most depressing billboard I have ever seen

Layers upon layers, here. DOGE dimwits not being able to see beyond their own noses. No one involved apparently aware that redaction fails are common and need to be checked. Underneath this, Adobe’s enshittification of their software to justify more expensive enterprise licenses. Glorious.

Older family member the other day, looking up from watching YouTube on his iPad: “Apparently climate change is a load of bollocks and AI is going to prove it!”

Good lord, if this “partner content“ isn’t a symptom of our times, I don’t know what is.

Adorno can be annoying. But he’s also the weird little guy I needed, as the winter gloom sets in. open.substack.com/pub/polycrit...

I feel like someone out there might need to see and hear this. I know I did. youtu.be/msqM3QGU92A?...

My org @fightforthefuture.org has been “de-googling” for the last year. We’re totally off Google suite, Google docs, Drive, Calendar. We’re using Signal and Element for chat, Nextcloud for docs, etc Planning to publish a “how to” guide for other nonprofits and activist groups soonish.

A powerful and brilliantly presented assessment of the state of Big Tech geopolitics. Their strategy, in short: Become too big to fail and too depended upon to resist.

Please take a minute to scroll through this—and share it. It's the story of our time. The Authoritarian Stack: How Tech Billionaires Are Building a Post-Democratic American—And Why Europe Is Next. www.authoritarian-stack.info

On Robert Jenrick's "white faces" comment as a symptom of the times polycritical.substack.com/p/when-harle...

Contemporary liberalism conflates democracy with Discourse. If people are talking then there must be democracy happening. Professional talkers, in particular, are loathed to consider that there might be anything more sacred than talking. God forbid they might actually have to think.

appearing later this month global.oup.com/academic/pro...

Starmer team kicking themselves that they didn’t think of it first.

US has made an all-in bet on AI and Fossil Fuels. China on green tech. @katemac.bsky.social & I @parismarx.com podcast on how China's bet made Solar+batteries+EVs turn into business models of Coke cans-everywhere, cheap, accessible, satisfy the thirst for freedom. techwontsave.us/episode/291_...

Challenging podcast by @ceps.eu with @dacemoglumit.bsky.social going from whether AI is a revolution or part of AI to how the necessary institutional innovations are best made

Capitalism always needs a Next Big Thing. This need is demand-driven, not supply-driven. It’s structural. Seekers of the NBT don’t particularly care what that thing is. However, they will dive into each iteration of the same old story with equally evangelical zeal.

I studied International Relations as an undergrad because: 1. I’d been politicised by being a moody teenager. 2. I’d taken Politics at A Level. 3. During that time, 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq had happened. 4. A guy in my class mentioned his dad had studied IR. (I’d never heard of it before.)

Inappropriate media photos illustrating heatwaves - this one wins a special prize for having a caption about increased drowning accidents. Via @ketanjoshi.co

Another summer, another procession of record-smashing heatwaves. After the heatwave of July 2022, I wrote this piece on dread, anger, and the duty to critique. Re-reading it for the page proofs, I was struck by some things I wrote that already seem out of date, but also some that seem timely. 🧵

It's always a pleasure to talk to @parismarx.com and this was no exception. This time, why and what it means to expand #digital #sovereignty for people and the planet, what different governments are doing and why it is not enough podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/d...

✍️ From Digital Feudalism to Digital Sovereignty Catch up on our recent IIPP #RethinkingTheState Forum panel chaired by Prof @rainerkattel.bsky.social & featuring @mazzucatom.bsky.social, @francescabria.bsky.social, @ceciliarikap.bsky.social & Mike Braken 🔗 Watch the recording here: buff.ly/gIsnILK

Why do we listen to Odd Lots? “Capitalists will lie to you,but they don’t lie to themselves" Its Charismatic Megafauna in “Cambrian explosion” that blew open “neoliberal hegemony” of economic discourse over the past decade Congrats Joe & Tracy! @tracyalloway.bsky.social nytimes.com/2025/08/03/b...

FWIW what I know of (straight) online dating is that most people seem to be having a fairly awful time, but they have very different awful times depending on whether they are male or female.

“The postwar order rested on three pillars: American hegemony, the fossil-fuel energy system, and an open, multilateral trading order. America has now attacked each pillar at the foundation of its hydrocarbon global order.” — New: @katemac.bsky.social & I www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/bri...

“UK suspending trade talks with Israel over Gaza blockade, Lammy tells MPs” www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...

The ‘Life on Mars’ sequel we never knew we needed.

It can be difficult to know, these days, what point there is in abstract thought when the direction of things is so concrete and, in many ways, so obvious. However, a critical theory of integrity, sincerity, and seriousness might be a good place to start.

In my experience, non-UK academics are baffled when they hear about how top-down UK HE teaching is. Which is not to say that pressures toward the erosion of autonomy and academic freedom aren’t being felt elsewhere, but the UK seems decades ahead of the curve, at least in terms of bureaucratisation.

Individual academic output feels so futile these days—writing silly little articles, giving silly little talks. But the attacks on academia show the continued importance of critical intellectual work as a collective endeavor. Anyone finding ways to work through this tension? I’m struggling with it.

It never ceases to amaze me how Trump is still able to take people by surprise. He’s a mob-adjacent real estate tycoon. Of course he’d want to turn Gaza into tacky condos. He wants his cut. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/f...

We all know the line "the first time as tragedy, the second as farce," but this section from Marx's Eighteenth Brumaire resonates with today remarkably well. The (liberal) US feels dishonoured. Brought to its knees by con-artists and pro-wrestlers. Through its tears of shame, it sees nothing.

🚨My new article, ‘Conspiracy theory, anti-globalism, and the Freedom Convoy: The Great Reset and conspiracist delegitimation,’ co-authored with Scott Watson @uvic.bsky.social is out @risjnl.bsky.social bit.ly/4j9sNPz #conspiracytheory #greatreset #greatreplacement #worldeconomicforum #fredomconvoy

Season 4 of the brilliant "Conjuncture" podcast -- co-sponsored by the Antipode Foundation -- opens with feminist historian Catherine Hall talking about the history of racial capitalism, colonizing geographies, and social reproduction trinitysocialjustice.com/racial-capit...

New Conjuncture! I discuss the Stuart Hall archive with Nick Beech. We consider the Hall archive, unpublished material, and the relevance of his public intellectual praxis in the present. This season co-sponsored by @antipodeonline.bsky.social. Watch here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGuf.... 1/2

To get around the limit, I have made a Part 2! If you think I should add anyone or I missed you do let me know & I will add you go.bsky.app/7DTVem6

I started putting together a starter pack on Marx, Marxism, Critical Theory, and more. Please share if you find it useful and respond to this post if you feel like you should be added to the list (or removed for that matter).

Yesterday, I wrote about how I have tried to make sense of the Trump phenomenon via the concept of hegemony, particularly following Antonio Gramsci and Stuart Hall: bsky.app/profile/prco... Today, I want to write about how I have approached the same problem via affect theory and ideology critique.

As miserable a reality as this may be to face, the Trumpist political project was only just getting started when it collapsed into farce in January 2020. Here's what I learned from studying those events — and how I think my analysis stands up, post-2024 election.

We warmly welcome Philip Conway as a Visiting Fellow to the Collaborative Research Center "Dynamics of Security"! Want to know more about Philip? Click here 👉 www.uni-marburg.de/en/sfb138/ne...

When reviewing a paper, I try to bear in mind three questions: 1. What is this text doing? 2. Is that thing worth doing? 3. Is it doing it well? I try *not* to ask 'Is this a paper that I would have written?' or even 'Does this approach appeal to me?' What matters is that it contributes to debate.