Henry Farrell
LightNews LightNews
banner
himself.bsky.social
Henry Farrell
@himself.bsky.social
35K followers 610 following 5.6K posts

Professor of democracy and international affairs. http://www.henryfarrell.net and newsletter at http://www.programmablemutter.com. Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy (Holt, Penguin). https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781250840554. .. more

Videos

Henry Farrell is an Irish-born political scientist at Johns Hopkins University. He previously taught at the University of Toronto and earned his PhD from Georgetown University. His research interests include trust and co-operation; e-commerce; the European Union; and institutional theory. He is an elected member of the Council on Foreign Relations. .. more

Political science 57%
Economics 15%
Posts Replies Media Videos

himself.bsky.social
Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 16h
I'd not seen Naomi Wolf's twitter title line - it's like its own little Ernest Hemingway 6 word tragedy.
hannahgais.bsky.social hannah gais @hannahgais.bsky.social · 17h
That actually kind of sounds like your fantasy, Naomi.
Dr. Naomi Wolf. 8 NYT Bestsellers. DPhil, Poetry. @naomirwolf Okay, I’ll just say it. I’ve seen enough videos of the faces of liberal white women in conflict with @ICE, to know what is up. Liberal men at this point (sorry) are disproportionately estrogenized, physically passive, submissive due to woke gender hectoring, or porn-addicted. White liberal women are disproportionately sexually frustrated. Policing others as in the pandemic was an outlet for them, but it was not nearly enough. The smiles you see on their faces now say it all: white women long for all out combat with ICE - who tend to be strong, physically confident, masculine men - because the conflict is a form of physical release for them. They long for actual kinetic battle and it will get even uglier. 5:54 PM · Jan 9, 2026 · 474.2K Views

Reposted by Rosemary A. Joyce, Henry Farrell

hannahgais.bsky.social
hannah gais @hannahgais.bsky.social · 17h
That actually kind of sounds like your fantasy, Naomi.
Dr. Naomi Wolf. 8 NYT Bestsellers. DPhil, Poetry. @naomirwolf Okay, I’ll just say it. I’ve seen enough videos of the faces of liberal white women in conflict with @ICE, to know what is up. Liberal men at this point (sorry) are disproportionately estrogenized, physically passive, submissive due to woke gender hectoring, or porn-addicted. White liberal women are disproportionately sexually frustrated. Policing others as in the pandemic was an outlet for them, but it was not nearly enough. The smiles you see on their faces now say it all: white women long for all out combat with ICE - who tend to be strong, physically confident, masculine men - because the conflict is a form of physical release for them. They long for actual kinetic battle and it will get even uglier. 5:54 PM · Jan 9, 2026 · 474.2K Views

Reposted by Anna O. Law, Mark Bray, Norbert Schwarz , and 29 more

mims.bsky.social
Christopher Mims @mims.bsky.social · 20h
WSJ investigation: In the past 6 months ICE agents have fired at vehicles 13 times, leading to:

* 8 people shot
* 5 of which were U.S. citizens
* 2 died
* no victims drew a weapon

The playbook: Agents box in a vehicle, block attempts to flee, then fire

www.wsj.com/us-news/vide...
Videos Show How ICE Vehicle Stops Can Escalate to Shootings
A WSJ visual investigation found that the Minneapolis ICE killing is one of 13 incidents where federal immigration agents have used deadly force against civilians in vehicles since July.
www.wsj.com

himself.bsky.social
Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 1d
This is not the first go-around of this line of argument. I don't have any great animus against Tom, but for him, mere historical facts are evidently insufficient to refute the higher truths of the spirit bsky.app/profile/hims...
himself.bsky.social Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · Nov 16
By coincidence, was just reading this bit in Keith Lowe's Naples 1944 yesterday. It would appear that Actual Proper Fascism is a category that excludes Benito Mussolini's regime at the height of its power.

himself.bsky.social
Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 1d
you'll want to be watching the masterclass version of this in a Cavan accent www.youtube.com/watch?v=04vh...
Kevin McAleer - Turn It On (1993)
YouTube video by Cos Drag
www.youtube.com

himself.bsky.social
Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 1d
our lovely neighbour in the south of the county had a stronger accent - I managed about 40% on a good day and my American spouse maybe 10%.

himself.bsky.social
Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 1d
I didn't know this existed till you flagged it - looking forward to digesting at leisure tomorrow, but on a quick initial skip through to get the gist, it is amazing and genuinely startling to me how much work and creativity has gone into this, and I really don't know what to say except to thank him

Reposted by Henry Farrell

alisongopnik.bsky.social
Alison Gopnik @alisongopnik.bsky.social · 1d
An excellent essay at Bloomberg by Walter Frick very clearly explaining our ideas about Large Models as a cultural and social technology
bloomberg.com/news/article...
Is AI More Like a Mind or a Market?
A group of scholars argue we should think of it as a “social technology” akin to a bureaucracy, a democracy or a marketplace.
bloomberg.com

himself.bsky.social
Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 1d
Read Peace. Also my piece from a few weeks back on Gene Wolfe and LLMs www.programmablemutter.com/p/large-lang...

himself.bsky.social
Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 1d
I was thinking while walking this morning that I needed to write up my Jarrell-meets-"Ladybird" piece on the defects of liberalism - how "Pictures from an Institution" maps out the ways in which various forms of liberalism fail to pay attention to individuals and thus fails to love them.

himself.bsky.social
Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 1d
From the first time around share.google/nhA7f8aPlY2g...

himself.bsky.social
Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 1d
www.economist.com/by-invitatio...
Artificial intelligence is a familiar-looking monster, say Henry Farrell and Cosma Shalizi
The academics argue that large language models have much older cousins in markets and bureaucracies
www.economist.com

himself.bsky.social
Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 1d
My read of Bari Weiss - ever since www.vox.com/the-big-idea... - is that she wants to recreate a world of debate that entertains legitimacy of racism while defining anti-Semitism as broadly as possible. This was the organizing logic of the Peretz era New Republic, but it plays quite differently now.

Reposted by Scott L. Greer, Henry Farrell

ryanenos.bsky.social
Ryan Enos @ryanenos.bsky.social · 1d
"The Future of Democracy Depends on the Republican Party"
My latest.
open.substack.com/pub/ryandeno...
The Future of Democracy Depends on the Republican Party
The Battle for a Liberal Society is Happening Within the Political Right
open.substack.com

himself.bsky.social
Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 1d
A really nice piece by Walt Frick on the AI as cultural and social technology argument that a bunch of us have been making. I should say that "cultural arithmetic" is based on something I _think_ that I read in @quantamagazine.bsky.social but can't now find ... www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
www.bloomberg.com

Reposted by Nina Jankowicz, Lisa W. Fazio, Brendan Nyhan , and 6 more

daveweigel.bsky.social
Dave Weigel @daveweigel.bsky.social · 1d
Think about the mindset, and the expectation of immunity, of someone who texts this to friends.

Reposted by Henry Farrell

robin.berjon.com
Robin Berjon @robin.berjon.com · 2d
I can't even pick which meme joke works best.
Politico breaking news. Main title: France delays G7 to avoid clash with White House cage fighting on Trump’s birthday Sub: French President Emmanuel Macron’s office said the new schedule is “the result of our consultations with G7 partners.”

Reposted by Henry Farrell

unlikelyworlds.bsky.social
Paul McAuley @unlikelyworlds.bsky.social · 2d
My new novel, Loss Protocol, is due to be published in 5 weeks, and I may be mentioning it here from time to time. Meanwhile, it's available for prerorder from yr favourite bookshop, eg
blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/pro...
Loss Protocol
Eight years after the catastrophic downfall of the cult his sister Izzy had joined, Marc Winters has at last found a refuge from unwanted attention. The wildlif
blackwells.co.uk

Reposted by Richard E. Lenski, Jon Pierre, Michael A. Clemens , and 8 more

carlquintanilla.bsky.social
Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 2d
GERMAN PRESIDENT STEINMEIER:

“.. the United States has broken with the values that it helped to establish ..

“.. we have now moved beyond the stage where we can lament the lack of respect for international law or the erosion of the international order; we are far beyond that, I believe.”

himself.bsky.social
Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 2d
this gets at something important.

Reposted by Dorothy Bishop, Henry Farrell

lioneltrolling.bsky.social
John Ganz @lioneltrolling.bsky.social · 2d
For me, the most difficult part is often the lies.— www.unpopularfront.news/p/living-in-...
Living in the Lie
And How Not To
www.unpopularfront.news

Reposted by Henry Farrell, Stuart White, Peter Jacobs

kjhealy.co
Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 3d
The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears.

Reposted by Henry Farrell

techmeme.com
Techmeme @techmeme.com · 3d
Trump family's World Liberty Financial says its entity World Liberty Trust has applied for a US banking license, which would let it issue the USD1 stablecoin (Vicky Ge Huang/Wall Street Journal)

Main Link | Techmeme Permalink

Reposted by Jacob T. Levy

himself.bsky.social
Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 3d
My and Cosma's version of this with a toy model. Equally, and more on this soon, algorithms do have consequences even if they cannot solely be blamed as villains dl.acm.org/doi/epdf/10....

Reposted by Joanna Bryson

himself.bsky.social
Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 5d
From December 23, 2024. This was all predictable. www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/rise...
Indeed, everyone—businesses, allied governments, and adversaries—will be trying to figure out what is happening within a chaotic administration, and, if possible, to shape it. Allies will strive to protect themselves from an unpredictable great power that is no longer as capable of exercising control as it believes. Foreign and domestic businesses and crypto capitalists will rewire the infrastructure of the world economy to make more money, just as their forebears did in the early days of the U.S. empire, when the state was underdeveloped. Some may capture parts of the Trump administration, turning U.S. power to their own advantage. Adversaries will look to capitalize on America’s weaknesses, leading to even greater disorganization. Once, and not too long ago, it was possible for U.S. elites to believe that technocrats could order the world in their interests, making it secure and predictable for them. They held out hope that Trump’s first term was a temporary aberration. Now, it is clear that it was no such thing.

Reposted by Joanna Bryson, Ben H. Ansell, Margot C. Finn , and 2 more

mikealbertus.bsky.social
Michael Albertus @mikealbertus.bsky.social · 5d
Can state-building disrupt rather than stabilize society? In a new @apsrjournal.bsky.social article, @victorgayeco.bsky.social and I show that the expansion of state communication networks spurred rebellion for decades in France before the Revolution

👉 Article: doi.org/10.1017/S000...
🧵1/X

himself.bsky.social
Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 5d
As I said to Maria when she first shared with family, it's the class of photo that wins prizes.
mariafarrell.bsky.social Maria Farrell @mariafarrell.bsky.social · 6d
I'm minding this rehomed young collie dog - his future career as yet unknown, but sheep trials were very definitely not for him. He crossed the stream at Derrynane strand in two magnificent skimming leaps yesterday.
On a sunny winter day at the beach a black and white smooth-coated border collie crosses a shallow tidal stream in two leaps, with a promontory of rocks in the immediate background and mountains beyond. The image captures him fully stretched in mid air two feet above the water, a splash behind him from where he bounced off, mid-stream, to complete the crossing with a second leap. Below him as he flies his shadow crosses the water just a little faster, chased by the lowering afternoon sun.

himself.bsky.social
Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 5d
Congratulations on all you've accomplished and fond regards to you and Teresa.

Reposted by Henry Farrell

mariafarrell.bsky.social
Maria Farrell @mariafarrell.bsky.social · 6d
I'm minding this rehomed young collie dog - his future career as yet unknown, but sheep trials were very definitely not for him. He crossed the stream at Derrynane strand in two magnificent skimming leaps yesterday.
On a sunny winter day at the beach a black and white smooth-coated border collie crosses a shallow tidal stream in two leaps, with a promontory of rocks in the immediate background and mountains beyond. The image captures him fully stretched in mid air two feet above the water, a splash behind him from where he bounced off, mid-stream, to complete the crossing with a second leap. Below him as he flies his shadow crosses the water just a little faster, chased by the lowering afternoon sun.

Reposted by Henry Farrell

robin.berjon.com
Robin Berjon @robin.berjon.com · 7d
"The Course of the Heart" by M. John Harrison

Wafting dreamlike, beautifully written.
The Course of the Heart