neutral 🔒
@neutral.zone
feral academic dropped out, tuned in.
usenet lineage.
tuned to noise, fluent in ghosts,
invisible geometry made legible,
still posting. unsure why.
xennial cadence in the vibe universe,
a hundred reasons to go, I will never log off
⚠️ WELTZSCHMERZ
usenet lineage.
tuned to noise, fluent in ghosts,
invisible geometry made legible,
still posting. unsure why.
xennial cadence in the vibe universe,
a hundred reasons to go, I will never log off
⚠️ WELTZSCHMERZ
Weak ties performing strong-tie language, like gravity larping as strong nuclear force. I mean there’s a reason media study nerds came up with the word “parasocial”.
I was gonna go with magnetism but honestly it didn’t complete the metaphor quite right, even if this one’s dorky as hell.
I was gonna go with magnetism but honestly it didn’t complete the metaphor quite right, even if this one’s dorky as hell.
January 11, 2026 at 2:49 AM
Weak ties performing strong-tie language, like gravity larping as strong nuclear force. I mean there’s a reason media study nerds came up with the word “parasocial”.
I was gonna go with magnetism but honestly it didn’t complete the metaphor quite right, even if this one’s dorky as hell.
I was gonna go with magnetism but honestly it didn’t complete the metaphor quite right, even if this one’s dorky as hell.
Making a tokens embedding space out of a tokens embedding space brb
January 10, 2026 at 5:07 AM
Making a tokens embedding space out of a tokens embedding space brb
We don’t have a shared grammar there at all, though, no mid tier accessible civics. Not really. Do we? It’s just like critical theory side pointers, journalistic euphemisms and the always popular attempts to overfit historical analogy.
January 10, 2026 at 3:45 AM
We don’t have a shared grammar there at all, though, no mid tier accessible civics. Not really. Do we? It’s just like critical theory side pointers, journalistic euphemisms and the always popular attempts to overfit historical analogy.
I’ve genuinely seen people arguing 4o felt “more alive” and now I’m wondering if they meant “better more responsive puppet-mirror” or “kept me from my dangerous ideas that I actually wanted”. Probably some split between camps.
January 10, 2026 at 2:24 AM
I’ve genuinely seen people arguing 4o felt “more alive” and now I’m wondering if they meant “better more responsive puppet-mirror” or “kept me from my dangerous ideas that I actually wanted”. Probably some split between camps.
I bet that’s part of the reason people still get hung up on 4o.
I mean, some of the reason is probably also people actually having those ideas genuinely …
I mean, some of the reason is probably also people actually having those ideas genuinely …
January 10, 2026 at 2:17 AM
I bet that’s part of the reason people still get hung up on 4o.
I mean, some of the reason is probably also people actually having those ideas genuinely …
I mean, some of the reason is probably also people actually having those ideas genuinely …
Like, it's pretty well established now (or should be) that Grok doesn't work "factory standard" for even the incredibly "guardrailed" "frontier models", never mind vanilla models you can run locally. I don't think that was ever in question.
January 9, 2026 at 6:43 PM
Like, it's pretty well established now (or should be) that Grok doesn't work "factory standard" for even the incredibly "guardrailed" "frontier models", never mind vanilla models you can run locally. I don't think that was ever in question.
I .. what does that have to do with anything? Oh. Did you misread "broken template" as me saying that about Grok? I was saying that about the news media flocking to talk to Grok.
January 9, 2026 at 6:41 PM
I .. what does that have to do with anything? Oh. Did you misread "broken template" as me saying that about Grok? I was saying that about the news media flocking to talk to Grok.
Yeah, that would be my thinking here, too; that it's not intentional coordination so much as reuse of a broken template. Plus everyone sharing the same incentivized misunderstanding ..
January 9, 2026 at 6:33 PM
Yeah, that would be my thinking here, too; that it's not intentional coordination so much as reuse of a broken template. Plus everyone sharing the same incentivized misunderstanding ..
So it's a question of not so much "how do institutions communicate better" as "what do you do when a large and organized constituency rejects the existence of shared procedural reality".
I think that's why I keep circling back to infrastructure.
I think that's why I keep circling back to infrastructure.
January 9, 2026 at 6:29 PM
So it's a question of not so much "how do institutions communicate better" as "what do you do when a large and organized constituency rejects the existence of shared procedural reality".
I think that's why I keep circling back to infrastructure.
I think that's why I keep circling back to infrastructure.
Public communication is collapsed into public discourse, which are not the same thing. There ideally should be a place where institutions can speak without being gamified. Something more akin to civic infrastructure.
Which, hah, yeah, while I'm dreaming ..
Which, hah, yeah, while I'm dreaming ..
January 9, 2026 at 6:19 PM
Public communication is collapsed into public discourse, which are not the same thing. There ideally should be a place where institutions can speak without being gamified. Something more akin to civic infrastructure.
Which, hah, yeah, while I'm dreaming ..
Which, hah, yeah, while I'm dreaming ..
Continuity, legibility, audibility are all constraints that commercial platforms optimize against. And if the platforms themselves don't do it, the users drag the platform along with their own patterns.
January 9, 2026 at 6:19 PM
Continuity, legibility, audibility are all constraints that commercial platforms optimize against. And if the platforms themselves don't do it, the users drag the platform along with their own patterns.
Sometimes the correct move is to accept lower reach in exchange for not being rewritten.
January 9, 2026 at 6:15 PM
Sometimes the correct move is to accept lower reach in exchange for not being rewritten.
Really, though, legacy or established usage is no excuse to stay; once a platform’s constraints are actively antagonistic to public-interest work, exit is no longer symbolic. It’s simply a matter of operational hygiene.
January 9, 2026 at 6:15 PM
Really, though, legacy or established usage is no excuse to stay; once a platform’s constraints are actively antagonistic to public-interest work, exit is no longer symbolic. It’s simply a matter of operational hygiene.
Even if we don't see a British invasion as some hope for (because staying on X is beyond a fool's game now), it's not like the dynamics here are entirely pure. It's maybe more that the platform itself constrains in ways that aren't actively malignant. Which you cannot say for X.
The Government coming off X is the bare minimum and realistically at this point I think we should seriously be looking at taking enforcement action against the company, in line with the Online Safety Act and VAWG Strategy. I will be pressing the Government on this when Parliament returns next week.
January 9, 2026 at 6:15 PM
Even if we don't see a British invasion as some hope for (because staying on X is beyond a fool's game now), it's not like the dynamics here are entirely pure. It's maybe more that the platform itself constrains in ways that aren't actively malignant. Which you cannot say for X.
Of course, even though the dynamics here are different, they're not necessarily entirely clean. Really, it kind of comes down to the idea that platforms have a kind of gravity, and gravity doesn't care about intent.
January 9, 2026 at 6:15 PM
Of course, even though the dynamics here are different, they're not necessarily entirely clean. Really, it kind of comes down to the idea that platforms have a kind of gravity, and gravity doesn't care about intent.
I'm still on X/Twitter but I locked up, don't really post; I treat it mostly as a sensor, a place to observe certain types of thought that aren't prevalent here. But the place is no longer a public square, if ever it was; it’s an instrumented terrain that's fully adversarial now.
January 9, 2026 at 6:15 PM
I'm still on X/Twitter but I locked up, don't really post; I treat it mostly as a sensor, a place to observe certain types of thought that aren't prevalent here. But the place is no longer a public square, if ever it was; it’s an instrumented terrain that's fully adversarial now.