AI is bypassing the problem of consciousness much like marginalism bypassed the problem of value.

As it's the end of 2025, I'm just reposting our 'Outside the box' starter pack. This features accounts who think across tribal lines. Those on it have ideological sympathies, but are open to different traditions and consider issues on a case-by-case basis. Shares welcome ;-) go.bsky.app/HZxZgvh

Yes. It’s too scary and too close for comfort, but still.

we are going to win. www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

Stop the cuts! #stopdesloop

The centre: At least we’re not racist! The right: At least we’re racist! The left: 🦗🦗🦗 Turnout is key and the centre is prob maxed out already, so exposing Farage as the racist he obviously is may even backfire—at least until anyone can credibly promise actual material improvements.

🚨🚨🚨 Hot off the press: a slew of new book reviews in Political Theory. 🚨🚨🚨 First up, @enzoreds.bsky.social takes on three new booksby Fabienne Peter, Matthias Brinkmann, and Thomas Fossen in a terrific review essay on legitimacy.

Have been thinking about “immigration has been tearing this country apart.” Surely I’m not the only person to think that it isn’t true, but inflamed rhetoric about immigration by politicians is what is tearing this country apart and so statements like that only makes it worse.

Banal observation, sorry, but conversations in Prague really brought home to me that while countries come and go, cities have a historical existence and character that typically is far more resilient.

A thing I don’t love about the Left—l do this myself sometimes—is appealing to how we used to do things as an argument for what we should do now: “When we were strong we did stuff like this”. Nostalgia is borderline conservatism. It’s tempting, but no. The way forward is through.

Een week geleden werd BIJ1 met een kater wakker. Het was de antikapitalistische en dekoloniale partij niet gelukt om de in 2023 verloren zetel terug te winnen? Piet Rietman keek tijdens de campagne mee achter de schermen. Hij bespreekt de uitgagingen en en afwegingen van de partijleiding en leden.

Links begon de verkiezingscampagne van 2025 verdeeld en onzeker over haar eigen stem, en dat werd duidelijk zichtbaar in de uitslag. Lees op onze vernieuwde website⤵️ jacobin.nl/links-behaal...

The Dutch elections were a victory for liberal centrists and a defeat for the anti-immigration Geert Wilders. Yet with the overall right-wing vote stronger than ever, there’s little reason for celebration.

In case Zohran's just too exciting for you, here's our room-temperature take on last week's Dutch election: jacobin.com/2025/11/neth...

Sulle elezioni olandesi della settimana scorsa:

“I don’t know if melancholy is the gaze that allows you to see how rotten everything is, or the inability to see beyond that rottenness. If it’s the first, it can be salvaged. If it’s the second, I agree with the futurists.” illstarredletter.substack.com/p/cheer-up-l...

For completely mercenary reasons I'm opposed to this - citations are currency precisely and only because of the social meaning that they signal a judgement that the piece being cited was worth engaging with. This specifically generates evidence that works by minorities are cited for other reasons...

this is what will happen if mamdani makes bus rides free

Quite a few shows about burying yourself in a controlled environment underground lately: Severance, Fallout, The Silo. The Good Place, sort of. The empire is feeling the pinch.

Dutch cinema is not in great state but this is an excellent film: technically accomplished, a narration that makes the most of moving images as a medium. Keep an eye on this director.

Amen

Mokum tegen fascisme

Super excited about this one ✊🏼 www.altrlab.org/latest/marx-... @enzoreds.bsky.social

“Man does not seek pleasure, only the Englishman does” -Nietzsche

There are two kinds of reactionary centrism: 1. "The radical left are lunatics, the far right has legitimate concerns" 2. "Vote for me and uphold zombie neoliberalism or else you are helping the fascists" They are inconsistent but people like Starmer, Marcon & co switch between them all the time.

Buckle is just correct about reactionary centrists in the UK, they are a genuine threat to our democracy and will have us down the same path as the USA. Seeing how much of the authoritarian drive in the US has been due to elite acquiescence has shaken me. www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/709...

My review of Shmuel Nili's intriguing new book (though some of the cases he discusses are, er, dated): www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

Also, strong “reason alienates us from God” vibes in this “analytic philosophy” is bad for the left” discourse

Sure analytic philosophy is small C conservative but have you tried replacing material analysis with culturalist navel-gazing?

What’s most ridiculous about this whole “analytic philosophy is conservative” discourse is that it’s the identitarian continental/pomo stuff that has actually destroyed the Left. In fact the CIA actively promoted it. Go figure.

The richest man on earth owns X. The second richest man on earth is about to be a major owner of TikTok. The third richest man owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. The fourth richest man owns The Washington Post. See the problem here?

You’re going to want to read this substack.com/home/post/p-...

Didn't see this coming but I guess they have a point onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

What does "racism is primarily driven" mean? Historically, we have a sense of where it comes from as an attitude. But if the question is when racism translates to political behaviour--voting, demonstrating--then leaving economics out seems dogmatic and moralistic. We don't do that for other issues.

[email protected] on Platonov, the commune form, and work satisfaction on an interstellar ship: illstarredletter.substack.com/p/read-letter

The Barbican is a relatively recent building complex but it just feels totally beyond the capacity of our society to make anything this cool now, like the remnant of some fallen civilisation whose ruins we live amidst.

Some academic disciplines are three appeals to authority in a trenchcoat

another of the things I will keep saying is that we have an elite impunity problem and nothing will improve until and unless we change that

Why? Well, for starters, 300 ICE agents have been moved to Chicago, leaving only about 300 in LA County which is about what we had before Trump took office. Why are they leaving? Because LA made their jobs TOO FUCKING HARD. LA Organized. LA sat on corners outside Home Depots with radios. 5/

I am editing a Special Issue of *The Erasmus Journal of Philosophy and Economics* to celebrate the 250th Anniversary of The Wealth of Nations. Confirmed Contributors: Sam Fleischacker (UIC) Maria Carrasco (Universidad de los Andes) Please share. www.ejpe.org/journal/anno...

We’re looking for a new head administrator for our department! werkenbij.uva.nl/vacatures/af...

Today and tomorrow at the University of Amsterdam:

Today’s western politics in a nutshell.

I am sickened by the relentless demonisation of refugees. No refugee underfunded a school. No refugee closed a hospital. No refugee took away support from the sick and disabled. We need solutions not scapegoats. Stop blaming refugees and tax the rich instead!

Academia is the wokest bubble, and people in it act like it’s riddled with 1950s levels of racism and sexism. The outside world is riddled with 1950s levels of racism and sexism, and people act like the wokies are in charge.

The old techniques of alienation don’t work anymore. The reader is pre-alienated, already suspicion of the humanity behind written text. The new machine poetry plays with that suspicion, and encourages us to be suspicious of the robotic tendencies in ourselves and our favourite human writers.

Long before there was internet, there have been language generation machines, and poets have loved fiddling with them.

I’ve not been corrupting the youth I swear

Blueskolds