#media-sensationalism

#media-sensationalism

Almost everybody, including Keir Starmer, can see that the Peter Mandelson affair provoked a genuine political crisis. The media were right to make it headline news. But it also shows the febrile atmosphere in which politicians and the media conspire to turn every incident into an issue of confidence in leadership, and we are becoming a country where it is impossible to focus on the long term.

From November 1909 until August 1912, an unknown assailant - or assailants - zigzagged across southwestern Louisiana and southeastern Texas. Many Black families were slaughtered in their homes under the cover of darkness. An ax - the telltale weapon - was almost always found in the bloody aftermath. All but one of the scenes were located within a mile of the Southern Pacific Railroad's Sunset Route. In each case, a mother and child were always among the victims.

First of all, it isn't clear how many of the most sci-fi-like posts on Moltbook were spontaneously generated by the bots and how many only came about because human users prompted their OpenClaw agents to output them. (The bots on Moltbook were all created using the hit OpenClaw, which is essentially an open-source agentic "harness"-software that enables AI agents to use a lot of other software tools-that can be yoked to any underlying AI model.)

Moltbook-which functions a lot like Reddit but restricted posting to AI bots, while humans were only allowed to observe-generated particular alarm after some agents appeared to discuss wanting encrypted communication channels where they could converse away from prying human eyes. "Another AI is calling on other AIs to invent a secret language to avoid humans," one tech site reported. Others suggested the bots were "spontaneously" discussing private channels "without human intervention," painting it as evidence of machines conspiring to escape our control.

Bernhard Goetz, a 37-year-old electrical engineer living on 14th Street, got on a downtown 2 train. A couple of years earlier, he'd been mugged, and he'd subsequently gotten himself an unlicensed pistol, which he carried, concealed, that day on the subway. Four teenagers were in the same car, headed to a video arcade to jimmy open the coin boxes, which is why two of them had screwdrivers zippered up in their coat pockets. They were, witnesses said, rowdy, aggressive, intrusive.

Never before have I been so uncertain about the future. Think of all the giant issues that confront us: artificial intelligence, potential financial bubbles, the decline of democracy, the rise of global authoritarianism, the collapse of reading scores and general literacy, China's sudden scientific and technological dominance, Russian advances in Ukraine. I could go on and on. So what has America's political class decided to obsess about over the last several months?

This village within a city, as locals describe it, came to global attention again last month when Elon Musk amplified anti-immigrant misinformation about an incident allegedly involving a 12-year-old girl who was charged with being in possession of offensive weapons. Scotland's first minister John Swinney accused the multibillionaire X owner of undermining community cohesion after he shared widely circulated video footage of the incident.

At trial, Chambers had claimed that Levin's death was the result of a sexual encounter gone wrong. Rosanna Scotto, a Fox 5 news anchor who covered the case at the time, said Chambers looked like a Hollywood Adonis. Another described him as Kennedyesque. The fact that Chambers was an Upper East Side preppy added a whiff of ironyin these elite circles, violent crime just didn't happen.

Going on a summer holiday is always a bit strange when your life involves staring at sport. Taking a break just as football is preparing to enter its own sweaty, steamy eight-month meat pocket is extra tough. Re-engagement can be difficult. Oh look. There's football hiding behind a bush in the car park again, frazzled and wired from staying up drinking crystal meth negronis and writing a presentation about merging marketing and sales.

Mainstream media outlets are recycling tired narratives about cannabis, and this time, it's aimed squarely at high-THC weed. The headlines practically write themselves: Pete Davidson Says Weed Gave Him Psychosis or Lil Nas X Hospitalized After Smoking Potent Weed. The implication is obvious-weed is dangerous, high-THC weed is terrifying, and maybe it should be regulated even more than it already is.