If a government tells you that you can’t call it authoritarian, it’s authoritarian.

Rocket’s repping the AL West Champs in style! 🐶⚾ Go @mariners.com! 🎉 #SeaUsRise #SeizeTheMoment

huge W

Our mistake when we wrote _Calling Bullshit_ was to assume that people would deliberately abuse the flexibility of quantitative metrics to mislead. We devoted inadequate attention to people making up complete and utter nonsense with no possible grounding in fact.

I have to keep this deliberately vague, but this is a total disaster for academic research. And imposing it so suddenly is just cruel. I’ve got friends scrambling to get back to the US before midnight tonight. Do you know how hard that is to do on 36 hours of notice?

the government and the people who control AI are erasing history and research in real time to distort reality www.404media.co/doj-deletes-...

Charlie Warzel gives some of these ideas a more thoughtful treatment: bsky.app/profile/thea...

Look at us staring at our screens like fools, searching for coherence in the politics of very online murder guys in their twenties.

Fact check.

$10 Kash Patel’s “suspect in custody” error yesterday was just him repeating what he had seen on social media rather than relying on official intel.

We’ve been down this road so many times, and yet it just feels like the aftermath of the Boston marathon bombings on replay, over and over again, except now the official sources (FBI) are directly plugged into social media (X) as input.

In the absence of any actual facts about the shooting, everyone is just playing word association with Charlie Kirk.

Someone dies in a horrific act of political violence. An online manhunt ensues w/ fingers pointed in all directions. Alongside thoughts & prayers, framing wars rage, as partisans try to score all the political points they can. Then conspiracy theorizing takes root, the denial of inconvenient truths.

“The problem that Democrats actually need to solve is how to effectively message in an information environment that is designed from the ground up to benefit reactionary narratives. If they don’t figure that out, they’ll end up… dreaming up middling solutions to non-existent problems.” Great article

Have been tagged in to provide the reminder about traumatic video because of the Charlie Kirk shooting video going around! 1. Settings -> Content & Media, turn off "autoplay video" 2. Keep your device sound off while browsing so an accidental activation won't include the sound

Certainly looks like we scared the President away from Chicago. Fighting like hell works.

"You can't policy your way out of a propaganda problem" is such a good line. Policy matters, but how you communicate stuff matters more right now.

The president of the United States just declared war, actual military war, not a metaphorical one, on a major American city, and one governed by his political opponents. In any other period, this would be impeachment-worthy.

if i had the opportunity to ask a question of anyone in the administration, given this "war in chicago" messaging, i would ask them how many americans the president intends to kill in his war

A slightly new spin on an old authoritarian playbook. Duterte 2.0.

Really good thread here

Positive feedback is valuable feedback too. Political leaders need signals about what they’re doing right… not just what they’re doing wrong. If they only hear negative voices, they may spin themselves in circles.

Great article from @parkermolloy.com - “Welcome to the future, where your tax dollars fund AI founding fathers spouting catchphrases from guys who weren't even born yet. Facts might not care about your feelings, but apparently nobody cares about facts anymore either.” www.readtpa.com/p/your-tax-d...

I think some people become outwardly cynical because of the social insulation it provides. Shock leaves you vulnerable to criticisms that you're naive and should have seen every bad thing coming (never mind that predictable things can still be startling). But cynicism begets a quiet tolerance.

A friend snapped this pic and sent it to me yesterday. It's from yesterday's large march in Chicago. Thank to the protester for bringing me along :)

They will never give up on finding things to be upset about no matter how much power and control they have because contentedness is impossible for them and goes against everything they believe in. And their leaders will always be manufacturing new outrages because it’s how they keep their power.

Debugging labelers, ignore the next few posts

“Political movements … require trust. … When adult children discover their parents have been drained by political fundraising operations using tactics reminiscent of common internet scams—but bearing the brand of the Democratic Party itself—the damage extends far beyond the financial.”

it really is insane that for people with math learning disabilities, the educational system STILL largely just offers "accommodations" in the form of "don't take math," instead of "here are some ways we can help you learn to do math"

A sobering but good read from @davekarpf.bsky.social today: davekarpf.substack.com/p/what-its-l.... While my position within academia (as a grad student rather than faculty, and at a public rather than private university) is far different, a lot of this resonated, and highly recommend reading.

Hello. I wrote a nice long essay about AI and this very strange moment where we're constantly told we're living in the dawn of a strange new future but the only thing that's actually clear is that everyone feels pretty unmoored and uncertain. I hope you'll read it

This is part of what's amazing about all this! Virtually no one would know or care that the Vikings have men on their dance/cheer team if not for right-wing accounts sharing the video with rage. bsky.app/profile/vano...

Things are really bad and rather than just hurting our enemies, we're going to have to help our loved ones friends and strangers, starting with our most vulnerable— to uplift each other, and protect each other, if we're ever going to undo all this trauma and get free.

🎯

i’m at the domestic doom i’m at the geopolitical doom i’m at the combination domestic/geopolitical doom

I fucking hate this so much, it delays search every time I forget to add "-ai", so annoying that it makes me fucking type more to get basic search I HATE IT (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

Going to be testing how links show up in jetstream so ignore the next couple posts: scholar.google.com

Thought this was a great article from @davekarpf.bsky.social davekarpf.substack.com/p/gpt5-and-t...

please stop skeeting your way into felony charges people

On government overreach (and sandwiches): In Oct 2024, the right posted itself into a frenzy over the U.S. gov seizing IG celebrity Peanut (a squirrel that was euthanized after biting a biologist). If the left can't create even more momentum around the DC takeover & arrest of sandwich man then...

Slow down ICE by visiting local businesses, speaking to small business owners or store managers, and distributing signs that do two things: 1) Clearly mark "Staff Only" areas to create safe zones where ICE can’t legally operate without a signed judicial warrant.

Part of why we are where we are is that few people on any point of the political spectrum actually take racism seriously.

Further consolidating control over federal research funding under Russell Vought and a cadre of apparatchiks. www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

Excellent article from @jamellebouie.net, highly recommend you read this today

"...every time a person contests or defends a political situation, they are also contesting or defending the intellectual terms on which that contest is conducted. You cannot fight without fighting about how you fight." One of many favorites from this phenomenal article @andrealongchu.bsky.social

wrote about thomas chatterton williams www.vulture.com/article/post...

If anyone is curious about the current list of search terms being used by right wing activist organizations to harass university professors, here's a public records request I received today from Mike Howell of the Heritage Foundation. Not intimidating or meant to curtail by my speech at all, right?