Hard Pass

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/54054286

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/54061344

https://archive.ph/2026.11.05-224738/https://www.ft.com/content/32fd4450-5880-437d-9bd9-df13289ada24

The US midterm elections — in which voters elected anti-data centre governors in Texas, Georgia and Ohio and passed 38 local votes in favour of restrictions on their development — have forced the tech industry to reflect on its failure to connect with the public.

“The reason is not that people are Luddites . . . it’s much like the protests against the masks in Covid. It has become a political symbol,” said Vik Bajaj, co-chief executive of the Jeff Bezos-backed AI start-up Prometheus.

. . . “As a profession, we have spent two years pretty dangerously telling people that AI will change the future of work for the worse — that they will be out of jobs, that their children will be out of jobs, their grandchildren will live in a world that’s unrecognisable. And then for the last year or so, we’ve also been flirting with the idea that it’s an existential crisis.”

“I think this election was a big wake-up call . . . to take a pause and think about what’s happening and approach this in a way that’s maybe a little more thoughtful,” said John Hanke, founder of Niantic Spatial, the AI world model company and gaming group that made Pokémon Go. “It’s been go, go, go, build, build, build, and some of that has been . . . with head buried in sand.”

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/50122791

cross-posted from: https://reddthat.com/post/76163261

Reuters reports that around 100 people made it into the construction site, with some scaling a crane to place a “fuck AI” banner. Protesters also unfurled a “Microsoft powers genocide” banner on the construction site, and chanted “Microsoft has got to go” and “free Palestine.”

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/69491251

After a disastrous midterm showing that placed the future of the MAGA movement in abject peril, the White House decided it was a good time to let conservative groups know that they were being watched.

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cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/69491251

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/73388265

Thousands of Mississippians like Lowery — whose votes may decide a critical U.S. Senate race, in which Democrat Scott Colom holds a slim lead over Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R) — are still waiting to have their ballots counted. That’s because of the Republican secretary of state’s contract with Experian, a global credit reporting agency whose data has been described as riddled with errors, that threw thousands of voters into “inactive” status in the months leading up to the general election.

In highly populated DeSoto County, over 15,000 people were removed as active voters in the time between the primary and general election, according to an analysis from Mississippi Today with data from the state.

Other counties with high rates of inactive voters include Jackson with 14,063 and Harrison, where Lowery votes, with 28,921. For many of these voters showing up to the polls on Tuesday, this was a shock.

Without control of the White House, there is of course only so much Democrats can do with their newfound power. And in the context of the myriad horrors of the first half of President Donald Trump’s second term, talking about what the party “should” do next is roughly analogous to deciding which out-of-control forest fire to fight first: There is not enough water, there are lots of worthy candidates, and all of them are getting worse. 

One thing must be true, though: Whatever issues Democratic lawmakers choose to focus on—and, as the 2028 ideas primary gets underway, whatever ambitious ideas Democratic presidential hopefuls choose to support—the party must also have a plan for taking on the Supreme Court, which remains an existential threat to anything Democrats might hope to accomplish. Even if the party is fortunate enough to win a trifecta—the House, the Senate, and the White House—in 2028, things like a Green New Deal and Medicare for All and a new Voting Rights Act do not stand a chance before this six-justice conservative supermajority. Regrettably, what I wrote in 2020 is just as true today: If Congress passes any one of these proposals into law, the only real question is which justice ends up writing the opinion that kills it.

This is a joke about face sitting.

Season 7 episode 21, Assie Come Home

Texas Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa, the first Democrat to win the office since 1990, said Thursday she would build a bipartisan administration after her stunning upset in the midterm elections that shattered decades of GOP control in the nation’s second-most populous state.

Hinojosa, who will become Texas’ first Latina governor, made the pledge during her first news conference since ousting Republican Gov. Greg Abbott as part of Democrats’ wave of wins, including James Talarico flipping a U.S. Senate seat.

“We are forging a new way forward,” she said. “People are tired of the divisions, tired of the fighting, tired of the culture wars.”