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Dawn Nafus

@dawnnafus.bsky.social
355 followers 662 following 227 posts

Trained as an anthropologist, former tech worker, now... who knows? Oregon Data Center Defiance enthusiast www.ordcd.org Books--Ethnography for a Data-Saturated World, Quantified, & Self-Tracking. PDX, Permaculture, fungi, climate justice

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Dawn Nafus @dawnnafus.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Before Amazon gets done with their $1 billion + propaganda campaign, take the time to tell Oregon's Data Center Advisory Committee what you really think Oregon should do with data centers www.surveymonkey.com/r/DCAC-Comme... www.theregister.com/systems/2026...
surveymonkey.com
2026 Oregon Data Center Advisory Committee Public Comment Form
Take this survey powered by surveymonkey.com. Create your own surveys for free.
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Dawn Nafus @dawnnafus.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Of course they're going to Clarklewis. Totally tracks.
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Dwuff 🇿🇦✨ @dwuff.com · 06/10/2026
This (among other things) is why they have to keep stealing and scraping so violently. The output turns into a slurry of rotten food otherwise.
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Dawn Nafus @dawnnafus.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Look, I don't like Tina Kotek any more than you do. She's a mealymouthed neoliberal who has trouble locating her spine. But let's remember that she can be made to do the right thing, like say "data center moratorium" through gritted teeth. The other one can't. The spoiler spoils.
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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
They quoted me in this New Yorker piece about AI today. www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
“Let’s say there’s a world or time line I exist in where A.I. has been subject to regulation. It is ethical. It has no footprint environmentally,” the novelist Jeff VanderMeer, a prominent critic of A.I., told me over the phone. “With those guardrails in place, would I read an A.I. book? All I can say is no. And the reason is, in part, because I want to read something coming from a particular mind.” Using A.I., he said, “feels like a betrayal of the whole point of why you’re a writer.”
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Nick @ecosozialismus.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Many things going wrong but one nice thing is that you can toss the price of a fancy coffee at a local candidate and it turns into a meaningful contribution to fight against conservative + corporate politics
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Dawn Nafus @dawnnafus.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Oregon's Data Center Advisory Committee's preliminary findings had major gaps, from narrowly defining "environment", to omitting grid stability issues, to reducing economic impacts to data center jobs. We wrote our own report to set the record straight. 170 citations. No BS. tinyurl.com/mpztwuuj
tinyurl.com
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Mark Wallace @wallaceme.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Ok don’t let’s get carried away but I found something genuinely good on Threads.
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Inside Climate News @insideclimatenews.org · 23/09/2026
A new report, based on two years of research, examines Pennsylvania’s data center industry and tracks local resistance.
insideclimatenews.org
Pennsylvania’s AI Boom Is Repeating Old Patterns of Exploitation - Inside Climate News
A new study says the data center industry’s expansion echoes patterns of environmental and health harms that have long plagued the state.
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Dawn Nafus @dawnnafus.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
uhhh.... he wants to rename it silicon?
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Dawn Nafus @dawnnafus.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Ummm... IIRC that support came with a bunch of asterisks that meant a moratorium only applied to state owned land. A loophole big enough to make tech co donors happy. So, how about clarifying you support a full 3 year moratorium?
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Anne Kosseff-Jones @annekosseffjones.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
"Could the Shit Machine END WORLD HUNGER? It’s NOT IMPOSSIBLE in the most LITERAL SENSE, which is all the justification we need to invest an AMOUNT OF MONEY that would OTHERWISE BY ITSELF END ACTUAL WORLD HUNGER."
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Dawn Nafus @dawnnafus.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Can I just say how much I appreciated the use of "unctuous" here? I mean, I agree with the substance and all, but unctuous was the highlight.
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Dawn Nafus @dawnnafus.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Excellent write up from @nokingsportland.bsky.social
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tweety fish oh wow like a chimera or something spoooky @sifu.tweety.fish · 15/09/2026
I was trying to write about this yesterday because I feel like a clear and neutral explanation for normies about why frontier labs are Like This would be really useful but I just couldn’t bring myself to explain it because it’s so fucking TIRESOME.
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Dawn Nafus @dawnnafus.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
I love how Oregon's social movements have moved the needle from "don't say moratorium" to politicians falling over themselves to say it. Here Kotek builds some giant loopholes so she can say it and keep donors smiling. nkpdx.substack.com/p/data-cente...
nkpdx.substack.com
Data Center Moratorium Now! September 8 in Salem, OR
People from across the state went to the Capitol in Salem to remind Oregon legislators that we needed a data center moratorium, like, yesterday.
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Dawn Nafus @dawnnafus.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Time for the home, Donnie.
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Dawn Nafus @dawnnafus.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
"Bring your whole self to work" didn't quite work out for me. Looking back, the best I could do was be a smuggler-- sneaking in douses of reality within institutions that didn't really want it. underthecircumstances.substack.com/p/a-smuggler...
underthecircumstances.substack.com
A Smuggler's Resume
by Dawn Nafus
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Dawn Nafus @dawnnafus.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
"Bring your whole self to work" didn't quite work out for me. Looking back, the best I could do was be a smuggler-- sneaking in douses of reality within institutions that didn't really want it. underthecircumstances.substack.com/p/a-smuggler...
underthecircumstances.substack.com
A Smuggler's Resume
by Dawn Nafus
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Braided River Campaign @braidedriverpdx.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
The aging, dangerous CEI Hub tanks threaten the economic prosperity of Portland. That's why we need your support for safety reform and a reduction of the volume of fuels stored there. Ask your councilors how they are going to vote. Photo by Sarah Risser, @henryz_mom.
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Dawn Nafus @dawnnafus.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Can't you just smile more? Ah no wait you're a dude, no one asked www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpDH...
youtube.com
Comedy Short: Leading Lady Parts - BBC
YouTube video by BBC
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Dawn Nafus @dawnnafus.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
This is too-slick-by-half neoliberal bullshit. She uses words voters like-"pause"- while not actually supporting a state-wide moratorium. Just slow the state-owned land parts, and increase the burden on cash-strapped localities to say no. We see right through you @tinakotek.bsky.social
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Dawn Nafus @dawnnafus.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
The shiitakes are coming!
Small shiitake mushroom nubbin emerging from a log.
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Justin Hendrix @justinhendrix.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
"...most people spend the greater part of their lives inside institutions they don’t control. Trade unions and labor protections have mitigated some of these conditions through long political struggle, but the underlying structure of top-down authority...has remained largely intact."
techpolicy.press
AI Lays Bare the Authoritarianism of Modern Work. Time to Rethink Education.
AI now bypasses the original logic of the educational bargain altogether, write Dr. Velislava Hillman and Dr. Peter G. Kirchschlaeger.
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Washington AI Resistance @wa-air.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
"Data center expansion is entirely unnecessary for advanced AI...models can be over 100,000 times smaller than ChatGPT. Some require no more resources to train or serve than...a webpage." Minimal resource use, maximal privacy. Why isn't* Big Tech doing this? *yeah, we know why not.
seattletimes.com
The AI we want without the data centers we don't: It's possible | Op-Ed
We don’t need to burn our climate commitments or pave over fields and ranches to realize the benefits of artificial intelligence.
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Dawn Nafus @dawnnafus.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
laughs in theoretical saturation
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Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 02/09/2026
Not to be too conspiratorial, but is it too much of a stretch to think that tech companies underwrote the Vanderbilt Report to undermine, in the first instance, the discipline of anthropology precisely because they wanted to appropriate its methodological frameworks as marketing for AI?
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Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 02/09/2026
One of our DAIR pillars is to put forward our vision for a positive technological future rather than watching on the sidelines as the broligrachy gets to implement their dystopian dreams. So @adiod.bsky.social edits a series we call The Possible Futures Series. dair-institute.org/projects/pos...
dair-institute.org
Possible Futures Blog Series
Broad, near-future speculative pieces designed to de-center dominant narratives about technology and challenge us all to realize that things can be different.
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Dawn Nafus @dawnnafus.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Also! Come to Salem Sept 8 to let them know why Oregon needs a data center moratorium tally.so/r/ODqdXR
tally.so
Legislative Lobby Day RSVP
Made with Tally, the simplest way to create forms.
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Dawn Nafus @dawnnafus.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
omg I love this pissed off beaver so much from ordcd.org/signup
A rather ticked off cartoon beaver giving a data center the side eye
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Dawn Nafus @dawnnafus.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Also, training for those doing the lobbying part is Sept 1 www.mobilize.us/fww/event/10...
mobilize.us
OR: Data Center Moratorium Lobby Day Training! · Food & Water Watch
**Join Food & Water Watch and our allies for a training in preparation for our September 8th Stop Data Centers Rally & Lobby Day** We're gearing up to head to Salem and ask our legislators to support...
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Dawn Nafus @dawnnafus.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Oh hey, do you maybe not want to have a loud, energy-sucking, life-sucking, tech-bro owned data center in your town? Come to the rally & lobby day in Salem Sept. 8. www.mobilize.us/fww/event/10...
mobilize.us
OR: Data Center Moratorium Rally & Lobby Day · Food & Water Watch
**Join Food & Water Watch and our allies in Salem on September 8th!** We'll be urging our elected officials to support legislation that places a three-year moratorium on new data centers in the state...
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Dawn Nafus @dawnnafus.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
and this is why I moved from an IR undergrad to anthropology PhD....
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Dave Karpf @davekarpf.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
“Stanford is a tax-exempt investment fund with an attached educational institution.” Folks, @adriandaub.bsky.social has written another absolute banger.
WHAT
TECH
CALLS
GOVERNING
ADRIAN DAUB
Author of What Tech Calls Thinking
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Dawn Nafus @dawnnafus.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
A refreshingly grounded perspective on the supposed AI "arms race" to nowhere.
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Dawn Nafus @dawnnafus.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
60. That woman is 60, rocking a pole like a champ. F-ing awesome. (Uhh... also time for me to get back to those sit ups)
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Jen Taub @jentaub.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
“A single-payer universal health care system could cover every American, save more than 100,000 lives a year, and still cost $1 trillion less than the system it would replace, according to a new preprint study led by researchers at the Yale School of Public Health.” ysph.yale.edu/news-article...
ysph.yale.edu
Universal Health Coverage Could Save $1 Trillion and 114,000 Lives Every Year, Yale Study Projects
A single-payer universal health care system could cover every American, save more than 100,000 lives a year, and still cost $1 trillion less than the system it
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Dmitry Grozoubinski @explaintrade.com · 15/08/2026
It's me, a Telegraph columnist, taking a break screaming bloody murder about fairness in the women's sports I wouldn't be caught dead watching to wax lyrical about academic integrity in sociology, a field I consider to be fake, at institutions I consider to be communist indoctrination centers.
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Dawn Nafus @dawnnafus.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
We need one of these "ads" for Oregon :).
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Henry Brannan @henrybrannan.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
New: PDX Food Forest is waging war on lawns. But that's just the start. www.streetroots.org/news-stories...
streetroots.org
Portland Food Forest is waging a war on lawns. But that’s only the start.
The scrappy edible landscaping nonprofit has its eyes set on larger public projects to expand access to healthy food and permaculture knowledge
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Vicki @zeldavross.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
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Dawn Nafus @dawnnafus.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
The only viable choice here is Gillian Anderson. Bond becomes a power lesbian. That is all.
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Dawn Nafus @dawnnafus.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
Same
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Dawn Nafus @dawnnafus.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
ah... I realize that came out snarkier than I meant it. What I should have said was, it was perfect emptiness for talking about empty data center promises. Apologies!
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Dawn Nafus @dawnnafus.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Did an AI make those server racks? :)
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Erik Nordman @eriknordman.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
🎂Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom was born on this day in 1933! Ostrom was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics for her research on "collaborative governance, especially the commons." She showed how communities of users could work together to sustain their shared resources. 1/9
Elinor Ostrom receiving the Nobel Prize in Economics. She is a older white woman with gray hair and glasses, wearing a long batik dyed dress, and holding the certificate and medal (in a box).
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Dawn Nafus @dawnnafus.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
This feels like a hostage situation.
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Dawn Nafus @dawnnafus.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Oh hey cool-- love it when a beloved institution of some of the best years of my life turns into a fashy hellscape. Good times. It'll play well with the alumni donations I'm sure.
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Robert Evans (the Only Robert Evans) @iwriteok.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Ahhh, Oregon
yahoo.com
Salem Brought a Guillotine To Oppose New Data Center. Company Reps Left, Feeling “Unsafe”.
Salem's city council voted unanimously to pursue a data center moratorium after residents - and a guillotine - pushed back on a $5.1 billion AI facility.
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Dawn Nafus @dawnnafus.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Sucks that the most important things in life are also the most tedious. Just complaining to the ether.
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