Topical commentary from 1852 www.marxists.org/archive/marx...

This is a great explainer of the background - someunpleasant.substack.com/p/homo-econo...

I wrote about Michael Shellenberger turning me into a secret CIA agent for his “censorship complex” hoax, profiting from harassing me behind a paywall. He blocked me on X and unsubscribed me from his Substack while doing so. He has never retracted his lies. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

want

In the modern day, the person closest to going through what Spinoza went through isn't a comedian who couldn't get specials for 2 years for raping someone, it's Mahmoud Khalil

I sometimes think that the one adjective no-one would ever apply to Donald Trump is "classy." That's a source of both weakness and strength.

The Aaron Swartz production function www.programmablemutter.com/p/the-aaron-...

Whisper it softly - as it really doesn't fit the narrative - but the AfD has markedly underperformed in a series of recent mayoral elections in Germany's eastern states. Often where the rival candidate was a dynamic local figure commanding broad "popular front" support.

On a very bad Saturday for DOJ and the would-be autocrat openly and repeatedly topping Watergate. Plus the links! @mattglassman312.bsky.social @normornstein.bsky.social @himself.bsky.social @nataliej.bsky.social @smotus.bsky.social and more: goodpoliticsbadpolitics.substack.com/p/trumps-lat...

I joked the other day that all the Post's editorials are just "what if this bad thing were actually good," and will you look at that

I really liked the Jared Shurin definition that includes 'Cyberpunk is a type of sci-fi where technology instead of transforming the power structures of society, reinforces them'

If Trump is conducting sensitive government business via Truth Social DMs, it raises the obvious question of how good Truth Social's encryption is, who has been trying to listen in, and how?

"I'm begging you" language is a strongish signal that the writer is more interested in burnishing their self-satisfaction than trying to persuade others.

Only Fools and Slow Horses would make for an entertaining television production.

For some reason I'm on Jared Golden's "might give me money" list. It might be good to ask @hakeem-jeffries.bsky.social why he is doing a Whiskey Tasting fundraiser for the only House Democrat to vote _for_ the Republican budget.

People keep talking about tech firms in relation to the H1-B $100k fee but it’s gonna really sink universities.

Speaking of canceling your Disney+ subscription, my students occasionally think I’m going some sort of “Irish people invented everything” bit when I first tell them where the word “boycott” comes from.

Tuesday in London, Ontario! I’m excited to debut new work on the Myth of the US as the Beacon of Democracy!

So, THIS is happening "Rewild the Internet: How to Resist Big Tech" will be published by Simon & Schuster in NY and Bloomsbury in London. Every bit of power we take from Big Tech takes it away from autocrats like Trump. Showing how is what I'm doing to meet this moment. (tk u @robin.berjon.com)

So excited for this to be in the world

I hope some newspapers use a crop where you can easily read the sign.

Heartbreaking.

The Center for the Alignment of AI Alignment Centers is mercilessly savage in this regard. alignmentalignment.ai/caaac/blog/p...

that is some photo

there is an institutional persistence story to be written about why Cambridge is not only so bad at marketing and organizing itself in the digital age, but utterly indifferent. Its attitude to the books it publishes is like a fish spawning 50,000 fertilized eggs. A few will survive and reproduce.

NEW: Could the EU dust off its trade bazooka to take on China? Europe weighs its options A serious discussion is underway in the commission about using the anti-coercion instrument against China - my report.

I don't have much time for Douthat nor him for me, but (a) we are not the audience for this piece, and (b) it is possibly helpful given the audience that it is visibly aimed at.

U.S. protest culture, however, also needs to distinguish itself from 'generic Democratic fundraising'

I've lived in both a full blown autocracy (China) and one of the great resistance states (SK) a) if you were *actually* practicing security, none of this would be on this highly visible public platform. b) courage is an important part of resistance, organization is an even more important part

There's a tremendous amount of insight in this post from @himself.bsky.social on power as coordination. As he notes, absolute power is a contradiction in terms, because someone who's absolutely unconstrained can make no commitments and so can't give orders. www.programmablemutter.com/p/repost-abs...

Everyone should read this post from @himself.bsky.social www.programmablemutter.com/p/repost-abs...

Maybe Barnard should host a talk by Jimmy Kimmel?

tldr: "respect the problem" is the first commandment. making the decision that compromise is impossible and conflict inevitable is *difficult*, particularly for someone who, admirably, doesn't hop from take to take.

My takeaway so far is that he missed a trick with "engineers v lawyer"; the two opposing models he's talking about should clearly be called "the fucking about culture and the finding out society"

More and more I think democracy needs coxswains. Not that we don't get bored saying the same true thing over and over again (me and handle heights), but we fight to figure out how to do it when we have to.

"What if the Democratic party’s problem is not that it is too left-leaning, or for that matter, too moderate, but instead is too disconnected from the lives of the people whom it wants to appeal to? " www.programmablemutter.com/p/not-popula...

Folded hyperplanes, but for stupid.

this conservative take on Charlie Kirk as an institution builder is interesting. I don't agree with the hagiography of course but you can't deny he built some highly effective mass membership stuff scholars-stage.org/bullets-and-...

One of the privileges of my life was to work w/ both @ezrakleinbot.bsky.social and @jamellebouie.net at @prospect.org in 2008-2011, though they didn't quite overlap. They are not "opposing viewpoints," but are both motivated by curiosity, not just glib "takes," and a commitment to human dignity. 1/2

OpenAI's "what is ChatGPT, anyway?" study is a little weird, sort of funny, but actually illuminating nymag.com/intelligence...

Every mf wants to talk about being exposed to ideas that are challenging and distressing, no mf wants to be exposed to ideas that are even mildly irritating

These are the Trump Administration’s demands on UCLA, in addition to a 1.2 billion dollar fine, as reported by the LA Times today. I must note again that the Trump Administration’s attempt to use title vi to enforce conservative agenda items is flagrantly illegal.

www.thetimes.com/article/416b... "Santa Ono has just joined your institution" needs to become some kind of meme of impending disaster or something.

I wrote a response to Thomas Friedman's "magical thinking" on AI here: aiguide.substack.com/p/magical-th...

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/15/u... As @mattsteinglass.bsky.social keeps saying, corruption is the most important story in the world. It's also the thread that weaves the different parts of the Trump administration together, and the grand narrative that explains what it's doing to the public.

On Monday I'm launching a newsletter called "Write Up," to help YOU, #polisky, put your ideas out into public discussion. I'll lay out lessons, tips, and tricks on how to expand your reach. Please sign up! open.substack.com/pub/ejgraff/...

www.ft.com/content/ca6c... This is an extremely useful exercise in ideological mapping (this link - on.ft.com/4n3FooO - should work for the first couple of non-FT subscribers to click anyways)

www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty... The free speech crusade will continue until complete conformity and submission are achieved.

In some ways, Trump II forpol killed the DC think tank business model of releasing endless streams of well-meaning but unrealistic policy papers. In other ways, Trump II forpol coopted the DC think tank business model of releasing endless streams of well-meaning but unrealistic policy papers.