iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Eric Knowles @ericdknowles.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

So, even if Eric Schmitt hadn't been wrong about Jack Smith being in Atlanta on a particular day, the gotcha rested on the claim that Smith was in the same 6.5M-person metro area as someone the GOP doesn't like. And Schmitt thought that was powerful enough to pay Kinkos to make a color poster. Woof.

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Sherrod Brown @sherrodbrownoh.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

NEW AD: Listen to this sh*t.

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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

When they get back in power, Democrats need to go all-in on higher education. We need a campaign of reinvestment in public universities across the country that makes the Morrill Land-Grant Act look like nothing by comparison *and* a GI Bill of Rights-style program of tuition grants.

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Eric Knowles @ericdknowles.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Always love to see friends and colleagues quoted in the news! Here's @adamstanaland.bsky.social (former NYU postdoc, current University of Richmond professor) dissecting Ken Paxton's masculinity-centered attacks on James Talarico in Texas. www.usatoday.com/story/news/p...

usatoday.com

'Low-T': MAGA insults Talarico's masculinity, but it isn't working

Republicans have made James Talarico, mounting an unusually strong Senate bid in ruby-red Texas, a top target in the midterms. Will it work?

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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

the chair company is like if someone said "do the office like backrooms but get nathan fielder as creative consultant.

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Eric Knowles @ericdknowles.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Reminds me of the old visual asymmetry arguments in social psych about how actors can see others but not themselves. Here, the whataboutist can see the interlocutor but the interlocutor can’t see herself. So, it may naturally happen that judging the interlocutor makes more sense to the whataboutist.

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Eric Knowles @ericdknowles.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

There’s also an interesting actor-observer asymmetry in which the whataboutist feels justified in pointing out the hypocrisy or inconsistency of their interlocutor, while the interlocutor is more likely to feel umbrage at not having their argument taken in isolation.

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Eric Knowles @ericdknowles.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Second, when we evaluate an argument in an unfamiliar domain, we may have to rely on features of the interlocutor to evaluate their argument. The fact that RFK Jr. has endorsed so many batshit epidemiological theories provides _information_ relevant to judging any subsequent claim he might make.

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Eric Knowles @ericdknowles.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

First, whataboutism gets called an informal fallacy, but that’s only true if the “whataboutist” thinks or claims that they’re evaluating the argument rather than the interlocutor. Maybe the whataboutist _knows_ they’re evaluating the interlocutor’s trustworthiness, coherence, opportunism, etc.

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Eric Knowles @ericdknowles.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

E.g., a U.S. Republican says authoritarianism in China must be opposed while they abet authoritarianism at home. Whataboutism would be me pointing out this hypocrisy (“what about the fact that you support Trump?”) when I (supposedly) should stick to evaluating the person’s claim about China.

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Eric Knowles @ericdknowles.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I’ve been thinking a bit about “whataboutism” — the (supposed) fallacy in which we point out the hypocrisy of an interlocutor when we (presumably) should be evaluating their argument in isolation.

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Eric Knowles @ericdknowles.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Just one of the hypest songs of all time. Listening to this before my Intro lectures would probably improve my teaching ratings. open.spotify.com/track/2frHiH...

open.spotify.com

The W.A.N.D.

The Flaming Lips · At War with the Mystics · Song · 2006

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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

My entire life I've heard centrists scolding leftist candidates with "oh, but how will we pay for all that? isn't your agenda unreasonable? shouldn't we run on a modest proposal for means-tested tax rebates?" Then Mamdani gets elected and makes it all look pretty easy. No wonder they hate him.

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Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

possibly the easiest city on earth to be from

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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 21/09/2026

LMFAO -- Trump is holding an event at the White House right now but there's no audio because the press pool isn't there. The Newsmax host notes that this is an example of Trump's attacks on the press "backfiring just a little bit"

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Eric Knowles @ericdknowles.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Luca Rentier, who makes ambient music from analog recordings of nature sounds, altered and superimposed in ways that (some say) resemble human vocalizations.

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Omar Wasow @owasow.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Similar thought but I wondered if it could go other way bsky.app/profile/owas...

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

If someone posted this about a Jewish Senator, it would be rightly condemned as anti-semitism. El-Sayed was born and raised in Michigan, but because he is Muslim he is perpetually foreign and under suspicion.

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Eric Knowles @ericdknowles.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Courtney Barnett has done a lot of great things musically and lyrically, but turning “emphysema” into a verb ranks near the top.

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Eric Knowles @ericdknowles.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Yes. There’s a real and probably unavoidable tension between rigorous scholarship and Pinker-style academic stardom. You can’t do the slow and laborious intellectual work if you’re busy building a brand. So you get folks like Pinker taking half-assed pot shots at work they don’t fully understand.

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Eric Knowles @ericdknowles.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

@michellegoldberg.bsky.social pinpoints something critical to understand Trump: he doesn't care if the world were to end with him, and may even find satisfaction in the notion that it might.

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[Christopher M. Federico] @chrispps.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

you'd never know it from the NYT article @gelliottmorris.com is commenting on here, but there is a very well-known 60+ year old literature in political science documenting the exact point the op-ed presents as a novel insight, which begins with Converse (1964):

tandfonline.com

The nature of belief systems in mass publics (1964)

Published in Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society (Vol. 18, No. 1-3, 2006)

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Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Political party as network of factions for whom collective action is preferable than defection or going it alone 💯 www.semafor.com/article/09/1...

semafor.com

Exclusive: Slotkin, Peters urge fellow Democrats to help El-Sayed

The Michiganders are making a concerted play for party unity.

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Eric Knowles @ericdknowles.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Man, but Slow Horses makes England look gloomier than the dankest empty lot in sub-industrial Newark.

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Eric Knowles @ericdknowles.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

That’s my fuckin’ stapler. BLAM.

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Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

The Boston Globe editorial board endorsed Seth Moulton over Markey. The NYT Editorial Board said to rank any candidate except Mamdani. This is part of the story behind the Democratic Tea Party that has been happening. Party establishment and press establishment both losing the base.

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[Christopher M. Federico] @chrispps.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Fox News, the epistemic anchor for America's Heartland Whites, broadcasts from the Avenue of the Americas in Midtown Manhattan; Donald Trump, spiritual leader and current chief cultural avatar for those same Heartland Whites, is indelibly and unambiguously a product of New York City

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Eric Knowles @ericdknowles.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Loved the book, loved the movie.

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M Meerkat @kackbro.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Good On You,Mayor Mamdani....👏🏻

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Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

When people in 2026 talk about defending Western Civilization, they don’t mean more people should really read Gibbon. They mean this

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Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

I don't think the news has made it here: bluesky political scientist Julia Azari @juliaazari.bsky.social 's _Backlash Presidents: From Transformative to Reactionary Leaders in American History_ (Princeton) was recognized with the Richard Neustadt award for best book published on the presidency!

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simine vazire @simine.com · 02/09/2026

Psych Science has retracted Ariely & Wertenbroch (2002). The second author requested the retraction. Both authors agreed to it. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.... So grateful to @datacolada.bsky.social for these blog posts and the work behind them: datacolada.org/138 and datacolada.org/139 1/2

journals.sagepub.com

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

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Eric Knowles @ericdknowles.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

How on god’s green Earth does Dan Ariely still have his job?

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Eric Knowles @ericdknowles.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

(I’ve never been much of a Maiden fan, but that song is pretty great.)

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Gordon Hodson @gordonhodsonphd.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

#AcademicSky #PrejudiceResearch New research by @mv1691.bsky.social @ericdknowles.bsky.social & Napier ... finds that Latinos told Whites will accept them within "White" then show higher racism & conservatism. Essentially pulling ladder up after themselves. journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

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Eric Knowles @ericdknowles.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Continuing my tradition of seeing movies on airplanes long after they come out and people are done talking about them, I just saw the 28 Years Later Bone Temple film. Ralph Fiennes vamping as the Prince of Darkness to The Number of the Beast is one of the best things I’ve ever seen.

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Alison Gopnik @alisongopnik.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Thanks, but actually my favorite line didn't make it to the piece. Does Odysseus feel guilty about the Trojan war? Lots of discourse on this question even though he doesn't exist! Is he conscious? AI agents are fictive characters abstracted from text - like Odysseus.

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Eric Knowles @ericdknowles.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Unpaywalled version: tinyurl.com/3nmhmufh

tinyurl.com

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Eric Knowles @ericdknowles.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Out in Group Processes & Intergroup Relations: The Future of Latines’ Racial Categorization and Sociopolitical Attitudes Amid Rising US Diversity tinyurl.com/4hateszc This work—led by @mv1691.bsky.social—examines how (re)racialization could shape the politics of U.S. Latines in the coming decades.

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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Poll results vs. how poll results are presented in the Wall Street Journal.

Zohran with a 69% approval to 24% approval, highest favorably for a New York Mayor since LaGuardia announced the free candy and handjobs for all program.

WSJ: Mamdani’s Honeymoon With New York is Over

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Eric Knowles @ericdknowles.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

She remembered sipping consomme With William Howard Taft And a boy with perfect skin Who smelled like mustard gas And as the cockpit burned She couldn′t help but smile Recalling a dancing bear She'd seen as a child Amelia Earhart vs. The Dancing Bear (1996) @thehandsomefamily.bsky.social

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