nathan kim
@nathanckim.bsky.social
phd candidate Umich School of Information | tech, race/empire, capital, logistics | socialist with GEO3550. Ann Arbor tenants union For a ruthless criticism of all that exists, towards a Marxism without guarantees, etc. https://nathan-kim.org
The SE Michigan pro-Palestine movement, after defeating the local prosecutor and the state AG on multiple occasions, are now facing the FBI and its allegations of "conspiracies to transmit threats across state lines." Please donate to the legal fund here: bit.ly/umlegalfund
my paper "Hyperscalers as logistical regimes" was published last week! Read on for a story about how Silicon Valley adopted ideas from the world of shipping to make (and to some extent, fulfill) promises about scale and the fluidity of the circulation of capital www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Hyperscalers as logistical regimes: software containers and the circulation of cloud capital
This article analyzes the software container as a device central to the rise of cloud capitalism. Firms like Google pioneered software containers internally as infrastructure for their own producti...
tandfonline.com
Trains... 🚊 trains... 🚂 I want more trains 🚆... dreaming of trains 🚞 ... One train from Cuyahoga Falls to Kent One train from Akron to Cleveland One train to Columbus One train to Ann Arbor One train to Chicago One train to Pittsburgh 🛤️ 🤤
Join fellow workers for food, games, and camaraderie as we celebrate International Workers' Day. Connect with union members, hear contract organizing updates, and build our collective power! Family, friends, and community members are welcome! RSVP here: bit.ly/4ectQxU?r=qr
three more weeks to submit abstracts to our 4S open panel, that articulate STS-flavoured responses to the most important question of our times: "how do we win?"
justine zhang@tisjune.bsky.social · 5mo agohi STS people! are you engaged in political struggle against fascism? do you have things to share: strategic reflections, organizing artefacts, etc.? do you have thoughts about how we will win? if so, you should submit something to our open panel at 4S this year! www.4sonline.org/accepted_ope...
The fight against the University of Michigan–Los Alamos data center reveals the “political and planetary stakes” of AI and the threat of “tech-enhanced militarism,” @tisjune.bsky.social , @shreyachowdhary.bsky.social & @nathanckim.bsky.social write in #Academe:
AI as a War Issue, War as a Workers’ Issue
The fight against the University of Michigan–Los Alamos data center.
aaup.org
Many people have discussed how graduate programs can lead to depression, but in my experience it is often the other way around: I am in this graduate program because I am depressed. For many reasons (my upbringing, inflated ego, the current conjuncture, etc) I have (1/2)
"AI as a War Issue, War as a Workers' Issue" Couldn't be more clear than this headline. @tisjune.bsky.social, @shreyachowdhary.bsky.social, and @nathanckim.bsky.social share their reflections on Organizing Against the Machine 👇
AI as a War Issue, War as a Workers’ Issue
The fight against the University of Michigan–Los Alamos data center.
aaup.org
new writing from @tisjune.bsky.social @shreyachowdhary.bsky.social and myself on AI, nuclear weapons, worker power, and the "biggest, baddest, fastest computer in the world" being built by UMich and los alamos national labs www.aaup.org/ai-war-issue...
AI as a War Issue, War as a Workers’ Issue
The fight against the University of Michigan–Los Alamos data center.
aaup.org
The federal government is explicitly arguing that "wearing black clothes" at a noise demonstration is "enough to convict the eight defendants accused of material support" for terrorism. The outcome of this trial cold be catastrophic.
Wearing All Black at Protests Makes You Guilty of Terrorism, Prosecutors Tell Jury
The case is a major test of the Trump administration's push to label "antifa" protesters as terrorists.
theintercept.com
Every single person in the entire chain of command that massacred the schoolgirls in Minab, and that is currently carpet bombing Iranian civilians, needs to be tried and jailed in The Hague. Sick, depraved monsters drunk on imperial hubris.
hi STS people! are you engaged in political struggle against fascism? do you have things to share: strategic reflections, organizing artefacts, etc.? do you have thoughts about how we will win? if so, you should submit something to our open panel at 4S this year! www.4sonline.org/accepted_ope...
HVDSA members Dave Zeglen and Yousef Rabhi are challenging Ann Arbor’s Democratic Party establishment, running for city council and mayor! www.michigandaily.com/news/ann-arb...
Ann Arbor elections draw democratic socialist candidates
Yousef Rabhi and David Zeglen, Ann Arbor’s newest candidates for public office, are running on democratic socialist platforms.
michigandaily.com
I'm a proud democratic socialist running for Ann Arbor City Council because we deserve a city for the people.
UM FOIA office denies my record dated... Nov 2026? one of the funnier denials given that (query was in response to www.justice.gov/epstein/file... www.justice.gov/epstein/file...)
I presented @nathanckim.bsky.social and my "How Big Cloud gets Bigger" paper analyzing crunchbase to show how: *Google/Microsoft/Amazon invest at rates rivaling the largest VCs.* Big Cloud = Critical Infrastructure *AND* Venture Capital. here are the slides:
funny letter, from a frustrated scientist reacting to the University of Michigan seeking to distance itself from the defense industry, 1972. From an ongoing project on UMich's relationship to national security since WWII
As a VA nurse, Alex Pretti was a member of AFGE. This union also reps Border Patrol, and may have repped Pretti's killer. I talked to VA workers who are furious and want Border Patrol out of AFGE. "For a union member to kill another is a fundamental betrayal of what a union is supposed to be.”
Alex Pretti’s Killer May Be Part of His Union
Border Patrol agents belong to the same federal workers union as VA nurses, a situation some of Pretti’s colleagues are determined to change.
jewishcurrents.org
What all the crowd shots won’t show you is this energy extends to the rest of the metro. There are additional huge gatherings of people all around the cities, ICE watch is visible on so many street corners, walk a few blocks and you’ll pass people clearly in the middle of distro
Bring Me The News@bringmethenews.bsky.social · 6mo agoThis is the scene in downtown Minneapolis this afternoon, where thousands of people have braved -25F wind chills to protest ICE operations in Minnesota. More: https://bringmethenews.com/minnesota-news/a-sea-of-people-thousands-turn-out-for-anti-ice-march-in-downtown-minneapolis Pic: Mike Auger
The Tigray genocide was, in part, actively facilitated through social media platforms, @nuredinali.bsky.social writes, and inadequate content moderation was part of the problem. On Points, he lays out how better moderation can make a difference, and what it requires. datasociety.net/points/how-t...
Piece I wrote with some other organizers. Happy with the reception locally and the conversation had because of it. Please read! whatsleftypsi.com/2026/how-we-...
How We Failed to Organize a Tenants’ Union — What's Left Ypsi
An abridged version of this article appears in the print edition of Issue V Introduction This reflection describes challenges and victories from the organizers of the Ann Arbor Tenants Union in our ef...
whatsleftypsi.com
Join us for BD&S 2026 Colloquium, Panel 1: Constructing Alternatives through Community Data & Data Activism Jan 21 | 16:00–18:00 GMT (11:00 AM–1:00 PM EST) uky.zoom.us/j/85254638887 #DataActivism #CriticalDataStudies #DataJustice
I’ll respond to this disingenuous question exactly one time. Maduro’s rule does is immaterial to the violation of sovereignty and international law that this strike represents. Go bother someone else with this nonsense.
Invalid Handle@5h09un.bsky.social · 7mo agoDo you dispute their description of maduro’s rule?
Writing down…. Underwear factories just like AI
Dr Abeba Birhane@abeba.blacksky.app · 7mo agowell done guys
I graduated in 2022. I used blue books every semester in 2018,2019,2020,2021, and 2022 It’s such a non-story to me like they are just part of being a college student that never went away nor were the subject of students’ biggest gripes
Stephen Harrison@stephenharrison.com · 7mo agoDoes anyone else bristle at this framing? WSJ says blue books are “torturing” students with hand cramps, and “nobody likes them.” Listen, students have been outsourcing everything to AI and cheating their way through college. Blue books should be celebrated as a return to authentic human learning.
NEW: A variety of military and intelligence contractors have already signed on to help ICE's immigrant bounty hunter program. A review of procurement data shows 10 companies stand to make up to *ONE BILLION* dollars from the program by 2027. theintercept.com/2025/12/23/i...
10 Companies Have Already Made $1 Million as ICE Bounty Hunters. We Found Them.
And they stand to make millions more in cash bonuses for surveilling and tracking immigrants in service of ICE’s deportation machine.
theintercept.com
The New School owns about a billion dollars worth of art, most of which is not on display. They could sell the two Warhols they own and raise $100 million tomorrow. But they’d rather close academic departments.
Kathleen Bachynski@bachynski.bsky.social · 8mo agoNew School “administrators have started to implement a plan to close, overhaul or merge about 30 academic programs or majors; pause nearly all admissions to doctoral programs; and offer buyouts or early retirement to what professors say is about 40 percent of the full-time faculty.”
