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Reposted by Henry Farrell

Techmeme @techmeme.com · 18h

JPMorgan Chase reports that $1.2T of debt is now tied to AI-related companies, making it the largest segment in the investment-grade market (Caleb Mutua/Bloomberg)

Main Link | Techmeme Permalink

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Reposted by Henry Farrell

Maria Farrell @mariafarrell.bsky.social · 16h

FWIW I've written to the Irish Minister for Justice - an enthusiastic supporter of Europe's hideous "chat control" phone-scanning proposal - asking him to imagine when that technology is used against him.

If you're German, please, PLEASE write to your justice/interior minister today.

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☠️deadward niedermurder☠️ @niedermeyer.online · 14h

a huge amount of this dynamic is folks inside and outside tech coming to terms with the radically shifted vibe around "tech" as a social, cultural, and economic construct... AVs in particular strike me as points of conflict due to their visibility, rather than being actual drivers of conflict itself

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☠️deadward niedermurder☠️ @niedermeyer.online · 14h

We can huddle up and lob bombs between camps, calling each other techbros and luddites, if we want... but there's acres and acres of middle ground on this stuff as well.

I do think the vibe shift around tech broadly makes this particular middle ground almost impossible to occupy though.

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Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 16h

I've had this experience too when hallucinated bibliographies cite to me - the entries are so much the least surprising prediction that I'm not sure for a minute whether I wrote the damn thing or not.

Ulrike Franke @rikefranke.bsky.social · 1d

And here we go. I never wrote this article, and yet it is cited here.

www.liberalbriefs.com/geopolitics/...

And of course, it sounds so plausible, I seriously checked whether I had forgotten it, or the footnote was slightly wrong.

#AIisnotresearch

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Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 17h

This jibes with @abenewman.bsky.social and my writing, but goes much, much deeper than we have done on the bureaucratic transformation of State.

Dean Jackson @dwj88.bsky.social · 18h

A secret meeting with X. A senior State Dept. advisor just out of college. The VP's speech in Munich. Pressure on European regulators.

What do they share? They're all part of an agenda to turn the transatlantic alliance into a far right international:

www.techpolicy.press/trumps-state...

Trump’s State Department Wants to Use Tech Policy to Remake Europe In Its Image | TechPolicy.Press

Tech policy is a key part of the Trump administration's dramatic project to replace the US's traditional European alliances, Dean Jackson writes.

www.techpolicy.press

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Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 17h

I've been using Kagi for the last few months and I'm not going back.

Kagi HQ @kagi.com · 17h

This article by Cory Doctorow captures exactly why we built Kagi:

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Quote which reads: "Top results in a product search aren’t the best matches: they’re the matches that pay the highest fees to be top of the list"

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David Klion @davidklion.bsky.social · 19h

The notion that Bari will be "running CBS News" is slightly misleading. What the reporting suggests is that Tom Cibrowski, a guy with normal qualifications, will be doing that. Bari will be Emperor Ellison's Vader-esque enforcer, outside the chain of command, intervening at will.

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Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 20h

hold my beer

Chris Hanretty @chanret.bsky.social · 20h

As I've said before: what is good for me as a social scientist is bad for me as a citizen.

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Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 1d

maybe based on Eliza?

Reposted by Henry Farrell

Laura Ashe @lauraashe.bsky.social · 1d

Epic; no notes

Headline from the Times: "Bestselling novelist Jilly Cooper dies in fall aged 88", illustrated with a rather famous black and white picture of Virginia Woolf

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Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 1d

dude's army burned down a cathedral in my home town with Catholics gathered inside ...

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Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 2d

Yes - I'd a rough sense of the previous stories, though I think that Lobsters was the only one I read before they all got put together.

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Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 2d

www.programmablemutter.com/p/the-villag... Sewerism, and Noah's brain has been sizzling in the heat for some time.

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Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 2d

This is maybe TMI, but TMC never actually reported to Hiatt - we were news analysis, not opinion (I think same was true for @pbump.com and @dandrezner.bsky.social). At one point looked as though we would be shifted to Outlook (also not Hiatt) but that disappeared, and shortly after we did too ...

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Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 2d

There's the bit in @cstross.bsky.social Accelerando (way back from 2005), where the protagonist temporarily loses his smart glasses and effectively drops 50 IQ points.

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Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 2d

It's the mediocrity that is striking as much as, or more than the politics. WP op-ed page has not been great for decades - Fred Hiatt's version was dull and snoozy. But this is so much worse.

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Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 2d

I have a piece making similar arguments coming out Real Soon (but this does much more than I do to engage with the details of the poison deal).

Blake Emerson @blakeprof.bsky.social · 2d

Great post from my colleague Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social. The same should be said about the preexisting Title VI demands. I don’t see any kind of “deal” that doesn’t fundamentally undermine the rule of law and academic freedom.

Universities' only proper response to this "compact"— and to May Mailman's dangerous invitation to negotiate further, by way of providing "feedback" on the initial draft—is to offer absolutely nothing. There is no revised version of this compact that retains its core enforcement mechanism that would be even remotely compatible with the independence of universities and their continuing vitality as venues for free speech and free inquiry.

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Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 2d

if I had said that it was, this would indeed be helpful advice.

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Paul Nadeau @pauljnadeau.bsky.social · 2d

Read the whole thread, but Macron's right. Cynics will point to the economic argument ("Europe wants its own firms to dominate!") and they're not entirely wrong, but with the
@financialtimes.com's recent bit about social media use declining, it's an opportune time for Macron to press the case

Abe Newman @abenewman.bsky.social · 2d

7/End result: Macron calls for a new enlightenment -- the end of dependence on US social media. Not because of economic argument (level playing fields) but because dependence threatens national security. Hate to say I told you so but @himself.bsky.social and I did.
defenddemocracy.eu/macron-democ...

"Europeans, let's wake up!" — Defend Democracy

“We have been incredibly naive in entrusting our democratic space to social networks.” President Macron on the occasion of German Unity Day, 3 October 2025.

defenddemocracy.eu

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Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 2d

We're in an objectively awful situation but we should be clear about what is happening and being said right now and what is not.

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Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 2d

I am _not_ defending Stephen Miller who is calling judges part of a terrorist plot and certainly would deploy troops against them if he could but he is not actually saying that now. The absolute necessity is not his suggestion for what needs to come next but his justification for the accusation.

Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 2d

This isn't subtle or metaphorical: Stephen Miller has repeatedly declared the federal government will use violence against officers of the legal system. Now he's calling a federal judge part of "an organized terrorist attack" and saying it's an "absolute necessity" to deploy troops against her.

Brandon Friedman @brandonfriedman.bsky.social · 3d

Everyone is trying to have a normal Saturday night and the president's top advisor is on X announcing that civil war is necessary

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Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 2d

on.ft.com/48hiEgC "It warns of “external dependencies of the AI stack” — the infrastructure and software needed to build, train and manage AI applications — which it says “can be weaponised” by both “state and non-state actors”, posing a risk to supply chains."

EU pushes new AI strategy to reduce tech reliance on US and China

Brussels to unveil plan targeting digital sovereignty as it warns technology can be ‘weaponised’ by geopolitical rivals

on.ft.com

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Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 3d

Sorry - should have been clearer. He quoted the same line at the DC show last week, which was excellent (Houses in Motion was better than excellent).

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Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 3d

He quoted the love and kindness line there too.

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