Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

“Incentives are for losers - by Adam Mastroianni”

https://www.experimental-history.com/p/incentives-are-for-losers

> So when thinking about any human ability, it’s useful to ask: is this more like speaking, or is it more like reading? Is this an ancient capability that we get for free just by living long enough, or is this a modern skill that you can’t get without working for it?

I know somebody out there wants to read about trade liberalization on a Thursday morning, right? Right?
#economics #trade #development

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2026/08/trade-liberalization-never-lifted-all-boats.html

Missing from the discussion on the referendum here in Iceland on reopening negotiations with the EU is that even if "yes" wins both referenda (negotations and then joining), joining is extremely unlikely to actually happen

It would require changing our constitution, which requires a law to pass in two parliaments separated by a parliamentary election. In practice, this means "join the EU" would need to win four public votes: two referenda and very likely two elections

A life devoted to labor education, intergenerational organizing and social justice.

Join friends, family and movement communities for a celebration of Beatrice Lumpkin on Sunday, August 9, at the Chicago Teachers Union Center.

https://www.allyoufascistsboundtolose.com/calendar/a-celebration-of-the-extraordinary-life-of-beatrice-lumpkin

from the article:

Never in the history of human endeavour have companies been so keen to report their products going wrong. It seems a rogue AI is the latest must-have accessory in Silicon Valley.

The reasoning behind this is not hard to follow. When your product is artificial intelligence, melodramatically realising your system is even smarter than you thought it was is a simple marketing ploy.

And when one of your rivals goes rogue, you have to go rogue too or you are as good as admitting your model is not as smart as theirs.

“AI company admits their model is smarter than they realised!” is just an advert in scary headline form.

https://off-guardian.org/2026/08/05/are-you-ready-for-the-rogue-ai-psy-op/

The Case for Marine Protected Areas - https://www.pew-bertarelli-ocean-legacy.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-briefs/2025/10/the-case-for-marine-protected-areas hopeful stuff, but much more needed

What I find sad about the sudden prevalence of LLMs is that it lays bare how careless and disrespectful people are willing to be if you give them a chance. "Here I let this machine do a barely adequate approximation of the job I'm supposed to do. It's your problem now."

help wanted

https://lake.computer/blog/help-wanted/

«
I am very sorry that the software that I created & put online for free, without any warranty, explicit or implied, has not met your expectations. You are entitled to a full refund. I have taken the liberty to initiate it. You should already have it.
»

The AI companies are basically bragging -- "Oops, whoops!" -- about their LLMs hacking and damaging other companies' IT infrastructure. These are federal felonies when committed by humans. LLMs are created and programmed by humans. Why no prosecutions? Because the AI guys own Trump?

At both my current company and the company I worked for before this one, I've been on teams which heavily used LLMs to generate code. And as a result, a growing portion of my own work is carefully reading and then rewriting LLM-generated code to resolve issues with it, and being tagged as a reviewer on a pull request where an LLM was prompted to generate a fix for something the same LLM got wrong on a previous pull request.

Right now I'm slowly working my way through a pile of web endpoints and finding all the typical LLM code issues. Last week I replaced five endpoints' backend implementations with a single function, because the LLM had written out the same query, with only minor variations, over and over again.

#BMW is displaying in-car commercials and calling it a "treat." Proprietary software always abuses you - it's not "if," it's "when."

https://www.theautopian.com/bmw-is-showing-commercials-on-their-cars-dash-screens-and-they-want-you-to-think-its-a-treat/

Join us with the Chicago Teachers Union as we honor the extraordinary life and legacy of labor organizer, educator, and activist Beatrice Lumpkin.

Sunday, August 9, 2026
1:00 PM
Chicago Teachers Union Center
1901 W. Carroll Ave.

https://www.allyoufascistsboundtolose.com/calendar/a-celebration-of-the-extraordinary-life-of-beatrice-lumpkin

Few things drive home the fact that I probably don't belong in tech any more is the fact that whenever some of the smartest people (like, actually smart) chat online I basically end up disagreeing with everything from the underlying premise up to the high-level observations

The First Circuit got this exactly right.

Lawmakers considering similar legislation need to think not only about their own intentions but the intentions of bad actors who may occupy their seats in the future.

https://freepress.net/news/civil-liberties-and-press-freedom-groups-applaud-first-circuit-ruling-puerto-rico-law

When education is under attack, now's the time to pick up these resources on teaching resistance in the classroom, organizing in the streets, thriving through radical parenting and caregiving, and facilitating radical learning spaces outside the state and capital. Get 40% off all Education and Parenting titles with code ARM thru 9/1 here: https://pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_list&c=42

Democratic socialists want to “stack the deck” toward working people: make unions easier to organize, protect workers during economic transitions and give labor more power over the conditions under which people work.

https://inthesetimes.com/article/democratic-socialism-economy-sanders-mamdani-aoc