iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Hilde Eliassen Restad @herestad.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Great thread:-) I would also add that if people are interested in updated work examining how the narraof American exceptionalism has influenced US foreign policy, there is a new edited volume coming out with Georgetown University Press next year co-edited by myself & @richardmaass.bsky.social 🥳

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Adam Pontius @ampontius.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Unfortunately I don’t think geography gives Canada and Mexico much of a choice. But the insularity Stancil points out here is a structural, long running, endemic problem, part of the wages of American exceptionalism.

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Adam Pontius @ampontius.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

So: the method that's being applied to determining LLM authorship is putting together a dictionary of frequently used words by models that are constructed from patterns in language like the frequency with which words are used? Can't think of any reasons why that would go wrong...

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The Great Pumpkin Papers 🎃🎃🎃 @professormusgrave.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

I see a lot of people on Bluesky, the app that tells you to use alt text, saying that people using Claude to correct grammar should just learn to do it themselves and I'd like to introduce you to the idea of non-English speakers

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Adam Pontius @ampontius.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

I'm noticing a certain amount of magical thinking about Anthropic's watermark. It sounds like an interesting institution, but it is just that: an institution Anthropic will need to maintain. It's not a technology that will magically make all of the challenges LLMs pose for higher ed disappear.

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Dan Nexon @dhnexon.net · 02/08/2026

It's a very simple equation. The alternative requires that the GOP either implodes or reverses the trajectory that it's been on for like three decades. So the choice is basically "risky electoral reform" or the status quo, and the status quo is "continued collapse of the constitutional republic"

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Adam Pontius @ampontius.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

I've become fascinated by the furor over Emily Wilson's review of Christopher Nolan's Odyssey. I liked the film and do not believe Wilson's review does its subject justice. The more I hear interviews from her the more I think the review may just not explain her point of view very well. ...

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Adam Pontius @ampontius.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

New York City Montreal Budapest Ljubljana Athens

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ae @aelkus.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

there isn't a way to really trust meta on this because its self-interest, like most big tech companies right now, is in finding ways to push platform reach down to the physical world

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Adam Pontius @ampontius.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

Saw a report this morning that someone made a huge bet on prediction markets against Collins winning reelection several hours before the Politico article on Platner came out. Our political system is now so marinated in corruption that we no longer recognize the smell.

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Adam Pontius @ampontius.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

The effect of German speaking refugees on American intellectual culture after WWII was so great that it’s often easy to forget how few such refugees were actually granted entry during the war:

Underlined passage from Young-Bruehl’s biography Arendt: “The situation was dreadful: of the 1137 names submitted to the United States Department of State, only 238 received visas between August and December 1940.

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Chris Baraniuk @chrisbaraniuk.com · 23/06/2026

You might not need gadgets to stay hydrated but let me say that public health folks will tell you staying hydrated is *really really* important during hot weather.

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Adam Pontius @ampontius.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

I've been thinking through frustrations many folks have with using LLMs. One interesting feature of this argument is that LLMs at their most untrained- with no understanding of what they themselves are an no retention- is precisely LLMs at their most alien to us, deep down the uncanny valley...

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Chris Baraniuk @chrisbaraniuk.com · 11/06/2026

Want to share some thoughts. I know the rioting in Belfast has had lots of coverage. But I still think more needs to be said. This was so incredibly shocking. *people burned out of their homes because of the colour of their skin*.

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Adam Pontius @ampontius.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

I’ve noticed more folks than usual following Maine politics. I get- and share- concerns about the extent to which Platner has been forthcoming about his past. But here’s the thing— the fact that so many of the people who hate him on BlueSky do is precisely why his supporters in Maine love him.

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Adam Pontius @ampontius.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

Well, if nothing else, the dipshittery of 'maybe if we're nice to the dead enders rather than the people who risked life and limb to be here' has at least done at a lot to show me which of my fellow liberals are worth listening to and who needs to find another hobby other than politics.

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Adam Pontius @ampontius.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

The secret of good soup is patience.

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Adam Pontius @ampontius.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

Folks talk about a reflectivity problem in the social sciences, and no doubt we’ve flicked a cigarette in the bin and it’s smoking. But the raging dumpster fire that is the reflectivity problem in journalism is really… something.

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Adam Pontius @ampontius.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

Well-- I was up until 4 AM last night writing, I've been writing all day and will still likely be up until 4 AM tonight writing, my Zotero is broken, and am 5 days over deadline... Must be the beginning of conference season!

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Adam Pontius @ampontius.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

Watching Orban lose is a real pleasure. I see plenty of speculation on 'lessons.' I have frustrated thoughts. 'Lessons' here are complicated. Hungary under Orban was not just 'another country.' he links between the Orban regime and U.S. went much deeper than most folks think. ...

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Chris Baraniuk @chrisbaraniuk.com · 10/04/2026

*My* favourite is Khrushchev supposedly saying "the living would envy the dead [in the aftermath of a nuclear war]". An incredible line but I learned recently it's likely apocryphal! JFK used to reference it + Jackie even wrote to Khrushchev himself referring to it: history.state.gov/historicaldo...

history.state.gov

Historical Documents - Office of the Historian

history.state.gov 3.0 shell

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Adam Pontius @ampontius.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

I'm sure LLMs will make this worse, but its not exactly a secret that if you chase many 'classic' references back further than the 90s in many fields you run into some really shady practices. My favorite example is the Ismay quote that 'NATO is to keep the US in, Russia out, and the Germans down.'

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Dan Silverman @dmsilverman.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

You know I do think it's important to note that — if it is indeed over — this meaningless war killed: -Iranians: ~3,500 -Lebanese: ~1,500 -Iraqis: ~100 -Israelis: 39 -GCC residents: 31 -Americans: 15 -Palestinians: 14 -Syrians: 1 -French: 1

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Adam Pontius @ampontius.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

I am relieved, of course. But flirting with the idea of a nuclear first strike (and let's be entirely clear: that is what Trump and Vance were doing) moves us closer to a world where states will refuse to back down out of fear that they will be made to look like fools. 1/?

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Adam Pontius @ampontius.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

Scratch the historical background of most anti-immigrant narratives in America long enough and you'll find anti-Catholicism ("protestant work ethic," "culture of liberty" ect).

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Josef Korbel School of Global and Public Affairs - DU @josefkorbelschool.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

How has our understanding of the transition from communism evolved? Korbel Prof @epsteinprof.bsky.social joins @piroskadora.bsky.social on the @viennadialogues.bsky.social podcast to discuss why liberal ideas are in crisis and what researchers should do next.

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Ryan Moulton @moultano.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

Everything in the first half of this post was a volunteer project. You can still build this stuff. We all just have to do it.

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Adam Pontius @ampontius.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

I’ve enjoyed BlueSky well enough as a way to keep track of more academic conversations, but this is maybe one of the better arguments that academia needs a open source or non-for-profit platform rather than continuing to jump from tech company to tech company.

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Vienna Dialogues - Coffee and International Relations @viennadialogues.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

Were we too optimistic about the post-communist turn to liberal markets and democracy? In conversation with Vienna Dialogues, Professor Rachel Epstein (University of Denver) reflects on 35 years of transition - and what we may have misunderstood. Link to the episode: bit.ly/3MskEdA

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Ana Marie Cox @anamariecox.com · 12/02/2026

So this is the kind of polling that's far more useful than the generic "approve/disapprove" Gallup was doing. Gallup may be doing away with that polling entirely because they fear displeasing Dear Leader but I'm not going to miss it. Trump doesn't believe negative polling, anyway.

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Vienna Dialogues - Coffee and International Relations @viennadialogues.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

While 2025 seems like a million years ago by now, it is still worth listening to our "2025 in Review", featuring Erin Jenne @erinjenne.bsky.social, Adam Pontius @ampontius.bsky.social, Letitia Roman @letitiaroman.bsky.social, and Markus Pollak @markuspo.bsky.social. open.spotify.com/episode/4mEj...

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Vienna Dialogues - Coffee and International Relations @viennadialogues.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

Check out our very first video-podcast with Michael Ignatieff on the topic "Where geopolitics and higher ed meet". Hosts @ampontius.bsky.social and @erinjenne.bsky.social interviewed him and asked some of the most pressing questions about liberalism in illiberal times. youtu.be/F0xt4vmsG28?...

youtu.be

Where geopolitics and higher ed meet: A conversation with historian Michael Ignatieff

YouTube video by Vienna Dialogues- Coffee and IR

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Adam Pontius @ampontius.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

Maybe done for the wrong reasons, but fundamentally a good idea. We know everything we need to know about approval rating to know that it doesn't offer voters useful information in forming political judgements. Measurement for measurement's sake in social science is a disservice to the public.

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Bruce Springsteen @brucespringsteen.net · 28/01/2026

I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Stay free

youtu.be

Bruce Springsteen - Streets Of Minneapolis (Official Audio)

YouTube video by Bruce Springsteen

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William B. Fuckley @opinionhaver.bsky.social · 25/01/2026

When the CBP or ICE agent that Stephen Miller is trying to get killed dies, it is extremely important that every member of the media be told, repeatedly and loudly, that they wanted this and that people called it out in advance.

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Ana Marie Cox @anamariecox.com · 23/01/2026

I will just keep repeating. I have never never never seen anything like this. 30 years of reporting.

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Adam Pontius @ampontius.bsky.social · 09/01/2026

My wife and I have decided that ‘Yorgos’ ought to be its own genre of film. There is just no clear category for what he does.

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Adam Pontius @ampontius.bsky.social · 04/01/2026

Trump & Sons: providing coup d’états for very normal price since 2026.

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Adam Pontius @ampontius.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

I think this is fair. I don’t think it’s entirely accurate. Congress has restrained Trump’s instincts on NATO and Ukraine. The issue is that GOP leadership doesn’t take issue with his policy on Latin America, so they’re very happy to let ‘carry the water.’

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Adam Pontius @ampontius.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

To put a sharper edge on this: if you lean entirely on legal arguments then you will find yourself leaning on nothing if (when) the laws change (yes, even if they change illegally). Moral argument first. Legal arguments in support. That’s good politics.

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Adam Schwarz @adamjschwarz.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

Maduro is a brutal and oppressive dictator of Venezuela. Trump has no legitimate legal basis for military action against Venezuela under United States or international law. Both of those facts are simultaneously true.

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Jeff Colgan @jeffcolgan.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

In Mexico, Bogota, and Brasilia, leaders are surely looking at this and asking if he can do it in Caracas, what's stopping him from doing it here. The same realization might take a bit longer in Ottawa, Copenhagen, and London. Shredding what little remains of trust in the USA.

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ae @aelkus.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

i think that people really underestimate reality that 1) administration has no doctrine, it is really about a single, mercurial, and half-awake man 2) the administration is a constantly churning system with factions that rise and fall contextually 3) might not have happened if trump tower caracas

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Adam Pontius @ampontius.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

Well I suspect this confirms that the National Security Strategy that was just released did in fact reflect some significant policy realities. Can’t think of a much more horrifying way Trump could have demonstrated that.

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Adam Pontius @ampontius.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

Tonight I'm remembering Melissa Hortman. She devoted her life to bettering politics by serving her community through civic life. That she was killed for her service makes us uglier as a people and dims whatever light is left in our city on the hill. www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

thecrimson.com

‘The Bravest Among Us’: HKS Peers and Instructors Remember Melissa Hortman, Slain Minnesota Representative | News | The Harvard Crimson

Minnesota state representative Melissa A. Hortman graduated from a Harvard Kennedy School program in 2018. Former instructors and classmates were left grieving when she was killed by an assassin’s bul...

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Sharon 🪳🌹 @sharonk.bsky.social · 14/07/2025

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy. —Abraham Lincoln

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Hester L-J @starcrossed2018.bsky.social · 28/08/2025

Laertes: [sobs] Claudius: what a NUISANCE www.english.cam.ac.uk/research/slo... 324 posts in and that's the end of Hamlet Act 4👀 Three RSC Gertrudes reconsidering their life choices as Laertes weeps and Claudius grumbles: Elizabeth Sellars (1961), Sian Thomas (2004), Penny Downie (2008)

A photograph of a character in a play. Half length, a woman wearing a black Elizabethan-style dress with long sleeves and a high collar. Her curly hair is piled up on her head. Her hands are clasped in front of her and she is looking out of frame to her left.

A photograph of a character in a play. Three-quarter length, against a black background, a woman with blonde hair tied up, wearing fawn trousers and a matching satin camisole and wrap, with a string of pearls and a diamond brooch, is looking stern.

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Adam Pontius @ampontius.bsky.social · 28/08/2025

1. The more I watch academic discourse over LLMs in the more humanistic side of the social sciences that I inhabit, the more concerned I become that our anger of LLMs is obscuring our ability to understand what is really going on with mental illness and AI.

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Journal of Art in Society @artinsociety.bsky.social · 24/08/2025

Admiring these early sketches & studies by Gustav Klimt ~ Study for Romeo in ‘Shakespeare’s Theatre’ + Head in Profile / Study of child / Study of a woman

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