Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Beth Popp Berman

Mirya R. Holman @mirya.bsky.social · 17h

It seems very... stupid to be writing about writing right now. I think about this dog every day.

But also there are a lot of us whose job is to write and we still want to write even as <waves arms around> happens. So this is for all of us.

A gold retriever wearing a pink tie sits at a laptop. Behind the dog is an apocalyptic scene of bombs and fire and war. The dog just looks at the screen of the computer like it is just tappity tapping

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Reposted by Beth Popp Berman

Matt @differentmatt.bsky.social · 2d

If you can find one of these documents in the wild, please deposit it with the nearest university special collections department.

This is going straight into the 21st Century U.S. History Primary Source Reader. What an ungodly rich text. I'm deeply humiliated to be implicated by it.

Dan of the Year @downwithdan.bsky.social · 2d

THE RADICAL LEFTISTS HAVE KILLED OUR BUSINESS
[also we got bought out by private equity who shuttered the store and fired everyone]
BUT IT WAS MOSTLY THE RADICAL LEFTISTS
also can we have a federal bailout 🥹

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 2d

I was hoping someone would pop in and remind me what it actually was!

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 3d

I think my head might explode.

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 3d

My general impression from that is that most are tuning out the news quite a bit. Yours?

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 3d

There was some old-school study once about where people actually get their news and the answer was like "this one lady at church who keeps the radio on."

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 3d

Anyway, shocker, I'm feeling epistemologically unmoored.

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 3d

I'm trying to avoid overindexing on the five things going around on Bluesky -- both in terms of my own sense of the world, b/c Bsky can be...histrionic? -- and in what I think other people "know."

But the media ecosystem is making this increasingly hard. (Bari Weiss? Really??)

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 3d

I don't use Instagram. But I could probably find a guitar teacher.

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 3d

Saw this yesterday, which is not the worst heuristic. Maybe I need to subscribe to People.

Melissa Ryan @melissaryan.bsky.social · 5d

I always pay attention to what stories People Magazine and other consumer media outlets cover. That's how you can tell that something has broken through the usual political and news bubbles. This horrific Chicago story has broken through. people.com/ice-agents-o...

ICE Agents Rappel from Helicopter in Overnight Chicago Raid, Dragging Kids from Beds to U-Hauls

Overnight on Tuesday, Sept. 30, federal agents from different agencies raided an apartment building on the South Side of Chicago, pulling men, women and children — some of them allegedly naked — from ...

people.com

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 3d

Ordinary, not very politically engaged people.

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 3d

I know what five news items Blueskyers are paying attention on a given day, and I can go on X and see what's getting traction in Elon-world. But I feel like I have no grasp on what ordinary people are picking up of day-to-day events.

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 3d

Interesting article/paper.

I'm much less anti-AI than a lot of people on my feed. But pretty skeptical it can simulate human behavior effectively for social scientific purposes -- at least in cases where variation among humans, rather than acting like an average human, is what's important.

AI-generated ‘participants’ can lead social science experiments astray, study finds

Data produced by “silicon samples” depends on researchers’ exact choice of models, prompts, and settings

www.science.org

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 3d

The call is coming from inside the house.

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 4d

I'm sure you said this better than I did!

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 4d

Oof, this is not good.

Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social · 4d

News coverage of the Trump administration's proposed "compact" with universities has been, so far, shockingly bad.

I hate to pick on NPR reporter Elissa Nadworny, who's usually a solid reporter, but almost every important thing I heard her say this morning about the proposed "compact" was false.

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 4d

It would be ironic if an unwillingness to freeze tuition is what saves us in the end.

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 4d

There is already so much pressure not even to say that the goal of integrating the university -- of serving, representing, and including students from all racial backgrounds -- is a positive good.

I can't imagine how much worse this "Compact" would make it.

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 4d

"The last, and perhaps most important, thing that I want to impress upon anyone considering entering The Compact is that it’s the beginning, not the end...

Campuses will be forced to comply with yet unspecified demands to meet the Trump administration’s assessment of The Compact’s obligations."

Brendan Cantwell @cantb.bsky.social · 5d

I wrote a too long and yet incomplete assessment about why The Compact the Trump administation is proposing to several major research universities is a bad deal for higher education.

A Rotten Compact

The Trump Administrations Proposed Compact opens the door for federal control of higher education.

open.substack.com

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 4d

Texas?

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Reposted by Beth Popp Berman

Anil Kalhan @akalhan.bsky.social · 5d

Newsom: "If any California university signs this radical agreement, they’ll lose billions in state funding – including Cal Grants – instantly. California will not bankroll schools that sell out their students, professors, researchers, and surrender academic freedom"

California vows to ‘instantly’ cut funding to universities that cave to Trump ‘compact’

Governor Gavin Newsom urges schools not to sign ‘radical agreement’ to cuts to departments, students and speech

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by Beth Popp Berman

Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 5d

And it's not a one-time capitulation. If DOJ ever says you violated the vague and unconstitutional terms, they will take back ALL federal funds from that year and you have to return ALL private funding from donors who want their gifts back from that year. It's a never-ending protection racket.

Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 5d

The Act of Capitulation that Trump is demanding that all colleges and universities are to sign surrenders authority over vast areas to Trump, as the Dear Leader. www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/u...

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 4d

Mostly I've found it unhelpful semantics, but this one I actually learned from. But yes, I agree.

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 6d

This is a really good conversation on "is it fascism," by two opponents who are no longer very far apart.

Dissent Magazine @dissentmag.bsky.social · 6d

New online: John Ganz (@lioneltrolling.bsky.social) interviews Dylan J. Riley on Trump and the state of American democracy.

www.dissentmagazine.org/online_artic...

The Battle Over Civil Society - Dissent Magazine

An interview with Dylan J. Riley on Trump and the state of American democracy.

www.dissentmagazine.org

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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 6d

Sigh

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