iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

So unless representatives from both parties find a common language to talk about the economy again, it will be impossible to prevent future government shutdowns and ugly budget processes. And there are some faint indications that the same fate awaits other issues, too.

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The paper effectively confirms some hypotheses observers already had regarding the budget process: the results show that the slow and painful process of getting to a budget is indeed prone to fail: representatives especially in the House no longer agree about where the budget should go.

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When you do it like this, you neither focus on affective nor ideological polarization (disagreement on the same issues), but rather ask: Do they even talk the same language? It turns out: they don't. Especially since the Trump administrations. This effect is extra pronounced in economic discourse.

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I collected a large corpus of Congressional Speeches between 1873 and 2025 (ca. 150 years), then classified them using an LDA topic model, and created networks of representatives based on the issues they talk about. Representatives are connected only if they talk about the same issues.

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Measuring issue-level polarization in congressional speech using community detection-algorithms | Network Science | Cambridge Core

+++ PUBLICATION ALERT +++ My first solo-authored PhD paper is finally out in Network Science! I am so happy that it finally happened! TL;DR: Representatives in Congress do not just disagree on issues, they oftentimes do not even talk about the same things at all. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

cambridge.org

Measuring issue-level polarization in congressional speech using community detection-algorithms - Volume 14

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Hendrik Erz, PhD @hendrik-erz.de · 7h

Shit is getting real, but given the unhinged statements Mrs. Reiche has made in the past days, I am not surprised that the left had to call on the constitutional court. Honestly, I don’t know why Reiche is so explicit and obscene; other conservatives are half as nasty.

Electronic Frontier Foundation @eff.org · 16h

Reposted by Hendrik Erz, PhD

Ready to free yourself from Big Tech tools? Opt Out October is the time to do it. Once you manage to make some changes, give yourself one of these merit badges and share your accomplishments! www.eff.org/pages/welco...

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Growing means finding new favorite albums! On my list, there are zero albums I listened to until I was in my mid twenties. (The bigger problem is that 9 slots are too damned few!)

Stephen Wild @stephenjwild.bsky.social · 20h

Reposted by Hendrik Erz, PhD

Do your thing, stats peeps. Also:

Two astronaughts looking st earth. Astronaught 2 is pointing a gun at the head of astronaught 1.

Astronaught 1: Wait, it's mainly based on non-probability samples?

Astronaught 2: Always has been

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Melancholia because it’s all so utterly depressing. (Not a serious response)

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Also, I’m cooking up something. Check my website on December 1st. You won’t regret it.

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Hendrik Erz, PhD @hendrik-erz.de · 04/10/2026

Uh, a new, not cringe trend. I can do that!

9 favorite albums:

Loviet — One
I built the sky — The sky is not the limit
Protest the Hero — Volition
Snarky Puppy — We Like it here
Between the Buried and me — Colors
Porcupine Tree — In ansentia
Touché amore — Stage Four
Plini — Handmade Cities
Pink Floyd — Pulse

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+++ NEW ARTICLE +++ I know it’s not Friday, but what is currently happening in German politics has me worried. If you only read opinion pieces, you may get the impression that 40% for a fascist party is not as bad as 20% for a socialist party. www.hendrik-erz.de/post/a-moder...

A few weeks ago, there were two important regional elections in Germany. In the one in Saxony-Anhalt, the fascist party AfD gained over 40% of the …

A Modern Red Scare

Hendrik Erz, PhD @hendrik-erz.de · 02/10/2026

I think I have never left the "Do you have any final comments?" field empty on a survey…

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Hendrik Erz, PhD @hendrik-erz.de · 02/10/2026

A benefit/drawback of being a sociologist is that you cannot answer a survey without noticing all the errors and mistakes they made when constructing it.

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Hendrik Erz, PhD @hendrik-erz.de · 02/10/2026

+++ NEW ARTICLE +++ All good things come to an end. What's more exciting are the things that follow! In November, I will start a Postdoc in the project SynDIKAT. I will be affiliated with @gesis.org and @cais-research.bsky.social — and I'm *absolutely* excited! www.hendrik-erz.de/post/a-fork-...

In about a month, I will be starting a new position. Time to reflect on six years in Sweden and on this blog.

A Fork in the Road

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Hendrik Erz, PhD @hendrik-erz.de · 01/10/2026

Love the vibe — can I get a shirt online, too? We’ll be missing each other on multiple occasions!

Hendrik Erz, PhD @hendrik-erz.de · 01/10/2026

…but my beautifully loud gas powered car 🥹

sanneru.bsky.social @sanneru.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Reposted by Hendrik Erz, PhD

The winners of Right Livelihood Award - referred as Alternative Nobel Prize - have been announced in Stockholm The jury chose @timnitgebru.blacksky.app , says von Uexkull, "because she is an extremely prominent critic of the power relations behind the AI development we are currently experiencing 1/

tagesschau.de

Preisträgerinnen des Alternativen Nobelpreises bekannt gegeben

In Stockholm sind die Preisträgerinnen des Right Livelihood Award bekannt gegeben worden - oft auch Alternativer Nobelpreis genannt. Die Auszeichnung geht in diesem Jahr ausschließlich an Frauen und v...

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Clickbait* has arrived in academic paper titles. (Congrats to @tkeskinturk.bsky.social on the publication!) _____________________________________ * that primarily baits me, a millennial

The title of a paper by Turgut Keskintürk: Generational imprinting: how political events shape cohorts

Search result in said paper for 9/11: A single, meagre result.

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Pulled the paper only to search for my generation's trauma. I guess that also says something about millennials… (But looks like a good paper, will be giving it a read!)

I learned that this is how the professionals are doing it.

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Soziologiemagazin @sozmag.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

The magic phrase every researcher should know which will make every infrastructure deployment for sensitive research data a guaranteed success.

An email excerpt:

"Just so you are in the know: This is how I will be approaching this on the VPS:

1. Clone the server repo onto the VPS
2. Create the correct .env file to configure the Django server
3. Run docker build
4. Pray that it doesn’t yell at me"

Point four is highlighted.

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Reposted by Hendrik Erz, PhD

Noch heute sind wir auf dem DGS Kongress in Mainz vertreten. Wenn ihr mit der Redaktion des SozMag ins Gespräch kommen wollt, wir sind in der Verlagsausteller-Halle zu finden

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Hendrik Erz, PhD @hendrik-erz.de · 29/09/2026

I just tried to cancel my electricity agreement (e.on), and since there were no other options, I tried their chatbot. I asked it to answer in English, the LLM responded: "Hello there! My name is Kim, I can only understand Swedish." They took THE ONE THING LLMs are useful at away from us.

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Hendrik Erz, PhD @hendrik-erz.de · 29/09/2026

To their credit, the average tech journalist these days uncritically adores technology. In general, tech journalists often appear to be mere spokespeople for silicon valley at the moment.

Hendrik Erz, PhD @hendrik-erz.de · 28/09/2026

Why is EVERY single app now a gray background with a bunch of rounded boxes on top of it? That gap between the toolbar and the window border on the left side is absolutely hideous. I am rarely complaining about design changes, but that is just … ugly.

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Hendrik Erz, PhD @hendrik-erz.de · 27/09/2026

I guess American software developers in Silicon Valley just never get ill. Probably because they’re either biohacking or their boss denied them being ill.

Hendrik Erz, PhD @hendrik-erz.de · 27/09/2026

The Apple Watch is amazing. It knows in advance when I get ill because my vitals shoot through the roof during the night, and then continues to remind me that, if I don’t do a brisk 12-minute walk I will not make my exercise goal for the day.

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Hendrik Erz, PhD @hendrik-erz.de · 23/09/2026

I am studying political polarization, and I'm certainly thankful for getting more material to study, but … I also have a private life and appreciate having democratic rights while I'm at home.

Hendrik Erz, PhD @hendrik-erz.de · 23/09/2026

Don't get me wrong: antisemitism is an important topic, and both ideologies have yielded dictatorships in the past. But I'd argue that, politically, the party that verbally and explicitly wants to reduce democracy should be more in focus than one that essentially compares to Zohran Mamdani.

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Hendrik Erz, PhD @hendrik-erz.de · 23/09/2026

To understand the political attitudes of the German cultural and political elites you need to understand that the fascist party won 44% in one region; the socialists won 25% in another; and the hot topic this week in the news and feuilleton is how dramatic the result of the socialists is.

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Reposted by Hendrik Erz, PhD

Robert Fietzke @robertfietzke.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Falls ihr es vor lauter Red-Scare und um sich selbst drehender Berlin-Debatten vergessen habt: In #Sachsen-Anhalt droht die erste faschistische Regierung seit 1945. Gemeinsam mit dem BSW bereitet die AfD bereits die Entmachtung des Parlaments und die Isolation der Opposition vor.

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Hendrik Erz, PhD @hendrik-erz.de · 21/09/2026

Today I got reminded about a very old article of mine from four years ago. Reading it in today's context, it almost sounds prophetic. All the idiocy we have to deal with today has been foretold in the case of Blake Lemoine. www.hendrik-erz.de/post/is-ai-f...

Is AI finally becoming sentient?

No, it's not. But yesterday, news broke that allegedly some Google chat bot system may have gained sentience. How credible are these claims? While …

Per Engzell @pengzell.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Reposted by Hendrik Erz, PhD

Most papers improve dramatically when you remove the sentence explaining why they are groundbreaking

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Hendrik Erz, PhD @hendrik-erz.de · 19/09/2026

+++ NEW ARTICLE +++ No, AI is never going to kill us all, and we really need to get our act together as a society not to fall for some random thoughts of a tech bro from Silicon Valley. hendrik-erz.de/post/no-ai-i...

No, AI is not going to kill us all

Currently, the "AI is going rogue" narrative has a resurgence after a staff member from Anthropic quit, quoting lacking AI safety efforts. I argue …

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Hendrik Erz, PhD @hendrik-erz.de · 18/09/2026

If you're worried that AI may kill us all, then (a) no, it won't, and (b) this statement explains it (+ the linked literature): www.youtube.com/watch?v=pauB...

youtube.com

The problem with "AI whistleblowers"

YouTube video by Adam Conover

Hendrik Erz, PhD @hendrik-erz.de · 17/09/2026

I like how Microsoft's online services are so broken beyond salvation that it's impossible to log in on some days, and there's nothing you can do but remain locked out of your documents

This is what LLMs are for: Give them well-defined tool call access, and let them rip through your data, while thinking about where it makes sense (or don't!) to have LLM access. It was a bummer that Siri AI couldn't access the email headers like Mail, but I completely understand the limitation.

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And, what can I say? It found the correct events, adjusted the titles, added the Zoom links, and I got eleven prompts asking me to confirm the action (good!) which gave me a quick change preview. And now I have eleven correct events in my calendar, so I don't miss those lectures.

A screenshot of Siri AI fixing my calendar events

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So, bummer. But what it did flawlessly is extract the presentation titles and links. So what I did was create one event at the correct time, and just copy-pasted this into all time slots for the presentations, and told it to please update the titles + links accordingly.

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