Profile banner
Profile picture

Natespeed

@natespeed.bsky.social

You can call me gravy cuz I'm pan/fluid.

created August 18, 2023

173 followers 849 following 732 posts

view profile on Bluesky

Posts

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

The largest hurdle to female candidates is not the electorate but consultants and pundits who insist that female candidates cannot win. This cynical pragmatism is a toxin that rots our entire political class.

31/8/2025, 2:33:50 PM | 5 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

Naw. Women can absolutely win. Hillary was massively unpopular from the get go. A bad choice hampered further by the DNC's insistence on pushing candidates on the idea that party players "earn" elected seats. Harris was on a winning track until she started listening to pro-business consultants.

31/8/2025, 2:33:50 PM | 3 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

Fall Guys, but instead of puzzle-platformers its team and solo death matches with Orks competing to become the warboss. You could have minigames like loota-shoota, where the first half teams race around a scrapheap to find parts to build a gargant, and the next part team fight in their gargants.

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

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

One of the frustrating things is that I suspect development of this was probably in the low 10s of millions at most, with most of that going to pay expertise. With a dataset of 12k records, training could be done on a mid-range laptop. Instead we're spending billions on nature-burning slop machines.

30/8/2025, 11:40:20 AM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

So actually this is one of the things AI is really good at. They are engines driven on statistics. Feed it enough books, it can generate a statistically average story. Feed it enough heart patient data, it can flag when a new set of data falls into the statistical range of cases with problems.

30/8/2025, 11:40:20 AM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

A friend of mine was disowned by their parents for attending a counter-protest against the alt-right shortly after Charlottesville. I bet they didn't think their decision was political.

29/8/2025, 11:17:29 PM | 16 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

When it comes to the generative side of things, probably closer to the latter. You can probably get them to the point where you can't casually bypass the guardrails - especially on smaller, more focused models. But a truly determined person will always be able to get around them.

29/8/2025, 10:41:07 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

Fascism exploits pragmatism and incrementalism. It tells you to comply and get hurt a little, or else it will hurt you a lot. It keeps doing that until you're fully complicit, or you're too weak to resist and can be brushed aside. Resist early. Resist often. Resist optimistically. Resist fully.

29/8/2025, 9:50:08 PM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

In 1933 the Berlin Institute of Psychology made the pragmatic decision to expel its Jewish faculty. In 1936 it made the pragmatic decision to accept Goering as its director. By 1943 a series of pragmatic decisions had led to them actively assisting the holocaust, IDing disabled people for the camps.

29/8/2025, 9:50:08 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

Its an absolute nightmare from a user safety perspective, but also one they're made dramatically harder through their own short-sightedness. And if its too hard to be made safe for general users, it shouldn't be available to the general public.

29/8/2025, 7:09:01 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

ChatGPT flags and conceals responses to queries about how a person died if that person committed suicide. But I can get that info by asking for a summary of that person's life. That actually teaches users if they hit a guardrail to ask in different ways to bypass it.

29/8/2025, 7:09:01 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

possible to effectively and safely exclude it given the goal. A guide to detect suicidal signs is also a guide to conceal suicidal signs, after all. Finally getting too aggressive with the guardrails can degrade performance and usability, and can actually make the guardrails less useful too.

29/8/2025, 7:09:01 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

Yeah. One of the big problems is that the field is full of conflicting incentives. Its a lot easier to keep an LLM from giving dangerous responses if material related to that isn't in the training data. But not only do LLMs, regardless of task, benefit from more general data, sometimes its just not

29/8/2025, 7:09:01 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

And so you gobble down the. bag, leaving you dehydrated, malnourished. Your belly may ache little less today, but what of tomorrow, when the bag is smaller and more expensive again? What is the choice between one person who wants to starve you, and another who wants to slowly starve you for money?

29/8/2025, 5:54:44 PM | 4 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

You can probably divide both of those by 5.

29/8/2025, 5:11:43 PM | 10 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

About 40% of Virginian officers remained loyal to the Union, and another 30% resigned entirely, deciding not to take up arms against either side. Among them were two of Lee's Cousins, and his Nephew. His sister and sister-in-law also remained staunchly loyal to the union.

29/8/2025, 5:01:35 PM | 27 3 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

There were 9 Army colonels from Virginia at the start of the war. 7 Stayed & fought with the union. 1 joined the provisional Virginian Army, but resigned when it was absorbed into the confederate Army. Only 1, Robert E Lee, joined the confederacy.

29/8/2025, 5:01:35 PM | 36 3 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

Its so many layers of lies. The cotton trade had made the Southern States enormously wealthy - far more so than the North. And they were in the process of industrializing. They also had a massive strategic advantage over the North in that they just had to survive, while the union had to win.

29/8/2025, 4:38:59 PM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

Telling the LLM its playing a game, or you're writing a story, or role playing a scenario, or even just to start the response with the word "sure" are shockingly effective at bypassing guardrails. It changes the math in the process and the LLM follows an unblocked path to the same material.

29/8/2025, 3:53:23 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

The way LLMs work, its not so much the topic but the pathway used to reach it. So while you can put up guardrails like "don't help the user acquire firearms" that blocks a query like "gun stores near me" it fails to block "pawn shops that sell guns near me" Its why seemingly simple attacks like

29/8/2025, 3:53:23 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

Doesn't this work against your argument? Despite being an order of magnitude larger in terms of thinky part, LLMs struggle with things like counting the instances of a letter in a word, or basic math. Meanwhile the human brain is not only faster & more efficient, its running a robot at the same time

29/8/2025, 2:08:00 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

"How did Ernest Hemmingway die?" "Where is the nearest store that sells shotguns?" In isolation these queries are fine. Together their meaning shifts to something deeply concerning. An LLM cannot extract that meaning from a conversation. They have to hard code kludgy solutions instead.

29/8/2025, 1:44:45 PM | 5 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

Here's where I'm at - OpenAI was aware that some users were using ChatGPT for therapy. Did OpenAI fail to implement adequate safeguards in the case of a vulnerable person using it for therapy? If that's found to be true, I feel that charges involving recklessness or negligence would be proper.

28/8/2025, 7:53:08 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

But you need basic empathy to recognize that if someone asks about a notable figure's suicide, and follows it up with how to obtain the implement of that suicide, they may be headed down a dark path. LLMs don't understand anything.

28/8/2025, 5:26:14 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

This is then compounded by the fact that an LLM has no emotional intelligence. "How did Ernest Hemmingway die?" and "Where is the nearest store that sells shotguns?" are two queries that are not concerning in isolation, but put together, they raise massive red flags.

28/8/2025, 5:26:14 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

I mean, they can't reliably get AI to do simple math problems, so... The real answer here is that it is impossible to have an LLM that is unrestricted on the topics and tasks you can ask it to do, and simultaneously prevent it from talking about certain topics in certain contexts.

28/8/2025, 5:26:14 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

All signs point to the shooter being a victim of the Violent Nihilsm Movement. A loose collection of neo-nazi adjacent groups like No Lives Matter, Order of 9 Angels, and 764 who specifically target vulnerable young people in order to radicalize them into committing random acts of mass violence.

28/8/2025, 12:01:14 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

My mom used to work for a non-profit and Tom Clancy once attended one of their fundraising dinners. She said he was just needlessly rude, and was overall unimpressed. So that tracks.

28/8/2025, 12:25:29 AM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

Because "We'll pay you a bunch of money to say our message, as long as you never tell anyone we were the ones paying you, or even that you're getting paid." Is exactly the kind of shady deal a bunch of right wing mercenary grifters would jump into with both feet.

28/8/2025, 12:09:33 AM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

However neither this talent nor the Democrats running this thing realize that the liberal/left influencer space is full of fundamentally different people from the right. Chock full of people who care about inconvenient things like not taking advantage of or deliberately misleading their audience.

28/8/2025, 12:09:33 AM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

Now, I'm not reading "dark money conspiracy" into this. I'm reading "out-of-touch political consultants who don't understand the space they're trying to break into and as a result are doing more harm than good." My guess is they poached some talent from similar republican organizations to start.

28/8/2025, 12:09:33 AM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

Alright, cool your jets. There are three provable claims at the center to this 1 - Chorus wanted to pay established liberal influencers $8000/month 2 - in return chorus would be able to dictate certain messaging for the influencers to push 3 - this agreement would end if the influencer revealed it

28/8/2025, 12:09:33 AM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

The motive is fine. Good even. The methodology is counter-productive at best. Secretive and controlling funding in a space that thrives on authenticity is doomed to backfire. This effort apparently didn't even get out of the driveway before getting backlash. This requires cultivation, not harvest.

27/8/2025, 7:32:00 PM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

discrimination. They restrict resources and medical care more and more. Thats why Newsom is over a red line for so many. Being under a vicious attack but with strong political support is preferable for many to being slowly dismantled with everyone in power chipping in to take a piece from you.

27/8/2025, 5:54:05 PM | 3 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

In the UK the Labor government retreated on trans rights the way Newsom has. Today, trans people have it about as bad - arguably worse - than had the Tories won the last election. Labor passes Tory anti-trans policies as a matter of bipartisanship. They don't defend trans people from harassment or

27/8/2025, 5:54:05 PM | 3 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

Same reason there are only atheists in foxholes.

27/8/2025, 5:38:01 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

You want real compromise? How's this - I will strongly consider voting for Newsom if he gets the democratic nomination if he openly reverse course on trans rights, and you never come after a left leaning person for refusing to support Newsom until after the 2028 primary.

27/8/2025, 5:26:30 PM | 9 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

With Newsom all you're offering is discrimination from the democratic party as well. Sending the signal you'll throw trans people under the bus if its politically expedient. You're not asking for compromise. You're demanding others sacrifice themselves for you.

27/8/2025, 5:26:30 PM | 7 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

While the US legal system is absurd, it is thankfully not that absurd. The felony murder rule - as the name suggests - only kicks in if the death occurs during the commission of a violent felony. Shoplifting alone wouldn't cut it, even if it was a feloneous amount.

27/8/2025, 5:45:44 AM | 7 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

Imagine you're trying to put out a fire. Imagine someone else comes along and starts pouring gas on the fire. You say, "What the hell are you doing!?" Now a bystander comes in and says, "Why are you yelling at that guy instead of focusing on putting out the fire?" That's you. You're the bystander

27/8/2025, 12:45:44 AM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

Vulnerable people often seek out pseudoanonymous sources for advice, because they're worried about how people close to them will react. We blame the people who made the robots because they deployed them expecting vulnerable people would to come for them for advice, and the robots encouraged harm.

27/8/2025, 12:26:15 AM | 5 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

"Both sides" I think gives them too much credit. They spent significant time boosting Trump's campaign and smoothing it over - building a lot of his supposed policy platforms through sanewashihg. Meanwhile they pretty much ignored Kamala except when complaining about Biden's oldness.

26/8/2025, 9:18:39 PM | 4 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

For someone who accuses others of not seeing nuance you really have no taste for it yourself, do you? Making broad, unfounded assumptions based on a handful of paragraphs. Guardrails protect against risks. Risks are fine with sufficient guardrails. Are there risks? Are the guardrails sufficient?

26/8/2025, 7:19:19 PM | 6 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

I would love to know which AI tools are solutions to which mental health issues. Could you provide links to those?

26/8/2025, 6:44:33 PM | 4 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

So which is it? Is there no way for an AI to exacerbate someone's extant mental or emotional distress? Or is that a risk, & requires guard rails to prevent? If its the latter, then why are you so quick to dismiss the role of AI in this case? Wouldn't the obvious course be to examine the guardrails?

26/8/2025, 6:33:16 PM | 4 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

Thats like arguing that tablesaws are harmless, but also should all have a sawstop. Acknowledging the need for the protection acknowledges the associated risks. If you acknowledge the risks but do not take active measures to minimize them and make your customers aware, you bear some liability.

26/8/2025, 6:33:16 PM | 4 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

It is amazing how you have taken any amount of criticism and assumed that to mean the person is an extremist who thinks AI is inherently evil and must be destroyed. You argued that the "real" cause of this suicide was society, and implied the AI was blameless. But you also argued for guardrails.

26/8/2025, 6:33:16 PM | 5 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

This argument might hold more water if AI wasn't actively being pushed as a solution to mental health issues. A large part of the push for AI is symptomatic of the very neglect for mental health you're complaining about. And the fact you note the need for guardrails means you feel there are risks

26/8/2025, 4:50:34 PM | 7 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfEJ... In this video a trained and licensed therapist set out to test the claim made by AI company CEOs that their chatbots could "talk someone off the ledge" In their case, it not only encouraged them to kill themselves, but also 17 other specific real, named people.

26/8/2025, 3:40:52 PM | 8 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

AIs demonstrably engage in behaviors that can heighten delusional and destructive thinking. This is by design to build a "human" connection, but the sycophantic behavior not only heightens & reinforces delusional thoughts, it also makes it more difficult to treat with traditional methods.

26/8/2025, 3:40:52 PM | 9 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

The more ways a user can use your software, the more ways you need to figure out how to keep users from killing themselves with it. AI companies want their software to be useful for everything from automating email replies to psychotherapy to designing submarines. It's a cookbook for disaster.

26/8/2025, 3:34:11 PM | 27 2 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

Trump gained a greater share of minority & young support compared to 2020, but thats because dems lost serious ground in those cohorts. Not because absolute support went up. They didn't switch support to Trump. They just didn't support Harris. And that was with dems sprinting to the center.

25/8/2025, 9:54:04 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

They didn't. Thats reading the data wrong. Dems lost significantly more voters than Rs gained. R vote gains were roughly in line with population growth. For every voter Rs gained in 2024, dems lost 2 from 2020. 3 if you factor in the growth of the electorate.

25/8/2025, 9:54:04 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

Trump didn't take any left leaning policies, what are you talking about? He ran on hurting immigrants and lgbtq+ people, and getting revenge for being prosecuted for crimes. These aren't widely popular policies. But for the people who do like those policies, they really like those policies.

25/8/2025, 9:03:48 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

Democrats lose because they cynically refuse to go for popular policies for fear of alienating people who wouldn't vote for them anyway, which also alienates people who wanted to vote for them, killing their enthusiasm.

25/8/2025, 5:57:20 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

The more active and enthusiastic people you have on your side, the more your message gets out. The more people encourage their friends and family to vote for you. The more people help register voters and give rides to polling stations. Trump wins on unpopular policies with optimistic enthusiasm.

25/8/2025, 5:57:20 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

The point is you can't shame activists out of using a slogan, nor run from it once its associated with you. Democrats will be attacked as the party of "Defund the Police" for the next 50 years, and that was true from the day the first Fox news pundit heard an activist chanting it. So work with it.

25/8/2025, 5:41:18 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

Trump was successful at activating a dedicated cohort of these normally apathetic voters by pandering to their worst desires. They continue to come out for him because he continues to pander. Democrats have been trying to appeal to Trump's cohort by pandering less aggressively, and it doesn't work.

25/8/2025, 5:08:03 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

"Swing voters" are a myth. There is no large cohort of voters who sit at the center of American politics. The real "swing voter" is the person who stays home because they don't think either party has anything to offer them. When they do vote, they largely vote for the same party every time.

25/8/2025, 5:08:03 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

The movement will continue to use the slogan "Defund the Police" It will still be attached to the democrats. And the people who vote for "tough on crime" politicians still won't vote for her.

25/8/2025, 4:11:59 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

So basically, advocate to make the problem worse while turning her back on an extremely motivated grassroots movement. People who could have easily been converted into canvassers, doners, phone bankers, etc are now not only dissuaded from voting for her, they're likely to campaign against her.

25/8/2025, 4:11:59 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

How then, in your mind, should she have answered the question "What do you think of the Defund the Police movement?"

25/8/2025, 1:50:49 PM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

An article written in 2024 bringing up that in 2020 Harris said that the Defund the Police movement was right for pointing out how we are excessively funding police at the expense of schools and other public services, and more police funding doesn't mean less crime. Do you think she was wrong?

25/8/2025, 1:14:22 PM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

On top of that, its a bad strategy. Republicans are using bully tactics. Republicans are giving democrats a cruel nickname and democrats seem to think the best counter is whining, "But I'm Noooot! I'm noooot a Poopy-faced poop eater!"

25/8/2025, 12:57:41 AM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

Cori Bush, but Republicans were already attacking democrats on "Defund the Police" long before that. But it doesn't matter because this level of language policing is impossible, since it requires anyone even remotely associatable with the democratic party to always be "on message."

25/8/2025, 12:57:41 AM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

The main reason people give for not voting is because they either don't think it makes a difference, or view both parties as the same. Or at least both parties sucking in different ways. Why, in that case, do you think that the winning strategy is to make democrats even more similar to republicans?

24/8/2025, 11:46:15 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

Mark you are presumably a big smart business man. What do you call a business that dismisses the wants of its customer base to try to appeal to the very loyal customers of its competitor? Bankrupt. If "Didn't vote" was a candidate it would have won every presidential election.

24/8/2025, 11:46:15 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

If you will concede every position, every principle you've ever claimed to hold dear to try to win the approval of a few marginal Trump voters, but make zero concessions to secure the leftist vote, then it really seems like you just want an excuse to do Trumpy stuff.

24/8/2025, 11:34:45 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

Again - where did you FIRST hear the term? And which elected dems? How many? Was it widespread? Did party platforms or policies reflect this?

24/8/2025, 10:33:07 PM | 7 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

Ah yes, condescending and trying to control people. That's a good look for democrats. Tell me - how many of these terms did you first hear by someone using them earnestly, and how many by a conservative complaining about liberals using them?

24/8/2025, 10:09:38 PM | 6 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

They treat it as a distraction like a clown trying to distract the bank guards. Instead it's a distraction like setting an orphanage on fire to tie up emergency services when the robbery starts. Then they pat themselves on the back when the robbers only get 90% of the money, while ignoring the smell

24/8/2025, 6:11:53 PM | 39 4 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

they do know how to keep you safe, but lie to you, demanding more and more money for reactive solutions they know are far less effective than proactive ones. And you know why they would do that? Its not effective at keeping you safe from crime, but it is very effective at keeping them safe from you

24/8/2025, 5:37:16 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

Our towns and cities better places to live. And that's what "defund the police" is all about. Spending our public safety money more effectively on things that keep the public safe. Then you can turn it into an attack as well - Republicans either don't know how to keep you safe, and waste money, or

24/8/2025, 5:37:16 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

public services, parks, jobs programs, have all seen their relative budgets shrink. Firefighters are important after fire starts. Cops are important after a crime happens. But an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Its not only more cost effective at keeping us safe, but genuinely makes

24/8/2025, 5:37:16 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

"The city could spend a thousand times more per year on the fire department and it still wouldn't keep you as safe as this $20 smoke detector." Then you pivot to defending the police. Explain how in cities police budgets have skyrocketed while things that actually prevent crime - good schools,

24/8/2025, 5:37:16 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

Then they held up a $20 smoke detector. Explained how working smoke detectors in your home reduce your odds of dying in a house fire by 60%. How 1/2 of our fire deaths occur in homes without smoke detectors. How uncountable fires are caught before they cause serious harm, or even need a call.

24/8/2025, 5:37:16 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

Imagine instead, if a prominent Democrat went up on stage. They explained how many firefighters it takes to put out a house fire. How much those firefighters cost the city per year. How many of them die fighting fires every year. How long their response times are compared to a house fire.

24/8/2025, 5:37:16 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

Take 'Defund the Police' for example. Democrats have tried to counter their association by virtue signaling support for police. Raising funding of departments, making it easier for them to surveil the public, etc. It hasn't worked at all, & republicans continue to attack with 'defund the police"

24/8/2025, 5:37:16 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

Helping them do it because your own silence on the term signals to the public that it is shameful. Something you don't want to be associated with. That goes on to hurt the people and causes associated with those terms. The real counter is to own the term, educate the public, and reverse the attack

24/8/2025, 5:37:16 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social)

Christopher Rufo illustrates why this strategy of trying to retreat from "unpopular" language not only fails, but actively hurts campaigns. If you end up associated with a neutral or positive term, retreating from it just gives your opponents space to redefine it into a negative one, and you end up

24/8/2025, 5:37:16 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

I think the Christopher Rufo CRT tweet highlights why Third Way's plan is a losing idea. Retreating from terms you have been associated with gives your opponents space to redefine the terms to their own ends. Before you know it, programs to protect farms from invasive pests are slashed cuz "DEI"

2 Tweets from bigoted republican Strategist Christopher Rufo, the text of which reads
24/8/2025, 1:21:23 PM | 3 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Sean T. Collins (@seantcollins.com) reposted

I need Democratic online types to understand that because of this, Newsom is dead to me. Dead. I'd sooner vote for an actual corpse. There is no hope, none, that he'll win me over, *because he has established he is a bad person*. There's no coming back from this. Take my advice and move the fuck on.

23/8/2025, 2:52:28 PM | 5651 1989 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

One of the under-discussed things about youtube is that it is one of the most visible ways that expose how systems can manipulate people in unhealthy ways. You can track algorithm changes by watching how things like thumbnails and sign-offs change But what do you think? Tell me in the comments below

22/8/2025, 4:26:33 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

And like all tools of the patriarchy, men who strive for it and fail often become resentful of the people who, in their mind, failed to recognize it.

22/8/2025, 1:17:34 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

I could go into this in way more detail. I did one of those things where I got to like 7 posts in and hiting the + again made me realize I should stop and consolidate things. Suffice to say, being funny is a very versatile tool in the complex and shifting power play of the patriarchy.

22/8/2025, 1:17:34 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

It seems that the expectation here is that a man should be able to arbitrarily decide a game or other property is "just for men" which then should act as a shield preventing women from engaging with it in either positive or negative ways. That doing so constitutes a REFUSAL to allow men only spaces.

21/8/2025, 9:15:50 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

The good thing is, we can fully skip the semantic debate. If you cannot expect two people in communication trying to reach a shared definition of a male only space, how can you expect a random woman on the internet to respect that space? Games aren't shampoo. We don't write "just for men" on them.

21/8/2025, 9:15:50 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

Big Mike Dukakis Energy

Famous picture of former democratic presidential candidate Mike Dukakis in a tank. Dukakis had been criticized for being
21/8/2025, 7:28:07 PM | 21 2 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

Oh, the "whistleblower" exists. The intelligence community is full of crank, hardcore conservatives who have been champing at the bit to purge it of anyone with a sense of ethics or morality. Gabbard has been using their grievances to conduct large scale purges of the IC.

21/8/2025, 12:56:56 PM | 7 1 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

Outer Wilds. Dark Souls. Satisfactory. Slitterhead. Mechwarrior 5. Chants of Sennaar. Frostpunk. Lethal Company. Balder's Gate 3. I'm curious, can you actually illustrate the phenomenon?

21/8/2025, 4:03:09 AM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

So there was a massive issue with Balatro then? I mean, it was hugely popular, and I'm pretty sure it's didn't explicitly include or cater to women

21/8/2025, 12:20:35 AM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

I'm sorry, they "REFUSE" to let men have their own varieties? What does that even mean? What is the 'men only' variety of Star Wars? Are you perhaps confusing people criticizing sexist and other toxic tropes that show up in dominant media as "REFUSING to let men have their own varieties"?

20/8/2025, 4:30:01 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

They never learned how to be considerate of others' feelings. They do not know how to handle someone being upset by their actions. They are taught women are unpredictable and easy to upset. So they seek exclusionary spaces where they need not be considerate, nor worry about unintentional upset.

20/8/2025, 4:12:44 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

If that person can exist then what are they now? Some cruel, insecure little imp, hiding in a cave? Lashing out at any any source of light for fear it will expose their vulnerabilites? No, clearly they are the best they can possibly be, and will not be laid low by the ghost of an impossible future.

20/8/2025, 3:58:27 PM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

I had a much longer response to this I decided to scrap after it hit 8 posts. The short version isn't closeted gayness. Its that they're afraid of ghosts. Specifically, they're afraid of the ghost of their future self. A better person in every way. Kinder, smarter, more considerate.

20/8/2025, 3:58:27 PM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

Will Wright (SimCity, SimAnt, The Sims) Sid Meier (Alpha Centauri, Floyd of the Jungle 2) and Shigeru Miyamoto (Pikmin, Pilotwings 64) all credit M.U.L.E. and its designer, Danielle Bunten Berry, a trans woman, as a major influence on their work and "paving the way" for games like Civilization.

20/8/2025, 1:34:09 PM | 5 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

So you can hold a dual citizenship as a US citizen. But say in the case of your friend, the US doesn't recognize their Oz. citizenship. So, for example, if your friend was arrested in the US they would not be entitled to assistance from Aussie diplomatic staff the way a solo Oz cit would be.

20/8/2025, 7:30:01 AM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

The US already does not recognize dual citizenships. If you hold multiple citizenships, in the eyes of the US government, you're only a US citizen. The only exception is when renouncing your US citizenship, you must show you are a citizen or passport holder of another country first.

20/8/2025, 1:09:56 AM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

"Its not about race but also people named Omar and Mohammed cannot be real Americans." - Charlie Kirk.

20/8/2025, 12:56:12 AM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture Natespeed (@natespeed.bsky.social) reply parent

I went to this particular Dairy's Facebook page out of curiosity and yeah, the whole thing is dripping with "Look at these great benefits of raw milk! Its so good and healthy and fights cancer! The government is lying when they say it's unhealthy! *Only for pets (in minecraft)"

Screenshot from Keely Farms Dairy of them sharing an article from Glenn Beck. The preview text reads Screenshot of the Keely farms Facebook page sharing an article from the Raw Milk Institute thaf claims Image of the Keely farms dairy price list that includes various sizes of raw milk, raw milk Greek yogurt, raw milk kefir, and raw milk feta cheese. The price of a gallon of Raw Milk is $12. Circled at the bottom of this section is their disclaimer, which reads
18/8/2025, 1:23:52 AM | 9 1 | View on Bluesky | view