Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Desiree Fields

TrustedReveler @trustedreveler.bsky.social · 1d

LA: we will fight you.

Chicago: we will fight you.

PDX: we will make you endure week after week of of improv theater.

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m @keptsimple.bsky.social · 8h

trump crossed the line to objectively fascist a long time ago but it's funny that he can have an anti-anti-fascist task force and people still treat it like an open question

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 15h

i desperately want everyone involved in the destruction of USAID to have to, st the very least, answer to the american people for the suffering and misery they have caused apnews.com/article/myan...

Starving children screaming for food as US aid cuts unleash devastation and death across Myanmar

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has repeatedly said “no one has died" because of his government’s decision to gut its foreign aid program.

apnews.com

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Matt Seybold @mattseybold.bsky.social · 15h

When the margin of the value produced by labor which capital claims as their right and privilege is "all of it," we are no longer in capitalism.

The Verge @theverge.com · May 26

Nick Clegg says asking artists for use permission would ‘kill’ the AI industry

Paul McCartne, Elton John and others signed an open letter.

buff.ly

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Jonathan W. Gray @elmcitytree.blacksky.app · 1d

Somehow, in the midst of all of this, there are several hires in Black Diaspora Studies being made across CUNY. This is one of them:

cuny.jobs/new-york-ny/...

Jobs | City University of New York

cuny.jobs

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Use Alt Text not A.I. @carebear2717.bsky.social · 1d

It's the new highways through Black neighborhoods: Data centers

Jack Tripper @chadstanton.blacksky.app · 1d

I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that all these data centers are going into communities that have been historically targeted for exploitation and have the least amount of civic power wielded by the people living there.

wordinblack.com/2025/09/alab...

Why Are Plans for This Alabama Data Center So Hush-Hush?

Officials in Bessemer, Alabama, are mum on Project Marvel, a proposed data center the size of 18 Walmart Supercenters.

wordinblack.com

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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 1d

Your Prime Day reminder that Amazon...

-Provides cloud services that help fuel ICE's deportation machine
-Donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration fund
-Scrapped plans to display tariff costs after pressure from Trump
-Shelled out $40M for a documentary about Melania Trump

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Desiree Fields @desireefields.bsky.social · 1d

Sounds like some flim-flam to me. What geographies of consumption and regret does BNPL underwrite? docs.google.com/document/d/1...

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Desiree Fields @desireefields.bsky.social · 1d

Can’t miss this opportunity to get in something that will be so big. Huge!

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Desiree Fields @desireefields.bsky.social · 1d

Along with Will Payne and Jovan Lewis, I'm organizing an AAG session on the economic geography of scams for the 2026 conference in San Francisco. Please share widely! docs.google.com/document/d/1...

AAG 2026 CFP: Putting the ‘Con’ in Economic Geography

AAG 2026 CFP: Schemes, Scams, and Flim-flam: Putting the ‘Con’ in Economic Geography Will B. Payne, Rutgers University Desiree Fields, University of California, Berkeley Jovan Scott Lewis, University ...

docs.google.com

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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 2d

this is the jacket's breast pocket lining pulled up to make it look like a pocket square

Stephen Miller in a gray suit, white shirt, and gray tie.

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Duke University Press @dukepress.bsky.social · 4d

The Weekly Read is "Fear of a Dead White Planet," by the More Worlds Collective (Joseph Masco, Tim Choy, Jake Kosek, and M. Murphy), which asks: How does one study when the planet is on fire? Read this book now for free! buff.ly/86Bikuh

Cover of Fear of a Dead White Planet by the More Worlds Collective. The cover art features an undulating curtain of smog against an otherwise clear sky. The texture of the smog has a sketch-like quality. The smog covers most of the page, with the relatively thin strip of blue sky at the bottom of the page. The top of a tree can be seen peeking out from the bottom left-hand corner of the cover.

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Chuck Wendig @chuckwendig.bsky.social · 6d

It’s great that companies start out like, “We have a fun new app where we deliver fresh fruit to your door” and then ten years later, “NEW: FRUITMAIL DEVELOPING AUTONOMOUS SWARMING EXPLOSIVE RECTAL DRONES DESIGNED TO HUNT DOWN THISE WHO WERE MEAN TO THE PRESIDENT KING SO AS TO EXPLODE THEM RECTALLY”

Thomas Brewster @thomasbrewster.bsky.social · 7d

🚨NEW🚨 Amazon has been developing drone surveillance tech for American cops, from gun detection to repurposing Twitch's streaming code.

It's also pushing all manner of surveillance tools, including Flock car tracking and AI that constantly monitors all prison calls.

www.forbes.com/sites/thomas...

Inside Amazon’s Aggressive Push To Get Cops Using AI Surveillance

Inside Amazon’s Aggressive Push To Get Cops Using AI

www.forbes.com

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Veena Dubal @veenadubal.bsky.social · 8d

WE WON: "This case -– perhaps the most important ever to fall w/in..this district court squarely presents the issue whether non-citizens lawfully present here in US..have the same free speech rights as the rest of us. The Court answers this Constitutional question unequivocally “yes, they do.”"

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Pam Davis-Kean, PhD @umpamdk.bsky.social · 9d

Thank you all the program officers at NIH that persisted through the 2025 fiscal year and were able to fund 99% of the total FY2024 budget. I know this has take a toll on everyone at NIH. Thank you for supporting important health and behavior science and helping to keep the U.S. a leader in science.

Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 9d

The fiscal year ends tomorrow.

Here are results from NIH Reporter downloaded an hour ago.

The total amount of funding committed for FY2025 at this point is 99.0% of that for FY2024. The same difference could be due to a variety of technical factors.

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$A graph showing the fraction of annual grant funding committed for NIH for fiscal years 2015 to 2025. The fiscal year 2025 lagged behind but then caught up over the last two months.$

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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 9d

I feel like not nearly enough people understand this:
"Where real thinking involves organic associations, speculative leaps, and surprise inferences, AI can only recognize and repeat embedded word chains, based on elaborately automated statistical guesswork."

www.nplusonemag.com/issue-51/the...

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

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Asschapel Roan @stochasticburrito.bsky.social · 20d

Meme from the Simpsons, Moe (labeled Francis Fukuyama) throws Barney (labeled History) out of the bar, only for us to see in the third panel Barney standing behind Moe inside the bar

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Desiree Fields @desireefields.bsky.social · 13d

This should be great for the economy. Imagine what it will do for the real estate market, contractors, and big box stores to make furnishings and common renovation materials more expensive. Homeowners and real estate agents will be thrilled.👏 👏 👏

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 13d

In the last 6 hours, Trump has imposed:

- A 100% tariff on medicine unless its producer starts building a new U.S. factory in the next 5 days
- A 50% tariff on kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanities
- A 30% tariff on upholstered furniture
- A 25% tariff on “Heavy (Big!) Trucks”

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BOO!-rian EEE!-gan @brianckeegan.com · 13d

My department @cuboulder.info is hiring a TT assistant professor in the area of environmental justice!

jobs.colorado.edu/jobs/JobDeta...

Please share and encourage candidates to apply!

Assistant Professor in Environmental Justice and Information/Technology

jobs.colorado.edu

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Embrace the Void @etvpod.bsky.social · 15d

Great response piece. One of the few actual benefits of meritocratic ideology is that it, to some degree, makes overt bigotry a disqualifier for engagement in various public spaces. And now we’re being told we can’t even have that because it gets in the way of civility porn. Hollowed out liberalism.

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 15d

"Common decency stigmatizes people that do not participate in it—removes them from voluntary association. We indeed have to live with one another, but terms and conditions apply."

me on why Ezra Klein should be ashamed / why shame is Good Actually

www.bostonreview.net/articles/how...

How Can We Live Together? - Boston Review

Ezra Klein is wrong: shame is essential.

www.bostonreview.net

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Economy & Society @econsocjournal.bsky.social · 15d

In case you missed this in the summer haze, our Early-Career Paper Prize 2026 is now open.
Deadline: 15th December 2025.
Publication plus £1,000 for the Prize winner!

files.taylorandfrancis.com

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Desiree Fields @desireefields.bsky.social · 15d

Love this piece so much, this line is sticking with me: “those who relate to others as though they are not worthy of respect ought to be treated with the regard that orientation deserves.”

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 15d

"Common decency stigmatizes people that do not participate in it—removes them from voluntary association. We indeed have to live with one another, but terms and conditions apply."

me on why Ezra Klein should be ashamed / why shame is Good Actually

www.bostonreview.net/articles/how...

How Can We Live Together? - Boston Review

Ezra Klein is wrong: shame is essential.

www.bostonreview.net

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Jaweed Kaleem @jaweedkaleem.bsky.social · 16d

BREAKING: A federal judge has ordered Trump to restore $500 million in frozen UCLA NIH grants. The same judge, Rita F. Lin, previously ordered all UCLA NSF grants reinstated. Lin has now nearly entirely reversed Trump's July de-funding of UCLA research: www.latimes.com/california/s...

Federal judge orders Trump to restore $500 million in frozen UCLA medical research grants

A San Francisco-based federal judge on Monday ordered the Trump administration to restore all National Institutes of Health grants to UCLA, roughly $500 million, that the government suspended in July.

www.latimes.com

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The Ass is the father of the legs @internethippo.bsky.social · Jan 12

The scientific method served humanity well for hundreds of years but it was rendered obsolete in 2013 with the discovery of Vibes

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☕️ Jeremy Diamond @dmnd.me · Mar 6

Bro, just one more humanoid robot, bro please, this one will be the true general purpose technology bro, this one will fill any labor shortage bro, our nanas and papas will let them into their homes to help them age in place bro, it’s the future bro, I won’t put guns on them I swear bro, bro

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