rob
@robk594.bsky.social
Reposted by rob
once again these things boil down to “is your group a bohemian cultural identity” or “is your group actually trying to do things?” and the key tell is whether your activity centers on policing of in-group behavior or whether it centers on, again, tangible goals
February 3, 2026 at 6:50 PM
once again these things boil down to “is your group a bohemian cultural identity” or “is your group actually trying to do things?” and the key tell is whether your activity centers on policing of in-group behavior or whether it centers on, again, tangible goals
Reposted by rob
The key here is that the folks arguing for violence aren't doing so because they think it's more effective in principle, they're arguing for violence because they want to LARP as Lenin or Che.
if you want to be the violent wing your job is to choose high value, universally loathed targets, and to know that your job is to die or languish in prison for a cause that will spit on your name
what do you make of the theory i’ve seen in various places that nonviolence really only works when it has a violent wing to back it up? “how to blow up a pipeline” argues that many successful nonviolent movements had such an arrangement
February 2, 2026 at 5:34 PM
The key here is that the folks arguing for violence aren't doing so because they think it's more effective in principle, they're arguing for violence because they want to LARP as Lenin or Che.
Reposted by rob
For the most part, wearing masks to shield your identity to protect yourself from retribution is ceding the whole playing field to the fascists. Not indulging in the weird black ops security theater is itself a statement: this is our world and you don’t dictate how we live in it.
I don’t think this is a particularly hot take. As we keep telling a particular federal agency, wearing a mask generally indicates cognizance of guilt and an intent to do something illegal. Protest works best when done confidently and unashamedly
An entire generation of people raised on social media simply do not have an understanding of how the media, protests, and surveillance work.
My hottest take is that masks at protests are cowardly and have done absolutely nothing but make all protests themselves look unserious to neutral parties.
My hottest take is that masks at protests are cowardly and have done absolutely nothing but make all protests themselves look unserious to neutral parties.
January 30, 2026 at 4:48 PM
For the most part, wearing masks to shield your identity to protect yourself from retribution is ceding the whole playing field to the fascists. Not indulging in the weird black ops security theater is itself a statement: this is our world and you don’t dictate how we live in it.
Reposted by rob
I’m so glad you went. I had many people ask me - “is it safe? Should I leave my phone and ID at home? Do I need an exit strategy?”
We’re building this bizarre and paranoid civic culture based almost entirely on miasmatic online fear endlessly feeding itself. Selma marchers didn’t even mask!
We’re building this bizarre and paranoid civic culture based almost entirely on miasmatic online fear endlessly feeding itself. Selma marchers didn’t even mask!
Online security theater posting made me really afraid about having my phone or showing my face before going to a no kings protest and then when I got there it was a great time and my mom was taking pictures of everything lol. I felt ridiculous because I almost didn’t go people made it sound so risky
January 30, 2026 at 4:33 PM
I’m so glad you went. I had many people ask me - “is it safe? Should I leave my phone and ID at home? Do I need an exit strategy?”
We’re building this bizarre and paranoid civic culture based almost entirely on miasmatic online fear endlessly feeding itself. Selma marchers didn’t even mask!
We’re building this bizarre and paranoid civic culture based almost entirely on miasmatic online fear endlessly feeding itself. Selma marchers didn’t even mask!
Reposted by rob
Nonviolence is, in fact, working. This administration is weaker than it was a year ago. More and more of the public is becoming galvanized against it; its agents are being impeded.
Do you honestly think people in the civil rights movement and other nonviolent movements faced no violence themselves? They practiced nonviolence because it works, because the oppressor wants a shooting war, which is the war it will win
How's your non-violent working Mr Gandhi stancil? They will kill each and everyone of you right if they had the chance and you will still be writing Kumbaya.
January 24, 2026 at 9:53 PM
Nonviolence is, in fact, working. This administration is weaker than it was a year ago. More and more of the public is becoming galvanized against it; its agents are being impeded.
Reposted by rob
stop legitimizing the fascist takeover by pretending it's normal
I fear my tipping point into madness is "Thus is un-American" posts in response to ICE terrorizing immigrants. I beg you to open Wikipedia (I would say a book but let's start small) and read up on The Trail of Tears, Fugitive Slave Catchers, Japanese internment, Indian Boarding schools & Jim Crow
January 22, 2026 at 2:39 PM
stop legitimizing the fascist takeover by pretending it's normal
Reposted by rob
just absolute braindead slop. he is a literal nazi
January 12, 2026 at 5:47 AM
just absolute braindead slop. he is a literal nazi
Reposted by rob
it is very depressing to me that people’s misunderstanding of a technology coupled with their investment in a culture war is causing them to outright deny the overt and obvious benefits of that technology
January 8, 2026 at 11:26 PM
it is very depressing to me that people’s misunderstanding of a technology coupled with their investment in a culture war is causing them to outright deny the overt and obvious benefits of that technology
Reposted by rob
One of my professors in undergrad was a “cognitive scientist” who would insist he had proved P=NP because a certain minimal surfaces problem was NP-hard but you could use soap films to solve it in O(1).
That represented a substantially more rigorous and defensible argument than whatever this is:
That represented a substantially more rigorous and defensible argument than whatever this is:
We know — from first principles — that LLMs can only create AI slop.
Why do people keep needing empirical tests?
Why do people keep needing empirical tests?
The intractability proof (a.k.a. Ingenia theorem) implies that any attempts to scale up AI-by-Learning to situations of real-world, human-level complexity will consume an astronomical amount of resources (see Box 1 for an explanation). 13/n
December 21, 2025 at 5:13 PM
One of my professors in undergrad was a “cognitive scientist” who would insist he had proved P=NP because a certain minimal surfaces problem was NP-hard but you could use soap films to solve it in O(1).
That represented a substantially more rigorous and defensible argument than whatever this is:
That represented a substantially more rigorous and defensible argument than whatever this is:
Reposted by rob
uncle fester probably has like 300 gold coins to exchange for nebulous plot-driven john wick favors and chooses to hide them under his mattress in the shape of a horrendous lump that ruins his lower back
December 7, 2025 at 8:23 AM
uncle fester probably has like 300 gold coins to exchange for nebulous plot-driven john wick favors and chooses to hide them under his mattress in the shape of a horrendous lump that ruins his lower back
Reposted by rob
like, this is a model you could run on q PlayStation 2
November 29, 2025 at 5:47 PM
like, this is a model you could run on q PlayStation 2
Reposted by rob
The leftism we need: automation is awesome as it eliminates human drudgery.
The leftism we have: human drudgery must be preserved to protect the system by which people sell their labor for sustenance.
The leftism we have: human drudgery must be preserved to protect the system by which people sell their labor for sustenance.
Marx cheered industrialization and the elimination of human drudgery as he thought it hastened the day of revolution.
Some modern day leftists fear it instead because they can't imagine a world where people's livelihoods didn't depend on selling their labor.
Some modern day leftists fear it instead because they can't imagine a world where people's livelihoods didn't depend on selling their labor.
November 29, 2025 at 2:34 PM
The leftism we need: automation is awesome as it eliminates human drudgery.
The leftism we have: human drudgery must be preserved to protect the system by which people sell their labor for sustenance.
The leftism we have: human drudgery must be preserved to protect the system by which people sell their labor for sustenance.
Reposted by rob
There's a tendency among a certain type of poster to assume everything they hate about politics and the state can be blamed on avarice, and I'm here to tell you it's actually worse than that.
I continue to disagree with this. The goal of mass detention is mass deportations. A private prison company leasing 100 beds to ICE gets paid the same if the beds are filled by 100 people for a year each or 1,000 people for a few days each. They don't earn more with long-term detention.
It's not about deporting them. It's about detaining them indefinitely and enriching Prisons for Profiteers and the grift the Convict in the Oval Office collects per detainee.
November 13, 2025 at 10:29 PM
There's a tendency among a certain type of poster to assume everything they hate about politics and the state can be blamed on avarice, and I'm here to tell you it's actually worse than that.
Reposted by rob
Your form of activism (taking to the streets to have your voice heard) pales in comparison to my form of activism (speaking condescendingly of the people who take to the streets to have their voices heard).
October 19, 2025 at 2:30 AM
Your form of activism (taking to the streets to have your voice heard) pales in comparison to my form of activism (speaking condescendingly of the people who take to the streets to have their voices heard).
Reposted by rob
"Protest theater is the left wing cult of the operator," example #42069
Actual advice for (US) No Kings:
No names, no phones, black clothes you've never worn before, masks, gloves, good shoes, eye protection, water...
Utilise the military guys in your ranks. Give them radios that connect with people flying drones above the rally. Co-ordinate movements accordingly.
No names, no phones, black clothes you've never worn before, masks, gloves, good shoes, eye protection, water...
Utilise the military guys in your ranks. Give them radios that connect with people flying drones above the rally. Co-ordinate movements accordingly.
October 17, 2025 at 4:46 PM
"Protest theater is the left wing cult of the operator," example #42069
Reposted by rob
this entire conversation is a bunch of people who have clearly never thought about privacy in a serious way being intensely paranoid in order to own the libs. Like, you’re *not even paranoid* if your paranoia amounts to “there’s no way Bluesky logs your IP”
how about it security professionals, is this website hard to get information out of
September 19, 2025 at 4:10 PM
this entire conversation is a bunch of people who have clearly never thought about privacy in a serious way being intensely paranoid in order to own the libs. Like, you’re *not even paranoid* if your paranoia amounts to “there’s no way Bluesky logs your IP”
Reposted by rob
"liberation means winning politics forever" is such a baby-brained view of the world it's astounding that anyone who graduated high school believes it.
August 13, 2025 at 5:47 PM
"liberation means winning politics forever" is such a baby-brained view of the world it's astounding that anyone who graduated high school believes it.
Reposted by rob
Praising redlining from first principles is what happens when your politics are entirely centered around what you think is or isn’t cool. If your politics aren’t material they’re reactionary
maybe I’ll get pilloried for like “not getting the joke” or whatever, but this is absolutely how, like, a comfortable percentage of Cool People think the dynamics of housing costs work and it fucking sucks
July 29, 2025 at 4:52 PM
Praising redlining from first principles is what happens when your politics are entirely centered around what you think is or isn’t cool. If your politics aren’t material they’re reactionary
Reposted by rob
i don't understand what these people think a protest is for
June 15, 2025 at 10:18 PM
i don't understand what these people think a protest is for