Conn MacEvilly
@conmachiavel.bsky.social
Woodkern by inclination, kern by trade. Iraq and Afg vet. 40 years ago, aspired to be neutral good half-elf ranger: getting closer to that by the day, I think.
Interested in law and public policy, defence, information security and the climate emergency.
Interested in law and public policy, defence, information security and the climate emergency.
Reposted by Conn MacEvilly
The numbers vary from study to study but hundreds of thousands of people have died because of Elon Musk and Marco Rubio illegally disbanding USAID — a body count on par with the first eight years of the Syrian civil war — In just seven months. It’s mass death that is simply unfathomable in scale.
USAID shutdown has led to hundreds of thousands of deaths | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
The Trump administration’s decision to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths from infectious diseases and malnutrition, accord...
hsph.harvard.edu
November 25, 2025 at 2:05 PM
The numbers vary from study to study but hundreds of thousands of people have died because of Elon Musk and Marco Rubio illegally disbanding USAID — a body count on par with the first eight years of the Syrian civil war — In just seven months. It’s mass death that is simply unfathomable in scale.
Reposted by Conn MacEvilly
November 24, 2025 at 11:46 PM
Reposted by Conn MacEvilly
Reposted by Conn MacEvilly
Reposted by Conn MacEvilly
At least once a month, Anthropic puts out an alignment paper d AI behavior where, if you saw it in a science fiction film, you‘d be screaming at the idiot scientists onscreen to stop development
www.anthropic.com/research/eme...
www.anthropic.com/research/eme...
From shortcuts to sabotage: natural emergent misalignment from reward hacking
Anthropic is an AI safety and research company that's working to build reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems.
www.anthropic.com
November 24, 2025 at 5:54 AM
At least once a month, Anthropic puts out an alignment paper d AI behavior where, if you saw it in a science fiction film, you‘d be screaming at the idiot scientists onscreen to stop development
www.anthropic.com/research/eme...
www.anthropic.com/research/eme...
This is staggering. Large language models succumb to poetic coaxing.
Engage with them coyly multiple times and then ask them to create a poem about prohibited topics such as how to make crystal meth - and they will.
Engage with them coyly multiple times and then ask them to create a poem about prohibited topics such as how to make crystal meth - and they will.
Looks like LLMs are *very* vulnerable to attack via poetic allusion: "curated poetic prompts yielded high attack-success rates (ASR), with some providers exceeding 90% ..."
https://arxiv.org/html/2511.15304v1
https://arxiv.org/html/2511.15304v1
November 25, 2025 at 12:51 AM
This is staggering. Large language models succumb to poetic coaxing.
Engage with them coyly multiple times and then ask them to create a poem about prohibited topics such as how to make crystal meth - and they will.
Engage with them coyly multiple times and then ask them to create a poem about prohibited topics such as how to make crystal meth - and they will.
Late to this work of genius
November 25, 2025 at 12:38 AM
Late to this work of genius
Reposted by Conn MacEvilly
Fun conversation just now with one of my favourite journalists.
She: "Can we talk about the new Trump plan for forcing Ukraine to surrender?"
Me: "What makes you think this is a Trump plan and not a Russian info op that Western media have all fallen for?"
She: "Hold on. [clickey click] Ohhh..."
She: "Can we talk about the new Trump plan for forcing Ukraine to surrender?"
Me: "What makes you think this is a Trump plan and not a Russian info op that Western media have all fallen for?"
She: "Hold on. [clickey click] Ohhh..."
November 20, 2025 at 7:13 AM
Fun conversation just now with one of my favourite journalists.
She: "Can we talk about the new Trump plan for forcing Ukraine to surrender?"
Me: "What makes you think this is a Trump plan and not a Russian info op that Western media have all fallen for?"
She: "Hold on. [clickey click] Ohhh..."
She: "Can we talk about the new Trump plan for forcing Ukraine to surrender?"
Me: "What makes you think this is a Trump plan and not a Russian info op that Western media have all fallen for?"
She: "Hold on. [clickey click] Ohhh..."
😂
Most accounts on Twitter turn out to be Russian MAGA bots. Here’s why Bluesky has an intellectual diversity problem
November 24, 2025 at 5:59 AM
😂
I feel seen
Twitter accounts are based in Russia. BlueSky accounts are based in homes with, frankly, too many books, plants, obsolete cables, and pieces of rustic pottery, that could do with a bit of a tidying up, to be honest.
November 23, 2025 at 10:32 PM
I feel seen
Reposted by Conn MacEvilly
This chart (which applies even more to social media than it did to TV) lives in my head rent free.
Social media enveloping traditional media means everything and everyone is now competing in the entertainment market. Boring stuff like policy that affects millions of lives doesn’t stand a chance.
Social media enveloping traditional media means everything and everyone is now competing in the entertainment market. Boring stuff like policy that affects millions of lives doesn’t stand a chance.
November 23, 2025 at 8:24 PM
This chart (which applies even more to social media than it did to TV) lives in my head rent free.
Social media enveloping traditional media means everything and everyone is now competing in the entertainment market. Boring stuff like policy that affects millions of lives doesn’t stand a chance.
Social media enveloping traditional media means everything and everyone is now competing in the entertainment market. Boring stuff like policy that affects millions of lives doesn’t stand a chance.
Boom 💥
what a surprise, majority of fash "Ireland is full" posts on shitter are from outside Ireland
November 23, 2025 at 8:50 PM
Boom 💥
Reposted by Conn MacEvilly
In our Climate Report my coauthors and I say: We are hurtling toward climate chaos. The planet's vital signs are flashing red. Consequences of human-driven alterations of the climate are no longer future threats but are here now. Read report here doi.org/10.1093/bios...
The 2025 state of the climate report: a planet on the brink
We are hurtling toward climate chaos. The planet's vital signs are flashing red. The consequences of human-driven alterations of the climate are no longer
doi.org
November 22, 2025 at 11:10 PM
In our Climate Report my coauthors and I say: We are hurtling toward climate chaos. The planet's vital signs are flashing red. Consequences of human-driven alterations of the climate are no longer future threats but are here now. Read report here doi.org/10.1093/bios...
Reposted by Conn MacEvilly
“Have they given up? Are they just deciding to build up herd immunity by watching us die? The government has given up, hasn’t it? They are throwing us into the slaughterhouse.”
It’s not hindsight - we knew this at the time @drrachelclarke.com writes:
observer.co.uk/news/nationa...
It’s not hindsight - we knew this at the time @drrachelclarke.com writes:
observer.co.uk/news/nationa...
I’ll never forget the horror of the Covid wards | The Observer
observer.co.uk
November 23, 2025 at 10:02 AM
“Have they given up? Are they just deciding to build up herd immunity by watching us die? The government has given up, hasn’t it? They are throwing us into the slaughterhouse.”
It’s not hindsight - we knew this at the time @drrachelclarke.com writes:
observer.co.uk/news/nationa...
It’s not hindsight - we knew this at the time @drrachelclarke.com writes:
observer.co.uk/news/nationa...
Reposted by Conn MacEvilly
A fascinating, sobering, haunting piece of work.
It’s an indication of an end phase, where people turn to rituals and odd beliefs,” says Leibniz Center for Archaeology archaeologist Detlef Gronenborn. “Then it breaks out in an orgy of violence. Then it stops, but it’s too late.” www.science.org/content/arti...
Headless bodies hint at why Europe’s first farmers vanished
Wave of mass brutality accompanied the collapse of the first pan-European culture
www.science.org
November 22, 2025 at 9:18 PM
A fascinating, sobering, haunting piece of work.
Speaking as one myself, I find this theory plausible.
November 22, 2025 at 10:01 PM
Speaking as one myself, I find this theory plausible.
Reposted by Conn MacEvilly
I have become an ardent believe in the Mistake Theory of IR. It's like the Great Man theory, but they are all fuckwits.
November 22, 2025 at 6:44 PM
I have become an ardent believe in the Mistake Theory of IR. It's like the Great Man theory, but they are all fuckwits.
Reposted by Conn MacEvilly
As an admirer of The Economist, sad to see it recycling garbage about chicken nuggets and the ECHR. The former wasn’t why a man’s deportation was halted. The latter worked well in the upper tribunal that decided he should be deported, after all.
November 22, 2025 at 9:26 PM
As an admirer of The Economist, sad to see it recycling garbage about chicken nuggets and the ECHR. The former wasn’t why a man’s deportation was halted. The latter worked well in the upper tribunal that decided he should be deported, after all.
Chimes with what @alanderminna.bsky.social said about this being a nothingburger against which everyone is best advised not to overreact.
Reflexive control “is the psychological trick by which the Russians get their enemies to allow the Russians to do their thinking for them, at their own expense.” @michaeldweiss.bsky.social on how a Russian operative used the American media to force a risible “peace deal” into existence.
“He Must Have Got This From K.”
How a Russian operative used the American media to force a risible “peace deal” into existence
macspaunday.substack.com
November 22, 2025 at 8:33 PM
Chimes with what @alanderminna.bsky.social said about this being a nothingburger against which everyone is best advised not to overreact.
That’ll be Texas, Russia I suppose.
X has changed their policy and now you can see where the accounts are based.
Here’s an “influencer from Texas”
Here’s an “influencer from Texas”
November 22, 2025 at 8:28 PM
That’ll be Texas, Russia I suppose.
Reposted by Conn MacEvilly
After you help your boss convert a doc to PDF
November 22, 2025 at 4:55 PM
After you help your boss convert a doc to PDF
She’s a genius. The word doesn’t wear out if you keep using it about the same person, I’m assured.
November 22, 2025 at 8:18 PM
She’s a genius. The word doesn’t wear out if you keep using it about the same person, I’m assured.
Reposted by Conn MacEvilly
Might be time to revisit this www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemoc...
We need to talk about where Brexit funder Arron Banks gets his money
openDemocracy investigations raise fresh questions about Arron Banks's wealth and the real source of the Brexit campaign's largest donations.
www.opendemocracy.net
November 21, 2025 at 1:51 PM
Might be time to revisit this www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemoc...
Reposted by Conn MacEvilly
This is Zelenskyy's "if necessary for years, if necessary alone" moment.
A chapter in history that will be remembered both for the shame of Washington's betrayal, and for the dignity, bravery, defiance and resolve of the Ukrainian people in the face of it all.
A chapter in history that will be remembered both for the shame of Washington's betrayal, and for the dignity, bravery, defiance and resolve of the Ukrainian people in the face of it all.
November 21, 2025 at 3:43 PM
This is Zelenskyy's "if necessary for years, if necessary alone" moment.
A chapter in history that will be remembered both for the shame of Washington's betrayal, and for the dignity, bravery, defiance and resolve of the Ukrainian people in the face of it all.
A chapter in history that will be remembered both for the shame of Washington's betrayal, and for the dignity, bravery, defiance and resolve of the Ukrainian people in the face of it all.
The cheeky little bollix.
🍺 JD Wetherspoon – whose founder campaigned for the UK to leave the EU – is using Ireland as a springboard for its expansion into mainland Europe to avoid Brexit-induced red tape.
https://m.independent.ie/business/wetherspoon-uses-ireland-to-skirt-brexit-red-tape-for-eu-expansion/a1911675912.html
https://m.independent.ie/business/wetherspoon-uses-ireland-to-skirt-brexit-red-tape-for-eu-expansion/a1911675912.html
Wetherspoon uses Ireland to skirt Brexit red tape for EU expansion
UK pub and hotel group JD Wetherspoon – whose founder campaigned for the UK to leave the EU – is using Ireland as a springboard for its expansion into mainland Europe to avoid Brexit-induced red tape...
m.independent.ie
November 21, 2025 at 12:29 PM
The cheeky little bollix.