Why do we have to AI-proof our classes? Because our students aren't motivated to do the work we assign them. Either students don't see the point of their educations or their lives are so demanding that they are forced to take shortcuts. It's not a syllabus problem, folks.

For fun, I uploaded my Ethics and Public Policy syllabus to ChatGPT. I asked it to add additional readings to each module. It gave me about 3 new readings/module and at least half were either incorrectly cited or, worse, totally mode up - fakes. ChatGPT is bad at scholarship.

I am teaching Ethics and Public Policy this fall. Here is the syllabus. Comments welcome! (Seriously - please offer suggestions!) Thanks to @jowolff.bsky.social for alerting me to citation infelicities!

I am teaching Ethics and Public Policy this fall. Here is the syllabus. Comments welcome! (Seriously - please offer suggestions!) Thanks to @jowolff.bsky.social for alerting me to citation infelicities!

Patrick Bamford scored more goals in his one good season in the PL than Dominic Calvert-Lewin has scored in the past 4 seasons combined. Frankly, we already have a DCL and his name is Pat. #lufc #alaw #mot

London's Metropolitan Police have arrested Palestine solidarity activists at a Quaker meeting house. morningstaronline.co.uk/article/six-...

You know you wanted it! Another piece on the Abundance Agenda! open.substack.com/pub/matthewn...

You know you wanted it! Another piece on the Abundance Agenda! open.substack.com/pub/matthewn...

Wu just made this guy tear up a little.

The abundance agenda is anti-politics. It's a technocratic attempt to dodge the hard political questions of the moment. Don't be fooled!

On Judeopessimism and Jewish complicity This short essay traces some connections between evolving conceptions of Jewishness and the rise of authoritarianism. American Jewish identity has been hijacked by the Right and we are partially responsible for that. open.substack.com/pub/matthewn...

I wrote a bit about Jewish complicity with authoritarianism. Below is a paragraph from the piece. Read the whole thing here: substack.com/@matthewnoah...

Some notes on the role of Jewish organizations and the current authoritarian assault on free speech and universities. matthewnoahsmith.substack.com/p/ba74345a-7...

What a banger. youtu.be/BC4wr02mUVo?...

Bernie Sanders is drawing thousands of people to his rallies. I'd also wager that the Democratic Party elite thinks that the main threat they face is the left flank of their own party. Even if the Dems take back the House in 2026, they will merely slow the descent to authoritarianism.

We are in old fat Caligula territory.

I sort of forgot about Chisel and Ted Leo and the Pharmacists and man oh man is it good to remember them.

A parent at my kids' school who works as a staff scientist at Moderna was laid off because of this. www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/trum...

Gonna use this video when teaching Iris Young on social groups and structural injustice. Let's see if I end up on some DEI professor list. theonion.com/judge-rules-...

More in touch with morality than most rabbis.

It took me 5 minutes - actually 4 minutes 38 seconds (I timed it) to call my senators & congressman about Mahmoud Khalil. Please do the same.

Trump promises more arrests to come:

Electric cars are also an environmental dead end. They're better on emissions but worse on several other measures like tire waste, battery waste, etc. We should be investing more in public transit but Musk is trying to destroy that entirely.

The car you drive is less important than the policies the state implements. Choose your fighter: the PT Cruiser of virtue signaling or supporting a fascist climate change denying movement.

Becky Burke of Book Island (a picture book publisher in the UK founded by my fellow Tokarczuk translator Greet Pauwelijn) was "detained" by ICE at the Canadian border on 2/28. Her father asked that her story be shared in case someone can help her. He writes:

Read and repost.

For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind. www.haaretz.com/us-news/2025...

ICE arrested a green card holding US resident and is attempting to deport him because of he was involved in protests at Columbia. apnews.com/article/colu...

Boo Dook

I think a lot of liberals underestimate Trump's showbiz qualities. People find him funny even when also finding him awful. His awfulness has a Simpsons-esque quality (think of Mayor Quimby or Krusty) that makes these sorts of ads work even for those who don't particularly like Trump.

The real social justice warriors are the libs who keep demanding that abandon trans rights, police reform, and immigrant rights in order to win elections.

Time for the kids to listen to Sonny Sharrock.

We’d all be better off if Josh Kraft ran for mayor of NYC, which is what he seems to want to do.

In the name of protecting Jews, the ADL will go after one of the great bastions of Jewish community in the US, the university. One of the weirdest parts of being an academic in the UK was how few Jewish professors/lecturers there are relative to my experience in the US.

Big trucks are death machines. The world of construction worked just fine before we supersized our trucks, most of which are driven by desk jockeys not masons, carpenters, and gardeners.

A funny thing about having a rambunctious 8 year old boy is that you have to teach them not to pee on the floor and instead to aim at the toilet when they pee.

Low key jab at the Yankees who have won twice in the past 25 years.

Glad to have canvassed for Mayor Wu in her first election for Mayor. Looking forward to canvassing for her again. Boston proud.

The US’s role as global co-hegemon (with China) obviously allows the Trump-led GOP to easily introduce massive instability throughout the world. Simple argument for multipolarity.

If anyone wants to understand the Dems' presence at the SOTU remember that they see the left wing of their party as a greater threat than Trump and the GOP.

Really leaning in to PJ Harvey's 1990s output, with Stories from the City being what I judge to be her magnum opus. It is an unintentional musical elegy for the confused cultural innocence of what I now think of as the half century long Rock and Roll period of American/Western European history.

Egg? No. Stock go up? No. Plane crash? Yes! Often! Yes!

Hi Bluesky economists and political scientists: What powers do states and municipalities have, if any, to counter the negative effects of the tariffs?

She wasn’t out of touch, she was prescient

This Radiohead collection of B-sides is a perfect atmospheric musical ode to the barren winter months closing out that era. The record captures both the great buzzing pointlessness of that totally exhausted cultural and political era.

Really leaning in to PJ Harvey's 1990s output, with Stories from the City being what I judge to be her magnum opus. It is an unintentional musical elegy for the confused cultural innocence of what I now think of as the half century long Rock and Roll period of American/Western European history.

Listening to Radiohead and reading Ben Lerner.

Go job Tablet magazine for publishing a defense of ethnic cleansing!

Many fewer giant trucks in LA (at least by proportion to the overall car population) than in Boston. Why?

Back in LA, where I grew up, for a conference at UCLA, driving down the 405 from LAX to Sunset Blvd at 11 pm, marveling at the otherworldly nature of this city, which at once settles as if I am finally back home (deep breath ahhh) and yet has also become so foreign to me.