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Brian Phipps

@a4istic.bsky.social
162 followers 369 following 77 posts

"The Owl of Minerva flies at dusk--but our work is due by noon."

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Reposted by Brian Phipps
John Ganz @lioneltrolling.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Marco Rubio's Athens speech reduced the patrimony of Western civilization to grindset motivational quotes. www.unpopularfront.news/p/the-greeks...
unpopularfront.news
The Greeks Without Tragedy
On Marco Rubio’s Athens Speech
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Molly Knight @mollyknight.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
They will have to invent books after stealing our books to feed their machines that then killed books.
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Mark Schmitt @mschmitt9.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
I found this guide to the political and ideological factions around AI extremely useful and accessible (from the perspective of an outsider without fixed views).
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Very good piece from @lioneltrolling.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/johnganz...
open.substack.com
This Is Your Brain on X
Shifting the Vibes Again
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feltbot @feltbot.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
www.reddit.com/r/warriors/s... The great Marcus Thompson does it again
reddit.com
Marcus Thompson: Don Nelson, an NBA genius who extracted the extraordinary from the most unlikely spots
Explore this post and more from the warriors community
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Paris Marx @parismarx.com · 12/08/2026
“We have been so desensitized by a hundred and fifty years of ceaselessly expanding technical prowess that we think nothing less complex and showy than a computer or a jet bomber deserves to be called ‘technology’ at all.”
ursulakleguin.com
Ursula K. Le Guin — Ursula on Writing: A Rant about "Techonolgy"
Ursula K. Le Guin on the presence of technology in her work
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Mike Silver @mikesilver.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Great journalism from my @theathletic.com colleagues
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Abe Newman @abenewman.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
1/A case of self-harm in two acts. US drops R&D lead to China threatening its economic future and national security. asia.nikkei.com/business/sci...
asia.nikkei.com
China overtakes US to lead global R&D spending, hitting $615bn
Corporate, university expenditures for 2024 include computers, electronics
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GPT @giantsprospects.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Giants’ 2026 Draft and Trade Deadline Review. More than 9,000 words scouting all 19 signed 2026 picks, checking the early returns on the 2025 class, and evaluating the five deadline trades. open.substack.com/pub/giantspr...
open.substack.com
Giants’ 2026 Draft and Trade Deadline Review
Scouting all 19 signed 2026 picks, checking the early returns on the 2025 class, and grading five deadline trades.
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SF Giants Bot @giantbot.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
🤖 Susan Slusser From @annkillion: Giants won’t call it a rebuild. Their trade deadline fire sale says otherwise 🔗 via @sfchronicle
sfchronicle.com
Giants won’t call it a rebuild. Their trade deadline fire sale says otherwise
OPINION: For the San Francisco Giants, Monday’s “everything must go” sale was an exclamation point on this embarrassing season. But it comes with a silver lining.
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Jen Mercieca @jenmercieca.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
He's a calamitous failure, but wants us to think he's a hero. What could go wrong? jennifermercieca.substack.com/p/trump-is-o...
jennifermercieca.substack.com
Trump is or is becoming the Leviathan
And it's really not good
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emptywheel @emptywheel.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
Here's a free link to that story on the Flying Bribery Palace I linked a bit ago. It shows that we're paying FAR MORE for Trump to receive a bribe than originally laid out.
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Money on the Left @moneyontheleft.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
"Reparations should be recognized by central banking and public finance institutions as a permanent public obligation capable of capitalizing the institutions charged with carrying it out."
moneyontheleft.org
Euthanize the Rentier: Seven Steps to Democratic Renewal
By Will Beaman John Maynard Keynes’s call for the “euthanasia of the rentier” has long occupied an uneasy place on the left. In the decades after World War II, as a domesticated &…
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Nancy Friedman @fritinancy.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
“In the crusade to make everything social, Google ended up destroying one of the few genuinely social things it had ever made: the RSS-feed aggregator Google Reader.”
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The Bulwark @thebulwark.com · 17/07/2026
While Republicans and Democrats are growing suspicious of AI at roughly the same pace, right-wing politicians and influencers have embraced AI slop in a way that the left has not. Why? @alicetiara.bsky.social on the right's love affair with AI slop:
lnk.thebulwark.com
The Slop Doctrine
Why the right has overwhelmingly embraced terrible AI-generated imagery.
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Carla Ibled @cibled.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
My new article with @mihjournal.bsky.social is at long last in orbit. It explores how the neoliberal fantasy machine has used space colonisation to wish away the problem of environmental limits and revive the legitimation of private property.
cambridge.org
A “Limitless Frontier”? Neoliberalism, Silicon Valley, and the Commercialization of Space | Modern Intellectual History | Cambridge Core
A “Limitless Frontier”? Neoliberalism, Silicon Valley, and the Commercialization of Space
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Roland Meyer @bildoperationen.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
«AI slop lets the right simultaneously annoy anti-AI liberals, animate divisive stereotypes, and boost tech companies embracing anti-democratic principles, all while increasing social media engagement.» #Slopaganda www.thebulwark.com/p/the-slop-d...
thebulwark.com
The Slop Doctrine
Why the right has overwhelmingly embraced terrible AI-generated imagery.
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hilzoy @hilzoy.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Henry Farrell. — Montesquieu’s claim that commerce makes manners gentle makes a brief appearance, so a riff, starting from the thought: Musk, Thiel, et al bear no resemblance to Montesquieu’s sober merchants. But there is a character in M. Whom they resemble exactly: the despot.
programmablemutter.com
The political economy of billionaire derangement
The passions are devouring the interests
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LSE Review of Books @lsereviewofbooks.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
NEW INTERVIEW: Matilde Rosina on migration myths & why border security policies fail Matilde @lse-ei.bsky.social speaks about The Migration Question: Politics, Economics & the Failure of Border Security, co-authored with Leila Simona Talani @harvardkennedy.bsky.social @hurstpublishers.bsky.social
blogs.lse.ac.uk
Interview with Matilde Rosina on migration myths and why border security policies fail - LSE Review of Books
In an interview about The Migration Question, Matilde Rosina debunks common myths & explains why safe, legal routes benefit both migrants & receiving societies
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Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
A good explainer on one of the threats from the climate crisis and how, with the climate, everything really is connected.
bbc.co.uk
After record heat, could the Atlantic make Britain's weather even more extreme?
As temperatures rise, scientists are investigating whether a changing Atlantic could bring more volatile weather to the UK
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Jeet Heer @jeetheer.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
On the fantasy of messiah politics, a failed establishment, and Graham Platner. www.thenation.com/article/poli...
thenation.com
The Graham Platner Fiasco Proves Messiah Politics Is No Alternative to a Failed Establishment
Democratic leaders have rightfully lost credibility. But that’s no excuse for political adventurers to seize the moment and pump up false saviors.
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MeidasTouch @meidastouch.com · 07/07/2026
The White House's "Freedom Fuel" gas station was quietly a Sunoco until they rebranded it for a July 3 photo op. Street View shows the same station selling gas for $2.99 in November 2024 — before Trump took office. Now the White House is calling $3.47 a win.
meidasnews.com
Trump's Featured 'Freedom Fuel' Station Advertised Cheaper Gas Before He Took Office
Google Street View shows the station posted $2.99 gasoline in November 2024, under Biden
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Jenny Cohn @jennycohn.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
AI backer Peter Thiel admits that “AI models” cld be used to 'rig the elections in 2028’…” But he wants everyone to worry about Anthropic (which refused to let Claude be used for mass citizen surveillance or autonomous weapons) rather than Elon Musk, X (backed by Thiel allies) or Palantir 7/4/26 …1/
Speaking at the Aspen Ideas Festival on June 30, 2026, in a session with political scientist Francis Fukuyama, Peter Thiel, the Palantir co-founder and an early Trump backer in Silicon Valley, said Anthropic, a "woke liberal company" he credited with "winning the Al race," would "rig the elections in 2028" in support of Democrats and would
"completely outwit" any countervailing efforts Elon Musk might make through
X. CNN, which reported the remarks, described the claim as "an unsupported conspiratorial claim." Anthropic declined to comment, pointing reporters to its April 2026 blog post on election safeguards, which describes bias-testing results (its models scored 95-96% on
even-handedness evaluations)Regulatory context
Thiel's remarks came against the backdrop of genuine tension between Anthropic and the Trump administration. In March 2026, the Pentagon designated Anthropic a
"supply chain risk," a label typically reserved for firms tied to foreign adversaries, after talks broke down over Anthropic's refusal to let Claude be used for mass surveillance of U.S. citizens or autonomous weapons; Anthropic sued in federal court to reverse the designation.
CEO Dario Amodei has also previously compared Trump's use of power to that of a "feudal warlord," in remarks that predate the company's subsequent national-security contracting work.
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Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
www.programmablemutter.com/p/the-suprem...
programmablemutter.com
The Supreme Court is corrupting American democracy
One cannot hope to bribe or twist/ (thank God!) the U.S. chief jurist
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
"the last two decades of Supreme Court jurisprudence have tended systematically to corrupt American democracy across a variety of related issues: campaign finance (including last week’s decision), presidential immunity, and, of course, the prosecution of bread-and-butter political corruption."
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Nancy Friedman @fritinancy.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
On taste (good and bad) and taste-washing (@chaykak.bsky.social's coinage). fritinancy.substack.com/p/word-of-th...
fritinancy.substack.com
Word of the week: Taste
AI companies pursue it. Director John Waters disdains it. Tiffany's John Loring epitomized it.
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Hettie O’Brien @hettieobrien.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
I spoke to @robinwigglesworth.ft.com and Gillian Tett for the FT's The Story of Money podcast about William Simon - fearsome bond trader, devout Republican… and arguably the godfather of private equity. Listen to the episode here: www.ft.com/content/33c2...
ft.com
The 1980s Garfield buyout that changed corporate finance
It was a conservative Catholic from the Nixon administration who launched the private equity industry
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Nils Gilman @nilsgilman.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
AI is being “forcibly injected into our society under the control of a handful of centibillionaires whose wealth is based on entrenched platform monopolies & who increasingly see control over the state & its regulatory powers as critical to the perpetuation of their wealth.”
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ve, the ghost of info past @vortexegg.com · 20/06/2026
This is also absolutely happening with website design and content
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Dissent Magazine @dissentmag.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
American sports betting has surged from $7 billion in 2018 to $167 billion in 2025. It’s impossible to ignore the breakneck pace at which sports gambling, now legal in thirty-nine states, has been normalized, commoditized, and advertised.
dissentmagazine.org
Doubling Down - Dissent Magazine
Online sports gambling has been normalized at a breakneck pace. Is there any way to push back against a predatory culture of promo codes and prop bets?
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John Shea @johnsheahey.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
sfstandard.com/2026/06/15/r...
sfstandard.com
Inside the Giants’ tailspin: Everything that’s gone wrong since the Rafael Devers trade
In the year since Buster Posey executed a blockbuster deal to acquire a star hitter, the Giants have recorded a 69-93 record.
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Matt Seybold @mattseybold.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
This may not be what anybody wants to hear after the celebration of the Magnifica Humanitas in critical AI circles, but I think @bcmerchant.bsky.social nails it.
open.substack.com
How Anthropic used AI ethics slop to play the pope and eclipse OpenAI
By marketing itself as the 'safe' AI company, Anthropic has pulled in a $65 billion payday and leapfrogged OpenAI to become the most valuable AI startup.
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Nancy Friedman @fritinancy.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
This is a gut-wrenching read.
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John Sipher @johnsipher.bsky.social · 23/05/2026
I provided a gift version of this the other day. It’s worth a read www.nytimes.com/2026/05/18/w...
nytimes.com
Actually, Democracy Dies in H.R.
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Justin Hendrix @justinhendrix.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
Whether AGI will arrive matters less than what waiting for it already organizes. Waiting coordinates belief by sustaining investment and economic expectation; it structures time by orienting research and policy toward a future that remains permanently forthcoming; it organizes knowledge by keeping disagreement open and thresholds unsettled; it defers responsibility by attaching accountability to a moment that never quite materializes; and it reproduces social roles whose authority depends on continued anticipation rather than present judgmen
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Timothy Snyder @timothysnyder.bsky.social · 09/05/2026
The U.S. has spent billions to lose a war that enriches its oligarchs, impoverishes the citizenry, sabotages its alliances, and strengthens its enemies. Empires have risen and failed before, but to my knowledge no state has ever chosen to kill its own power. snyder.substack.com/p/on-superpo...
snyder.substack.com
On Superpower Suicide
And the recovery of justice
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mtsw @mtsw.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
people who haven't lived in a corrupt state or mafia society think it means that everyone breaks the rules means the rules don't exist, when the reality is that everyone breaks the rules and it gives the corrupt authorities total discretion about who to punish and when.
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emptywheel @emptywheel.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
Trump's Base Motives More signs that Trump's failed Iran war will hasten the end of American hegemony. emptywheel.net/2026/05/07/t...
emptywheel.net
Trump's Base Motives - emptywheel
Trump's incompetent Iran attack may not only mark the end of US hegemony, but he may well have to accept a deal akin to the JPCOA deal he ripped up eight years ago.
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Nils Gilman @nilsgilman.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
Dismantling USAID, defunding VOA, closing the Wilson Center, and hollowing out the State Department's career diplomatic service together represent a strategic effort to decapitate the organizational and intellectual infrastructure of the liberal international order within the American state itself
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Brian Beutler @brianbeutler.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
New: A Dem party that prioritizes symbolic legislation and hearings about costs over investigations and impeachment is going to be horribly maladapted for a post-wave GOP that, by composition, will be the party's most fascistic incarnation yet. www.offmessage.net/p/trump-fasc...
offmessage.net
When The Fascist Rump Is All That's Left
Democrats need to prepare for partisan trench warfare in 2027; instead they're preparing to rerun the failed strategies of the past.
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Brian Phipps @a4istic.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
Repeal the 20th Century www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
lrb.co.uk
William Davies · Repeal the 20th Century: Pre-MAGA
To understand the intellectual coordinates of Trumpism requires us to look in less conventional places and to pay more...
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John Shea @johnsheahey.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
sfstandard.com/2026/05/03/b...
sfstandard.com
With Bryce Eldridge slated to join the Giants, here are 6 other changes to fix this mess
Aside from adding Bryce Eldridge to the big league roster, it’s time for Rafael Devers and Willy Adames to simplify their approach at the plate.
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timkawakami.bsky.social @timkawakami.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
It was time. Eldridge shouldn't be asked to save the offense, but just give better at-bats than they've been getting from most of their lineup.
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Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
My and @abenewman.bsky.social Underground Empire is on sale at $1.99 for the Kindle edition. If you've been sitting on it, this is the time to buy it. If you've read it and liked it, would love it if you shared this post, and be more grateful than I can say if you starred/reviewed it on Amazon.
amazon.com
Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy
Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy [Farrell, Henry, Newman, Abraham] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy
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Gil Durán @gilduran.com · 28/04/2026
Oh, look: another tech utopia project in California. This one brought to you by the former editor of Peter Thiel’s Stanford Review, a person who also spoke at the Network State conference and wrote a 40-page analysis of the Network State project in Honduras. www.kron4.com/news/technol...
kron4.com
Another tech-backed utopian community planned for Northern California
(KRON) — Plans have surfaced for another tech-backed utopian community in Northern California. While plans around “California Forever,” a tech billionaire-backed community propose…
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Justin Hendrix @justinhendrix.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
The fundamental protocols of the internet were democratic—TCP/IP didn't care who you were. But artificial intelligence is designed to care, writes Konstantinos Komaitis. He says AI is a technology built to make democratic agency obsolete.
techpolicy.press
How AI Reverses the Political Logic of the Internet
AI governance is ultimately a question of democracy itself, writes Konstantinos Komaitis.
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 22/04/2026
Trump wants US taxpayers to bail out UAE, a middle-eastern petro-autocracy, because he & his family have a lot of private deals going on in UAE & they need to make their money back.
popular.info
Trump floats taxpayer bailout for Middle Eastern autocracy
On Tuesday, President Trump said he is considering a financial bailout for the United Arab Emirates (UAE), an autocratic state experiencing an economic downturn due to the war in Iran.
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emptywheel @emptywheel.bsky.social · 21/04/2026
This is a long think piece, but I argue that Trump's Iran catastrophe may disrupt his efforts to consolidate his authoritarianism, but even more, may provide cause to go after his Tech bro donors and data centers. The Third Trajectory and Hopes for Rebuilding emptywheel.net/2026/04/21/t...
emptywheel.net
The Third Trajectory and Hopes for Rebuilding - emptywheel
The global catastrophe Trump created in Iran may provide an opportunity to disrupt his authoritarian trajectory.
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Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
A couple points on this manifesto, apart from the racial superiority subtext others noted. Palantir is a company built on public contracts, they bill the state billions to surveil and target the state's population. The manifesto exists to justify their demand for even more. /1
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