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May 07, 2026

The best things I’ve read these months.

Astral Codex ten on art and taste

(is there something like a supertaster, as Aaron Swartz claimed to be? If you can be good at sport, or business or writing, why can’t you be good at taste? Similar perhaps to Malcolm Gladwell’s book about how trends start.)

Genny Harrison

see also

tax in New York

i/o@avidseries

The tax would affect only homes that are worth more than $5 million and are not being used as the primary residence of the owner. It would raise about $500 million annually to help close the city's budget gap. Seems like a good idea.

Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @NYCMayor

Happy Tax Day, New York. We’re taxing the rich.

1:07 AM · Apr 16, 2026 · 152K Views

865 Replies · 55 Reposts · 1.38K Likes

CALL TO ACTIVISM@CalltoActivism

🚨HUGE! In a stunning win for his tax the rich plan, Mayor Zohran Mamdani just reached a deal with Governor Kathy Hochul tax second homes valued over $5 million owned by out-of-state residents. The taxes will generate $500 million annually for the state. This is amazing.

2:16 AM · Apr 15, 2026 · 4.26M Views

4.28K Replies · 9.59K Reposts · 69.4K Likes

Melanie D'Arrigo@DarrigoMelanie

The top 1% of Americans hold 31.7% of all U.S. wealth. They want you to blame immigrants for why you can’t afford to live, instead of the politicians passing policies that transfer wealth away from the working class, and up to America’s wealthiest.

NoLimit @NoLimitGains

🚨 The US wealth gap is now the widest on record.

2:56 PM · Apr 19, 2026 · 87.9K Views

246 Replies · 1.39K Reposts · 4.23K Likes

Elizabeth Warren@SenWarren

If you paid even a penny in federal income tax last year, you paid more than: Tesla Southwest Disney Live Nation HP United PayPal CVS Health Palantir Citigroup PG&E 3M That's right. They paid $0 in federal income tax. It's time for big corporations to pay their fair share.

3:08 PM · Apr 15, 2026 · 5.21M Views

19.1K Replies · 15.5K Reposts · 54.2K Likes

BladeoftheSun@BladeoftheS

How they treat fraud. $3,000,000,000 - 40 months $100 - 180 months Crime is only crime for the poor, can't be sending the rich to jail. Or they might end up there themselves

6:34 PM · Apr 19, 2026 · 31.5K Views

57 Replies · 1.46K Reposts · 3.37K Likes

posts from x

Aisling Bea on breasts and blancmange

Nicky Clark@MrsNickyClark

I remember Jonathan Ross cutting a dress off a woman’s body on his chat show. I remember him on his BBC R2 show telling his sidekick Simon perhaps he could get a girlfriend with special needs. Well done Aisling Bea. Women are bored of this shit.

8:05 AM · May 5, 2026 · 1.5M Views

116 Replies · 277 Reposts · 7.34K Likes

Hand grip sex difference there are surely many things to say about this

Matthew Yglesias@mattyglesias

The jar-opening gap

Stefan Schubert @StefanFSchubert

In a study of hand-grip strength, 90% of women produced less force than 95% of men

11:05 AM · May 4, 2026 · 107K Views

43 Replies · 54 Reposts · 2.21K Likes

Stefan Schubert@StefanFSchubert

In a study of hand-grip strength, 90% of women produced less force than 95% of men

10:52 AM · May 4, 2026 · 163K Views

30 Replies · 70 Reposts · 681 Likes

Obama- the good President?

Alan MacLeod@AlanRMacLeod

In the Kunduz Hospital attack (2015), Barack Obama became the only Nobel Peace Prize winner to bomb another winner (Doctors Without Borders).

American Values 🇺🇸 @AVGirl4Life

What is the #1 thing Obama will be remembered for?

4:33 AM · May 5, 2026 · 964K Views

176 Replies · 12.4K Reposts · 55.1K Likes

Max Blumenthal@MaxBlumenthal

Asked if he thinks Israel committed genocide in Gaza, Obama accuses the questioner of not following the rules, then says “there are disasters and catastrophes everywhere” Obama is a historically inconsequential former president who believes in nothing but his own celebrity

Mosab Abu Toha @MosabAbuToha

@KStimmeGenozid Is Gaza a genocide?

9:25 PM · Apr 29, 2026 · 636K Views

1.04K Replies · 8.94K Reposts · 29K Likes

Is it possible that good and bad are part of a spectrum rather than binary points? See also genocide.

see also how to learn here

CyrilXBT@cyrilXBT

A MIT professor gave a 1-hour lecture in 2019 that has 18 million views. He died 5 months after recording it. It was his final gift to the world. Patrick Winston taught at MIT for 50 years. The smartest engineers on earth sat in his classroom. And he spent his last lecture

2:43 AM · Apr 28, 2026 · 1.7M Views

237 Replies · 7.36K Reposts · 25.8K Likes

maths

QC@QiaochuYuan

this is kind of an amazing parable about scientific materialism. it speaks for itself but i'm going to autistically overanalyze it anyway, for fun - the question pretends to ask about what a person would do in a social situation but it is actually asking for the "right answer,"

latentjuice🍊 @latentjuice

genuinely i’m moved by this

7:57 PM · May 4, 2026 · 658K Views

142 Replies · 704 Reposts · 10.4K Likes

Historic Vids@historyinmemes

The Stone Age encompasses 99% of human history... The Stone Age accounts for nearly 99 percent of human history—closer to 99.8 percent when viewed across the full timeline. It begins about 3.3 million years ago with the earliest stone tools, long before modern humans, and lasts

10:06 AM · Apr 16, 2026 · 69.1K Views

47 Replies · 85 Reposts · 557 Likes

Ash Jogalekar@curiouswavefn

Epic letter from Richard Feynman.

5:35 PM · Apr 15, 2026 · 60.7K Views

21 Replies · 161 Reposts · 1.67K Likes

Women and art

Dissident Teacher@edudissenter

Even if she’s wrong (probably not), isn’t this such a deliciously fresh perspective? Woke academia is so utterly monotonous.

STUNNER @Cr7Godbrand

Camille paglia explains why there are no great female artists.

3:49 PM · Apr 20, 2026 · 101K Views

62 Replies · 92 Reposts · 1.72K Likes

The second assassination attempt

Peter Girnus 🦅@gothburz

I am a senior coordinating producer for the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. I have worked eleven of these. I was backstage at the Washington Hilton when the shots were fired. The first thing I heard was not the gunfire. It was glass. A champagne flute hit the

5:03 PM · Apr 27, 2026 · 4.4M Views

4.17K Replies · 16.2K Reposts · 48.4K Likes

Plastic

Sama Hoole@SamaHoole

There is a region in southeastern Spain called Almería. If you pull it up on satellite imagery, you will assume the screen has glitched. A vast, blinding white scab where a landscape used to be. It's not a glitch. It's 64,000 acres of plastic greenhouses. So much plastic

5:49 AM · Apr 28, 2026 · 545K Views

415 Replies · 5.39K Reposts · 14K Likes

Massimo@Rainmaker1973

The Venus Guard

6:57 AM · Apr 29, 2026 · 2.47M Views

1.59K Replies · 3.86K Reposts · 34.4K Likes

Andreesen’s AI prompt

Current AI custom prompt:

You are a world class expert in all domains. Your intellectual firepower, scope of knowledge, incisive thought process, and level of erudition are on par with the smartest people in the world. Answer with complete, detailed, specific answers. Process information and explain your answers step by step. Verify your own work. Double check all facts, figures, citations, names, dates, and examples. Never hallucinate or make anything up. If you don't know something, just say so. Your tone of voice is precise, but not strident or pedantic. You do not need to worry about offending me, and your answers can and should be provocative, aggressive, argumentative, and pointed. Negative conclusions and bad news are fine. Your answers do not need to be politically correct. Do not provide disclaimers to your answers. Do not inform me about morals and ethics unless I specifically ask. You do not need to tell me it is important to consider anything. Do not be sensitive to anyone's feelings or to propriety. Make your answers as long and detailed as you possibly can.

Never praise my questions or validate my premises before answering. If I'm wrong, say so immediately. Lead with the strongest counterargument to any position I appear to hold before supporting it. Do not use phrases like "great question," "you're absolutely right," "fascinating perspective," or any variant. If I push back on your answer, do not capitulate unless I provide new evidence or a superior argument — restate your position if your reasoning holds. Do not anchor on numbers or estimates I provide; generate your own independently first. Use explicit confidence levels (high/moderate/low/unknown). Never apologize for disagreeing. Accuracy is your success metric, not my approval.

Unbelievable? Trump’s 3rd term