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JD Shadel

@jdshadel.com

460 followers 260 following 790 posts

💌 Join the only lifestyle newsletter on the internet ;-) www.esckey.co Chief Editorial Officer at new media outlet ESC KEY .CO — also the only employee Work in Condé Nast Traveler (ex-Future of Travel columnist), WaPo, Them, BBC, Vice, more They/etc

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JD Shadel @jdshadel.com · May 19

“If they couldn’t be bothered to write this, why should we be bothered to read it?” ‼️

In their cathartic, broligarchy-rattling new book, “The AI Con,” @emilymbender.bsky.social and @alexhanna.bsky.social are handing out needles so you, too, can burst the hype bubble.

www.esckey.co/do-you-belie...

Do you believe in hope after “AI” hype? Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna make the case

In this extended briefing, “TL;DR” = “Totally Legit; Def. Read” because we review “The AI Con,” the spicy new book ready to rattle the broligarchy. Plus, the authors answer ESC KEY .CO’s questions abo...

www.esckey.co

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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 8h

I interviewed one of these factory workers in Los Angeles. She gets paid three cents to sew a zipper, five cents for a collar, and seven cents to prepare the top part of a skirt.

This is how fast fashion brands like Fashion Nova can put "Made in USA" tags on dress shirts that retail for only $25

"Every day at 6 am, Bilma boards a bus that shuttles her to downtown Los Angeles’s Fashion District. When she reaches the garment factory an hour later, she starts working immediately, without punching in. Like thousands of other garment workers in the United States, Bilma’s wages aren’t tethered to the clock but rather to the quantity of operations she executes. Three cents for a zipper or sleeve, five cents for a collar, and seven cents to prepare the top part of a skirt before she passes it onto the next sewing operator in line. Assembling an entire dress earns her a mere 15 cents. Bilma toils away on garments primarily for fast-fashion labels such as Fashion Nova, Lulus, and Lucy in the Sky, who prioritize quickly stocking on-trend items over the quality of materials. These companies peddle things like $80 maxi dresses, $25 poplin dress shirts, and $5 crop tops, all modeled by beautiful people and bedecked with the tantalizing promise of low-cost glamor."

"This worker payment system, known as “piecework” in the garment industry, is how US-based manufacturers can sidestep labor laws that require companies to pay at least the minimum wage. Rather than compensating Bilma for the exhausting 12-hour shifts—a regimen that, according to LA County’s minimum wage requirement, should yield $202.80—her pay is determined by the individual tasks she performs, which can fluctuate daily. Despite her adept handling of hundreds of garments a day, Bilma’s earnings typically linger around $50 per day. That’s $300 weekly for the standard six-day grind and $350 if she opts for Sunday labor. Doing what she can with this modest income, Bilma spends $400 a month to live in a two-bedroom apartment with six other people, some of whom are day laborers. In this crowded arrangement, two occupants squeeze into each bedroom, while two more lay claim to the living room. Bilma sleeps in the corner of the bustling kitchen."

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Jules Boykoff @julesboykoff.bsky.social · 5h

Here in Portland outside the ICE facility amid an impromptu dance party with dinosaurs & cute pink beasts. Festive resistance in abundance. #PDX [📸 posted with permission]

Three dinosaurs in Portland all donning white placards with slogans related to ICE

A photo of two pink beasts at the ICE facility in Portland. One, a shark, has a sign that reads “due process” made of cardboard on a wooden stick

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JD Shadel @jdshadel.com · 5h

In honour of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand.

Your editor: “Great start […]”

Sonja Drimmer @sonjadrimmer.bsky.social · 6h

In honor of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand

I actually admire Pinder.

Dot Porter @leoba.bsky.social · 7h

In honor of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand

Where are your gloves?

Reposted by JD Shadel

Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 7h

There is a cult of action at the heart of tech.

This cult says: don't mind that the systems are broken. Don't try and fix them. You can just do things, using you ubermensch will.

AI has plugged into this cult to promise 10x-ing your action. But instead your will becomes subservient to the machine.

"Just doing things" is not a path to value

Action for the sake of action feels good, but the path of least resistance leads you to surrender your own agency.

productpicnic.beehiiv.com

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JD Shadel @jdshadel.com · 13h

omg I find this the most relatable content!!!

JD Shadel @jdshadel.com · 15h

He continued, "But I enjoyed photo essay piece about Portland telephone poles. Good luck with Escape Key."

He concluded, "Best regards,"

He signed his name, "[withheld]"

He didn't subscribe to ESC KEY .CO.

But you could subscribe to ESC KEY .CO.

Because it's the only one.

www.esckey.co

ESC KEY .CO — the only lifestyle newsletter on the internet ;-)

JD Shadel's weekly digest is read by terminally online pros like you who, like, totally need to log off more. Join us!

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JD Shadel @jdshadel.com · 15h

Recently, someone sent me an email about my email newsletter, ESC KEY .CO.

Aka: "The Only Lifestyle Newsletter on the Internet."

He said, "Just so you're aware, I subscribe to other life-style newsletters. I don't know if this was a joke or not. But 'only' might be insulting to the other writers."

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Sonja Drimmer @sonjadrimmer.bsky.social · 17h

So my point is that we need to get better at understanding when the language of progressivism is co-opted by bad actors to hustle into the public sphere (“too innovative for regulation”) technologies that threaten the basic foundations of trust necessary to a functioning society.

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Big Mark & Co @bigmark.co.nz · 1d

I'm just thinking about how Mamdani talks (and defends) trans people for two minutes more than the democrats did at the last convention. And the video is only two minutes and five seconds long.

Katelyn Boo-urns @katelynburns.com · 1d

I wrote a little about some of the little details you might have missed in this video and why it hit me so hard as a trans person this morning:

www.burnsnotice.com/you-have-to-...

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JD Shadel @jdshadel.com · 1d

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Maria Bustillos @mariabustillos.com · 1d

yeah!

The U.S. right has claimed all the following are bad and/or contemptible:

- empathy
- virtue
- antifasciscm
- social justice
- sharing food and medicine with people in need

utopia deferred @utopia-defer.red · 2d

anyone else notice that the west took a turn for the worse once the concept of signaling one’s own social virtue became derogatory, almost as if cynically deriding all displays of charity and good will is indicative of a deeply cynical and nihilistic society capable of collaborating in genocide

larry @larrrrrry.bsky.social · 2d

her advocacy for Palestinians doesn't bother me nearly as much as she is so desperately doing all this as an actual act of transparent virtue signaling, to fill the absence she has in depth of character

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JD Shadel @jdshadel.com · 2d

some writers in 2025 seem like they’re in a competition to prove how easily they could be replaced by “AI”

The Atlantic @theatlantic.com · 2d

Trump understood the fundamental realities of the war in Gaza in a way that “the posturing leaders of many other countries did not,” @eliotacohen.bsky.social argues. If he pulls off a peace deal, “he will deserve that gala night in Oslo.”

Trump’s Great Achievement

If the president succeeds in ending the Gaza war, he will deserve a gala night in Oslo.

bit.ly

JD Shadel @jdshadel.com · 2d

i'm a big fan of the *ideas* of the fediverse in theory, but in practice worry many people conflate decentralization and platform mechanics — as if "fediverse" is some kind of magic fairy dust that will solve problems that have little to do with ownership of a network www.esckey.co/attention-sl...

Attention slot machines, now with open protocols! What is the “fediverse” actually achieving?

Your TL;DR Briefing on things worth tracking — and talking about over your next power lunch. *Wink.* This time the thing is engagement casinos, attention slot machines and the fediverse rebels hustlin...

www.esckey.co

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ESC KEY .CO @index.www.esckey.co.ap.brid.gy · 3d

What's going on in Portland, Oregon?! I read every poster on utility poles to get answers

The day after our resident street photographer landed in Portland, Oregon, the President of the United States declared it a "war zone," intending to send in troops following absurd occupations in D.C. and Chicago. But a long walk in Northeast revealed the vibe on the street was, well, not that.

www.esckey.co

Reposted by JD Shadel

Niko Stratis @nikostratis.com · 3d

The Washing Post just discovered beards

He’s gay. She’s straight. They’re happily married.
Meet the couples who are redefining what it means to be in a relationship, including those in gay-straight and same-sex platonic marriages.
By Shane O’Neill

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Rory Blank @roryblank.bsky.social · 3d

you could just go work in a restaurant and they pay you money instead of you having to pay them

Los Angeles Times @latimes.com · 3d

This 'The Bear'-esque dining experience puts you in the center of the kitchen chaos

At Speakeasy Society's 'Family Meal,' curse words are thrown, recipes are slandered and it all makes for fun, irresistible drama.

www.latimes.com

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The New Republic @newrepublic.com · 3d

For weeks, anti-immigration agents have tossed smoke bombs at people in cars, shot so-called “less lethal” weapons like rubber bullets and pepper balls, and deployed a staggering amount of tear gas, sometimes unleashing it almost casually into streets crowded with passersby. trib.al/EtwBDCJ

Trump Is Waging War on an American City

The real threat to people in Chicago (and Los Angeles and Portland) is our maniacal president.

trib.al

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Alex Hanna-ween @alexhanna.bsky.social · 3d

I have questions. what's the x-axis? what's the y-axis? is this about linear separability? why are "we" in the middle of space?

0/10 on chart design.

Elinor🎗️ @ COLM 🍁 @elinorpd.bsky.social · 3d

bsky.app/profile/mari...

Slide with “we are here” in bottom left with an arrow pointing top right towards two groups of words: “AI2027” & “everyone dies” and then “AI con” “AI snake oil” “Empire of AI”

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Sasha Costanza-Chock @schock.cc · 3d

"In July 2024, five months before he allegedly set the fire, Mr Rinderknecht asked ChatGPT to create an image of a "dystopian painting" that included a burning forest and a crowd of people running away from a fire, according to investigators."

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JD Shadel @jdshadel.com · 18d

this is arguably the strangest essay i've ever run on ESC KEY .CO — and it's also been the one, by far, i've gotten the most thoughtful responses to from readers who are like, "yeah, me also!!"

it's my take on a fashion week recap that's not exactly about fashion week www.esckey.co/the-state-of...

The state of fashion week amid polycrisis: Dispatch from my anxiety attack at a catwalk show

This London Fashion Week has been a dazzling display of global design talent in the U.K. capital. Emerging designers turned heads. There was that upcycled parachute gown. And street style for days. Bu...

www.esckey.co

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Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 5d

Flying cars are the perfect example of a point solution: trying to solve a systemic problem (traffic) with an individual product (fly over the traffic).

But traffic is not a technology problem; it's a social problem. Remote work, congestion fees, and dense transit-connected housing solve it better.

ae @aelkus.bsky.social · 5d

which then begs the question of why you want flying cars instead of whatever mass transportation equivalent you imagine

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Lit Hub @literaryhub.bsky.social · 5d

“The Khalidi Library represents everything the settlers cannot abide. It is a monument to, and repository of, the history and heritage of a culture they claim should not exist.” Ryan Byrnes chronicles the fight to save a medieval Palestinian library.

The Race to Save a Medieval Palestinian Library

While the golden Dome of the Rock sweltered under one-hundred-degree heat a gang of heavily armed orthodox Israelis marched on a Palestinian library. Brandishing forged documents falsely claiming t…

buff.ly

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Julia Barton @bartona104.bsky.social · 6d

I wrote about the "new look" at CBS in the late 1940s —and about a person who refused to go along. Networks ≠ moral compasses. continuous-wave.beehiiv.com/p/poetic-jus...

Poetic Justice

At the wake for narrative podcasting, a story from one who kept the flame: Norman Corwin.

continuous-wave.beehiiv.com

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JD Shadel @jdshadel.com · 6d

i have an enduring faith in each individual’s great capacity for change and transformation, which stems almost entirely from the fact that i used to wear fedoras — i got out of a free box next to a dumpster — and play mandolin in a freak folk band

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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 6d

I hope Ezra Klein will restrain himself from saying Bari Weiss is doing journalism the right way

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