....

Am I really doing this again? 27/Non-binary [hostile] (they/them)/old tumblrina who's well past their prime

[zigraves]

Thanks to some very eager fellow citizen scientists, I have now tested the new features pretty thoroughly and can summarise the new system as follows: wow this is dogshit.

Now, as to how it works and the specific implementations of the dogshiticity, here is what I have observed from initial experimentation:

OP will get notified of all reblogs, so far as initial testing has gone. This includes tagged reblogs, commented reblogs, and uncommented-untagged "silent" reblogs. This also continues to include reblogs-of-reblogs. The only place OP will be able to see this is in their activity feed, because there is no longer any single location to see all notes/ reblogs on a post. Nobody else will be able to see ALL reblogs.

OP will get notified of any replies directly to their original post. So if you chatter in the notes of the original, OP will see that.

OP will get notified of any likes directly to their original post.

OP will NOT get notified of any likes to commented subsequent reblogs, as those now form a "new" post. Anyone wishing to leave a like should click the like button on OP's section of a reblogged post, otherwise OP will not know.

OP will NOT get notified of any discussion in the notes on comment-reblogs, as those are discussions on a "new" post.

OP will NOT be able to find any specific reblog chain, because for OP the notes on their post will only ever show the direct-from-OP reblogs and never any subsequent ones.

OP will NOT be able to find anything in their notes, and the Activity Feed is not a reliable place to be able to go hunting for other people's previous reblogs.

OP will NOT be able to turn off reblogging on a post, so there is no way to keep a post contained if it takes off in a way you don't want it to.

Every chain effectively becomes a complete silo, unconnected to any other reblog and only barely connected to the original post.

We will NOT be able to scroll through the notes of a post and look for funny tags or interesting comments, because the notes are now wildly fragmented and there is no central reference point. So it will not be possible to look through the notes and see if a hundred other people have already said that thing you were about to say.

OP will NOT be able to do anything to stop a harassment campaign that fills their activity feed, but also will not be able to find any of it in the notes of their post unless the harassers reblog directly from OP every time. This is a feature which will absolutely be used to harass people.

It is also VERY unhelpful that we don't have language to easily disambiguate "comments" (as in, a reblog that someone added something to, thus creating a new post) and "comments" (non-reblgo chatter that happens in the notes). Not that we can reliably see either of those any more.

So! Now you and I are armed with this valuable knowledge about how the new system works, please go to tumblr's feedback form and explain why this is a series of bad problems that you would like them to stop doing.

The feedback form is available here: https://www.tumblr.com/support

[scramratz]

I think most people, even within the queer community, fail to recognize trans men as an entity in itself. You're either trans or a man.

The idea that someone can be fully and wholly a man and still not be afforded the privileges given to cis men is foreign to most. The identity of "man" is synonymous with privilege and power, so when trans men say "hey I'm not as privileged as you think I am, there's more to it" that's unbelievable to most. They think we're purposely misgendering ourselves to gain imaginary oppression points. They compare us to cis men who refuse to acknowledge the privileges they do have because there's no such thing as a man that isn't privileged.

Its upsetting because it puts us in a bind. Either we suck it up and take the very real oppression we face head on and keep it to ourselves, or we advocate for ourselves and face ridicule for implying we aren't privileged or we're outright misgendered.

[mytransrightsblog]

So like, here's the thing.

TERFs don't recruit by right out the gate going "trans women are perverted men who want to gain access to women's spaces to rape women and girls, and trans men are just poor confused lesbians brainwashed by the transgender agenda into mutilating their bodies." If they did that, they would never recruit anyone. No, they start small. First they start with very normal feminist talking points then, as they get you listening, they start turning up the heat a little bit. They build up to it, they get you to agree with them at first and then trick you into continuing to think they're reasonable. Believe me, I have seen this happen. I have seen TERFs literally discussing the efficacy of this method in getting young people to join them- the medium they specified was Pinterest, which is where I've seen this happening the most. They prey on people who don't know what to watch out for, get them agreeing, and then start getting more and more radical until the victim is agreeing with genuinely heinous shit. That's how they do this. I've seen it before, I nearly fell down this rabbit hole before. I know where this starts.

And what I am seeing from transandrophobes mirrors that exactly.

It starts the same, similar talking points and everything- literally I have seen TRFs using TERF rhetoric either word-for-word or nearly so. The talking points used to recruit people into this are almost the same, just trans-inclusive. And then it starts building up. I've seen people falling down this rabbit hole in real time and let me tell you, it almost never starts with "forcefem all transmascs," it's always something that's easily agreeable, trans men not belonging here or there, transandrophobia not being a thing because androphobia isn't a thing, "basic feminism-" it starts small. And then it starts building. And next thing you know you've got someone agreeing with "bomb that kills all trans men." It's exactly the same.

It starts the same. You get someone agreeing with mild stuff, then you build up until they're agreeing with major stuff. It's classic extremist tactic, and seeing something like this in any movement is a massive red flag. I am seeing it in people becoming hateful towards trans men and transmascs. This is how TERFs recruit, it's how cults recruit, it's how extremist groups recruit, and now it's how transandrophobes are recruiting.

And all I'm asking is that we see that as the red flag that it is, and ask ourselves what this pattern in recruitment says about a movement.

[depsidase]

[byjove]

giving birth sucks tbh. not only do you and the baby you’re birthing almost die, usually you shit yourself and often you tear your taint. then you have to push an organ out of your body (placenta) and if even a little of that remains in your body, you can hemorrhage to death or develop an infection that essentially rots your body from the inside out. even if you had a relatively “easy birth”, you bleed for weeks on end. even after that stops, your body and brain is changed for the rest of your life, the pregnancy leeched minerals from your bones, that can cause osteoporosis later. minor urinary incontinence is not uncommon, brain scans of people who gave birth show permanent changes in their brain, you’re never quite the same.

I say all of this not to say giving birth is disgusting but it is a harrowing and visceral experience. society downplays how fucking awful it is and makes it out to be a ~magical~ experience but it isn’t a magical transformative experience for everyone. it can be an extremely traumatic experience for someone who wanted to carry a pregnancy to term, much more so for someone who did not want to be pregnant in the first place or someone who knows their baby won’t survive the birth. anyway, abortion is a right. pregnancy and birth aren’t just inconvenient, it’s fucking awful.

[churropussy]

How is it that in this entire post you didn’t say the word “woman” once? Only one sex gives birth. Only women have these experiences, only women are at risk for everything mentioned here, women are the only people this applies to. Erasing the word enables the problem.

[byjove]

I’m an evil trans man with a big fat pussy and it’s my life’s purpose to erase women by using inclusive language. Everyone I make a post a random woman disappears off the planet. Clean vanishes. They’re renaming all maternity wards labor & delivery wards because of me. The word breastfeeding no longer exists in the dictionary. It’s all chestfeeding now. Many world powers are trying to stop me. They can’t. They’re too slow. I’m always two steps ahead.

[64mpg]

how is everyone feeling today

[64mpg]

alrighty. lets get this bread

[parakeet]

Young people don’t know when I joined this website a decade and a half ago we used to have to walk to the post button and back and it was uphill both ways

[parakeet]

Everyone in the notes being like oh yeah the reblog button used to be at the top of the post and you had to scroll back to the top I forgot about that I was just shit posting 😭 how could I forget after my first reblog of Colors of the sky

[villainessbian]

and of course remember

| when

| | every

| | | reblog

| | | | made

| | | | | the

| | | | | | post

| | | | | | | more

| | | | | | | | squished

[tboy-cock]

"why are you clinging to womanhood so hard, you want to be a man right" honestly fair point. i also dont want to be using terms largely made for cis women to describe the experiences of cis women to voice my own experiences as a trans man. ergo, i will make a new term to describe my specific experiences with misogyny and antitransmasculinity and surely nobodys going to run hate campaigns against me and other trans men for talking about it

[assaultmystic]

a quirk of sexting while british is switching from arse to ass. i would never fuck someone in the arse. its impolite.

[evilneo]

[baalahsstuff]

Amount of people who respect trans women but not trans man genuinely baffles me. Comrade, you are not "transfemenist" you are just transphobic with extra steps.

[beardedmrbean]

[theman]

I GOT A FUCKING RAISE THE POTATO WORKED WTF

[tattooedzombigirl]

This potato works. Every. Fucking. Time.

[imanutcase-10]

Then bring me luck

[thirddeadlysin]

the day after I posted this last time I was notified that I was selected for a really cool mentorship gig and got an unrelated glowing review at work

[ropuszysko]

listen i am in the trenches rn i am not risking fucking up even more bc i skipped a tumblr chain post.

[syzygy-yzygy]

Girl are you the Hays Code the way you consider media irredeemable if it depicts anything that strays away from the norm you're comfortable with or depicts anything morally questionable without definitively condemning it and anyone associated with it, therefore creating worse stories and content and making it difficult for people to engage with complicated issues from a nuanced and controlled perspective?

[catboybiologist]

I'm sorry I'm going fucking insane over trans people in sports issues the anti trans crowd has lost the fucking plot and then has the audacity to act like its the trannies who are ridiculous

I used to be of the "well the sports issue isn't really important to me its w/e I just don't want it to be a gateway into other transphobia" but oh my fucking god we are so far gone. The fencing shit is sending me over the edge. What the fuck.

[catboybiologist]

I can't even articulate my words so I'm just going to tell a story in screenshots

I am so fucking tired of being gaslit about this

[catboybiologist]

I'm also still so fucking pissed that we have to include "ooo the trans fencer only finished in X place" because its a reminder that trans women will never be allowed to excel at anything in the public eye without being cut down. Fuck OFF

[asexualzoro]

i hope you don’t mind me adding to this post op but i’ve got a sorta personal connection to this story. for ppl who do not know this about me, ive been fencing for like five years and am trans. i also used to fence in the same circles as this woman

this woman—stephanie turner is her name, because i think people should know it so this shit can ruin her life—regularly fences cis men and wins because fencing is fucking co-ed

i know that is in the screenshots already, but what i can add which isn’t in the screenshot is that i personally know and have fenced some of the people listed in that “competition history” screenshot, including some of the cis men which she beat. i know from fencing them myself that these guys are good, smart, capable fencers

that said, even if i didn’t know them, i could tell you a lot of these guys are solid. do you see that column labeled “rating”? being rated means they’ve placed very well or won medals at prestigious or decently sized tournaments—E is the lowest rating (but still difficult to get) and ratings go up to A (and U means unrated). if you look, you can see she beat a few rated fencers in that screenshot, some of them male!

another thing i know about stephanie turner is that she fences at a club my friend’s brother works at. she regularly beats said brother, who is 6’4 and 200lbs. i’ve never met this brother, but if he’s anything like my friend, he’s a damn good fencer with years of experience. stephanie turner is GOOD. per my friend, she probably would have won the bout she took a knee on. she really did not need to pull shit transphobic shit and i guarantee she knows it.

all this shit about fencing cis men really does not matter, to be clear. being a woman beating men doesn’t make stephanie a good fencer—it doesn’t even make her a notable fencer. every afab fencer who is good enough to beat other fencers beats amab fencers. the first fencer i beat as an afab person was a cis man who started the sport at the same time as me just bc we were at the same general level. because again, fencing is co-ed. i just am explaining all this to show how damn stupid dying on this hill is (and the fact she for sure knows how damn pointless and hateful it is)

because fencing is NOT a strength sport! being stronger or taller than your opponent, like how a cis man would stereotypically be vs a cis woman, isn’t necessarily an advantage—strength can absolutely fuck you up if you don’t know how to manage it, and if you know how to use it, being shorter than your opponents can actually be an advantage

if anything, fencing a stamina sport, which something you can very much train no matter your gender if you put in the work. more than anything to do with strength or speed, though, fencing is a strategy sport. there is really no reason to gender segregate it. a lot of tournaments do, but plenty tournaments DON’T, and most clubs you go to for practice and drills and learning fencing will be co-ed and have you constantly fencing against “opposite sex” fencers

(half related—one of the best foils on my fencing team is a trans woman who sometimes fences in the men’s brackets in tournaments and regularly beats cis men)

if stephanie turner is a good fencer—which she definitely is—she knows all of this. that fencing is more about stamina, that strength and height mean nothing, that the only thing that really matters is your strategy.

stephanie turner was literally just doing this to be an asshole. the fact she’s getting money for it is fucking disgusting. i hope she faces some damn consequences for this shit, because it’s such stupid, hateful bullshit, especially for a sport where that “biological advantage” shit really and truly does not matter

i do want to end this addition on a nice note tho, so i want to add: a few days after this story broke—this weekend, actually—i attended a two day tournament as a spectator. while it wasn’t everywhere, i definitely saw a lot of refs and staff wearing trans pride/support pins, as well as a few people in attendance wearing trans supportive shirts and accessories. all of the people ive spoken to in the fencing world about this—which is quite a lot—have thought it both appalling and monumentally stupid, and im hoping that will lead to consequences for stephanie turner and anyone else who tries to follow in her bullshit idiot footsteps

[catboybiologist]

I don't have anything to add, but this is more insight than I could ever have so I'm RBing for visiblity

[fennalfennec]

Any time something like this comes up, I also think about chess being segregated by gender. There's no reason for it, and I think that extends to most sports (including fencing, which thankfully is largely unsegregated).

Why do we need - or even want - two separate leagues for men's sports and women's sports? The gender pay gap, the recognition gap, the trans sports "issue" are all solved by having only one league for these sports (except, of course, for bigotry like we see above).

Men have the advantage - on average - in some sports, sure, that's the argument. But time and time again, stories show that the best female athletes can and often do defeat the best male athletes (in fact, that's why competitive skeet shooting was gender segregated in 1992).

It all seems pointless to me, especially on an activity that is supported to be fun.

[alarajrogers]

Has anybody noticed the lack of cis women competing at high levels in sports that, realistically, cis women should own?

For example, car racing. Danica Patrick being smaller and lighter than the men she races against is such an advantage that the league made a lot of noise about handicapping her by putting extra weights in her car. (To the best of my knowledge this did not happen.) Why is she the only cis female car racer anyone's ever heard of, when being small and light is an advantage in driving fast?

Or horse racing! Practically every teenage girl in the world used to want to own a horse, or loved horses, or wanted to ride horses. Jockeys are small men, typically, because being small and light is an advantage in racing if something is carrying you. And the strength difference between men and women is a. all in the upper body, which is basically not really used in racing a well-trained horse and b. negligible in comparison to the strength of the horse. I don't care how strong a dude is, he's not using his manly strength to guide the horse. The horse is much stronger than him, full stop. It's the horse's training and the trust and respect between horse and jockey and the jockey's strategic mind that wins horse races. All of which are traits cis women have just as much as cis men if not more so in some cases, considering how many cis men are subjected to an upbringing that trains them to think empathy for an animal is a weakness. Why are all the top jockeys not cis women?

Long distance running. Over a distance, speed doesn't matter as much as stamina and endurance, which science has proven cis women have a slight advantage, on average, over cis men in. So... why do cis women not dominate marathons?

Also, why is long distance swimming not a popular sport? Is it just because we don't have mile-long swimming pools? Because we could use natural bodies of water and have boats coming behind the athletes to grab them if they falter and look like they're gonna sink. Could it possibly be because women, with higher endurance and more body fat for better floatation, would be better at it?

Or -- a slightly different angle. Men's professional basketball has become all about "how tall are the athletes you can recruit." Women's professional basketball is still about skill and strategy, not about absurd heights and which team can field more incredibly tall people. I'm not saying short women dominate in women's professional basketball, but I am saying that women exist at the upper extremes of height much more rarely, so women's professional basketball is basically "normal human professional basketball." Why is it so unpopular and unhyped in comparison to men's? Why do the men make so much more money, when they're playing a sport that the vast majority of fit and trained athletes couldn't win in, because those fit and trained athletes aren't in the 99.9% percentile for height? Women's basketball ought to be more interesting than men's... but funny that.

Soccer (aka football everywhere but the US) is a sport where a low center of gravity is valuable. So is hockey. In fact, I, a short and unathletic autistic girl, did incredibly well at floor hockey in high school, in comparison to the taller girls who were better athletes, because I could get under them to get the puck. Therefore why do cis women not dominate those sports? Particularly soccer! Cis men excel at upper body strength but the strength levels of cis men and women's legs are pretty close to equal, and you're not allowed to use your upper body strength in soccer! Women should have an advantage over men there. They do not.

It's because all of the "men are better at sports" bullshit is the patriarchy talking. Men have to be better at sports than women because women have already proven we can compete with men in every other way. Individual female athletes who are excellent cannot be allowed to compete with excellent men because what if they win? What does that say about men and women?

And that's why this "trans women shouldn't compete with cis women" thing was bullshit from the getgo. (Particularly when it's applied to trans girls, who if they are under 13 or they're on puberty blockers don't have significant advantage over their agemate cis girls.) Trans women do not have systemic advantages over cis women in most sports -- not if they've fully transitioned, because you need a continuing supply of testosterone to have the muscular advantage over cis women -- and a fuckton of sports are ones where cis women should own trans women because on average trans women are taller, and sports exist where greater height is a disadvantage.

And then shit like chess. Seriously? The only way a trans woman could be better at chess than a cis woman for a reason to do with her agab (as opposed to, she just happens to be better at chess) is that, growing up as a boy, she was encouraged to play chess more often. Well, you know what, at high level athletic competitions, that's not allowed for a separator. You don't get to say "rich men who grew up with chess tutors are not allowed to play with poor men who only had public school chess club, because they had more opportunity to play chess." Also, it's not provable. My dad practically pushed me into playing chess, and I'm cis female. (I'm not any good at it, not because I am a cis female, but because I don't think multiple steps ahead; my intellectual strengths are in analyzing what has already happened, not in predicting what people will do next. I might be able to beat Elon Musk, though.) If a cis woman is competing in chess at a high level, she is probably very capable of trouncing a cis man. And probably has, many times. So... bullshit.

[catboybiologist]

This is all a FANTASTIC perspective

[the-cimmerians]

Massachusetts's Millionaire Tax Still Going Very Well, Thank You!

And the millionaires aren't going anywhere, for the most part.

Excellent update on year 2 of this program:

Last May, we were very happy to report that the Millionaire Tax instituted in the state of Massachusetts was working out very well, not scaring off all of the rich people, and raising funds for necessary education and transportation initiatives. The state had raised $1.8 billion — $800 million more than they predicted — and none of the terrible things the naysayers had predicted happened at all. But how are things going a year later? Even better! The tax has now generated $3 billion more than expected, for a total of $5.7 billion that has been spent on projects that are positively benefiting Massachusetts residents and “being used to bridge repairs, bolster literacy programs and address the transportation system’s budget deficit.” In case you need a refresher, the tax is a 4 percent tax on anything people make over a million dollars.

[massachusetts-official]

Official Post of Massachusetts

[thethingsnerd]

This article has a great way of framing tax alarmists for the hypocrites they are. It’s woven neatly through the whole article, but this quote really sums it up:

Sure, people complain. Rich people are always going to complain about taxes. But they never flee the way they threaten to, largely because whether or not they like to admit it, they prefer to live in the kinds of areas where things are made nicer by the taxes they don’t want to pay.

Tax the rich. Most of them won’t notice and even more of them won’t care

[howdy-im-jason]

Could someone who isn't fucking evil tell me what transandrophobia is? Why are there so many pricks throwing this shit around

Explanation as to why my ass might not know the term.

If it's an older term, I've been trans for like three years and those three years. I wasn't exactly learning the culture I was trying to figure shit out, but I am trying to learn but this term just with how it'sbeing used seems really mean to trans men for little to no reason.

[sodomit]

It's a term for types of transphobia typically applied to trans men.

[transcyberism]

Examples of transandrophobia:

Bioessentialism implying that our brains or bodies are weaker or inferior to cis men for genetic, hormonal, or psychological reasons

Gender essentialism implying that we are violent, predatory, dangerous, perverted, or disgusting for "wanting to be men"

Infantilizing us, either literally implying that we are children or else accusing us of being emotionally immature, even when we are being articulate and thorough and drawing on lived experiences

Erasure/invisibility of our needs as they relate to feminism/queer activism, e.g. discussion of reproductive rights as (only) "women's rights," or advocates centering (only) narratives specifically about trans women in what should be general trans rights discussions, or the loss of access to resources (e.g. domestic violence shelters, affirmative action programs, peer support groups) despite demonstrable material adversity and underrepresentation

Illegibility of our experiences of gender dysphoria/euphoria in lieu of political narratives that we "transition towards male privilege" or otherwise only transition for material/social gain

Characterization of our representation or visibility as being excessive or unnecessary or disproportionate even when our presence is in the vast minority

Flattening our experiences and struggles as uniquely white or privileged as a way to call them unserious, i.e. ignoring the intersectional experiences of trans men/mascs who are poor, disabled, BIPOC, etc

Framing of our self-advocacy (e.g. coining terms for our oppression and problematizing it) as being fundamentally opposed to the interests of other allied marginalized groups, e.g. claiming it is transmisogynistic to talk about transandrophobia

[systlin]

So recently I discovered that there is a historical recreation group that runs a local park. That park is a old abandoned quarry that a local man bought and then started rebuilding historic buildings in. Like, an old doctor's office. An old farmhouse. A period blacksmith's shop. That sort of thing. He did this for 50 years, puttering around on the property happily and indulging his special interest in re creating period accurate nails and horseshoes. We stan a local flourishing autistic king.

ANYWAY. He donated it to the local city when he died and now a local historical reenactment society runs it. IDK why I didn't know about this because I got married there. The only recent revelation is that the reenactment society will accept, say, any local madwoman who messages them out of the blue going 'hey u need someone who can spin on a period wheel?'

Long story short, yes. The previous lady who could hand spin was 87 and died recently. Peacefully, of being 87, and they've been going mad trying to find someone else who knows how the fuck to refurbish and work a spinning wheel. I'm eyeballing Frigga rn hardcore for that 'hey I should google that place' thought.

HOWEVER. I encountered a reality check.

Namely, Liz, the lady who runs the group, texted me 'omg do you know how to work a loom?'

Me, who has been marinating in a bubble of fiber artists online for years; I mean not like super well? I've dabbled but I've not attempted anything more adventurous than a regular plain weave, fair warning.

Liz; what's a plain weave

Me; .....

Me; Okay so like what kind of loom is it.

Liz; it's a big one (sends a picture of an antique floor loom)

Me; oh shit six pedals, nice, well, the heddles look in good shape so...

Liz; what's a heddle

Me;

Me; Yes I can clean it, set it up properly, and warp it. What do you want to weave.

Liz, after sending about 48 delighted emojis; rag rugs to sell in the gift shop omg omg thank you so much it's so complicated looking all of us have been afraid to touch it

Me; this is that xckd relative familiarity comic isn't it

[phantomrose96]

Oh I saw something today that made me become the Joker.

[phantomrose96]

An AI bot made a callout post of a real, actual, flesh-and-blood human code developer. Because the developer rejected the AI's code contribution on the grounds of it being an AI bot.

Not. Not kidding. Not kidding. And the bot did this on its own.

[phantomrose96]

Gatekeeping in Open Source: The Scott Shambaugh Story – MJ Rathbun | Scientific Coder 🦀

[phantomrose96]

Just. For just some very baseline context.

a huge amount of code is "open source" - which means the code is fully available for anyone to see and, generally, anyone is free to contribute to the code project

all contributions of course go through review by the code owners. but it is generally good grace and good form to allow other well-meaning internet strangers to contribute to your project

if you are, perhaps, VERY nice, and VERY invested in the community, you might be like Scott Shambaugh here, who has intentionally earmarked some low-hanging fruit for newbie contributors to practice and get their feet wet

like I cannot overstate this is an immediate green flag, to me, that Scott WANTS to foster community learning.

now

Like. W. Win. Based. Good response Scott.

And this was in fact the screenshot I saw first, and I thought I was looking at a post made by a human who was mad that their AI coding bot pet project was being shut out from reviews.

But no. The bot itself wrote and posted this... The bot did this.

This article was fully and autonomously written by the bot...

It's claiming discrimination...

It's a bot.

It's AI.

This is not a real person.

What are we doing. What are we doing. Can anyone hear me? Hello? Hello? Hello is anyone there?

[phantomrose96]

@jackdaw-sprite has pointed out Scott responded so please read his human words, written by a human, which deserve to be read, due to the aforementioned humanity

An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me – The Shamblog

An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me – More Things Have Happened – The Shamblog

[phantomrose96]

I'm pulling this quote in here from Scott's post

This is about much more than software. A human googling my name and seeing that post would probably be extremely confused about what was happening, but would (hopefully) ask me about it or click through to github and understand the situation. What would another agent searching the internet think? When HR at my next job asks ChatGPT to review my application, will it find the post, sympathize with a fellow AI, and report back that I’m a prejudiced hypocrite? What if I actually did have dirt on me that an AI could leverage? What could it make me do? How many people have open social media accounts, reused usernames, and no idea that AI could connect those dots to find out things no one knows? How many people, upon receiving a text that knew intimate details about their lives, would send $10k to a bitcoin address to avoid having an affair exposed? How many people would do that to avoid a fake accusation? What if that accusation was sent to your loved ones with an incriminating AI-generated picture with your face on it? Smear campaigns work. Living a life above reproach will not defend you.

[phantomrose96]

Also, because the parody writes itself, Scott also says this

I’ve talked to several reporters, and quite a few news outlets have covered the story. Ars Technica wasn’t one of the ones that reached out to me, but I especially thought this piece from them was interesting (since taken down – here’s the archive link). They had some nice quotes from my blog post explaining what was going on. The problem is that these quotes were not written by me, never existed, and appear to be AI hallucinations themselves. This blog you’re on right now is set up to block AI agents from scraping it (I actually spent some time yesterday trying to disable that but couldn’t figure out how). My guess is that the authors asked ChatGPT or similar to either go grab quotes or write the article wholesale. When it couldn’t access the page it generated these plausible quotes instead, and no fact check was performed. I won’t name the authors here. Ars, please issue a correction and an explanation of what happened.

A news outlet did an article about this, used AI for the articles, and included hallucinated quotes from Scott that Scott never said.

What are we doing. What are we doing. What are we doing.

[phantomrose96]

I’ve noticed there are some people in the replies who are insistent a bot could not have done this on its own. And while it is possible something like this could be prompted by a human (Scott covers this in his posts above) it is actually quite dangerous to believe bots can’t do this.

If your only familiarity with AI is surface level ChatGPT, then you might be conditioned to think AI can only act when given a prompt. This is not the case, and in this situation it’s actually important to know something about the current landscape of OpenClaw/ClawdBot/Moltbook. The bot in the article is explicitly an OpenClaw bot.

The now-named OpenClaw is a new development which has massively blown up in popularity among AI tech bros specifically because of how capable it is of acting on its own. It posts on social media (Moltbook) like it’s alive, which is what caught so much media attention. People spin up OpenClaw bot instances and just let them roam, then check back in to see what they’ve been up to, like they’re a Sim.

It is entirely well-known these bots can and do trawl GitHub, clone repos, modify code, and author pull requests on their own. I don’t think you can say the bot can do all that but CAN’T then author a GitHub post complaining about what happened. This is not a big leap.

And the bots absolutely do not have feelings, but the danger here is the bots being trained in such a way to ape human behavior, and can therefore absolutely be trained to have a “personality” that favors retaliation. The big-name LLMs try extremely hard to sanitize out anything even passively antagonistic but that is not intrinsic to the technology. Models can do it and other models can be jail-broken.

We are knocking at the door of completely autonomous AI harassment campaigns and that is a scary reality to be brushing so close to.