iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Michael Erard @michaelerard.bsky.social · 1h

I read it somewhat differently. More as, “why all this needless complexity for something is actually quite simple (and therefore doesn’t need governance at all).” His reference to regulations that have to be checked, followed, etc

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Michael Erard @michaelerard.bsky.social · 4h

Maybe it’s not “good,” but it’s “governance”

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Michael Erard @michaelerard.bsky.social · 5h

In Which a Professor (Liberal? Who Knows) Dips a Toe in the Anti-System, Anti-Governance Grievance Waters From Which MAGA Springs go down to the sociology department, they’ll explain it to ya

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Michael Erard @michaelerard.bsky.social · 8h

Today, on the jackpot beat:

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Michael Erard @michaelerard.bsky.social · 8h

It also helps you explain why that guy was chasing his dog around in the ice

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Michael Erard @michaelerard.bsky.social · 11h

That’s one good lesson from those histories…

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Michael Erard @michaelerard.bsky.social · 12h

Parenting tip: feed them enough history about gold rushes and buried treasure to make them believe the future has a place for them, but limit the dose so they don’t end up like one of those guys on reality tv shows panning in desolate wildernesses with their third wives

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Michael Erard @michaelerard.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

no need for people with humanities or social science training in any of that either

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shanley @shanley.com · 06/10/2026

The platform that JD Vance will run on, American Dynamism, is technofascism as a series of major works projects that will give Americans jobs. It is basically tech fascist populism, they are being promised a better financial future.

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Laura Gwilliams @lauragwilliams.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

delighted to share my review article, out now in Trends in Cognitive Sciences! i have been thinking a lot about dynamics lately. this article outlines three key principles - persistence, parallelism, and time-stamped encoding - that support human speech comprehension 🧠✨🌀

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Josef Fruehwald @jofrhwld.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

yeah, and I think we'll have to start sending kids to brain gym young (like 5 or 6), obviously with age & developmentally appropriate brain workout content that they can work up through in, like, graded levels with qualified brain fitness instructors.

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Michael Erard @michaelerard.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

[the vice president of S&S, in an email to me] "I admire the way you have built a career around bridging academic discourse analysis with long form storytelling that illuminates the deep structures of human communication" why thank you chatbot how perceptive of you

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Michael Erard @michaelerard.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

That's how it should be read, not as a "how to learn languages guide," which is what some people wanted it to be.

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Michael Erard @michaelerard.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Any polyglot dreams I'd had I abandoned long before. But a discussion on the LINGUIST List made it clear that academic linguists couldn't agree on the phenomenon. Was it real or a hoax? The hyperpolyglot was a sort of cryptozoological figure, which is how I approached it & structured the book

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Michael Erard @michaelerard.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Is it really 21 years ago that I started down this path? Before any YouTube polyglot showed up, I was already looking into the phenomenon of hyperpolyglossia for New Scientist. (Paywall here, unfortunately.) www.newscientist.com/article/1875...

newscientist.com

Revealing the talents of the language masters | New Scientist

How come some people can learn dozens of foreign languages when many of us struggle with just one? Michael Erard investigates

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Science Magazine @science.org · 05/10/2026

A recent analysis in Science of more than 116,000 bird songs has revealed that the astonishing variety of passerine birdsong is built from just eight basic acoustic motifs, like trills, whistles, and harmonic notes. Learn more on #WorldAnimalDay: scim.ag/3SziyeL

A phylogenetic distribution and trait correlates of acoustic motifs in passerine birds. Hedline reads: The global biogeography of passerine songs

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Martha Crawford @whatashrinkthinks.com · 05/10/2026

Want to help us launch a podcast about dream work as a collective, creative, contemplative and community-building practice? Dream work is praxis, and any level of membership is deeply appreciated as encouragement!

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Michael Erard @michaelerard.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

former [abuser of substance] now bashes [substance]. former [member of religious group] now bashes [religious group]. former fan now bashes [sport/rock group]. apostasy sells second only next to hope

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Doctora Malka Older @older.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

NOT A SINGLE FUCKING THING. There was already so much to read, look at, learn, explore, collage, so much weirdness and trueness and falseness and brilliance on the internet. And it got fucked up not because people wanted to earn money, but because a few people were determined to earn a LOT of money

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The Vocal Fries @vocalfriespod.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Can't help but be a little jealous of someone who can carve out this exact beat

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Texas Observer @texasobserver.org · 03/10/2026

Featured story: We identified 20 episodes of Joe Rogan's podcast where he referred to James Talarico or Ken Paxton, since Talarico's original appearance. The result is a portrait of confusion & ignorance in one of the most powerful voices in politics.

texasobserver.org

Does Joe Rogan Care Who Wins the Texas Senate Race?

An exhaustive accounting of the Austin podcast giant's thoughts (and lack thereof) on James Talarico, Ken Paxton, and the electoral contest between them

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Sarah Kendzior @sarahkendzior.bsky.social · 15/11/2024

"The litmus test of whether the US is an entrenched mafia state has always been Kushner." Full article: sarahkendzior.substack.com/p/the-end-of...

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Michael Erard @michaelerard.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

There’s an idea for a soap opera

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Michael Erard @michaelerard.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Is the Vatican offering patronage? (And if it were who wouldn’t accept?)

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Michael Erard @michaelerard.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Last fall I had some speaking engagements and appearances which I really loved doing but the prep and travel meant I didn't write as much. This fall is different, and it's good to get back to writing days when I actually, you know, write

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Michael Erard @michaelerard.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

do you follow the close reading discourse in here?

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Mun-Keat Looi @munkeatlooi.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Exclusive: The BMJ has found that at least 7000 female students in Afghanistan are continuing to train for healthcare professions through online colleges and clandestine schools and hospital placements. buff.ly/xQd3MYM

buff.ly

Secret medical schools: How Afghanistan’s women are defying the training ban

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Michael Erard @michaelerard.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

here you are, thinking all your comms are smooth, except that "mosaic" is pronounced by the Dutch "mosah-eek," so they don't understand when you say "moh-zay-ik"

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Michael Erard @michaelerard.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I wrote this incorrectly, it should have been "a gift of some high surprisal"

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Brent Toderian @brenttoderian.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

READ: If you haven’t seen this yet, please take a look. Motonormativity ("car brain") is a bias that stops people from making rational judgements about driving. This study co-authored by @ianwalker.bsky.social looks at where this bias comes from & how it works. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Screetshot of study title “Why Do Cars Get A Free Ride?” #CarBrain #Motonormativity

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Michael Erard @michaelerard.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I get letters in the mail: "Your work on polyglotism has been magisterial, and Babel No More is an outstanding book."

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Michael Erard @michaelerard.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

"Truth to pain" gets at the politics of hypernormalization that I think is needed. We need to say, "I know things are strange, I know you're anxious, but the way you're going about making yourself feel normal is a short-term fix. Let's talk about how everybody wants to feel normal."

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Michael Erard @michaelerard.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Chasing down the earliest use of "surprisal" and here the trail goes a bit cold. But at least there's the gift of some surprisal in the process!

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Michael Erard @michaelerard.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

i was absolutely delighted to find this collection of articles on errors and other failures in rituals which prompts the thought that if i were to be teaching, it would be great to do a course on error brill.com/display/titl...

brill.com

When Rituals go Wrong: Mistakes, Failure, and the Dynamics of Ritual

"When Rituals go Wrong: Mistakes, Failure, and the Dynamics of Ritual" published on 24 Apr 2007 by Brill.

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