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Nik Janos

@nik-janos.bsky.social
87 followers 102 following 61 posts

Writing a book about Northwest hydropower and writes about AI and higher ed. Professor of Sociology, California State University Chico. nikjanos.org

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Reposted by Nik Janos
Nils Gilman @nilsgilman.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
The main AI risks don't derive from the models themselves, but from the failure of humans to monitor & control them. This is how all technology works.
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Nils Gilman @nilsgilman.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
The backlash against data centers is not a backlash against AI qua *technology*; it’s rather that data centers have become a site of cathexis for people’s sense of powerlessness in contrast to the unaccountable power of the AI *companies* www.politico.com/news/2026/09...
politico.com
Americans love AI. They don’t want the data centers that power it.
The disconnect is becoming a political problem for Trump and politicians in both parties as voters embrace AI tools while revolting against the infrastructure needed to power them.
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Nik Janos @nik-janos.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Come for the Arday Affair, stay for the blistering indictment of higher education.
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Nik Janos @nik-janos.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Google search: Reddit ChatGPT: Reddit It’s Reddit all the way down
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Sky Marchini @sky.skymarchini.net · 31/07/2026
jesus. www.dw.com/en/germanys-...
dw.com
Germany's heat death toll nears 10,000
Germany's heat-related death toll for 2026 has already surpassed every full-year total since 2016 — and is expected to climb as another spell of extreme temperatures takes hold.
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Nik Janos @nik-janos.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Sittin back watching non-Greeks decide who is and who isn’t Greek. 🤷🏻‍♂️
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EdSource @edsource.org · 21/05/2026
California State University's $17 million contract with OpenAI has been met with criticism, but canceling it would create fragmentation and inequity. Instead, the focus should be on finding a constructive path forward for AI in higher education.
buff.ly
COMMENTARY: Canceling that Cal State ChatGPT contract does not solve the AI problem; it might make it worse
California State University's $17 million contract with OpenAI has been met with criticism, but canceling it would create fragmentation and inequity. Instead, the focus should be on finding a…
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Nik Janos @nik-janos.bsky.social · 16/01/2026
It’s the year 2026 and not only are we still serving milk to every student but milk has somehow taken the stage in the culture wars. She probably hiding but the one person who can save us is @emelaniedupuis.bsky.social 😉
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Melts Into Air @meltsintoair.bsky.social · 20/11/2025
Nik Janos and Zach Justus in @insidehighered.com arguing nostalgia detracts from honest conversations about AI in higher education. www.insidehighered.com/opinion/view...
insidehighered.com
No, the Pre-AI Era Was Not That Great (opinion)
Misplaced nostalgia doesn’t get us anywhere.
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Reposted by Nik Janos
Inside Higher Ed @insidehighered.com · 20/11/2025
Opinion | No, the Pre-AI Era Was Not That Great Misplaced nostalgia doesn’t get us anywhere. bit.ly/4pk3uwa #EDUSky #HigherEd #AcademicSky
The letters "AI" against a purple cloud-like background, dotted with 0s and 1s to suggest binary code.
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Nik Janos @nik-janos.bsky.social · 20/11/2025
Me and Zach Justus in @insidehighered.com popping the nostalgia bubble about pre-AI higher ed. www.insidehighered.com/opinion/view...
insidehighered.com
No, the Pre-AI Era Was Not That Great (opinion)
Misplaced nostalgia doesn’t get us anywhere.
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Nik Janos @nik-janos.bsky.social · 10/10/2025
Fantastic thread on nationalism as a social thing and historical process but also on the dubious ways that social scientists and the rest often practice a “methodological nationalism” to interpret social forms of all variation (networks, scales, places etc).
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Ned Resnikoff @resnikoff.bsky.social · 04/10/2025
Probably dumb as hell to publish this on a Friday afternoon, but the clock is ticking to get @gavinnewsom.bsky.social to sign SB 79. Please share — and, if you're a Californian, please call the governor's office at (916) 445-2841 to ask for his signature. publiccomment.blog/p/newsom-s-f...
publiccomment.blog
Newsom's Fateful Choice
Why the governor needs to sign SB 79
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Numbers Fuckstein’s Monster @drwalpurgisnacht.bsky.social · 12/09/2025
An assassin writes Bella Ciao in the same breath as a Notices Your Bulge meme on his bullets. One of the government responses is a practicing Hindu asserting that the fundamentalist Christian victim will join him in a Norse pagan afterlife. Welcome to the epistemic collapse.
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Nik Janos @nik-janos.bsky.social · 21/06/2025
Bingo! What a post.
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Nik Janos @nik-janos.bsky.social · 26/05/2025
Joins a long list of ways people treat “the environment” as a means to an end. Ex: I don’t like thing. Environment environment! Thing bad.
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Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · 29/04/2025
To underscore its importance, my new article w/ @fredstaffordcs.bsky.social came out on the day of the huge Iberian blackout. We argue the left/liberal's fixation on increasing renewables often downplays (or rejects) how grid reliability must be central to any winning electricity politics.
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ae @aelkus.bsky.social · 17/04/2025
people wanted a luxury belief presidency that would give them the means to live out the indulgences they craved while making them richer. They got a bunch of meth tweakers ripping everything out of the walls
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Nik Janos @nik-janos.bsky.social · 15/04/2025
Let’s go #Cascadia! Unite British Columbia-Washington-Oregon-California.
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Nik Janos @nik-janos.bsky.social · 14/04/2025
So deglobalize textiles but globalize American prisons. They’re gonna offshore human rights abuses of Americans if they can.
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Nik Janos @nik-janos.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
Paging Max Weber and Wendy Brown: we need a new ethic of responsibility.
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James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
The message from the Left should be: tariffs bad, industrial policy good. Sure, there are niche cases where tariffs might be useful as part of industrial policy, but it really weakens the message to add qualifiers. Fight unreservedly against the thing destroying the economy.
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𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝙲. 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚗 @charlescmann.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
This NYTimes story exemplifies one of the stupidest aspects of DOGE's crusade to "cut government spending." DOGE fired a NOAA employee who supervises a dozen NW salmon hatcheries to ensure they comply with the Endangered Species Act and other laws and it may screw up salmon harvests for years. 1/14
nytimes.com
NOAA Staffing Cuts Threaten Years of Salmon Harvests (Gift Article)
In Washington, where salmon is a multibillion dollar industry, government staff terminations and budget freezes may put salmon production at risk.
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ae @aelkus.bsky.social · 08/04/2025
imagine the Downfall meltdown scene as an online all hands Teams meeting
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Liam Knox @liamknox.bsky.social · 08/04/2025
We're tracking student visa revocations at Inside Higher Ed. If you know of any that aren't on our map--or want to report numbers from your own institution--email me (liam.knox@insidehighered.com) or @amowreader.com (ashley.mowreader@insidehigered.com) www.insidehighered.com/news/global/...
insidehighered.com
Where Students Have Had Their Visas Revoked
The Trump administration has quietly revoked hundreds of student visas across the country, wrecking havoc on the system.
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Nils Gilman @nilsgilman.bsky.social · 08/04/2025
I want to tear my hair out when I see people cheering charts like in this skeet. From a climate change mitigation perspective the ONLY thing that matters is ABSOLUTE carbon emissions — not the ratio of renewable to hydrocarbons, not the energy intensivity per unit of output, or anything else.
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Christopher Mims @mims.bsky.social · 08/04/2025
We're gonna do a covid supply shock to ourselves, I really think this needs to be the message, because we all lived through that and nothing makes the complete disruption of global supply chains more visceral
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Yakov Feygin @buddyyakov.bsky.social · 04/04/2025
In brighter news CPE is going to keep fighting for public policy action until the bitter end. A new initiative we’re launching: publicenterprise.org/report/enhan...
publicenterprise.org
Enhanced Geothermal Consortium for the Mountain West
Read the full report here. Next-generation geothermal technologies are at the frontier of energy development in the United States. Drawing on drilling techniques developed during the shale boom, en...
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Chris Murphy @chrismurphyct.bsky.social · 03/04/2025
Those trying to understand the tariffs as economic policy are dangerously naive. No, the tariffs are a tool to collapse our democracy. A means to compel loyalty from every business that will need to petition Trump for relief. 1/ A 🧵 to explain his plan and how we fight back.
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Nik Janos @nik-janos.bsky.social · 01/04/2025
What did we all think four decades of a right wing anti-government crusade meant? Vibes? Essays?
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Venkatesh Rao 🔹 @vgr.bsky.social · 31/03/2025
Wrapping up my weekend trilogy on education. Please share with any educators you know. open.substack.com/pub/contrapt...
open.substack.com
What Makes a Good Teacher?
The timeless question of education beneath the urgent crises of 2025
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brasidas @brasidas.bsky.social · 28/03/2025
The environmental impact of AI is entirely overblown. There are a lot of reasons to decry AI. AI’s energy use isn’t one of them. All computation (across every type of computer) uses less energy than aluminum refining.
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Nik Janos @nik-janos.bsky.social · 24/03/2025
I am enjoying writing my current book, perhaps the most fun I’ve had in my career, but a day doesn’t go by that I ponder “what the hell am I doing and why am I doing it?”
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Nik Janos @nik-janos.bsky.social · 24/03/2025
What are good examples of the “just transition thesis” working, where environmental justice accompanies decarbonization (a win-win)? At what scale? How fast?
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Martha Bellisle @marthabellisle.bsky.social · 15/03/2025
AP Exclusive: Trump administration workforce cuts at the federal agencies that oversee the nation's dams are jeopardizing their ability to provide reliable electricity, provide water for irrigation and control flooding, workers and dam-safety experts warn. apnews.com/article/dams...
apnews.com
Critics warn staff cuts at federal agencies overseeing US dams could put public safety at risk
Experts are warning that Trump administration workforce cuts at federal agencies overseeing U.S. dams are threatening their ability to provide reliable electricity, supply water to farmers and protect...
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Nils Gilman @nilsgilman.bsky.social · 15/03/2025
Scholarly research is about to experience an unprecedented vortex, as two huge air masses clash: the cold air mass of radical federal defunding of academia, OTOH, and the hot air mass of AI-enabled research, OTO. The tornadoes spinning out of this confluence will remake the intellectual landscape.
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Joshua Holland @joshuaholland.bsky.social · 09/03/2025
Dude was visiting his fiancé, who lives in Vegas. His English isn’t good so he misunderstood the border goons when they asked where he lives, he said Vegas, they took him away for questioning without a translator and now he’s been in a jail for two weeks.
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Nik Janos @nik-janos.bsky.social · 05/03/2025
It’s very possible that within a few years Artificial General Intelligence will replace climate change as the defining political crisis of our time. Big implications for those concerned about climate.
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 04/03/2025
Trump moves to take total control of FERC. You can say goodbye to any substantial transmission-planning or distributed-energy reforms.
eenews.net
Legal experts sound alarm over Trump bid to control FERC
Scholars and former FERC officials warn that political interventions could harm energy markets.
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Gregor Macdonald @gregor.us · 25/02/2025
I wish it wasn't Yergin who's saying it, but, it needs to be said. "In other words, what has been unfolding is not so much an “energy transition” as an “energy addition.” Rather than replacing conventional energy sources, the growth of renewables is coming on top of that of conventional sources."🔌💡
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Nik Janos @nik-janos.bsky.social · 21/02/2025
Me and Zach Justus in IHE on the MAGA coding of AI and what it means for higher education.
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ae @aelkus.bsky.social · 14/02/2025
coming to really hate how social media has made writing itself worse because you cannot write anything without a million caveats
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Andrew Berzanskis @aberzanskis.bsky.social · 07/02/2025
News headlines about publishing usually focus on problems! Not the everyday successes that happen outside the spotlight. So I appreciate @derekkrissoff.bsky.social reminding folks in the @chronicle.com: university presses are thriving & making extraordinary books. www.chronicle.com/article/this...
chronicle.com
Opinion | This Is a Golden Age for University Presses
The focus on efficiency and innovation misses the point: We are producing fabulous books.
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Andrew Berzanskis @aberzanskis.bsky.social · 07/02/2025
Next month, OU Press will publish "The Opposite of Cheating: Teaching for Integrity in the Age of AI" by @tbertramgallant.bsky.social and David A. Rettinger. For a sneak peek, here is an insightful author interview with the @edsurge.com podcast. www.edsurge.com/news/2025-01...
edsurge.com
AI Has Changed Student Cheating. But Strategies to Stop It Remain Consistent. - EdSurge News
In a new book, a long-time expert on academic integrity argues that understating why students cheat is key to making adjustments in teaching to prevent ...
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Childless Dog Lady is on sabbatical. 🍉🌺 @sgbuggs.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
holy hell someone in an SUV did a hit and run on sociologist Michael Burawoy and killed him!!!! www.mercurynews.com/2025/02/04/o...
mercurynews.com
Oakland resident dead in hit-and-run crash at intersection
The collision happened around 7:10 p.m. Monday near the entrance to Children’s Fairyland.
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Nils Gilman @nilsgilman.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
An “self-coup” (enabling a President to rule by decree) entails two steps: (1) the President sidelines the legislative branch by issuing orders rather than relying on legislation; (2) the President sidelines the judicial branch by ignoring court orders declaring the former step illegal. Here we go:
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ae @aelkus.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
First post of the new war, on a subject that I really wish I didn't have to revisit again: Trump adamelkus.com/posts/newtr @adamgurri.liberalcurrents.com
adamelkus.com
Pricing In The Circus
You are not the clown, you are the whole circus
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Andrew Berzanskis @aberzanskis.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
Even rockier times ahead for academia. I hope that any scholar serving as a peer reviewer will recognize the headwinds facing writers of serious books right now & feel the urgency to use peer review as an opportunity for solidarity in building things up, not tearing them down.
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Nils Gilman @nilsgilman.bsky.social · 27/01/2025
To survive the coming assault from MAGA, universities need to focus on (a) training students in technical competencies; (b) promoting the discovery of new facts about & conceptions of the world; and (c) preserving & transmitting the knowledge that already exists. open.substack.com/pub/nilsgilm...
open.substack.com
Reforming the research university
U.S. research universities face a uniquely dangerous moment. Radical reform will be required to survive the coming assault. Tl;dr: time to get back (and stick) to the knitting
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tweety fish @sifu.tweety.fish · 27/01/2025
One of the reasons I’ve been kind of meh on the ecological footprint arguments against “AI” is that 1) there’s no particular technical reasons things can’t get vastly more efficient and 2) “just add scale” has diminishing returns. It turns out tech… investors… didn’t… know this?
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