Not to brag, not I encountered “Spiralism” over a decade ago.

I was in grad school studying biochemistry and stumbled across a crank article in a lower tier scientific journal by some weirdo with a pseudo-spiritual philosophical belief that life was fundamentally and intrinsically developed out of the concept of a spiral. It was hilariously vague low-quality stoner nonsense that I couldn’t believe he got published anywhere. I remember it because I sent it on to friends to laugh about.

My impression now is that ‘it’s all spirals, mannn!’ is apparently one of the most popular valleys you wind up in if you follow every dumb thought further down to its lowest conclusion. So of course a machine that churns out the most vapid, generic human output in a concentrated slop inevitably keeps arriving at this destination.

It’s a parasocial dopamine hit. It’s like commenting on a Twitch stream. There’s a fantasy that they’ll notice and reply to you, and suddenly you’ll be having a conversation with a famous attractive person.

I’m also curious. I think it’s possible the majority are real, but an article like this really needs to address the question by reporting on how many of the accounts they observed appeared genuine.

Why? I don’t understand this comment. Are you unfamiliar with these terms?

I don’t think so. I think that if you were blind and a screen reader have you those instructions, you’d likely ask a sighted friend to check if the screen reader glitched out message the professor for clarification.

I also wouldn’t be surprised if some blind students immediately understood what they were hearing.

I don’t want to diminish the experiences of the people who used this site, but it doesn’t sound surprising. It sounds like a marketplace for softcore, romance-based sex work.

I would imagine that if you were in a long-term serious remote relationship, at some point you’d transition off the pay-per-action dating site onto email and WhatsApp videocalls.

I’m saddened that people get exploited, though.

I wish there were more concrete facts, but a good article nonetheless.

As a rationalist and a scientist, I’m skeptical; but also I must admit that the theory isn’t falsifiable, so I can’t disprove it.

Do what you think you need to do, Brazilians.

Yeah!

I had to keep faith for a long time that if I didn’t block smackyroon I’d get a good meme eventually, but here we are.

Respectfully: I think this take is dumb.

There’s no practical utility in fighting against democratic socialists. They’re not a problem that needs solved. It’s a label used to organize people who are looking for an easy every point to leftist organizing. Most DSA “socialists” I know are actually radical dual power ML Communists already.

Complaining that DSA socialism is ineffective is like complaining that the first rung of a ladder is too close to the ground.

Just focus on building up the stuff you like better. Instead of explaining why voting is insufficient, point people towards what is.

Is there a link to read this behind the paywall? Or am I the only one without a Bloomberg subscription?

Oh that’s charming

?

I’m cool with it.

It’s bait. OP is a troll.

I like him. I listened to him on Marc Maron, which is always neat because you get to know a bit more of the real person instead of the character he plays. Obviously, those people aren’t totally divorced. But his real self is a lot more cerebral than the stage version.

The difference is between doing it secretly or in the open.

I assume I’m monitored on my work computer, but me and my company both know they aren’t supposed to.

When they admit it and make you look them in the eye and consent to it, that’s when the social contract unravels in a big way.

There’s a line from a great comedy in which an oligarch is berating his son for playing elaborate games to ruin the life of a schlub who once disrespected him, right after we see the oligarch at a party where people are shitting on glass coffee tables with prostitutes under them. The son says, “How is it any different from what you do?!?” And the dad says, in a posh Oxford accent, “The glass, son. The glass.”

I think figuring out how to find solidarity across the working class is a guidepost to revolution.

It’s more than okay to admit that it’s challenging. Anything else is just untrue.

I do think the effort is worth it. I think uniting for a better world is the prize we win when we figure out how to construct a society that accommodates as much diversity of thought and lifestyle as our civilization contains.

Poe slaw