I'll be co-presenting a paper at VUB in Brussels on Friday on the materiality of AI and democratic systems, trying to bring together political epistemology with infrastructure studies. More info here:

Demographically, Green and Reform voters could not be more different. But they do share a nihilism that expresses in different ways Reform voters believe things were better in the past. For the Greens, things were never good to begin with. 2/2 Column: www.thetimes.com/article/d6f7...

A certain car company once asked me to help them develop their voice assistant. They asked me how to get people to trust the voice assistant. I told them the problem is how to get people to *not* trust voice assistants. They then told me that wasn't *their* problem... #NihilismAndTechnology

Sadiq Khan: "It's Muslims today, who will it be tomorrow? Jewish people? Who the day after, Hindu people? This sort of mono-ethnic, mono-nationalistic view is a carbon copy of President Trump. These guys are pound shop President Trumps, they should be ashamed of themselves."

Here's Marc Andreesen (venture capitalist & neoreactionary Trumpist) expressing his hostility to introspection (and getting history very wrong indeed in the process). Arendt readers will recognise this as a rejection of thinking with all that that entails for her (& so also for us).

Happy to promote this excellent event, organised by the excellent John Parkinson, Janosch Prinz, and @joelitobarski.bsky.social & featuring @profafinlayson.bsky.social. Of interest to: @ecpr-nptmethods.bsky.social @ipsa-rc31.bsky.social Still spaces left I gather: surfdrive.surf.nl/s/JbN2r236E9...

Palantir are problematic in lots of ways - and now their chief exec is promoting idea technology will inevitably pit groups against each other for power. That’s not technology- that’s an outcome we can disrupt with political will.

I'm sorry ma'am, but your son perished on Kharg Island in a valiant effort to create Wii Bowling meme videos for the White House X account. In the face of danger, he was not cringe; he was based to his last breath. Please have this commemorative Epic Fury challenge coin. Yes that's Punisher, ma'am

Telling juxtaposition on two pages of the FT. One story about how amazing the US's new AI military tech is and the other about planners/politicians entirely failed to realise what Iran would do to fight back. Humans still matter...

Trumpism didn't happen overnight. It took decades of lies and hate all over the airwaves to make it seem even vaguely normal or mainstream. We still have time to nip that process in the bud here in the UK. We won't. bylinetimes.com/2026/03/12/g...

very cool! Eun-Joo will be talking partly ab/ this in a panel at the @aseh.bsky.social meeting on March 27 on "Proving Technology and Improving the Land: High-Tech Experiments in the 20th Century US West." also presenting, myself, @kansananthropocene.bsky.social & Gaetano Di Tommaso. please stop by!

Are there any #historians going to the UK National Archives at Kew soon who could photograph a short file for me? #histsky discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C1...

Here’s something I’m curious about… Historians, do you put an explicit methodology section in your journal articles?

📚CALL FOR PROPOSALS: The Journal for the History of Knowledge is now receiving proposals for the Special Issue 2028. The submission deadline is 1 May 2026. All information is available on our website: journalhistoryknowledge.org/announcement...

"We've failed to terminate the Rwanda treaty by mistake"

💬 For Trump, the transatlantic relationship is no longer one between allies, but a US-dominated order based on coercion rather than consultation and rules. @sbeverts.bsky.social in @standaard.be on why Europe must detach from a worldview that no longer exists. www.standaard.be/economie/ste...

NPR has obtained the new experimental nuclear reactor safety rules from DOE -- revised in secret, a pretty abnormal process not likely to help buy-in. I defer to nuke experts on the details, but apparently they are greately relaxed www.npr.org/2026/01/28/n...

🚨SCOOP: Trump's Board of Peace trademarks are being held by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, an apparently unprecedented use of executive branch power to protect the interests of a murkily defined supranational organization. america2.news/board-of-pea...

The biggest “what if” in the history of the EU? On 22 January 1972, Norway signed the Accession Treaty to join the European Economic Community (alongside Denmark, Ireland and the UK) Unlike the others, Norway never joined. I wrote a short text about it here: www.linkedin.com/posts/pablop...

Now that's a prayer.

Fine, whatever, this random cat is your new god of the winter solstice

Sir Terry Pratchett is best understood as one of the most interesting, deeply ethical practical (I would say Pragmatist but I cede to actual experts) philosophers of the late 20th Century who just happened to work in deconstructed fantasy literature as his medium.

A Christmas ghost story for those who know the Broads after dark – where water waits, roads vanish, and folklore remembers. The past doesn’t rest quietly in Norfolk.

Merry Christmas! Please enjoy the opening to this Japanese Christmas concert special that I watch every year. As far as I can tell, this has otherwise been scrubbed from the internet

Extremely funny to call the pope “holier-than-thou”

“There’s probably no Facebook (it’s all AI and bots). Now get the hell off it and enjoy your life!”

I know @jonworth.eu worked on the Atheist Bus Campaign, back in 2008. What would it take to set up a "Boycott US tech" public campaign? These US tech platforms are increasingly just becoming automated hate speech generators, and that's before we consider the techno-nationalist stuff US gov is doing

🧵/ How has political opinion changed over 2025? In voting intention, Labour have made the biggest losses, while the Greens have gained most, and Reform UK have established a clear lead Ref: 28% (+3 from 12-13 Jan) Lab: 18% (-8) Grn: 17% (+9) Con: 17% (-5) LD: 14% (=) yougov.co.uk/politics/art...

Irony died once more. Nick Clegg (left Europe to be a top lobbyist for Facebook): Europe has a “very, very profound dilemma, which is that we’re not only completely dependent on US tech . . [but] when we have good people with good ideas, we export them to the US”. giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

just out from @mitpress.bsky.social a new addition to the Engineering Studies series. lots for @engrstudies.bsky.social & especially @thatminesgirl.bsky.social mitpress.mit.edu/978026255335...

"When it comes to modernising government you don't really want to run it like a start-up," said Litobarski. "I’m all for experimentation but let’s do it in a controlled, evidence-based way." www.context.news/ai/albanias-...

How can Albanians get rid of their AI minister?

I wrote another opinion piece for @euractiv.com, this time about Albania's experiment with AI in government: www.euractiv.com/opinion/how-...

Quick thread on the BBC and the political and societal significance of recent developments: One of the main reasons the UK has historically been so much less polarised than the US, is that Britain has a shared source of information, consumed and trusted by most people regardless of their politics.

After a week in which Dems exceeded expectations in elections, Trump's popularity continues to tank, the GOP largely abandoned the task of governing (just as Thanksgiving travel approaches), I'm a bit surprised to see many more stories highlighting weakness in the Dem than in the GOP coalition.

one for @nanobubbles.bsky.social. do we at least get to keep Imaginary Friends?

"This is not literature as 'entertainment,' no. It’s literature as propaganda." Rachele Dini discusses OpenAI’s “A Machine-Shaped Hand” and an academic sector in crisis. https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/literature-is-not-a-vibe-on-chatgpt-and-the-humanities/

Forget diplomatic niceties: it's beyond time Europe denounced Trump's trashing of democracy in the US | Paul Taylor

Lithuania plans to close its border crossings with Belarus indefinitely, after flights at the capital's airport were repeatedly disrupted by suspected sightings of balloons. PM Inga Ruginienė and her cabinet are expected to decide on Wednesday. ➡️ https://l.euronews.com/6nuk

What the history of tech bubbles can tell us about AI

I wrote an opinion piece in @euractiv.com about the history of tech bubbles and the political economy of AI: www.euractiv.com/opinion/what...

Nigel Farage's Reform UK is dealt crushing blow at Caerphilly by-election

Great piece by @joelitobarski.bsky.social in @ourkindredfuture.bsky.social ! ourkindredfuture.com/the-eu-shoul...

New blog post - "The #EU should unplug from US tech": joelitobarski.com/the-eu-shoul...

I enjoy the way people keep remembering that this is the plot of the movie *Elysium*. People literally saw a science fiction film a decade ago and decided it had to be real.

Pritzer gets the mechanics of authoritarianism – systemic intimidation, seizing control of elections, etc. – in a way others in national democratic leadership don't or won't say out loud.

I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again. Ignore the haters, London is the 🐐

Proud to announce our unnamed tech partners tracked the cell phone locations of hundreds of thousands of people without their knowledge or consent