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Jacob Bruggeman

@jacobbruggeman.bsky.social
202 followers 170 following 44 posts

Intellectual & political historian writing on hackers, libertarians, and tech in the modern US | Examining the ideologies in/of Silicon Valley | Friend, Neighbor, Cat Dad & Baltimorean

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Reposted by Jacob Bruggeman
The Organization of American Historians @oah.org · 06/10/2026
New post alert! In “Dialing into the Revolution,” Jacob Bruggeman explores how activists in the early 1970s used “phone phreaking” to challenge corporate infrastructure and the control of new technologies. Read it now on Process! tinyurl.com/mrtnbxdz
Ma Bell's Phoney Book comic strip
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Jacob Bruggeman @jacobbruggeman.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Anthropic is “destructively scanning” millions of books. Should you care? siliconprairies.substack.com/p/anthropic-...
siliconprairies.substack.com
Anthropic is “destructively scanning” millions of books. Should you care?
On the curious debate over AI companies buying, digitizing, and discarding “rare” books.
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Eileen Clancy 🧿 @clancyny.bsky.social · 15/01/2025
... ": "To anyone paying close attention, the electronic keys to the telephone systems of both countries were ready for the taking." 🔗 Jacob A. Bruggeman, "Phreaking the U.K.", Interfaces, vol 6, 2025. cse.umn.edu/cbi/interfaces
cse.umn.edu
Interfaces
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Bribleck @bribleck.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
It’s not a good look to be unable to take criticism.
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Jacob Bruggeman @jacobbruggeman.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Thanks these level-headed critiques. I'm glad you've foregrounded my praise of the book. I think the polemic is useful, but also happen to think American history contains the categories we need to fight tech authoritarians — & labeling them as "tech fascists" is more sale sales pitch than analysis.
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Kevin Driscoll 📳੯‧̀͡⬮ @kdriscoll.aoir.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/02/2026
"Phreaking Politics in Modern America", a new paper by Jacob Bruggeman covers "telephone hacking, AT&T's status as an icon of American technology, and the New Left-to-libertarian pipeline in modern American political order." #openaccess PDF from *Modern American History:* […]
aoir.social
Original post on aoir.social
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hilzoy @hilzoy.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Jacob Bruggeman on Henry Farrell’s substack. OpenAI's Rogue Agents Are a Normal Accident siliconprairies.substack.com/p/openais-ro...
siliconprairies.substack.com
OpenAI's Rogue Agents Are a Normal Accident
Lessons from the 1988 Morris Worm
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Jeffrey Yost @justcode.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Please join Us!! (Sept. 16th 1pm C.). Absolutely thrilled to announce an online book talk w/ thought-leading scholar @stanforduniversity.bsky.social @xiaochang.bsky.social on her stellar new book Divination Engines on NLP & AI! #criticalAI #histtech Registration (free): cse.umn.edu/cbi/events/d...
Flyer for talk with an image of Prof. Xiaochang Li other images and maroon, gold, and gray design elements and info on the event.
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Sorry, but this is spot on. The White House believes Donald Trump has a magic ring that turns his thoughts into reality. They demand public praise for things he imagines. And they need a computer program to generate fake imagery to sell it. The (accidentally) most accurate and honest they’ve been.
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Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 05/09/2026
Not The Onion.
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hannah gais @hannahgais.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Hampshire College started with a grand promise: to serve as "a vehicle for the realization of self in society." This fall, the school will close its doors. I talked to some of its founders, faculty, students, administrators, and board members about what its loss means thebaffler.com/latest/class...
thebaffler.com
Class Dismissed | Hannah Gais
Private liberal arts schools were never going to kickstart the revolution. But the closure of Hampshire College further narrows the political imaginary.
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Becca Lewis @beccalew.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
A great read from @jacobbruggeman.bsky.social siliconprairies.substack.com/p/openais-ro...
siliconprairies.substack.com
OpenAI's Rogue Agents Are a Normal Accident
Lessons from the 1988 Morris Worm
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Jacob Bruggeman @jacobbruggeman.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
The one mention of FAI in your entire book:
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Jacob Bruggeman @jacobbruggeman.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
This is the only mention of FAI in your entire book.
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Jacob Bruggeman @jacobbruggeman.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Misdiagnosing a new coalition for a band of Reichsteknoführers can only worsen political polarization while breaking the reader’s faith in our institutions. Meanwhile, Durán's reply to me offers just what you'd expect if you actually read the review: "Buy here and join the resistance!"
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Jacob Bruggeman @jacobbruggeman.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
My emphasis on familiarity shouldn’t be read as deflationary. I share Durán’s concerns about concentrated power and the abuses of privacy and political process that flows from it. What we’re witnessing is part of a recurring pattern in American history, not a radical break in our political order.
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Jacob Bruggeman @jacobbruggeman.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
A political savvy defense-industrial base, eyebrow-raising techno-nationalistic rhetoric, eccentrics made ultra-wealthy through a combination of invention and state capture—these are familiar themes of American history, not the earth-shattering arrival of techno-fascism in America.
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Jacob Bruggeman @jacobbruggeman.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Where we disagree—the substance obscured by ad hominem here—is that I think Durán’s claim to by the chronicler of a "techno fascist" takeover has less to do with our political reality than gaming the attention economy. What we’re seeing in the tech-MAGA alliance is nothing new in American history.
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Jacob Bruggeman @jacobbruggeman.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
As I suggest in the review & on Substack, "Nerd Reich" is a fun read that unspools a radical strain of thinking among tech leaders. I share much of Durán's critique and have written about it publically, as in this piece on Thiel's weird antichrist politics. www.theunpopulist.net/p/peter-thie...
theunpopulist.net
Peter Thiel Looks Everywhere for the Antichrist Except the Mirror
The tech billionaire’s AI technology is ushering in a dystopian Big Government as he races to beat his political opponents to the end times
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Jacob Bruggeman @jacobbruggeman.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
I authored the review in question, linked here so you can judge. My background beyond a caricature: I'm a professor working on the history of tech at Ohio State. My affiliation with FAI is 100% unpaid. It simply helps open the door for oral histories with techies. www.thebulwark.com/p/dont-look-...
thebulwark.com
Don’t Look Now, But the Tech Bros Are Losing
Despite warnings about techno-fascism, Silicon Valley’s right wing isn’t new, and its alliance with MAGA is faltering.
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Jacob Bruggeman @jacobbruggeman.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
I authored the review in question, linked her so you can judge. My background beyond a caricature: I'm a professor working on the history of tech at Ohio State. My affiliation with FAI is 100% unpaid. It simply helps open the door for oral histories with techies. www.thebulwark.com/p/dont-look-...
thebulwark.com
Don’t Look Now, But the Tech Bros Are Losing
Despite warnings about techno-fascism, Silicon Valley’s right wing isn’t new, and its alliance with MAGA is faltering.
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The Bulwark @thebulwark.com · 02/09/2026
"On some level, Big Tech’s eager-beaver appeasement of Trump seemed like a surprise. For those watching closely, though, there had been signs." But the love affair might be faltering. @jacobbruggeman.bsky.social reviews "The Nerd Reich" by Gil Durán:
lnk.thebulwark.com
Don’t Look Now, But the Tech Bros Are Losing
Despite warnings about techno-fascism, Silicon Valley’s right wing isn’t new, and its alliance with MAGA is faltering.
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Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
His actual critique is that "clickbaity analysis of tech’s alliance with MAGA as a flashy-fashy “Nerd Reich” will lead readers to doom-spiraling and #resisting online, when the real-world landscape of electoral politics already suggests fractures in the MAGA/tech alliance." The techbros are "losing"
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Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Jacob makes it clear throughout the review that he is not on the side of the tech bros. He just thinks that e.g. their rhetoric about weapons is not that different from the defense primes, that the fascism debate was not that useful etc. You can disagree with all that, but it ain't Thiel apologetics
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Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
I've been curious about how Duran addresses the complications of Davidson/Rees-Mogg's book, The Sovereign Individual, which seemingly plays a central part in his argument, but which is blistering in its contempt for Trump-style national populism. Now, I really don't want to know. Finis.
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Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
I am not surprised that Duran doesn't like Jacob's review - no-one wants to be accused of being clickbaity - but substantive responses might be preferable to misleading ad hominems? I've not read The Nerd Reich, so can't comment on whether it's good/bad, but reading this, I'm in no hurry to.
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Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
I was in a friendly discussion with Gil Duran on NPR last week, but this is guilt-by-association. Jacob Bruggeman, whose dissertation committee I was on, is nobody's idea of a Thiel acolyte. Nor could anyone who had actually read the review (link www.thebulwark.com/p/dont-look-... ) believe he is.
thebulwark.com
Don’t Look Now, But the Tech Bros Are Losing
Despite warnings about techno-fascism, Silicon Valley’s right wing isn’t new, and its alliance with MAGA is faltering.
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Jacob Bruggeman @jacobbruggeman.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
OpenAI's Rogue Agents Are a Normal Accident siliconprairies.substack.com/p/openais-ro...
siliconprairies.substack.com
OpenAI's Rogue Agents Are a Normal Accident
Lessons from the 1988 Morris Worm
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Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
“The liberal died by assassination and there were multiple shooters.” New at PB: @jacobbruggeman.bsky.social interviews Kevin Schultz on his book “Why Everyone Hates White Liberals (Including White Liberals).”
publicbooks.org
“As Good As It Gets”: Talking Liberalism with Kevin Schultz - Public Books
“Up until Franklin Delano Roosevelt, very few Americans actually called themselves liberals or embraced anything that was called ‘liberalism.’”
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Jacob Bruggeman @jacobbruggeman.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
Snapshots from the @reaganinstitute.bsky.social's "Cities on a Hill" retreat, which I was honored to co-convene at the Greenbrier in the Alleghenies. Here's our lively panel on history vs. nostalgia with Bev Gage, @kathrynbrownell.bsky.social, and @joshuatait.bsky.social, moderated by yours truly.
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Sara Guenthner @sguenthnerauthor.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
They destroy mountains to get limestone for concrete, the second most used building material in the world, so being able to recycle it is amazing news. #sharegoodnewstoo techxplore.com/news/2026-05...
techxplore.com
Recycled concrete slabs match or beat traditional builds, even at 100% replacement
Steel and recycled concrete composite slabs with equivalent—and in some cases superior—performances compared to traditional ones: This is the outcome of the SARCOS (Steel And Recycled Concrete Slab) p...
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Jacob Bruggeman @jacobbruggeman.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
Thanks for sharing on your end!
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Jacob Bruggeman @jacobbruggeman.bsky.social · 29/03/2026
Very glad to share this piece in @modamhist.bsky.social! I am glad they let me squeeze 7 figures into the article. You can see one of them here:
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Jacob Bruggeman @jacobbruggeman.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
A moving manifesto against despair in higher education from @adapalmer.bsky.social: "Despair is very emotionally tempting." Yet: "We can endure this, and be a guiding light through it, but only by recentering, by teaching citizens, not workers." www.chronicle.com/article/high...
chronicle.com
Higher Ed Is at a Turning Point. 11 Scholars Predict What’s Next.
AI, enrollment, finances, politics, and the turbulent road ahead.
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Jacob Bruggeman @jacobbruggeman.bsky.social · 18/02/2026
An exciting AI an citizenship initiative at Georgetown. It's being led by some wonderful humanists!
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David Simon @audacityofdespair.bsky.social · 16/02/2026
This how you isolate and capture "the worst of the worst" of these dangerous immigrants. You show yourself to be in need of help, and the worst criminals reveal themselves and their criminality by doing whatever they can to provide you with help. Masterful law enforcement.
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Jacob Bruggeman @jacobbruggeman.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
Glad to share a new article in @modamhist.bsky.social: "Phreaking Politics in Modern America." Come for fun bits about Abbie Hoffman and Steve Jobs, stay for the analysis of how critiques of AT&T planted seeds of the techno-libertarian politics all around us today. doi.org/10.1017/mah....
doi.org
Phreaking Politics in Modern America | Modern American History | Cambridge Core
Phreaking Politics in Modern America
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Lee Vinsel @leev.bsky.social · 12/02/2026
Jacob Bruggeman has a neat new article out, "Phreaking Politics in Modern America," which covers telephone hacking, AT&T's status as an icon of American technology, and the New Left-to-libertarian pipeline in modern American political order doi.org/10.1017/mah....
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Jacob Bruggeman @jacobbruggeman.bsky.social · 12/02/2026
Thank you for sharing, Lee!
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Berny Belvedere @bernybelvedere.bsky.social · 10/01/2026
"In his search for the Antichrist lurking in college protests and international institutions, Peter Thiel never glances at the mirror. The real threat to his eschatological vision may be staring back from it." 🔥 from @jacobbruggeman.bsky.social in @theunpopulist.net
theunpopulist.net
Peter Thiel Looks Everywhere for the Antichrist Except the Mirror
The tech billionaire’s AI technology is ushering in a dystopian Big Government as he races to beat his political opponents to the end times
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Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 14/10/2025
It's out! My review of "Abundance", my review of "Breakneck" and the slogan "rent extraction is always what the other guy does" open.substack.com/pub/hypertex...
open.substack.com
What happens when Chinese resolve meets American rent-seeking?
Reading "Abundance" and "Breakneck" side by side suggests that learning from one another is not enough.
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Matt Gabriele @profgabriele.com · 17/06/2025
Have we acclimated? 5 million people were in the streets, nationwide 3 days ago
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—>realhackhistory.org @bsky.realhackhistory.org · 14/06/2025
These illustrations of the basic components of a home computer in Family Computing Magazine issue 4, from 1983.
Illustration showing a modem, a monitor, a disk drive, a central processing unit, a cassette deck and a printer.An illustration of a livingroom with the family computer. There is a sofa chair, a dog and a fish in a fishbowl, with the computer on a desk beside a cactus,
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Jacob Bruggeman @jacobbruggeman.bsky.social · 07/06/2025
Digitizing a source and putting it on the Internet Archive assuages my guilt in these situations
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Internet Archive @archive.org · 04/06/2025
🚀 New podcast alert! Introducing Future Knowledge—a podcast from the Internet Archive & Authors Alliance exploring how knowledge is created, shared & preserved in the digital age. 🎧 Listen and subscribe: futureknowledge.transistor.fm #FutureKnowledge @archive.org @authorsalliance.bsky.social
Illustration for the "Future Knowledge" podcast. A surreal, retro-futuristic landscape blends past and future elements: a bust of a Roman figure, stacks of books, file cabinets, satellites, DNA strands, skyscrapers, and futuristic buildings. A cartoon mouse steers a ship’s wheel connected to a giant computer mouse. An old desktop computer displays the Authors Alliance logo, and an open file drawer shows a yellow folder labeled Internet Archive. At the bottom, bold text reads: “FUTURE KNOWLEDGE.”
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Kathleen Bachynski @bachynski.bsky.social · 02/06/2025
“The group estimated that reducing the operating budget by $900 million, as the Trump administration wants to do, would require closing 350 of the 433 parks, monuments, historic sites and other locations overseen by the Park Service… we would be witnessing the dismantling of a century-old system”
nytimes.com
Opinion | Is This the Beginning of the End of America’s National Parks?
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Michael Wong @miquai.bsky.social · 30/05/2025
@alisongopnik.bsky.social suggests that there is no such thing as general intelligence, natural or artificial. Instead, multiple intelligences trade off in salience throughout our life histories: As children, we explore. As adults, we exploit. As elders, we empower.
Alison Gopnik stands before a slide explaining that multiple intelligences trade off in human development
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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 22/05/2025
“The product will be capable of being fully aware of a user’s surroundings and life, will be unobtrusive, able to rest in one’s pocket or on one’s desk, and will be a third core device a person would put on a desk after a MacBook Pro and an iPhone.” 🫠
wsj.com
Exclusive | What Sam Altman Told OpenAI About the Secret Device He’s Making With Jony Ive
The idea is a “chance to do the biggest thing we’ve ever done as a company here,” Altman told OpenAI employees Wednesday.
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Kori Schake 🎃 @kschake.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
Giving political donors “dedicated VIP experiences” with the US military is not only corrupt, it will damagingly make Americans think of our military as partisan. Congress should prevent this.
wsj.com
Exclusive | Donors Promised ‘VIP Experience’ at Military Events With Trump
Top donors to a committee supporting events celebrating America’s 250th birthday will receive special access to a military parade and other festivities.
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Jacob Bruggeman @jacobbruggeman.bsky.social · 13/05/2025
Digital criminals depicted in a 1978 issue of an Ann Arbor paper
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