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Will Wilkinson

@wlknsn.xyz
14K followers 4.2K following 1.9K posts

Tech policy and government affairs guy. Ex-Block, Niskanen, NYT, Economist, Cato. Los Angeles / Iowa City

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Reposted by Will Wilkinson
David_j_roth @davidjroth.bsky.social · 10h
This is as clearly as I've seen this spelled out. If the PCSA smelled off to you but you didn't know quite why, this interview offers very lucid proof that you were correct. defector.com/an-antitrust...
What you're saying is, the antitrust exemptions in the NBA, MLB, NFL, etc. are allowed as a result of the collective bargaining process, whereas the PCSA seeks a similar exemption by circumventing the collective bargaining process. Is that correct?

Generally, yes. When we talk specifically about labor markets, all of the restraints that we see in labor markets of our professional sports leagues—the salary cap, the draft, the limits on player movement, every single one of them—to the extent that they're exempt from antitrust law, are the products of good-faith collective bargaining between the management group and the players group, and exist in a collective bargaining agreement that was reached through good-faith bargaining.

What is being proposed with the Protect College Sports Act is to establish the exact same types of labor restraints, specifically a salary cap, specifically a number of years of eligibility to compete in college sports, and specifically limits on transfers, but not to do so in collective bargaining where there are representatives in the room, on behalf of employer and employee, but rather through a legislative bill, which seems to be negotiated by a number of different constituent groups, none of which is a representative of the players in any meaningful sense, and absolutely none of which have been chosen and selected by the players as a union representative.
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Will Wilkinson @wlknsn.xyz · 07/10/2026
Easy question but I’ll let others chime in first.
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Reposted by Will Wilkinson
elias isquith @eliasisquith.blog · 06/10/2026
i find debates about what the constitution “really means” to be intolerably strange and decadently mystical.
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Will Wilkinson @wlknsn.xyz · 06/10/2026
Cover says 2015
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Will Wilkinson @wlknsn.xyz · 03/10/2026
DoorDash does not agree.
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Will Wilkinson @wlknsn.xyz · 29/09/2026
Ugh.
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Will Wilkinson @wlknsn.xyz · 29/09/2026
The mood is upbeat here in Iowa City thanks to Saturday’s miracle at The Big House and today’s Atlanta Hawkeyes gaffe.
static.klipy.com
Caitlin Clark Cc
ALT: Caitlin Clark Cc
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Reposted by Will Wilkinson
Max Dubler 🏳️‍🌈 @maxdubler.com · 28/09/2026
So-called “inclusionary zoning,” the practice of requiring home builders to rent new apartments at a loss to low-income tenants, is a tax on new housing that worsens the housing shortage and raises rents overall in exchange for a handful of means-tested units. It’s bad policy!
thecooldown.com
Greater Boston builders say affordable-unit rules stall housing, but Boston won't budge
Developers and city leaders across Greater Boston are clashing over whether affordable-housing requirements are helping address the region's housing shortage.
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Reposted by Will Wilkinson
Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Tennessee plans to execute a woman tomorrow. She was 18 when she committed the crime. She's now 50. Like most on death row, she's also a victim. And like most on death row, she's a far different person now than she was then. No one humanizes the condemned better than @lilianasegura.bsky.social.
theintercept.com
The “Satanic Panic” Made Her a True-Crime Obsession. The Truth Is More Haunting.
After 30 years on death row, Christa Pike faces execution for a grisly murder she committed at 18.
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Perry Bacon @perrybaconjr.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
"The 'economic issues not culture wars' frame adopted by much of the Democratic Party is entirely wrongheaded. It’s an example of intellectual dishonesty, moral cowardice, historical inaccuracy, and flawed electoral politics all wrapped together." newrepublic.com/article/2159...
newrepublic.com
Why Democrats Should Stop Using the Phrase “Culture Wars”
Texas’s Gina Hinojosa and others slamming the party for focusing too much on so-called cultural issues are pushing a flawed electoral and policy strategy.
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Will Wilkinson @wlknsn.xyz · 29/09/2026
Can’t wait for the steel factory we’re definitely getting!
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ae @aelkus.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
i think that the end goal of a lot of tech companies at this point is to destroy any point social or psychological mediation the individual has left, such that there are any only atomized individuals connected by computer networks, with the tech company oligarch as the owner or operator of said nets
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ae @aelkus.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
i broadly agree with the thesis, but not the way that WBF argued it
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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
A provocative article in Rolling Stone titled "What some folks really mean when they claim to have never done the Humpty Hump."
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Will Wilkinson @wlknsn.xyz · 27/09/2026
I turned off Iowa-Michigan when Iowa was down with like 4 seconds left, sure the Hawkeyes had lost. What a pleasant surprise.
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JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
This is the master key to deciphering contemporary debates about free speech. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/se...
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Will Wilkinson @wlknsn.xyz · 24/09/2026
Is there another example of a market bubble driven by an ideological moral panic at all analogous to the way x-risk/alignment/“rationalist”/EA dogma are the driving force behind the AI boom? I cant think of anything else quite like it.
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Will Wilkinson @wlknsn.xyz · 24/09/2026
“Our models took actions we did not intend” = “we intentionally directed our software to perform a task without human supervision knowing that it is inherently unpredictable and might implicate us in the violation of laws or damage to others’ systems but we’d prefer to be exempt from liability, thx”
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Will Wilkinson @wlknsn.xyz · 23/09/2026
Lol
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Will Wilkinson @wlknsn.xyz · 23/09/2026
I don’t think they’re intelligent for the same reason I don’t think submarines can swim.
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Will Wilkinson @wlknsn.xyz · 23/09/2026
This book had a big influence on me in grad school!
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Will Wilkinson @wlknsn.xyz · 23/09/2026
Oh, that's awesome. That's exactly what I think. Thanks!
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Will Wilkinson @wlknsn.xyz · 23/09/2026
The interesting question is, imo, "What DO we call this, how do we talk about what LLMs do without confusing ourselves, because their output feels a lot like thinking/believing/knowing, even though it clearly isn't."
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Will Wilkinson @wlknsn.xyz · 23/09/2026
It actually is pretty simple.
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Will Wilkinson @wlknsn.xyz · 23/09/2026
We also have a sad history of being easily tricked into imputing life and/or intelligence to machines. But it's also easy to not do that, if you try.
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Will Wilkinson @wlknsn.xyz · 23/09/2026
Look, let's clear this up. LLMs can't think or understand because those are evolved capabilities of embodied living organisms embedded in the physical and social world and LLMs aren't that. Don't make it harder than it is.
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Will Wilkinson @wlknsn.xyz · 22/09/2026
This story is so funny. Nobody at the University actually wants this center; it's being imposed by a bunch of MAGA Regents. But they can't competently impose their counter-programming program because just about everybody involved is a combative right-wing ideologue with a victim complex.
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Reposted by Will Wilkinson
Dave @daveamp.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
This is absolutely hilarious. There have been times when I would have cast a vote of no confidence in the Board of Regents, but not this time.
thegazette.com
Resignations follow no-confidence vote at Center for Intellectual Freedom
Casting a “vote of no confidence” in the Legislature’s Center for Intellectual Freedom at the University of Iowa, all but two of 13 out-of-state professors invited by Gov. Kim Reynolds to serve on the...
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Will Wilkinson @wlknsn.xyz · 22/09/2026
This is true.
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Will Wilkinson @wlknsn.xyz · 20/09/2026
I get a lot of clips of Dem politicians running this cycle in my social media these days and the only ones that don’t drive me nuts are Ossoff and El-Sayed. I’m inundated with Iowa stuff and am getting actively discouraged by Rob Sand and Josh Turek’s own ads. Hope it works guys!
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
I really hate the framing of these stories as "an AI agent broke out and hacked something." No, an inadequate sandbox meant that a powerful and unpredictable computer program was set loose on the open internet by the company that designed it. The agency isn't with the "AI agent", it's with the firm
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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 18/09/2026
“Once you understand that the broligarchs are eugenicists who care more about hypothetical, future AI-enhanced lives than about today’s population…a lot of things start making sense.”
techpolicy.press
What Policymakers and the Public Need to Know About the Cult of AI
Nathalie Maréchal asks, why are we betting the economy and the future of democracy on cult-like beliefs?
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Perry Bacon @perrybaconjr.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
When I read a story that uses "working class" to refer to the entire mass of U.S. adults without four-year degrees, I assume the writer is engaged in a political project, not analysis. The project is to ignore the perspectives of economically-insecure college grads. newrepublic.com/article/2155...
newrepublic.com
The Term Working Class Is Useless
Too many political analysts and pollsters are relying on education to define the working class, and it’s leading us to the wrong conclusions.
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SE Gyges @segyges.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
I'm back, I missed you all. Since this is an important subject I know too much about, here's a 🧵 explaining that AI Safety Is Mostly A Sex Cult. I don't think these people should make policy. (1/?) (alternative title: Time For Some Cult Theory)
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James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
Comic panel of Donald Duck and a wide-eyed young Mickey Mouse. Donald's speech bubble: "Democrats should do a huge middle class tax cut to address affordability." Mickey's speech bubble: "Fool that you are, for you treat taxation as a burden rather than the means by which our burdens are eased. Behold a civilization rich in private wealth yet starved of public provision, where every man owns what his grandfathers could not imagine and yet trembles at the thought of how he will weather an illness or loss of livelihood. Will you fight for an affirmative vision of broad contribution and universal benefit? Or will you perish like a dog?"
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Will Wilkinson @wlknsn.xyz · 11/09/2026
There are at least two Never-Trump DSA Liberals, a swiftly growing faction!
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Katie Tiedrich @katietiedrich.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
I’m not the first person to make this observation but the prevalence of nauseating ai-generated business logos means stuff like this hits CRAZY for me now
photo of a white truck with the logo for Bob’s BBQ Emporium, which is written in comic sans and has a charming rudimentary illustration of a pig
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Jennifer Van Goethem @jennvg.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
"AI systems that operate by autonomously executing LLM-generated plans are a really bad idea. Not because these systems are devious, or malicious, or inventing their own agendas, but because LLM output is unpredictable and non-normative." calnewport.com/has-ai-gone-...
calnewport.com
Has AI Gone Rogue? - Cal Newport
The AI story of the summer should probably be the ​uncertain financial position​ of the AI labs hoping to launch record-breaking IPOs shortly. Technology news, ... Read more
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Nils Gilman @nilsgilman.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
I don’t usually go for psychoanalytic explanations, but it seems obvious that data centers have become a point of political cathexis for anger over malignant futures being foisted upon people without their consent. dissentmagazine.org/article/ai-d...
dissentmagazine.org
After the Data Centers - Dissent Magazine
Data center opponents have assembled a potent political force. But without a more expansive vision, there is a risk that this techlash could be co-opted and fizzle out.
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Will Wilkinson @wlknsn.xyz · 04/09/2026
Where I grew up, this meant everybody in the car jumping out and switching seats during a red light.
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Will Wilkinson @wlknsn.xyz · 04/09/2026
Yeah for sure… bsky.app/profile/wlkn...
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Will Wilkinson @wlknsn.xyz · 04/09/2026
Nope. I think it matters a lot that my parents were from Saskatchewan and Michigan and they both had different kinds of Anglophile language pedants as parents (Anglo-Canadian school teacher and extremely downwardly mobile but proud WASP) which sort of neutralized their regional dialects as well.
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Will Wilkinson @wlknsn.xyz · 04/09/2026
If you listen to Rob Sand, he has a distinctive Iowa accent. It’s not heavy but it’s not neutral!
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Will Wilkinson @wlknsn.xyz · 04/09/2026
Though I live in Iowa and grew up in Iowa, I’ve never really had a distinctive Iowa dialect or accent and what I did have largely washed out from moving around so much.
Dialect heat map of the United States indicating that my dialect is most similar to people in California and south central Colorado and least similar to Mississippi, Alabama, Massachusetts, New Hampshire or Maine
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Will Wilkinson @wlknsn.xyz · 04/09/2026
A big part of my professional life involves government IT procurement reform. People do not understand why it is that governments cannot manage to keep their computer stuff less than half a decade out of date.
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Asteroid Institute, a program of B612 @b612-asteroid.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Congratulations to Dr. Brian May, astrophysicist, Queen guitarist, and #AsteroidDay cofounder, on receiving the National Space Society’s 2020 Space Pioneer Award. He joins B612 cofounder and Apollo 9 astronaut #RustySchweickart, who received the award in 2009 for Historic Space Achievement.
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Will Wilkinson @wlknsn.xyz · 29/08/2026
Incredibly wholesome
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Will Wilkinson @wlknsn.xyz · 29/08/2026
Just had to explain to my six year old that the Harlem Globetrotters (making a guest appearance on “Dog with a Blog”) are the Savannah Bananas of basketball.
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 26/08/2026
Can't parody this shit.
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