On principle I simply don’t endorse wishing violence on people, especially as a public joke. For a host of reasons including how wishing violence on people changes the *wisher*. On this point I think people should be careful for *spiritual* reasons, whether or not it’s simply expedient.

So I think that the level of “careful” we “have to” be is shifting and there’s a limit to how much you can control for this. Like you’re gonna get written up now for calling a proud white supremacist a white supremacist. We are in stupid town now. That said:

Been thinking about how it is increasingly tough to safely vaguepost. I wrote a vaguepost two years ago that was about the President of Harvard and student protestors and got written up in the conservative press as pro Hamas violence. You have to assume people will twist anything you say.

I was told there was a crisis of free speech on campus that must be reversed

Glad to see Congress is doing everything in its power to guarantee China’s position as the new hegemonic power. If they didn’t have incentives to go on a shopping spree of US scientists, they’ve got them now.

Just buried in a paragraph and not highlight with a visual or anything: total global energy emissions WOULD BE 7% HIGHER if we had chosen to sit around and do nothing about this shit OUR ACTIONS MAY BE INSUFFICIENT BUT THEY ARE NOT FRUITLESS THERE ARE 2600000000000000 GRAMS OF FRUIT EVERY YEAR

And nursing, physical therapy, occupational therapy, physicians assistants— this is very bad and needs to be stopped.

“The bottom line is that Cornell is trying to appease the bully. It has missed an historic opportunity to emerge on the world stage as a principled leader of academic freedom and the rule of law — a much sounder investment in its long-term prestige and institutional security.”

I continue to congratulate the @nytimes.com for giving equal opportunity to mediocre and gutless white men (and women, am I right Maggie?)

In between things I've been checking in on the emails that mention "university" and uhh did we all know about this connection?

NEW: The first two years of Massachusetts' millionaire tax has raised $3 billion more than expected. And rather than driving the rich away, IPS researchers found that the number of millionaires has *increased.* Tax the rich. Greg Ryan in @bloomberg.com:

(Despite the weapons and heavy gear, they were amateurs.) (Amateurs are terrifying.)

Extraordinarily egregious abuse of power. This is such a fucking mess.

Our libraries are cutting staff so that Elsevier can have its 32% profit margin

At Cornell, it was a scandal when the President privately weighed in to criticize a specific course offering. At TAMU, it would now be policy that his permission would be required to teach it. www.jta.org/2024/11/11/u...

If you have to get permission to teach in your area of expertise from people who are definitionally not qualified to adjudicate your expertise then you are no longer working at a university. You’re working at a state propaganda factory.

Here is the statement on the initial TAMU system proposal. The adopted rule apparently prohibits "advocacy" of "race and gender ideology" without approval.

“Texas A&M University System regents voted Thursday to limit how instructors may discuss matters like gender identity and race ideology in classrooms, tightening the rules in a conservative state where debates over academic freedom have flared for months.” www.nytimes.com/2025/11/13/u...

Imagine saying this out loud and not expecting any kind of blowback. As @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social says, we need to bring back shame so ghouls like Kelly are banished for life for saying shit like this.

I think it's the "saving up for braces" part of this story that adds a whole new level of ick. Like... that's a kid, man

Absolutely fitting coda to the whole Epstein horror show is that the brave testimony of dozens of women could not be credited and we need the emails of men to deem it credible.

For those who don't know, I spent a lot of my grad school career helping (and eventually failing) to form a union at Penn State. We got a vote, but we lost. I'm so happy and excited for the grad workers there now. They deserve a union.

"I feel so lost! Who am I supposed to turn to for insight on the role of regulation in the derivatives market now?"

More US adults identify with no religion (29%) than with the Catholic Church (19%) or evangelical Protestant denominations (23%). www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/...

Q for STS-ish folks: What are some good sources for overview ideas about how technological progress (and assumptions of continued/unceasing technological progress) become/are a key feature of "modernity" or modern attitudes or something like that?

The 2026 Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE) Conference will be held in Bordeaux July 1-3, 2026 Submissions by Dec 16: sase.org/events/2026-...

"Trans lives are at stake in the battle for recognition, especially on college campuses. An authentic Cornell would protect them; this one has not. The community should anticipate and resist compliance with Bondi’s interpretation."

The Bill Gates / Roger Pielke Jr line that because the projections are improving we can chill out was always wrong in its logic, but it is now wrong on its basic facts: the projections are no longer getter better. And a prolonged lack of improvements hints that we're on the verge of a worsening

One of the men trying to justify his remarks (to me) back then was my dissertation advisor. In fact he was trying so hard to justify Summers’s illogical, flippant sexism that I was moved to ask “oh, are you friends with him?” Nope, just bro code things. Good times.

👇🏼

I would be utterly thrilled to rid the Democratic Party of everyone who was pals with Jeffrey fucking Epstein why exactly would I want a child abuser to make government policy

The attorney general and the FBI director, a manosphere podcaster bro, pulled into the situation room a member of Congress best known for getting kicked out of a Beetlejuice musical for drunkenly giving her date a handy, in order to pressure her about the president's child sex trafficking scandal.

Well, it's a little clearer now why billionaires are so invested in technology that produces better written emails.

FEMA estimates 1.5% of households in our county (Tompkins) are at risk of flooding. A private company using forward-looking climate projections estimates that it's more like 17%. www.wsj.com/us-news/lood...

So sincere in his beliefs "I yipped about inclusion."

I'm trying to figure why American elite think if u murder your baby by beating and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard, but hit on a few women 10 years ago and can't work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT

Insights from Larry Summers "I observed that half the IQ In world was possessed by women without mentioning they are more than 51 percent of population..."

I am so sad that there's ~ 100% cloud cover in Ithaca tonight! I don't even think there's anywhere I could drive to within an hour or two that wouldn't be similarly blanketed...

AAUP/MESA Report: 'Most government investigations of antisemitism are prompted by complaints received from outside campuses... Of the 102 complaints filed with the Office of Civil Rights that the report analyzes, all but one focus on speech critical of Israel.' www.aaup.org/news/new-rep...

if you can’t see the aurora borealis tonight, here is a sewer tunnel which is a wonder in itself.

After all the dismissiveness and misleading presentation of growth rates, there's basically no escaping the fact that US data centre growth is a globally significant story that is directly incentivising new fossil fuel use and infrastructure growth Feeling pretty vindicated, given last year's WEO

This is going to be a big old thread where I dump thoughts, reactions, charts etc from the @iea.org World Energy Outlook 2025 :) www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlkP... www.iea.org/commentaries...

C R Y I N G this is so perfect lmao x: www.instagram.com/reel/DQ7cPSf...

My talk tomorrow at Oxford: "Authoritarian Pronatalism and the Pyrrhic Defeat." www.demography.ox.ac.uk/news/upcomin... Alternate title...

Weird that we have a planet-wide magnetic defense system that self activates when the sun decides to attack but it is very pretty

Trying to get ahead of that Joyce Carol Oates dunk

When the Dean asks if you're "excited to deploy AI in the classroom."

I'm facilitating a causal inference reading group next semester for Sociology PhD students. (I will also be learning!) If there are (1) pedagogical articles or (2) empirical examples in soc that you ❤️, will you share in the comments? [And please RT to help me crowd-source!]