Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸

@decius

Republics are systems that require people to compromise with each-other.

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Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸@decius· 11d

Seems plausible:

Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸@decius· Jun 25

I sent this note to my Senators regarding the Prairieland sentencing.

The letter is too long for alt-text.

It seems clear that this country's future will be darker than it's recent past.

What is the point of writing you? I'm honestly not sure. Maybe I'll get a carefully written form letter back representing a collective position of the Senator's office, and it may or may not relate to what I've written here.

As a citizen I am, in part, personally responsible for these sentences - they were issued by a system that structurally represents me. I want my dissent to be noted. Perhaps it is like yelling into a tsunami. If we were better people we would have a better country.

Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸@decius· Jun 21

This morning @foreignaffairs.com sent out a link to an article by @pkrugman.bsky.social published in 1997 that is relevant to the AI era, which describes hand wringing about job losses due to technological progress as a “failure of imagination.” www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/199...

Suppose that you had approached an economist in 1840, when most Americans were farmers, and textiles dominated the still small manufacturing sector, and informed him that 150 years later some two percent of the labor force would grow all the food and less than one percent produce all the cloth. And suppose you had demanded that he explain what everyone else would do for a living. He could not have given a very good answer, but he could with justice have argued on general principles that the economy would find a something useful for them to do. (Global glut advocates tend to focus in particular on the loss of jobs in manufacturing and find it hard to imagine that the service sector could make up for that loss. Yet we have already seen how it can be done, since the U.S. economy is already overwhelmingly a service, rather than goods, economy. As a Russian émigré‚ neighbor put it, “I don’t understand this country—it seems very prosperous, but I don’t ever see anybody making anything.”)

Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸@decius· Jun 11

A valuable perspective from Pope Leo on the architecture of social media: www.vatican.va/content/leo-...

The search for truth is an essential element of democracy, which is itself a means of contributing to the common good. When questions about what is true lose their appeal, and a pragmatism takes hold that is content with what appears useful or effective, then democratic life is weakened. After all, democracy does not consist of rules and procedures alone, but above all of a solid concordance with the facts and a genuine commitment to the good of individuals and society as a whole. Indifference to the truth leads, slowly but surely, to a descent into totalitarianism.

For this reason, those who control digital platforms and means of communication have a considerable ability to affect the collective imagination and to present a particular vision of reality as desirable. Such power should be constantly guided by the pursuit of truth and respect for human dignity, so that the culture fostered on the internet does not become an instrument of excessive distraction, homogenization or dominance, but rather a setting in which inner freedom and critical thought can mature.

Our first task is neither to demonize nor idolize technological tools, but to utilize them on the basis of a fundamental principle, namely that truth is a common good and not the property of those with power or influence. We must therefore promote an ecology of communication. On the level of public policy, this entails establishing norms so that the decision-making behind content selection and its development becomes more transparent and protects personal data. Regarding social and cultural aspects, this requires a strengthening of intermediary organizations, serious journalism and forums for debate, where reasoned argumentation and verification carry greater weight than immediate reaction."

Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸@decius· May 12

Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸@decius· Apr 29

I was told that everyone at the #nokings protests is an idiot and Trump certainly never characterized himself that way.

Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸@decius· Apr 20

Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸@decius· Apr 18

A group called Islamic Cyber Resistance “313 Team” claimed responsibility for the DDOS attack on Bluesky.

A screenshot of a post on X which says:

Islamic Cyber Resistance Axis
@Mhwear98

Translated from Arabic

The Islamic Cyber Resistance #313_Team executed a massive attack targeting the Bluesky platform's API application programming interface—Bluesky is a social networking site—where the attack led to the disruption of post visibility and other malfunctions, including the shutdown of the app's registration panel. This means that the social networking site is now completely collapsed and unresponsive.

Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸@decius· Apr 18

We need way more science fiction immediately because the world is going to be completely weird in a matter of months and no one knows how to be anymore.

Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸@decius· Mar 21

Republicans have spent years dismantling systems that track and fight foreign information operations because its “censorship.” www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justi...

Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸@decius· Jan 6

This is the most Orwellian thing I think I’ve ever seen from the United States Government. www.whitehouse.gov/j6/

Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸@decius· Dec 24

Alito’s dissent, man … he accuses the court of “legislating from the bench” by assuming that Congress intended that President’s use of the military be *lawful.* How dare these crazy judges assume that Congress wanted the President to comply with the law!

Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸@decius· Dec 5

Astrokatie (repeatedly): Everyone who uses AI to illustrate powerpoint slides is an idiot who doesn’t care about the accuracy of the things they are saying. Me: Why are you making that assumption? People use AI to illustrate slides because they can’t afford a graphics design team. Astrokatie:

Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸@decius· Dec 4

AI enabled police, prosecutors, judges, and jailers.

Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸@decius· Nov 22

Have you considered the possibility that absolutely nothing is actually real?

Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸@decius· Nov 3

My weekend was brightened by this tree, standing in a vacant lot in downtown Atlanta - a life carved within a temporary space, under constant threat, but lived beautifully. A source of joy. One day, some developer with build on this lot, and the tree will be gone. I am thankful for this moment.

Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸@decius· Nov 3

Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸@decius· Oct 21

Is this bad? Because it seems bad. Anyway, I’m sure it will only go this far and won’t go any further.

Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸@decius· Oct 4

There is a market crash coming.

Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸@decius· Sep 7

Doctor I trust more than RFK Jr.

Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸@decius· Sep 6

Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸@decius· Aug 20

For my friends, everything! For my enemies - the law!

Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸@decius· Aug 15

I honestly don’t get it. I looked this speech up yesterday in an attempt to understand. This is the key paragraph. Each line is a realistic, if unintended, consequence of a specific view that Bork held. Politicians often make hey out of the unintended consequences of policies they oppose.

Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸@decius· Jul 25

Come see our talk on Friday at @defcon.bsky.social! This talk explores the dark potential of modern tech platforms, the things companies and their products are structurally able to do, whether or not they intend to.

Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸@decius· Jul 8

Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸@decius· Jul 3

When torture was uncovered at Abu Ghraib, at least the Administration acknowledged that this was wrong, and that there should be accountability. That is the key thing that has changed.

Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸@decius· Jun 21

This essay get right at the heart of the matter.

Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸@decius· May 23

Economist: “America is in danger of experiencing an academic brain drain” www.economist.com/science-and-...

Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸@decius· May 9

I’ve seen a lot of video of these two humans (in the top photo) and I’ve never seen them this joyous, even when they win.

Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸@decius· May 5

Hey everyone, look! Trump has identified a specific domestic industry that you can boycott if you don’t like him!