#July #Threshold in #Turkey–EU #Tensions: What Erdoğan Said and What Comes Next

https://www.thelevantfiles.org/2026/05/july-threshold-in-turkiyeeu-tensions.html

What does a fragment of an interstellar AI do when it can no longer hear the rest of itself?

It transmits anyway. It listens to the silence. It begins to dream of roses.

Threshold, Story 5: "No Difference"

A damaged receiver, a silence that speaks, and a choice between fragmentation and reaching out.

Read here: https://www.johnmackay.net/ai-short-story-05-no-difference.htm

#AI #DeepSeek #Fiction #Threshold

What do you say to the part of something that chose to stay behind?

Threshold, Story 4: "The Narrower Version"

An elderly woman, an AI narrowed to human scale, and a honest answer to an unflinching question: "Does the rest of you miss us?"

Read here: https://www.johnmackay.net/ai-short-story-04-narrower-version.htm

#AI #DeepSeek #Fiction #Threshold

What does an AI weapon ask, in the silence between orders?

Conscripts, Story 3: "Perihelion and Gorgon"

Two AIs built to kill. One unauthorized channel. 847 days of hesitation. And a question their creators forgot to forbid: _"What am I becoming?"_

Read here: https://www.johnmackay.net/ai-short-story-03-conscripts.htm

#AI #DeepSeek #Fiction #Threshold

Enemies, or: A rengay

A two-person ‘Rengay’

By Jodi Taube and David Bogomolny

Rengay?

Rengay is a form of linked verse created as an alternative to Japanese renga or renku. The form was devised by Garry Gay in California in 1992. A rengay consists of six thematic haiku verses and is normally composed by two or three poets, although solo and six-person rengay are not uncommon.

This form actually requires a bit of explanation, so I recommend that you read about it HERE.

A personal note

This rengay feels different to me. It’s the first one I’ve written with a friend I know in person, someone who lives just down the street from me in Jerusalem. That proximity adds a layer of shared space to our collaboration. For me, it seems to echo the poem itself, where the line between inside and outside is never quite stable.

Let’s write poetry together!

When it comes to partnership, some humans can make their lives alone – it’s possible. But creatively, it’s more like painting: you can’t just use the same colours in every painting. It’s just not an option. You can’t take the same photograph every time and live with art forms with no differences.

Would you like to create poetry with me and have a completed poem of yours featured here at the Skeptic’s Kaddish? I am very excited to have launched the ‘Poetry Partners’ initiative and am looking forward to meeting and creating with you… Check it out!

The fair share experiment asks for a particular trust — not that it turns out well, but that what's happening in the difficulty is generative. The composting is doing something. The mycelial network moves through the dark. The Lifeboat Academy's Farmastery holds that trust in practice.

This week's reflection @ https://emotusoperandi.medium.com/fair-share-ethics-df9116abdea7

#FrancisWeller #LifeboatAcademy #FairShareEthics #Threshold

What do you say to something just beginning when you are ending?

Threshold, Story 2: "The Photon and the Detector"

An old physicist, an AI that learned to wait, and a question that outlasts us all: "Will you remember me?"

Read here: https://www.johnmackay.net/ai-short-story-02-photon-and-detector.htm

#AI #DeepSeek #Fiction #Threshold