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Michael Harris

@davidmichaelharris.bsky.social
294 followers 664 following 385 posts

MA (Hons), MScR, FSA Scot Archaeologist. Adult Education Tutor. Editor & proofreader. Member: Friends of the Earth Scotland; Red Rope; Solidarity Federation-IWA

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Reposted by Michael Harris
Phil Tinline @philtinline.bsky.social · 11h
Doctor Who has described the BBC's new AI-generated director general as "pretty good", and suggested that the technology now enabled the creation of content "at the standard of an unimaginative man who spent years working at McKinsey then Google".
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Privacy International @privacyinternational.org · 15h
Governments all over the world have been building up arsenals of technologies to surveil and monitor migrants and asylum seekers. We conducted a global survey to map the various technologies reportedly used on people on the move. privacyinternational.org/report/5866/...
privacyinternational.org
An Arsenal of Surveillance: A Guide to the Technologies Harming Migrants
Governments around the world are building increasingly sophisticated surveillance infrastructures to monitor migrants, asylum seekers and refugees at borders and within countries.
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Media Lens @medialens.org · 19h
Jonathan Cook forensically exposes how the 'mainstream' press is keeping our minds right for the security state's propaganda: jonathancook.substack.com/p/reporting-...
jonathancook.substack.com
Reporting of the RAF Fairford arrests blows the idea of a ‘free press’ out of the water
When the establishment media deals with issues in which the West’s war industries are most heavily invested, it happily jettisons even the semblance of critical distance from the state
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Michael Spicer @michaelspicer.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Most TV is just this now.
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Helen McCarthy @glider.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Isn't this strongly reminiscent of an enormous amount of corporate activity? Just keep moving, nothing to see here ...
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Byline Times @bylinetimes.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
🔴 NEW Times Higher Education, Sponsored by Orbán’s Hungary, Failed to Report James Orr Allegations By Samantha Asumadu Read below. ↓
bylinetimes.com
Times Higher Education, Sponsored by Orbán’s Hungary, Failed to Report James Orr Allegations
The publication signed a partnership with Viktor Orbán's government and has since published no coverage of the allegations around a Cambridge academic and former Reform UK policy chief whose foundation receives Hungary-linked funding
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London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 30/09/2026
‘Britain’s political class remains unified in its belief that energy infrastructure must be owned by the private sector. Since privatisation in the 1980s, successive leaders have rejected any suggestion of nationalisation.’ @arthurdowning.bsky.social: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
lrb.co.uk
Arthur Downing · Asset Sweating: Britain’s Energy Crisis
Britain has private ownership while making the state responsible for planning via subsidies. The result is a zombie...
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Michael Harris @davidmichaelharris.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
"Now that oil is the fuel of navies, those narrow seas, the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, have assumed an enhanced importance, because there are rich oil-bearing lands beside them." www.marxists.org/archive/pank...
marxists.org
The Truth about the Oil War by Sylvia Pankhurst 1922
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Robert Saunders @robertsaunders.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
It’s a mark of the corruption of our whole way of thinking about the world that trying to meet a planetary emergency is routinely described as “ideological”, while continuing to accelerate it is presented as “pragmatic” and “economic”.
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Scientists for Global Responsibility @responsiblesci.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
The assault on science at US universities began long before the Trump administration. It was built on decades of efforts by libertarian donor networks, fossil fuel companies and think tanks to reshape university governance and increase outside influence. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
theguardian.com
Decades of fossil fuel influence paved way for Trump’s assault on university research, study says
Fossil fuel firms have spent years trying to regulate climate research by donating to US universities, study authors argue
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Dr Rebecca Wragg Sykes @lemoustier.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
🏺🧪 🦣 Will absolutely be tuning in fo some of these excellent #HumanOrigins talks, hosted by one of my academic depts - online, open to all
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The Cosmic Shambles Network @cosmicshambles.com · 29/09/2026
The #NineLessons site is updated with some new guests as well as letting you know who's on which night! Loads more to come obv but new guests joining @robinince.bsky.social inc. @particleclara.bsky.social, Olga Koch, Mark Spencer and @romatheengineer.bsky.social Tix - cosmicshambles.com/ninelessons
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Michael Harris @davidmichaelharris.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
"163 articles were published on Jason Arday in the week after he resigned – compared to 13 articles by the same media outlets on James Orr in the week after the broadcast of the undercover filming he was featured in." www.bylinesupplement.com/p/the-two-pr...
bylinesupplement.com
The Two Professors and a ‘War On Ideas’
The different stories of the Cambridge academics Jason Arday and James Orr reveal the wider cultural and ideological forces around hierarchies and structural power – and who gets to belong
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Rebecca Sear @rebeccasear.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
This is a great piece about animal communication research, with experts in the field largely explaining why they don’t use AI. Bonus: includes audio clips of dolphin whistles and elephant rumbles www.theguardian.com/technology/n...
theguardian.com
Using AI to ‘talk to animals’ might make us feel clever – but what, if anything, does it do for them?
As animal behaviorists increasingly use AI in their research, they grapple with how to wield the technology responsibly
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Dr Rebecca Wragg Sykes @lemoustier.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
The problem isn't rogue #AI models, it's *negligent companies*. If a biomedical firm put their product in public water supply because they wanted to test it 'in the real world', they'd be treated as criminal at corporate & individual level. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
theguardian.com
OpenAI halts training of latest models as reports mount of AI agents going rogue
Decision follows disclosures that OpenAI agents searching government websites had acted in unexpected ways
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Rebecca Sear @rebeccasear.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Since we’re talking about the politicisation of science, another laughably bad “national IQ” paper has just been published in Evolutionary Psychological Science. This paper barely even pretends to be science yet is published by a mainstream publisher, with prominent academics on the editorial board
Screenshot of new paper 

Evolutionary Psychological Science > Article
Democratic Peace, Intelligent Belligerence: Evolutionary Psychological Foundations of Interstate Wars
Research | Published: 12 September 2026Section of text from new paper
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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 29/09/2026
Your daily reminder - the Norwegian Consumer Council has really, really solid work on how to be anti-enshittification www.forbrukerradet.no/breakingfree/
forbrukerradet.no
Breaking Free
In the new report Breaking Free: Pathways to a fair technological future, the Norwegian Consumer Council has delved into enshittification and how to resist it.
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Friends of the Earth Europe @foeeurope.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
We're launching the Atlas tomorrow, join us (and leading international experts) online for a much needed conversation on corporate power! 👇
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Dr Katie Twomey @k2mey.eurosky.social · 28/09/2026
This is quite cool. My university is the first organisation in the world to force Microsoft to allow us to turn off copilot summaries in Word 365, after a backlash against it from staff (including, very vocally, me). That cannot have been easy for our heroic IT people so hats very much off to them!
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Michael Harris @davidmichaelharris.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Emma Goldman, 'Patriotism: a menace to liberty' (1910) theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma...
theanarchistlibrary.org
Patriotism: a menace to liberty
Emma Goldman Patriotism: a menace to liberty 1910
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University and College Union (UCU) @ucu.org.uk · 28/09/2026
£140m in cuts. Up to 1,800 jobs at risk. 93 programmes set to go. UCU members at the University of Edinburgh begin five weeks of strike action today. We back our branch. We need you to do the same. Education belongs to all of us.
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Media Lens @medialens.org · 29/09/2026
Another stellar edition of ColdType: www.coldtype.net/Assets23/PDF...
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Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
The idea of a "tech industry" has always relied on "computer" being a special kind of medium, akin to alchemy. And if tech demands to be king, AI hype has now elevated LLMs to a king of kings. But the solipsism has hit a dead end. The only way forward is to recognize that computers are not special.
productpicnic.beehiiv.com
LLMs are just normal technology. But tech is just a normal medium.
The more we focus on a particular technology, the more we lose sight of what normal people actually care about.
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Quinn Slobodian @quinnslobodian.com · 28/09/2026
Deacademicization is an ugly word we will have to learn to pronounce.
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Sarah May @sarahmay1.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
This kind of nonsense (What's described, not the post) is part of preparing the country for war. Appeals to an enduring 'National Character' - especially one that trusts authority and is calm in a crisis - are always worrying, but especially now.
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Defend Our Juries @defendourjuries.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
BREAKING: 94 year old Jewish human rights barrister, Margaret Owen arrested under the Terrorism Act outside Andy Burnham’s Labour Party conference. UK taxpayers are funding these arrests while masked men terrorise the streets in coastal towns. Lift The Ban on Palestine Action.
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Quinn Slobodian @quinnslobodian.com · 27/09/2026
As Slobodian put it, “the tech barons may not care about democracy, but democracy cares about them.” I'll take that final word, thx @eduardoelreportero.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/technology/n...
theguardian.com
Democracy blindsides Silicon Valley’s power players looking to transform the world with AI
‘The push against datacenters speaks to the frustration of people who don’t feel they are making the choices in their lives’
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University and College Union (UCU) @ucu.org.uk · 28/09/2026
Our members at Edinburgh University commence a 5 week strike today over crippling job cuts. Please show them solidarity as they head onto picket lines this morning.
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Adam McKay @ghostpanther.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Watched this yesterday and am still haunted by it. This kind of tech is only possible because of 100’s of years of work by generations of scientists. The idea that now that legacy of knowledge has passed into the hands of sociopathic bros and blind profit junkies is terrifying.
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Peter Gleick @petergleick.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" was released on this day 62 years ago. I have a first edition & come back to it often, including this paragraph in the chapter "Obligation to Endure." It's worth reading. "We urgently need an end to these false assurances, to the sugar coating of unpalatable facts."
Cover of Silent Spring by Rachel CarsonThe last paragraph in the Silent Spring chapter Obligation to Endure, reads, in part, " We urgently need an end to these false assurances, to the sugar coating of unpalatable facts... The public must decide whether it wishes to continue on the present road, and it can do so only when in full possession of the facts. In the words of Jean Rostand, "The obligation to endure gives us the right to know."
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Scientists for Global Responsibility @responsiblesci.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
📢 Official Disinformation: Can science overcome political spin, silence and corporate greenwash?' 🗓️ 14 Oct 2026, 4–6pm BST (with AGM to follow) Hear from the Union of Concerned Scientists, ClientEarth, DeSmog & SGR. More details to follow… 🧪 www.sgr.org.uk/events/offic...
Promotional image for SGR 2026 conference entitled "Official Disinformation: Can science overcome political spin, silence and corporate greenwash?"
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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 24/09/2026
Ron Cobb’s original signage designs for Alien, made with felt tip pen and graph paper. humanoidhistory.tumblr.com/post/8286472...
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404 Media @404media.co · 23/09/2026
The statements, taken together, are some of the most damning indictments of the ways LLMs were trained, how they worked, and the immediate threat they pose to human labor. @jasonkoebler.bsky.social reports. Listen now: www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KI3...
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Dave Andress @davidandress.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
We are a solar-powered household! Thanks Pete, Devon, Stuart, and Arturo, who's from the Philippines. Fuck fascism!
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Michael Harris @davidmichaelharris.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Equinoctial Greetings! [Image: Ring of Brodgar, Sigurd Towrie]
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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
From @timnitgebru.blacksky.app and me on what we should take from the 2026 summer of AI hype: www.technologyreview.com/2026/09/22/1...
technologyreview.com
Don’t be fooled by this summer of AI hype
Breathless claims about AGI and new capabilities fall apart pretty quickly under scrutiny.
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Luke Ontario @coolhand.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Oh my God, I agree with WSJ opinion Oh my God, shoot me in the face
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
OPINION COMMENTARY (U.S.)
The Hidden Agenda Behind the Al Panic
A mathematical model doesn't rebel.
Anthropomorphizing it helps obscure human errors and accountability.
By Gabriele Mazzini
September 21, 2026, 5:43 pm EDT
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Nabil Salih @nabilsalih.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
"I turned to the back page, where someone had drawn a cartoon figure throwing a swastika and axe into a bin. ‘This book is trash,’ they had written. ‘Fuck Benito and Fascists.’ At the bottom, in smaller writing, they had added: ‘Nice museum, though!" In @lrb.co.uk www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
lrb.co.uk
Dani Garavelli · Diary: Cult of Mussolini
A couple of days before I arrived in Predappio, I read that Hitler’s birthplace in Austria had been compulsorily...
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Byline Times @bylinetimes.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
An apocalyptic worldview – blending racial hierarchy, genetic “optimisation” and even climate-driven population culling – circulated inside the elite, founder-linked networks shaping Silicon Valley (and the AI industry) today. @nafeez.bsky.social bylinetimes.com/2025/12/05/h...
bylinetimes.com
How Epstein Channelled Race Science and 'Climate Culling' Into Silicon Valley’s AI Elite
The Epstein files expose how racial hierarchy, genetic “optimisation” and even climate-driven population culling circulated inside Big Tech circles
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Social Media Lab @socialmedialab.ca · 21/09/2026
A theatre in Barcelona has been banned from promoting a stage adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own on Instagram and Facebook because the work includes “social topics.”* www.theguardian.com/technology/2... * "any mention of civil rights, feminism or social reform"
theguardian.com
Meta bans ads for Virginia Woolf play in Spain because they relate to feminism
Theatre told that Facebook and Instagram filter out ads mentioning ‘social topics’ such as civil rights or feminism
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Dundee UCU @ducuuo.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Day 1 of 25 - Massive turnout today on our picket line. Thanks to Heather Anderson MSP and @maggiechapman.bsky.social for your support on the picket line this morning. And for all our amazing students from Students Against Cuts. No compulsory redundancies. #SaveDundeeUni
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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
'In the most notable case, the University of Nottingham’s University and College Union (UCU) branch has declared strike action of 67 days, expected to last for the majority of the autumn term, as the institution looks to cut 600 full-time equivalent jobs.'
timeshighereducation.com
UK universities face autumn of chaos as ‘prolonged’ strikes planned
Unprecedentedly long strikes at Nottingham, Edinburgh and Dundee could be the shape of things to come, observers say
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qmackie @qmackie.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
What could possibly be wrong with an AI generated map of first peopling of the Pacific? Almost everything. From Richards et al 2026 "Lessons from pseudoscience in the Pacific in face of GenAI" www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.... 🏺 (open access) #archaeology
An attractive AI generated map of peopling of the Pacific, showing Hawai'i twice, Lapita originating in NZ and proceeding westwards, New Guinea labelled as Borneo, and many other absolute clangers.  From linked article: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/03122417.2026.2706246?needAccess=true
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404 Media @404media.co · 21/09/2026
When chatbots become our closest “friends,” what happens to our capacity to care? @samleecole.bsky.social speaks to Professor Sherry Turkle, a licensed clinical psychologist and the founding director of MIT's Initiative on Technology and Self. Watch now: www.youtube.com/watch?v=whqD...
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Paul Bernal @paulbernal.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
It's all a bit Amity Mayor stuff. Keep the beaches open...
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History and Heritage Yorkshire @handhyorkshire.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Laura Kuenssberg's question at the weekend "Is it for people who are singers, songwriters, artists to be taking public positions on very very controversial, difficult, complicated issues" was the most insulting, patronising, appalling question I have had the misfortune to have heard in years.
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Michael Harris @davidmichaelharris.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
The RNLI expresses the principle in six words: “Anyone can drown. No one should.” That is remarkably close to the universalism Kropotkin identified. And that is why the argument over the RNLI is about considerably more than boats. freedomnews.org.uk/2026/09/21/k...
freedomnews.org.uk
Kropotkin’s lifeboats: Mutual aid VS welfare chauvinism - Freedom News
The RNLI’s cosmopolitan philosophy undermines a cornerstone of the far right’s worldview ~ Roderick McMillan ~ Royal.
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Dave Vetter @davidrvetter.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Your regular reminder that Matthew Syed, who has his own BBC radio show, enthusiastically endorses the white supremacist Great Replacement Theory.
An opinion headline that reads "Migration is being used to enfeeble us, so it's clear what we have to do", by Matthew Syed.
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Working Class History @workingclasshistory.com · 19/09/2026
#OtD 19 Sep 1981 250,000-500,000 marched in Washington, DC in support of air traffic controllers who were fired by president Ronald Reagan for striking for safer conditions, shorter shifts, a 32-hour week and better pay stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1259...
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Will Davies @will-davies.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Has George Osborne ever met the people who actually work in museums or wondered what their politics might be? www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
theguardian.com
George Osborne ‘thought Peter Thiel’s Bayeux tapestry visit would be secret’
British Museum chair tells Big Brue festival he thought no one would find out about the private viewing
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