Wow yes! “AI is the asbestos we're shovelling into the walls of our technological society. Our descendants will spend generations digging it out again, and the longer the bubble goes on without popping, the longer it will take to repair the damage.” www.thenerve.news/p/cory-docto...

Cory Doctorow: The people who tell you ‘AI is changing everything’ are lying

It has become impossible to tell managers mesmerised by artificial intelligence that the tools are not, in fact, helpful. So employees just play along with the fiction to keep their jobs, writes our t...

thenerve.news

Via @apnews.com: Abdul El-Sayed has won Michigan’s Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate apnews.com/article/mich...

Abdul El-Sayed wins Michigan Senate primary in major victory for Democrats’ progressive wing

Abdul El-Sayed has won Michigan’s Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in a massive victory for the party’s progressive wing in a battleground state.

apnews.com

🔥🔥🔥🔥 “All of the speculation and hype around A.I. is hiding the fact that the technology isn’t just large language models or agents or data centers. It is the backbone of a superstructure that merges regressive politics with unchecked economic power in the guise of technological innovation.”

Tressie McMillan Cottom@tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 2d ago

Anyway, I made a reading list in public. I try to avoid doing that. The Twitter “syllabus” wars scarred me. It’s gonna be a touchy few days.

My editor asked me to write about what happened to summer:

We launched a war on nature. Now we are in a climate warzone | Rebecca Solnit

Summer is not what it once was. We have been robbed of one of life’s great joys

theguardian.com

President Trump is banning students majoring in degrees that don’t make enough money from taking out college loans. Degrees for social work, art, religious studies, teaching aides, and music will be hit the hardest. trib.al/aaAEu6v

Trump Moves to Cut Off Student Loans for Tons of Degrees

Under a new rule, if your degree doesn’t make enough money, you won’t be able to get a student loan.

trib.al

I'm not sure folks have realized just how crazy the second half of 2026 and 2027 will be for global temperatures – on the back of a record-smashing El Niño event. Here is my latest estimate of where both years will end up compared to global temperatures since 1850.

There’s “off the charts” and there’s France’s absolutely bonkers June & July 2026 temperatures (see black line below). Bad things are happening. Fast.

Yes to @olivia.science’s whole post and I’m going to include especially this part on supposed ai automated plagiarism detection software in a fall faculty learning community

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ@olivia.science · 3d ago

If useful, here's my attempt to process my feelings about how I feel sadly kinda — or rather very — sick from all this AI fascist nonsense as an academic. 😶‍🌫️ I'd be pleased if even one person finds something useful because there's something to be said for processing this all together, so, um, enjoy?

Covid lockdowns demonstrated, in a deeply imperfect way, the possibility of large-scale social solidarity for a higher cause. That is a prime reason why so many powerful people want us to run screaming away from them into the comforting arms of selfish individualist competition.

The diarrhea lettuce company, Taylor Farms, uses slave labor contracted from the Arizona Dept. of Corrections. The backbreaking labor is often performed by imprisoned Mexican nationals who would be otherwise ineligble to work in the US. They are paid $1.50 an hour.

The Diarrhea Lettuce Company Has Been Linked to Forced Labor

The lettuce-producing Taylor Farms was linked to the widespread use of prison labor before its involvement in a cyclospora outbreak.

futurism.com

I think today's liberals in the US are used to a social environment where pogroms are rare and don't realize the role armed self defense plays in that state of affairs www.history.com/articles/red...

Red Summer of 1919: How Black WWI Vets Fought Back Against Racist Mobs | HISTORY

When dozens of brutal race riots erupted across the U.S. in the wake of World War I and the Great Migration, black ve...

history.com

Imagine thinking the first victim of AI has yet to pass... It's people of colour, women, people in the global south, the planet... How embarrassing!

The Irish Times@irishtimes.com · 5d ago

David McWilliams: The first victim of AI is the economy. Welcome to the 2030s

Just finished @mollycrabapple.bsky.social ‘s Here where we live is our country, and it was fr life changing ⚡️

“Harvard paid McKinsey & Company at least $250,000 to consult on the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ staff restructuring efforts, according to internal documents obtained by The Crimson.” www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...

Harvard Paid McKinsey $250,000 For FAS Consultation, Internal Documents Show | News | The Harvard Crimson

Harvard paid McKinsey & Company at least $250,000 to consult on the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ staff restructuring efforts, according to internal documents obtained by The Crimson.

thecrimson.com

sakura christmas@prof-christmas.bsky.social · 6d ago

Unsurprising that all these cuts being made to #Harvard —from the Office of Student Services to the Writing Center to now the Dudley Co-op—are happening with input from McKinsey, a firm made up of The Second Worst People I knew in college there

"Completely fake references can be a sign that the article’s findings are not grounded in evidence and may be a sign of an unreliable publication." publicationethics.org/topic-discus...

When citation integrity is questioned

Citations to previous literature ground a work in what has gone before. What happens when that reference does exist or doesn't reflect the publication or statements made?

publicationethics.org

Meet the woman behind the world’s first environmental justice encyclopedia

Meet the woman behind the world’s first environmental justice encyclopedia

Dorceta Taylor spent decades pushing back on the idea that environmentalism ‘wasn't a Black thing.’ Now she's rewritten its history.

19thnews.org

If you ever feel unqualified, remember that a gang of billionaires spent $900 million for 60,000 acres with no water, no infrastructure, a roster of endangered species, and a voter-approved ordinance that specifically bans building a city there. Now they’re begging politicians to bail them out.

Gil Durán@gilduran.com · 6d ago

Looks like Gavin Newsom is going to bat for California Forever, the Network State "tech utopia" project backed by Marc Andreessen and other tech billionaires. 70% of local residents oppose it. But the billionaires hired Newsom's favorite lobbyist. Welcome to Sacramento. nypost.com/2026/07/29/u...

99% of the time, when someone accuses you of selective outrage, it’s a way of politically demobilizing you and shutting you up “Why are you angry about data centers instead of fast fashion” isn’t about making you care about fast fashion. It’s about shutting you up about data centers And visa versa

A federal judge has thrown out the FBI director’s lawsuit against a blogger who called him a “googly-eyed Kremlin bitch.” trib.al/ouHgmYA

Kash Patel Loses Lawsuit Against Man Who Called Him “Googly-Eyed” Chud

A federal judge has thrown out the FBI director’s lawsuit against a blogger who called him a “googly-eyed Kremlin bitch.”

trib.al

A network of pro-data center advocacy groups backed by the Data Center Coalition is running nearly identical ad campaigns in Virginia and six other states as lawmakers and local communities debate the industry's impact on energy, water use and tax incentives. virginiamercury.com/2026/07/28/r...

Pro-data center industry group behind ad campaign in Oregon, Virginia, five other states • Virginia Mercury

Oregon Connects is one of several new nonprofits registered by the Data Center Coalition, an industry group backed by major tech companies.

virginiamercury.com

BP execs were deeply involved in shaping a highly influential climate science paper. The authors not only discussed ideas with the oil company but, in a departure from academic norms, passed drafts back and forth and welcomed extensive feedback. with @drilledmedia.bsky.social

How BP Execs Influenced a Climate Study That Shaped a Generation of Global Policy

BP sponsored an elite Princeton research center to address the climate problem without getting off fossil fuels. Its key work, a paper known as “Wedges,” guided climate discourse for a generation.

propublica.org

I highly recommend Pagowsky’s dissertation to any librarian who has felt like abstract metrics are taking over our instruction work. I’m only part way through, but it’s already given words to many misgivings I have about the increasing surveillance assessment we are being coerced into.

Nicole Pagowsky, Ph.D.@nope4evr.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Materializations of the Value Gaze: A Poststructural Analysis of Academic Library Instruction Value Discourse in Policy & Practice (dissertation) is now available to read repository.arizona.edu/handle/10150... keywords: critical policy studies; discourse analysis; library instruction; library value

It‘s quite possible that with this move, @harvard.edu could become the only Ivy League university without a writing center. www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...

Harvard College Lays Off Writing Center Director, Consolidates Center | News | The Harvard Crimson

The Harvard College Writing Center will no longer operate as a standalone unit after its director was laid off and its functions were consolidated as part of a restructuring in the Faculty of Arts and...

thecrimson.com

These "we have made an AI so powerful" warnings are straight-up advertisements, btw. No different than "we have made an Oreo so delicious all other snack artists must relent."

FinTwitter@fintwitter.bsky.social · last wk.

OPENAI, ANTHROPIC STAFF CIRCULATE PETITION URGING US TO SUPPORT INTERNATIONAL EFFORT TO 'DELIBERATELY PACE' FRONTIER AI DEVELOPMENT, WARNING OF RISK IT ADVANCES FASTER THAN HUMANS CAN CONTROL; LETTER ALSO SHARED WITH GOOGLE DEEPMIND STAFF, EXPECTED PUBLIC THIS WEEK

We don’t have to qualify being a luddite against genai by stating being otherwise in support of tech. Silicon Valley is extracting resources, labor, and IP for their benefit while destroying the earth, and being against that doesn’t have to include an add on about otherwise liking tech

But that conversation cannot be just about the technological project of AI, it must recognize and center the much broader political projects of AI. This includes AI's anti-working class politics... 15/

🚨NEW from me: leading climate scientist @rahmstorf.bsky.social tells me of his anger after witnessing firsthand the devastating Gironde wildfires - which he ties directly to politicians' inaction on fossil fuels.

Climate Scientist Fleeing Wildfires: ‘We’re In A Race Against Time’

Professor Stefan Rahmstorf escapes out-of-control wildfires in France, and warns fossil fuel inaction is supercharging climate disasters.

forbes.com

Hell yes we are. My people 🙏🫡🥰📚 techcrunch.com/2026/07/25/l...

Librarians are hosting viral 'Avoiding AI' workshops for people who are fed up with Big Tech | TechCrunch

At libraries around the country, "Avoiding AI" workshops have elicited unprecedented demand.

techcrunch.com

It's not a real surprise, but "James Carville's firm has been paid by American Bridge, a super PAC funded by billionaires who also bankroll groups fighting progressives in primaries—and he advised a lobbying shop the crypto industry paid more than half a million dollars."

Sludge@sludge.bsky.social · last wk.

Carville's War on the Democratic Left Is Funded by Centrist Billionaires readsludge.com/2026/07/25/c...