Thinking about the crisis of meaning imposed on us all with the RhetAI Coalition here. Hope it can be useful! rhetaicoalition.substack.com/p/ai-revolut...

Here's an update on the accelerating decline of global sea-ice extent. This graphic shows the 3-year running average, Jan. 1, 1991 - July 27, 2025, as well as a quadratic trend line. What is the future of global sea-ice? The climate 8-ball says: "F&%kery ahead!"

A worker was killed. Dozens detained. Dr. Jonathan Caravello, A CSU faculty member and US citizen, was brutalized & disappeared by ICE for observing. Trump’s ICE thugs are escalating terror in our communities. Release them ALL. seiuca.org/press-releas...

This is going to be a busy weekend. Probably not a bad idea to figure out how much panic you should bring with you into it! Check out the new @hotelbarpodcast.bsky.social episode, where we talk to @rhetlab.bsky.social about whether or not it's time to panic NOW. hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/pani...

@rhetlab.bsky.social's book _Panic Now_ has forced me to revise a mantra I've held dear for decades. New version: "The urge to freak out and the urge to organize are the same urge."

Bring in the New Year with fresh panic! Panic Now?: Tools For Humanizing by @rhetlab.bsky.social has undone and remade my thinking about our world’s crises. You should read this. From @utpress.bsky.social. “Panic is not a replacement for loving the world, but a way into doing so very differently."

Why practice mindfulness? A primary reason is for direct insight into paticcasamuppada, interdependent coarising — as Stephen Batchelor translates it, “contingency.” An infinity of things that had to happen just as they did for this moment to exist. To see this is to see reality in a new way.

The climate crisis through the lens of non-renewals of home insurance - the map tells the tale. Don't believe the science? Tell that to your home insurer. To quote Prof. Ira Allen @rhetlab.bsky.social from his new book, yes, "Panic Now." www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Truly excited and honored to announce that my new crypto, dronecoin, soft launched last week and the buzz has been incredible

"There is no plan to stabilize the climate" - James Hansen's shocking statement. www.collapse2050.com/6-gut-wrench...

Lived in Beirut for 3 yrs of the Syrian civil war (14-17). Watching Atassi's film, Our Terrible Country, open there remains one of the most affecting collective experiences I've had. I wrote an article about the film/revolution/proxy war. And I am *very* puzzled by this week's events.

Anybody know how much THIS SPECIFIC investigation is costing vs avg cost per murder? How about per rape investigation? Tell me again how cops are public service.

Broke: ppl working from home being more productive and converting office space into residential to solve the housing crisis Woke: sacrificing productivity via RTO to artificially prop up commercial real estate and restrict housing supply, but with living room wallpaper and couches at the office

No genocide has been so confessed to as it actually happened. No genocide has been so evidenced by both victims and perpetrators as it actually happened. This devastating report underlines why every facilitator, every cheerleader, of Israel's genocide must be held to account.

Trying out a new general approach to building skepticism of AI outputs while supporting existing learning goals. Contradictory Chatbot gives three mutually incompatible answers to every question. What if students ask it subject-matter questions and reflect on the options? bit.ly/Contradictor...

It is, ultimately, heartbreaking that so many smart, kind, sincere people start out critical and, in "making it," are turned into complete idiots. Anyway, here's a little dose of reality about the climate collapse, contra the hope peddlers: www.nature.com/articles/s41....

"AI is an automated amplifier of social norms and assumptions" - well put by Selena Savić, speaking at "Rethinking the Inevitability of AI" conference today. Such a productive series of talks.

The worst unforced error of contemporary liberals is a refusal to actually hear hard criticism. It makes many smart people fundamentally incapable of learning, on a deep level.

I'm certainly not saying he should have been shot, but the fact that he was makes me wonder how many avoidable deaths that United Healthcare CEO was personally culpable for or substantially complicit in. 100,000? A million? Somewhere in between?

Good thread.

I like Bluesky, anthropologically speaking, because it makes shitlib Discourse easier to study without any distractions.

Jim Croce > Benedetto Croce This is my most room-temperature take.

It's Raskolnikovs all the way down.

Really fantastic book, excited to listen to this interview on it!

How is the year 2024 and so many people STILL don't understand that the dynamics of capitalism are where their problems are coming from?? I'm not even claiming to have a solution. But jesus. If you've got an arsonist in the neighborhood, maybe working out what to do about them shld be a priority?

Utterly hilarious to think this would *not* be the case here on the "good oligarchs" platform

US colleges spend 60% of their budget on faculty, an outlier in global higher education where most places spend well above 80% on faculty. US universities are hedge funds with a side gig in education. They cut low cost depts that bring in tuition dollars but aren’t good sites of capital accumulation

#TeamRhetoric and Poli Comm friends, share your latest book, article, blog post, podcast, etc.! We want to read what you've created that helps us understand, respond to, or strategize for our current political moment.

I believe it was Heidegger who wrote, "only a Rawls can save us now"

Can't tell you how exciting I am to see this in print, having seen some of the work that's gone into it. Believe me when I say @maryhicks.bsky.social's first book is going to be a fantastic contribution to #AtlanticWorld, #AfricanHistory, and #AfricanDiaspora #history. #BlackHistory

Furze is correct. Also, this has never been a secret. It's literally in the 2018 OAI charter: "to ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI) — by which we mean highly autonomous systems that ***outperform humans at most economically-valuable creative work*** — benefits all of humanity."

Headed to NOLA for NCA, leaving the lonely mountain behind for a few days

This is a really fantastic study.

Observed CO2-equivalent at worst-case scenario levels for 2040? Cool. Cool cool cool cool cool.

Here’s an article I wrote about how Buddhist mindfulness practice encourages us to deal with people we disagree with. A useful meditation in these divided emotional times. #democracy #Buddhism #mindfulness #meditation #division #disagreement #evil #rhetoric

It's 71 degrees on November 18th in my part of Illinois...

Today in People Telling You Not to Panic Means It's Probably a Good Time to Panic . . . www.nytimes.com/2024/11/16/c...

thank you!

This is extremely valuable. Anyone interested in understanding AI's political economic infrastructure (which is, to be clear, *everything*) would do well to read it, and owes Oliver Habryka a debt of gratitude for compiling it in such a readable format. www.lesswrong.com/posts/5jjk4C...

Loved this essay on the (unwelcome and uncomfortable-for-everyone, but real!) gift of anxiety by Meredith Martin-Moats: www.patreon.com/posts/gift-o...

Breaking News! Code UFB!!! For those who are keeping up with the f&%kery with global sea-ice extent, it appears that the maximum for this year was on November 11, setting a new record low maximum of 23,489,326 km². This is the first time the maximum has been below 23,500,000 km².

I find premise 3 particularly an issue - (unless instructed otherwise) GenAI reduces language to the most generic form, while retaining a distinctly white male bias. I agree with all of the premises presented here, and I love the way it shows how research in our field speaks to the genAI challenge.

“You can create roadblocks to fascism by erecting concrete barriers, but you can also create them by dynamiting roads that tend naturally to lead there.”

looks like it’s time for the IWW cartoon again:

If anyone would like to shower me with money as a "Democratic strategist," I would like to announce that I am presently interested in grifting while the grifting's still (somewhat) good. Wait, is this not LinkedIn?

Absolutely not. Panicking *badly*, with too much cowardice to stay present to the full scope of the affect, leads to accommodation. It's exactly how millions of otherwise mentally competent people have mistaken the spectacle of electoralism for real politics in the first place. Insufficient panic.

Quick reminder to any academics who are super jazzed about "getting beyond" human agency: The people committed to oppressing you are doing so *agentially* on purpose for their own benefit. Pretty sure another academic tome written for humans to disparage human agency isn't the solution to that.

“We should name assaults on academic freedom today, in all their forms, as both unenlightened & authoritarian threats. They erode not only the public goods of higher education, but also vital elements of the Western tradition at its best.” Another must read by @bradvivian.bsky.social ⬇️⬇️⬇️

Who r Trump's cabinet picks? I don't know and u shouldn't either. Do you know who today's president is? Do you know which party controls(ish) the Senate rn? Why watch a Trump movie--he won't be president for two+ months--instead of demanding sthg from yr ppl?? www.commondreams.org/opinion/bide...