I need everyone, esp anyone working in education or tech (but really everyone) to WATCH THIS CLIP of @drtanksley.bsky.social discussing the technologies infiltrating our schools & psyches and how she is addressing it with our young people. youtu.be/5mtcSL4S3HQ

Ocasio-Cortez Highlights Economic Threat from AI Bubble, says companies should get no bailout when the bubble pops. ocasio-cortez.house.gov/media/press-...

Has anyone written the etymological history of “compute” as a noun?

Academic political economists should want to be actively participating in discussions like this excellent one between JS and the former head of the FTC. Maybe coming up with the best definition of which phase of capitalism we're in can wait. thelibertypear.com/2025/11/15/l...

What, exactly, does this string of words mean? Why does everyone who stands to profit from selling "AI" love to repeat it? And what's the value of slogans that masquerade as history? sonjadrimmer.com/blog-1/2025/...

@fordhampress.bsky.social is having a 25% off sale, and free shipping to the U.S. AND Peculiar Satisfaction is available! Jefferson and the making of US libraries, archives, and museums. Thinking with Walter Benjamin, Sylvia Wynter, and others. fordhampress.com/peculiar-sat...

Canadian govt is committing money to recruit researchers from the US and elsewhere to Canadian universities. Includes grad students too!

The idea that machines will be as smart as—or smarter than—humans has hijacked an entire industry. But look closely and you’ll see it’s a myth that persists for many of the same reasons conspiracies do. Read the story: www.technologyreview.com/2025/10/30/1...

For the love of God stop calling capitalism “Technofeudalism.” This is not a mutant regression off the track of benign capitalism’s progress to utopia. This is capitalism doing capitalism.

I found this very moving and thought provoking. Things are happening among the American Jewish community. (FYI it's long, and I had to get deep into it to really appreciate it.) youtu.be/X-eLWZLs8Q8?...

It chills me to the bone how the privileging of white South Africans is so plainly, openly white supremacist. www.bbc.com/news/article...

“We build our computers the way we build our cities—over time, without a plan, on top of ruins.” ― Ellen Ullman

Dear journalism outlets: how about more of this type of explainer and less horse race, he-said/she-said, and inside baseball coverage? Explaining things like video editing should be considered a necessary part of professional reporting, no? (I'm looking at you, NYT.) youtu.be/TKIlZX20f8A?...

"Poilievre stated . . . Christians . . . “may be the number 1 group that are victims of hate-based violence.” The political media sphere [acted like] Poilievre wasn’t reading the mood of the nation. Au contraire. Poilievre is reading the cards very well." charlieangus.substack.com/p/how-the-ha...

Some data: Centrists as the NYT defines them -- pro-corporate, moderate on social issues and silent on class -- lost the Presidency against non-centrist Republicans in 2000, 2004, 2016, 2024. And AOC and Bernie regularly get votes from folks who also voted for Trump. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/20/o...

Folks we are watching the adjudication of some of the most important constitutional issues of federalism, executive discretion, and judicial review since the 19th c www.oregonlive.com/politics/202...

I will also note that some of the best work on all the connections between popular culture and radicalization comes from queer, BIPOC, and/or women scholars. I wonder why the media has ignored us? 🧐

Anyone who researches pop culture (esp. toxic geek spaces, gaming, fandom, etc.) is having a bit of a "told you so" moment as they see mainstream media outlets fall all over themselves to understand stuff we've been screaming about for literally a decade (or more). Y'all didn't wanna listen.

There's a substack post circulating that claims "Once fascists win power democratically, they have never been removed democratically. Not once. Ever." But Philippines 1986, Chile 1990, USSR 1991, South Africa 1994, Poland 2023. Just some of the examples. Worth checking out.

US writers in bien-pensent outlets like the Atlantic and the NYT are obsessed with the supposed horrors of Canada's MAID policies. I have many reservations myself. But 1/4

This is one of the absolute toughest things about predatory inclusion — the predation is often fun or a little useful. Criticism makes a reasonable person sound like an asshole. LowerEd weathered me for this kind of social death. So I’ll say it: your enjoyment does not matter & should not matter.

I'm closely interviewed for this Nieman Lab report that discusses how rural areas will be affected by loss of funding for local NPR reporting. We must not underestimate the importance of equal access to information - we're about to witness a seismic ideological shift in American sense of "place."

I have a new article out: "Do artifacts have political economy?" It's a riff on an old argument by Langdon Winner about the embedding of politics in technology #STS #sociology #technoscience #technology #innovation journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Join us in person or online tomorrow (Jul. 24) to talk about my new book 𝘛𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘯 𝘈𝘳𝘵! I'm thrilled to be in conversation with Ruth Skinner & Judith Rodger at Museum London, hosted by Words, London's literary & creative arts festival. Register: tinyurl.com/tradingonart @ubcpress.bsky.social

The replacement of everything with generative AI is NOT inevitable, but it sure is if you all shrug and say "Well, it's inevitable" like your brain was washed in bad predictive SF for decades.

It’s a CONCENTRATION CAMP…not a PRISON 🤯 ALLIGATOR AUSCHWITZ 🐊

I am grieving the barbarism that is going to unfurl from all this. People are going to die. Livelihoods gone. All to feed a corrupt kleptocracy. I see every day up close how different it is from the first time around. There are no guardrails. A disaster. I’m sorry we have to live through this.

Ask yourself why Rolling Stone is the only outlet performing this obvious public service.

there's a lot of things to say about tech these days but certainly the part where it is now three dumb assholes competing with each other to do the same thing with no indication that it is a good idea except that the other dumb assholes are doing it is sure one of them

Luke Stark's important argument that we should look at AI, not as search engines and certainly not as minds, but as something akin to animation -- a tech that humans manipulate to generate unique perceptions -- is well illustrated by Big Foot vlog. dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml...

I'm going with this take: www.nytimes.com/2025/06/06/t...

"Journalists are also politicians now." -- Mikhail Gorbachev, August 22, 1991, after the "dumb coup" attempt. He was reflecting on the truthful but relentlessly negative Soviet Glasnost-era news coverage, which many have argued led to a collapse in public confidence in his democratizing regime.

Just say it: it was a wrong to release ChapGPT openly to the public and to advertise it as useful ways to find information and do work. LLM based AIs are doing serious damage to education, to the functionality of the internet, and to our capacity to build a world based on a shared reality.

This point is super relevant in a world in which tech founders are lauded as the found of societal wisdom and insight - they cost more than we realise

i think it should be a bigger story that the president held a meeting with a foreign head of state where he ranted about the most gutter white supremacist propaganda you can find on the internet

J. Ling on Thiel et al.: "These men all pine for the same thing: Exit. That is, a retreat from civilization, from the norms of polite society, from obligations to each other . . . . And, fundamentally, from the tyranny of living with people they disagree with." www.bugeyedandshameless.com/p/no-exit

Drama over at X/xAI. Whatever you ask Grok, it pivots to “white genocide” in South Africa. The last panel is what Grok claims was a “verbatim” system prompt that caused the behavior. Jury out. It’s now fixed but they haven’t yet bothered explaining. This, not those AGI fantastical scenarios.

Just found out that our book - "Capturing News, Capturing Democracy: Trump and Voice of America" has been shortlisted for the MeCCSA Monograph of the Year award. @newsprof1.bsky.social + @melbunce.bsky.social See here for all the shortlisted articles/books www.meccsa.org.uk/meccsa-outst...

Delighted to share that my new book 𝘛𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘯 𝘈𝘳𝘵: 𝘊𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘋𝘪𝘱𝘭𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘤𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘍𝘳𝘦𝘦 𝘛𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘕𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘩 𝘈𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘢 is out today with @ubcpress.bsky.social!

Any guesses who the likely "Conservative political lieutenant in Quebec" Adam Gopnik quoted r.e. Poilievre's politics in the New Yorker?

"...for protests to succeed, they must be backed by movements with the ability to promise to withhold—labor, debt payments, rent payments, or consumer support—and to follow through if demands aren’t met." Glad to have gotten the opportunity to push this line in Time time.com/collections/...

Sobering thoughts on the election from Charlie Angus charlieangus.substack.com/p/thoughts-o...

Did the Trump administration consider, I don't know ...asking women what would encourage them to reproduce? Guaranteed it's not $5k, INCELS, rape culture, abortion ban, banning social programs, installing tyranny, wiping out the middle class, & allowing diseases we nearly ended to resurge

New two part essay out in @flowtv.bsky.social on advertising, AI, the political economy of media and communication. www.flowjournal.org/2025/04/adve...

Canadian Liberals are leading the Conservatives by three points less than a week before the election. So was Hillary Clinton in the week before the 2016 election in the US. So don't take anything for granted; keep up the campaigning. abacusdata.ca/2025-federal...

The Cleveland Plain Dealer is still a remarkable news outlet. This is quite a twist on the right to be forgotten, which the PD has taken very seriously. www.cleveland.com/news/2025/04...

Say it plain. Upholding the Constitution means the President is not a king. It means the the rule of law not of men, the separation of powers, and free and fair elections. The law of the land says those who violate these principles are engaging in criminal acts. streeter.fims.uwo.ca/2025/02/10/h...

A blog post: My Jewish grandfather raised his children in 1930s Germany. Some of them wanted to be Hitlerjugend. I've been thinking about that in light of current events in the US. streeter.fims.uwo.ca/2025/04/08/h...

Dear Canadian friends: Charlie Angus is seeking to build a progressive movement from outside party structures. He's made appearances for some NDP candidates out west, but never seems to mention Singh or the national party. Good idea or ineffective? www.tiktok.com/@charlie.ang...