I have a new article where I outline a materialist analysis of the machine learning value chain via three interrelated concepts that are all key for understanding this political economy: innovation realism, cheap data, and the perpetual value machine. Preprint here: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

We don't need massive data centres, and gas-fired power plants, to manage the use of LLMs as a replacement for Google. Hyperscaling is a destructive waste of resources,

Protect Our Water: Say No to New Data Centre Near Darwin

Beetaloo Energy are proposing a massive $40bn data centre on our Country. The NT government has promised 185 hectares of stolen Larrakia land for a gas-fired power station and data centre that...

act.350.org.au

Yeah. They're taught that Catholicism is *essentially* an idolatrous religion (Mary/Saint worship etc). I remember an Evangelical street preacher in LA used to love to rile up passersby at 3rd Street Promenade by yelling about how Mother Theresa was burning in hell cause she worshiped Mary. Wild.

The Hotdog Pope@hotdogpope.bsky.social · 3w ago

I think that many people don't understand that Evangelicals consider Catholicism to be essentially a pagan religion.

Postmodern Economics by Angus Armstrong @projectsyndicate.bsky.social prosyn.org/L1PSNKn

Postmodern Economics

Angus Armstrong applies the late English artist’s appreciation for the unknowability of reality to the dismal science.

prosyn.org

Good piece from Richard Moran.

The Wrong Way to Criticize the Humanities

A recent report, commissioned by the chancellors of Vanderbilt and Washington University, invites further intrusions on scholarly self-governance.

bostonreview.net

#OpenAccess from the new issue of @polanalysis.bsky.social - Nationally Representative, Locally Misaligned: The Biases of Generative Artificial Intelligence in Neighborhood Perception - cup.org/3Kw6VkD - Paige Bollen, @joehigton.bsky.social & @msands.bsky.social

Residents in Sydney’s lower north shore fear being swamped by data centre tsunami www.afr.com/property/res...

Residents in Sydney’s lower north shore fear being swamped by data centre tsunami

A cluster of data centres is planned for a suburb in Sydney’s north and its residents have broken a record in their resistance.

afr.com

Following our April symposium on AI and decent work, we've published insights from our speakers – a diverse group of researchers, unionists, and advocates who came together to examine Australia's options for AI regulation in the workplace. futurework.org.au/news/which-w...

#OpenAccess from @ejprjournal.bsky.social - ‘Left behind’ and an undemocratic mind? The link between perceived marginalization and democratic orientations - https://cup.org/3Svhicc - @vanessaschwaiger.bsky.social #FirstView

This interview with me and Tom Moynihan on the concepts of extinction, ecological risk, and cosmological value is finally up online. Easily one of my favourite bits of thinking/speaking/writing I've done in the last year: tank.tv/magazine/iss...

The age of the median voter is now 52. In primaries, 65. The most common age of donors in recent elections is 70. "The oldest voters ordain the choices for the rest of us." How America became a gerontocracy in which the aged hoard power and wealth: www.newyorker.com/culture/open...

Do Older Americans Have Too Much Power?

In “Gerontocracy in America,” the historian Samuel Moyn argues that the central conflict of our era is between the young and the elderly.

newyorker.com

"the cause of business cycles is not a few large things that can be measured and controlled, but many small things that are difficult to measure and essentially impossible to control" – Fischer Black

From the dot-com bubble to the housing crash, Greenspan’s fingerprints are all over the economic crises that reshaped America. https://bit.ly/4oJbp7t

Requiem for Alan Greenspan the Bubble Master

Greenspan enthusiastically promoted the deregulation that characterized the era of high neoliberalism.

bit.ly

come hang out on saturday and listen to artists and comedians and video creators talk about how we can stay human in the algorithmic age and then connect with humans, drink drinks, and listen to incredible music. events.ticketleap.com/tickets/hype...

"Evidence suggests that AI-driven ‘deskilling’ is starting to happen in medicine, computer science and other fields. Researchers are now discussing how to preserve important human expertise in the age of AI."

www.ft.com/content/dec7... Labour MPs fear they will lose their seats if Starmer remains in Number 10

Labour MPs fear they will lose their seats if Starmer remains in Number 10

Prime minister’s support in the parliamentary party is ebbing away

ft.com

Whether a movie is good or bad should be the beginning not the end of any conversation about it. It's also the least interesting question to ask about a movie.

Part 2 is up The Rate-Form, Part 2: Liquidity Is a Refusal open.substack.com/pub/thewaili...

Austin Hayden Smidt@austinhaydensmidt.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Gonna do a little series on interest and why I think econ needs to be okay with getting into the weeds of the metaphysics of time. It's more than philosophical navel gazing. It gets to the root of financial power. The Rate-Form, Part 1: Against the Price of Time open.substack.com/pub/thewaili...

I've read two of these and they're great, I'm excited to read the rest. You should also read these.

Arbeitology@arbeitology.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Some real bangers in this one - Keywords for Value and Culture - including one from me (no office, i'm not obliged to tell you which one) docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol27...

Apparently an electronic MOU has been e-signed to end hostilities between the US and Iran. Obviously it's a huge step if this holds. But, as a nerd who thinks too deeply about things, is it not also a strange world we're in that a hot war can end the same way one would e-sign for an apartment lease?

Now available in Latest Articles, @robertdorschel.bsky.social on the class relations and entrepreneurialism of digital capitalism www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

The entrepreneurial gaze of digital capitalism

Scholars have unearthed how tech companies exert unprecedented power through new modes of accumulation and control. Less attention has been paid to the social actors who command these companies. In...

tandfonline.com

Second paper from our #assetstruggles SI now online: @hadoose.bsky.social makes the crucial point that asset struggles over climate governance not only include climate vulnerable & climate forcing assets – but that climate policy itself often takes an asset form, reconfiguring power. Check it out!

Growth has failed to eradicate poverty or to promote wellbeing. Poverty is not inevitable. It is manufactured. Our op-ed with @deschuttero.bsky.social @jayatighosh.bsky.social @thomaspiketty.bsky.social @kateraworth.bsky.social @jasonhickel.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

We economists have done the maths: ‘growth’ is a doomed strategy – there is a better way | Olivier De Schutter and others

Our roadmap has been shaped by experts across the world. We call on political leaders at all levels to use it, says Olivier De Schutter and others

theguardian.com

The mother of all inequality disputes. (All data are in PPPs and on per capita basis; all measures are in Ginis.) Unweighted international inequality (aka Concept 1 ineq) is inequality of all countries' GDPs per capita (as simple as that). It has been going down, but slowly, over the past 30y,

In director Curry Barker’s hit indie horror film, we can see the fundamental ghastliness of consumer society. www.currentaffairs.org/news/obsessi...

“Obsession” and the Horror of Treating People Like Products

In director Curry Barker’s hit indie horror film, we can see the fundamental ghastliness of consumer society.

currentaffairs.org

I will never not be appalled that a putative rational monetary strategy is to hope for – not merely anticipate, but hope for – a bubble burst so it causes job losses to ease inflationary pressures. It's a sign of a truly broken ethical compass that such a view is in the macro engine room at all.

My discussion of the relation between neoliberalism, classical liberalism and neoliberalism. Builds on an old debate with Philip Mirowski nakedkeynesianism.substack.com/p/neoliberal...

Neoliberalism, Classical Liberalism and Neoclassical Economics

Between Classical Rhetoric and Neoclassical Theory

nakedkeynesianism.substack.com

Will forever be remembered as being name dropped in *the* famous Good Will Hunting scene

Matt Damon: How Do You Like Them Apples?

ALT: Matt Damon: How Do You Like Them Apples?

static.klipy.com

Michael Li (李之樸)@mcpli.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Sad news: The great historian Gordon Wood was killed after being struck by a car near Providence. www.wpri.com/news/local-n...

Today, Evan Behrle examines one of the oldest arguments for income inequality: that workers should be paid the value of their productive contribution. What this argument misses, he argues, is that the size of any worker’s contribution is largely determined by what other workers do.

You Didn’t Earn That

When defending income inequality, high-earners often appeal to an old left-wing idea: that workers are entitled to the fruits of their labor and should be paid the value of their productive…

lpeproject.org

It’s alive! Copies of @fintechcapital.bsky.social, by @paullangley.bsky.social and me, published by @princetonupress.bsky.social arrived this morning. Out in the US soon, and in the UK a little later.