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Maxim Raginsky

@mraginsky.bsky.social

web: http://maxim.ece.illinois.edu substack: https://realizable.substack.com

created July 3, 2023

6,497 followers 928 following 2,239 posts

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Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

That includes a nontrivial number of chefs.

1/9/2025, 8:17:11 PM | 9 1 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

Dear god, that entire subreddit …

1/9/2025, 4:44:59 PM | 6 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

This is probably his peak joke performance:

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1/9/2025, 4:07:51 PM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

Maybe, but he’s not good at jokes either. bsky.app/profile/bart...

1/9/2025, 4:02:06 PM | 11 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

Vesper should be stirred, not shaken.

1/9/2025, 1:50:10 AM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

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31/8/2025, 8:01:40 PM | 3 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

The whole "clanker" thing is ridiculous.

31/8/2025, 8:00:44 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

Come on, AI nerds are too inept for that. Certain Girard-misunderstanding billionaires, on the other hand ...

31/8/2025, 7:57:50 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

Cosma has a good take (as usual): bactra.org/notebooks/ev...

31/8/2025, 6:15:46 PM | 6 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

The best one so far!

31/8/2025, 2:19:46 PM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

Farmers’ market haul.

31/8/2025, 1:40:24 AM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social)

what we do in the shadows

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31/8/2025, 1:28:26 AM | 13 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGNI...

30/8/2025, 11:12:11 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

Where do consistent histories go?

30/8/2025, 9:48:32 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

But now it also includes culture war slop.

30/8/2025, 6:05:09 PM | 3 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

We can have a bit of state capitalism, as a treat.

30/8/2025, 6:02:22 PM | 5 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

Seven decades of Soviet rule led to a deeply ingrained cynicism which, somehow, transitioned to willingness to believe any charismatic charlatan on the teevee. What @hannahgais.bsky.social described in this article I witnessed firsthand as a teen in Russia. thebaffler.com/latest/psych...

30/8/2025, 6:01:50 PM | 5 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

Where, it should be noted, their definition of communism has lost any anchor in reality and can mean whatever they want it to mean.

30/8/2025, 5:57:54 PM | 6 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

Relatedly, what blackpilled me regarding the purported immunity of American system against cults of personality is that, even though the fall of the USSR was in part precipitated by so many powerful exposés of the horrors of Stalinism, they decided, nah, they still want personalist dictatorship.

30/8/2025, 5:57:19 PM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

Many such cases.

30/8/2025, 5:52:18 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

A lot of the ex-Soviets also learned to love the culture war slop, alas.

30/8/2025, 5:51:23 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

You'd be surprised how many of them still yearn for the *right* kind of authoritarianism and at their mental acrobatics skills to justify the current moment.

30/8/2025, 5:50:14 PM | 8 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

Accidental circumcision by falling window sash ranks high up there.

29/8/2025, 9:50:14 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

Theodore Porter, The Rise of Statistical Thinking Gigerenzer et al., The Empire of Chance Bernstein, Against the Gods

29/8/2025, 6:57:01 PM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

This has nothing to do with whatever beliefs Weizenbaum may have had regarding humans' direct psychic access to the Akashic records or whatever.

29/8/2025, 6:48:26 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

The problem of where to draw the boundary between judgment and calculation is a political problem, not an engineering one. bsky.app/profile/mrag...

29/8/2025, 6:46:11 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

Sure, writing a preface to Steiner is crank central, but what bearing does this have on Weizenbaum's distinction between judgment and calculation? This guilt-by-association criticism is every bit as ideological as the one put forward by Bender and co.

29/8/2025, 6:46:11 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

And deeply ironic as well, because Scott is a true believer in the AI safety cause and an adept of vulgar rationality a la Nate Silver.

29/8/2025, 4:47:11 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

Yep.

29/8/2025, 4:38:27 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social)

Lunch of champions: p’tit basque, roasted almonds, and chilled Crenshaw melon.

29/8/2025, 4:24:51 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reposted reply parent

Also, it is worthy of note that, for the AI safety people, the ends (preventing the emergence of skynet and bioweapons) justify the means (among other things, immiserating huge quantities of people by normalizing runaway gambling in the guise of "predictive rationality").

29/8/2025, 4:10:45 PM | 9 2 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

An example of this grand guignol: an ML researcher who pivoted to AI safety and fully embraced all of the x-risk doomsday narratives was demanding quantitative evidence to the claims that gambling at scale is harmful. What is that saying by Scott Alexander? "Beware solated demands for rigor?"

29/8/2025, 4:15:12 PM | 6 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

Also, it is worthy of note that, for the AI safety people, the ends (preventing the emergence of skynet and bioweapons) justify the means (among other things, immiserating huge quantities of people by normalizing runaway gambling in the guise of "predictive rationality").

29/8/2025, 4:10:45 PM | 9 2 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

I had a somewhat technical thread on Twitter about compression algorithms and underlying conceptual ideas right after Ted Chiang's "blurry JPEG" New Yorker article came out. I have deleted my Twitter account, but perhaps I should resurrect that thread from the downloaded archive.

29/8/2025, 2:22:02 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

bsky.app/profile/mrag...

29/8/2025, 1:26:19 PM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

realizable.substack.com/p/how-to-do-...

29/8/2025, 1:19:14 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

With some minor modifications, that’s Husserlian phenomenology (you don’t have to be a Platonist to be a realist).

29/8/2025, 3:54:34 AM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

Ah. Got it.

29/8/2025, 3:52:43 AM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

Traditional (Cartesian) dualism is substance dualism.

29/8/2025, 3:44:24 AM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

Keynes thought so :)

29/8/2025, 3:38:13 AM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

Substance monism and property dualism. This is the way.

29/8/2025, 3:37:51 AM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

As for Newton, he had enough epistemic humility to refrain from making hypotheses about the mechanism behind action at a distance.

29/8/2025, 3:34:15 AM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

I personally prefer Philip Agre’s _Computation and Human Experience_. I don’t think he could be accused of being a crank.

29/8/2025, 3:30:12 AM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

That may be the case, but so are the opinions of the AI safety crank club.

29/8/2025, 3:28:15 AM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

Which takes us straight back to the intentional stance.

29/8/2025, 3:27:15 AM | 3 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

I’d love to do engineering science of universal next-token predictors, but instead we’re stuck here arguing about everyone’s brand of woo. bsky.app/profile/mrag...

29/8/2025, 3:26:43 AM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

Jack Parsons was a Crowleyite, yet he also founded the JPL. This is a weak argument.

29/8/2025, 3:23:34 AM | 3 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

So instead of taking the time to understand transformers’ capabilities as powerful architectures for data-driven approximation of control policies, we’re consigned to this.

29/8/2025, 3:21:47 AM | 4 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

Yes, and it’s in large part because chatbots sell, whereas training transformer architectures on tokenized natural signs for applications in science would take much longer but wouldn’t enrich Sam Altman.

29/8/2025, 3:16:43 AM | 4 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

One compelling reason why it may be different this time is that, unlike the past examples, here we are dealing with early-generation intentional artifacts (in the sense of Dennett), which novels and rock lyrics are not.

29/8/2025, 2:59:13 AM | 3 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

realizable.substack.com/p/learning-f...

29/8/2025, 2:51:10 AM | 5 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

Sample-efficiency of human intelligence was paid for in aeons of evolution (“what’s a priori for an individual is a posteriori for the species,” like Konrad Lorenz said).

29/8/2025, 2:47:48 AM | 7 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

And this very recent thing as well: eschwitz.substack.com/p/minimal-au...

29/8/2025, 2:37:39 AM | 4 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

As I keep saying, everyone should read this: dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721....

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29/8/2025, 2:36:56 AM | 5 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

Yes, that’s my idiosyncratic brand of constructivism too (that was Herman Weyl’s perspective).

29/8/2025, 2:28:59 AM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

To be fair, his Society of Mind framework was fairly sophisticated. But he did have a bit of a fanatic’s zeal in him.

29/8/2025, 2:25:49 AM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

Constructivism stays winning.

29/8/2025, 2:24:32 AM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

Yes, among others. It’s described in some detail in Pamela McCorduck’s _Machines Who Think_.

29/8/2025, 2:19:53 AM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social)

let’s go

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29/8/2025, 1:49:41 AM | 7 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

Not that they hadn’t tried, though. When the book came out, many of the bigshot AI researchers accused Weizenbaum of sour grapes on account of no longer being able to contribute anything original as a scientist.

29/8/2025, 12:50:35 AM | 5 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

Also, just like Ben says, you should all read @jessica.bsky.social's essay on the artificiality of alignment. joinreboot.org/p/alignment

28/8/2025, 3:14:16 PM | 10 3 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social)

Ben is right. The "AI Safety" cult is all bent out of shape about the hypothetical harm from AGI shoggoths, but the real, tangible harm is happening right here and now. I used to think the late Dan Dennett was too alarmist about the danger of "counterfeit people," but he was spot on.

28/8/2025, 3:08:00 PM | 76 11 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

Blackalicious Cannibal Ox Deltron 3030 Antipop Consortium Open Mike Eagle Shabazz Palaces

27/8/2025, 7:46:18 PM | 7 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

On the other hand, it’s more realistic than sandpiles or the Ising model.

27/8/2025, 2:19:45 PM | 4 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social)

Pourover of the Beast

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27/8/2025, 1:41:24 PM | 21 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

Of all people, Chomsky had it right: why is everyone so obsessed with consciousness? Did anyone say anything new about it that wasn't already said in the 18th century?

26/8/2025, 3:50:46 PM | 5 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

mitpress.mit.edu/978093675610...

26/8/2025, 3:49:31 PM | 5 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

No, no one owes anyone an article on Searle. Searle is irrelevant.

26/8/2025, 3:47:33 PM | 6 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

This is primo content.

26/8/2025, 2:08:32 AM | 11 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

Helen Andrews. Of course.

26/8/2025, 1:53:08 AM | 24 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

Next step: know the difference between y’all and all y’all.

26/8/2025, 1:36:40 AM | 12 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

Frankfurt School remains undefeated

25/8/2025, 2:09:39 AM | 5 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

Xunzi did it before Cicero (but after Xenophon).

25/8/2025, 12:51:31 AM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social)

Vapnik-Chervonenkis candy bar

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25/8/2025, 12:40:40 AM | 42 5 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

It’s like if Asteriskmag and Vox had a child.

24/8/2025, 12:45:04 AM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

As well as a great Emerson Lake & Palmer song.

23/8/2025, 10:41:58 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

_Legitimation Crisis_ and _ Communication and the Evolution of Society_ are genuinely good analyses.

23/8/2025, 10:19:52 PM | 3 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

constructed

23/8/2025, 10:11:12 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

We don't know how the brain *works* for more or less the same reason and with the same implications.

23/8/2025, 9:05:08 PM | 5 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

(With the caveat that "modern AI" is machine learning/pattern recognition using very large, flexible model architectures. But the book does get into that.)

23/8/2025, 8:57:07 PM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

This is indeed a good book.

23/8/2025, 8:55:08 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

Everything is control theory, but not everything is optimal control theory.

23/8/2025, 8:54:28 PM | 4 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

There's nothing platonic about it, it's pragmatism all the way down.

23/8/2025, 6:02:22 PM | 4 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

Everything is control theory. Always has been.

23/8/2025, 6:01:35 PM | 11 2 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

I just subscribed to yours as well.

23/8/2025, 4:43:29 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

realizable.substack.com/p/supertzar-...

23/8/2025, 4:41:27 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

realizable.substack.com/p/how-to-do-...

23/8/2025, 4:41:27 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

realizable.substack.com/p/aristoteli...

23/8/2025, 4:41:27 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

realizable.substack.com/p/the-daoist...

23/8/2025, 4:41:27 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

realizable.substack.com/p/the-daoist...

23/8/2025, 4:41:27 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

realizable.substack.com/p/the-daoist...

23/8/2025, 4:41:27 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

Here are some of my posts that touch upon the same ideas you were referring to (connections between intelligence, language, knowledge, cognition, systems, etc.) realizable.substack.com/p/c-west-chu...

23/8/2025, 4:41:27 PM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

I tend to write long posts as well, which is why can only put them out once a month or so.

23/8/2025, 4:35:35 PM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

What S&Z were saying is that either one doesn't need catastrophe theory to arrive at the stated conclusion or Zeeman's invocation of Thom's classification of elementary catastrophes goes beyond what the result says rigorously (e.g., as regards the meaning of terms like "generic," "local," etc.).

22/8/2025, 6:34:52 PM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

There were articles by Hector Sussmann and Raphael Zahler in Synthese critiquing Zeeman's ideas (basically arguing that the results he obtained using catastrophe theory are self-evident and that Thom's theorems don't support Zeeman's interpretation). Some of it even spilled out into popular press.

22/8/2025, 4:04:05 PM | 4 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social)

your daily dose of prog weirdness, enjoy www.youtube.com/watch?v=zflp...

21/8/2025, 7:39:54 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social)

Two different days, two different places to go for breakfast, and both are playing “Come on Eileen”? Reset the simulation please!

20/8/2025, 2:20:40 PM | 5 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

lol

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20/8/2025, 12:43:50 AM | 3 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social) reply parent

for the trollish terminology alone -- casino vs casinoe (rhymes with 'canoe')

20/8/2025, 12:39:16 AM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Maxim Raginsky (@mraginsky.bsky.social)

read theory

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20/8/2025, 12:35:03 AM | 41 1 | View on Bluesky | view