sroychowdhury.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

Prepping for class, re-reading old history texts, musing on our own times: "...the absolute monarchy as a structure in which the king and his entourage aspired to political primacy with the direct assistance of a patrimonial and venal bureaucracy & mercenary standing armies."

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

Heard a song from the 80s reference a "long distance call" and it occurred to me that this is a concept that no longer holds any emotional currency whatsoever

submitted 1 day ago • 1366 comments

"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob." —FDR, 1936

submitted 1 day ago • 133 comments

What role did 'freelance' underground operatives play in defeating apartheid in South Africa? Tshepo Moloi on a mother and daughter who crossed borders and languages to smuggle propaganda and people into South Africa. www.historyworkshop....

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

Wayback Machine playback (and other functions) is down because of a power outage induced hardware failure. We are working to address this issue and bring the services back up ASAP. Thank you for your support and patience!

submitted 5 days ago • 63 comments

There will be few personal archives for future historians to comb through when writing about many current leaders. Transnational criminals prefer to cover their tracks rather than leaving behind personal diaries and documents.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

The accelerationist belief that if things get bad enough, then things will start to get better is quite something to see in the wild. It’s wrong though. Historically, misery creates more misery and is visited on the most marginalized in ever intensifying cycles of horror.

submitted 4 days ago • 114 comments

Years ago, after the Cambridge Analytica scandal, I interviewed a former fb employee, and I remember her continually emphasizing that these tech bros weren't evil geniuses, but were, in fact, dangerous because they were utterly clueless, totally reckless, and had too much power.

submitted 4 days ago • 295 comments

there is no realistic world where chaotic slash-and-burn cuts of government spending falling mostly on individual employees improves the economy and you are a pants-on-head moron if you think it does

submitted 5 days ago • 5 comments

I wrote about this in 2019, am surprised it took this long to get here. The whole show-me-the-gold routine came from Peter Boehringer, now an AfD delegate in the Bundestag. www.newstatesman.com/business/eco...

submitted 4 days ago • 6 comments

Great thread here on SSPE, a rare but horrific complication of a #measles infection that doesn’t occur until years after the infection.

submitted 4 days ago • 1 comment

Why are women drawn to fascist ideologies and movements? Daniel Jones (@narson.bsky.social) reflects on his timely rediscovery of a History Workshop talk given by the late Martin Durham in 1983.

submitted 5 days ago • 1 comment

The worst thing to happen to the Democratic Party is the consultant class

submitted 6 days ago • 325 comments

In the Lege: Speaker of the House Dustin Burrows carried out a delicate balancing act, appeasing the Democrats who supported him while following new rules banning Dems from holding committee chairs.

submitted 7 days ago • 14 comments

NEW: Ukraine's European partners announced new military assistance to Ukraine amid the February 12 Ukraine Defense Contact Group (the Ramstein format) meeting. isw.pub/UkrWar021325 Details ⬇️🧵(1/6)

submitted 9 days ago • 4 comments

WSJ sub: “Indian Partition went smoothly enough, right? Will try to remember to check this before publishing.”

submitted 10 days ago • 486 comments

Gulf of Distraction

submitted 10 days ago • 792 comments

"The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) has placed onerous new restrictions on its scientists that people within the agency say could hamper the quality & availability of the world’s weather forecasts, among other key services" R.I.P. NOAA? www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

submitted 11 days ago • 1 comment

Free speech baby

submitted 13 days ago • 428 comments

Especially in these insane times, mutual aid is a great way to rebuild trust and solidarity.

submitted 14 days ago • 0 comments

LOL. Pitt’s elder brother occupied several major Cabinet positions for years, for reasons nobody was ever entirely clear on. So did Wellington’s elder brother, while carrying on notoriously with prostitutes…

submitted 14 days ago • 2 comments

Tests show DeepSeek's chatbot often hallucinates URLs in citations and admits that sharing news articles' content could violate copyright and paywall policies (Andrew Deck/Nieman Lab) Main Link | Techmeme Permalink

submitted 15 days ago • 2 comments

Drivers for the delivery app Grab complained that Google Maps couldn’t navigate Southeast Asia’s complex and unpredictable streets. So Grab enlisted its 5 million drivers to chart the streets as they worked, creating its own, more-accurate map restofworld.org/2024/grab-go...

submitted 15 days ago • 3 comments

All these Tech Bros grew up loving Luke Skywalker and then became Darth Vader for the money. Never underestimate the power of the Dark Side. #RebelAllianceForever

submitted 17 days ago • 314 comments

We sure could use a (Teddy Roosevelt type flawed) crusader to rev up those tired old cartel busting engines in this country.

submitted 17 days ago • 0 comments

For 500 years people have been coming up with technology after technology to replace, alter or disrupt books and they have all failed because business geniuses are somehow incapable of understanding that people really like reading

submitted 18 days ago • 71 comments

US aviation systems going to look like this Vijay Raaz scene from _Dhamaal_. I wish I could 🤣 but I want to 😭 youtu.be/UW8nEQ4hA3E?...

submitted 17 days ago • 0 comments

omg Deep Research can write incredible research papers!!!! It is better than 10 PhDs in a room!1111 buddy I have bad news for you the internet is full of pdfs and nobody reads them

submitted 19 days ago • 4 comments

Archiving will be some of the most important work that we can do collectively over the next several years.

submitted 20 days ago • 7 comments

Meanwhile the news from the world of climate change…

submitted 20 days ago • 0 comments

I’m in the business of studying the past, not predicting the future. My hunch though is that MAGA is about to have a painful encounter with two realities - the world has moved on from the upheaval of the two world wars, and geography can be destiny.

submitted 20 days ago • 2 comments

A little good news. Three weeks later. The Los Angeles Wildfires Are Fully Contained www.nytimes.com/2025/02/01/u...

submitted 22 days ago • 192 comments

Harriet Martineau (1802-76): - Wrote “Illustrations of Political Economy” to help the public understand Adam Smith. Outsold Dickens - Argued for married women’s property rights - After visiting the US, she used economic analysis to argue that slavery was an illegitimate form of property

submitted 29 days ago • 4 comments

A small story of how improved infrastructure can make a different difference in the lives of people with not a lot: my mother’s cleaning lady took my mom’s old fridge and washing machine. Why is this noteworthy? Even twenty years ago, this hardworking woman would not have bothered with appliances.

submitted 29 days ago • 1 comment

Remember, economic "libertarians" don't want there to be no laws, no rules, and no police. They want there to be no democracy to get in the way of laws, rules, and police they control. crookedtimber.org/2023/06/01/i...

submitted 30 days ago • 1 comment

And another right-leaning historian gets to the age when you finally go Full Bigot... 73, in his case, apparently.

submitted 30 days ago • 4 comments

please don't share AI generated images just because you agree with their political message

submitted 30 days ago • 3 comments

We really are going to have to learn the stupidest, most desperate, and horrible lessons history has to teach us all over again, aren't we

submitted 35 days ago • 50 comments