Alex Luke
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alexluke.bsky.social
Alex Luke
@alexluke.bsky.social
Workplace linguistic ethnographer | Socialist & unionist - current USyd NTEU branch committee member | EAP teacher. "Capire. Per meglio colpire" - Tronti. They/he
Pinned
Gonna pin this and list all the things I read in 2025. Since I'm starting at the end of March I've probably missed a few but here goes
I am, after years of attempts, finally getting near the end of this and, with a few small caveats, it's been great
Reposted by Alex Luke
This is real
November 22, 2025 at 7:59 PM
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Ya don't say 🫩
November 13, 2025 at 7:54 PM
They should have just got these guys in for the Michael Caine voice youtu.be/HFIQIpC5_wY
November 12, 2025 at 3:09 AM
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I think the belief by the powerful that "people will put up with many things if you are excellent at math" is incredibly revealing in terms of understanding How We Got Here
November 11, 2025 at 7:14 PM
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My latest reprinted in @truthout.org. "If you’re hurting, struggling, or sputtering inside right now, I want you to take a moment to see what I see."
Chicagoans Refuse to Be Cowed in the Face of Unrelenting State Violence
Chicago is giving the US “a stellar example of how to fight back against these xenophobic pogroms,” said one organizer.
truthout.org
November 11, 2025 at 9:23 PM
I loathe the discourse of 'psychosocial risks/hazards', and while I can see how it might be beneficial in some lines of work I believe that overall it will only do harm to the labour movement
November 4, 2025 at 10:52 PM
In amongst all the terrible news in this world, here is a singular, shining piece of good fortune for you: I have made the ultimate disco playlist open.spotify.com/playlist/2qO...
Disco
open.spotify.com
November 4, 2025 at 11:45 AM
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just ScienceDirect promoting uncorrected ai-generated phrenology-sounding slop (that UGs would likely not notice is phrenology-sounding slop).

irisvanrooijcogsci.com/2025/08/12/a...
AI slop and the destruction of knowledge
Cite as: van Rooij, I. (2025) AI slop and the destruction of knowledge. This week I was looking for info on what cognitive scientists mean when they speak of ‘domain-general’ cognition. I was curio…
irisvanrooijcogsci.com
November 2, 2025 at 7:52 PM
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Great line: a single-use plastic of the mind
“And for what? A cankerous glut of racist memes and cardboard essays. Not only is the ratio of AI’s resource rapacity to its productive utility indefensibly and irremediably skewed, AI-made material is itself a waste product: flimsy, shoddy, disposable, a single-use plastic of the mind.”
Large Language Muddle | The Editors
The AI upheaval is unique in its ability to metabolize any number of dread-inducing transformations. The university is becoming more corporate, more politically oppressive, and all but hostile to the ...
www.nplusonemag.com
November 2, 2025 at 5:28 AM
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Vance says it is "totally reasonable and acceptable" for people to not want to live next door to people who speak a different language than they do
October 29, 2025 at 2:55 PM
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Via Status:
October 23, 2025 at 4:51 PM
The problem with the bourgeois reification into academic 'disciplines' is that the solutions proposed are in answer to the narrowly defined issues mediated through that discipline
October 21, 2025 at 9:51 AM
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New piece on Social Europe, on the impact of the digital revolution on work and why platformisation ultimately matters more than automation #EconSky #sociology @lauranurski.bsky.social @sergiotorrejon.com
The Real Digital Revolution At Work: Why Platformisation Matters More Than Robots
The digital transformation of work isn't destroying jobs through automation—it's fundamentally reshaping how work is organised, managed and controlled.
www.socialeurope.eu
October 21, 2025 at 9:04 AM
AI boosters keep saying, in the face of what is clearly a bubble, that perhaps it will be like the dot com bubble, and that longer term the technology will prove itself, much like profit-making from the internet. But why assume that AI is following a similar track to internet platforms?
October 21, 2025 at 7:17 AM
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I expected Keir Starmer to be a bland, middle-management, platitudinous, tediously disappointing Prime Minister, which is why it’s been such a surprise to find out he’s actually a stupid, incompetent, vindictive, reactionary and outright dismaying Prime Minister.
October 17, 2025 at 8:32 AM
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I teach a history of antifascism course @ruhistorydept.bsky.social and figured I'd start an ongoing thread this semester to share some insights from course readings and recommend some great works on antifascism.

🧵
September 30, 2025 at 3:30 PM
Revealed: NSW Police ‘significantly’ overstated antisemitic attacks
www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw...
October 10, 2025 at 7:02 PM
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We also show how a counter language ideology labelling those literacy practices as 'HR-language' operated as a form of discursive counter-conduct. It was an absolute pleasure writing this with Karin and learned a lot from doing so. Let me know if you can't access it and I can get you a copy.
October 8, 2025 at 8:11 AM
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I'm happy to say that the article that Karin Tusting and I wrote for Text and Talk is now available. In it, we look at how a number literacy practices were deployed in a university language centre to try to shape workers into reflective practitioners. www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...
‘SMART goals’ and ‘HR language’: technologised literacy practices and counter-conduct in the workplace
This study examines the use of literacy practices in a performance management system which aims to produce reflective practitioners, and how these practices were discursively resisted by staff. It emp...
www.degruyterbrill.com
October 8, 2025 at 8:10 AM
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Streets are still closed off in front of the Portland ICE facility at 8:30pm. Protesters have gathered on a side street. Dance party in progress.
October 8, 2025 at 3:31 AM
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The Guardian has published the names of the 18,457 children killed in Gaza. www.theguardian.com/world/ng-int...
Young lives cut short on an unimaginable scale: the 18,457 children on Gaza’s list of war dead
Every name on a list compiled by health authorities in Gaza of the child victims of Israel’s offensive
www.theguardian.com
October 8, 2025 at 8:02 AM
I'm happy to say that the article that Karin Tusting and I wrote for Text and Talk is now available. In it, we look at how a number literacy practices were deployed in a university language centre to try to shape workers into reflective practitioners. www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...
‘SMART goals’ and ‘HR language’: technologised literacy practices and counter-conduct in the workplace
This study examines the use of literacy practices in a performance management system which aims to produce reflective practitioners, and how these practices were discursively resisted by staff. It emp...
www.degruyterbrill.com
October 8, 2025 at 8:10 AM
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- put down the damn AI.
October 7, 2025 at 12:26 PM
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"hand-to-hand combat with antifa every night"
October 6, 2025 at 7:45 PM