iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

When I saw what he was holding I was so surprised & delighted.

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Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

One of the highlights of my term was a student coming up with a paperback copy he’d found and asking if he could write about it for one of our assignments. It’s a Post-1945 lit course, but I said Yes! anyway.

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Reposted by Matt Seybold

David Walker published An Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World in pamphlet form in 1829. It's one of the most important and influential abolitionist texts in U.S. history. Yet, very few people have actually read it and many people don't know who Walker was especially among young people.

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If Gen Z would just stand in line to see Steve’s movies 3 times apiece, the way Gen X did for Jaws and Raiders, maybe we could all get along. 🙄

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The Editorial Board @editorialboard.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Once I had accepted Blunt’s charismagic (which is more about Blunt than script) I was able to wave away the implausibility of the control room scenes (she mesmerized them via feed or whatever). But the self-mythologizing, monoculture-will-save-us, even the Musks, metadiscourse was a bridge to far.

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Reposted by Matt Seybold

1. I think the president of the United States really believes "there's never been anybody" who deserves the Nobel Peace Prize more than he does. He really believes he "settled eight wars." He really believes he stopped "the total obliteration of the world" by going to war with Iran.

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Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Against the AI Campus, a HELU workshop! understanding all the fronts of AI+Ed Tech on campus from admissions to healthcare; power mapping financial interests; contract language case studies; legislative+advocacy victory strategies plus PARTY! join us!! www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticket...

zeffy.com

Against the AI Campus: Building Power in Higher Ed

Welcome Reception / October 23 / 6-8 PM Central / Chicago, IL - private residence, details to comeWorkshop / October 24 / 9AM-5 PM Central / University of…

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I also do not like Mick Jagger, so I started listening. I’m only on episode two, but this is incredible podding.

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Gil Durán @gilduran.com · 10/10/2026

With the spate of new trade books about data politics & too late capitalism, I fear this one might be getting lost in the shuffle. As important as Big Tech & Silicon Valley VCs are, you can’t understand the present without attention to the restructuring of capital around fund managers after 2008.

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Reposted by Matt Seybold

TECH INFLUENCE WATCH (@molly.wiki) 👀 $526.6 million from tracked cryptocurrency and AI industry companies & individuals 🤨 $352.1 million "on hand"—held by crypto- & AI-focused committees. 🫠PAC spending: $179.8 million spent directly on federal elections this cycle influence.citationneeded.news

influence.citationneeded.news

Tech Influence Watch

Tracking cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence industry influence on 2026 elections in the United States.

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The Empathy Aliens Are Not Coming To Save Us

Disclosure Day is available on Peacock today. It is worth watching, if only so you can read my essay about it afterwards. (It’s also an entertaining & well-made, if politically naive, film, with two really excellent performances from Emily Blunt & Colin Firth.)

open.substack.com

2026: A SpaceX Odyssey

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My favorite kind of reply is one that parrots the point of the original post as though correcting & enlightening the original poster. "Have you thought this thought, the expression of which incited me to think the same thought, which I am now expressing as though it were a sprout without a seed?"

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Yes, I would surmise that trades publishers, much like universities, are broadly "obeying in advance." They don't want to publish anybody or anything that is going to get the wrong kind of attention, so they can lean on vanilla established brands or things that have already been "market-tested."

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3.) Publishers are (wrongly) conceding that nonfiction books have no special affordances, & failing to recognize the special affordances of podcasts/newsletters. 4.) This process selects for people who are good at doing their own publicity, then takes that responsibility away from them.

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1.) Very few viral essays (even good ones!) are worthy of 200+ pages. There are some rare exceptions (End Times Fascism, for instance), but mostly it makes for exasperating reading. 2.) The audience that's justifying your proof of concept already read the abridged version! There's no novelty.

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As somebody who reads a ton of nonfiction, here's what I think is happening. Activated by perceived encroachment from podcasts/newsletters, publishers/agents are buying books based on viral podcasts/essays (because, proof of concept, right?). There are a few problems with this strategy...

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Under no circumstances can posting be impaired. Someday soon, everything will be vertical videos narrated by AI Joe Rogan, but until then, smash "Post" like it's the oligarchy.

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So, I propose she takes whatever time this requires out of her Reality TV budget.

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My response to this news has oscillated between a.) there's almost nobody I'd rather have involved in what is certain to be a site of considerable shenanigans for the foreseeable future & b.) those shenanigans might make this dreadful, soul-crushing work & I want Dom to write & skeet & do podcasts.

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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

"Watching a microdrama is like being electrocuted onstage at the circus. If I sound hyperbolic, it is because there is no way to rationally respond to a medium designed to short-circuit rational thought."

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Reposted by Matt Seybold

Tell me again how it is good and proper for these companies to decide we can’t be mean to it’s word toaster but they can be mean to us humans.

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Reposted by Matt Seybold

The End of Sport @endofsportpod.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

The Political Economy of Fitness Data @jlcouture.bsky.social joins to discuss how digital health technologies, community, and capitalism intersect in the world of running and fitness. open.spotify.com/episode/1zlX...

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Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

America was an empty mall. America was shoddy caulk oozing from a vinyl arc in a historic heatwave. America was a brutishly redacted Frederick Douglass speech on foam posterboard in a tractor trailer Freedom Truck. America was not even selling corndogs. www.artnews.com/art-in-ameri...

artnews.com

How Defunding the Arts Wrought Civic Disintegration

What Was America?: Art, Culture, and Politics in the Bicentennial Era tackles United States’ most ambitious cultural project: the bicentennial.

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Yanis Varoufakis @yanisvaroufakis.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

It's too easy to call this cluster timely. Indeed, what they show is that feigned surprise at Epstein's sordid associations with prominent university men is designed to disguise continuity as aberration. edited by @kwazana.bsky.social & @tavia.bsky.social socialtextjournal.org/periscope_to...

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Reposted by Matt Seybold

44 yrs after completing my MSc there, I will gladly be returning to Birmingham University to speak to a hot topic: DEBT & POWER IN THE DIGITAL AGE. If you are in or around Birmingham on 19th November, come along: www.birmingham.ac.uk/events/debt-...

birmingham.ac.uk

Debt and Power in the Digital Age - University of Birmingham

The Guest Lectures organised by The Birmingham Business School Advisory Board.

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Yes! And part of a community of scholars from Literary & Media Studies who care about historicizing literacy to a degree literacy scholars from Education tend not to.

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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Anthropomorphism 🤝 Dehumanization

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Reposted by Matt Seybold

No, but really, outsourcing our own moral discernment to the talking word toaster is not reasonable or ultimately positive for humans so it’s okay. It is a machine. There’s no mortality to it being used as a machine. You don’t remote lock a guy for cussing out his tractor. What are we doing here?

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2.) There is no measure I am aware of which suggests print culture entered into obsolescence as soon as there was broadcast/filmic competition.

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I prefer not to call anybody out, at least not until I finish reading the book myself, because some of the mistakes may derive from Marriott's account. But, generally: 1.) People have surprising confidence as to when they think mass literacy was attained, which is a hard question to answer.

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James Marriott’s book is inducing some very smart people to say some very stupid things. The combo of education & media technology create a unique opportunity for people to be comically wrong about basic timelines.

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between this and language policing “super intelligence” i think i’m tapping out for the day

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It's a great assignment for students who crave "mindfulness." I don't see the crafting as much, but that might be because I don't give them much direction on what "counts" as media. It's part of having them start a conversation about definitions, modalities, affordances, etc.

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One of the best days of the term (today) is showing students the trends for preceding classes than having them predict whether & how their peer group will break.

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In this, definitely the most problematic category, overall usage collapsing to 2019 levels, but print reading ticking up, as are homework apps like Aktiv/Inquizitive. Nobody reported using ChatGPT or Claude. But not reading too much into that. Worth noting, there is no Canvas for MY course.

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Overall trend. Touching grass is winning. Combined use of social media, gaming, and streaming is down by more than 1.5 hours a day for this class compared to 2024. Netflix & HBO Max taking big hits.

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Social media is dying, with only the microvideo platforms retaining any active use. As recently as 2024 a third of students were on X, now zero.

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