Max Shapiro

Building comprehensive solutions for AI-powered legislative research and analysis focused on Virginia’s General Assembly.

[Max Shapiro @MShapiroOSS]

I'm working on a GIS based game called RuminantWars set in a hypothetical future where AI has taken all jobs and those brave enough become cowboys and engage in massive distributed pasture rotation. The goal is to grow your herd, secure grazing rights on parcels, and move your herd and fencing along manually while minimizing your carbon footprint and maximizing carbon sequestration. If you believe Joel Salatin, this would work.

[Max Shapiro @MShapiroOSS]

Great policy idea. Potentially terrible political idea to the extent it starts a turf war with VITA. This should be highly entertaining to watch play out.

[Governor Abigail Spanberger @GovernorVA]

NEW: I'm establishing a brand new state digital service team focused on making our government work more effectively, efficiently, and reliably.

Our new Digital Service Director will spearhead a team of engineers, designers, and technical experts to make sure technology is being used effectively and that taxpayer dollars are being spent efficiently.

At a time of unprecedented uncertainty and disruption out of Washington, Virginia can — and should — be a model of how we make smart, sound investments. https://t.co/ZeGb1FMzHa

[Max Shapiro @MShapiroOSS]

I applied some random thing I heard about how AI worked in StarCraft and now I've got a pretty realistic simulation of people canvassing a neighborhood.

[Max Shapiro @MShapiroOSS]

You think you're being efficient with the neighborhoods you target for canvassing by looking at likely voters, but are you accounting for the distances between sidewalks and front doors?

[Max Shapiro @MShapiroOSS]

@devahaz I used to build custom CRMs for political campaigns and tried building free ones for friends with small businesses. A stock iPhone outperforms practically anything you could possibly build for most people.

[Max Shapiro @MShapiroOSS]

@reset_by_peer I gotta call bullshit on this because you're either lying about driving across it or completely missed the entirely new tunnel they are in the process of completing, which is practically impossible to miss.

[Max Shapiro @MShapiroOSS]

@KunalAtit @ShannonTaylorVA You should really make sure you fully understand the scope of what happened with Morrisey because odds are 50/50 or worse that this completely backfires considering he then went on to get re-elected from prison.

[Max Shapiro @MShapiroOSS]

She says "I didn’t care that he was a Democrat or the pressure that I got to make it go away."

I'm pretty sure the pressure was all to make sure Joe Morrissey went away, not the charges.

[Brandon Jarvis @Jaaavis]

In her new ad, VA-01 Democratic nominee @ShannonTaylorVA highlights her part in jailing former Democratic state Sen. Joe Morrissey

https://t.co/X3YVykq38c

[Max Shapiro @MShapiroOSS]

@Ikonizontes @TheLincoln You’ve never encountered the notion that kids are going to cheat by using the internet? Maybe you encountered the notion of a straw man argument? Such as taking my argument about online tools and conflating that with cheating off another student in class.

[Max Shapiro @MShapiroOSS]

@IMDibe @prcpouou I think it’s a natural outgrowth of critical race theory “black people cant be racist” line of thinking. Black people cant do colonialism because it’s somehow different because they were oppressed. Which to me has always sounded like the same twisted logic Zionism depends on.

[Max Shapiro @MShapiroOSS]

@jbaumann035 @TheLincoln I literally wrote that bill. I spent 4 years working for that legislator. You can watch the committee hearings and see that’s exactly what it’s about.

[Max Shapiro @MShapiroOSS]

@quote_direct @TheLincoln If you let someone use Wolfram Alpha you can give them problems that are crazy difficult and would be impossible to do without it. Which is my main point. Giving people problems that are proportional in difficulty to the tools is key teaching.

[Max Shapiro @MShapiroOSS]

@jbaumann035 @TheLincoln I literally gave you three school districts and a bill the legislature passed to specific stop it from happening. You can go watch the committee hearings where it’s discussed.

[Max Shapiro @MShapiroOSS]

@jbaumann035 @TheLincoln That doesn’t even make any sense. You can’t come up with a real argument so you just make vague attacks. It would be obvious to an objective reader you ran out of intellectual gas on this one.

[Max Shapiro @MShapiroOSS]

@jbaumann035 @TheLincoln Here’s the bill. Norfolk, VA was our district. Richmond and Henrico definitely did the same. I know there are others but not off the top of my head.

https://t.co/CG90TmKFWK

[Max Shapiro @MShapiroOSS]

@jbaumann035 @TheLincoln Because having teachers mark students as present when they aren’t present is pretty clearly encouraging teachers not to teach them.

[Max Shapiro @MShapiroOSS]

Other way around. We passed a law in Virginia requiring attendance to be taken in every class because school districts had policies that said students were to be marked present in every class if they were present at all in the building at anytime. So kids would show up, walk in a class for 30 seconds, then wander the school or go home and have perfect attendance in every class.

[Max Shapiro @MShapiroOSS]

So you teach kids who pay to be there. High school isn't like that. I worked for 4 years as a Legislative Director for a Delegate in Virginia representing an urban school district. Schools in our district were mandating teachers fabricate grades and attendance records. If a student was in the building at some point, they get marked present for all classes. We literally had to pass a law to specifically say you need to take attendance in every class. The entire public school teaching profession in many places revolves entirely around finding ways to teach kids when the entire system is actively encouraging you not to.

[Max Shapiro @MShapiroOSS]

Humans do evil things with power. Oppressed people gaining power tend to be the most evil of all. You see this playing out with some segments of Jews. This kind of stuff is laying the foundation for segments of the black community to get there sooner than later.

[Stu Smith @thestustustudio]

🚨 Socialism 2026 Panel Debates Whether “Settler Colonialism” Is Too Imprecise and Needs to Be “White Settler Colonialism”

At Socialism 2026’s “Ocean Deep Solidarity: Reparations, LANDBACK, and Collective Liberation” panel, Raven Schwam-Curtis invokes @UVA professor Tiffany King for some galaxy-brain theorizing over whether “settler colonialism” is simply too imprecise.

The argument is that Black people and white settlers should not be treated as structurally equivalent in relation to Indigenous dispossession, so perhaps the more precise term is “white settler colonialism.”

And yes, Tiffany King is one of my “favorite” radical professors, so I was delighted to see her get a shoutout.

[Max Shapiro @MShapiroOSS]

@jbaumann035 @TheLincoln As a real teacher, never. I've done lectures, tutoring, lessons plans, etc.. So how do you deal with students using tools then? Do you fail everyone? Do you make your assignments harder? I've given my protocol, what's yours?