Sharing a call for abstracts for a session I'm hosting with Antoine Courmont at the next @rc21.bsky.social conference in Vienna! We're looking for research that investigates the way platform capitalism is remaking inequality between cities. Here's the link to apply: rc21-vienna2026.org

📣 Germany's close to reversing its opposition to mass surveillance & private message scanning, & backing the Chat Control bill. This could end private comms-& Signal-in the EU. Time's short and they're counting on obscurity: please let German politicians know how horrifying their reversal would be.

Our special issue is finally out! 🎉 With Antoine Courmont, I had the privilege of working with a stellar group of scholars to examine Google as an urban actor and highlight its uneven, shape-shifting power across cities. Please read, share, and let us know what you think!

Very excited to be hosting this upcoming talk for @citiesabit.bsky.social. Registration is open to all :)

🔔 Upcoming online talk (Cities Agenda – Sciences Po) 📅 2 Oct 2025 | 17:00–18:30 (GMT+2) 🎙️ Join #USFInternationalFellow Ana Beraldo – Managing ordinary life: (Im)predictability, Violence & Solidarity in Latin American Urban Margins 💬 Discussant: Patrick Le Galès 👉 Register: ow.ly/F5vo50X10H9

Q. Who aligns the aligners? A. alignmentalignment.ai Today I’m humbled to announce an epoch-defining event: the launch of the 𝗖𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗔𝗜 𝗔𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗖𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀.

Out with ‘abundance’, time for:

Horrible news. I owe an enormous debt to Michel’s work. A truly transformative thinker and an unbelievable loss. My thoughts are with his loved ones. www.csi.minesparis.psl.eu/articles-ved...

There is a new Chotiner interview that really underscores what is unique about Israel's genocide in Gaza: it would be very easy for the world to stop it if only a few countries wanted to.

On the 80th anniversary of Hiroshima…

The British media outlet ITV also went on a Jordanian airdrop and simply ignored the Israeli government’s illiberal demands: www.itv.com/news/2025-08...

Calibri Bold looking ass logo

Extremely stoked to share a recent publication of mine in the journal Cities! Based on research I conducted last year, I look at what happens when 'innovation' takes root as a policy priority for city governments, through the prism of 'digital twin' projects. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

on reddit, the website at the end of the internet nymag.com/intelligence...

I’m going to say it… that’s what a machine learning political order does. It intensifies a politics by trialling and experimentation. The hackathon has been policy space for a long time. www.cambridge.org/core/service...

Here is the longest blog post I've ever written (4k words). "The Curious Question of AI-written Lists: Or, LLMs are Genre Machines" I end with a teaching approach for writing, AI-related & non-AI related. I hope you'll read the whole thing! Thank you. meresophistry.substack.com/p/the-curiou...

Extremely stoked to share a recent publication of mine in the journal Cities! Based on research I conducted last year, I look at what happens when 'innovation' takes root as a policy priority for city governments, through the prism of 'digital twin' projects. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

In a parallel life, I designed political posters. Some of them were pretty damn good. Here’s one of my favourites, for @suebigoil.bsky.social and @avilewis.bsky.social

#VendrediLecture 📚 A quoi servent les "jumeaux numériques" de villes ? Oskar Steiner, doctorant, a étudié l'exemple de ceux fournis par Dassault Systèmes. A lire dans @metropolitiques.bsky.social ⤵️ #SmartCity cc @edr-sciencespo.bsky.social @scpo-research.bsky.social

Extremely excited to share my first academic publication in @metropolitiques.bsky.social! In it, I trace the way firms' offers are reshaped by local politics, raising questions about how we characterize the role of digital platforms in the city today. metropolitiques.eu/La-fabrique-...

Excited to present with my colleague Luca at this workshop tomorrow with the @ccds-aup.bsky.social! Looking at medieval city-states, company towns and contemporary smart cities, we argue that city "autonomy" is incapable without symmetrical processes of automation and othering. Abstract below :)

Boston is an amazing place.

Even accepting the premise that AI produces useful writing (which no one should), using AI in education is like using a forklift at the gym. The weights do not actually need to be moved from place to place. That is not the work. The work is what happens within you.

THE RISE OF END TIMES FASCISM My first major piece of the new Trump era, co-written with @astra.bsky.social. The governing ideology of the far right has become a monstrous, supremacist survivalism. Our task is to build a movement strong enough to stop them. www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

I wrote a very long blog post about AI writing. I hope you'll read it. meresophistry.substack.com/p/the-mental...

By far the best vision I’ve seen for rescuing Canadian politics, life, and economic self-determination comes from @avilewis.bsky.social breachmedia.ca/trumps-econo...

‘No Way to Please Everyone’ Says Only University Where Students Are Regularly Kidnapped

This is sad and useless. The BC price on carbon was one of the only examples of genuinely redistributive climate policy I’ve had the luck to encounter. Gas was more expensive, but as a broke student I received upwards of 400$/yr through the Climate Action Tax Credit to (more than) offset this cost.

The decimation of public information infrastructure along with the LLMification of knowledge robs us of a coherent and collectively recorded past. Hard to believe the individualized convulsions of a data centre in Indiana can offer any basis for organized action ngl. But I suppose that’s the point.

Trudeau: I think Canadians are a little perplexed as to why our closest friends and neighbors are choosing to target us. I don’t think there are a lot of Americans who wake up in the morning saying, "Oh, damn Canada. Oh, we should really go after Canada."

Elon: “Heil Hitler” the press: “hmmm I wonder what he means by this”

A big day for Frederick Jackson Turner

What such proclamations — and smart city / Neom-ish boosterism — fail(s)to do is contextualize these claims in relation to similar arguments made about earlier media technologies (the web! 📺! ☎️! print!) and 1000s of years of entangled media + urban histories (the subject of my 2017 book)!

Evergreen finding here. Robots need more help than they offer! (Akrich Callon and Latour - 2002 - "The Key to Success in Innovation Part I: The Art of Interressement")

don’t comply in advance also applies to the enclosure of all hitherto existing cultural production and expulsion of labor

Here’s me doing some shameless promo for the Urban School at @sciencespo.bsky.social. Admissions are now open for their master’s degrees—which you can learn more on by reading about my experience there at the link below :) www.sciencespo.fr/en/news/stud...

In 2024, we were lucky to welcome 8 new PhD students working on the radical right in Europe, participatory democracy, digital tools in cities, overtourism, ... Discover their subjects: www.sciencespo.fr/centre-etude... Follow them are on Bluesky -- see next post cc @edr-sciencespo.bsky.social

Solidarity with Maori and their allies in Aotearoa facing a far-right attack on their rights and the country’s foundational treaty, signed with the Crown in 1840.