John Conor Ryan
@johnconorryan.bsky.social
Co-founder: Calx Institute. @calxinstitute.social.bsky
Physicist, writer, learning to play jazz on cello.
Co-steward of https://getdweb.net/principles/ ... values for the Web we deserve.
Physicist, writer, learning to play jazz on cello.
Co-steward of https://getdweb.net/principles/ ... values for the Web we deserve.
Reposted by John Conor Ryan
$1.6bln: The amount of his fraud scheme
7: Years of his sentence
10,000: Victims of his fraud
1,000: Letters from victims to the court
13: Days he served
1: Pardon from Trump
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/29/u...
7: Years of his sentence
10,000: Victims of his fraud
1,000: Letters from victims to the court
13: Days he served
1: Pardon from Trump
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/29/u...
Trump Frees Fraudster Just Days Into Seven-Year Prison Sentence
www.nytimes.com
November 30, 2025 at 1:54 PM
$1.6bln: The amount of his fraud scheme
7: Years of his sentence
10,000: Victims of his fraud
1,000: Letters from victims to the court
13: Days he served
1: Pardon from Trump
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/29/u...
7: Years of his sentence
10,000: Victims of his fraud
1,000: Letters from victims to the court
13: Days he served
1: Pardon from Trump
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/29/u...
So much of modern industry is built on deliberately pushing costs onto society. Gross externalities as strategy. Homeless and hungry workers while the owners are billionaires is but one, albeit hideous, exemplar.
Time to re-do the math. (Our project, tbh: @calxinstitute.bsky.social )
Time to re-do the math. (Our project, tbh: @calxinstitute.bsky.social )
"Homelessness today isn't just the person sleeping outside a Walmart. It's often the cashier or worker stocking the shelves inside."
I joined @pbsnews.org to talk about There Is No Place for Us and the staggering rise of the "working homeless":
www.pbs.org/newshour/sho...
I joined @pbsnews.org to talk about There Is No Place for Us and the staggering rise of the "working homeless":
www.pbs.org/newshour/sho...
November 30, 2025 at 5:36 PM
So much of modern industry is built on deliberately pushing costs onto society. Gross externalities as strategy. Homeless and hungry workers while the owners are billionaires is but one, albeit hideous, exemplar.
Time to re-do the math. (Our project, tbh: @calxinstitute.bsky.social )
Time to re-do the math. (Our project, tbh: @calxinstitute.bsky.social )
Reposted by John Conor Ryan
🧪It took multiple studies over several years to disprove Andrew Wakefield’s notorious fraudulent research article.
November 28, 2025 at 2:43 AM
🧪It took multiple studies over several years to disprove Andrew Wakefield’s notorious fraudulent research article.
Reposted by John Conor Ryan
Among the underlying values that American Thanksgiving celebrates: the agricultural harvest cycle with its theme of postponed gratification, religious liberty, escape from oppression, and the opportunity to form communities of one's choosing far from kings [Arthur Melzer, @theunpopulist.net]
Thanksgiving, Above All, Celebrates Our Escape From a Pre-Liberal World
But the liberal order's very success in overcoming the horrors of that world has made postliberal ideologies forget what lies on its other side
www.theunpopulist.net
November 27, 2025 at 5:40 PM
Among the underlying values that American Thanksgiving celebrates: the agricultural harvest cycle with its theme of postponed gratification, religious liberty, escape from oppression, and the opportunity to form communities of one's choosing far from kings [Arthur Melzer, @theunpopulist.net]
Hey, @jay.bsky.team @pfrazee.com @rose.bsky.team THANKS to you for creating this place and doing a reasonable best to create the best now available place for the roiling mess of us.
November 27, 2025 at 5:23 PM
Hey, @jay.bsky.team @pfrazee.com @rose.bsky.team THANKS to you for creating this place and doing a reasonable best to create the best now available place for the roiling mess of us.
Reposted by John Conor Ryan
What is the best compliment you ever received? Putting aside whether or not you believed it.
October 24, 2025 at 1:06 AM
What is the best compliment you ever received? Putting aside whether or not you believed it.
Reposted by John Conor Ryan
The problem with ICE is not that it's targeting people who aren't criminals. The problem with ICE is that it's an unaccountable secret deportation police. It cannot be reformed under a better president. It can be made less terrible, but the instrument of repression remains for the next tyrant.
November 26, 2025 at 5:04 PM
The problem with ICE is not that it's targeting people who aren't criminals. The problem with ICE is that it's an unaccountable secret deportation police. It cannot be reformed under a better president. It can be made less terrible, but the instrument of repression remains for the next tyrant.
Ice scrapers? In Monrovia?
So much to like here.
So much to like here.
“Nearly one hundred people had just one item on their list as they entered the Home Depot in Monrovia on Saturday: a small ice scraper worth a little less than a dollar.”
Day laborer organizers protest Home Depot, pressuring it to "scrape ICE out of their stores."
Over one hundred community members gathered at the Home Depot in Monrovia Saturday to pressure the company to stop the immigration raids taking place at its locations.
www.latimes.com
November 23, 2025 at 4:57 PM
Ice scrapers? In Monrovia?
So much to like here.
So much to like here.
Reposted by John Conor Ryan
Elon Musk's GROK analyses the text of the 21-point plan released by the Trump White House and concludes that it is clear this document was drafted in Russian and translated very poorly into English. Which is exactly what I thought when I read it.
November 22, 2025 at 6:52 PM
Elon Musk's GROK analyses the text of the 21-point plan released by the Trump White House and concludes that it is clear this document was drafted in Russian and translated very poorly into English. Which is exactly what I thought when I read it.
Reposted by John Conor Ryan
I remember when there was a discussion on Twitter about Shein's manufacturing practices and some apologists invented all sorts of fantastical machinery and technology to avoid facing the more horrifying truth. Reminds me of this comedian's joke.
IG bscomedian
IG bscomedian
November 20, 2025 at 12:07 AM
I remember when there was a discussion on Twitter about Shein's manufacturing practices and some apologists invented all sorts of fantastical machinery and technology to avoid facing the more horrifying truth. Reminds me of this comedian's joke.
IG bscomedian
IG bscomedian
The hidden, awful external costs of fast fashion includes hideous labor practices (in many countries, to be sure). It's time these costs were fairly reflected in fair pricing. @calxinstitute.bsky.social
The people who make Shein's clothes labor for ten to twelve hours per day (in violation of China's labor laws), some up to seven days a week, and earn as little as 15 to 30 cents per t-shirt.
![Excerpt from a BBC article: ""We usually work, 10, 11 or 12 hours a day," says a 49-year-old woman from Jiangxi unwilling to give her name. "On Sundays we work around three hours less."
She is in an alleyway, where a dozen people are huddled around a row of bulletin boards.
They are reading the job ads on the board, while examining the stitching on a pair of chinos draped over it.
This is Shein's supply chain. The factories are contracted to make clothes on order - some small, some big. If the chinos are a hit, orders will ramp up and so must production. Factories then hire temporary workers to meet the demand their permanent staff cannot fulfil.
The migrant worker from Jiangxi is looking for a short-term contract - and the chinos are an option.
"We earn so little. The cost of living is now so high," she says, adding that she hopes to make enough to send back to her two children who are living with their grandparents.
"We get paid per piece," she explains. "It depends how difficult the item is. Something simple like a t-shirt is one-two yuan [less than a dollar] per piece and I can make around a dozen in an hour.""](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ks3gpa6ftoyaq7hmf6c4qx4c/bafkreiber7g4o5pujmzmjjzsp5dkz7blfexburuwjispfpv6dki7akjb7a@jpeg)
November 20, 2025 at 2:18 AM
The hidden, awful external costs of fast fashion includes hideous labor practices (in many countries, to be sure). It's time these costs were fairly reflected in fair pricing. @calxinstitute.bsky.social
Reposted by John Conor Ryan
Thank God for Andrew Roth. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
Trump and Mr Bone Saw stage love-in as Saudi’s $1tn wipes the bloody slate clean
In the Oval Office the US president dismissed the murder of the columnist Jamal Khashoggi, saying: ‘things happen’
www.theguardian.com
November 20, 2025 at 1:04 AM
Thank God for Andrew Roth. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
Today's news: the approval of the Purdue / Sackler deal. Where "greedy indifference to suffering" still created fortunes. Our work at @calxinstitute.bsky.social covers externalized costs of all types. Our unpublished, unreviewed estimate is that the Purdue oxycontin debacle (a tiny thread, read on)
November 14, 2025 at 8:40 PM
Today's news: the approval of the Purdue / Sackler deal. Where "greedy indifference to suffering" still created fortunes. Our work at @calxinstitute.bsky.social covers externalized costs of all types. Our unpublished, unreviewed estimate is that the Purdue oxycontin debacle (a tiny thread, read on)
Reposted by John Conor Ryan
Kyle Kingsbury is not a journalist. He is not an op-ed writer.
He is a computer safety researcher.
And he has written one of the most compelling, comprehensive accounts of the ongoing hell in Chicago that you could possibly imagine.
In under 1600 words.
aphyr.com/posts/397-i-...
He is a computer safety researcher.
And he has written one of the most compelling, comprehensive accounts of the ongoing hell in Chicago that you could possibly imagine.
In under 1600 words.
aphyr.com/posts/397-i-...
November 9, 2025 at 8:49 PM
Kyle Kingsbury is not a journalist. He is not an op-ed writer.
He is a computer safety researcher.
And he has written one of the most compelling, comprehensive accounts of the ongoing hell in Chicago that you could possibly imagine.
In under 1600 words.
aphyr.com/posts/397-i-...
He is a computer safety researcher.
And he has written one of the most compelling, comprehensive accounts of the ongoing hell in Chicago that you could possibly imagine.
In under 1600 words.
aphyr.com/posts/397-i-...
Anyone here near Hartford in #connecticut? cos Jason here needs (may need) help with the on-the-ground logistics on this.
It is 3am in Korea and I'm trying to organize a thing. Not my favorite thing to do! But I have to give it a try. There is an auction for the remainder of the Mark Pines collection and I'm trying to organize a bid. Need money and I'm trying to coordinate a phone bid as well. A real hail mary pass.
November 10, 2025 at 8:08 PM
Anyone here near Hartford in #connecticut? cos Jason here needs (may need) help with the on-the-ground logistics on this.
Exactly. Project 2025 explicitly describes a post-constitutional era. And (almost) all the regime's actions are following that manifesto.
seems to me that those democrats inclined not to fight perceive themselves as living through a somewhat ordinary cycle of presidential overreach and backlash and not something much more significant and dangerous
November 10, 2025 at 5:43 PM
Exactly. Project 2025 explicitly describes a post-constitutional era. And (almost) all the regime's actions are following that manifesto.
Reposted by John Conor Ryan
Reposted by John Conor Ryan
A message for the senate democrats
November 9, 2025 at 11:45 PM
A message for the senate democrats
Reposted by John Conor Ryan
I mean, what kind of Savior can't do miracles with bulgur and kale?
"We’ve been really into kefir lately. Why don’t you conjure up some local honey to pair with our kefir? Or, for a real miracle, you could make gluten-free pizza that actually tastes good."
Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand, but the Five Thousand Are Gluten Free
No, of course we appreciate the gesture. It’s just that, well, this menu is a little inconsiderate. Sure, all these loaves of bread, that’s very im...
buff.ly
November 7, 2025 at 7:48 PM
I mean, what kind of Savior can't do miracles with bulgur and kale?
Reposted by John Conor Ryan
A List of Things Said to Have Been Ruined by Women
🧵
🧵
November 6, 2025 at 8:43 PM
A List of Things Said to Have Been Ruined by Women
🧵
🧵
Reposted by John Conor Ryan
Reposted by John Conor Ryan
"What we see, I think, are a bunch of rich guys who have been comically out of touch with normal people for many decades, and more recently have blowtorched their brains into a smoking pile of ash on Elon Musk’s Twitter/X and in various group chats." prospect.org/2025/11/04/a...
America’s Dumbest Billionaires Fail to Stop Zohran Mamdani - The American Prospect
It’s encouraging on many levels: New York City didn’t submit to a campaign of flagrant bigotry from disgraced two-time loser Andrew Cuomo, and Americans, particularly young ones, can still be politica...
prospect.org
November 5, 2025 at 2:56 AM
"What we see, I think, are a bunch of rich guys who have been comically out of touch with normal people for many decades, and more recently have blowtorched their brains into a smoking pile of ash on Elon Musk’s Twitter/X and in various group chats." prospect.org/2025/11/04/a...
Reposted by John Conor Ryan
I wrote about Zohran’s victory. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Mamdani’s victory is a rebuke to the failed strategies of the Democratic party | Moira Donegan
The Democratic party appears listless and unprincipled, unwilling to fight because they do not believe in anything. Zohran Mamdani is the opposite of this
www.theguardian.com
November 5, 2025 at 5:43 AM
I wrote about Zohran’s victory. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Reposted by John Conor Ryan
ah, perhaps instead of pumping millions into endless factional infighting Dem donors could invest in making local Dem organizations genuine civic spaces that can reach people during and between elections
November 5, 2025 at 12:49 PM
ah, perhaps instead of pumping millions into endless factional infighting Dem donors could invest in making local Dem organizations genuine civic spaces that can reach people during and between elections