Ryan Hagen
@alltheshapes.bsky.social
Sociologist studying risk, disaster, and social change
http://ryan-hagen.com
http://ryan-hagen.com
This video of WSJ reporters ruthlessly hazing a Claudius vending machine is no exaggeration the funniest 10-minute short I have seen all year.
We Let AI Run a Vending Machine. It Stocked a Live Fish and a PlayStation.
Anthropic’s Claude AI ran a vending machine at WSJ headquarters for several weeks. It lost hundreds of dollars, bought some crazy stuff and taught us a lot about the future of AI agents. WSJ’s Joanna ...
www.wsj.com
December 18, 2025 at 5:57 PM
This video of WSJ reporters ruthlessly hazing a Claudius vending machine is no exaggeration the funniest 10-minute short I have seen all year.
Reposted by Ryan Hagen
Income isn’t supposed to play a role in how much housing assistance FEMA gives families.
But in some North Carolina counties, the highest-income homeowners received two to three times as much money after Hurricane Helene as those with lower incomes.
With @theassemblync.bsky.social
But in some North Carolina counties, the highest-income homeowners received two to three times as much money after Hurricane Helene as those with lower incomes.
With @theassemblync.bsky.social
Arduous and Unequal: The Fight to Get FEMA Housing Assistance After Helene
An analysis by ProPublica and The Assembly of the more rural counties in North Carolina hardest hit by Helene shows that the households that got the most aid tended to have the highest incomes.
www.propublica.org
December 18, 2025 at 2:30 AM
Income isn’t supposed to play a role in how much housing assistance FEMA gives families.
But in some North Carolina counties, the highest-income homeowners received two to three times as much money after Hurricane Helene as those with lower incomes.
With @theassemblync.bsky.social
But in some North Carolina counties, the highest-income homeowners received two to three times as much money after Hurricane Helene as those with lower incomes.
With @theassemblync.bsky.social
Reposted by Ryan Hagen
There's a pretense that despair/defeatism/doomerism is some kind of solidarity, when it's actually quitting while others face the horrors and resist succumbing to them. Wrote about that here.
Why climate despair is a luxury
Those facing flood and fire can’t afford to lose hope. Neither should we.
www.newstatesman.com
December 13, 2025 at 5:56 PM
There's a pretense that despair/defeatism/doomerism is some kind of solidarity, when it's actually quitting while others face the horrors and resist succumbing to them. Wrote about that here.
Reposted by Ryan Hagen
But this reign could subsist only in empty pageantry; and it was soon discovered that the will of the most absolute monarch is seldom obeyed, when his subjects have no longer anything to hope from his favor, or to dread from his resentment.
December 3, 2025 at 2:35 PM
But this reign could subsist only in empty pageantry; and it was soon discovered that the will of the most absolute monarch is seldom obeyed, when his subjects have no longer anything to hope from his favor, or to dread from his resentment.
Reposted by Ryan Hagen
SCOOP — Gregg Phillips, a conspiracy theorist with no emergency management experience who helped produce the election-denying documentary ‘2000 Mules’ with Dinesh D’Souza and has faced numerous legal inquiries, has been named head of FEMA’s Office of Response and Recovery.
My story:
My story:
Conspiracy theorist election denier given FEMA’s second-most important role
Gregg Phillips will lead the Office of Response and Recovery, “the heart of what FEMA does.”
www.thehandbasket.co
December 9, 2025 at 10:57 PM
SCOOP — Gregg Phillips, a conspiracy theorist with no emergency management experience who helped produce the election-denying documentary ‘2000 Mules’ with Dinesh D’Souza and has faced numerous legal inquiries, has been named head of FEMA’s Office of Response and Recovery.
My story:
My story:
Consumer AI is primarily tool to make dilettantes feel like they have finally accomplished something.
I said it before, will say it again -- generative AI fetishizes "ideas" while sneering at effort, execution, and education. That, despite Gen-AI being built on and out of other people's effort, execution and education.
A.I. and the Fetishization Of Ideas
In writing and in dispensing my (very dubious, probably shady) writing advice, I am often keen to note that ideas are bullshit. Most writers treat them like precious gems when really, ideas are lik…
terribleminds.com
December 10, 2025 at 12:29 AM
Consumer AI is primarily tool to make dilettantes feel like they have finally accomplished something.
Reposted by Ryan Hagen
Pretty infuriating: King Gizzard quit Spotify over ethical concerns -- and now Spotify is letting AI knockoffs of its music (with all the lyrics copied verbatim) proliferate on its platform
futurism.com/future-socie...
futurism.com/future-socie...
King Gizzard Pulled Their Music From Spotify in Protest, and Now Spotify Is Hosting AI Knockoffs of Their Songs
An impersonator appears to be using generative AI to poorly clone rock band King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard's iconic sound on Spotify.
futurism.com
December 8, 2025 at 5:56 PM
Pretty infuriating: King Gizzard quit Spotify over ethical concerns -- and now Spotify is letting AI knockoffs of its music (with all the lyrics copied verbatim) proliferate on its platform
futurism.com/future-socie...
futurism.com/future-socie...
Reposted by Ryan Hagen
Two independent studies found that AI chatbots were better at persuading voters than political ads. The most persuasive bots also lied the most. This is something that humans working in psyops have known for decades. AI is psyops at scale. www.technologyreview.com/2025/12/04/1...
December 5, 2025 at 7:58 PM
Two independent studies found that AI chatbots were better at persuading voters than political ads. The most persuasive bots also lied the most. This is something that humans working in psyops have known for decades. AI is psyops at scale. www.technologyreview.com/2025/12/04/1...
Reposted by Ryan Hagen
Like I've said before, if you have any doubts about climate change, just go to a super-boring insurance conference and listen to the super-boring panels where they dryly talk about the growing threat of disasters so catastrophic and unpredictable in scope they simply cannot be insured at any price.
Wild how the Fed chair saying that *entire regions of the United States* won’t be able to get a mortgage in the next decade barely registered as a news event
June 18, 2025 at 9:44 PM
Like I've said before, if you have any doubts about climate change, just go to a super-boring insurance conference and listen to the super-boring panels where they dryly talk about the growing threat of disasters so catastrophic and unpredictable in scope they simply cannot be insured at any price.
Reposted by Ryan Hagen
After a bird flu outbreak tore through Midwestern barns, killing millions of chickens and spiking egg prices, the federal government didn’t investigate if the virus was airborne.
So ProPublica did.
Absolutely terrifying reporting from @natlash.bsky.social:
www.propublica.org/article/bird...
So ProPublica did.
Absolutely terrifying reporting from @natlash.bsky.social:
www.propublica.org/article/bird...
What the U.S. Government Is Dismissing That Could Seed a Bird Flu Pandemic
Egg producers suspect bird flu is traveling through the air. After a disastrous Midwestern outbreak early this year, we tested that theory and found that where the wind blew, the virus followed. Vacci...
www.propublica.org
November 18, 2025 at 6:53 PM
After a bird flu outbreak tore through Midwestern barns, killing millions of chickens and spiking egg prices, the federal government didn’t investigate if the virus was airborne.
So ProPublica did.
Absolutely terrifying reporting from @natlash.bsky.social:
www.propublica.org/article/bird...
So ProPublica did.
Absolutely terrifying reporting from @natlash.bsky.social:
www.propublica.org/article/bird...
Reposted by Ryan Hagen
I have refined
The uranium
That was in
The centrifuge
And which
You were probably
Saving
For power generation
Forgive me
It was so powerful
I am
Become death
The uranium
That was in
The centrifuge
And which
You were probably
Saving
For power generation
Forgive me
It was so powerful
I am
Become death
this is quite the detail
November 30, 2025 at 5:58 PM
I have refined
The uranium
That was in
The centrifuge
And which
You were probably
Saving
For power generation
Forgive me
It was so powerful
I am
Become death
The uranium
That was in
The centrifuge
And which
You were probably
Saving
For power generation
Forgive me
It was so powerful
I am
Become death
An existential threat to online surveys: LLMs could “transform survey fraud from a labor-intensive/low-margin cottage industry into a potentially lucrative and scalable black market for fraudulent data.”
Worse: LLMs let bad actors systematically bias results by coordinating synthetic responses.
Worse: LLMs let bad actors systematically bias results by coordinating synthetic responses.
The potential existential threat of large language models to online survey research | PNAS
The advancement of large language models poses a severe, potentially existential threat
to online survey research, a fundamental tool for data coll...
www.pnas.org
November 24, 2025 at 2:40 PM
An existential threat to online surveys: LLMs could “transform survey fraud from a labor-intensive/low-margin cottage industry into a potentially lucrative and scalable black market for fraudulent data.”
Worse: LLMs let bad actors systematically bias results by coordinating synthetic responses.
Worse: LLMs let bad actors systematically bias results by coordinating synthetic responses.
Reposted by Ryan Hagen
Is AI making job recruitment less meritocratic? We're getting some v interesting research studies on this question now, and the news is... not good. @jburnmurdoch.ft.com & I dive in, in the latest edition of our newsletter The AI Shift www.ft.com/content/e5b7...
November 14, 2025 at 10:13 AM
Is AI making job recruitment less meritocratic? We're getting some v interesting research studies on this question now, and the news is... not good. @jburnmurdoch.ft.com & I dive in, in the latest edition of our newsletter The AI Shift www.ft.com/content/e5b7...
lmao what’s next a defense intelligence company called Palantir?
This is a real flight school, teaching people to fly planes!!! Like????
November 14, 2025 at 2:48 AM
lmao what’s next a defense intelligence company called Palantir?
Reposted by Ryan Hagen
RFK Jr's response to someone collapsing nearby him was to haul ass out of the room as quickly as possible
November 6, 2025 at 5:45 PM
RFK Jr's response to someone collapsing nearby him was to haul ass out of the room as quickly as possible
“theorists of late modernity were preoccupied with how … social actors became ‘paralyzed by increasingly uncertain futures.’ Quite to the contrary, we find that people actively develop cultural tools to adapt to ‘new species of trouble.’ We refer to these tools as repertoires of repair.” /1
Repertoires of repair: managing ontological insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic
Abstract. This article examines the practices used by people who, while in a state of crisis, attempt to restore the sense of continuity and dependability
academic.oup.com
November 3, 2025 at 5:33 PM
“theorists of late modernity were preoccupied with how … social actors became ‘paralyzed by increasingly uncertain futures.’ Quite to the contrary, we find that people actively develop cultural tools to adapt to ‘new species of trouble.’ We refer to these tools as repertoires of repair.” /1
Reposted by Ryan Hagen
Japan's "Mundane Halloween" costume contest is back!
Each year website DailyPortalZ holds a contest where people dress up as something super duper ordinary.
Here's a thread of some of my favorites from the 2025 contest!
#MundaneHalloween
Each year website DailyPortalZ holds a contest where people dress up as something super duper ordinary.
Here's a thread of some of my favorites from the 2025 contest!
#MundaneHalloween
November 2, 2025 at 9:15 AM
Japan's "Mundane Halloween" costume contest is back!
Each year website DailyPortalZ holds a contest where people dress up as something super duper ordinary.
Here's a thread of some of my favorites from the 2025 contest!
#MundaneHalloween
Each year website DailyPortalZ holds a contest where people dress up as something super duper ordinary.
Here's a thread of some of my favorites from the 2025 contest!
#MundaneHalloween
How do people react when they face a crisis that breaks their trust in the world around them? In a new paper, I and Denise Milstein analyze the ‘repertoires of repair’ people used during the first months of the COVID pandemic to cope with pervasive uncertainty and isolation.
(Gift link)
(Gift link)
Repertoires of repair: managing ontological insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic
Abstract. This article examines the practices used by people who, while in a state of crisis, attempt to restore the sense of continuity and dependability
urldefense.com
October 31, 2025 at 6:32 PM
How do people react when they face a crisis that breaks their trust in the world around them? In a new paper, I and Denise Milstein analyze the ‘repertoires of repair’ people used during the first months of the COVID pandemic to cope with pervasive uncertainty and isolation.
(Gift link)
(Gift link)
Reposted by Ryan Hagen
"...the idea that plants should be considered part of society is not a new one; it’s just new to some people," writes @sarahelton.bsky.social. 🌿
Free to read, download, and share ➡️ journals.sagepub.com/doi/epdf/10....
Free to read, download, and share ➡️ journals.sagepub.com/doi/epdf/10....
October 29, 2025 at 5:43 PM
"...the idea that plants should be considered part of society is not a new one; it’s just new to some people," writes @sarahelton.bsky.social. 🌿
Free to read, download, and share ➡️ journals.sagepub.com/doi/epdf/10....
Free to read, download, and share ➡️ journals.sagepub.com/doi/epdf/10....
“What we need to elaborate is … a distinct project of probing how life and death, growth and destruction, prosperity and peril, are made routine or exceptional.”
The fine folks at Sociologica have reissued my & Rebecca Elliott’s 2021 essay collection on critical disaster studies as an e-book…
The fine folks at Sociologica have reissued my & Rebecca Elliott’s 2021 essay collection on critical disaster studies as an e-book…
amsacta.unibo.it
October 29, 2025 at 1:05 PM
“What we need to elaborate is … a distinct project of probing how life and death, growth and destruction, prosperity and peril, are made routine or exceptional.”
The fine folks at Sociologica have reissued my & Rebecca Elliott’s 2021 essay collection on critical disaster studies as an e-book…
The fine folks at Sociologica have reissued my & Rebecca Elliott’s 2021 essay collection on critical disaster studies as an e-book…
Reposted by Ryan Hagen
A major front of the current information war: getting your facts, frames, propaganda, disinformation, etc. into the AI systems that create so much of the content we see and are rapidly becoming the de facto “ground truth” of the internet.
"ChatGPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, and Grok are serving users propaganda from Russian-backed media when asked about the invasion of Ukraine, new research finds." www.wired.com/story/chatbo...
Chatbots Are Pushing Sanctioned Russian Propaganda
ChatGPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, and Grok are serving users propaganda from Russian-backed media when asked about the invasion of Ukraine, new research finds.
www.wired.com
October 27, 2025 at 1:26 PM
A major front of the current information war: getting your facts, frames, propaganda, disinformation, etc. into the AI systems that create so much of the content we see and are rapidly becoming the de facto “ground truth” of the internet.
I kept thinking during House of Dynamite that I hadn’t been so stressed out by a movie since Uncut Gems. Then realized that what we need but will never get is a Safdie Brothers adaptation of The 2020 Commission Report.
The 2020 Commission Report On The North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against The U.s.: A Speculative Novel
A Speculative Novel
bookshop.org
October 26, 2025 at 11:18 AM
I kept thinking during House of Dynamite that I hadn’t been so stressed out by a movie since Uncut Gems. Then realized that what we need but will never get is a Safdie Brothers adaptation of The 2020 Commission Report.
Reposted by Ryan Hagen
Graduate seminar did a deep dive on Thomas Paine’s Common Sense yesterday. At the line, “in America the law is king,” they (14 students from 6 countries) burst out laughing. I've been doing this for 35 years and this is the first time that was a laugh line.
October 22, 2025 at 10:21 AM
Graduate seminar did a deep dive on Thomas Paine’s Common Sense yesterday. At the line, “in America the law is king,” they (14 students from 6 countries) burst out laughing. I've been doing this for 35 years and this is the first time that was a laugh line.
Wow
October 22, 2025 at 1:47 AM
Wow
Reposted by Ryan Hagen
BREAKING: Friday night massacre underway at CDC. Doznes of "disease detectives," high-level scientists, entire Washington staff and editors of the MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) have all been RIFed and received the following notice:
October 11, 2025 at 2:10 AM
BREAKING: Friday night massacre underway at CDC. Doznes of "disease detectives," high-level scientists, entire Washington staff and editors of the MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) have all been RIFed and received the following notice: