MMay

Pop Culture Idiot Savant

[MMay @MMayeron]

We all agree Your Friends and Neighbors just jumped the shark, right?

[AI Highlight @AIHighlight]

🚨BREAKING: Two researchers from UPenn and Boston University just published a paper that should be uncomfortable reading for every CEO automating their workforce right now.

The argument is straightforward. Every company replacing workers with AI is also eliminating its own future customers. Laid off workers stop spending. Enough of them stop spending and nobody can afford to buy anything. The companies that fired everyone end up selling into an economy with no purchasing power left.

Every executive can see this. The math is not complicated. But here is why nobody stops.

If you do not automate, your competitor does. They cut costs, lower prices, take your market share, and you collapse anyway. So every company automates knowing it is collectively destructive because the alternative is dying alone while everyone else survives. The researchers proved this is a Prisoner's Dilemma playing out in real time.

The numbers are already moving. Block cut nearly half its 10,000 employees this year. Jack Dorsey said AI made those roles unnecessary and that within the next year the majority of companies will reach the same conclusion. Salesforce replaced 4,000 customer support agents with AI. Goldman Sachs deployed a coding tool that lets one engineer do the work of five. Over 100,000 tech workers were laid off in 2025 and AI was cited as the primary driver in more than half those cases. 80% of US workers hold jobs with tasks susceptible to AI automation.

The researchers tested every proposed solution. Universal basic income does not change a single company's incentive to automate. Capital income taxes adjust profit levels but not the per-task decision to replace a human. Collective bargaining cannot hold because automating is always the dominant strategy.

They also identified what they call a Red Queen effect. Better AI does not solve the problem, it accelerates it. Every company chases faster automation to gain market share over rivals but at the end everyone has automated equally, the gains cancel out, and the only thing left is more destroyed demand.

The one thing the math says could work is a Pigouvian automation tax. A per-task charge that forces companies to account for the demand they destroy each time they replace a worker.

The conclusion is that this is not a transfer of wealth from workers to owners. Both sides lose. Workers lose income. Companies lose customers. It is a deadweight loss with no market mechanism to stop it on its own.

[MMay @MMayeron]

I love @therookie but I’m so tired of these stupid documentary style episodes. There’s only been 15 episodes this season and this is already the second one. It’s such lazy storytelling.

[The Washington Post @washingtonpost]

Exclusive: The acting director of the CDC has delayed publication of a report showing the covid-19 vaccine cut the likelihood of ER visits and hospitalizations for healthy adults last winter by about half, according to two scientists. https://t.co/p1zapRIpxj

[MMay @MMayeron]

@RollingStone After years of “controversy?” You mean being a literal Nazi. Wtf RS!

[Amy Siskind 🏳️‍🌈🇺🇸 @Amy_Siskind]

This seems like the real reason Trump got rid of Bondi and is picking him. It might also have been why Trump tried to change the subject and start what became a war in Iran.

[Nate Rogers @Nate_Rgrs]

It sounds like an exaggeration but you really do regularly come across people in LA over the last few years who will straight up tell you that it’s no longer viable to work in film/tv and they’re looking for a new career. $900 million against that backdrop is unconscionable

[Alexis Johnson @alexisjreports]

Was just talking to a friend about how as a millennial journalist all of our “dream jobs” no longer exist 🥲

[MMay @MMayeron]

@theashleyray This is when I stopped watching. I couldn’t take anymore 😭

[MMay @MMayeron]

@cbk74 He’s an American citizen, moron! Just say you’re racist.

[philip lewis @Phil_Lewis_]

This video of Alex Pretti was posted on Facebook by Mac Randolph, the son of the deceased veteran, with this caption:

[Dr. Eli David @DrEliDavid]

At least 30,000 killed in Iran, according to @TIME

[MMay @MMayeron]

@marknorm We can be appalled and angry about both things at the same time. It’s not either or.

[MMay @MMayeron]

@mattxiv Lighting the menorah for Chanukkah is genocide propaganda? You’re too dumb and hateful to function.

[Maine @TheMaineWonk]

🚨 BREAKING: IN BREACH OF FEDERAL LAW, TRUMP ADMINISTRATION SAYS THEY WILL NOT FULLY RELASE EPSTEIN FILES TODAY.

Oh, what a surprise. I wonder why.

[Rolling Stone @RollingStone]

Melissa Hortman Died in a Shocking Act of Political Violence. This Is the Story of Her Life

The Minnesota Speaker’s closest friends and family open up for the first time.

Read @stephenrodrick's exclusive: https://t.co/k9TVEu87ab

[MMay @MMayeron]

@ATRightMovies Really sad this is what this account has turned into. I used to like your information on movies but now it’s just engagement bait.

[Alvaro Bedoya @BedoyaUSA]

No, I do *not* feel better about a deal in which the “Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” the Qataris, and Abu Dhabi jointly own CNN and HBO Max, together with the family that already owns CBS news and a key stake in TikTok. Both of these deals are illegal. Both of them should be blocked.

[MMay @MMayeron]

Now @netflix has removed the ability to cast. That was my work around when traveling. We’re all canceling Netflix once the last episode of stranger things drops, right?! Enough of this not part of household bs.

[MMay @MMayeron]

I said, great cancel my flight and book me a one way ticket to the destination I want! The cost? $250!!
Make it make sense @Delta.

[MMay @MMayeron]

I am absolutely blown away at how @Delta just tried to screw me over. Buckle up. 🧵

[MMay @MMayeron]

If she were to rebook the trip today, it would be a $2800 difference and there’s nothing she can do about it. I asked her how much it would cost me to cancel the return portion of my flight. She said I’d receive a $300 credit.