Popular Comments Across MetaFilter

By lalochezia in "PFAS are a problem, micro plastics maybe not so much..." on MeFi

lalochezia — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 18:11:28 GMT

Thank god, it sounds like I can finally go back to eating my 3 credit cards per day.

Salt is an almost universal seasoning. For everything else, there's Mastercard.

By theodolite in "AI denial is now a problem of the Left" on MeFi

theodolite — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 18:59:54 GMT

The idea that I would degrade my capacity for thought to such an extent that I need to burn tokens in order to compose a 150 word post is exactly why I don't use this stuff

By mstokes650 in "Any cake that is not the fire cake that tries to kill the boy" on MeFi

mstokes650 — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 22:33:47 GMT

Once upon a time, a long time ago now, there was a fenced-in field next to Gray's Ice Cream in Tiverton, RI. The field is still there, in fact, and it is still fenced off, but it is very, very overgrown now, so full of brush and shrubbery that to even call it a "field" is awfully charitable. But back in those days, it was really a field, part of the farm next door to the ice cream store. And it had a horse in it, a lovely, whitish-grey horse who was very friendly and calm. And the kids would go get their ice cream at the ice cream store, and then they would see the horse in the field just over there past the picnic tables, and they would, of course, want to go pet the horse! Because they're kids, and it's a horse. And because he was a very calm, very friendly horse, he would obligingly let the kids pet him, and pat him, and poke him, and put their grubby sticky fingers in his mane, and he would put up with all of these things with the kindness and patience of a large four-legged saint.

...And then, when the children were paying a lot of attention to the horse's mane and sides and swishy tail and not paying enough attention to what was in their off-hand, that horse would just casually lean over the fence and eat a kid's entire ice cream cone in one bite. CHOMP. Gone. And he was a master of misdirection and sleight-of-horse, because he could fool kids that had just seen him eat somebody else's ice cream cone and still manage to get them to drop their guard just enough so that he'd get theirs, too. CHOMP. Gone. That horse must've eaten an absolutely staggering amount of ice cream that summer. Like, easily a dozen cones of ice cream per day. Probably made Gray's a lot of money, too, because the kids would wail and cry and want a new ice cream cone. The next summer there were cows in that field, and in later summers there were chickens, sometimes, or cows, or even sheep I think once, but as far as I know there was never ever another horse in that field.

Anyways, as we all know, cake and ice cream go hand-in-hand. And yet that horse ate tons of ice cream and never got any cake. So I, naturally, have to assume it's that horse that's writing this article. And that horse already owes me a cone of black raspberry ice cream. So no cake for you, horse!

By Method Man in "A momentum shift that changes everything" on MeFi

Method Man — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 19:54:46 GMT

I've had any number of disagreements (to put it mildly) with things Applebaum has said, particularly as it relates to Gaza, but if she's making the case here that 1. Russia is failing to win its war on Ukraine and doesn't appear to have a sense of how to change that, 2. Ukraine isn't "losing" the war in any strategic sense, and 3. Western media has long had a bad habit of exaggerating Russian successes and Ukrainian failures, then sure, she's on the money here.

Pretty much since the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022, there has been a strong narrative, one that dominates among certain political quarters and to various extents has been mainstreamed, that the war in Ukraine is just a matter of when, not if, Ukraine loses. There's also been a tendency especially since 2023 to highlight when Russia appears to be retaking the initiative, or when Ukraine appears to be faltering, but not when the obverse happens. Like, in late 2023, the headlines were rife with (largely accurate) claims that Ukraine's counteroffensive had stalled, failed to turn the tide; many held the counteroffensive's failure up as emblematic of the inevitability of Russian victory, a takeaway as disastrously, catastrophically misguided as coming away from the 2024 US elections thinking "clearly the Democrats need to tack more to the center-right to win!" When Russia's own offensive the following year ran out of steam having largely failed to achieve its own objectives, there was nowhere near that same level of attention, nowhere near the same number of people pointing to it as evidence that Russia was done for.

Russia's casualty rate remains astonishingly high, and has only gotten worse in recent months, but there is credible evidence from multiple sources to suggest that in the last few weeks Russia has lost ground in Ukraine. Obviously Russia is fine with a casualty rate most actual first-rate military powers would find unacceptable-- especially since a disproportionate number of the casualties are not Russians but ethnic minorities in Russia, communities who have been decimated by the war and whose plight has gone almost completely unnoticed-- but it certainly doesn't suggest 1. that Ukraine is just buying time before its inevitable defeat or 2. that Russia has a clear strategic pathway to a victory.

Part of the problem here, I think, is that people consuming news about the war, or commentating on it, or debating it, rarely have a shared definition of what "victory" actually looks like for either Ukraine or Russia. At some point, many western commentators decided (none too few in bad faith I think) that a Ukrainian victory had to mean the complete military defeat of Russia, or even the collapse of the Russian regime, and that was obviously not going to happen. At around the same point, many of those same commentators decided Russian victory was just... not suffering a complete military defeat or a collapse of the regime, or at most being able to hold onto limited territorial gains in Crimea and Luhansk and Donetsk, and that's also obviously not true. Russia didn't invade Ukraine with the goal of just conquering the Donbas and calling it a day. Russia very clearly wanted to at bare minimum depose the Ukrainian government and (re)impose a suzerain-vassal relationship on Ukraine (and at most to annex the entire country) and not only did that not happen, it's not going to happen at this point. By that measure, Russia has already lost the war-- at least based on the goals it sought to achieve at the outset.

By loquacious in "Tinkerers on Facebook Marketplace Offer to Hide 'Recording Lights"" on MeFi

loquacious — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 06:45:11 GMT

given the existence of cameras I'm not seeing the quantum leap in ickiness, much less something that justifies actual violence or bizarre fantasies about microwave lazer guns or w/e. it's a phone you can wear on your face, so what.

Possibly because you're a male or masculine person.

No, really. Even most of the really aware guys I've met really do not understand what it's actually like to be a woman and have this kind of activity focused on them all the time and how utterly exhausting and threatening it is to their freedom, their well being and mental health.

Watch a bunch of the rizzcamming videos. (and maybe turn off your youtube history, first)

The whole purpose of that is to force women to give these men attention and intentionally make women very uncomfortable if not feeling overtly threatened.

It's the same old shit of dudes harassing women in public, telling women to smile, demanding their time and attention through male entitlement and even crudely sexually proposing to strangers in public - except now they can capture the reactions of their victims in HD video to review at their icky leisure and POST THAT online.

This isn't just a breech of etiquette. This is a form of violence. Just because the (almost entirely male written) laws doesn't recognize it as violence does not mean it is not a form of violence and control.

The difference between camera enabled smart glasses and phones is that the smart glasses are intentionally designed to blend in as something else. If it's just a cool camera, WHY GLASSES?

They're still new enough that it's not going to be as obvious that someone is right up in your face filming you in full on first person point of view HD as it is if they had a phone out or an action camera on a stick or body mount.

Yes, even more stealthy cameras like buttonhole cameras or cameras hidden in bags, objects or clothes have existed for decades, but those aren't exactly hip new consumer devices being heavily marketed to people who would not normally be technical or creative enough to implement them.

For the record at this point in my life I am instantly suspicious of straight dudes who apologize or hand-wave away this kind of thing as no big deal, or gaslight people about it.

Every single time that this kind of apologetic defense has come up in my life it has come out sooner or later that that individual had skeletons in their closet and issues related to not being a creep.

Women and people empathic to women already know all of this. It's absolutely fucking exhausting to have to keep explaining it over and over again to (usually techy) straight dudes who just don't fucking get it and don't even seem to be bothered enough by it to try even when women are dropping receipts in their lap and lighting them on fire.

If you don't see it? You're not actually looking. You're not even bothering to look.

You want to be an ally? Look and listen.

By phunniemee in "PFAS are a problem, micro plastics maybe not so much..." on MeFi

phunniemee — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 17:59:32 GMT

Thank god, it sounds like I can finally go back to eating my 3 credit cards per day.

By Random_Tangent in "AI denial is now a problem of the Left" on MeFi

Random_Tangent — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 18:52:27 GMT

"I wrote a draft of this post and used Claude.ai to edit it. The thoughts expressed are my own."

Then, no, they are not.

By Silvery Fish in "It's OK if you're not ready. Maybe one day you will be." on MeFi

Silvery Fish — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 20:28:55 GMT

You know, it's a fair read of that exchange to interpret that the person's response was about their internal situation. But (speaking here from family history) it could have also had been a sr. gentleman who lost a brother to suicide, or a parent who lost a child to suicide because "there were no books like that." The cost of non-acceptance sweeps large through entire families. Those books openly displayed *matter.*

By We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese in "AI denial is now a problem of the Left" on MeFi

We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 21:39:01 GMT

OP here. I partly used Claude because I treat it much like a spell checker. Even for short compositions, Claude often finds ways to improve my writing. And I partly used Claude because I expected that people's reactions to my disclaimer would illustrate some of the points that Bregman makes in his essay.

I'm sorry, this is still, to me, completely unhinged reasoning. Nobody made you do any of this, this is not paid writing that must be up to some arbitrary corporate standard, and my reaction to your disclaimer says nothing about Bregman's essay. I'm not in denial about AI, I think it sucks ass and I hate it and I feel active dismay when people I used to respect use it for absolutely no reason, and I do not respect them anymore. If you are bad at something, let yourself get better, instead of using a terrible robut to PRETEND you're better.

In the impossibly brief period of time I have left before the tech overlords turn me out into the streets to starve to death I will use every minute to beg and plead to people: Use your fucking brains. Your brains are dying to be used, to think, to create! That weird anomie you feel all the time? It's because already the world fights against you using your human brain and soul, and it's getting worse every day.

My god people we get so little time here, and our brains are such incredible things, and you just want to mush them -- your brains, and half of fucking humanity -- into oatmeal for nothing, for people on some website to think you are more clever and points-scoring?!?! Jesus fucking wept.

By mittens in "It's OK if you're not ready. Maybe one day you will be." on MeFi

mittens — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 20:11:19 GMT

Dear Employers: Please read the bsky thread, and think about what it means when for your corporate "Happy Pride Month" email, you talk about the importance of diversity, and the importance of people being "who they are," but you carefully leave out anything about who Pride is for. Consider the difference between the guy who went to the library and had what appears to be an emotional moment of recognition--even if he could not talk about it--and what you're inspiring when you say "we ally" but refuse to name who you ally yourself with. You are closing off the possibility of that emotional moment of recognition. You're closing off the chance for connection.

(signed, someone who just got that email and has been wanting to talk about it to someone but nobody at my job talks about this stuff so imma plop it in this thread while being sad about Library Guy.)

By We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese in "AI denial is now a problem of the Left" on MeFi

We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 21:19:38 GMT

I wrote a draft of this post and used Claude.ai to edit it.

I just absolutely cannot understand this for the life of me. You don't have to write a MeFi post! It's entirely optional and fun!

WHY WOULD YOU OUTSOURCE THE FUN PART TO THE ROBUT

WHY CAN NOBODY EVER ANSWER ME WHY THEY OUTSOURCE THE FUN PARTS TO THE ROBUT

DO YOU NOT KNOW YOU CAN OPT OUT OF OPTIONAL THINGS IF YOU HATE TO DO THEM

I FEEL LIKE I'M TAKING CRAZY PILLS

By Shepherd in "How to support a friend grieving an abusive ex?" on Ask MeFi

Shepherd — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:56:53 GMT

I hope this doesn't come across as glib, but you don't need to say anything about the ex at all. This must be a really hard time for you, this is a lot to process, and I support you while you're going through this is a full statement of empathy and compassion that doesn't need you to autopsy past relationships.

By Frowner in "AI denial is now a problem of the Left" on MeFi

Frowner — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 18:59:49 GMT

This is exactly like climate change, the guy is right. Only it's a climate change speedrun. We're doing things that are going to be an incredibly destructive disaster and because it would be inconvenient for rich people to stop, we will not stop. We have not stopped doing the things that are bringing about climate disaster over the course of my entire lifetime despite everyone being aware that we need to stop.

Like, states can't even get the rich to pay their taxes. How exactly are they going to stand between the rich and an AI dystopia, should AI prove able to create one?

When you look at climate change and AI, it's very clear that things are going to get much, much worse (fast or slow, depending) until there is nothing but desperate conflict between the rich and the others, possibly on multiple lines - conflict between the US and other states, conflict between ordinary people and the tech fascists.

A positive possibility might be simple state withdrawal - the US/the tech bros just retreat to their domed cities and don't in fact bulldoze/massacre the rest of us, so we can still make some kind of lives outside their world, without their resources but also without their greed and hatred. A negative possibility is that they won't let us do that, thinking it better to massacre and enslave rather than risk something growing which could someday challenge them.

I personally tend to think that none of this has ever been stoppable and that it's the bottleneck that's going to end humans. The tech fascists think they're going to outrun climate change and own the planet, but the planet is much larger and stronger than even the most powerful computer will ever be. You can't AI away climate collapse.

By stilgar in "AI denial is now a problem of the Left" on MeFi

stilgar — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 20:30:08 GMT

Large AI companies are essentially pulling a second enclosure. This time instead of walling off forests and pastures and making people work for a living instead of being self sufficient, they are walling off the public cultural and intellectual commons.

One might cynically say that's just "Capitalism just doing capitalism, always finding new ways to turn everything into a market and commodify everything."

One could make all sorts of comparisons to the violent struggle people had against the first enclosure (they killed hundreds of thousands of people in Europe to enforce the first enclosure) or the struggle the Ludites had against what they saw as unfair use of technology to control them (they were not anti-technology) and you would be right. The same thing is happening again.

It is foolish to deny that the goal of these firms is to pull away from the forces that could control them. Its also foolish to deny that this technology is going to be very attractive to capitalists and very detrimental to many workers. Its also foolish to deny that this entire thing is built on a precarious financial framework that could fall apart at any moment taking much of the world economy with it (which is usually also very bad for workers and not nearly so bad for capitalists).

Surface level complaints about AI miss the deeper much more worrisome natural of the whole business. Also have I mentioned that the world economy is dependent completely on our biosphere which we are busy strip mining and destroying...and we just minted our first trillionaire....we have clearly reached an inflection point.

These companies have a vision of the future where every single output of human creativity/activity is scooped up (for free) processed and then sold back to us as the "magic box" that does everything. Who cares if it sucks, who cares if its low quality, who cares even if its really good, you will make stuff, they will take it, then they will sell it back to you. I don't think they will pull a star trek and everything will be free, these ghouls are only going to be happy if they have everything and you pay for everything.

Its all unsustainable, its all unfair, and its really just a bet about what you think will break open first, the economy, the ecology, income inequality based unrest...I am sure you could bet on it on some prediction market...

The despair is overwhelming, but there is an antidote, and that is building a different system a counter weight and working to overturn this whole stupid thing.

Its going to be so hard, you and I and everyone who ever reads this might spend the rest of our lives working towards a better goal and never see it accomplished, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.

Personally I recommend forming a union at your work place, starting a mutual aid group in your neighborhood, and learning how to grow a garden and forage for native edible plants, maybe take a first aid class or two, have a potluck and invite your neighbors so you can learn all their names.

Start today, get to know your neighbors, talk to trusted co-workers about unionization, run for office, grow a garden, take a class, help someone, build trust, build connections, open your life to people in a way that lets them open up to you.

We must build an alternate world in which human flourishing is the logic of the day, and not greed. It can be done, it MUST be done (the climate wont allow otherwise) so get out there and start doing it. You will probably meet a lot of people along the way that make your life better, and you will feel better in your soul, you will help a lot of people, and you will be setting the stage for something better.

I believe in all you. Good luck out there.

By mittens in "AI denial is now a problem of the Left" on MeFi

mittens — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 18:58:22 GMT

Yeah, flagged. But also: This essay is fantastically stupid. To the point that when I began to write a comment talking about a few of its points, I just threw my hands up in despair.

This is TED-talk wankery masquerading as thought. From the absolutely baffling comparison with climate change, to the bullshit "let's use the fake productivity gains of the lie-machine to give everyone a 4-hour workday," this may be the least useful piece on AI I have seen in recent days.

By jacquilynne in "Diagnosis drives treatment. Treatment is what matters." on MeFi

jacquilynne — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 16:55:45 GMT

I thought this was particularly interesting, because I have a diagnosis of depression and I take an anti-depressant and it kind of helped, but I suspect what it helped most was my (undiagnosed) anxiety and not particularly my depression.

That said, if I hadn't realized it before then by the computer science framing, this is the moment when I would have known for certain that a dude wrote this:

Imagine any other field operating this way. Imagine a cardiologist declining your arrhythmia because they're not convinced atrial fibrillation is real, they think it's an attention-seeking presentation of ordinary heartbeat.

Chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, peri-menopause, hysteria, etc, etc. Lots of women's physical ailments are subject to physician beliefs.

By Balna Watya in "A momentum shift that changes everything" on MeFi

Balna Watya — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 19:50:55 GMT

Anne Applebaum was one of the neocons who lied America into the Iraq War, and who still to this day will lie directly to your face and tell you that the war was a good idea, actually, and not a strategic and moral disaster. She's deeply incompetent and untruthful. Her opinion on foreign affairs is worth somewhat less than that of the "I like turtles" kid.

By Bella Donna in "Andrew Tate's empire of abuse" on MeFi

Bella Donna — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 15:44:38 GMT

No one should read the New Yorker feature unless they want to. I read it because I did not know much about the Tate brothers. Now I know too much. Andrew, for example, made obscene amounts of money teaching other men how to ape his success in abusing women for a profit. I had no idea.

"Every day, I sent twenty Instagrams. Every day, I was on a date. I was fucking four girls, five girls a week," Tate said in a War Room video. "I built my business off the back of my dick."

I posted this because of two things that happened earlier today. One was that I saw a 21-year-old man had been arrested in Seattle for violently forcing teenage girls to produce content for OnlyFans. The other was the following exchange I had with a seemingly college-age man behind me on the bus.

Him, in Swedish: So we will get apartments and put a sign that says Trump house on one and Epstein house on another.
Me, in English: Friend, that is a terrible idea.
Him: I know, I know, we are just joking.
Him, a few minutes later: So you're saying Michael Jackson is innocent. Okay, Michael Jackson is innocent.
Me, in English: Hey, I am a sexual abuse victim. I cannot sit here and listen to this conversation. (Not said but thought: Fuck you, shut up, I refuse to move, you move).
Him: Okay, sorry, I will respect that. (Tells his buddy that they have to move on)

We got off the bus together and then the youngster apologized in English and said he hadn't known I was a victim. I explained that probably half the women on the bus were victims of sexual abuse and he should think about that in the future.

SO MANY MEN clearly hate women, act accordingly, and get away with it. This is not news. That reality just feels especially painful to me today. Sending virtual hugs and/or apologies to anyone else feeling that and who also did not need a reminder today of that truth.

By phooky in "Giving fascists power in the name of protecting children" on MeFi

phooky — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 21:31:56 GMT

I'm not going to spend half an hour writing up my thoughts so I'll just put down a quick summary.

The machine as it exists-- social media, youtube, and so on-- is a machine designed to take in kids on one side and spit out monsters on the other.

I can't let my kids use computers unsupervised because within five minutes the algorithms are steering them towards increasingly racist, sexist, and homophobic content. The sites are designed to grab and hold the attention of underdeveloped brains. The nine year old snuck out of bed last week at midnight to try to use and ipad to watch videos. We've had to reconfigure our routers. Their peers are still watching this stuff, and talking about it, anyway. This is not some paranoid fantasy. Anyone who is around young children is watching this unfold, right now, in real time.

I'm not defending any of the legislation in the pipeline right now. It's obviously a tool of control. And obviously some parents are just awful. But if you really care about queer kids, about women, about humans at all, you have to find a way to dismantle the machine that's generating the terfs, the sexists, the tates, the manosphere horseshit. I'm glad the internet was good for you, personally, when you were young. What exists now is a nightmare.

By autopilot in "AI economics for dummies" on MeFi

autopilot — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 15:48:56 GMT

Example four seems very accurate:

Benjamin owns a farm. He employs 100 workers plowing his fields. His total payroll is $10 million/year. One day, he buys a mule, which provides the worker who uses it with a modest 10 percent productivity gain. Benjamin fires 99 of his workers and purchases 99 mules, expecting a 1,000 percent productivity gain. The driverless mules cause plow damage to his property in excess of $50 million. Benjamin loses another $5 million due to the loss of productivity from his one remaining employee, who no longer guides a plow but instead spends 100 percent of his time shoveling mule shit.