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dghoefer.bsky.social

@dghoefer.bsky.social
840 followers 868 following 8 posts

Husband, father, engineer, dog and cat lover, native upstate New Yorker.

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Reposted by @dghoefer.bsky.social
Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 3h
The student got excellent writing instruction--they went to an IB school, one of their parents is a professor, and they got through high school without ever using AI tools. But now, they feel they have to abandon all they learned about good writing, to avoid being accused of cheating with AI.
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Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 3h
So-called AI detection tools might be an even bigger scurge than AI. I was talking today with a student (a senior), who shared that they now have to spend time "dumbing down" their papers--shortening sentences, removing advanced vocab and punctuation--because otherwise they get flagged as "AI."
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Benjamin Husstad-Nedberg @factforce.bsky.social · 22h
Both, I think. The WSJ article last year (Make peace, not war) documented that the Russians has been working on the Trump admin for a long time. Admin seems convinced that there are "deals to be made", if we just can remove the "Ukrainian problem", that they can make money with the Russians after.⤵️
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Michael Fletcher @mefletcher54.bsky.social · 20h
Now, I can't tell you exactly what a "safe" level of wealth distribution is, but I can tell you that the US Gini Coefficient is well outside the range seen in reasonably functional democracies.
OECD data showing wealth inequality within major democracies.  The USA is an outlier, about 10 points higher than other nations.
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Michael Fletcher @mefletcher54.bsky.social · 20h
Where they can no longer skew markets and regulations ever in their favor. One point is fairly clear: a deeply skewed wealth distribution is unhealthy for the economy and democracy. It often leads to political instability.
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Michael Fletcher @mefletcher54.bsky.social · 20h
to a point where the US no longer has an obscene level of wealth (mis)distribution. Where they can no longer have so much wealth that they practically run our government. Where they can no longer dominate or even dictate economic activity.
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Michael Fletcher @mefletcher54.bsky.social · 20h
There is a strong argument to be made that the super-billionaires need to be downsized by a wealth tax in addition to the income tax they already (mostly don't) pay (that should also be increased. One Economist proposed a measly 2%. Why not 10% or even 20% - A YEAR until their wealth drops
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I know Rahm Emanuel. I worked with him for years in the Clinton administration, and then when he was Obama’s chief of staff. Rahm Emanuel represents everything that’s been wrong about the Democratic Party for the last 30+ years. Be warned. robertreich.substack.com/p/the-rahm…
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Shooti @bambooshooti.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
When Truman proposed his national health plan in 1945, he ran into a trap that was laid in 1917. The AMA and corporate interests took the old “Prussian plot” playbook, updated it for the Cold War, and used the financial might of the newly enriched private insurance industry to kill the bill. /end
President Harry S. Truman uses a chart to explain his proposed National Health Insurance bill at the 1949 Convention of the American Federation of Labor. Having seen a large number of WWII enlistees and draftees rejected due to poor health, Truman saw the need for universal health insurance coverage for the middle class. On Nov. 19, 1945, the proposed his national health insurance program to Congress, becoming the first president to advocate for a comprehensive federal healthcare system. Truman’s plan sought to expand public health services, increase medical research and lower individual medical costs, with funding provided by monthly prepaid fees or payroll taxes. However, the proposal faced organized political opposition from the AMA and corporate interests. Critics labeled it “socialized medicine,” drawing on Cold War communism fears. The bill ultimately failed to pass in Congress. Photo credit: Free Speech Radio News Archive.
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Shooti @bambooshooti.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
When FDR took office during the Great Depression, he wanted to include a national health insurance program in the Social Security Act of 1935. Corporate leaders and the AMA threatened to derail the entire Social Security Act if healthcare was included. FDR dropped the health insurance plan. /8
FDR signs the Social Security Act, Aug. 14, 1935. When FDR appointed the Committee on Economic Security (CES) in 1934 to draft the Social Security Act, the staff explicitly included a mandate for national health insurance. The corporate-medical alliance reacted with swift fury. The American Medical Association mobilized doctors nationwide to flood Congress with letters. At the same time, big business coalitions threatened to back lawsuits that would strike down the entire bill as unconstitutional. Roosevelt personally believed that national health insurance was a necessary leg of the social safety net. However, when forced to choose between passing a compromised bill or losing the entire New Deal welfare state, he chose survival. His decision was purely tactical, driven by cold, political pragmatism.
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Shooti @bambooshooti.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
#ResistanceRoots The fight for universal healthcare may seem like a relatively recent phenomenon, dating from President Truman’s failed proposal for a national, publicly funded health insurance system in 1945. However, the fight goes back to the 1910s, and it’s linked to anti-labor forces. /1
President Truman addresses a joint session of Congress. On Nov. 19, 1945, Truman sent a groundbreaking Special Message to Congress recommending a comprehensive national health program. His five-part strategy included constructing hospitals and health centers, expanding public health services, investing in medical research and education, providing cash benefits and disability insurance to workers, and prepaid national health insurance. The American Medical Association launched a campaign against it, condemning the plan as “socialized medicine” and comparing it to communism during the early years of the Cold War. By 1946, “conservative” Repubs controlled both houses of Congress and blocked the bill. Truman tried again with subsequent messages to Congress, but the legislative effort ultimately failed. Truman later called this defeat the most troubling disappointment of his presidency. Photo credit: Harry S. Truman Library.
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Ned Resnikoff @resnikoff.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
It’s not just that getting 5-10 of these a day is annoying, although it is extremely annoying. I think polluting political communications channels like this is actively corrosive to democracy.
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Ned Resnikoff @resnikoff.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I wish there was a way to figure out which of my donations got me on all these spam lists so I could never donate to those causes again
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Mike Boylan-Kolchin @mbkplus.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Once again, I gotta say: you cannot treat anything you’re feeding into an AI as anonymous. There are enormous ethics implications for, e.g. referees who are clearly uploading others’ unpublished papers without consent, let alone health care professionals or law enforcement
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Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 27/09/2026
In a private discussion today this came up: “We need the January 6th Commission hearings, for DOGE.” One could do a lot with NIH and NSF alone. There are clinical trials that ended, patients that died, young people leaving the US… and bad stuff that happened inside the agencies.
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Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 27/09/2026
Imagine how we could do this and capture attention and change public opinion. We know that public opinion can be changed on long timescales, contrary to some popular(ist) views that people don’t change their opinions.
sciencedirect.com
From viewers to voters: Tracing Fox News’ impact on American democracy
This paper provides a comprehensive assessment of the effect of Fox News Channel (FNC) on the mass public’s political preferences and voting behavior …
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Justin Wolfers @justinwolfers.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Lower accountability reads as higher risk. When a town's newspaper closes those local governments end up paying higher interest rates to borrow. newsletter.platypuseconomics.com/p/…
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SwiftOnSecurity @swiftonsecurity.com · 27/09/2026
Well, just had a leading LLM get an internal error processing a Material Safety Data Sheet I sent it, so it HALLUCINATED THE ENTIRE THING INSTEAD and created a fake version of the product... so it could give answers about the product. Oh lord.
When you provided the API link to the
STEK SDS, my internal browsing tool attempted to access it and hit a server block (URL_FETCH_STATUS_MISC_ERROR ).
Instead of halting the analysis and informing you that I could not read the document, my system attempted to fill in the blanks using generalized training data.
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Chise @sailorrooscout.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
WELL NOW, would you look at that? A massive, 26-YEAR-LONG study of MORE THAN 2.4 MILLION people in Sweden found NO EVIDENCE to support a causal link between acetaminophen (the API in Tylenol) use during pregnancy and increased risk of autism, ADHD, OR intellectual disability in children.
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Mrs. Betty Bowers @mrsbettybowers.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
The major platforms—Facebook, YouTube, and X—are all refusing to show the trailer for the upcoming documentary that eviscerates the ridiculous pest Elon Musk. So I guess we have to do our part to make sure it is seen. www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY_8...
youtube.com
Musk | Official Trailer | Bleecker Street
YouTube video by Musk
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inthefade @ihavethatonvinyl.com · 27/09/2026
jesus christ i want to pummel everyone older than me or my age who talks like this
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Sen. Adam Schiff @schiff.senate.gov · 26/09/2026
For months, I’ve been raising the alarm about the loss of staff at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and how it is imperiling their work protecting our wildlife and public lands. In December, 25% of the agency was gone. Now, it’s nearly 40%. But FWS still refuses to address the staffing crisis.
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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 25/09/2026
Great breakdown of all the v v wild statements in this interview
In the interview, Huang also (unfairly) attributes record renewable energy purchases to AI. He blames climate action for stalling the construction of energy infrastructure, presumably for fossil fuels.
I think we just have to acknowledge that we got ourselves really gummed up in climate change and sustainable energy, and as a result, we just didn’t plan enough energy production.
Then he proclaims that AI is “the best opportunity we have” to “turn a corner on climate change, if you want a future that’s sustainable.” He sees AI accelerating demand for clean energy in the long term. But AI already needs a lot of energy now, and fossil fuels are what we’ve got.
“A more polluting AI buildout is not inevitable.”
But renewables were already the fastest-growing sources of new electricity generation before the recent generative AI boom. It’s generally cheaper to generate power from a wind or solar farm than a new gas or coal plant. But Trump, who lined his campaign coffers with money from the fossil fuel industry, is incentivizing the development of gas and coal plants to power data centers.
And now, data centers are in turn spurring the development of far more fossil fuel infrastructure. Air pollution associated with AI could lead to up to 1,300 premature deaths and more than $20 billion in public health costs by 2028, according to a study from UC Riverside, Caltech, and the Rochester Institute of Technology.
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Julia Raifman, ScD @juliaraifman.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Did you know? The US health system already has far higher administrative costs relative to single-payer. AI could raise those costs Also a good example of how technology such as AI will not inherently improve health or other outcomes — how health changes depends on how people use the technology
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Matt Salomone @matthematics.com · 26/09/2026
Corollary: There is only one lasagna in the world, we just possess individual connected pieces of it at different places and times
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Matt Salomone @matthematics.com · 26/09/2026
1 + 1 = 1 confirmed, checkmate Conceptual James
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Larry Glickman @larryglickman.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
In what world is it the purview of the President/Executive branch “to force conservative cultural changes on academia‘? And why end the paragraph without noting that there is no legal justification whatsoever for Trump and his minions to “force cultural change” on institutions of higher education.
Inside the White House, some of Mr. Trump’s top lieutenants have expressed frustration about a perceive slowdown in the adminstration’s attempts to force conservative cultural changes on academia.
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Larry Glickman @larryglickman.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Elite universities mea culpas about the “loss of trust” in higher education so often fail to consider the force of the longterm propagandistic attack on universities, given extensive play in conservative media, that long preceded Trump, but which he has massively accelerated.
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Larry Glickman @larryglickman.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Trump is doing his best to weaken and undermine higher education, an area in which the United States has been a global leader since World War II, with economic and other benefits that extend far beyond the students, staff, and faculty at universities.
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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
There is no such thing as “woke ideology.” It doesn’t exist, either in version 1 or version 2. These are made-up figments of the far right authoritarian imagination. We don’t have to pretend they are real because the fascists don’t like DEI & some courses. Don’t. Print. Lies. In. The. Newspapers.
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Simon Kuestenmacher @simongerman600.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Huge drop in web traffic to the biggest US news websites. I know that the anti-mainstream media is loving this but news are now consumed from unruly sources to a higher degree than before. That opens up the flood gates for misinformation more than before.
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Anne Lutz Fernandez @lutzfernandez.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Research does show spending more on schools in underresourced communities does improve outcomes for children, including academic ones. Also that reducing poverty improves them. Dissing and underfunding public schools and insisting education is the only way out of poverty is key to the project.
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Anne Lutz Fernandez @lutzfernandez.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Getting public monies for private school vouchers depends on bad press for and weakening of public schools. The culture wars only go so far and they're really doubling down now on academics, though research has long shown on average private schools do not outperform public schools.
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Unions have won some battles by connecting the dots between real and proposed cuts engineered by Vought and harms facing ordinary people, e.g. NIOSH, or the American Postal Workers Union pushing back against plans to undermine vote-by-mail.
Indeed, AFGE locals at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) saved their agency from Vought’s chainsaw, in a “victory for workers and [the] public,” by engaging in common good unionism. The work done by scientists, engineers, and technical experts at NIOSH—including research on heat stress, chemical hazards, and other workplace risks—is essential to protecting working people around the country. After nine months of organizing and collective action, during which AFGE’s NIOSH locals teamed up with the non-federal workers they serve, the Trump administration rescinded layoff notices for roughly 1,000 NIOSH employees.
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Unions give individual federal employees a means of sharing information with the public when the government is covering up its failures, which is happening a lot right now. In many cases, their interests in maintaining state capacity are the interests of the public.
No one is better suited to predict and describe the deleterious effects of Voughtism than past and present federal workers. Current federal employees, and their unions, are uniquely situated to explain the mundane yet lifesaving achievements of government for a twofold purpose: 1) to prevent future attacks on critical government services and 2) to increase public support for the establishment of a more democratic and responsive government during post-Trump reconstruction. For far too long, the right has successfully positioned itself as the authoritative critic of government. But civil servants are best positioned to diagnose the government’s shortcomings and ultimately, to improve it.
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
New at Can We Still Govern?: At a time when other institutions have bent the knee, public sector unions have fought Trump, acting as canaries in the coalmine, warning us how cuts will lead to disasters like the explosion of food borne illnesses we've seen. 🧵 donmoynihan.substack.com/p/unions-aga...
donmoynihan.substack.com
Unions Against Voughtism
Federal unions can connect the dots to reveal the dangers of gutting government capacity.
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USA TODAY @usatoday.com · 25/09/2026
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson warns that emergency appeals are becoming a "special avenue" for "certain privileged litigants."
bit.ly
Justice Jackson says Supreme Court intervenes too quickly on Trump's side
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson warns that emergency appeals are becoming a "special avenue" for "certain privileged litigants."
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Jacqueline Antonovich @jackiantonovich.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Ultimate question: Does “AI did X” obscure the human actions and decisions behind X? Who disappears from the story when AI becomes the actor and why?
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Amanda Katz @katzish.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I still can’t believe someone would grift off this particular thing (establishing a conspiracy theory that undermines health protections for our nation’s littlest kids), but that’s just who this is
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Amanda Katz @katzish.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
They pay him, American kids die unnecessarily of nearly eradicated diseases, everyone is happy? Good reporting by NYT
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Lembas Eater @waybread.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Most of ed-tech is just cold fusion. It doesn't work. It will never work. But wouldn't it be great if it did?
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Lembas Eater @waybread.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
The problem with education is that it's a solved problem. Students need small classes, individual attention, lots of writing, lots of feedback, access to a well-stocked library, time to think, and time to talk with their peers. We just don't like the answer, so we keep trying to do other stuff.
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Darin Self @darinself.com · 24/09/2026
I will say, I do think the level of American democracy is significantly lower and will be lower for the long term. He basically did to American democratic development as to what Brexit did to the British economy.
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Stephen Leahy @stephenleahy.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
One of my Nat Geo pieces from 2019 Even more relevant today "Crop yields and animal growth rates are already falling. Nutrition levels are also expected to decline with continued CO2 emissions..." www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/...
nationalgeographic.com
World food instability looms if no action to reduce carbon emissions, IPCC report says
The impacts of climate change on land will raise food prices and risk widespread food instability, says the IPCC's latest report. But there are solutions.
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Joe Walsh @walshfreedom.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
This.👇
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Justin Wolfers @justinwolfers.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Nuclear regulation developed for low-chance, high-risk scenarios. Similar to the risk of AI. A simple place to start is mandatory incident reporting. If something goes wrong, everyone gets to know. newsletter.platypuseconomics.com/p/…
newsletter.platypuseconomics.com
How Much Would You Pay to Prevent the AI Apocalypse?
And what economists say we should spend. Hint: we're nowhere close.
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digby @digby56.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I will never get over how incredibly stupid this is. Do they not know what risk pools are? Do they not know what insurance is???
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Schrödinger's Sneetch Belly @rtodkelly.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
What's being described there has its own named mathematical law. It's called the Law Of Adverse Selection, and there isn't a single actuary who isn't intimately familiar with that law and why you never, ever *ever* f**k with it.
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Schrödinger's Sneetch Belly @rtodkelly.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Will add: there is no way - none whatsoever - that they do not know this.
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