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tbfld.bsky.social
Ex-academic, ex-artist, editor/writer (EU research network grants 🎯), Open Syllabus co-founder, nettime mod 25 yrs. I “worked at the intersection of” when it was a red-light district not a venn diagram. Deep South 🔁 Deep North. More: https://counter.ink
318 posts 581 followers 416 following
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Now you did too
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Alternatively, that actually was you walking off, your memory that you’re you was no longer true, and the whole thing is actually the canniest thing that’s happened to whoever you are now. Or something like that.
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The sooner everyone affected coalesce around a single, concrete, consistent message that includes *everyone affected*, the better. “Attack on science” doesn’t meet any of those criteria. [3/x]
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Trump & Co saw one court ruling after another going against them, so they’re returning to the most effective tactic they’ve found to date: the wholesale defunding of universities. [2/x]
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The right has never let go of Reagan’s fetishes, and they’ll never let go of Trump’s. Destroying NIH etc will *always* be one of their aims, so those agencies will lose one of their key virtues — stability. If you were an early- or mid-career researcher, how would you see that as a career path?
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I ask because I’m becoming more sharply aware of how everyday internettisms — “playbooks,” “timelines,” “we’ve seen how this movie ends,” etc, etc — cast the descent into fascism as inexorable, and in doing so tacitly justify passivity. And I don’t like it.
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What are the upcoming phases, then?
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I explained how this would go down months ago: Feb 11: www.facebook.com/tbyfield/pos... Feb 18: www.facebook.com/tbyfield/pos... Mar 4: www.facebook.com/tbyfield/pos...
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I’ve seen them peering out of shrubbery with an unmistakable mix of hope and anxiety, but I’ve never been able to catch one. One day.
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It’s amazing how persistent the ’90s-era “just block people!” approach remains. As if no practical or theoretical progress had been made on this ubiquitous, systemic problem over the last 30 years, and we’re all still trapped between the Scylla of libertarianism and the Charybdis of the algorithm.
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Mall rat
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Funny to see Isotype there. A decade ago datavizzies routinely, even dogmatically insisted that it was unrelated to what they do.
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Wrong. NYU is, because Barron goes there. Russia is. Fascists are. The list goes on and on.
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Yes, lots of people who argue it’s an attack on science, and (obv) they aren’t wrong. But Trump & Co are attacking *much* more, and, as I said, narrow framings are a mistake. For ex, several weeks went by when academics outside of the life sciences fooled themselves into thinking they were exempt.
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They definitely don’t understand, even in narrow areas — for ex, life-sciences academics casting NIH cuts as an “attack on science,” when really science was just a vector for attacking higher ed, with impact calibrated to prestige. Misframings like that are everywhere, and they’ve been catastrophic.
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💯 right. But if they do it, we will *be* Nazis and fascists for the rest of our lives, because it’s our responsibility as citizens to stop them. We don’t get to say “that’s just our government, not me bro, I’m cool.”
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🏆 neologism there 🏆
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If I said yes, the average people would assume I’d at least sampled it, or even that I was a deviant — for example, that I valued p or something. Those assumptions may be the norm, but I think they’re regressive or just plain mean.
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I hope I’m not being too forward, but you might consider exploring your feelings with a caring professional, like a randominatrix. OK, now I’ll stop.
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Looking for entropy in all the wrong places 💔
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PROBLEM SOLVED! It means “random with an elaborate footnote.” I avoid using it, but the phrase *stochastic terrorism* is a thing.
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Just because you see things differently doesn’t mean you should be so closed-minded! It takes all kinds to make a world — just not poor people, who technically aren’t a “kind” of person, they just don’t have stuff. If they wanted it they could get it, but they don’t bc they’re biased against wealth.