Marshall Herskovitz

Marshall Herskovitz

@mherskovitz.bsky.social

Writer, producer, director - thirtysomething, Last Samurai, My So-Called Life, Dangerous Beauty. Let's build a future for our children - and their children. LA, PDX

15.7K followers893 following1.4K posts

AI is already destroying jobs, especially in movies, TV, and advertising. Powerful people like Ava Duvernay who are protected by their union contracts must decide whether they care about all the workers who aren't protected. Remember, the business model of AI is to destroy jobs across the economy.

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Marshall Herskovitz reposted

“The nonprofit that helped get Cornel West on presidential ballots in 2024 received all of its funding that year through a conservative political network that has been bankrolled by Elon Musk, tax records reviewed by Sludge show.” 10/27/26 … 1/ share.google/s1Keh9Qx6ZDV...

share.googleMusk-Linked Dark Money Network Funded the Group Behind Cornel West’s Ballot PushPeople Over Party raised $7.7 million in 2024, all of it from the nonprofit behind the Fair Election Fund, which in turn got every dollar from a Musk-funded dark money group.

People may want to think Steve Bannon is old news. Trust @nick-carmody.bsky.social - he’s not:

Nick Carmody JD, MS Psych@nick-carmody.bsky.social

Great interview by Ted Koppel Bannon craves validation/respect/legitimacy from serious people, from intellectuals. It’s interesting that Bannon states that he wanted to “capture the power” that an “Amoral” Nazi film maker created in her work. Let's unpack.... 1/ www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVhT...

This is fantastic. It turns out there is a bottom. And Ramaswamy just face-planted onto it.

Prem Thakker ツ@premthakker.bsky.social

NEW on @zeteo.com — Venues are *pulling out* of hosting Vivek Ramaswamy for his bus tour across Ohio in the closing days of the election. “We’re getting calls that people don’t want him there,” a top Ohio Republican says. “It’s that damn ad.” From @andrewperez.bsky.social and @swin24.bsky.social:

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5) has prevailed by the fact that our richest and most powerful men are devising ways to eliminate humans altogether, and our politicians are doing nothing about it. Our most powerful corporations have done everything they could to make humans worthless before AI; that's why--

6) so many full-time employees need government assistance just to survive. AI is just a more efficient way of eliminating workers altogether. Call it a different version of The Final Solution. And by the way, I took the author's AI discernment test and scored a perfect 100%.

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3) past, first, lots of folks in the rust belt will tell you that didn't work out so well, but, more important, machines in the past were designed to replace humans in particular jobs, not all jobs. The essence of the American experiment was to create a society--

4) based on the common good: the inalienable rights of humans to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The essence of neoliberalism is the opposite: a rejection of the common good in favor of the right to unlimited profit (see Milton Friedman's definition). We know which philosophy--

2) other jobs, and that there is no moral - or even sane - argument for eliminating millions of jobs in favor of machines. The only possible argument is the utilitarian savings in not having to pay those useless workers. And for those who say machines have replaced millions of workers in the--

If I were a member of Congress and cared about my country, I would be screaming at the top of my lungs that recess must end RIGHT NOW. Anyone running for office who is not calling for immediate regulation of AI is either stupid or corrupt. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

theguardian.comOpenAI safety leader quits, warning AI company’s culture is ‘broken’David Robinson joins other insiders in urging industry to take more care over rapidly developing technology

So interesting that @nytimes.com only tells us about the terrible tempers and abusive behavior of female Democrats in Congress. I guess the Republicans who support ICE shootings, black-hole deportations, and taking healthcare from millions are just nicer people. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/23/u...

nytimes.comMary Peltola’s Campaign in Alaska Senate Race Is Rocked by Tumult, With Angry Outbursts and Slurs (Gift Article)Democrats hope that Mary Peltola can flip a Republican Senate seat in Alaska. Former aides describe a campaign and congressional office marked by chaos.

2) of profit and shareholder value" with no regard for the common good. As Kaufman notes, even many builders of the neoliberal project now admit it has gone too far. Welch, who invented mass layoffs, came--

3) to believe it "was the dumbest idea in the world." Democrats will never unite behind socialism, but they can, and must, unite behind the eradication of neoliberalism, which caused the greatest transfer of wealth in history - $70 trillion - from the middle class to the super rich.

Perfect irony: After spending 100's of billions in a race to eliminate American jobs and pollute the American landscape, the sociopaths running our giant AI companies will now see their own jobs eliminated by cheaper AI from China. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/04/t...

nytimes.comCorporate America Is Getting Hooked on Open-Source A.I. (Gift Article)Companies like AT&T are increasingly using cheap, freely available artificial intelligence models over expensive ones from Anthropic and OpenAI.

Marshall Herskovitz reposted

As Ed Elson & @justinwolfers.bsky.social point out on @profgalloway.com's Prof G Markets... ...disordered psychological thinking underpins the failures of both the tariffs & the Iran war. As I wrote on page 128 of @bandylee.bsky.social's, "The MUCH more dangerous case of Donald Trump"... 1/

Justin Wolfers@justinwolfers.bsky.social

“If they make more, we must be making less. If they export more, we must be losing.” ⁣ ⁣ That’s the zero-sum story in a nutshell. It’s also not how trade works.⁣ ⁣ https://newsletter.platypuseconomics.com/p/the-lawyers-theory-of-trade

4) of the firm had been so hollowed out that its loyalty to big money now exceeded its century-old values. This is America today. We have a values problem more than an economic one. Profit without responsibility to the common good is a cancer. And it is a failure--

5) of the Democratic Party that only socialists have had the courage to embrace solutions at the size of the problem. But their solutions are misguided, and will only create more misery. We need to destroy neoliberalism, not capitalism. And it will take a vast movement of reform to accomplish it.

2) "did well by doing good." Its partners made an average of $2.5 million a year, putting them among less than a tenth of one percent of all earners. Capitalism at its best. But in the neoliberal world we now inhabit $2.5 million a year for doing what you love is shameful, not nearly--

3) enough. So the firm moved into private equity, neoliberalism's dark heart, where no values or politics can get in the way of making millions. And when Trump was re-elected and came after them, the culture--

Marshall Herskovitz reposted

As seen throughout his life, JD Vance is a shapeshifting sociopath. Here, he pathetically mimics not just Trump's persecution complex, but also Trump's cadence and inflection when speaking in the 1st person about himself: "JD" ...and when he says, "...and the media didn't care about that." 1/

The Bulwark@thebulwark.com

Vance: "I'm trying to be non-partisan…Because I'm speaking to all of you...I've got the angel on my shoulder saying, 'JD, don't be partisan. Make this non-partisan.' And then I've got the devil on my shoulder who wants to talk about every time Joe Biden fell up or down the stairs."

Marshall Herskovitz reposted

This man, who I understand to be a 17 year veteran, likely just threw away his military career. He is a patriot of the first order.

Today, our friend Jay USAF Major Jason Watson read his oath to the Constitution and demanded that Congress do its job to IMPEACH this President and cabinet. He was arrested on the Capitol steps. #DOOR @defendersofourrepublic.org @removalcoalition.bsky.social @citizensimpeachment.com

2) at a pro-trans rally - over his stance on Gaza! It would be laughable if it were not such a direct echo of Stalinist Russia.) If Democrats do not forcefully reject this kind of extremism, America will reject Democrats. And liberal democracy will be over.

2) or just live in delusion. Abolishing prisons is delusion: "Avila Chevalier said she opposed all deportations, even those of violent criminals. A prison abolitionist, she either couldn’t or wouldn’t answer repeated questions about whether murderers should be incarcerated."

1) Today is a day to teach and remember. First and foremost the heroism of those - many our fathers and grandfathers - who waded into hell in order to save freedom from the forces of tyranny. But we must also teach and remember that millions--

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4) what is the trance of helplessness, the incapability, that has allowed authoritarianism to grow in our own beloved country, and so quickly, as quickly as D-Day was mounted, dismantle so much of America’s greatness.

1) Today is a day to teach and remember. First and foremost the heroism of those - many our fathers and grandfathers - who waded into hell in order to save freedom from the forces of tyranny. But we must also teach and remember that millions--

2) of American men and women - with their Allied counterparts - had only fifteen months to mount the largest invasion, some say the largest endeavor period, in human history. Millions of soldiers, tens of thousands of ships and--

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3) silently transformed into a new Feudalism, with worker-serfs owing fealty to their aristocratic lords. None of this was how capitalism worked before neoliberalism (defined by its originators as the pursuit of profit without regard for the common good)--

4) became its guiding philosophy. Capitalism has freed more people from poverty than any economic system in history. The cancer of neoliberalism, which has provoked unprecedented rage across political parties, may very well lead to its destruction.

2) what workers made. Also not noted: for every CEO making today's average of $39 million, there are now at least five tiers below - one tier making $20 million, the next $10, then $5, then $2 - making $1 million or more. Corporate America has been--

Marshall Herskovitz reposted

The tech bros gave us crypto currency that isn’t currency, artificial intelligence that isn’t intelligence, and prediction markets that are inside-trader scams. On the other hand, they have given us gigantic data centers that employ no one and destroy communities. So there’s that.

Marshall Herskovitz reposted

“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.” Dune (1965) Frank Herbert