Jordan Peterson’s popularity is the sign of a deeply impoverished political and intellectual landscape…
The Anti-Intellectualism of Silicon Valley Elites
I recently re-read Richard Hofstadter's Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, and now every time a reactionary Silicon Valley billionaire opens his mouth, I think about it. So I wrote about it for The Nation. Here's the column: On Instagram, there’s an activist named Brian Patrick (@pano.
The Academic Justification for Male Supremacy
From Noam Chomsky to Larry Summers, elite intellectuals shared more than they want to admit with Jeffrey Epstein
Michael I. Jordan on AI: “Superintelligence is science fiction”
How Social Media Tricks our Brains — and Destroys our Politics - Aaron Ross Powell's Blog
Charlie Kirk, Ezra Klein, and the Cost of Civility-Theater Liberalism
“Talking across divides” is laudable—until it becomes a license to launder antidemocratic and dehumanizing ideas.
A New Legibility: Theo Ellin Ballew
A New Legibility: Interactive Essay by Theo Ellin Ballew.
The LA Times’ Political Rating “AI” Is A Silly Joke Aimed At Validating Wealthy Media Ownership’s Inherent Bias
Late last year we wrote about how LA Times billionaire owner Patrick Soon-Shiong confidently announced that he was going to use AI to display “artificial intelligence-generated ratings”…
Field Notes: The Architecture of Rationalization - Aaron Ross Powell
Marginalia on the internet turning bad, platform extraction, and existential restlessness.
The world’s most influential economist is oddly unconvincing
Daron Acemoglu is revered. Why?
Writings and rehearsals by Nathan Schneider
Welcome. I’m a professor of media studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, where I direct the Media Economies Design Lab and teach and learn from our students. I’ve written a book each on online democracy, cooperative enterprise, the Occupy movement, and God, and I’ve edited ones about solidarity economies, crypto, and co-ops. Reporting articles for both magazines and academic journals keeps my notebooks filled. Working with others to build a democratic economy keeps me accountable.
Towards Critical Artificial Intelligence Literacies
Critical Artificial Intelligence Literacies (CAILs) is the collection of ways of thinking about and relating to so-called artificial intelligence (AI) that rejects dominant frames presented by the technology industry, by naive computationalism, and by dehumanising ideologies. Instead, CAILs centre human cognition and uphold the integrity of academic research and education. We present a selection of CAILs across research and education, which we analyse into the following non-orthogonal dimensions: conceptual clarity, critical thinking, decoloniality, respecting expertise, and slow science. Finally, we note how we see the present with and without a wider adoption of CAILs — a fundamental aspect is the assertion that AI cannot be allowed to drive change, even positive change, in education or research. Instead cultivation of and adherence to shared values and goals must guide us. Ultimately, CAILs minimally ask us to contemplate how we as academics can stop AI companies from wielding so much power.
Sex, AI, and the Apocalypse - Ian Duncan
How a community devoted to thinking clearly incubated salvation stories, abusive experiments, race science, and an affection for autocracy, and why that history matters now that its alumni are asking for the public trust on AI.
American Ambition | Marc Cenedella, Author | Substack
“An informed patriotism is what we want. Are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world? She is a shining city upon a hill.” - Ronald Reagan ~Largest Substack on the Right~. Click to read American Ambition, a Substack publication with millions of subscribers.
George Soros Bet Big on Liberal Democracy. Now He Fears He Is Losing. (Published 2018)
His enemies paint him as all-powerful, but the billionaire philanthropist believes that his political legacy has never been in greater jeopardy.
the viability of many right-wing intellectuals and intellectual spaces is enormously dependent on the largesse of reactionary billionaires and foreign governments, who help them circumvent a marketplace of ideas where they would otherwise post extraordinarily poor sales
Don Moynihan
Its fair to ask if Orban's successful cultivation of the Western right wing intellectuals reflected that their networks were already dependent on patronage. Rod Dreher was funded by a weird billionaire, and when he stopped paying his salary, Orban did. Dreher already looking for a new gig.
The following is from an essay which will be coming out later this year, but it's so relevant to this moment, I'm just going to excerpt a little section. Please read the whole essay when it comes out! "While the asset class’s thought leaders, such as BlackRock CEO Larry Fink... 1/18
Tressie McMillan Cottom
Just saw BlackRock ceo warning that data center moratorium would trigger a massive recession, which is fear mongering. And also hahahahahahhahahahaaaa.
