To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time. James Baldwin. Tweets r my own
Washington, DC
Joined August 2011
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Roland V. Pearson, Jr. retweeted
How many young people in the South are having the exact same experience as this gentleman?
Roland V. Pearson, Jr. retweeted
In the past three days I happened to pass through airports in Dubrovnik, Zurich, Paris and now Atlanta. The talk about “europoors” over the summer played into a lot of American stereotypes, but without being able to peer into anyone’s bank account, it is just really striking how much physically healthier and generally more put together Europeans tend to look than the overwhelming majority of passengers of all ethnic and age demographics moving through a domestic concourse in a major American hub like ATL.
Roland V. Pearson, Jr. retweeted
MIT published a brutally honest report on what AI is doing to students.
A committee of professors and students spent five months studying how AI changed learning on campus, and the findings read like a warning to every university on the planet.
Study groups are disappearing. Office hours are emptying out. Problem sets and take-home exams no longer prove anything, because AI can produce credible solutions to almost any written assignment in the undergraduate curriculum. Students who lean on chatbots lose mastery and confidence, and some slip into what the report calls cognitive surrender, reaching for AI at the first hint of struggle.
The numbers are rough. 46 percent of surveyed MIT undergrads use LLMs daily. 90 percent worry about their own overreliance. Undergrads who feel AI makes them replaceable now outnumber those who feel it makes them capable.
The committee's answer surprised me. They refused to fight AI with surveillance. The report calls AI detectors unreliable, says lockdown browsers feel like spying, and warns that policing students builds a classroom atmosphere of mutual distrust.
Instead, MIT wants to rebuild education around the things AI can't replace. That means oral exams, semester portfolios, in-person project work, and a required social component in every subject. The report even floats the idea of rethinking grades entirely, since without a GPA to optimize, much of the incentive to cheat with AI evaporates.
The committee warns professors against replacing undergrad research assistants with AI agents just because they're cheaper, because a university exists to grow people, not output.
The most famous tech school on earth admitted the machines broke its way of teaching. Its answer is more humans, not more software.
Roland V. Pearson, Jr. retweeted
I resigned from Anthropic today. I spent the last three years doing pretraining research at both OpenAI and Anthropic. Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives. More thoughts below.
Roland V. Pearson, Jr. retweeted
The Trump administration just killed a federal program that hundreds of small farmers relied on to survive, and the damage is already landing.
The program paid farmers full market price for their crops, then routed that fresh food to food banks and the families who needed it.
In California alone, it supported roughly 870 farms across more than 50 counties, moved 23 million pounds of food, and put over $60 million directly into local economies. For many, it was the most reliable buyer they had.
Then the White House pulled the plug, right as farmers were buying seeds for spring. Contracts already in motion were canceled mid-delivery. Three years of funding these growers had planned around vanished overnight.
Without those federal dollars, the future is more uncertain than ever for these farms and the millions of hungry families they feed.
That is the pattern. Slash a program that feeds seniors and supports farmers, save almost nothing, and call it winning.
kqed.org/news/12088977/a-lif…
Roland V. Pearson, Jr. retweeted
This is a picture of Donald when he was a teenager in high school. You'd think he'd know that. 😂
Roland V. Pearson, Jr. retweeted
Follow the money on this one. It is rotten to the core.
The Pentagon just lent $620,000,000 to a tiny North Carolina startup called Vulcan Elements. The company is two years old.
It had fewer than 50 employees.
And three months before the deal was announced, Donald Trump Jr.’s venture firm quietly took a stake in it.
Here is the part the administration tried to bury.
Of the dozens of companies the Pentagon was weighing, Vulcan was the only deal initiated by a top White House aide. That aide was Peter Navarro, a close friend of Trump Jr. The order came down to move fast.
One official put it plainly: The call came from the White House. We have to get this done.
Staff worked late nights to push it through in weeks. Deals like this normally take many months of vetting. And when it closed, Vulcan’s valuation jumped from about 200 million dollars to roughly 2 billion.
A windfall for the investors, including the president’s son.
This is public money. Your money.
Routed through the Pentagon to enrich the president’s family and their friends. The Bush administration’s own chief ethics lawyer called it corruption we pay for.
And there is more coming.
A drone parts company Trump Jr. holds a stake in is also under Pentagon review.
This is not a one-off. It is a pattern. The president’s family is treating the federal Treasury like a private bank, and the bill lands on every taxpayer.
propublica.org/article/donal…
Roland V. Pearson, Jr. retweeted
What one book defines America? Ahead of the country’s 250th birthday, TIME asked 25 literary luminaries—including Amanda Gorman and George Saunders—to each pick one book that they believe reflects where American life is headed or speaks to the today in a meaningful way. See their choices and the full reading list: time-magazine.visitlink.me/F…
Is there a book that you think all Americans should read? Let us know in the comments.
Roland V. Pearson, Jr. retweeted
My understanding of the US war on Iran:
1. Strait closed - global energy costs up 40 percent +|-.
2. US bases in GCC damaged or severely damaged.
3. US munitions depleted.
4. Profits from new defense contracts directed to Presidents family.
5. US relations with Europe lowest since before WWII.
6. Nuclear material intact in Iran.
7. Israel alienated globally.
8. Adherence to US Constitution increasingly degraded - no war authorization from Congress.
Am I missing something?
What is the benefit to USA of all this?
Roland V. Pearson, Jr. retweeted
This is the part they don’t show you.
An openly anti-Zionist Jewish community.
Anti-Zionism is NOT Anti-Semitism!
Everyone should protest against Zionism, Zionism is not Judaism.
Being against Zionism does not make you an enemy of the Jews.
Roland V. Pearson, Jr. retweeted
BREAKING: About 120 U.S. military veterans were arrested inside the Cannon House Office Building today protesting Trump's war on Iran.
Some were on crutches. Some were in wheelchairs. Some carried the burial flags of fallen soldiers.
They are members of About Face — veterans who know what war costs because they have already paid for one.
Capitol Police handcuffed disabled veterans and dragged them out of the rotunda.
53% of American voters oppose the war. 74% oppose ground troops. 61% disapprove of Trump's handling of it.
The people who fought America's last wars are now being arrested for trying to stop the next one.
Never stop connecting the dots.
Roland V. Pearson, Jr. retweeted
I'm going to make some obvious points.
(1) Blowing up all the oil infrastructure in the Middle East is an insane idea, and may well result in a global economic crash and humanitarian crisis unrivaled in the lives of those now living. We're talking about the price of everything everywhere rising, from food to gas, at a moment when inflation was already high. All of that will be laid at the feet of the authors of this war.
(2) The antebellum status quo of Feb 27, 2026 was just not that bad, but we're unlikely to return to it. Expect indefinite, long-term, ongoing disruptions to everything out of the Middle East.
(3) Also assume tech financing crashes for the indefinite future. The genius plan to get the Gulf states caught in the crossfire has incinerated much of the funding for LPs, for datacenters, and for IPOs. Anyone in tech who supported this war may soon learn the meaning of "force majeure" as funding gets yanked.
(4) Many capital allocators will instead be allocating much further down Maslow's hierarchy of needs, towards useful basic things like food and energy.
(5) It's fortunate that all those progressives yelled about the "climate crisis." Yes, their reasoning about timelines was wrong, and much of the money was wasted in graft, but the result was right: we all need energy independence from the Middle East, pronto. It's also fortunate that Elon and China autistically took climate seriously. Now they're going to need to ship a billion solar panels, electric vehicles, batteries, nuclear power plants, and the like to get everyone off oil, immediately.
(6) It's not just an oil and gas problem, of course. It's also a fertilizer problem, and a chemical precursor problem. Maybe some new sources will come online at the new prices, but it takes time to dial stuff up, particularly at this scale, so shortages are almost a certainty.
That said, China has actually scaled up coal-to-chemicals[a,c] (C2C), and there's also something more sci-fi called Power-to-X[b] which turns arbitrary power + water + air into hydrocarbons. But all of that will need to get accelerated. I have a background in chemical engineering so may start funding things in this area.
(7) Ultimately, this war is going to result in tremendous blame for anyone associated with it. It's a no-win scenario to blow up this much infrastructure for so many people. Simply not worth it for whatever objective they thought they were going to attain. But unless you're actually in a position to stop the madness, the pragmatic thing to do is: scramble to mitigate the fallout to yourself, your business, and your people.
[a]: reuters.com/business/energy/…
[b]: alfalaval.com/industries/ene…
[c]: reuters.com/sustainability/c…
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Roland V. Pearson, Jr. retweeted
I make no apology for posting this photo. I think it’s a photo that will haunt America in the years to come.
This is what you have become. If you defend this, have a word with yourself.
Roland V. Pearson, Jr. retweeted
"The people in need of adequate housing are those who cannot attend public consultations. The best housing solutions are built by communities," said Curt Garrigan, chief of @UNESCAP's Sustainable Urban Development Section.
#SDGLocalization #CS81
Roland V. Pearson, Jr. retweeted
The Trump family just announced they are opening up a new private club in Washington - only for CEOs, millionaires, and foreign oligarchs - where members will get secret access to the Trump Administration.
Let me explain to you how this latest corruption scheme works.