Microsoft and Blackrock have "have largely given up on organic adoption [of AI] by consumers. They have moved on to a new dream of forced adoption mandated by government and managerial coercion." Fascinating piece here on what Davos can teach us about the AI industry by @mattseybold.bsky.social

I have just had a strange realization: I believe my tenth grade modern global history teacher had read a bunch of Robert Dahl.

FYI, besides everything else, there’s a pretty severe blood shortage in the US. If you can, go donate.

a fun exercise might be to stop saying "threat to democracy" when what you're talking about is a breach or suspension of democracy

I think a lot about Parmy Olson's observation that AI companies actively push everyone to talk about existential risk, because it distracts from more prosaic current day concerns like copyright theft, conditions for data workers, energy & water use, and their financial situation

January’s post in the @apaphilosophy.bsky.social’s “Teaching and Learning Video Series” is @redsubway.bsky.social’s really interesting approach to teaching Kant’s aesthetics with reference to an interview with Rick Rubin: blog.apaonline.org/2026/01/21/r...

From @jamellebouie.net: “All occupations resemble one another in some way, and it is striking to read descriptions and accounts of the occupation of Boston in light of events in Minnesota.”

Launching new podcast soon. First interviews: Chandran Kukathas and Elizabeth Anderson. What should I ask them?

Canceling a graduate ethics course right after removing Plato from the philosophy syllabus.

I spoke with Martin Peterson, the philosophy professor at Texas A&M University who had to remove Plato readings from a course syllabus to comply with school policies against teaching "race and gender ideology." He says he's replaced that material with media coverage of this censorship.

"I’m going to pause here just to review: an institution that purports to be a university has told a philosophy professor he is forbidden from teaching Plato." surreal times dailynous.com/2026/01/06/t...

Texas A&M actually tells a philosophy professor he may not teach Plato.

Tapping the sign! doi.org/10.1007/s106...

I’m sorry, but it is disgraceful to be an academic who uses this technology to conduct research. It should be prohibited in all of our scholarly institutions, including universities and journals.

Watching the Santa Clause, and I’m reminded that we no longer tend to make films with long establishing shots during the opening credits.

This is everyday in the US now.

There isn't a lot of data about about the quality of teaching at colleges and universities. But would it be better if there were?

The New School is a beacon of higher education thanks to the labor of its faculty & staff.  I strongly urge @thenewschool.bsky.social to extend the deadline for faculty to consider separation packages, engage in good faith & protect the programs that make New School a globally renowned institution.

Chain of Command part II (TNG) is a masterpiece of existentialist fiction.

literally one of the policy slots we want to cover in the reconstruction papers! by the way! defense policy is too important to be left to MAGA! www.liberalcurrents.com/a-preview-of...

I, for one, think it is very cool that an Italian-American was a formative theoretician of American republicanism. (From Hammersley’s ‘Republicanism: An Introduction’)

“There is no evidence that the law that straightforwardly says ‘X’ and was repeatedly stated to mean ‘X’ during the legislative debates over its enactment means ‘X’” is an incredible level of bad faith argument. In layman’s terms: this is the lie of a child.

This isn’t a difference of opinion. Ilan Wurman and Randy Barnett are straightforward liars.

Barnett and Wurman are both liars trying to give the imprimatur of “scholarship” to an argument with *no* scholarly support in the record.

“No evidence the intent went beyond freeing slaves” — the framers of the amendment openly stated that it would grant citizenship to the children of Chinese immigrants. It’s in the Congressional record. Cited extensively in Wong Kim Ark. These aren’t obscure sources, especially for law professors.

Heartbreaking. The University of Nebraska will terminate its entire Earth science department. One of the country's most successful and respected geology & climate programs: gone. When ideologues & politicians are threatened by the very act of studying climate change, I wonder: who of us is next?

“The only clue that users seemingly had of Siri’s alleged spying was eerily accurate targeted ads that appeared after they had just been talking about specific items like Air Jordans or brands like Olive Garden, Reuters noted” arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...

Speaking as a private citizen on a matter of public concern, yes leadership is apparently planning to cut 50% of the faculty at the New School for Social Research in order to eliminate social research and replace scholarship with a trendy MA degree mill For the 21st Century 1/

Alright, baking Christmas cookies. youtu.be/nud2TQNahaU?...

h/t @robertfreundlaw.bsky.social holy shit, an accurate legal critique of LLMs. LLMs don't reason because they're just stitching together plausible-looking sentences indifferent to the content

An extremely stupid idea, will go nowhere. If the Dems want their own "MAGA" slogan, they should do what Trump did & just take one from an earlier more successful co-partisan—he stole MAGA from Reagan. What were FDR's slogans? Four Freedoms; great. Obama's Yes, We Can to Constitutional Restoration?

"They're trying to change our habits, because all of the projections rely on people becoming truly dependent on the technology. Whether or not it's actually a good thing for society isn't considered to be a factor."

"All of this falls apart if humans don't adopt the tech. This is why you've seen Meta cram its lame chatbots into WhatsApp and Instagram. This is why Notepad and Paint now have useless Copilot buttons on Windows. This is why Google Gemini wants to "help you" read and reply to your emails."

Dr. Prasad send an email to CBER suggesting changes to the approval for respiratory vaccines based, apparently, on the conclusion of an unpublished investigation into VAERS report by unknown people. A few thoughts beyond what was already reported, based on the full email: 1/n

This broadly tallies with my experience of teaching, and what colleagues have shared, over the last decade or so, though of course there are exceptions

I finally had to put on a real coat this morning because it’s cold. Whenever I put this one on, I remember that man, my grandma really is undefeated at LL Bean purchasing.

I'm teaching about Gaza on Monday. I assigned this article. You should read it if you haven't, because the trauma it describes is unbearable and we all need to sit with it. archive.ph/JlVfm#select...

Ever since this podcast first launched, I’ve considered this to be the book it was made for.

Huge @tinanguyen.bsky.social scoop: Trump is preparing to try and ban all state AI laws, going so far as having Brendan Carr’s FCC pull rural broadband funds from states that try to regulate AI www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...

I just learned that HeinOnline is now inserting "AI" summaries at the start of law review articles when I download the PDFs. Um, what the heck? I don't want this.

When you’re *in* the philosophy department (kind of), but not *the* philosophy department.

Jury trials remain a bastion against encroachment, too bad immigrants instead get fake judges and no juries

Part of the basic purpose of law is that it is action-guiding. It lets me know what is expected of me *right now,* who is authorized by the state *right now*, what is required of me *now, as I am making my decision*, etc. If this sort of thing flies, there is no longer the pretense of rule of law.

No there isn’t you Vichy bastards

As a journalist quipped about the clamping down on reportage of major socio-political issues in the prelude to the Uruguayan coup of ‘73: “freedom of the press had been reduced to the freedom to buy a press.”

I really appreciated these insights from an environmental historian regarding the use of AI in publishing. drb.ie/move-over-fo...

Hi yes hello this is 1 facet of exactly why we told you not to use "generative AI" in the regulatory production pipeline: Eventually the bullshit it spits out— even its citations— will fail to agree w/ consensus reality, but they'll sure *look* like they do, & by then you'll have started trusting it

What'd I say? bsky.app/profile/emos...