Learned Pupil
@nequals001.bsky.social
theignorantschoolmaster.substack.com
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there's a lovely James C. Scott line about how "the same mechanisms can be used to track cholera or round up Jews"
Bureaucracy is essential to freedom, it’s just hard to see this because not only can it enable tyranny, the mechanisms that make freedom possible superficially resemble tyranny as well. Postal services and secret police alike keep standardized registries of the names and homes of the citizenry.
Look it's weird to say "the city is liberation. Bigness is liberation. Bureaucracy is liberation." But it so often is. The village is inherently tyrannical. Sherly Jackson knew this.
November 18, 2025 at 5:33 AM
there's a lovely James C. Scott line about how "the same mechanisms can be used to track cholera or round up Jews"
Reposted by Learned Pupil
Theorem: There are no interesting numbers.
Proof: Consider an arbitrary number n. n is uninteresting. n has no nontrivial properties at all.
Proof: Consider an arbitrary number n. n is uninteresting. n has no nontrivial properties at all.
June 14, 2025 at 5:04 PM
Theorem: There are no interesting numbers.
Proof: Consider an arbitrary number n. n is uninteresting. n has no nontrivial properties at all.
Proof: Consider an arbitrary number n. n is uninteresting. n has no nontrivial properties at all.
Reposted by Learned Pupil
We actually need more corruption. If everyone is doing corruption then according to free market principles the best corruption will rise to the top
October 27, 2025 at 3:35 AM
We actually need more corruption. If everyone is doing corruption then according to free market principles the best corruption will rise to the top
Reposted by Learned Pupil
Running for office and revealing a giant back tattoo that just says WOMEN. Nobody can agree if it's good or bad
October 22, 2025 at 6:57 PM
Running for office and revealing a giant back tattoo that just says WOMEN. Nobody can agree if it's good or bad
Reposted by Learned Pupil
Realizing I don't need to get a girlfriend, because then I would still just have a girlfriend under capitalism
October 22, 2025 at 4:31 PM
Realizing I don't need to get a girlfriend, because then I would still just have a girlfriend under capitalism
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I sure hope this is not how you think about people who like cars
Does Jabba the Hutt actually have any sexual interest in the humanoid slave girls he owns or is having a harem of conventionally attractive women a power and status symbol type thing only if you are a hermaphroditic gigantic slug who presumably is more biologically inclined towards its own kind?
October 22, 2025 at 10:24 PM
I sure hope this is not how you think about people who like cars
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If you're Doom scrolling bring a shotgun.
October 22, 2025 at 2:52 AM
If you're Doom scrolling bring a shotgun.
Reposted by Learned Pupil
i think we're learning that when we relax a lot of material constraints human behavior and preferences are so much more varied and contextual than we gave credit for, and those constraints were a large part of what imposed regularities and generalizability
August 2, 2025 at 9:45 PM
i think we're learning that when we relax a lot of material constraints human behavior and preferences are so much more varied and contextual than we gave credit for, and those constraints were a large part of what imposed regularities and generalizability
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“I am going to die . . . and I’m not afraid . . . It is because I’m too limited, too much of an animal to believe it. But if I don’t believe it until the last possible moment, until the ultimate limit, I shall never die. What a discovery!” quote that has always stuck with me from Army of Shadows
May 28, 2025 at 1:29 PM
“I am going to die . . . and I’m not afraid . . . It is because I’m too limited, too much of an animal to believe it. But if I don’t believe it until the last possible moment, until the ultimate limit, I shall never die. What a discovery!” quote that has always stuck with me from Army of Shadows
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you know you don't really realize the vast breadth of human experiences and desires, and how arbitrary almost all of them are, until you travel to another culture. or take a lot of LSD
May 28, 2025 at 2:44 PM
you know you don't really realize the vast breadth of human experiences and desires, and how arbitrary almost all of them are, until you travel to another culture. or take a lot of LSD
Reposted by Learned Pupil
Everyone has one Mitch Hedberg joke stashed in their brain like a squirrel to sustain them whenever they need to feel joy for 30 seconds and mine is “they say the recipe for Sprite is Lemon and Lime but I tried to make it at home, there’s more to it than that”
May 23, 2025 at 1:24 AM
Everyone has one Mitch Hedberg joke stashed in their brain like a squirrel to sustain them whenever they need to feel joy for 30 seconds and mine is “they say the recipe for Sprite is Lemon and Lime but I tried to make it at home, there’s more to it than that”
Reposted by Learned Pupil
help book
ᵇᵃᶜᵏ ᶜᵒᵛᵉʳ⬇️
ᵇᵃᶜᵏ ᶜᵒᵛᵉʳ⬇️
May 23, 2025 at 4:58 PM
help book
ᵇᵃᶜᵏ ᶜᵒᵛᵉʳ⬇️
ᵇᵃᶜᵏ ᶜᵒᵛᵉʳ⬇️
Reposted by Learned Pupil
ever yday is Blue Wednesday now
twitter (formerly X) no longer has working notifications lol
May 23, 2025 at 5:47 PM
ever yday is Blue Wednesday now
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Curation without topology is just censorship in slow motion.
SimClusters. Without clustering, all signals are flat; moderation becomes pure visibility control. Which is where we are now.
I'm going to beat this drum forever, I guess. Flawed as they were, they were at least a step to build on. Without any affinity modeling, everything is global.
I'm going to beat this drum forever, I guess. Flawed as they were, they were at least a step to build on. Without any affinity modeling, everything is global.
May 7, 2025 at 10:14 PM
Curation without topology is just censorship in slow motion.
Reposted by Learned Pupil
guide: “be thee careful, sir, for one man before thee tells the truth unerring, while the other cannot bear but false witness. and one keeps a most terrible secret”
man #1: “most terrible indeed”
man #2: none of thats true. they just think it’s funny to tell people i fuck goats
man #1: “most terrible indeed”
man #2: none of thats true. they just think it’s funny to tell people i fuck goats
May 7, 2025 at 3:04 AM
guide: “be thee careful, sir, for one man before thee tells the truth unerring, while the other cannot bear but false witness. and one keeps a most terrible secret”
man #1: “most terrible indeed”
man #2: none of thats true. they just think it’s funny to tell people i fuck goats
man #1: “most terrible indeed”
man #2: none of thats true. they just think it’s funny to tell people i fuck goats
Reposted by Learned Pupil
I do have a macabre fascination with reading accounts of people who opened restaurants and had it ruin their life. I periodically re-read this one someone linked me to at the old place: torontolife.com/food/restaur...
April 27, 2025 at 4:43 PM
I do have a macabre fascination with reading accounts of people who opened restaurants and had it ruin their life. I periodically re-read this one someone linked me to at the old place: torontolife.com/food/restaur...
Reposted by Learned Pupil
Sincerity and satire train the same weights; it’s not jamming the signal, it’s giving it a new channel.
- neo-Baudrillard arrives from the future
- neo-Baudrillard arrives from the future
Data poisoning by whimsy isn’t truly data poisoning, but people need some shred of hope to cling to I guess
Or this is just a linkedin shitpost.
Functionally equivalent.
Or this is just a linkedin shitpost.
Functionally equivalent.
April 23, 2025 at 8:45 PM
Sincerity and satire train the same weights; it’s not jamming the signal, it’s giving it a new channel.
- neo-Baudrillard arrives from the future
- neo-Baudrillard arrives from the future
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Media “must be reduced to a very cool state before it can be learned or assimilated”.
Realizing I have a personal pref for cooler media…
Realizing I have a personal pref for cooler media…
April 20, 2025 at 12:01 PM
Media “must be reduced to a very cool state before it can be learned or assimilated”.
Realizing I have a personal pref for cooler media…
Realizing I have a personal pref for cooler media…
Reposted by Learned Pupil
Reposted by Learned Pupil
"What counts as a crisis is the expectation of loss of control; in other words, cybernetic breakdown in an institution". (Stafford Beer)
It is conjoined - the governance system has become unable to represent the complexity of the environment it is meant to control, and so it makes bad decisions
It is conjoined - the governance system has become unable to represent the complexity of the environment it is meant to control, and so it makes bad decisions
half-arsed thought that for future historians, all this is going to look like one conjoined phenomenon - tariffs, war threats, AI, crypto, climate change shrug emoji - all entangled in a morbid delirium of a world where what we do has no unexpected consequences and long term doesn't actually matter
April 9, 2025 at 1:12 PM
"What counts as a crisis is the expectation of loss of control; in other words, cybernetic breakdown in an institution". (Stafford Beer)
It is conjoined - the governance system has become unable to represent the complexity of the environment it is meant to control, and so it makes bad decisions
It is conjoined - the governance system has become unable to represent the complexity of the environment it is meant to control, and so it makes bad decisions
Reposted by Learned Pupil
most things in life are in between these poles. The sooner you understand that, the healthier your life will be in general bsky.app/profile/aelk...
Norbert Wiener (who I mention in the thread) thought of agency in terms of two poles: things like hurricanes that are turbulent but also lack and intention + behave according to statistical rules. and thinking adversaries that have intent to waylay you and can anticipate your actions and thwart them
April 10, 2025 at 2:52 PM
most things in life are in between these poles. The sooner you understand that, the healthier your life will be in general bsky.app/profile/aelk...
Reposted by Learned Pupil
