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edwardongwesojr.com
Edward Ongweso Jr
@edwardongwesojr.com
53K followers 730 following 230 posts
writer, editor, degenerate, Luddite, decel

thetechbubble.substack.com
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edwardongwesojr.com
Edward Ongweso Jr @edwardongwesojr.com · Mar 3
The Silicon Valley Consensus: a persistent but fragile pattern for overbuilding, overvaluing, and overinvesting in tech to enrich networks of capitalists & advance their (reactionary) political projects. 1st iteration focuses on AI capex, first half today. thetechbubble.substack.com/p/the-silico...
The Silicon Valley Consensus & AI Capex (Part 1)
On overbuilding AI infrastructure and its energy supply
thetechbubble.substack.com
Reposted by Edward Ongweso Jr
rebeccawilliams.info
Here is the syllabus for the Information & Human Rights course that I taught at @pratt.edu this fall: rebeccawilliams.info/info-619-inf...

Many thanks to @edwardongwesojr.com, @samanthahinds.bsky.social, & the lawyers not on Bluesky for being guest speakers & for everyone we read!
INFO 619: Information & Human Rights
Taught at the Pratt School of Information, this seminar introduced students to the foundations of information rights, the harms produced by information systems, and the creative and political strategi...
rebeccawilliams.info
November 26, 2025 at 11:20 PM
Reposted by Edward Ongweso Jr
tante.cc
I love the abstraction of the "AI" bubble popping. But the very probable effects haunt me.

Desire to Pop
November 24, 2025 at 10:20 AM
Reposted by Edward Ongweso Jr
danmcquillan.bsky.social
My speaker notes & slides from today's panel on 'Resisting GenAI & Big Tech in Higher Education', co-organised with the Climate Justice Universities Union (CJUU). The full recording, slides and resources will be available soon via the CJUU site.
danmcquillan.org/resisting_ge...
A screenshot of the blog post at https://danmcquillan.org/resisting_genai_highered_cjuu.html
November 25, 2025 at 8:06 PM
Reposted by Edward Ongweso Jr
jathansadowski.com
In the new TMK, we chat with @beccamonteleone.bsky.social about her new book—the Double Bind of Disability—on the politics of disability, technology, and the production of knowledge/power over people's bodies. Becca lays out how to think (critically) about disability. soundcloud.com/thismachinek...
433. How to Think About Disability (ft. Becca Monteleone)
We chat with Becca Monteleone — author of The Double Bind of Disability: How Medical Technology Shapes Bodily Authority — about the critical intersection of disability and technology. Among many thing
soundcloud.com
November 25, 2025 at 10:25 PM
Reposted by Edward Ongweso Jr
edzitron.com
Everybody's trying a little Enron these days
techmeme.com Techmeme @techmeme.com · 5d
Meta enters electricity trading to help accelerate the construction of new US power plants critical for its AI infrastructure buildout (Bloomberg)

Main Link | Techmeme Permalink
November 21, 2025 at 9:33 PM
Reposted by Edward Ongweso Jr
juliorvarela.com
When the Government Doesn't Want You Reporting on ICE

A conversation with Chicago Tribune reporter @lauranrodriguez.bsky.social about covering ‘Operation Midway Blitz’ and staying rooted in community
When the Government Doesn't Want You Reporting on ICE
A conversation with Chicago Tribune reporter Laura Rodríguez Presa about covering ‘Operation Midway Blitz’ and staying rooted in community
pressingissues.org
November 17, 2025 at 5:42 PM
Reposted by Edward Ongweso Jr
vickyacab.bsky.social
Im not owned! Dont put it in the newspaper that I got owned!
A headline from an aggregation from The Wall St Journal with a black and white picture of a crowd from the 1930s and the headline "Why We Could Use a Good, Long Bear Market"
November 17, 2025 at 9:10 PM
edwardongwesojr.com
if we want to use tobacco & opioid firms as examples, the real mistake was that we did not draw enough blood. we have to come away with some scalps this time, not More Transparency. they will simply manufacture doubt just like tobacco & opioid firms did.
theguardian.com The Guardian @theguardian.com · 9d
AI firms must be clear on risks or repeat tobacco’s mistakes, says Anthropic chief
AI firms must be clear on risks or repeat tobacco’s mistakes, says Anthropic chief
Artificial intelligence will become smarter than ‘most or all humans in most or all ways’, says Dario Amodei * Business live – latest updates Artificial intelligence companies must be transparent about the risks posed by their products or risk repeating the mistakes of tobacco and opioid companies, according to the chief executive of the AI startup Anthropic. Dario Amodei, who runs the US company behind the Claude chatbot, said he believed AI will become smarter than “most or all humans in most or all ways” and urged his peers to “call it as you see it”. Continue reading...
www.theguardian.com
November 17, 2025 at 10:56 PM
Reposted by Edward Ongweso Jr
jathansadowski.com
"In writing this article, I realized that I could endlessly tie much of our reporting on attacks on civil society and human knowledge to the force multiplier that is AI and the AI maximalist political and economic project." www.404media.co/ai-is-superc...
AI Is Supercharging the War on Libraries, Education, and Human Knowledge
"Fascism and AI, whether or not they have the same goals, they sure are working to accelerate one another."
www.404media.co
November 17, 2025 at 10:44 PM
Reposted by Edward Ongweso Jr
70sbachchan.bsky.social
In an effort to win this contest, China is building hegemony by exporting not just its green products but also in a structural shift exporting its technology, engineering, supply chains, and financing.
phenomenalworld.org/analysis/bri...
www.ft.com/content/e517...
China is building 74% of all current solar and wind projects, report says
Beijing is dominating construction of renewable energy sources, according to Global Energy Monitor
www.ft.com
July 9, 2025 at 1:33 PM
edwardongwesojr.com
November 17, 2025 at 7:22 PM
edwardongwesojr.com
@edzitron.com been warning about it even longer, put me on to it in fact
smilingtom.bsky.social Tom Madico @smilingtom.bsky.social · 9d
@edwardongwesojr.com been warning about this pile of trash since spring?
lopatto.bsky.social Elizabeth Lopatto @lopatto.bsky.social · 9d
why is Nvidia propping up a company that seems doomed? www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...
November 17, 2025 at 6:55 PM
edwardongwesojr.com
Wrote about digitally cloning your loved ones, immortality, death cults, and Silicon Valley. Plus: an old essay on Russian Cosmism and its perversion by today’s accelerationists.

thetechbubble.substack.com/p/silicon-va...
November 17, 2025 at 6:54 PM
Reposted by Edward Ongweso Jr
hagenblix.bsky.social
I do, of course, have a paragraph from "Why We Fear AI" for this
An LLM is an abstraction over the status quo (or rather, the text of the status quo) that has, at its core, no other aim than producing more text that is just like the text already in existence. One result is that the dominant ideas, the dominant textual patterns of our time, are recast as “intelligence” per se. We might call the complex mass of concepts and ideas, the channels into which ideas flow often and easily, or the boundaries of what is reasonable to debate in so-called “polite society”—the dominant ideology of an age. An age’s dominant ideology tends to presuppose that the power of that age is natural; the hallmark of ideology, in this sense, is that it is easy to recognize only when it’s past its time. We may no longer think that an almighty god appointed a king to rule us, that women are naturally unfit to vote, or that sex outside of a heterosexual marriage is immoral. But at various times, to think otherwise (to think of replacing the monarchy with a republic, to affirm that women are people, or being in favor of sexual or gay liberation) was the far more difficult, even dangerous thought—if not to have, then at the very least to put in writing. Ideology, of course, is never complete, other thoughts are always possible. But ideology is easy to think, it’s what our thoughts are already marinated in. And hence, ideology will be dominant in the textual patterns of an age. Seen in this light, what is called “intelligence” in a language model, is really that—ideology as a thing that can pretend to be a person.
November 11, 2025 at 8:36 PM
Reposted by Edward Ongweso Jr
lukeoneil47.bsky.social
Here’s one of me and the reading gang. @attackerman.bsky.social @kylietcheung.bsky.social @graceroso.bsky.social @edwardongwesojr.com
November 13, 2025 at 12:46 PM
Reposted by Edward Ongweso Jr
edzitron.com
Exclusive: Based on documents viewed by this newsletter, OpenAI spent over $12.4 billion on inference from 2024 to September 2025. As part of its Microsoft revenue share, it sent $493.8m in 2024/$865.8m Jan-Sep 2025, implying lower revenues than previously reported.
www.wheresyoured.at/oai_docs/
Exclusive: Here's How Much OpenAI Spends On Inference and Its Revenue Share With Microsoft
As with my Anthropic exclusive from a few weeks ago, though this feels like a natural premium piece, I decided it was better to publish on my free one so that you could all enjoy it. If you liked or f...
www.wheresyoured.at
November 12, 2025 at 4:30 PM
Reposted by Edward Ongweso Jr
bcmerchant.bsky.social
It's entirely fitting that one of the first big AI-generated music producers is a Deloitte consultant.
chaykak.bsky.social Kyle Chayka @chaykak.bsky.social · 14d
for my @newyorker.com column I profiled Nick Arter, a consultant turned musician who began producing AI songs under the name Nick Hustles a year ago and has hit millions of streams and gone pro. Where is the line of human creativity in the post-AI music industry? www.newyorker.com/culture/infi...
That New Hit Song on Spotify? It Was Made by A.I.
Aspiring musicians are churning out tracks using generative artificial intelligence. Some are topping the charts.
www.newyorker.com
November 12, 2025 at 7:53 PM
Reposted by Edward Ongweso Jr
ojutel.bsky.social
Sharing a great new paper on VC from David Kampmann, LSE really leading the way on the new critical scholarship on VC
@jathansadowski.com @mrshoward.bsky.social @edwardongwesojr.com @parismarx.com @profhilaryallen.bsky.social @jacobsilverman.com
academic.oup.com/ser/advance-...
The political economy of venture capital: winners-take-all and founder control
Abstract. In many US Tech corporations such as Meta, Alphabet, and SpaceX, founders still hold shareholder voting control. How can we better understand the
academic.oup.com
November 4, 2025 at 9:28 PM
Reposted by Edward Ongweso Jr
bcmerchant.bsky.social
NEW YORK CITY: I hear you're in a celebratory mood over there. Well how would you like to use some of that energy to help dismantle big tech?

Join me, @parismarx.com, @edwardongwesojr.com, @jathansadowski.com, @veenadubal.bsky.social, and special guests for the Second NYC Luddite Tribunal.
RSVP to THE LUDDITE TRIBUNAL | Partiful
It's time to put technology on trial, and to smash it if necessary. Join Paris Marx, Jathan Sadowski, Ed Ongweso Jr, Veena Dubal, Brian Merchant, and special guests for an evening of booze, discussion...
partiful.com
November 5, 2025 at 9:36 PM
Reposted by Edward Ongweso Jr
aljazeera.com
The first African author to win the Nobel in literature, Soyinka has been an outspoken critic of governments worldwide.
Trump administration strips Nigerian Nobel winner Wole Soyinka of US visa
The first African author to win the Nobel in literature, Soyinka has been an outspoken critic of governments worldwide.
bit.ly
October 28, 2025 at 10:00 PM
Reposted by Edward Ongweso Jr
the-syllabus.bsky.social
Driven by a new cohort of think-tank voices, the second Trump administration is shifting toward hemispheric prioritization and managed disengagement. Our French pick of the week maps the intellectual genealogy of the "restrainers."

By @rmomtaz.bsky.social et al.

buff.ly/3TnNFoJ
October 29, 2025 at 2:00 PM
Reposted by Edward Ongweso Jr
prisonculture.bsky.social
"In less than 36 hours since we announced that we will be sending payments to disabled SNAP recipients in the South—$100 to individuals and $250 to households—we have received more than 12,400 applications, totaling $2.7 million in requests." - they have to close the form tomorrow... no way to cover
newdisabledsouth.org New Disabled South @newdisabledsouth.org · Oct 28
We are offering one time payments to disabled folks in the South who will not receive their SNAP benefits this month. If you need help, please find more information and details at ndsdj.org/snaphelp.

If you’d like to donate to the fund, go to ndsdj.org/snapdonate

We take care of each other ❤️
Graphic with a light background and the New Disabled South logo in the top right corner. Large bold text reads: ‘Apply: Food Assistance for Disabled People in the South.’ Text below explains that due to the government shutdown, people in the South will not receive their November SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) payments. New Disabled South is offering one-time payments to help people impacted by not receiving SNAP — $100 for individuals and $250 for households with two or more people. It notes that funding is first-come, first-served and that SSI or Medicaid recipients should read a disclaimer before applying. A call-to-action at the bottom reads: ‘Apply at ndsdj.org/snaphelp.’ There are small illustrations of a grocery bag and a grocery list. Graphic with a light background and the New Disabled South logo in the top right corner. Large bold text reads: ‘Donate to Support Food Assistance for Disabled People in the South.’ The message says that New Disabled South is raising money to provide direct payments to people impacted by loss of SNAP funds, and invites donations. A black banner at the bottom reads: ‘Donate at ndsdj.org/snapdonate.’ A small illustration of a grocery bag with food items is on the left. Graphic in Spanish with a light background and the New Disabled South logo in the top right corner. Large bold text reads: ‘Solicitar: Asistencia Alimentaria para Personas con Discapacidad en el Sur.’ The text explains that due to the government shutdown, people will not receive November SNAP payments and that New Disabled South offers one-time payments of $100 for individuals and $250 for households with two or more people, first-come, first-served. It also includes a note for SSI or Medicaid recipients. A black banner at the bottom reads: ‘Solicitar en ndsdj.org/snaphelp.’ A small illustration of a grocery bag and grocery list appears on the left. Graphic in Spanish with a light background and the New Disabled South logo in the top right corner. Large bold text reads: ‘Dona para apoyar la asistencia alimentaria para personas con discapacidad en el Sur.’ The text explains that New Disabled South is raising funds to make direct payments to people affected by the loss of SNAP funds and provides information on how to donate. A black banner at the bottom reads: ‘Dona en ndsdj.org/snapdonate.’ A small illustration of a grocery bag with food items appears on the left.
October 29, 2025 at 5:07 AM
Reposted by Edward Ongweso Jr
junlper.beer
i deeply love WIRED and their reporting, but that ed zitron piece was one of the most bad faith, head scratchingly bizarre pieces i’ve ever read
October 27, 2025 at 4:56 PM
Reposted by Edward Ongweso Jr
brian-goldstone.bsky.social
Under Trump, the draconian future of homelessness policy is coming into focus: mass internment. Utah is building a 16-acre site to detain up to 1,300 homeless people inside locked "accountability centers." This is profoundly alarming.

Vital reporting from @ellenbarry.bsky.social and Jason DeParle:
In Utah, Trump’s Vision for Homelessness Begins to Take Shape
www.nytimes.com
October 29, 2025 at 1:42 PM