You know what's gotten monotonically better since 1986? Air travel. Planes rarely crash now. They route planes around turbulence. They don't allow smoking on flights anymore. Newer planes are pressurized to lower altitudes and higher humidity. Tickets are cheaper. Security is much better.

I always wonder if the consultants who advise Dems/Labour took one intro Poli Sci course in college that covered the median voter theorem and instead of seeing it as description of a situation that only arises when ceteris parabis assumptions hold, they saw it as a brilliant strategy. 1/2

Elizabeth Spiers@espiers.bsky.social · 2d ago

I keep arguing that Dem leadership (Schumer, Jeffries, etc.) are stuck in the 90s, as are many of the high profile Dem consultants and advisors. They think most voters are de facto moderate. This is why their thinking is outdated:

Good overview in SCMP in the reduction in the reductions in the US in the numbers of people in the US studying contemporary China. Fewer opportunities, less passion, no clue? How US’ China expertise is fading www.scmp.com/news/china/d...

Fewer opportunities, less passion, no clue? How US’ China expertise is fading

Geopolitical friction and a lack of career paths are hollowing out the pipeline of US specialists who truly understand China.

scmp.com

I'm in Nanjing to attend an opening ceremony and present a keynote at the 4th Corpus and Digital Humanities Summer College, and Lychee News, which is an official outlet for Jiangsu Procince, had a short report on the meeting. I show up in the video. m.jstv.com/video/2026/7...

Is the Economist editor-in-chief the first major media figure to actually call Musk out during an interview? He's been spouting absolute nonsense since at least the Thai cave flood rescue and this is the first time I can remember anyone actually calling him on anything during an interview.

The University of Chicago Press held its launch meeting for my book today. Respectability Politics will be out Summer 2027, with a cover featuring original letterpress work by the artist Amos Kennedy, Jr. whose work I greatly admire! So excited to share this book with y’all. I’m really proud of it.

Every Jason Statham movie is an Odyssey remake since they are all some version of war hero with deadly skills just wants to go home and retireand live a quiet life with family, but bad guys interfere, with disastrous results for the bad guys.

Nice piece on the surge of tourists and other visitors to the mainland after new visa policies, easier payments etc. The article mentions that there are still fewer foreigners coming long-term for work, but I think that was inevitable as the local labor force became more educated and experienced.

Dexter Tiff Roberts@dtiffroberts.bsky.social · 3w ago

"China is no longer simply trying to explain itself better. It is becoming more willing to be seen." Interesting oped by @zichen.bsky.social. Having just been in Beijing myself, I can say the new influx of global tourists is strikingly obvious. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

@veenadubal.bsky.social nails it!

The Maybe@themaybe.org · 3w ago

In 2013, taxi drivers began noticing something unusual: unmarked, black cars were cutting them off in taxi lines and picking up their passengers. Little did they know, those black cars were the start of Uber — and that it wasn’t just going to destroy the taxi industry, but wage labor as we knew it.

In Taipei where it is 34C and humid and once again wonder whether any of the people advocating against A/C in Europe have lived a few months in a room without A/C in a humid place like this, as I did as a student. If you ever tried that I don't see how you could advocate against A/C. 1/2

I suspect that Hegseth imagines that each soldier, seconds after being injected with testosterone, will open their eyes wide and go through a Hulk transformation and start screaming "Kill! Kill! Kill!" and have to be tranquilized until they are delivered to the front lines and unleashed. 1/2

This is remarkable. I was 8 at the time and living in Canada while I remember a lot of the other famous cases of that era from watching the news, I never heard about this until today. Worth a read.

s. e. smith@sesmith.lol · 3w ago

Fascinating read about a cold case that has me thinking a lot about how historical moments we feel are really important, and were a big deal at the time, fade from memory.

If you're in Wuhan, and in a car on the way to the high-speed rail station, when you're close to the station, keep an eye out for a park on the side of the road where someone has put enormous googly eyes on a tree. Made me think of the SNL skit with Christopher Walken.

V interesting, although of course it’s not at all true that researchers have overlooked the “ground-level workers” of authoritarianism. Yet another case of quants discovering a problem historians have been studying for decades and declaring it “new” 🗃️

The Upshot@upshot.nytimes.com · 3w ago

How Regimes Rely on ‘Loyal Losers’ New research sheds light on how low academic performers with poor career options tend to be assigned the most brutal tasks, including torture and murder. (Gift link) www.nytimes.com/2026/05/18/w...

This timely discussion of inequities associated with the provincial gaokao quotas for should be required reading for anyone who wants to talk about the system. Basically encapsulates everything I want to explain to people, but much better written and coherent than anything I could come up with. 1/2

Chenchen Zhang 🤦🏻‍♀️@chenchenzhang.net · 3w ago

one exam, 31 contests. I wrote about the geography of the gaokao. To get why much of the recurring debates about the gaokao are centred on regional inequalities and perceptions of privilege and unfairness, one has to know the provincial quota system. chenchenzhang.net/2026/07/12/w...

Dr Kristin Surak has been interviewed in @zeit.de about her research into elite mobility, nationalism and the growing market for citizenship and visas, exploring what these trends mean for belonging, identity and community building in an increasingly unequal world.

Kristin Surak: »Sie schüren Nationalismus, werben aber um Milliardäre in aller Welt«

Immer mehr Länder verkaufen Pässe und Visa. Die Soziologin Kristin Surak erforscht den boomenden Handel und erklärt, warum er die Idee von Gemeinschaft aushöhlt.

buff.ly

Pleased to see our article on the age dynamics of Qing officials in 近代史研究 was anthologized in 人大複印報刊資料中國近代史 in May. mp.weixin.qq.com/s/iDLPgRach9...

《中国近代史》2026年第5期

mp.weixin.qq.com

Very nice write-up of the Qing History in Global Perspectives workshop that I attended at UCL two weeks ago. I'm really grateful to the organizers for inviting me. I learned a lot. @norayitongqiu.bsky.social www.ucl.ac.uk/social-histo...

Qing China in Global Perspectives: Launching the Centre for Central and East Asian Studies

Founded in 2026, UCL's Centre for Central and East Asian Studies launched with an international workshop on 5-6 June, bringing together leading scholars to rethink Qing China from global perspectives.

ucl.ac.uk

Just published! My book, Easting the West: Theorizing the Postliberal Conjuncture from China, is now available online for institutional users with subscription to Oxford Scholarship Online! academic.oup.com/book/62722 The print version will come out next month.

Scotland FTW!

NBC News@nbcnews.com · 2mo ago

As Scotland fans descend on Boston for the country's first World Cup appearance in over 25 years, their beer consumption may be contributing to dry taps in the city, according to local bar owners.

Really glad to see this work by @durlauf.bsky.social, Kristina Butaeva and Alexander Shapoval available at NBER! When we released the CMGPD one of our hopes that it would be used in the development of advanced new methods for demographic and social mobility analysis.

Steven Durlauf@durlauf.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Delighted that this paper with Kristina Butaeva @butaevak.bsky.social and Alexander Shapoval is now public.

There's a non-zero chance that Lincoln could have taken these freaks in a fight. He was an outstanding wrestler.

Olga Nesterova@onestpress.onestnetwork.com · 2mo ago

In front of the Lincoln Memorial. This.

Finding various lefty people in the humanities kinda annoying but not thinking it is worth burning down every free institution in the west to prevent such people emerging nor allying with the fascists in the process of doing as much? This is a superpower.

This is the way

John Attridge@johnattridge.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Academic writing should be addressed neither to the public nor to other academics. It should be addressed to a single interlocutor with whom you have a petty rivalry and whose work you are trying to discredit

Great piece on millionaire mobility (or lack thereof) by Cristobal Young www.vitalcitynyc.org/mamdani-tax-...

The Millionaire Exodus That Never Came

What really happens to the ultra-rich when states and localities increase taxes?

vitalcitynyc.org

How delightful to have friends from afar! 有朋自遠方來，不亦樂乎！Hosted by CCEAS, the inaugural workshop "Qing China in Global Perspectives" successfully concluded at UCL! 20 leading scholars from Europe, Asia, & the Americas gathered to explore the latest advances in Qing history. 🧵👇

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Photos from a morning walk in Rostock, Germany before a meeting on kinship at @mpidr.bsky.social

With my luck, when I'm in NYC in August, I'll see one of these guys coming out and I'll realize he's an exact copy of me, and then when he sees me staring at him he runs off, and next day I'm wanted by the FBI because I appear in security camera footage at a bank robbery.

The Washington Post@washingtonpost.com · 2mo ago

At least three recent incidents show groups of people captured on camera climbing into — and out of — parts of the New York City’s sprawling sewer system. “These guys looked like the Ninja Turtles,” said one man who spotted a group in Queens.

Increasingly to buy anything online here in HK, I just find the product at price.com.hk, Whatsapp a store, confirm they have it in stock, give them my address, FPS the money, and I get it the same or next day via SF, direct from the retailer. Much better experience than HKTVMall than Amazon.