Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Marina Bolotnikova

David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 6d

Meat is a blind spot for people who care about climate. When I used to have dinner with my colleague Wally Broecker, the climate scientist who coined the term “global warming”, he would always order a steak.

The climate movement’s biggest weakness

What the climate movement is getting dead wrong.

www.vox.com

53 130 580

Reposted by Marina Bolotnikova

Bennett @bennettmcintosh.com · 7d

"In the 1960s, when nerds like me were asking whether or not we were alone in the universe, Jane Goodall started asking people to consider whether or not we were alone on this planet"

www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_Fz...

Dr. Jane Goodall

YouTube video by vlogbrothers

www.youtube.com

1 3 8

Marina Bolotnikova @mbolotnikova.bsky.social · 8d

Goodall was such an icon because she did & said things that were heresy in the scientific community. Her work on animals' capacities represented not just an abstract finding but a practical ethic that led her to advocate for veganism &vocally oppose animal experimentation
www.vox.com/future-perfe...

Jane Goodall’s most radical message was not about saving the planet

The conservationist used her stature to advocate for one of the most important, yet most unpopular, causes in the world.

www.vox.com

1 21 62

Marina Bolotnikova @mbolotnikova.bsky.social · 15d

Finally happening: i am writing a piece about how meat and car dependence prevent us from decoupling by converting energy to food and transportation extremely inefficiently. Seeking reading recs to jog my thinking!

2 7 31

Reposted by Marina Bolotnikova

Bennett @bennettmcintosh.com · 23d

Doomers, who treat super-intelligent AI as likely and threatening, treat intelligent as almost a magic power, but it's much more heterogeneous, spiky (and, I would add relational) than that; But the AI-as-Normal-Tech argument seems naive about the incentives to use risky AI in, e.g., Mil Tech

Second, what exactly does this argument take “intelligence” to mean? It seems to be treating it as a unitary property (Yudkowsky told me that there’s “a compact, regular story” underlying all intelligence). ==But intelligence is not one thing, and it’s not measurable on a single continuum. It’s almost certainly more like a variety of heterogenous things== — attention, imagination, curiosity, common sense — and it may well be intertwined with our social cooperativeness, our sensations, and our emotions. Will AI have all of these? Some of these? We aren’t sure of the kind of intelligence AI will attain. Besides, just because an intelligent being has a lot of capability, that doesn’t mean it has a lot of power — the ability to modify the environment — and power is what’s really at stake here.

One of the most glaring flaws of the normalist view is that it doesn’t even try to talk about the military.
Yet military applications — from autonomous weapons to lightning-fast decision-making about whom to target — are among the most critical for advanced AI. ==They’re the use cases most likely to make governments feel that all countries absolutely are in an AI arms race, so they must plow ahead, risks be damned.== That weakens the normalist camp’s view that we won’t necessarily deploy AI at scale if it seems risky.

1 1 2

Reposted by Marina Bolotnikova

Bennett @bennettmcintosh.com · 23d

If you read one review of If Anyone Builds It Everyone Dies make it @sigalsamuel.bsky.social 's about competing #AI worldviews

"It was hard to seriously entertain both [doomer and AI-as-normal tech] views at the same time."

www.vox.com/future-perfe...

The AI doomers are not making an argument. They’re selling a worldview.

How rational is Eliezer Yudkowsky’s prophecy?

www.vox.com

1 4 4

Reposted by Marina Bolotnikova

David Zipper @davidzipper.bsky.social · 25d

As autonomous vehicles spread across the US, they could turn urban streets into a congested, chaotic mess. But it’s not inevitable.

In @vox.com, I proposed specific ways cities can future-proof themselves for self-driving cars.

🧵

A self-driving car traffic jam is coming for US cities

A century ago, cars remade America. Autonomous vehicles could do it again.

www.vox.com

4 22 69

Marina Bolotnikova @mbolotnikova.bsky.social · Aug 20

I really feel for the people of LA, especially renters (the majority of the city). Hard to fathom a so-called progressive government with such contempt for its own people, and for extremely straightforward sustainable development principles

Max Dubler 🏳️‍🌈 @maxdubler.com · Aug 19

It's 2018. The LA City Council is opposing SB827 because it overrides local control. Rent is $1,663

It's 2019. The LA City Council is opposing SB50 because it overrides local control. Rent is $1,791

It's 2025. The LA City Council is opposing SB79 because it overrides local control. Rent is $2,625

California YIMBY @cayimby.bsky.social · Aug 19

“Los Angeles leaders are once again demonstrating their cowardice and failing their own constituents who desperately need more housing—and they’re doing it at the behest of LA’s wealthiest, most entitled voters, who have consistently blocked progress on housing affordability.” - @hanlon.bsky.social

7 49

Reposted by Marina Bolotnikova

Max Dubler 🏳️‍🌈 @maxdubler.com · Aug 19

It's 2018. The LA City Council is opposing SB827 because it overrides local control. Rent is $1,663

It's 2019. The LA City Council is opposing SB50 because it overrides local control. Rent is $1,791

It's 2025. The LA City Council is opposing SB79 because it overrides local control. Rent is $2,625

California YIMBY @cayimby.bsky.social · Aug 19

“Los Angeles leaders are once again demonstrating their cowardice and failing their own constituents who desperately need more housing—and they’re doing it at the behest of LA’s wealthiest, most entitled voters, who have consistently blocked progress on housing affordability.” - @hanlon.bsky.social

California YIMBY Statement on LA City Council Vote on SB 79

Los Angeles, CA — Today the Los Angeles City Council voted to oppose SB 79, a state bill designed to expand affordable housing near major transit stops. In doing so, councilmembers repeated discredite...

cayimby.org

8 160 570

Reposted by Marina Bolotnikova

Paige Vega @paigeblank.bsky.social · Aug 19

This is an incredible job, and Marina is an incredible brain! Join our team and make magic ✨

Marina Bolotnikova @mbolotnikova.bsky.social · Aug 15

Friday afternoon personal news dump — I'm switching
from being an editor to a writer, so I'll be writing a lot more often, and you can apply to replace me as editor (and also be my editor!) at our amazing little vertical ☺️
job-boards.greenhouse.io/voxmedia/job...

Deputy Editor, Future Perfect

Remote (US Only)

job-boards.greenhouse.io

2 7

Reposted by Marina Bolotnikova

Ken Vogel @kenvogel.bsky.social · Aug 15

NEW: A federal judge on Friday blocked the FTC’s investigation of Media Matters, writing “it should alarm all Americans when the government retaliates against individuals or organizations for engaging in constitutionally protected public debate.” @kateconger.com reports:

Judge Blocks F.T.C. Investigation of Media Matters

www.nytimes.com

29 120

Marina Bolotnikova @mbolotnikova.bsky.social · Aug 15

🫶

1

Marina Bolotnikova @mbolotnikova.bsky.social · Aug 15

Friday afternoon personal news dump — I'm switching
from being an editor to a writer, so I'll be writing a lot more often, and you can apply to replace me as editor (and also be my editor!) at our amazing little vertical ☺️
job-boards.greenhouse.io/voxmedia/job...

Deputy Editor, Future Perfect

Remote (US Only)

job-boards.greenhouse.io

1 8 32

Reposted by Marina Bolotnikova

Ned Resnikoff @resnikoff.bsky.social · Aug 13

I wrote about that time Assembly Speaker Willie Brown casually suggested abolishing all of California's cities and counties www.businessinsider.com/lower-home-p...

America needs more homes. A long-forgotten idea from California could be the solution.

The suburbs around big cities are slowing down real estate development. Forming regional entities would make it easier and cheaper to buy a home.

www.businessinsider.com

4 16 110

Reposted by Marina Bolotnikova

Adam Gurri @adamgurri.liberalcurrents.com · Aug 13

1000 times this wapo.st/41r8xSn

Kids need freedom. Dangerous roads make it hard to grant it.

Bigger cars, distracted drivers and worried parents mean fewer kids are roaming freely.

wapo.st

3 52 220

Reposted by Marina Bolotnikova

David Zipper @davidzipper.bsky.social · Aug 13

Canada and the US are both car-centric, spacious countries. But an American is 2.5x more likely to die in a crash than a Canadian – and the gap is widening.

My latest, in Bloomberg. 🧵

The US-Canadian Road Safety Gap Is Getting Wider

www.bloomberg.com

3 64 220

Marina Bolotnikova @mbolotnikova.bsky.social · Aug 13

It would really be terrible if my $300-a-head restaurant were to "exclude people"!

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/13/d...

screenshotted text: Eleven Madison Park, the elegant, internationally acclaimed Manhattan restaurant whose climate-minded move to an all-vegan menu four and a half years ago was hailed as both brilliant and baffling, is bringing back meat.

Its chef, Daniel Humm, said in an interview that he wanted to draw more diners to the restaurant, both for financial reasons and as an act of hospitality.

“I very much believed in the all-in approach, but I didn’t realize that we would exclude people,” he said. “I have some anxiety that people are going to say, ‘Oh, he’s a hypocrite,’ but I know that the best way to continue to champion plant-based cooking is to let everyone participate around the table.”

2 9 46

Reposted by Marina Bolotnikova

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · Aug 12

again, what is interesting to me about this stuff — beyond the obvious fact that what trump wants is propaganda — is that it is grounded in a political theory which holds trump to be the sovereign will of the nation, who can impose his demands on every aspect of the nation's society

White House Announces Comprehensive Review of Smithsonian Exhibitions

www.nytimes.com

150 740 3.4K

Reposted by Marina Bolotnikova

David Zipper @davidzipper.bsky.social · Aug 12

Can confirm: This lawless behavior is common throughout our nation's capital.

Andrew M @apmor.in · Aug 12

DC definitely wildly dangerous... my most recent trip there, look at these criminals blocking the bike lane when I was trying to use it!

Photograph of two moving vans blocking a separated bike lane.

1 10 76

Marina Bolotnikova @mbolotnikova.bsky.social · Aug 12

plants supply >80% of global calories and nearly two-thirds of protein on 16% of agricultural land! I wrote a bit about this here:

www.vox.com/future-perfe...

The brutal trade-off that will decide the future of food

A growing number of thinkers say factory farming can help save the planet. Are they right?

www.vox.com

1 6 24

Marina Bolotnikova @mbolotnikova.bsky.social · Aug 12

One way you could read this chart: Animal ag is so inefficient—and it comes at an unthinkable moral cost, AND it might start the next pandemic—that it would be the definition of lunacy to squander global carbon budgets to produce an ever-greater share of our food this way
www.vox.com/future-perfe...

Infographic comparing land use to food output. Top bar: “Agricultural land.” A large orange block—“80 % Livestock: meat, dairy, textiles (38 million km²; 6 million km² cropland for feed + 32 million km² grazing)”—dominates, next to a small blue block—“16 % Crops for food (8 million km²).” Dashed lines point to two stacked boxes:
Global calorie supply: orange 17 % from livestock vs. blue 83 % from plant-based food.
Global protein supply: orange 38 % from meat & dairy vs. blue 62 % from plant-based food.
Overall message: livestock occupies most farmland but yields a minority of the world’s calories and protein.

2 35 64

Reposted by Marina Bolotnikova

A butler of dogs @butlerofdogs.bsky.social · Aug 9

I hope @mbolotnikova.bsky.social doesn’t mind if I share this excerpt from her excellent @vox.com article on the need to improve our diet to be more plant-based www.vox.com/future-perfe...

2 17

Marina Bolotnikova @mbolotnikova.bsky.social · Aug 9

I really liked @mikegrunwald.bsky.social’s book and think it’s worth reading. But naturally, I had some first-principles disagreements, so I decided to write about the rise of a set of ideas you could call anti-anti-factory farming in wonky future of food debates

www.vox.com/future-perfe...

The brutal trade-off that will decide the future of food

A growing number of thinkers say factory farming can help save the planet. Are they right?

www.vox.com

1 8 25

Reposted by Marina Bolotnikova

Jan Dutkiewicz @jandutkiewicz.bsky.social · Jul 31

Fantastic piece by @kennytorrella.bsky.social on the extensive animal abuse and humanewashing at Fairlife.

www.vox.com/future-perfe...

The terrifying reality behind one of America’s fastest-growing dairy brands

The dark side of Fairlife — and America’s protein craze.

www.vox.com

1 9 26

Marina Bolotnikova @mbolotnikova.bsky.social · Jul 31

story by @kennytorrella.bsky.social!

2