Michael McKinney
@mashan.bsky.social
(He/him) Sometime author and esotericist. History buff. Player of Dwarf Fortress. Feeder of cats. Knower of obscure and mostly useless things.
aka "Satyr" (yes, that Satyr)
aka "Satyr" (yes, that Satyr)
Reposted by Michael McKinney
bluesky is where elder millennials enjoying internet retirement meet younger millennials with untreated depression
December 28, 2025 at 1:54 AM
bluesky is where elder millennials enjoying internet retirement meet younger millennials with untreated depression
Reposted by Michael McKinney
diversify your crank fixations. if you’re obsessed with funko pops, become interested in 16th century hermeticism.
December 22, 2025 at 4:33 PM
diversify your crank fixations. if you’re obsessed with funko pops, become interested in 16th century hermeticism.
Reposted by Michael McKinney
The older I get, the more I think fiction (which I love) has damaged our ability to judge people. We assume intricate interiority, wheels within wheels, because that’s what drives good plots. The truth is that what someone says and does on the surface is usually exactly who they are.
December 22, 2025 at 4:51 PM
The older I get, the more I think fiction (which I love) has damaged our ability to judge people. We assume intricate interiority, wheels within wheels, because that’s what drives good plots. The truth is that what someone says and does on the surface is usually exactly who they are.
Reposted by Michael McKinney
I guess this has probably already gone viral somewhere but I am simply dying at this picture of a bear that looks like it hired a photographer to do a glamour shoot
September 10, 2025 at 4:42 PM
I guess this has probably already gone viral somewhere but I am simply dying at this picture of a bear that looks like it hired a photographer to do a glamour shoot
Reposted by Michael McKinney
Reposted by Michael McKinney
you ever think about how buck wild it must have been to be the first European colonizer to see a hummingbird?
“i saw a tiny bug that was also a bird, and it had hatred in its heart.”
“i saw a tiny bug that was also a bird, and it had hatred in its heart.”
December 11, 2025 at 9:18 PM
you ever think about how buck wild it must have been to be the first European colonizer to see a hummingbird?
“i saw a tiny bug that was also a bird, and it had hatred in its heart.”
“i saw a tiny bug that was also a bird, and it had hatred in its heart.”
Reposted by Michael McKinney
SKULL OF THOMAS AQUINAS: TAKE A LEFT NOW
PRIEST: No, the GPS says we have to keep going—
SKULL: I KNOW A SHORTCUT
PRIEST: Do you remember the last ti—
SKULL: FOR THOSE WITH FAITH, NO EVIDENCE IS NECESSARY; FOR THOSE WITHOUT IT, NO EVIDENCE WILL SUFFICE
PRIEST: No, the GPS says we have to keep going—
SKULL: I KNOW A SHORTCUT
PRIEST: Do you remember the last ti—
SKULL: FOR THOSE WITH FAITH, NO EVIDENCE IS NECESSARY; FOR THOSE WITHOUT IT, NO EVIDENCE WILL SUFFICE
'Skull of St. Thomas Aquinas being transported to Fossanova Abbey.'
Photograph by Daniel Ibanez
Photograph by Daniel Ibanez
December 10, 2025 at 5:10 PM
SKULL OF THOMAS AQUINAS: TAKE A LEFT NOW
PRIEST: No, the GPS says we have to keep going—
SKULL: I KNOW A SHORTCUT
PRIEST: Do you remember the last ti—
SKULL: FOR THOSE WITH FAITH, NO EVIDENCE IS NECESSARY; FOR THOSE WITHOUT IT, NO EVIDENCE WILL SUFFICE
PRIEST: No, the GPS says we have to keep going—
SKULL: I KNOW A SHORTCUT
PRIEST: Do you remember the last ti—
SKULL: FOR THOSE WITH FAITH, NO EVIDENCE IS NECESSARY; FOR THOSE WITHOUT IT, NO EVIDENCE WILL SUFFICE
Reposted by Michael McKinney
The Holly King, in the sanctuary of St Mary-le-Wigford in Lincoln today
December 6, 2025 at 2:15 PM
The Holly King, in the sanctuary of St Mary-le-Wigford in Lincoln today
Reposted by Michael McKinney
people made fun of this in 2014 but every last thing about it turned out to be true
December 5, 2025 at 10:35 PM
people made fun of this in 2014 but every last thing about it turned out to be true
Reposted by Michael McKinney
How amazing that it is liberated by just resting at ease in whatever happens.
~ Shabkar
~ Shabkar
December 4, 2025 at 1:45 PM
How amazing that it is liberated by just resting at ease in whatever happens.
~ Shabkar
~ Shabkar
Reposted by Michael McKinney
The dumbest and therefore the best Christmas song.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4jc...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4jc...
A Marshmallow World - Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra
YouTube video by Matthew Reed
www.youtube.com
December 1, 2025 at 11:45 PM
The dumbest and therefore the best Christmas song.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4jc...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4jc...
The Entelecheia fellow sent me in search a quote from "The Temple of Solomon the King", and I think the last shreds of my respect for Crowley and #thelema have been well and truly torn asunder.
What irredeemable rubbish.
What irredeemable rubbish.
November 29, 2025 at 6:45 PM
The Entelecheia fellow sent me in search a quote from "The Temple of Solomon the King", and I think the last shreds of my respect for Crowley and #thelema have been well and truly torn asunder.
What irredeemable rubbish.
What irredeemable rubbish.
Reposted by Michael McKinney
Happy holiday or not or whatever
November 27, 2025 at 4:28 PM
Happy holiday or not or whatever
Reposted by Michael McKinney
i'm going to sound sarcastic here but genuinely one of the most interesting aspects of LLMs is that they are proving that evil is real, by which i mean if you train them to do one bad thing they start doing other bad things that you have not trained them to do
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 6:23 AM
i'm going to sound sarcastic here but genuinely one of the most interesting aspects of LLMs is that they are proving that evil is real, by which i mean if you train them to do one bad thing they start doing other bad things that you have not trained them to do
Reposted by Michael McKinney
"Human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but ... life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves."
~ Gabriel García Márquez 🌸🌸🌸
~ Gabriel García Márquez 🌸🌸🌸
November 22, 2025 at 2:06 PM
"Human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but ... life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves."
~ Gabriel García Márquez 🌸🌸🌸
~ Gabriel García Márquez 🌸🌸🌸
Reposted by Michael McKinney
me waking up and opening this app
November 22, 2025 at 12:02 PM
me waking up and opening this app
Reposted by Michael McKinney
I'm happy from a political standpoint watching Donald Trump and his party forced into debating health care. It's like watching a walrus do quantum physics
November 8, 2025 at 11:03 PM
I'm happy from a political standpoint watching Donald Trump and his party forced into debating health care. It's like watching a walrus do quantum physics
Reposted by Michael McKinney
I apologize Comrade Kristol, I should have never doubted you.
November 8, 2025 at 11:17 PM
I apologize Comrade Kristol, I should have never doubted you.
'Real' Biblical angels appeared in human form. Ezekiel's vision wasn't necessarily of an angel as such.
Why Real Biblical Angels Are Creepy, Beastly, and Hardly Angelic www.openculture.com?p=1125030
Why Real Biblical Angels Are Creepy, Beastly, and Hardly Angelic
Nearly 70 percent of Americans believe in angels, at least according to a statistic often cited in recent years. But what, exactly, comes to their minds — or those of any other believers around the wo...
www.openculture.com
October 15, 2025 at 12:36 PM
'Real' Biblical angels appeared in human form. Ezekiel's vision wasn't necessarily of an angel as such.
Reposted by Michael McKinney
There is no dialectic, no synthesis between "reality exists and we're trying to deal with it" and the absolute rejection of reality and insertion of unreality, you stupid, conceited fucks.
There is no middle ground!
There is no middle ground!
I am going to have a small meltdown.
In @nytopinion.nytimes.com
“Binary thinking is not always destructive,” Mark Edmundson writes. “But when all thought is binary, we are in trouble.”
“Binary thinking is not always destructive,” Mark Edmundson writes. “But when all thought is binary, we are in trouble.”
October 13, 2025 at 2:00 AM
There is no dialectic, no synthesis between "reality exists and we're trying to deal with it" and the absolute rejection of reality and insertion of unreality, you stupid, conceited fucks.
There is no middle ground!
There is no middle ground!
Reposted by Michael McKinney
this felt too informative not to share
October 6, 2025 at 1:24 PM
this felt too informative not to share
Reposted by Michael McKinney
in war the "rules" go all soft, and success depends on a mindset comfortable operating in that chaos--not dragged about from panic to panic by one's worst fears
October 3, 2025 at 10:03 AM
in war the "rules" go all soft, and success depends on a mindset comfortable operating in that chaos--not dragged about from panic to panic by one's worst fears
Reposted by Michael McKinney
It’s both depressing and darkly hilarious how Lawfare posting has gone from “we got him on an Article 33, Clause 8, Subsection Alpha infraction, baby cannon time!” to *slams whisky bottle down* “the law is fake and I challenge John Roberts to a fistfight at the Walmart parking lot.”
September 29, 2025 at 5:18 PM
It’s both depressing and darkly hilarious how Lawfare posting has gone from “we got him on an Article 33, Clause 8, Subsection Alpha infraction, baby cannon time!” to *slams whisky bottle down* “the law is fake and I challenge John Roberts to a fistfight at the Walmart parking lot.”
Reposted by Michael McKinney
Happy Stanislav Petrov Day! On this day one man prevented the apocalypse.
September 26, 2025 at 12:22 PM
Happy Stanislav Petrov Day! On this day one man prevented the apocalypse.