Turning universities into business school. Turning public spaces into online content Turning dialogue into data Turning humans into machine workers Turning humanity into the next thing that gets cut because it costs too much. #anthropology always first on the list

get caught up on the backstory while you can't get caught up on grading theamericanvandal.substack.com/p/historyofc...

FWIW, I’ve got an archive of self-created, self-hosted, open-source, non-extractive, non-surveillant class websites going back 22 years! wordsinspace.net/classes/

What I wish for everybody to remember when Canvas comes back online: The reason OUR data can be held for ransom is because Instructure, their owners (KKR private equity & Dragoneer venture capital), & our own employers (see ASU Atomic) monetize it. It's Canvas that hacked education & stole our IP.

Exactly. People can gut science and ban terms like ‘climate change’ but rising seas don’t adjust their impacts based on what you believe or who you voted for.

This thread

Relevant thread for the current Canvas situation. Data privacy. Maybe we should reconsider a few things in higher ed. Hmmm.

I actually saw this same message and checked my email to see if there was some uni notification about this ‘scheduled maintenance.’ There was not.

👇👇👇

We need to have a long conversation in higher ed (and ed in general tbh) about our dependence on proprietary software platforms, especially learning management systems

Not so fun device behavior I have seen a lot more of recently in classrooms: students using open laptops as screens to shield texting, watching videos etc on phone. Not great.

I’m all in on team getting distracting devices out of my classrooms. Also on team no third party corporations in my classrooms. I’ve seen enough.

He’s a three-time batting champ and now a defensive standout - the metrics have him first at 2B - and a team leader and role model. How the Giants have two very different options when it comes to Luis Arraez www.sfchronicle.com/sports/giant... via @sfchronicle

My favorite player in the league right now. Reminds me of Gwynn and Carew. So fun to watch. Hopefully the Giants don’t trade him away.

Who are your favorite science communicators who are academics (any field)? Who’s really getting public engagement right?

Phones are just one part of a much larger problem. Improving the classroom environment step by step is a good thing. Definitely no silver bullet here.

Funding “AI literacy” but not, you know, actual literacy.

New issue of the @aaup.org Academe magazine -- AI in the Corporate University -- looks incredible. Important pieces by @dmgreene.bsky.social @hellobrittparis.bsky.social @heavyredaction.bsky.social @heavyredaction.bsky.social @tisjune.bsky.social and many others. www.aaup.org/academe

I was lucky to write the lead article for a special issue of Academe on AI in the Corporate University. In "What does AI do?" I offer a provisional balance sheet of this technology's effects on our work, our finances, and our management, in a moment of rising fascist attacks on higher education.

it's so good, folks

this is the good shit

If there's a battle over device-based learning, it's between schools and families on one side and big tech on the other. Big tech spent decades selling schools and family on tech as a panacea. And schools/families now see--that promise was hollow. But it takes time and money to walk it all back.

I do frequently wonder what the average citizen of the U.S. knows about Reconstruction. As Du Bois would later point out, the backlash of lost cause propaganda didn’t just create mass disinformation about the civil war itself, but about the opening for actual democracy that briefly came after it.

It's really satisfying to have written the rebuttal to this imagination of AI science [checks notes] more than two years ago.

oh my god this is incredible

<guy in a hot dog suit.gif>

Of course they did...

"We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time." from Little Gidding by T.S.Eliot #EarthDay

more people probably died from diarrhea, malaria and typhoid during the civil war than actual fighting

This week in my culture and media class we read Ben Finney (1991) and Michelle Anjirbag (2018), and discussed some of the histories of Polynesian voyaging, to help critically assess Disney's version on events in the 2016 film 'Moana.' Always lots to talk about with that one...

Ultimately, the incoherent whining about relativism comes from Peter Thiel's inability to actually accept that the post-WWII world did actually judge regressive cultures harshly, and that is why Apartheid South Africa, Rhodesia, and Nazi Germany went into history's dustbin.

Oh, they want viewpoint diversity? I'm excited to see which Marxist economists the business school hires, then

Isn’t being part of a tiny major a great way to avoid being part of an “echo chamber”? (& maybe harder to avoid in Econ w/ 934 majors.) It’s ironic that these and other tiny majors are often blamed for campus climate problems and are being shut down or downsized at universities around the country.

In 2024 The Conversation had 8.3M in revenue and 7.8M in expenses and paid $0 to writers. Is that really ok with you? projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/o...

This. Read book and review. Now.

Here’s my conversation with Doug Glanville and President of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, Bob Kendrick, about Jackie Robinson’s legacy, why anti-racism is so important, and the best BBQ in Kansas City open.substack.com/pub/dougglan...

College should not be the symbolic place where middle aged members of the commentariat take out their hang ups and complexes.

the kindergarten soccer game model of higher ed goal setting is really going to be the end of us, and the fact that it's imposed by people who are pretending to be savvy and pragmatic realists is going to drive me insane along the way

CNN: Hungary election: Trump ally Viktor Orbán concedes defeat after 16 years as prime minister www.cnn.com/2026/04/12/w...

Orban has lost. What a great day! (Unlike some sundowning clowns we know, he has admitted he lost, too.)

Reminder: they are never as powerful as they want you to think they are

omfg

Péter Magyar FB: “Prime Minister Viktor Orbán just called to congratulate us on our victory.” IT'S DONE. IT'S DONE.

I spent 16, SIXTEEN years fighting this crap. I can’t believe it 😭

fuck yeah!!

Unbelievable! Not only an historical win, but they're getting supermajority! Real change is coming to Hungary and Europe! 🇭🇺

even the most tenacious autocrats have a difficult time denying a landslide result against them

Orban has conceded

OMG yes!

If you think of yourself as pro-democracy, today is an important one for you. Hungary has an election. Polls have been showing that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán could lose. Read and share: "Is Budapest the bellwether?" By Michael Angeloni and Ben Raderstorf www.ifyoucankeepit.org/p/is-budapes...