iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 17h

It me! And Amy! And my microphone seems to have glitched every now and then, so no, my voice doesn’t usually cut out for the tiniest fraction of a second — but I had great fun chatting with Amy and being given the opportunity to jump on my soapbox again!

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Mara Wilson @marawilson.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I love people who have Fuck ICE or Fuck Trump or Fuck the IDF or Fuck Billionaires in their bio who then defend AI companies

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Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Inspires me with confidence for sure…

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Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Here’s the FOCUS article, whose headline preview is “Nazis verharmlost” (“Nazis trivialised”), as if Kerkeling mentioning his grandfather — a man who spent twelve years imprisoned! Including three years at Buchenwald! — is making a mockery of the history. www.focus.de/politik/deut...

focus.de

Nazis verharmlost: Hape Kerkeling tut genau das, wovor er bei AfD warnt

Die Thüringer Linke hatte zur Anhörung über ein AfD-Verbotsverfahren geladen, Komiker Hape Kerkeling kam. Und gab den Moralisten gegen die AfD.

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Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

It is *so* important that our human histories don’t gloss that very humanity, or else we end up with “oh sure Hape Kerkeling’s granddad fell afoul of the Nazis, but Kerkeling has never addressed whether his granddad brought it on himself.”

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Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Feel like a lesson everyone should’ve learned in the last 80 years that: a. Not everyone (or anyone!) who was sent to a concentration or extermination camp was pure as the driven snow and communed with songbirds and butterflies; and b. Nothing justified the concentration or extermination camps.

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Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Finance guy next to me: “Next week I have to teach near-graduates how to use AI responsibly.” His mate: “What do you mean?” Finance guy: “Well, like…that if they’re dealing with global finance data they can’t plug clients’ confidential details into Claude.”

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Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Now that the comedian Hape Kerkeling has been vocally supporting a ban on the AfD and has talked about his grandfather, who was sent to a KZ, commentators including the magazine FOCUS have pointed out “Kerkeling said his Opa was a victim. But did you know he was a communist criminal??? Curious.”

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Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

AfD youth going to institute compulsory public readings of “Was ist des deutschen Vaterlands?” except it will go like singing hymns in school, where everyone knows the one line and mumbles the rest of it.

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Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Strap in and strap on, losers, we’re dipping back into Großdeutschland, Kleindeutschland, and maybe Drittes Deutschland discourse like it’s 1848. First my queer history was relevant, now it’s my nineteenth-century Reichsgründung dissertation.

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Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Ahh so glad* that in Germany we’re apparently doing the “well, this man *deserved* to be sent to a concentration camp, the Nazis were the party of law and order you see” discourse (again). *fucking hell.

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Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

I do not for the life of me understand why the title was even changed in the first place. Like…it’s not getting in the way of understanding, is it?

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Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Featuring some great speakers and also me!

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Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Had a fantastic conversation with a gorgeous and clever couple from Melbourne on the train today. They wanted to know all about the trans history I do. God I need to keep going.

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Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I got asked by an interviewer from Radio Eins what song I *needed* them to play. “What Sarah Said”, I answered, “but I’ll definitely bawl.” They played What Sarah Said. And yes.

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Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

They can take your life, but they cannot take your penis, or something like that. In case you feel sorry for Pete, in that even he believes his cock is all he’s got going for him, please remember that his policy decisions are literally dick-waving exercises.

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Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I know lots of libs have had a field day making “closeted gay” jokes about Hegseth, and not only are they homophobic, they’re also wrong. It’s simpler than that, as Jazz points out. Hegseth is obsessed with penises because he honestly believes his is the only thing special about him, and thus men.

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Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I last saw Death Cab for Cutie at HQ in Adelaide in February 2012, and it was a brilliant show, and now 40 year-old Bodie is waving to 25 year-old Bodie and wondering if the setlists will have any overlap at all.

The entrance to a concert hall, the Columbiahalle, announcing tonight’s act: Death Cab for Cutie.

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Reposted by Bodie A. Ashton

Claire E. Aubin @ceaubin.com · 01/10/2026

Imagining people who do evil things to be devoid of empathy is a way of comforting oneself, because we all know that we feel empathy and therefore are not the kind of person who could do *that.* It’s much scarier to know that a conglomeration of circumstances can turn basically anybody bad.

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Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Yes, I don’t see a problem with this at all?

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Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

On the last, I don’t know, maybe there’s a difference in understanding styles of presentation but the climate skeptic hack interrupting and constantly laughing and sounding increasingly unhinged surely doesn’t stack up well against the calm(ish), measured(ish), admittedly stuttering boffin.

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Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Enjoying @ifbookspod.bsky.social ep on Climategate and with interesting lessons: 1. Media pundit incapable of pronouncing “East Anglia”; 2. Americans don’t know the word “boffin”??; and 3. Controversial but imo the prof on Newsnight was effective, insofar that his opponent sounded like a lunatic.

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Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Last weekend I walked into a wine and vinyl bar in Switzerland and had a great conversation with the owner, who picked out records he thought I’d be keen on based on my interests, and it was friendly and funny and good and I’ll happily go back. I don’t know why AI evangelists hate people so much.

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Mohamad Bazzi @mbazzi.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

“Show This to Anyone Denying Genocide” — front page of @scotnational.bsky.social

“Show This to Anyone Denying Genocide” — front page headline of The National, Scotland

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Reposted by Bodie A. Ashton

Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · 28/09/2026

It really gives the game away when the anti trans orgs are calling the election of the neo nazi party in Germany a "glimmer of hope."

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Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

The value of applying history to the present or future is not that “those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” It’s to recognise patterns and to extrapolate based on those patterns a range of possibilities, while at the same time engaging with the present on its own terms.

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Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

The two most frustrating things to be asked as a historian are “what’s going to happen?” and “what would have happened if X were different?” Neither offers any sort of concrete answer.

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Francois Soyer @fsoyer.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

First proofs of the forthcoming book have arrived in my email inbox from Bloomsbury. In classic fashion: in the middle of frantic marking and at the start of the school holidays. 🤦🏻‍♂️

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Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Given Bavarian parochialism I can’t imagine them being anything other than (justifiably) horrified by this monstrosity.

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Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I stand by the opinion that “A Day in the Life” is the most perfect song ever recorded.

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Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

It’s wild being in a connected world of idiocy, when someone on Bluesky uses a racist term and then claims that it’s okay because Australians use the term in a different, albeit still racist context.

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Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I have to come back as I’m leaving in an hour, but this quick jaunt has very much put Switzerland on the map for me.

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Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

“Mind blown” says someone whose mind must, in fact, be the easiest thing in the world to blow.

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Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Facebook nostalgia AI slop groups are always like “look at this amazing animation of this long-lost thing!” and a good four times out of five it’s a copy of an existing static photo except people are rotating slightly.

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Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Help I’ve so fallen in love with how beautiful Lucerne is that I’m in serious danger of saying “Grüezi” and calling chocolate “Schoggi.” Swiss German is really charming.

A view of the covered Kapellbrücke over the Reuss, which is perfectly turquoise. The bridge is covered in pink flowers. A mountain looms behind it.

Another angle of the bridge, also with a church in the background.

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Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

The rat, of course, is buying something from the one-of-a-kind, don’t-get-it-anywhere-else corner shop.

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Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

So: I’m not giving up, not yet. There’s work to be done, and it’s *human* work. The pressures of neoliberalism are near intolerable but as long as I can I’m going to keep doing this. Me, not Claude. Because AI is, and I cannot stress this enough, antithetical to our work. It is unjustifiable.

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Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

This comes on the back of constant reporting on the latest AI nonsense and funding bodies using AI to cull applications and other academics getting AI to do their research or write for them. In some ways it feels like my discipline is dying. But then I get to talk to rooms full of curious people.

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Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I’m unemployed since March and I’m still giving talks and writing articles and I’m shifting back to working on my book soon, and I love doing all of that but it’s hard when, despite that, despite an international profile, despite nearly two decades of teaching and research, I’m still unemployed.

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Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I’m giving a talk today in Lucerne (!!) on trans possibilities in the West German 1970s and it’s a really conflicting feeling. I’m thrilled to be here and it’s BEAUTIFUL (I’ll put up a picture or two later) but I’m struggling badly with the fact that I’m here without employer support.

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Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

When you’re subbing for a trans girl who doesn’t know it yet.

A street sign that says “Unter der Egg.”

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Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I *really* need to remember that I don't eat nearly as much as I used to when I go order food.

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Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I feel a lot of this deep in my bones.

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Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Deutsche Bahn gonna Deutsche Bahn. I have to travel tomorrow (a long way!) and I’ve booked a seat in carriage 14. The Bahn app is telling me that the train is made up of carriages 21-29, but it also confirms that I have a valid seat reservation in a carriage that, according to it, does not exist.

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Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Is Gill the Sandbrook of the twenty-third century?

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Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I feel like the John Gill Collected History will actually be shockingly reviewed when looked upon by actual historians, and yet it’s a book most households have.

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Bodie A. Ashton @manwithoutatan.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Man, I'm tired of death whittling away all the people in the core memories of my childhood.

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