iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Austin Hayden Smidt @austinhaydensmidt.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Got a cheeky little review of @jwmason.bsky.social and Arjun Jayadev's AGAINST MONEY out with Finance and Society. As I conclude in the review, "what Mason and Jayadev give us is something preliminary and useful: an instruction in how not to be bewitched." www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

cambridge.org

Money: The veil we put on ourselves - J.W. Masonand Arjun Jayadev , Against Money, University of Chicago Press, 2026 | Finance and Society | Cambridge Core

Money: The veil we put on ourselves - J.W. Masonand Arjun Jayadev , Against Money, University of Chicago Press, 2026

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William Clare Roberts 🇵🇸 @marxinhell.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

This is the punchline, but the whole thread is something I endorse 110%

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Austin Hayden Smidt @austinhaydensmidt.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Some big love for our flick PLACE TO BE after its Venice premiere! It'll be released soon... :)

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Austin Hayden Smidt @austinhaydensmidt.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

cambridge.org

Money: The veil we put on ourselves - J.W. Masonand Arjun Jayadev , Against Money, University of Chicago Press, 2026 | Finance and Society | Cambridge Core

Money: The veil we put on ourselves - J.W. Masonand Arjun Jayadev , Against Money, University of Chicago Press, 2026

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Austin Hayden Smidt @austinhaydensmidt.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Lovely review for PLACE TO BE. Bummed I couldn’t be in Venice with the rest of the producing/EP team to celebrate the premiere, but stoked to see the film getting some early love. deadline.com/2026/09/plac...

deadline.com

'Place To Be' Review: Ellen Burstyn & Taika Waititi In Road Trip Movie

A review of 'Place To Be' a film from Kornél Mundruczó focusing on the journey Ellen Burstyn takes with Taika Waititi to return a pigeon to its owner.

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Jathan Sadowski @jathansadowski.com · 27/07/2026

I have a new article where I outline a materialist analysis of the machine learning value chain via three interrelated concepts that are all key for understanding this political economy: innovation realism, cheap data, and the perpetual value machine. Preprint here: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Title: Deconstructing the Machine Learning Value Chain

Author: Jathan Sadowski

Abstract: This essay offers a materialist analysis of machine learning in the form of a critical intervention that deconstructs the value chain of this technological paradigm. It is structured around three interrelated concepts that provide a deeper understanding of the political economy of machine learning. First is innovation realism: the idea that venture capital is the best or only way to support innovation, and alternative approaches are inferior or impossible. Second is cheap data: the structural contradiction that, despite data being the most essential part of technological capitalism, it is also the most undervalued and taken for granted. Third is the perpetual value machine: the pursuit by capital to create technologies that capture an infinite amount of surplus value without needing to rely on any additional human labor to produce that value.

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Austin Hayden Smidt @austinhaydensmidt.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Yeah. They're taught that Catholicism is *essentially* an idolatrous religion (Mary/Saint worship etc). I remember an Evangelical street preacher in LA used to love to rile up passersby at 3rd Street Promenade by yelling about how Mother Theresa was burning in hell cause she worshiped Mary. Wild.

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Cambridge University Press Political Science & IR @cambup-polsci.cambridge.org · 02/07/2026

#OpenAccess from the new issue of @polanalysis.bsky.social - Nationally Representative, Locally Misaligned: The Biases of Generative Artificial Intelligence in Neighborhood Perception - cup.org/3Kw6VkD - Paige Bollen, @joehigton.bsky.social & @msands.bsky.social

Political Analysis abstract discussing the use of large language models (LLMs) like Political Domain Enhanced BERT-based Algorithm for Textual Entailment (DEBATE). Highlights their efficiency in annotating documents without supervision and performing zero-shot classification.

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Centre for Future Work @futurework.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Following our April symposium on AI and decent work, we've published insights from our speakers – a diverse group of researchers, unionists, and advocates who came together to examine Australia's options for AI regulation in the workplace. futurework.org.au/news/which-w...

futurework.org.au

Which Way Forward? AI and Decent Work symposium insights – Centre for Future work

Insights from the presenters at our recent symposium examining the impact of AI adoption in the world of work.

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Cambridge University Press Political Science & IR @cambup-polsci.cambridge.org · 25/06/2026

#OpenAccess from @ejprjournal.bsky.social - ‘Left behind’ and an undemocratic mind? The link between perceived marginalization and democratic orientations - cup.org/3Svhicc - @vanessaschwaiger.bsky.social #FirstView

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Pete Wolfendale @deontologistics.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

This interview with me and Tom Moynihan on the concepts of extinction, ecological risk, and cosmological value is finally up online. Easily one of my favourite bits of thinking/speaking/writing I've done in the last year: tank.tv/magazine/iss...

tank.tv

The sense of an ending Thomas Moynihan and Peter Wolfendale — TANKtv

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Christopher Mims @mims.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

The age of the median voter is now 52. In primaries, 65. The most common age of donors in recent elections is 70. "The oldest voters ordain the choices for the rest of us." How America became a gerontocracy in which the aged hoard power and wealth: www.newyorker.com/culture/open...

newyorker.com

Do Older Americans Have Too Much Power?

In “Gerontocracy in America,” the historian Samuel Moyn argues that the central conflict of our era is between the young and the elderly.

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Austin Hayden Smidt @austinhaydensmidt.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

"the cause of business cycles is not a few large things that can be measured and controlled, but many small things that are difficult to measure and essentially impossible to control" – Fischer Black

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The Nation Magazine @thenation.com · 24/06/2026

From the dot-com bubble to the housing crash, Greenspan’s fingerprints are all over the economic crises that reshaped America. bit.ly/4oJbp7t

bit.ly

Requiem for Alan Greenspan the Bubble Master

Greenspan enthusiastically promoted the deregulation that characterized the era of high neoliberalism.

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Michael Burns @michaelburns.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

come hang out on saturday and listen to artists and comedians and video creators talk about how we can stay human in the algorithmic age and then connect with humans, drink drinks, and listen to incredible music. events.ticketleap.com/tickets/hype...

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Royce Kurmelovs @roycerk2.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

"Evidence suggests that AI-driven ‘deskilling’ is starting to happen in medicine, computer science and other fields. Researchers are now discussing how to preserve important human expertise in the age of AI."

nature.com

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Austin Hayden Smidt @austinhaydensmidt.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

I always think the same about whether one liked the film or not.

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Austin Hayden Smidt @austinhaydensmidt.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Part 2 is up The Rate-Form, Part 2: Liquidity Is a Refusal open.substack.com/pub/thewaili...

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Nate Holdren @nhold.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

I've read two of these and they're great, I'm excited to read the rest. You should also read these.

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Austin Hayden Smidt @austinhaydensmidt.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

Apparently an electronic MOU has been e-signed to end hostilities between the US and Iran. Obviously it's a huge step if this holds. But, as a nerd who thinks too deeply about things, is it not also a strange world we're in that a hot war can end the same way one would e-sign for an apartment lease?

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Philipp Golka @pgolka.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

Second paper from our #assetstruggles SI now online: @hadoose.bsky.social makes the crucial point that asset struggles over climate governance not only include climate vulnerable & climate forcing assets – but that climate policy itself often takes an asset form, reconfiguring power. Check it out!

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Branko Milanovic @brankomilan.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

The mother of all inequality disputes. (All data are in PPPs and on per capita basis; all measures are in Ginis.) Unweighted international inequality (aka Concept 1 ineq) is inequality of all countries' GDPs per capita (as simple as that). It has been going down, but slowly, over the past 30y,

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Current Affairs @currentaffairs.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

In director Curry Barker’s hit indie horror film, we can see the fundamental ghastliness of consumer society. www.currentaffairs.org/news/obsessi...

currentaffairs.org

“Obsession” and the Horror of Treating People Like Products

In director Curry Barker’s hit indie horror film, we can see the fundamental ghastliness of consumer society.

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Austin Hayden Smidt @austinhaydensmidt.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

I will never not be appalled that a putative rational monetary strategy is to hope for – not merely anticipate, but hope for – a bubble burst so it causes job losses to ease inflationary pressures. It's a sign of a truly broken ethical compass that such a view is in the macro engine room at all.

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Matías Vernengo @nakedkeynes.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

My discussion of the relation between neoliberalism, classical liberalism and neoliberalism. Builds on an old debate with Philip Mirowski nakedkeynesianism.substack.com/p/neoliberal...

nakedkeynesianism.substack.com

Neoliberalism, Classical Liberalism and Neoclassical Economics

Between Classical Rhetoric and Neoclassical Theory

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LPE Blog @lpeblog.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

Today, Evan Behrle examines one of the oldest arguments for income inequality: that workers should be paid the value of their productive contribution. What this argument misses, he argues, is that the size of any worker’s contribution is largely determined by what other workers do.

lpeproject.org

You Didn’t Earn That

When defending income inequality, high-earners often appeal to an old left-wing idea: that workers are entitled to the fruits of their labor and should be paid the value of their productive…

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Andrew Leyshon @andrewleyshon.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

It’s alive! Copies of @fintechcapital.bsky.social, by @paullangley.bsky.social and me, published by @princetonupress.bsky.social arrived this morning. Out in the US soon, and in the UK a little later.

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Cambridge University Press Political Science & IR @cambup-polsci.cambridge.org · 07/06/2026

NEW ISSUE from @iojournal.bsky.social - International Organization - Volume 80 - Issue 2 - Spring 2026 - cup.org/3PKmata

Icon with large letters "IO" and the text "New Issue" below on a dark teal background.

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Brett Christophers @brettchristophers.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Frustrating that Tooze still hasn't twigged: If subsidies aren't robust enough, you still can't make reliable profits in solar and wind power generation, no matter how cheap the panels are.

ft.com

Wasting China’s solar panel surplus is madness

Clean power is within our reach — yet factories sit idle

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👻 David Weiskopf believes in spooks 👻 @dave.bzky.team · 06/06/2026

I love this concept bc either: - big parking lot gets solar - big parking lot stays small to avoid solar Either way, it's some type of win.

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Austin Hayden Smidt @austinhaydensmidt.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

Of course the kids are resentful. Open taps to fund endless wars and oligarch adventurism and tech that's only making everyone feel encroaching doom. Let them be pissed. And rather than scold them – come alongside them. Be the elders you claim to be, that you are positioning yourselves to be.

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Austin Hayden Smidt @austinhaydensmidt.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

Gonna do a little series on interest and why I think econ needs to be okay with getting into the weeds of the metaphysics of time. It's more than philosophical navel gazing. It gets to the root of financial power. The Rate-Form, Part 1: Against the Price of Time open.substack.com/pub/thewaili...

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The Baffler @thebaffler.com · 05/06/2026

“Television has been described as a narcotizing device and a machine for education, a propaganda font and an instrument of democratization, the ‘idiot box’ and the medium which disseminated some of the great art of this and the previous centuries.”

thebaffler.com

America on the Screen | Ed Simon

The television as not just an invention, but indeed is only matched in the United States by the automobile as a perspective, ideology, and lifestyle.

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Austin Hayden Smidt @austinhaydensmidt.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

What stands out most to me is that fairly mundane policy proposals, from an historical perspective (eg taxes on the rich), are paternalistically hand-waved away as "zany" and "fringe," and pitched as demands for "handouts" rather than considered and measured proposals. It's profound disrespect.

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Los Angeles Review of Books @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

"We need the intellectual and imaginative resources to work out how best to live together without appealing to political ideologies." Matthew Lamb on finding gems in Camus's translated notebooks: lareviewofbooks.org/article/albert-…

lareviewofbooks.org

Fame! A Misunderstanding | Los Angeles Review of Books

Albert Camus has long been misunderstood, but a new translation of his complete notebooks offers a corrective.

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Austin Hayden Smidt @austinhaydensmidt.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

You cannot talk to a power politician As if he were a wise man. If he seeks to understand you, If he looks inside himself To find the truth you have told him, He cannot find it there. Not finding, he doubts. When a man doubts, He will kill. – Zhuangzi

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Austin Hayden Smidt @austinhaydensmidt.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

"I'm sure this'll be received with patience & thorough analysis" *reads comments* "Ffs this is why I deleted my socials a few years back" Fwiw, it's obvs a mixed bag. He's proposing a type of digital Georgism here, which I'm into. But it'll also enmesh AI further and expose us to its market risk.

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