Reinis Ivanovs

Sociālā, politiskā un zinātnes filozofija. @Progresivie

🏗️🌱 he/him/viņš

[Reinis Ivanovs @slikts]

Priecīgu praida mēnesi #🏳️‍🌈 #balticpride

[Lema @Lemapal]

Today the EU had a choice on Israel, and it chose nothing. No sanctions on Ben-Gvir. No ban on settlement goods. No suspension of the trade deal. The same day, a leaked document revealed the EU has known since 2017 that it could lawfully do all of this. So this is not a story about what Europe cannot do. It is a story about what it refuses to do, and how it hides the refusal. 🧵

↳ Reuters : “no consensus” on Ben-Gvir (today): https://t.co/0Vic72r9Yk

[Integral Views @Integral_Views]

I'm furious about this.

I'm a parent and one of my children who falls in this age category has faced very serious in person bullying at school that extended out into social media. It was all encompassing and seriously harmful.

So I understand the potential for seriously negative impact from social media on young people.

But the single most important thing that got them through it was their friendship online with kids in the US. 1 in particular who became a very close friend who was part of a larger group.

They game together but spend the time chatting and working on plans for the future. It's a true friendship. Talking about business ideas, culture, etc, for hours everyday.

Without that, they would have had absolutely no outlet and been doomed to only exist in a reality in which they have been completely outcast.

As a parent, I monitor social media use using already available tools. I create accounts myself and know who is being interacted with.

I set up curfews for certain apps on all devices but make sure I allow for the positive interactions and friendships to happen.

As some are in the US, that means access at late hours but I'm entirely capable of managing this and I know the trade offs involved and then manage through those as well.

I talk with my children directly about the risks, what to do, what not to do and why.

If the government moves forward with these blanket curfews, that will cut my child off from their best friend for good which will very seriously impact their mental health.

I will absolutely not accept the government harming my child in this manner.

[Taylor Lorenz @TaylorLorenz]

Studies in AUS found that since the social media ban went into effect teenagers are significantly less educated on news and events and more ignorant on what’s going on in the world. This is the goal. Western govts saw the rise of the information age and are seeking to quash it

[Brent Toderian @BrentToderian]

If walking costs you $1, we all pay $0.01. If biking costs you $1, we all pay $0.08. If bussing costs you $1, we all pay $1.50. If driving costs you $1, we all pay $9.20. Via study that still underestimates climate cost.

This isn’t about choice. It’s about who pays for your choice.

#citymakingmath

[Jamie Walters, CAIA @JWalters314]

The European mind understands it perfectly. This is what imperial decadence looks like: public institutions converted into branded spectacle, civic memory replaced by adrenaline theater, and the People’s House turned into a content backdrop for regime propaganda.

The joke is not that Europe cannot comprehend it. The joke is that America no longer recognizes what it is becoming.

[Nathan J Robinson @NathanJRobinson]

Instead of discussing how Elon Musk is now the world's first trillionaire, we should talk about how he killed hundreds of thousands of people through his dismantling of food and medical aid to poor countries
https://t.co/8kY171r5w1

[Mouin Rabbani @MouinRabbani]

The award-winning historian Elizabeth Thompson, interviewed by @BeirutCalling :

"My first hypothesis is that the investigation of why the Arab world lacks democracy today must start with the extension of European colonization after World War I, not Islamic culture or the behavior of particular dictators since independence.

Second, a related takeaway is to ask new questions about the rise of authoritarian, violent, and religiously radical movements in the region. My current research explores the ways in which such movements were empowered after the violent destruction of democratic movements after World War I. This puts modern Middle Eastern political history in the same analytical frame of studies examining the rise of anti-liberal, anti-democratic movements in Europe during the same period."

Overall, a rich and fascinating interview.
https://t.co/wm9Doy1W98

[Martin Konečný @MartinKonecny]

Now we know who in the EU is protecting even Ben-Gvir and Smotrich from sanctions.

At yesterday’s EU ambassadors meeting, according to @destandaard:

🇩🇪Germany insisted on leaving out Smotrich, limiting it to Ben-Gvir.
🇨🇿Czech Rep. alone against sanctioning even Ben-Gvir.

[Isabel Cademartori @isacademartori]

Viele von uns haben gewarnt. Das historische Scheitern Deutschlands bei der Wahl um einen Sitz im UN-Sicherheitsrat – bereits im ersten Wahlgang – bestätigt dies eindrucksvoll. Deutschlands internationale Glaubwürdigkeit hat unter der „Drecksarbeit“-Außenpolitik massiv gelitten.

[Bri @wordsandsense]

My good friend Ursula K. Le Guin has some thoughts on this

[Vic Vaiana @vicvaiana]

All this in just 4 years.

Remember when they insisted it was impossible to build green infrastructure quickly enough

[Eshan @eshanbuilds]

The man who wrote "Don't be evil" said he chose it specifically so it would be hard to remove.

Paul Buchheit, the engineer who later built Gmail, suggested the phrase at a Google corporate values meeting on July 19, 2001. About a dozen early employees were in the room, working through what their core values should be. The conversation had stalled on the kind of polite corporate statements that nobody disagrees with and nobody remembers.

Buchheit later explained why he picked those three words instead. He wanted something that, once you put it in there, would be hard to take out. He framed it as a jab at competitors who he felt were already exploiting their users.

Amit Patel, another engineer from the same meeting, scribbled the phrase on whiteboards across the company for months until it stuck. It went into the founding letter of the 2004 IPO prospectus. It sat at the top of the corporate code of conduct for seventeen years.

Then in 2018, Google quietly removed it from the preface.

The timing is the part everyone forgets. In March of that year, internal documents leaked showing that Google had signed a Pentagon contract called Project Maven, building AI to analyze drone footage. By April, over 3,000 Google employees had signed a letter to Sundar Pichai demanding the contract be cancelled.

The letter specifically cited "Don't be evil" as the standard the company was failing to meet. Dozens of engineers resigned in protest.

Sometime between late April and early May, the slogan disappeared from the code of conduct's preface. A Gizmodo reporter caught it by comparing Wayback Machine snapshots. Google never announced the removal.

What I find clarifying about the sequence is what it means structurally. The motto was designed in 2001 by an engineer who wanted a sentence his bosses could not erase if the company drifted. Seventeen years later, with the company being publicly accused of building drone targeting AI, his own employer responded by quietly erasing the sentence.

He had been right about exactly one thing. The phrase was hard to take out. It took a Pentagon scandal to do it.

Buchheit, who left Google in 2006, is now a partner at Y Combinator. He has not commented publicly on the removal.

[Reinis Ivanovs @slikts]

@AvisansNiks @arlekiins @kasparsskincs @LinardsH Tas tika aizsūtīts uz šejieni

[Reinis Ivanovs @slikts]

@AvisansNiks @arlekiins @kasparsskincs @LinardsH Lūdzu

[Reinis Ivanovs @slikts]

@ahb1756 "Iet politikā" pats par sevi ir sarkanais karogs, ka saredz to kā elitāru piederību, prestatu horizontālismam, un tā principā ir deklarācija par būšanu problēmas daļai

[Reinis Ivanovs @slikts]

@DavidOgbu17 @ArnoldWhite6519 @Andrey4Mir @RichardHanania It literally does

[Annie? Rauwerda? @anniierau]

"why use google?" webpage from 1999

[Andris Šuvajevs @suvajevs]

Politiķiem un viņu tehnologiem, kas kampaņā pret progresīvajiem pazaudējuši mēra sajūtu paskaidroju:

Pērn VSAA man izmaksāja daļu no tēva uzkrātā 2. pensiju līmeņa.

Naudu, ko es labprāt nekad nebūtu saņēmis.

Ņirgas par potenciālu invaliditāti vispār ir jauns līmenis.

[Reinis Ivanovs @slikts]

@andrisg15 @Rym_von_Kapsel Sabiedrības vairākums pilnīgi noteikti vēlētos, lai atbalss kambarī pārkarsuši pamuļķi beigtu iedomāties, ka aizstāv vairākuma intereses, nevis vienkārši karo kultūrkarus

[Brunis / Rym @Rym_von_Kapsel]

Mēnešiem darba, vecāku atbalsts, sabiedrības iesaiste, viss miskastē. Aizstāts ar pusrisinājumu, ko neviens nav redzējis un kas tikai formāli ķeksē sākotnējo mērķi.

Tā izskatās, kad politiskais teātris ir svarīgāks par bērnu drošību un sabiedrības iesaisti.