When I was 14 and starting high school, my dad told me that no matter what stupid shit I did, if I ever called him at 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning, in a bind, and needed him to come pick me up, that i shouldn't hesitate to call—because, he promised me, we wouldn't talk about it that night. We would eventually talk about it and deal with it—maybe even the next day—but he wanted to remove all fear in me of calling and asking for help, in the moment. It was a "no questions asked, I just want you to get home safe" policy. I took him up on it one night, and he was true to his word. I've never forgotten it, and I've never forgotten what would have happened to me if I hadn't trusted in it. Sometimes, when I visit him in the Alzheimer's wing of the Veterans home, I look into his face and see that he trusts in my promise to him, too.

The Olivia Nuzzi story is just sad. Everything about it is pathetic—and one of the worst is the PR makeover facilitated by the New York Media machine. Vice signaling is fully profitable. Shame on every single outlet that is fueling this circus. With that said: I can't help but notice that she lost both of her parents within 6 years of one another before she turned 30. Nuzzi might be a lot of things, including a narcissist or psychopath who knows how to exploit the press and powerful politicians, but one thing I feel fairly confident about is that she's also in a hell of a lot of pain.

It takes an absolutely sick person to come into this thread and question me about the kind of care my family chose. I understand why people leave this platform.

I thought that this was overblown until I joined my wife's new mom's group in our DC neighborhood after our first daughter was born. Dads were invited to the last meetup. We went around the room and said how we were feeling, what we were grateful for—I dislike that format in general, but I was being a good sport. Anyway, it came around to one of the dad's and he just straight up said, with his beautiful child sitting on his lap, that he had extremely mixed feelings because of the carbon footprint his child had brought into the world. It was the first time this kind of discourse was truly made real to me. I suppose I thought, before that happened, that nobody REALLY feels that way, and that it's just part of a discourse/signaling thing—let alone once their newborn child is actually sitting on their lap. I was wrong.

What is the strongest argument from the political Right AGAINST Great Books programs? I can't imagine it's the "the humanities are dead, study STEM" argument, which has currency in Silicon Valley, but maybe I'm wrong.

My parish in Washington, DC has a "singles night" meet-up, to which 130 people showed up. My wife and I have been asked to be mentors to newly married couples, or engaged couples going through pre-CANA. It's totally thriving, and that is partly because the pastor seems to have an intense focus on very practical concerns of young people, like finding a spouse and finding a job. These things matter. He is also is instituting an ambitious perpetual adoration chapel at the same time. It's not either/or. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

This is a tweet about Lou Holtz, the legendary coach of Notre Dame, on the very day of his death. There are some things that deserve to be much more taboo than they currently are—things considered completely unacceptable—and speaking ill of the dead within 24 hours of their death, while their body is still warm, regardless of what you think about their politics, has got to be one of them. This guy—and I won't say this on the day that Olbermann dies—is a scumbag for engaging in this kind of behavior, which he is never actually punished for because it has become normalized in our society.

Augustine had a word for the vice of the internet age: curiositas. It doesn't mean "curiosity", but rather a disordered desire for knowing stuff regardless of its real value. It is the intellectual twin of bodily lust—the following of ephemeral passions without regard for consequences or what they're leading to. It's the act of knowing stuff as a form of possession; as if knowing everything that the latest Dwarkesh podcast guest had to say has any real value in itself.

I don't understand the appeal of marches and rallies, even for something I whole-heartedly believe in. It's true that I've never liked being in crowds—so maybe there is simply a strong personality dimension to it. But I am asking with genuine curiosity: if you're the kind of person who likes to participate in marches, rallies, and the like, why do you do it?

@somefreethinkin Beautiful—thank you for sharing

If you actually understand how LLM's work, you understand that that none of this stuff is real from an existential or emotional standpoint—and the fascination over it, while totally understandable, begins to seem a bit silly when you realize that it's pure Reddit mimesis. Interested what @alexisohanian thinks about it all, though. I'm more interested in what it says about mimesis, and mimetic desire—and ultimately what it reveals about us, as humans. A lot of anthropomorphizing going on right now, though.

I don't recommend going to confession at a thriving, traditional Catholic parish. The lines are way too long, 20 deep with young men queued up in the pews 15 minutes before the official start time, absolute savages in the box. Instead, find a UFO-shaped church with a hidden tabernacle and numerous 70's murals adorning the walls, and you will be guaranteed to receive an equally effective absolution in half the time.

Genova is the most underrated city in Italy, at least for Americans. It is on nobody’s list of stops, but it is completely alive. you will die a thousand beautiful deaths by trofie al pesto and “beaches” made up of giant boulders.

Those using Clawdbot—okay, I tried it. Critical question: I have the Max subscription for Claude, but it seems Anthropic is basically forcing me to use the API and pay entirely separately. Can anyone confirm? Did Anthropic just make a change? I can't seem to get it connected to my t.co/feJPwTsh3A Max account, only t.co/6ufS6S1hZm via APi credits.

When you give birth to a child, you can treat the next 20 years like any other. You wake up each day and face it, get your child into the best school in a given year, think in 1-4 year increments, like an investor diversifying a portfolio, staying basically agnostic to world history. Or you can have a 20-year thesis on where the world is heading. You and your spouse can actually develop a worldview together and consider how the country or world you live in is changing, and the actual decisions you must make to position yourselves and your child to develop into mature, healthy adults, fully alive: physically, emotionally, spiritually. In other words, you can become agents. I suggest the latter.

I think this is an individual suffering from AI psychosis. If you think this is "very touching", I don't know what to tell you. Reading both the AI-generated constitution and the replies to it—and her choosing to publish this in the first place—makes me wonder what is actually going on at Anthropic. If we strip away the government drama, what's left is something that feels superficial, masquerading as profound.