The Lecture, or What If We Wrote the Histories We Need in These Dark Times? Thank you so much @durba.bsky.social !! We are so impressed and inspired by you and your amazing @princetonupress.bsky.social book The Future That Was!

One of the handful of articles telling it like it is instead of misinforming the public. By @saragoud.bsky.social for @thebulletin.org Yes. Its bad science based on numbers out of various behinds, but that's not how most of the rest of the media is discussing it. thebulletin.org/2026/09/how-...

How the bad science of AI doomerism is good for big business

There is no clear path showing that today’s AI systems will lead to superintelligence, much less a basis for calculating the probability of doom.

thebulletin.org

"What are we, a bunch of BROWN people?" This is white people doing white people shit. Y'all had picnics under our hanging bodies but sure ok. It's like the Taliban.

Eric Levai@ericlevai.bsky.social · 18h ago

Now THIS is how you write a story. Devastating.

Archive of @britishacademy.bsky.social Fellow Stuart Hall is now live. Includes looking at his impact on the history of communication theory, culminating in the architecture of contemporary AI models www.theguardian.com/society/2026... Archive link: stuarthalldigital.bham.ac.uk/archival_mat...

Thatcherism via the Walkman: Stuart Hall’s British cultural studies preserved online

Project lead says it celebrates ‘incredible contributions’ Jamaica-born sociologist made to Britain’s culture

theguardian.com

Less than a year in, New Mexico's universal childcare program is already changing who's working. @brycecovert.bsky.social reports on a new study from @chrismherbst.bsky.social finding employment among low-income mothers is up 18%, and full-time work is up 23%.

Nearly a Year In, Universal Childcare Is Reshaping Work for Moms in New Mexico

A new study highlights some early impacts of universal childcare on labor supply for mothers in New Mexico.

the74million.org

tomorrow i am delivering the MacAffrey Lecture at Reed College. With thanks to @imperialhistorian.bsky.social and @anandvaidya.bsky.social for the generous invitations cant wait to meet the students!

One of the most apparent truths about universities in this era is that student journalists have tended to exhibit the greatest courage and tenacity when it comes to applying their institutional mottos and academic lessons to the world.

The Student Journalists Who Never Let the Cornell Assault Case Go (Gift Article)

The student newspaper, The Cornell Daily Sun, covered the allegations of rape at a fraternity house since they were first made in 2024 and led the reporting on the case.

nytimes.com

New — I had the opportunity to see NAZA, the documentary freaking out the Israeli government because of its horrifying firsthand descriptions of the way the IDF has used AI to target and massacre Palestinian civilians. My thoughts on the film’s damning revelations, and the banality of evil:

I saw the documentary the Israeli government doesn’t want you to see

'NAZA' dispels once and for all the myth that the IDF didn't target civilians in Gaza.

thehandbasket.co

I swear to god this is almost every single historian I know

Smooth Dunk@smoothdunk2.bsky.social · 3w ago

when ai leaves u behind

Edinburgh University created the first ever Chair in Celtic in Scotland in 1882 (Donald Mackinnon of Colonsay). This is a cultural retreat happening before our eyes where there was once leadership.

Margot Finn@eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 3w ago

Celtic (UG), Chinese & Russian (UG), Contemporary History, Economics & Statistics (joint degree), Inclusive Education (MSc), Intellectual History, Italian & Classics (joint), Law & Social Policy (joint), Medieval History, Persian Studies (UG), Portuguese (UG), Psychology & Economics (joint)....

holy shit, this is the whole ballgame in a single paragraph gAI systems require mass theft of copyrighted works, for the explicit purpose of replacing the market for the people they stole from, and the people in charge knew what they were doing ahead of time, and did it anyway

Jason Kint@kint.bsky.social · 3w ago

Eye popping. Court just unsealed Summary Judgment motions in New York Times v OpenAI / Microsoft. Easy to see why the AI companies had so many redactions (pink). Their own people wrote the lede for NYT, the "largest theft of labor in human history"... "more and more substitutive..." /1

Friend shared this video of a man unveiling the library he hid when he fled Damascus in 2011. It’s incredible

What a lovely conversation I had with you all and a breath of fresh air. thank you for having me.

Saeed Jones@theferocity.bsky.social · 3w ago

Today on #VibeCheckPod, @timnitgebru.blacksky.app explains what’s really going on with these so-called AI whistleblowers. Also, I let the chopper spray on Robert Kraft, Ed Sheeran, Pink, Jasmine Crockett and Chris Brown. Also, I read a lovely poem by Hieu Minh Nguyen.

"Whatever negative impacts we have on the planet from living in a fossil-fuel society can be offset by our activism if we join with others to change it. Working together, we can make waves." @leahstokes.bsky.social

The Climate Crisis Is Bigger Than Your Footprint

The climate crisis won’t be solved with lifestyle choices but through political pressure and bold collective action.

thereader.mitpress.mit.edu

Few people have had to think about the legacy of 9/11 as deeply, or as urgently, as Mohamedou who spent 15 years as a prisoner at the US military prison at Guantánamo Bay. A wonderful conversation between Slahi and Michael Bronner. youtu.be/Eug6vP2QTJ0?...

Things We Lost, Things We Carry: Reflections on 25 Years after 9/11 with Mohamedou Ould Slahi

YouTube video by Radical Books Collective | WARSCAPES

youtu.be

Behold, the best 9/11 humor of all time: The Onion's TV listings (my favorite row is MTV)

30 incarcerated men presented a $4,267 donation to a northwest Kansas school district to pay down the district's unsettled lunch debt The donation was to be "utilized to help local children fuel their day and stay focused and energized this school year"

Prison inmates help to pay down school lunch debt

A school district's unsettled lunch debt was substantially paid down by a group of inmates.

actionnews5.com

A reminder: during the first two years of the pandemic, the federal government subsidized school meals for every child in the US. The government could do this, and chooses not to.

Mayor Katie B. Wilson@mayor.seattle.gov · last mo.

Today, Seattle's kindergartners took their very first steps into Seattle Public Schools, joining their fellow scholars for a brand new year! This year, every single one of them - from kindergarten through 12th grade - starts the year with something new: free breakfast and lunch for each student.

They’ll keep telling us it’s inevitable but NYC and other large school systems are starting to say no to AI, recognizing it’s not a legitimate tool for k-12 learning. Even some universities are putting their foot down, like U Chicago (and some law schools) www.nyc.gov/mayors-offic...

Mayor Mamdani and Chancellor Samuels Put Students First with Nation’s Broadest Generative AI Moratorium in Schools

nyc.gov

It breaks my heart that it wasn't the ankle monitor that broke him—it was the way his college classmates treated him for having to wear It. Which says so much about the kinds of hatefulness that permeate American culture and that made it possible for MAGA to gain so much power.

Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD@elizabethjacobs.bsky.social · last mo.

“Bel was a varsity soccer player for Springfield City School District…He was on the National Honor Society and a member of the Marine Corps Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps”. He was a legal immigrant, and MAGA couldn’t tolerate his excellence, so now he’s dead.

Dolly Parton, among a thousand other amazing things she did in her life, gifted over 330 million books to kids through her Imagination Library program. Her passing is a tremendous loss to the world, but you can support the program today to keep it going imaginationlibrary.com

Following up on our big glyphosate investigation.... Watch the News Hour piece.

The fight over spraying Roundup in California’s forests has only gotten bigger

“It seems like it’s poison that they’re putting into the woods,” one resort owner says in our collaboration with “PBS NewsHour.”

motherjones.com

"We watched it on TV. And it's like, 'That's our son. That's Alex. And they killed him' ... trying to help someone" -- Alex Pretti's dad

🎯

This guy decided Spokane needed to undergo a "rebirth" by fire, and now hundreds of homes have been burned to nothing, thousands are evacuated, an entire city and region has been traumatized. One guy.

Alexandra (Alex) Duggan@alexdugganreports.bsky.social · 2mo ago

BREAKING: Court records say the Spokane arson suspect confessed to detectives he planned to set the blaze two weeks in advance and waited for a day with high winds. MORE: www.spokesman.com/stories/2026...

This story reflects a larger crisis in the field of Holocaust studies, about why we study the Shoah and what, if any, implications it should hold for the present. www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

An Israeli professor lost a prestigious US job offer after speaking out on Gaza. Now the university is paying him $250,000

The University of Minnesota withdrew an offer for Raz Segal to lead its Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies after an organized campaign against his hiring

theguardian.com

Sunrise reveals a Pacific Northwest overwhelmed with wildfire smoke. Combined with rising temperatures in the region, any outdoor activities should be limited as much as possible. weather.gov

bring back shame www.bostonreview.net/articles/how...

How Can We Live Together?

Ezra Klein is wrong: shame is essential.

bostonreview.net

A.R. Moxon@juliusgoat.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Everywhere should be a hostile place for Republicans. They should not be able to find a friend anywhere. They should lose all their professional and familial relationships. They should be blocked from signing up to social media platforms, clubs, and yard sales. They should be ejected from fairs.

This is just to say I have OCRed the text thet was in tne arch:ve and whicb yov were prabaldy seamhing for "breahtast" Fargme ms fheg mem debo:w5 sb ?mccf mmb 5c oc1b

"AI evangelists also perpetuate a eugenic worldview in more insidious ways, particularly by downplaying the costs of economic and technological “progress” to the planet and its people." lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-...

The New Artificial Intelligentsia | Los Angeles Review of Books

In the fifth essay of the Legacies of Eugenics series, Ruha Benjamin explores how AI evangelists wrap their self-interest in a cloak of humanistic concern.

lareviewofbooks.org