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Rajiv Moté @rajivmote.bsky.social · 6h

And just like that, I'm absurdly grateful that my daughter won't be able to go out to the No Kings protest in Chicago like we had planned.

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Rajiv Moté @rajivmote.bsky.social · 8h

Dictionary screenshot of "pretext": a purpose or motive alleged or an appearance assumed in order to cloak the real intention or state of affairs

Rajiv Moté @rajivmote.bsky.social · 8h

We're really living through some Times, aren't we?

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Rajiv Moté @rajivmote.bsky.social · 8h

May the hostages get out and the food and medical aid get in. May this be a real reduction of human suffering.

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Rajiv Moté @rajivmote.bsky.social · 9h

More to the point, the Administration is using the label "terrorist" (which they freely apply to whomever they want) to throw away the need for due process.

Rajiv Moté @rajivmote.bsky.social · 10h

So this administration will use drones to conduct extrajudicial murders of antifascists on American soil? That's what I heard.

Prem Thakker ツ @premthakker.bsky.social · 12h

My gosh. After the US bombed multiple boats in the middle of the ocean, murdering people on grounds that they were allegedly "carrying drugs," the US Attorney General says "Just like we did with cartels, we're going to take the same approach, President Trump, with Antifa."

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Reposted by Rajiv Moté

Jeff Tischauser @jtischauser.bsky.social · 14h

that's right Kash and all we have are Mids

Screenshot from twitter that shows Kash Patel on Fox News. The post states "Breaking FBI Director Kash Patel has just revealed nearly 5% of Chicago's 2.5 million residents, approx 110,000 people are active gang members."

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Reposted by Rajiv Moté

phil @philjamesson.com · 14h

you take the blue pill, and you'll become drowsy, then wake up in your bed. in addition to relieving your headache, fever, and cough.

you take the red pill, you experience relief for those same symptoms. but you won't get sleepy

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Rajiv Moté @rajivmote.bsky.social · 12h

Timeline serendipity

An Acyn post of Trump telling lies immediately followed by the Frog and Toad Bot quoting lines where Toad asks if that was a true story, and Frog answers maybe, maybe not

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Rajiv Moté @rajivmote.bsky.social · 12h

Way too Sapir-Whorf for these guys to track.

Rajiv Moté @rajivmote.bsky.social · 15h

To be fair, Vader was also an utter train wreck, and not someone worth emulating. That might be Kylo Ren's larger tragedy: not only being a petulant boy, but having a dismal idol.

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Rajiv Moté @rajivmote.bsky.social · 15h

Escapist stories are, of course, rigged to allow that crystalline moral clarity. But it's good to have a north star, even in oversimplification.

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Rajiv Moté @rajivmote.bsky.social · 15h

This is how I like my villains. Spouting badass soliloquies about their lofty ambitions, like Kang the Conqueror in Avengers (2023) 31. They must be stopped, but opposing them inspires a nobler sort of hero with crystalline moral clarity. Ah, escapist fiction.

Marvel comic panel from Avengers (2023) #31. Kang the Conqueror thinks: "A man strives. A man risks. A god does neither of those things. A god commands man. But a man challenges god. And one of those actions is more worthy than the other."

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Rajiv Moté @rajivmote.bsky.social · 17h

Happy #WorldOctopusDay!
May I offer a bite-sized tale "In Roaring She Shall Rise" in @escapepod.org, about a plucky, knife-wielding octopus in a city reclaimed by the sea whose ambitions reach further than the ocean.
escapepod.org/2020/09/03/e...

Escape Pod 748: Flash Fiction Contest Winners 2020

Our stories this week are the winners of the contest, as chosen by you: our listeners and readers. All four stories are Escape Pod originals. Out of 224 stories, the top four stories were: “Butterfly”...

escapepod.org

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Rajiv Moté @rajivmote.bsky.social · 18h

In other countries I've heard of "general strikes" that are aimed not at corporate policy but at the government. I'm not sure how they work, though.

Reposted by Rajiv Moté

Anita Harris Satkunananthan @mythopoetica.bsky.social · 18h

Oh hey, it's #WorldOctopusDay? 😉 🐙

This is what I call my nearly-hard desi SF meets cephalopod-love short story. It got an honorable mention in Gardner Dozois's last Year's Best anthology.

CW for somewhat spicy and norty scenes; bigotry and prejudice.

clarkesworldmagazine.com/harris_08_17

Reversion by Nin Harris

Clarkesworld Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine and Podcast.

clarkesworldmagazine.com

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Rajiv Moté @rajivmote.bsky.social · 19h

Please say more. How does this work? Is it organized? What does it mean to shut things down? What are the lines of pressure?

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Rajiv Moté @rajivmote.bsky.social · 20h

I never imagined, back when I first read it, how much Searle's Chinese Room thought experiment would come up when discussing the "intelligence" of modern technology today.

Eryk Salvaggio @eryk.bsky.social · 21h

I’ve just learned that John Searle, whose Chinese Room thought experiment is often used to challenge ideas of “understanding” in LLMs, died at age 93 on Sunday. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...

John Searle obituary

American philosopher whose Chinese Room thought experiment rebuts the idea that computers can think as humans do

www.theguardian.com

Reposted by Rajiv Moté

Patrick Chovanec @prchovanec.bsky.social · 1d

Shot a priest in the head with a pepper ball, just for fun.
There was absolutely no threat here.

Kurt @flglchicago.bsky.social · 1d

Here’s video of the incident

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Rajiv Moté @rajivmote.bsky.social · 1d

In the moment, absolutely nothing can legally stop a fed but his own conscience. And as we've seen, they HATE us.

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Rajiv Moté @rajivmote.bsky.social · 1d

I have to say, I'm pretty shaken. When the federal government has declared war on Democratic cities and labeled anti-fascists as domestic terrorists, AND local law enforcement can't lift a finger to protect us lest they be labeled insurrectionists... We're in real danger.

The TRiiBE @thetriibe.com · 1d

NEW — Some TRiiBE readers, among many others on the internet, have been suggesting that the Chicago police arrest ICE agents for their misconduct.

TRiiBE publisher @morganelisej.thetriibe.com put out this explainer video, breaking down the legality for y’all.

youtube.com/shorts/WDHFe...

Can local police arrest ICE?

YouTube video by The TRiiBE

youtube.com

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Rajiv Moté @rajivmote.bsky.social · 1d

This is so dismaying. We have nobody but ourselves to defend us, and only sympathetic courts to avenge us.

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Reposted by Rajiv Moté

The TRiiBE @thetriibe.com · 1d

NEW — Some TRiiBE readers, among many others on the internet, have been suggesting that the Chicago police arrest ICE agents for their misconduct.

TRiiBE publisher @morganelisej.thetriibe.com put out this explainer video, breaking down the legality for y’all.

youtube.com/shorts/WDHFe...

Can local police arrest ICE?

YouTube video by The TRiiBE

youtube.com

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Reposted by Rajiv Moté

Justin Hendrix @justinhendrix.bsky.social · 1d

Important article for anyone following AI and AI policy.

"In the process, [NVIDIA and OpenAI are] now seen as playing a key role in ratcheting up the risks of a possible AI bubble by inflating the market and binding the fates of numerous companies together. "

Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 1d

NVIDIA and OpenAi:

Concerns that their “increasingly complex and interconnected web of business transactions is artificially propping up the trillion-dollar AI boom.“

@bloomberg.com $NVDA 👀
www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

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Reposted by Rajiv Moté

💞Sabrina💞 @sabrinarina.bsky.social · 1d

Oregon National Guard Adjutant General, General Gronewold says if they are federalized, that he will advise the Title 10 commander to utilize National Guard Troops to PROTECT protesters at ICE facilities. This is the right answer.

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