iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Adrienne Fichter @adfichter.eurosky.social · 2m

Palantir invited itself to the EPFL (ETH Lausanne) university careers fair... This caused an uproar amongst the students. Now the venue, SwissTech Convention Center, did univite them...

Lausanne, le 29 septembre 2026,
Palantir, qui figurait parmi les entreprises annoncées pour le Forum EPFL 2026, ne participera
finalement pas à l'événement.
Le Forum EPFL a pour mission de mettre en relation les étudiants de l'EPFL avec un large éventail
d'employeurs. La participation de Palantir entrait dans ce cadre, au même titre que celle des
autres exposants.
La décision de ne pas accueillir l'entreprise a été prise par le SwissTech Convention Center, qui
accueille le Forum. L'annonce de la présence de Palantir a suscité une forte agitation, qui s'est
traduite par des dégradations sur le campus ainsi que par des publications et messages haineux
sur les réseaux sociaux. Dans ce contexte, le STCC a considéré que le risque de troubles
pendant l'événement était trop élevé pour accepter la présence de l'entreprise dans ses locaux.
En tant que gestionnaire du lieu, il est pleinement en droit de prendre cette décision. Le Forum
EPFL en a pris acte et Palantir en a été informée.
Nous souhaitons être transparents sur ce point : le retrait de Palantir ne résulte ni d'un choix du
comité du Forum, ni d'un jugement sur les activités de l'entreprise. Il découle d'une évaluation
des risques liés à la sécurité de l'événement.
Le Forum EPFL respecte la liberté de chacun d'exprimer son désaccord, y compris envers les
entreprises présentes. Nous condamnons en revanche fermement les dégradations et les propos
haineux, qui ne peuvent en aucun cas être considérés comme une forme légitime de débat.
Le Forum EPFL 2026 aura lieu comme prévu du 5 au 9 octobre au SwissTech Convention Center.
Nous nous réjouissons de vous y accueillir.
Le comité de direction du Forum EPFL 2026

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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 34m

Counterpoint: It would be great if people read some of the things that have been written about AI surveillance of workers! press.princeton.edu/books/hardco... www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/hilke... www.cambridge.org/core/books/q... www.ucpress.edu/books/uberla... jacobin.com/2026/09/amaz...

press.princeton.edu

Data Driven

A behind-the-scenes look at how digital surveillance is affecting the trucking way of life

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Bergwelt🇨🇭 @bergwelt.me · 9h

Ende September: Das #Matterhorn ist schneefrei. 😢 Der #Klimawandel setzt den #Alpen immer mehr zu. Laut MeteoSchweiz war es von April bis September in der #Schweiz so warm und so trocken wie noch nie in den vergangenen 160 Jahren.

Vergleichsbild des Matterhorns vom 29. September 2026 und 29. September 2025. Oben ist die Landschaft rund um das Matterhorn weitgehend schneefrei und von grauem Geröll und Fels geprägt. Unten sind das Matterhorn und die umliegenden Hänge ein Jahr zuvor grossflächig mit Schnee bedeckt.

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Cas Mudde @casmudde.bsky.social · 2h

The decline of Reform — and the fragmentation of the far right — should be a major news story too. But most media barely care… More evidence that media are not “just reporting the news” but are actively shaping it. With significant political consequences.

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Quinn Slobodian @quinnslobodian.com · 1h

I had seen the VC move to Miami as mostly tax avoidance but Griffin's $3b gift for a twin of Carnegie Mellon there suggests a more sustained effort to make it a new tech-higher ed alternative hub to the Northeast and SF.

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Quinn Slobodian @quinnslobodian.com · 16h

Interesting that the ICC is the test case for genuine digital sovereignty.

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CIDOB (Barcelona Centre for International Affairs) @cidobbarcelona.bsky.social · 2h

"El jardín y el enjambre han sido sustituidos por una visión de la sociedad como una factoría", en el #AnuarioCIDOB2027, Quinn Slobodian analiza el uso de metáforas del mundo natural para describir la sociedad humana, y su evolución a lo largo del tiempo

cidob.org

Jardín, enjambre, factoría: metáforas biológicas de la sociedad

En el siglo XVIII, el estudio de los pólipos y sus desconcertantes hallazgos comenzaron a tener repercusión sobre la teoría política. Estas criaturas marin

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Philip Ball @philipcball.bsky.social · 5h

Oh I have been waiting for someone to dig into this issue. 👏 "The spectre of population collapse serves highly concrete economic purposes...world-building and market domination go hand in hand in the current fertility obsession manifested by tech elites." www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

tandfonline.com

Tech oligarchs’ obsession with pronatalism and fertility markets

Published in Science as Culture (Vol. 35, No. 3, 2026)

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Science as Culture @sciasculture.bsky.social · 5h

Volume 35, Issue 3 is finally out with the first part of the Forum on Tech Oligarchy! Edited by @keanbirch.bsky.social, the issue includes 14 articles about the emergence and the political, economic, and social implications of techno-financial elites. 🔗https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/csac20/current

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Quinn Slobodian @quinnslobodian.com · 16h

This is not a cave; it's a refuge.

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Brian Schaffner @bfschaffner.bsky.social · 21h

we’re hiring an assistant professor in American politics 🐘 apply.interfolio.com/194599

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Quinn Slobodian @quinnslobodian.com · 16h

Totally Radically Awesome Cool Intelligence

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Hunter Walker @hunterw.bsky.social · 16h

This is incredible

America.gov
Menu
You are the constituent. The story. The program. The human. Made from nothing but milk and love. Eligible, on paper, for several things you have not asked about yet.
Let's go further back.
The seven billion billion billion atoms of the constituent's body were created, long before this site, in the heart of a star. So the constituent, too, is information from a star. And the constituent moves through a story, which is a forest of information planted by a Congress, on a map created by a surveyor, that exists inside a small, private world created by the constituent, who inhabits a republic created by...

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Graham Webster @gwbstr.com · 16h

Reporter (roughly): What's up with the US calling AI "superintelligence"? Chinese spox (roughly): The two leaders talked about "artificial intelligence." We respect the US side's "formulation." (A "formulation"/提法 is what they call the CCP set terms, like socialism with Chinese characteristics...)

外交部发言人就人工智能问题答记者问
2026-09-26 18:20

【中大小】打印

问：我们注意到，美方在介绍此次访问成果时，使用“超级智能”代替“人工智能”。请问中方有何评论？
答：中美元首会晤时，就人工智能问题进行了深入讨论。关于人工智能表述问题，中方重视美方的立场，也尊重美方的提法。人工智能技术正在持续发展，各方可以结合最新形势，加强交流、深入探讨、寻求共识。

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Quinn Slobodian @quinnslobodian.com · 16h

Feel like we don't talk enough about the 50,000 North Koreans fighting in Ukraine.

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Bentley Allan @bentleyallan.bsky.social · 16h

oh hey that's us in @alanbeattie.bsky.social's Trade Secrets

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Quinn Slobodian @quinnslobodian.com · 16h

Interesting that the ICC is the test case for genuine digital sovereignty.

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Ali Rıza Taşkale @alirizataskale.bsky.social · 23h

Thanks, Kean, and the Science as Culture team! Now in print. Palantir sits at the centre of an emerging military-tech complex. Its contracts keep growing as the tech elite’s extinction talk shifts from AI to China, and regulation is cast as a gift to a rival power.

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Quinn Slobodian @quinnslobodian.com · 29/09/2026

As some of the old guard neoliberal/libertarian think tanks flounder in the changing environment (e.g. Cato), the climate denying wing (here: Heartland) continue to thrive.

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Walter Ötsch @woetsch.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

... vorbereitet seit Jahren vom Hayek-Institut unter Barbara Kolm = Gutes Beispiel, wie früher globalistisch eingestellte Neoliberale immer rechtsextremer wurden -> Slobodian "Hayek's Bastards" für USA. Heute ist Synthese d Libertären mit Extremrechten Regierungspolitik in USA: das droht uns in EU.

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Quinn Slobodian @quinnslobodian.com · 29/09/2026

Interesting interpretation of the postcolonial dynamics in Geert Wilders's partially Indonesian ancestry. web.archive.org/web/20110720...

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The Moscow Times @themoscowtimes.com · 28/09/2026

Sophie Pinkham’s “The Oak and the Larch: A Forest History of Russia and its Empires” has won the Pushkin House Book Prize 2026. In an interview, she spoke about the forest’s hold on the Russian imagination and its links to colonialism:

themoscowtimes.com

‘The Forest Shaped Russian Life’: Sophie Pinkham on the Woodlands That Built an Empire - The Moscow Times

Forests have served as both refuge and resource throughout Russian history.

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Julien Migozzi @jmigozzi.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Can't wait for the "oh no, our bonds have gone rogue" moment

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ProfAFinlayson @profafinlayson.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

“The idea that preparing students to succeed in an AI-saturated world requires reimagining college as an AI incubator is not a sign of technological acumen, but of tech illiteracy. An LLM is not an aircraft requiring years of training to operate.” www.chronicle.com/article/harv...

chronicle.com

Opinion | The Ivy League’s Surrender to AI Is Insane

When college leaders drink the corporate Kool-Aid, the liberal arts die.

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Quinn Slobodian @quinnslobodian.com · 28/09/2026

Deacademicization is an ugly word we will have to learn to pronounce.

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Albert Pinto @70sbachchan.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

NEW: The big story is not Chinese EVs everywhere —but Chinese EV factories everywhere. And its not just Chinese firms going out. Our CM-FDI database tracks every foreign Solar, Wind, EV and battery manufacturing plant built in 21st century. cmfdi.netzeropolicylab.com

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Julia Carrie Wong @joolia.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

yes my bull went rogue in your china shop but I think we can all agree there’s no liability here it’s an agentic being

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Quinn Slobodian @quinnslobodian.com · 28/09/2026

Me and @bentarnoff.com went long (is there any other way to go?) for @thedigradio.bsky.social with our friend @danieldenvir.bsky.social thedig.blubrry.net/podcast/musk...

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Quinn Slobodian @quinnslobodian.com · 28/09/2026

feels like a neologism waiting to happen: hyperbonds? claudebonds?

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James Boxall 🇨🇦🍁 @jamesgis.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

“For them, the messiness of democracy has no function or utility. It is only bad code.” Quinn Slobodian Well worth Sunday morning coffee read. #Ai #TechBros www.theguardian.com/technology/n...

theguardian.com

Democracy blindsides Silicon Valley’s power players looking to transform the world with AI

‘The push against datacenters speaks to the frustration of people who don’t feel they are making the choices in their lives’

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Quinn Slobodian @quinnslobodian.com · 26/09/2026

currently leading Best Party Name

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Quinn Slobodian @quinnslobodian.com · 26/09/2026

I was in the "Tech Bros" section of @derstandard.at

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Quinn Slobodian @quinnslobodian.com · 25/09/2026

Bari Weiss giving the Axel Springer prize to Peter Thiel, Dutschke was right about everything.

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Quinn Slobodian @quinnslobodian.com · 25/09/2026

This wrap www.ft.com/content/e8a8...

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Quinn Slobodian @quinnslobodian.com · 25/09/2026

I'm reminded of Magnitogorsk, where they built worker's flats with toilets that hooked up to no sewers.

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Quinn Slobodian @quinnslobodian.com · 24/09/2026

Curious that the hard tech crowd doesn’t celebrate Ukraine more as it is a concrete example of a successful highly competitive startup ecosystem carrying out what the journalist Nataliya Gumenyuk calls the “first grassroots revolution in military affairs.”

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Quinn Slobodian @quinnslobodian.com · 23/09/2026

Vertical (ideological) integration

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Quinn Slobodian @quinnslobodian.com · 23/09/2026

Evola slop is one possible future for higher ed.

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Quinn Slobodian @quinnslobodian.com · 22/09/2026

“My friends,” he said, “call me the Harriet Tubman of white people.”

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Quinn Slobodian @quinnslobodian.com · 22/09/2026

Two jobs in the school of global studies at BU where I work: Asst Prof, International Economic Policy bit.ly/4hFl5h6 Prof of Practice, Global Economic Development Policy bit.ly/4Ant5e2

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