Linked List: September 4, 2024

Wednesday, 4 September 2024

Liz Cheney: ‘Not Only Am I Not Voting for Donald Trump, but I Will Be Voting for Kamala Harris’ ★

Annie Karni, reporting for The New York Times:

During an event at Duke University, Ms. Cheney told students that it was not enough for her to simply oppose the former president, if she intended to do whatever was necessary to prevent Mr. Trump from winning the White House again, as she has long said she would.

“I don’t believe we have the luxury of writing in candidates’ names, particularly in swing states,” Ms. Cheney said, speaking to students in the hotly contested state of North Carolina. “As a conservative, as someone who believes in and cares about the Constitution, I have thought deeply about this and because of the danger that Donald Trump poses, not only am I not voting for Donald Trump, but I will be voting for Kamala Harris.”

The room erupted in cheers after she made her unexpected announcement.

I have so much respect for Cheney. Her father too, but he’s retired. Liz Cheney took this principled stand while she was one of the most influential Republicans in the nation. I get being a conservative, politically. I get being opposed to the Democratic Party, politically. Liz Cheney is a conservative and — like her father — endorses very different policies than Kamala Harris. But (lowercase ‘d’) democratic politics ought to be viewed very much like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs are in psychology. Some things matter more than others. And nothing — not climate change or the environment, not reproductive rights, and certainly not fucking tax rates — nothing matters more than support for democracy itself and the rule of law. The only way we’re going to get those other things right — which are really, really important — is through democratic governance and the rule of law.

Trump is 100 percent anti-Democratic-Party but he’s no conservative. I don’t support or endorse a Reagan/Bush/Cheney political viewpoint, but that viewpoint is coherent. Trump espouses no coherent views at all. He literally tried to overthrow the results of the 2020 election. He’s a criminal. He’s mentally deranged, decrepitly old, and failing before our eyes. “I don’t like Democrats” is — with Trump on the ballot and polling within the margin of error of winning — not high enough on the political hierarchy of needs to cast one’s vote for anyone but Kamala Harris.

If the Democratic candidate were a Trump-like decrepit crooked lunatic, I wouldn’t hesitate, for a second, to vote for, say, Republican Liz Cheney for president. None of this namby-pamby bullshit about “writing in” a non-candidate’s name. No protest voting for a third-party candidate. The next president is either going to be Kamala Harris or Donald Trump, and only one of the two believes in anything at all — anything — that this great country stands for.

Trump Threatens Zuckerberg With ‘Life in Prison’ in New Book ★

Alex Isenstadt, writing for Politico:

“Save America,” a Trump-authored coffee table book being released Sept. 3, includes an undated photograph of Trump meeting with Zuckerberg in the White House. Under the photo, Trump writes that Zuckerberg “would come to the Oval Office to see me. He would bring his very nice wife to dinners, be as nice as anyone could be, while always plotting to install shameful Lock Boxes in a true PLOT AGAINST THE PRESIDENT,” Trump added, referring to a $420 million contribution Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, made during the 2020 election to fund election infrastructure.

“He told me there was nobody like Trump on Facebook. But at the same time, and for whatever reason, steered it against me,” Trump continues. “We are watching him closely, and if he does anything illegal this time he will spend the rest of his life in prison — as will others who cheat in the 2024 Presidential Election.”

I was not aware that “steering” a social network against a presidential candidate was not only illegal, but subject to life in prison. Elon Musk better be careful with anti-Kamala-Harris posts like this one, because I’m sure Trump feels just as strongly about “steering” in either direction. The law’s the law, and Donald J. Trump is a stickler for the law — not some sort of vindictive thin-skinned crackpot megalomaniac who is obsessed with “life in prison” because it’s looking more and more like that’s his own fate.

The Secret Inside One Million Checkboxes ★

Last year Nolen Royalty made a website called One Million Checkboxes, which presented to the user exactly what it claimed on the tin. The gimmick was that the million checkboxes were shared globally. If I toggled checkbox 206,028 in my browser, you’d see checkbox 206,028 flip state in your browser. Totally pointless. Totally fun.

Here, Royalty tells the story of how the site was used by bot-writing teenage hackers:

Lots of people were mad about bots on OMCB. I’m not going to link to anything here — I don’t want to direct negative attention at anyone — but I got hundreds of messages about bots. The most popular tweet about OMCB complained about bots. People … did not like bots.

And I get it! The typical ways that folks — especially folks who don’t program — bump into bots are things like ticket scalping and restaurant reservation bots. Bots that feel selfish and unfair and antisocial.

And there certainly was botting that you could call antisocial. Folks wrote tiny javascript boxes to uncheck every box that they could — I know this because they excitedly told me. [...]

What this discord did was so cool — so surprising — so creative. It reminded me of me — except they were 10 times the developer I was then (and frankly, better developers than I am now). Getting to watch it live — getting to provide some encouragement, to see what they were doing and respond with praise and pride instead of anger — was deeply meaningful to me. I still tear up when I think about it.

Via Jason Kottke, who aptly observes that the way the hackers got in touch with Royalty “reminds me of the palimpsest (layered communication) that the aliens use to communicate with Earth in Carl Sagan’s Contact (and the 1997 movie).”

Oprah Winfrey Is Hosting a Prime-Time TV Special on AI ★

Benj Edwards:

On Thursday, ABC announced an upcoming TV special titled, “AI and the Future of Us: An Oprah Winfrey Special.” The one-hour show, set to air on September 12, aims to explore AI’s impact on daily life and will feature interviews with figures in the tech industry, like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Bill Gates. Soon after the announcement, some AI critics began questioning the guest list and the framing of the show in general. [...]

In a nod to present-day content creation, YouTube creator Marques Brownlee will appear on the show and reportedly walk Winfrey through “mind-blowing demonstrations of AI’s capabilities.”

Brownlee’s involvement received special attention from some critics online. “Marques Brownlee should be absolutely ashamed of himself,” tweeted PR consultant and frequent AI critic Ed Zitron, who frequently heaps scorn on generative AI in his own newsletter. “What a disgraceful thing to be associated with.”

What a jackassed take from Zitron. I mean think about it. Imagine that Oprah’s producers get in touch with MKBHD to ask if he’d like to participate in a prime-time network TV special about AI, specifically to show cool AI use cases, and he was like, “Nah, I don’t think this special is going to sufficiently present the viewpoint of a wide enough array of AI critics.”

These galaxy-brain peanut gallerians haven’t even seen clips from the show, let alone the entire special itself. They’re judging it by the guest list. A guest list that in fact includes obvious critics and skeptics. Edwards:

Other guests include Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin from the Center for Humane Technology, who aim to highlight “emerging risks posed by powerful and superintelligent AI,” an existential risk topic that has its own critics. And FBI Director Christopher Wray will reveal “the terrifying ways criminals and foreign adversaries are using AI,” while author Marilynne Robinson will reflect on “AI’s threat to human values.”

It’s also quite likely that invited guests weren’t told who the other interview subjects were. That’s just not how these things work. Oprah’s production surely shot dozens of hours of interviews to cut into a one-hour special — some of the subjects were likely left on the cutting-room floor.

If you don’t think it’s anything short of fucking cool that Marques Brownlee is getting a spot to show off cool AI use cases to Oprah in a prime-time network TV special, you’re a jackass. And if you’re going to argue that there are no cool AI use cases, you’re a liar.