Bread and Robots

A technoprogressive worldbuilding project exploring futures of human flourishing run by Matteo Rossi MacDermant, UNM PhD & Affiliate Scholar of @IEET.

[Bread and Robots @breadandrobots]

New episode of Bread and Robots with @rjeskow — writer, former @BernieSanders speechwriter, and #technoprogressive thinker with @IEET.

We talked about everything from AI and social imagination to the #generalintellect and left futurism.

🎧 [https://t.co/b9GFU64kA5]

[IEET @IEET]

Should the White House and Congress push KORA through, it’s likely it would functionally end the possibility of surfing the internet anonymously, while supercharging Trump’s efforts to criminalize left wing opposition groups in the US.
https://t.co/UGtGLzOBvo

[Chi Ossé @OsseChi]

I’m endorsing @AlexBores for Congress because artificial intelligence could change everything and we need a leader in Congress who understands it and has a plan to regulate it. AI oligarchs are spending $10 million to defeat his campaign. We don’t agree on everything, but I know what side of that fight I’m on.

[Bread and Robots @breadandrobots]

I do wild stuff like this in ABQ all the time, but I would love love love if it were more common. We need to transform American cities!

[Melissa & Chris Bruntlett @modacitylife]

Such a scene is often framed as proof the Dutch are superhuman—they’re not.

The real miracle isn't the Dutch cyclist. It's the environment that allows ordinary people to do extraordinary things. Build the infrastructure, and you'll find your city is full of capable cyclists too.

[Bread and Robots @breadandrobots]

New episode of Bread and Robots ✨

I speak with @jasonvpoulos—a #technoprogressive AI researcher running for Congress in MA-4—about #UBI, #jobsguarantee, #AIDividend, #MedicareForAll, and a framework for harnessing the power of emerging tech for all.

[https://t.co/YBp0ECMBJD]

[Jason Poulos @jasonvpoulos]

"Jason brings a rare combination of AI research expertise and working-class politics to bear on the defining challenges of our moment with a solid platform for turning the tide and reconstructing our default political settings." @breadandrobots
https://t.co/OLPdhQ88jm

[Bread and Robots @breadandrobots]

It could be like this (and better) everywhere on Earth (and beyond).

[Give A Shit About Nature @giveashitnature]

The Netherlands just put another $1.2 billion into its cycling infrastructure.

They aren't being generous, they're actually being cheap. National infrastructure projects of any size are legally required to undergo a cost-benefit analysis before they get built.

They ran the numbers on cycling and every dollar invested came back as roughly $8.90 in benefits: lives saved, healthcare costs avoided, quieter streets, cleaner air, less congestion. 6,500 fewer premature deaths a year, six more months of average life expectancy across the entire country.

A few years ago they were skeptical of a $17 million cycling bridge across the Maas River. They ran the analysis. The bridge was predicted to save $132 million over its lifetime, so they built it.

Most conversations about cycling infrastructure start with "how do we pay for it?" The Dutch conversation starts at "what's the cost-benefit ratio." That's the key difference.

The Netherlands isn't just subsidizing bicycles, it's refusing to waste money on the alternative.

[Bread and Robots @breadandrobots]

@scottsantens @Miles_Brundage Facts 😔

[Bread and Robots @breadandrobots]

Another great piece by @scottsantens on the transformative potential of UBI!

[Scott Santens @scottsantens]

This essay has been on my mind since 2023 and I'm happy to have finally published it. It's an argument for UBI that may not resonate with many, but if it does, I hope it does strongly. I feel so much gratitude for every human who came before me, and I fight for a better future for those yet to come.

[Bread and Robots @breadandrobots]

@scottsantens I like how you make a daily ritual out of being grateful and in awe of all the things we've collectively created. I do the same thing every time I do laundry or load the dishwasher, but I am most grateful for the bicycle! It's amazing how we can crystalize our labor this way 🌌

[Urban Cycling Institute 🚲  @fietsprofessor]

Our 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧 makes us forget that current car-dominated cities were not a given.

Car dependency is the result of decade-long and consistent government efforts, incredible financial investments and relentless marketing.

(So-called #Freedom in #Oakland🇺🇸 by @SegByDesign)

[Boba Cyclist 정 @BobaCyclist]

Went to pick up 🥡 dinner and rode back on the ✨brand new ✨31st Street bike lane, partially 🐸Kermited🐸.

I’m a longtime resident of this neighborhood, and I’m thrilled to no longer have to ride on a terrible, dangerous door zone sharrow to travel N/S!!

[Taylor Lorenz @TaylorLorenz]

This man is single handedly calling out so much insane disinformation being pushed about data centers by the media right now. No wonder people are so terrified of these things, they’re being promoted hysterical misleading slop about technology all day.

[Bread and Robots @breadandrobots]

This is so true: "How AI assists with the economic calculation problem should really be obvious to socialists. This is one of the key reasons why socialists should be supporting (well-regulated, humanist-oriented) AI development rather than opposing it."

[Leigh Phillips @Leigh_Phillips]

Vivek Chibber is one of the American Left’s sharpest thinkers, but I disagree in comradely fashion here that technological advance cannot enhance our planning capability.

@michalrozworski and I showed in our book, People’s Republic of Walmart, how the vast internal planning apparatus of firms like Walmart and Amazon, has absolutely benefited from/been enabled by information technology developments.

Another example: one should very easily see how AI is already making planning easier within public healthcare (one of the most complex set of calculations, with multiple objective functions, that society engages in).

Following on from the AI-in-healthcare example, one should also be able to easily imagine how AI might be able to assist with both calculation and approaching the discovery function of markets (I.e., knowing preferences better than markets).

How AI assists with the economic calculation problem—the single greatest technical challenge to socialist development—should really be obvious to socialists. This is one of the key reasons why socialists should be supporting (well-regulated, humanist-oriented) AI development rather than opposing it.

Socialism does not only face political obstacles, but technical ones as well. One of the frustrating things that kept coming up during our book tour for People’s Republic of Walmart was at book readings, some people thought we were saying that planning is easy. No! Hayek and Mises were correct that it is very hard. They were only wrong in confusing hard with impossible.

Just as we do not want society to be governed by unelected kings, bishops or lords, or by unaccountable bureaucrats, technocrats or dictators, we should also not want society to be governed by an amoral, unaligned, unconscious algorithm (ie market incentive). Planning is simply the steadily improving extension of democratic human rationality and sovereignty over ever more of what has dominated us, just as science and medicine steadily extends human rationality and sovereignty over biology and disease. And just like medicine, planning is not something that establishes complete human democratic rational sovereignty all at once. We win gains over time.

Saying tech development assists with planning is not the same as saying tech resolves the economic calculation problem in favour of planning: it means instead that planning is not a binary of feasible/infeasible, but rather, alongside challenges from the political objections of those who have an interest in the economic calculation problem not being solved, planning is *a capacity that expands in concert with the development of the productive forces*.

Economic planning, market socialism and the mixed economy of social democracy are thus not competing approaches to socialism, but complementary, and their roles relate to how developed the productive forces are.

There is a Grand Unified Theory of these various socialisms waiting to be written…

[Bread and Robots @breadandrobots]

That's what I'm talking about!

[Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @NYCMayor]

We've removed major hurdles to building affordable housing —  a move that will get homes up nearly 2 years faster.

We’re in a race to tackle our housing crisis, because working New Yorkers can't afford to wait.

[Bread and Robots @breadandrobots]

@HollyJeanBuck and I get into why the data center moratorium, pushed by @BernieSanders, is the wrong fight.

Some projects are worth opposing. But a blanket ban burns energy that could go toward AI as a public utility, #UBI, and more.
https://t.co/fsi08dVvDd

[Bread and Robots @breadandrobots]

Things might just be better than they seem at first glance.

[James Hughes @citizencyborg]

If the trade off for teens was social media for less booze and church, maybe social media addiction looks a lot better

[Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @NYCMayor]

New York streets belong to New Yorkers, and Soccer Streets are for the kids.

We’re turning the block outside your school into a car-free soccer pitch, playground, and World Cup celebration all at once.

Now until June 26, you’ll find Soccer Streets in front of 50 public schools across all five boroughs. Let’s play!

[Urban Cycling Institute 🚲  @fietsprofessor]

If it happens ones, it can be a coincidence.
If it happens twice, it starts to be a pattern.
If it happens 40 times, we have truth!

A @EUROCITIES survey across 38 European cities found: lower urban speed limits aren’t slowing cities down. They're just making them work better!

[Bread and Robots @breadandrobots]

We need this all over America. Here it would be 6 lanes. I live in one of the most walkable parts of my city and it's next to multiple 6 lane roads that separate everything. The absurd thing too is that its only full for like an hour a day.

[Emmanuel @EmmanuelSPV]

Avant / Après la toute nouvelle rue aux écoles Rue Paul Baudry dans le 8ème arrondissement de Paris.