Dr. Damien P. Williams, dread portent down from a mountain cave

We live in a time of deep epistemic crisis, and everything we have depended on to make meaning and certify consensus reality is either suspect or in peril. It didn't have to be this way, and it doesn't have to stay this way.

Recently been coming to terms w/ the fact that my "AI" stance staying steadfastly "think about the things you don't want to think about" has shifted me out of "ooh sexy robot philosophy" & into "booo boring sociopolitical materialities" in a lot of minds. Thing of it is, I'm right where I always was

Dudes online are doing sex macro spreadsheets and smashing their faces with hammers to impress each other and mainstream America is like we want the fifty-something with the sad eyes who cries when he holds the baby

This is what I meant when I said in 2024 that when I looked at the incoming administration, all I could see was rape. It’s the heinous act itself, yes, but also a mentality, as deftly explained here:

Crazy to see how a democracy with rule of law works…

Republicans are the party of rape.

Homepage of the @miamiherald.com with story by @jkbjournalist.bsky.social that mentions rape in the first paragraph. See, it's not so fucking hard. www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-...

The only reason I can think of for this news not being absolutely everywhere is that large media orgs don’t want to be seen as putting their thumbs on the scales a week before election day. And that’s cowardly as shit.

Fantastic news: "Charlotte extends its data center moratorium for 11 months" — @wfae.bsky.social www.bpr.org/2026-10-27/c...

1. Not sure when a new, on-the-record rape allegation against a sitting president isn’t considered news — especially considering Trump was found liable by a jury in a similar case — but it was ignored by most mainstream media outlets

I emailed Patrick Healy, assistant managing editor for standards and trust at NYT, to ask why their story about a House report with new details of rape allegations against the President of the United States included neither those details, nor a single use of the word "rape." archive.is/1s9AM

Like… this baseline assumption that things from sources that are treated as authoritative obviously must thus be trustworthy is circular reasoning that is doing and will continue to do a lot of harm unless and until we tackle this shit at a BUNCH of levels of society.

…a certainty these answers are correct either because they were told that Bullshit Engine LLMs are Perfectly Objective Magic Super Google Answer Engines™ and the Perfectly Objective Magic Super Google Answer Engine™ told them so, Or because they think *Buster from Arthur go on the internet dot meme*

This is yet more of the shit that traps people into a cycle of epistemic & hermeneutic injustice and deception— frameworks where people don't know what they think they know and can't trust the mechanisms that are supposed to help them gain knowledge. Not only that, but now they have false CERTAINTY…

HUGE, GOOD NEWS: In total reversal from Friday’s stonewalling, perjury-flirting “status report,” ICE now says it has secured a one-way travel document so Ahmed Soliman can return to the US via a commercial flight. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

A wild humpback whale has had its heartbeat recorded for the first time. Ashley Blawas and colleagues used suction-cup tags to track blue and humpback whales through complete dives and feeding lunges. Oceanographic buff.ly/WzPvwud #ShareGoodNewsToo

Cardiologists have agreed the 1st truly global definition of a heart attack. The European Society of Cardiology, American College & Heart Association, & World Heart Federation jointly recognised 3 under-diagnosed heart attack types that disproportionately hit women. buff.ly/bbit71t #ShareGoodNewsToo

"Beyond Critique: Bringing the Humanities into Technology Research" ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/doc...

If you enjoyed today's episode of @the1a.org of disability and technology, i recommend looking up the work of @lizjackson.bsky.social, originator of the term "disability dongles" as well as that of @ndkane.bsky.social, who originated the similar-but-distinct concept of "means well technology." Then…

…I also recommend checking out the @discotec.bsky.social center's work on centering disabled people as credited, PAID subject matter experts and research consultants in the design & development of ALL technologies, not just as focus groups or research subjects for assistive tech. More on that here:

"amplify your people" is 100% the best strategy

as a protester disrupts JD Vance's speech in Montana, the camera pans out to show the rather modest crowd he's speaking to

Ah hell. Goodnight Walter Koenig. You were a delightful human.

Scientists discovered that human brain organoids, which are small neural clusters derived from stem cells, could identify the Braille alphabet with a high degree of accuracy. www.404media.co/computers-ma...

And who knows how often this is brought up to patients who aren't white? But then the reason we don't have universal healthcare is also mostly racism so, what else is new.

Hypertension is also a particularly tricky one. The first-line meds we have also often have higher side-effect rates for non-white people, sometimes serious ones, and they aren't always as effective for non-white people either.

We need free healthcare and a completely different culture of medicine in this country, and we need it NOW. Until then, take care of yourselves and help each other stay on top of shit.

A new survey of 1,000 American adults found that the strongest supporters of transgender sports bans are not the people who admire women most: they are the people who hold the most hostile views about women. www.helenwebberley.com/news/transge...

Eric Bauza. Legend.

Unbelievable loss. An amazing talent, and just a really, really good person. www.instagram.com/p/De8RFy4pyov/

Oh my god

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Serbia’s strongman leader Aleksandar Vucic has conceded defeat to a student-led movement in a seismic political shift.