(Plat)form/(dis)content

Grateful to have been among many people working for this truly democratic outcome, folks across the political spectrum (with especially strong leadership from @flagstaffdsa.bsky.social). #deflock

This ep does double duty as the afterword for Rhetoric Before and Beyond Post-Truth, a forthcoming collection from @upittpress.bsky.social, edited by Scott Sundvall, @caddiealford.bsky.social, & @rhetlab.bsky.social. Plus it’s the perfect companion for your travels to NCA 2025! #teamrhetoric

AI Revolution as Crisis of Meaning, and More AI continues to be deeply panickable because it disrupts human meaning-making.

Thinking about the crisis of meaning imposed on us all with the RhetAI Coalition here. Hope it can be useful!

rhetaicoalition.substack.com/p/ai-revolut...

Here's an update on the accelerating decline of global sea-ice extent. This graphic shows the 3-year running average, Jan. 1, 1991 - July 27, 2025, as well as a quadratic trend line.

What is the future of global sea-ice? The climate 8-ball says: "F&%kery ahead!"

SEIU California | SEIU California Demands Release of CSU Faculty Member Brutalized By ICE SEIU California members call for the immediate release of our brother Jonathan Caravello, PhD, a U.S. citizen and union member, who was brutally assaulted and detained by federal agents as he…

A worker was killed. Dozens detained.

Dr. Jonathan Caravello, A CSU faculty member and US citizen, was brutalized & disappeared by ICE for observing.

Trump’s ICE thugs are escalating terror in our communities. Release them ALL.

seiuca.org/press-releas...

Episode 186: Panic Now? (with Ira Allen) - Hotel Bar Podcast The rise of AI, the decay of democracy, colonial legacies, climate disaster, Is it time to panic now?

This is going to be a busy weekend. Probably not a bad idea to figure out how much panic you should bring with you into it!

Check out the new @hotelbarpodcast.bsky.social episode, where we talk to @rhetlab.bsky.social about whether or not it's time to panic NOW.

hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/pani...

For me, it's watching this hack bend with what he sees as the wind in real time. Hard to believe that guy having a platform *isn't* some kinda psyop, given his gleefully incoherent stumping for whatever seems likely to advance the cause of Matt Yglesias.

I'm not pithy like that.

(No but for real, I like writing to try to figure something out; short form always makes me feel constrained and irritable and I end up being more of an asshole than I want to be. But sincerely, thank you!)

Love that mantra--gonna take it on myself. Thanks, Seth!!

@rhetlab.bsky.social's book _Panic Now_ has forced me to revise a mantra I've held dear for decades. New version: "The urge to freak out and the urge to organize are the same urge."

A photo of the book Panic Now?: Tools for Humanizing by Ira J. Allen

Bring in the New Year with fresh panic!

Panic Now?: Tools For Humanizing by @rhetlab.bsky.social has undone and remade my thinking about our world’s crises. You should read this. From @utpress.bsky.social.

“Panic is not a replacement for loving the world, but a way into doing so very differently."

Thanks a lot, Brandon!!

Why practice mindfulness? A primary reason is for direct insight into paticcasamuppada, interdependent coarising — as Stephen Batchelor translates it, “contingency.” An infinity of things that had to happen just as they did for this moment to exist. To see this is to see reality in a new way.

Can't see why you tag this "blame the voters." If a political party spends Billions with a B and consistently loses vote share, all while real wages decline and that party fails to deliver publicly desired goods or even "democracy" in a substantive sense, why would you blame anyone but the party?

Insurers Are Dropping Homeowners as Climate Shocks Worsen Without insurance, it’s impossible to get a mortgage; without a mortgage, most Americans can’t buy a home.

The climate crisis through the lens of non-renewals of home insurance - the map tells the tale.

Don't believe the science? Tell that to your home insurer.

To quote Prof. Ira Allen @rhetlab.bsky.social from his new book, yes, "Panic Now."

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Truly excited and honored to announce that my new crypto, dronecoin, soft launched last week and the buzz has been incredible

6 Gut Wrenching Quotes from James Hansen's Climate Justice Paper Climate Change at the International Court of Justice

"There is no plan to stabilize the climate" - James Hansen's shocking statement.
www.collapse2050.com/6-gut-wrench...

Tell ya one thing for sure, though: I have no use for all the insta-experts popping up w their hot takes on an extremely complicated situation they seem not even to have bothered reading the briefing about to fill in backstory, takes aligning perfectly w one or another non-Syrian political faction.

Lived in Beirut for 3 yrs of the Syrian civil war (14-17). Watching Atassi's film, Our Terrible Country, open there remains one of the most affecting collective experiences I've had. I wrote an article about the film/revolution/proxy war.

And I am *very* puzzled by this week's events.

Anybody know how much THIS SPECIFIC investigation is costing vs avg cost per murder? How about per rape investigation?

Tell me again how cops are public service.

Broke: ppl working from home being more productive and converting office space into residential to solve the housing crisis

Woke: sacrificing productivity via RTO to artificially prop up commercial real estate and restrict housing supply, but with living room wallpaper and couches at the office

No genocide has been so confessed to as it actually happened.

No genocide has been so evidenced by both victims and perpetrators as it actually happened.

This devastating report underlines why every facilitator, every cheerleader, of Israel's genocide must be held to account.

Trying out a new general approach to building skepticism of AI outputs while supporting existing learning goals. Contradictory Chatbot gives three mutually incompatible answers to every question. What if students ask it subject-matter questions and reflect on the options? bit.ly/Contradictor...

Ha, interesting approach! Would be worth asking students to tease out what doxa, what unspoken assumptions about how the world is, *must be made* and (contrastingly) *are merely likely* for each of the three outputs.

The first ice-free day in the Arctic Ocean could occur before 2030 - Nature Communications The first day with no sea ice in the Arctic will be a visible sign of climate change. This work reveals that this could occur before 2030 already and becomes more likely as the world warms. As the ice...

It is, ultimately, heartbreaking that so many smart, kind, sincere people start out critical and, in "making it," are turned into complete idiots.

Anyway, here's a little dose of reality about the climate collapse, contra the hope peddlers: www.nature.com/articles/s41....

"AI is an automated amplifier of social norms and assumptions"

- well put by Selena Savić, speaking at "Rethinking the Inevitability of AI" conference today. Such a productive series of talks.

The worst unforced error of contemporary liberals is a refusal to actually hear hard criticism. It makes many smart people fundamentally incapable of learning, on a deep level.

For me, these are entirely different things. In-class writing has to do with a physical relationship to the writing medium that's different and a little alienating, in a good way. Such as it is, my gaze there is for the purpose of spurring *more* writing (of whatever sort), not orienting it.