The events of the last 24 hours show why it's important to build functional verification structures in public and counterpublic spaces to resist the authoritarian erosion of our democratic systems, as described in this thread.

Difficult not to feel that Andy Burnham’s political ambitions have already been skewered by Tacitus: he will be a great future Labour leader so long as he never actually becomes Labour leader.

Sterilising beer bottles by hand really is tedious.

It is disturbing to think that there are people reading archaeological reports to extract evidence that supposedly legitimises their fascist views in the present.

Genuinely horrifying and miserable dream last night, as I was compelled by forces unknown to rank all the cats we’ve ever had.

At the Mountains of Madness.

Slightly bizarre that BBC radio is framing selection of Labour candidate for Gorton and Denton as “Andy Burnham has to decide”, as if rest of process is automatic.

There will be a painful gap in my list of ‘Blog Posts of the Year’ next December; RIP Deborah Cameron and ‘language: a feminist guide’, which has appeared every year since 2019. thesphinxblog.com/2026/01/23/a...

BOOKMARK THIS THREAD, EVERYBODY.

We’ve started publishing the outputs from our @britishacademy.bsky.social / @carnegieendowment.org programme on Global Dis(Order). You can find everything in one place here www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/programmes/g...

David Frost: "{Event/situation} means we must immediately {adopt my pre-existing policy preferences}." (this is great stuff, more of this please! - Ed.)

Quality performance art. Easy to parse, thematically relevant, kinda gross. Love it.

In 2031, every very-serious conference is full of swearwords and enshittificational neologisms to differentiate themselves from the AI slop machine.

Why you may be getting Thucydides at the next funeral you attend. thesphinxblog.com/2026/01/22/s...

Thucydides did not say that the strong will always win out over the weak.

Okay, it wavers between time-loop and time-travel film, but high on this list should be the magnificent Czechoslovak SF comedy Zítra vstanu a opařím se čajem - aka Tomorrow I’ll Wake Up and Scald Myself with Tea. www.theguardian.com/film/2026/ja...

Thucydides boldly goes once again… thesphinxblog.com/2026/01/22/s...

Or consider being born to parents who can give you a role in the family firm? www.ft.com/content/c894...

RT if you don't even know how the hell to open a ChatGPT tab

“…while some [academics] are kind people disposed to take a generous mentoring attitude to those critiquing them, others are high-strung jerks who brook no criticism and delight in exercising the petty facsimile of power the peer-review system grants them.”

Since the Melian Dialogue - or rather the only line that anyone ever quotes from it - is having another moment, here’s a selection of links from the last time, in, erm, early January: thesphinxblog.com/2026/01/04/i...

“Respondent: Augustus Sol Invictus”. ‘Nuff said.

Und thus, modernity comes to a close just like it started, with a guy ranting at windmills

Reminded by Mark Carney’s speech of this classic from @firstdogonthemoon.bsky.social, from back when Malcolm Turnbull was quoting Thucydides at the drop of a hat (I own prints…) www.redbubble.com/i/sticker/Th...

Thucydides has now entered the high-level global politics discourse again; Mark Carney AND Rune Lykkeberg, quoting the same old line.

It takes a heck of a lot of words to say “Who’s King?”

Really not doing anything to fend off accusations of the current government's instinctive authoritarianism.

Which reminds me that I need to make some more of my own Bulgarian-style sirene...

Panopticon--pfah! Mahmood should go straight for Bentham's Universal Tattoo (h/t @sophiecoulombeau.bsky.social).

@rupert_poet Change a letter, ruin a contemporary novel: Sons and Livers @dhl_official [blocked]

Anyone surprised by Trump’s current behaviour is forgetting the three key motives of states, as set out originally by Thucydides: fear, honour and interest. Or, “why isn’t everyone obeying me?”, “how dare they not give me my Nobel Prize?” and “I could make money out of this”.

Rez: J. T. Roberts: Thucydides https://www.hsozkult.de/publicationreview/id/reb-155224 J. T. Roberts: Thucydides

It's not the biggest issue today, but this statement should be given in Parliament. This isn't fuddy-duddyism. It allows MPs to ask questions, puts other parties on the record, and, most importantly, doesn't allow a PM to pick the audience: a power that Starmer does not abuse, but future PMs will.

How much more depressed am I going to be after Starmer’s press conference than at present?

This was one of those Monkey’s Paw things, wasn’t it? www.theguardian.com/football/202...

Looking forward to defences of this logic by the usual suspects who argue that pointing out people’s racism FORCES them to turn to the far right.

From the introduction to Mlambo & Lee (eds), Reflections of Trump (2167): “It is clear that a conventional historical biography of the Last President is impossible; surviving written sources are dominated by lurid and fantastical anecdotes that were surely invented to show his unfitness to rule…”

The USA in 2026: Tacitus at home, Thucydides round the globe.

Sharing this now as it has been confirmed by Norwegian PM as genuine. Oh dear gods.

Still waiting for confirmation as to whether the literally deranged letter Trump has supposedly sent to European ambassadors in Washington is genuine. If only because it will trigger a tsunami of bad ‘batshit Roman emperor’ takes.

“The AI can’t do your job, but an AI salesman can convince your boss to fire you and replace you with an AI that can’t do your job.”

"I need this. For er... national security." - Me, as I inch toward a second piece of cake.

Narrator: “People power” is in fact a questionable and incomplete translation of the classical Greek term “demokratia”.

Me, an idiot: I'm worried about these parties that seem really hostile to darker-skinned people. James Orr, an actual associate professor at actual Cambridge University: It is impossible for populists to be undemocratic, because of the Greek origins of the word "democracy".

Deckard escaped by distributing his consciousness across pieces of origami. They'd wanted to control him through his dreams; instead, he nano'd into oblivion that was sanctuary. A thousand years later he'd reconstitute himself, gaze down ruined boulevards. 1/3

All of these people - Mogg, Farage, Carswell, Jenrick, Hannan and the rest need to be forever reminded of what they backed and supported

Córy Doctorow with another verbal bullseye: pluralistic.net/2026/01/13/n...

James Orr believes this makes him/Reform some kind of radical, but this is the same trite communitarianism that every leading politician has recited at some point or another since 2009. The question is about the means - and whether they include an ICE, camps, gunning down small boats or not

For instance, someone goes Independent. Do you trigger the auto by-election? If so, well done. You’ve given the whips the power to kick someone out of parliament for voting against the party line.