3/x
Read 9 tweets
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HRC’s Field Sobriety Test
@2xwide_dreaming
Josh makes an important point - are your interests the same as multinational corporations?

Maybe they are; for most, they probably aren’t.

Let’s take a practical look at this...
Since $TWTR censorship is all the rage...

ICYMI: In 2015, a Saudi Prince became a larger shareholder than @jack

What are the implications when someone like that is the second larges shareholder of Twitter?

Does Twitter represent your interests or his?

qz.com/519388/this-sa…
When a guy like that owns more shares than Jack Dorsey, and also HATES Trump... what are the implications?

Is it reasonable to expect that *this dude* would ensure protections of freedom of speech?

... or think he’s on board with some censorship?

Read 9 tweets
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Jeremy Hunt
@Jeremy_Hunt
Handing over to my team now for live updates from my launch event
.@PennyMordaunt: My name will be on Jeremy Hunt's nomination papers today. Because I believe he has the experience, values and a plan.
Our failure to deliver Brexit has put our country and our party in grave peril. The leadership I offer is based on one simple truth: without Brexit there will be no Conservative government and maybe no Conservative Party.
Read 22 tweets
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Home
@alllocalpolitic
I hope everyone who can, across the US, does everything they can to signal boost and protect @AOC. The CongressWoman is breaking norms and is therefore an existential threat to unchecked power.

Remember when the 'real ones' would call out injustice - until they got elected?
👇🏽🥇
@RepJimmyPanetta my local congressperson is all about dialogue while refusing to be bold. I remember having a conversation about it with a friend, grousing about 'Jimmy', the friend said Panetta can't do anything because he doesn't have any power - yet.

His dad was #CIA,
Chief of Staff, SecDef, and a beloved congressperson from MoCo.

His mom and dad are multimillionaires who have the Panetta Institute where THE most powerful come and normalize power (I enjoy the lectures though, guilty pleasure)

Their homebase is #Carmel, where absent AG titans
Read 15 tweets
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Catherine Walsh
@gurriersread
Oh the geezers are hard at it grafting media, it's always great to have easy scapegoats "North Korean cyber gangs.." a.msn.com/01/en-ie/AAt9g…
2/"Mr Murphy’s firm was the first in the world to liaise with computer giant IBM over the use of the super-computer ‘Watson’ for real-time--
3/artificial intelligence-based defence against cyber criminals." Bear with me, I'm about to post a few more links in #THREAD #CyberSecurity
Read 71 tweets

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