I regularly struggle with calling people in, not calling people out. “Build bridges not walls” was not written with that binary in mind, rather the idea that we are all united in our humanity, not divided by arbitrary lines drawn by old white dudes hundreds of years ago. But it could certainly be applied to the idea of reaching out, rather than cutting people off. A related idea is to criticize systems, not individuals, something you particularly hear from those involved in advocacy work targeting elected officials. But there need to be red lines.

How are we supposed to call in people who think automating our death machine is a good idea? How do you get someone to think about something, for even one second, when they seem incapable of any critical thought what-so-ever and their bubble, where no one ever tells them no, means they are constantly choosing the worst possible outcomes, while thinking they are unique geniuses?

We are now regularly discussing kill chains, a concept and word combination that should not exist, but do, despite most of us being disgusted by the concept. One of the main arguments is “did/should AI have a role to play here?” The only answer is no, there’s just no debate here.

If you think AI should decide who lives and who dies, you’re just a psychopath and I don’t think any of us should be expected to try to bring you over to our side. Because there are no sides here. Humans are bad enough at deciding who should live and who should die. But at least they could be held accountable, and could feel remorse and learn from their past mistakes. You cannot have a debate about whether we should automate away our war crimes and crimes against humanity. Debating that means you’ve already lost.

Something like determining targets for a military strike is exactly the type of process we never want to speed up or remove friction from. Our military and political leaders are bragging about how many things we bombed in the first few days of our unprovoked attack on Iran. It’s that push for quantity over quality that killed 170, mostly children.

Every targeting decision should weigh on the analyst. It should haunt them in their dreams, and throughout their days. They should see the faces of the children they killed when they look at their own children. Computers, particularly "intelligent" ones, have no place in this process.

It's why Anthropic was the enemy as soon as they signed the Pentagon contract, even when it was supposedly only for "lawful" use. They’re still partnered with Palantir to spy on, well, everyone, and they weren’t against weapons killing people with no accountability, they just aren’t ready for that “yet.”

So we must shun these people, they cannot take those positions and exist in a society. It’s not ceding ground to the right. It’s not about not having a big enough tent. There is no tent that merchants of death are in that I want to be in too. They’re not to be reasoned with, or celebrated. They’re to be excised, isolated, and removed.

Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul

And I hope that you die
And your death will come soon
I'll follow your casket
By the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand over your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead

Masters of War - Bob Dylan

Reading

An open letter to Grammarly and other plagiarists, thieves and slop merchants by Maureen Ryan

You should be ashamed of where you work. Not just Grammarly or Superhuman or whatever comically dumb name you come up with next. Almost everyone running tech firms, most people in positions of responsibility, pretty much every C-suite type — congrats, you’re all making the world a worse place. People used to be excited about tech, now they dread what data you're going to steal next, they dread what violation of privacy or the environment will turn up next. There are people in tech who want to do good, but they’re consistently outvoted or stampeded by selfish hucksters and thieves. What the vast majority of those with power are doing or enabling is shamefully disrespectful and destructive. Everyone hyping and shilling for all this? You shouldn’t be proud of making people dumber or stealing from people. Because LLMs and the whole AI hype machine — it’s just idiocy, plagiarism, greed and theft on a grand scale.

An open letter to Grammarly and other plagiarists, thieves and slop merchants

To everyone at Grammarly, I am writing a book right now, a really challenging endeavor that no doubt someone in Silicon Valley will think it’s fine to steal the day it’s published. I’ve been a professional writer for decades, even though the number of ways to make

Towards a New Epoch in Economics by Stephen Rockwell

King became engaged in the process of transforming the meaning of civil rights to include a certain level of material well-being, not the main thrust of the earlier fights against the Southern system of Jim Crow. The challenge was not only to racist white systems, but the foundations of the entire system that tolerated grinding poverty in the midst of tremendous wealth. The idea was certainly not a new one. Following the Civil War, a Reconstruction proposal for every freed slave to receive 40 acres and a mule nearly passed in a Radical Republican U.S. Congress. The proposal would have ensured a level of economic independence by providing both property and capital for African Americans.

https://stephenrockwell.substack.com/p/towards-a-new-epoch-in-economics

Gov. Sherrill plan seeks to fine big companies with workers on Medicaid by Lilo H. Stainton

According to a 2024 report from the state Department of Human Services, which oversees Medicaid, three months of Medicaid coverage for 382,000 people tied to 748 large companies cost $427 million, including $137 million in state funds. These employers include national retail companies, food service industries, and health care providers, among others.

The report lists Amazon as the largest employer of Medicaid recipients in New Jersey as of that summer, with some 5,600 workers and more than 10,000 family members covered through NJ FamilyCare. Walmart had more than 10,000 workers and beneficiaries on public health insurance at that time, Century II Staffing slightly more than 9,000, Wawa around 7,600, and Target some 5,200.

To my Palestinian sister in ICE detention – I will carry you until you are free by Mahmoud Khalil

This is what Israel and its American patron cannot tolerate: Palestinians who remember. Palestinians who will not perform gratitude for the small mercies such as aid corridors and fragile ceasefires granted by those who stole everything. Palestinians who stand in public and name genocide for what it is. We are the living refutation of their narrative. Our very existence, loud and unapologetic, is the crime.

This is what they mean when they talk about the “Palestine exception”. It is the idea, practiced openly now without shame, that when it comes to Palestinians, the rules do not apply. Due process is suspended. Academic freedom shatters. Constitutional protections evaporate. The first amendment, which is supposed to shield all of us from government retaliation for our speech, somehow does not extend to those of us who speak about Palestine.

To my Palestinian sister in ICE detention – I will carry you until you are free | Mahmoud Khalil | The Guardian

One year ago, ICE arrested me for protesting for Palestine. Leqaa Kordia is still caged – also for daring to speak the truth

The US government targeted me for my political speech. It could happen to you, too by Mahmoud Khalil

I was not alone. Other students and scholars with valid immigration status were similarly targeted for detention and deportation despite having committed no crime. They were pulled off streets by masked agents, targeted outside of their homes, and tricked into arrests during citizenship appointments. What happened to us is exactly what the First Amendment is designed to prevent: the government deciding which speech is acceptable and which is not. Once that protection is weakened, everyone is at risk.

The government targeted me over my speech. Who will be next in this country? | Fox News

Mahmoud Khalil argues that his detention by ICE over his pro-Palestinian speech is a dangerous violation of the First Amendment that threatens the free speech rights of all Americans.

Book Review: Israel: What Went Wrong? by Rami G. Khouri

In his opening paragraph, Bartov outlines how in recent decades Israel and Zionism have become a genocidal danger to Palestinians as well as to Israelis and Jews themselves. Bartov writes, “This book explores the tragic transformation of Zionism, a movement that sought to emancipate European Jewry from oppression and persecution to a state ideology of ethno-nationalism increasingly focused on the exclusion and violent domination of Palestinians under Israeli rule” (p. 3). He asks why a state founded after the Holocaust is accused of widespread war crimes, forcible displacement of civilian populations, and crimes against humanity. Other questions include why Israel is committing a genocide with near impunity—80 years after the passage of an international legal regime set up to end the practice—and why Israel’s conduct is supported by most of its Jewish citizens.

Trump Might Want to End the War. Iran Won’t Do It on His Terms. by Jeremy Scahill, Murtaza Hussain

On Tuesday, the Washington Post reported that the U.S. had begun relocating components from its THAAD missile defense system in South Korea to the Middle East, as well as more Patriot interceptors that had been deployed to East Asia. South Korean President Lee Jae-myung said that Seoul had “expressed opposition,” to the decision, which would increase its own exposure to the threat of war. “The reality is that we cannot fully push through our position” and block the transfers, he added.

In addition to ballistic missile strikes, U.S. officials on Tuesday confirmed the downing of at least 11 MQ-9 Reaper drones over Iran, with another reportedly shot down on Wednesday. Iran claims to have shot down over 80 drones, and the officially confirmed U.S. losses come in addition to significant numbers of downed Israeli drones verified by OSINT researchers and independent monitors. The loss of drones over Iran further degrades the ability to stop Iran from firing by adding a limitation to the intelligence the U.S. can gather on ballistic missile launches.

I Was a US Intelligence Analyst. Here's What a Ground Invasion of Iran Could Look Like by Harrison Mann

All of these ground operations risk high casualties while failing to accomplish their missions. That’s a feature, not a bug. Even if one of these operations met its objectives, troops in peril behind enemy lines demand resupply, evacuation, and revenge, which puts more troops in peril behind enemy lines, and so on. Keeping US troops engaged on the ground is the best way to ensure Trump can’t back out easily, which is exactly what Netanyahu, Lindsey Graham, and their ilk need to fracture Iran.

Bringing this war to an end requires recognizing it can still get much, much worse, refusing to fall for the promise of “small special ops raids,” and calling these courses of action what they are: a prelude to forever war.

https://zeteo.com/p/trump-iran-ground-invasion-plans-forever-war