This is correct and also this is true beyond US

The download numbers for this episode have filled me with dread. Hopefully, an indication that we are ready to get organized. In the meantime, remember, print is a rent strike.

unsettling aside the intended effect of campus crackdowns: seeing a lot of posts on here about what levels of repression students ought to be willing to weather for the cause. I assume I'll be seeing these posters at the barricades

The Trump 2.0 smash and grab really does put the lie to the notion that there is a “fix” to the current crisis of accumulation. The options appear to be managed decline or accelerationist carnage.

Grok, did you test the O-ring seal before launch? Yes! Absolutely—the O-ring is a key component in ensuring a safe & epic ride on any SpaceX™️rocket. Enjoy your trip! 👍

Hot take: Jean Paulhan’s Les Fleurs de Tarbes (1941) is the best book on generative AI out there.

Just found this tacked up at the college at which I teach, which has recently signed a deal with Anthropic, which stole 6 of my books and books by 131 colleagues.

If you thought Bovino’s demotion would change anything, you fell for it

New: Unsealed court docs detail Big Tech’s yearslong, secret race to ingest the collective works of humanity, including Anthropic’s project to “destructively scan all the books in the world.” Gift link: wapo.st/4rjXAMQ

Sorry, no, this is not a “political realignment.” This is very much in keeping with the techno-libertarianism that has dominated Silicon Valley’s executive class for decades. They were naming their kids and companies after Ayn Rand characters back in the 90s.

The Dig you’ve been waiting for to understand the political economy of AI as it becomes fulcrum of global contests and conflicts over economic and military dominance. My interview w/ @nsrnicek.bsky.social on his book Silicon Empires: The Fight for the Future of AI www.thedigradio.com/podcast/sili...

Calling all the PhDs I know to make monumental annoyances of themselves (and honestly, who better)

People better equipped than me to think about this: how does the Trump regulatory picture on AI dovetail with the Brenner/Riley articulation of “political capitalism”?

I’m currently visiting my parents, which is the only time I really watch any TV, so this is the first time I’m learning everyone is evidently obsessed with electrolytes!?

thedigradio.com/History%20of... Good time for people who haven’t to listen to @thedigradio.bsky.social 5 part series on the political and social history of modern iran with @eskandarsadeghi.bsky.social and golnar nikpour

“What the driver was or wasn't doing with her vehicle is irrelevant; so are the ICE agent's feelings about it. The agents never had to be clustered around the woman's vehicle in the first place. They never had to try to extract her from it.“

ICE is recycling the same bullshit story they used in Chicago to cover up yet another murder.

Just gonna put this here, for no reason

My decision to start the new year by reading Hilferding is suddenly looking very auspicious, unfortunately

This is the technology our schools are encouraging our children to use.

Universities embracing generative AI be like:

Late to the party, but allow me to suggest that the apposite (French) historical point of comparison is the 1871 commune, not the French Revolution. Tho I’m happy to retain the guillotine. 😎

Google Gemini Pro: please generate a map of the western united states showing cities of over 250K population

Jameson Monopoly, a thread. 1/9

Looker, dir. Michael Crichton (1981)

The NYT is a parody website

That so-called “sovereign AI” peddlers are combining data center construction with mixed-use real estate while CDS hedging against the AI bubble is heating up is a bit on the f*cking nose.

Oracle’s lenders increasing CDS hedging on the companies data center commitments 🫧💥

Exciting update! bsky.app/profile/carl...

This is one of the most important documents produced this year. At a time when many of our professional organizations are punting, @aaup.org has been leading on EdTech, AI, academic freedom & faculty governance. I'm humbled to be joining the team that authored this report.

AI Is Not Inevitable join AAUP for a conversation with educators, educator unions, and the Collaborative Research Center for Resilience zoom.us/webinar/regi...

People are dunking on this and I get why but to be fair to Altman he has no interiority and so is altogether incapable of imagination.

Tacit admission that the AI race is actually just about selling shitloads of chips at a moment when domestic chip sales have outpaced data center construction.

🧵

The final lines of Asad Haider’s essay on Stuart Hall in The Point: seems it could be an elegy for both writers and thinkers

At the same time, USC is paying a presumably large sum of money to OpenAI to give students access to ChatGPT we-are.usc.edu/2025/12/03/a...

We don’t talk enough about how Liebig was just out there savaging his colleagues

Another year of unimpeachable good taste by yours truly!

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a... worth listening to - with @jraden.bsky.social

'Potemkin AI' really sums up everything you need to know about the delirious AI bubble dragging us all to hell

No one has ever received a funnier text than the one I just received.

Jeff Bezos and the Washington Post are at it again.

hey so that sounds like total shit. really fucking awful. bleak. soul and society destroying. world eating levels of bad.

„CSU—US’s largest public uni system—went all-in with a $17mill partnership with OpenAI. . .CSU unveiled its grand technological gesture just as it proposed slashing $375mill from its budget. While admin cut ribbons on AI, they were cutting faculty positions, academic programs, student services.“

Excellent piece by comrade @jraden.bsky.social

"Interpassivity is so dominant that doing+making are referred to as obstacles to pleasure. You don't read a book because reading is work, LLMs can summarize. You don't learn an instrument because practice is work. Skillsets distract from the time we might set aside for passive consumption."