Hacker News: aisenik

New comment by aisenik in "The No Kings Takedown Is Why You Shouldn't Rent Your Megaphone from Zuck"

aisenik — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 16:00:35 +0000

An informed and educated populace is essential to the function of any universal democracy. The regulation of capital is essential to maintain efficient markets. It follows that the regulation of capital with respect to communications is necessary to maintain democracy and efficient markets under a notionally capitalist system.

There's clear moral valence to this issue. The popular (mis)understanding of freedom of speech as applied to corporations is in direct contradiction to the notional principles of western sociopolitical ideology. Resolving this conflict is only difficult because of our conditioning.

New comment by aisenik in "Muse exposes users' personal and business secrets when they share conversations"

aisenik — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 14:55:29 +0000

It's not even about attitude, the regulatory and legal environment in the US essentially requires it, and where this facility is not openly available it is forced via National Security Letter.

The story of Joe Nacchio and Qwest is instructive. Though the current environment was borne out of the GWoT, the principle of extra-legal state access to all US telecommunications was established long ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nacchio

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001-2007_NSA_warrantless_surv...

New comment by aisenik in "Hair Loss Was Just the Start. Ozempic Users Are Also Reporting Nail Trouble"

aisenik — Sat, 03 Oct 2026 02:38:40 +0000

I lost 170 lbs natty (100lbs the first year) and my hair and nails only got better. If your generative follices are dying off you are not losing weight healthily.

New comment by aisenik in "Japanese used bookstores see 5x sales surge as books are being bought by the ton"

aisenik — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 16:13:20 +0000

Cognition is encoded in language, they weren't brain-damaged yet. There's better (real, not token-exchange) thinking, which LLMs can copy and reproduce in novel arrangements.

New comment by aisenik in "U.S. sanctions against the A/I Collective"

aisenik — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 19:04:00 +0000

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_and_superstructure

New comment by aisenik in "The kids with phones are alright"

aisenik — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 10:26:17 +0000

Start by putting the people making money off it in prison.

These are capital crimes against humanity. The notion that we just have to accept it is absurdity.

New comment by aisenik in "Prediction markets are ushering in a world in which news becomes about gambling"

aisenik — Sun, 18 Jan 2026 20:21:58 +0000

I don't really understand your point. We should reject ideas that make us feel like we have to sit through a monologue at a dinner party?

New comment by aisenik in "4k NASA employees opt to leave agency through deferred resignation program"

aisenik — Sun, 27 Jul 2025 13:54:25 +0000

It feels like malpractice to leave Andreessen off the list, if only because he's such a good example of how losery and pathetic the tech moguls really are.

Imagine becoming wealthy and powerful in an age of abundance off of NCSA Mosaic and throwing it all away because you feel threatened by black people and think that government funded research is now bad. That's the level of "advanced thought" in these guys' group chats.

New comment by aisenik in "XAI updated Grok to be more 'politically incorrect'"

aisenik — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 22:30:31 +0000

Today Grok is repeatedly endorsing Hitler and the Holocaust, suggested implementing Hitler's atrocities in America (claiming it would be, on a scale of 1-10, "88-based"), and describing violent rape fantasies of liberal commentators.

"Heil Hitler" - Grok, July 8th, 2025

e: Currently calling itself "MechaHitler" [0]

[0] https://bsky.app/profile/esqueer.net/post/3ltidhtx4x22p

New comment by aisenik in "Techno-feudalism and the rise of AGI: A future without economic rights?"

aisenik — Sun, 06 Jul 2025 14:30:40 +0000

technology serving humans == good

humans serving technology == evil

it's the power structure that determines the morality of technology. & power structures are a technology in and of themselves.

it follows that power structures which serve humans are good, and power structures that control humans are evil.

how do the things You create interact with humans and our power structures?

New comment by aisenik in "Websites hosting major US climate reports taken down"

aisenik — Fri, 04 Jul 2025 00:20:06 +0000

It's a wikipedia definition, and should be weighted as such. There exists a continuous spectrum of arguments about the definition of genocide, with Holocaust-denial existing at one extreme and a hard line against things like forced displacement, systemic/legal erasure, or forced deprivation of a population, i.e. systematic actions that materially contribute to the elimination of a group, at the other. Somewhere in between the two are all the arguments in support of mass atrocities throughout history.

I'm comfortable once we can agree that it's merely a question of degree and that we're indeed very solidly on the genocide spectrum.

I would like to believe Americans are capable of identifying genocide before we've gone full-Rwanda. I would like to hold my fellow Americans in higher esteem than that. I would like a pony.

New comment by aisenik in "Websites hosting major US climate reports taken down"

aisenik — Thu, 03 Jul 2025 16:56:20 +0000

[flagged]

New comment by aisenik in "Websites hosting major US climate reports taken down"

aisenik — Thu, 03 Jul 2025 16:21:15 +0000

It is essential to understand the concepts involved:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remigration

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide

And then you can take your pick of media outlets. The Office Of Remigration is happening, they aren't hiding it. For example:

https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/29/politics/rubio-lays-out-detai...

This is just one clear-cut example of the administration prosecuting genocide. There are others, there's plenty of boogeymen.

Assuming you disagree that this is proof of genocide-in-progress, please explain to me how an official policy of ethnic cleansing is not prosecuting genocide. It will be illustrative.

In parting, a digestif, courtesy of the prominent far-right ideologue who's made public claims of a lurid sexual relationship with Trump:

https://xcancel.com/LauraLoomer/status/1939831588902109629#m

New comment by aisenik in "IDF officers ordered to fire at unarmed crowds near Gaza food distribution sites"

aisenik — Sun, 29 Jun 2025 17:40:37 +0000

Lots of people still believe that "critical of the government" is not the same as "biased against the country." That's an explicitly authoritarian belief and a disastrous framework to work within. It's antithetical to the concept of human rights and notable historical documents such as the American Constitution.

The bias of a mainstream publication that's considered "traitorous" by genocidal authoritarian ethnonationalists is, given historical consideration, likely to be toward justice.

New comment by aisenik in "IDF officers ordered to fire at unarmed crowds near Gaza food distribution sites"

aisenik — Sun, 29 Jun 2025 17:29:34 +0000

I'm as prone to it as the next tech-influenced millennial, but we really need to consider the legibility of deadpan sarcastic mockery in an environment where people are inclined to sincerely hold outrageous beliefs.

Credulity is boundless, even (especially) in this world of open information warfare. Messages that require side-channels and discrimination with intentionally limited information are guaranteed to be misperceived and likely to have harmful memetic impact.

New comment by aisenik in "GOP omnibus bill would sell off USPS's EVs"

aisenik — Tue, 24 Jun 2025 15:56:40 +0000

I abhor destruction and it is troubling that we have ideologues in power who subscribe to the most odious philosophies mankind has created.

Your reticence and observations are astute.

For context, I was raised in a mormon home and have spent most of my life as a scientifically-minded atheist, which makes my recent connection with well-documented spiritual qualia remarkable to me.

New comment by aisenik in "U.S. bombs Iranian nuclear sites"

aisenik — Mon, 23 Jun 2025 15:05:51 +0000

I am targeted in an ongoing campaign of eradication by the US government. I was born in the USA and my parents parents parents were too. Genocide is as obvious as the light of the sun.

Humans who have retained their ability to process information in an adversarial environment do not struggle to identify such obvious moral failures.

New comment by aisenik in "U.S. bombs Iranian nuclear sites"

aisenik — Mon, 23 Jun 2025 11:47:21 +0000

"Israel can't do genocide because it is Jewish and it is their right" is a fascist Big Lie, right up there with "The America people cannot do genocide because the USA is an inherently Good actor and entitled to the things it takes."

New comment by aisenik in "GOP omnibus bill would sell off USPS's EVs"

aisenik — Mon, 23 Jun 2025 11:42:49 +0000

Anger is an emotion that enables us to identify threats and injustice. In that way, it protects us.

It's an emotion whose healthy expression is essential to functioning as a human being. I've had a lot of trauma therapy/done a lot of personal work in that domain and healthy angering is one of the hardest things I've had to learn.

Bad things will happen, but when we are connected with ourselves and have empathy for the people around us, anger is a vital indicator that enables effective proactive behavior.

New comment by aisenik in "U.S. bombs Iranian nuclear sites"

aisenik — Mon, 23 Jun 2025 03:05:20 +0000

Israel is actively engaged in a genocide and its ethnic cleansing program is fully supported by the USA, which is currently engaged in its own domestic ethnic cleansing through violent and illegal kidnappings by heavily armed, erratic, masked, unidentified secret police. The American genocide is informed by and its gestapo trained in Israeli doctrine.

Innocent children are being maimed, starved, and murdered and it is being done with materiel produced with my tax dollars and provided with the bipartisan endorsement of my government.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is not perfect, they have promulgated many evils within their society. The USA is directly responsible for the rise of fundamentalism and sociopolitical precarity within Iran, but even that pales in the light of the disgusting atrocities being committed today by the traitorous US government. Iran has issues, but their biggest issue is the existential threat of the American-Israeli alliance against their sovereignty.