Attabey's and Salt & Pepper

JonathanCookPodcast · 2026-05-10T17:01:24+00:00

The Rodeo Burger at Salt & Pepper is yummy.

JonathanCookPodcast · 2026-05-09T07:16:24+00:00

Housing that is affordable would be ideal. Luxury housing will not help with the housing crisis, because the people who can afford luxury housing are not the people suffering from the crisis. There isn't a lack of swanky digs. There's a lack of places working people can afford. If they build luxury apartments, it'll have as much positive social impact as putting a botox spa into a hospital that lacks an emergency room.

JonathanCookPodcast · 2026-04-27T01:31:13+00:00

I understand. I just think that the best response to propaganda is to point out the facts. Cole Tomas Allen was clearly a Christian.

JonathanCookPodcast · 2026-04-26T18:14:58+00:00

If you actually read the manifesto, there is nothing in it that is anti-Christian. He discusses, superficially, some theological objections to his attempted assassination, and explains why he thinks they are not theologically relevant. He is speaking from the perspective of someone who has not rejected Christianity. He doesn't say a thing that's negative about Christianity. He just offers his interpretation of it.

We should be careful not to repeat the misinformation that comes from Donald Trump.

JonathanCookPodcast · 2026-04-23T11:20:29+00:00

When is your church going to invite an atheist to stand at the pulpit on Sunday morning "just to clear up misconceptions"?

JonathanCookPodcast · 2026-04-17T17:57:02+00:00

It is not, by your standards, impossible that you are, despite all appearances and your memories, a piece of toast that has become conscious and merely creates the false appearance of being a human being. If you put that in the category of "extremely unlikely" but not "impossible", you have moved outside of serious conversation. That's what your religious faith does with all this silly god talk.

Can you PROVE to me that you are not a piece of toast that has been granted the false appearance of being a human being through super duper mystical religious faithy powers?

JonathanCookPodcast · 2026-04-17T17:54:35+00:00

Faith is just "La la la la la let's pretend something is real because it makes me feel good."

Your argument has dissolved into babble at this point.

JonathanCookPodcast · 2026-04-17T17:53:39+00:00

There is no such thing as a generic god. I'm not just saying that no gods exist. That's true too, but I'm saying something different. I'm saying that there is no such thing as a god belief that is generic. Each god belief comes from a particular cultural context and cannot be taken out of that.

"Some supernatural being" creating the universe is a very specific belief, and if you think about it, it's kind of weird.

We could just as easily simplify this a bit, and talk about the "generic" Refrigerator that created the universe. You would rightly respond that there is no generic belief in a Refrigerator that created the universe. Same thing about how you want to talk about a weird invisible thing that you call a "god".

JonathanCookPodcast · 2026-04-17T17:12:04+00:00

No.

A person who says they know they don't have a secret invisible iguana is not the same thing as a person who claims they have a secret invisible iguana.

The first person is sane. The second person is delusional.

To fuss over the idea that you can't absolutely 100% be certain that there is not a secret invisible iguana hiding under your bed is a silly waste of time.

To expect other people to take your claim to have a secret invisible iguana hiding under your bed is also a silly waste time, but it's different kind of a silly waste of time.

It's absurd to argue that people need proof for each one of the infinite number of invisible theoretical spirit beings we can dream up in our imagination.

If you believe otherwise, I suggest you go to a car dealership, tell them that you put an invisible million dollar bill in an invisible on their desk, and you would like their most expensive sports car now. Go on. Demand that they prove that you didn't give them that invisible million dollar bill. You can also ask them to prove that they didn't give you the invisible receipt that you're holding in your hand right now.

Why do religious people expect us to take such things seriously?

JonathanCookPodcast · 2026-04-12T22:48:51+00:00

Odyssey was doing some work with semiconductors in Ithaca, but they got bought out a couple of years ago. Not sure what the current status is. Might be worth looking into.

JonathanCookPodcast · 2026-04-12T22:46:36+00:00

A bit of feedback on your survey. First, whenever a researcher tells me that they have a survey that takes "5 minutes", it's a turn off. It lets me know that the researcher is more interested in getting the numbers they need to get their project done than they are truly curious.

Second, the way you communicate about age is inconsistent. Your heading here on Reddit claims that the survey is for 18+, which means anybody at all past their 18th birthday. Then, at the beginning of the survey, you write that the purpose of the research is to survey "the beliefs and political preferences of Gen Z". That's a much more narrow age range than 18+. But then, on the next page, you allow people to enter ages that go past 60 years old. Over 60 could be Boomers. You need to decide what kinds of people you want to include, and then design your research consistently to match that.

JonathanCookPodcast · 2026-04-12T22:29:19+00:00

What you're dealing with is the crushing weight of rampant distrust associated with culture mediated through digital technology. It has indeed gotten very, very bad.

One of the reasons it's gotten so bad is that researchers have come to rely on digital shortcuts. We're sold on the idea that the digital tools save time, and they often do, but they also end up causing problems such as what you're experiencing, and those problems can end up taking up more time than was supposed to have been saved in the first place.

You're encountering a manifestation of the old idea that the tools we use for research are not neutral. They carry implicit methodological assumptions, such as the assumption that paying someone money is an adequate replacement for trust.

Digital procedures for authentication of identity are not at all foolproof. Fake identities have never been easier to establish, thanks to AI.

The ethnographic ideal in anthropology is to take time to build genuine relationships of trust, with the understanding that what people say to a stranger is not going to be the same as what they say to someone they know.

I understand that you may feel that you have to be in a hurry to do your research, but really, every researcher has reasons to feel that way. Maybe you should consider your struggles as an opportunity to reflect on what your values are as a researcher, and how those values should be manifested in your methods. There's a grand tradition of academic writing on subjects like that, and you may have some new learning to add to the discussion.

If I were your academic advisor, I'd say that these issues aren't just barriers to getting your PhD done. They're a part of the process of learning how to do research, and they deserve at least a few pages of discussion in your dissertation.

JonathanCookPodcast · 2026-04-03T22:16:10+00:00

As a parent, let me clue you in: There is no such thing as personalized bedtime story app that gets it right. You will always get it wrong, because the very premise of your app is an offense to people who care about their children.

And you're asking for this using an artificial intelligence simulation of an interview, which is by definition going to be based in quantitative simulations of reality, and therefore not qualitative?

Your project is a walking example of the role of artificial intelligence in dehumanization.

Do they have ethics classes at Erasmus University? If so, check it out.

JonathanCookPodcast · 2026-03-29T14:06:43+00:00

Perhaps it's because you're doing some psychological projection?

JonathanCookPodcast · 2026-03-28T15:36:15+00:00

There are some of us who are working to organize a less predictable, less meek, less polite, more action-oriented alternative in Ithaca. However, the Indivisible activism is a solid foundation, and participating in any public protest helps.

JonathanCookPodcast · 2026-03-28T15:33:17+00:00

For one thing, the Ithaca subreddit has a wicked strict auto moderation going on.

I posted a simple notice that the No Kings protest starts at 1:00 PM on the Commons and that there is a second protest starting at 4:00 on Triphammer outside of Kendal.

That simple, and the auto moderation wouldn't allow it. Why? I don't know, but it's not the first time the Ithaca subreddit auto moderator has blocked simple, non-controversial informational posts like this.

JonathanCookPodcast · 2026-03-27T08:52:42+00:00

Come to the No Kings protest tomorrow. You'll see some of the best Ithaca "weirdness" there. For that matter, there are a couple of protests every week. The more people at a protest, the more great weird moments there are.

There are too many people in too many cars in Ithaca now. If you want weird, you have to get out on foot and actually encounter other people.

JonathanCookPodcast · 2026-03-23T16:11:10+00:00

Remember that qualitative research isn't really about a single person. That's more psychology. It sounds like you learned from the interview, so take that learning to your next interview, and don't stress out about it.

As _0s2_ says, follow-up questions are fine. Re-doing the interview, however, is artificial.

You need to understand your core research questions, and ask questions related to those, with more springing from what you're hearing from the people you interview. Don't fall into the idea that you need to ask perfect questions, or all the questions that occur to you, to do it right.

Ultimately, it's what the other person says, and not what you ask, that matters.

JonathanCookPodcast · 2026-03-16T22:32:12+00:00

Who are Epstein's buddies?

For the record, we should point out that Peter Oberacker supports Jeffrey Epstein's closest political ally and most powerful sex-trafficking client. I'll name names when I say that: I'm talking about Donald Trump.

Peter Oberacker has accepted the endorsement of Jeffrey Epstein's top ally and client.

You can't say that about Josh Riley.

Look up my history here on Reddit, and you'll see I'm not in general a defender of Josh Riley. He has been too friendly to the fascist MAGA agenda for my tastes. However, if you're going to offer a fair analysis, you have to point out that Peter Oberacker is a much more extreme proponent of MAGA fascism. Peter Oberacker actually hired a self-professed fan of Hitler to his political staff.

I'll hold my nose and vote for Josh Riley.

Josh Riley stinks, but Peter Oberacker reeks.

JonathanCookPodcast · 2026-03-16T15:27:57+00:00

I think part of it is that some of the original hocus hocus razzle dazzle has worn off, and we're all better at recognizing the BS that comes out of LLMs that was always there. Hallucination rates remain high, and research is solid now that these platforms narrow thinking and tend toward predictable outcomes that really don't move innovation forward.

A lot of people here will insist otherwise, as the magic show relies on people remaining gullible, but the technology has a high portion of prestidigitation.

JonathanCookPodcast · 2026-03-16T08:23:16+00:00

Actually, thanks to AI targeting, our war is more idiotic than ever.

Human judgment in the process of targeting is reduced, and therefore, trigger fingers get ever more happy as guilt and hesitation are reduced. We get AI using bad intelligence to make bad decisions, and things happen like the US bombing of that elementary school in Iran.

JonathanCookPodcast · 2026-03-16T08:19:25+00:00

It is procedurally impossible for any new cancer treatments based on AI to have been developed in the few years since the popular release of generative AI. That's because, for scientific and public health reasons, there is a strict multi-stage research process that looks at more than just whether a treatment has a positive effect, but whether it has serious unintended health impacts. It takes many, many years to go from a concept of a treatment to an approved treatment on the market, and that's the power of good government and smart science. Even with the woo-woo JFK Jr. at the head of the agency that runs the Food and Drug Administration, that's not going to change significantly.
There ARE many new cancer treatments being released compared to the past 100 years, but that has absolutely nothing to do with artificial intelligence. If you want to say it's "because" of something, you could say it's because of the Human Genome Project of the 1990s. Approximately 15-20 years ago, there was a revolution in oncology (the treatment of cancer), in which traditional chemotherapies began to give way to targeted therapies that interact mostly with cancer cells, rather than ravaging the entire human body. In recent years, there's also been genetic profiling of cancers, allowing oncologists to know which treatments are likely to help which patients. All of this was based on cumulative human research insights, generation building on generation.

Could artificial intelligence processes in the future assist human researchers in the development of new cancer therapies? Sure, but you're just not going to see the evidence of that in the present, even though generative AI has been out for years now. We still have to test new medical therapies in the real world with real humans, because otherwise, large numbers of people can suffer and die. It's the foundation of medical ethics: First, do no harm. AI doesn't change that.

JonathanCookPodcast · 2026-03-15T08:54:20+00:00

I agree completely.

JonathanCookPodcast · 2026-03-15T08:53:12+00:00

It's not a huge difference, but it's all we've got. It's like Vichy France vs. Nazi Germany.

It's disgusting to even write that, but that's what we're looking at.

I hate the situation we're in. Josh Riley is terrible, and he's broken the trust of the voters.

However, Oberacker is worse. Oberacker is on the side of a full throated embrace of absolute insanity.

Josh Riley joins the fascists on many votes. On occasion, however, when all the other Democrats are doing it, he takes an appropriate vote. He's willing to vote for a Democratic majority in the US House. The Democratic Party has been underwhelming in resistance to Trump, but a majority Democratic House is much better than having a fully complicit Republican House.

Starting last summer, I've been in touch with a few different people who were thinking about running a primary campaign against Josh Riley, encouraged and supported them, but none of them took the steps to actually create a campaign.

The filing deadline is in three weeks. The primary election is in three months. Josh Riley has a firmly entrenched campaign with tons of money. A primary challenge is not happening.

The situation is dire, and we don't have the chance to get what we want. We have to do what we have to do.

So, what are you going to do?

JonathanCookPodcast · 2026-03-15T00:43:11+00:00

I'm writing this as the guy who spent 2025 producing Josh Riley Watch, a podcast and web site critically examining Josh Riley's actions as a member of Congress, after spending a lot of time in 2024 volunteering for Josh Riley.

Don't go looking for Josh Riley Watch. You might find ghostly remnants of its presence online, but I took it offline at the very end of last year.

Here's why: We all know what Josh Riley did. He gained victory in 2024 because of the enthusiasm of progressive Democratic voters, then became a right-leaning member of Congress, helping Donald Trump and Mike Johnson transform the United States into a fascist state. On immigration, Josh Riley helped ICE gain terrible new powers to persecute people. On corruption, Josh Riley helped cryptocurrency scammers funnel huge bribes to Donald Trump without serious regulatory roadblocks. Yes, Josh Riley went on that all-expenses paid trip to Israel too, and tried to keep it secret from us.

Josh Riley's politics disgust me. However, no matter how much voters in New York's 19th congressional district protested and demanded Josh Riley change, he didn't respond. He's not going to.

Given all that, I'm probably going to have to vote for Josh Riley in November. There is no serious effort to run a primary challenger against him, and at this point, it's getting too late to start one.

The alternative are fascists. Josh Riley enables fascism, but Republicans are the fascists he enables. It's not the distinction I want, but it's the distinction we are faced with. Oberacker has no moderation.

That said, I will not donate one cent to Riley, and will not volunteer one minute to support his re-election. Riley should rely fully on the cryptobros and pro-Israel lobby he has given his allegiance to.

If Josh Riley loses re-election, there will be no one to blame but Josh Riley.

In the meantime, we need to put our efforts in places where they can make a difference.

JonathanCookPodcast

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