Henry Snow

Henry Snow

@henrys.now

Labor + economic historian at UConn | they/them political economy, shipbuilding, cybernetics published CONTROL SCIENCE with Verso ENEMIES OF ORDER, second book, forthcoming website + contact: http://henrys.now/ newsletter/blog: buttondown.com/anotherway

3.5K followers703 following3K posts

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From Caribbean slaveholders to Victorian eugenicists to Nazi steel executives, the worst people imaginable have told us that love is meaningless, ethics are impossible, and community is a mirage. They've shaped the very language we use to talk about work and the economy. This book is a response.

Henry Snow@henrys.now

will have more of a proper post our about it once I've finished grading finals but today is publication day for my book! www.versobooks.com/products/312...

Henry Snow reposted

After 1.5 years of pouring my heart into my very first game, I'm so excited to finally announce that... Drawquarium is coming to Steam on November 13! 🥹 Draw your own fish, bring them to life, and create your little underwater world, even as a live wallpaper! Like+RT = ♥️ #IndieGames #Cozygames

while I'm still on the academic job market I am also now looking beyond it-- if you or anyone you know might need a researcher with the skills necessary to dig up evidence of >200 year old conspiracies or connect four centuries of economic thought you know where to find me

"When you said 'Giving What We Can' people assumed you meant what you were capable of. Not what you felt like. You see why people would think that, right?"

Mother Jones@motherjones.com

NEW: Anthropic’s filing appears to partly walk back the co-founders’ pledge to commit 80% of their personal equity holdings in the AI startup to philanthropic causes. Those acts, the filing suggests, are “voluntary, revocable expressions” that “do not constitute binding obligations.”

Henry Snow reposted

Don't forget to sign up for "The many faces of Sans Souci: Black watchmakers in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Caribbean" if you're keen to join the friendly & welcoming London Group of Historical Geographers in person or online for this Tuesday's Institute of Historical Research seminar.

history.ac.ukThe many faces of Sans Souci: Black watchmakers in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century CaribbeanLondon Group of Historical Geographers

at $6000 a course, which is somewhere in the middle of typical university adjunct rates, Anthropic's 1.5 trillion dollar IPO value would cover 4 courses a year from roughly the year the asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs to the present

they make a good product! but perhaps a system that allows for this level of wealth concentration has some issues. perhaps a world where we can invest in enterprise software but not education has problems

Henry Snow reposted

This. And if most Americans weren't aware of this in 2019, I'd guess they're even less so now. Public university students were paying for a third of the cost of their education in 2009, and it was up to half by 2019. 2009 wasn't great compared to the 60s-70s, either. www.pbs.org/newshour/edu...

pbs.orgMost Americans don't realize state funding for higher ed fell by billionsSpending is down by $9 billion over the last decade, driving tuition up and frustrating the search for skilled workers.
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our only TV is about the age of my students and has no wireless connection capabilities of any kind. I will not get rid of it until it explodes

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Henry Snow reposted

Why is this student so upset about the mushroom, though? What could it have done to make her protest across the whole continent

it would be cool if you could know how much something cost before you agreed to it. I know I'm not much of a capitalist but that's kind of supposed to be the whole thing with markets

uconn is paying nearly 200k to get an AI analysis as a justification for austerity. adjuncts are paid about 6.6k a course

Sarah Hird, PhD@sarahhird.bsky.social

“Instead of taking the lead in assuring safe, responsible use of genAI, UConn’s top administrators are allowing students, faculty and staff to be exploited as customers and products.” Opinion piece by @uconnaaup.bsky.social executive committee (which includes me): dailycampus.com/2026/10/20/w...

I find this much more insidious than say, copilot! university enterprise AI is often just wasteful (our copilot is worse than some of the cheapest frontier lab models on a consumer subscription) but decisionmaking like this is an assault on shared governance and democracy

this was too vague: I am talking about Thomas Bayes

Henry Snow@henrys.now

it is perhaps not a coincidence that a theorem probably developed in order to disprove Hume's argument against miracles has been exalted by people who want to build god and/or fear they're building an evil god today

student: I need help with this essay for another class me: of course I am happy to help, all writing problems are solvable student: it's about pricing cyber insurance regarding AI risk me, internally: ok almost all writing problems

I am away from online for part of a night and come back to find half the Internet is compromised, what a time

it is perhaps not a coincidence that a theorem probably developed in order to disprove Hume's argument against miracles has been exalted by people who want to build god and/or fear they're building an evil god today

Henry Snow reposted

There were 27 miles of rope used for rigging in Master & Commander. Modern rope naturally coils in the opposite direction of rope made during the Napoleonic wars. So the production paid a shop to make period accurate cordage.

Amy "Thunderjam" Chase@amythunderjam.bsky.social

We all know the "Viggo broke his toe" story but what's another movie fact you're personally compelled to bring up every time without prompting? For me, it's the fact that Robin Tunney is wearing a wig in The Craft because of having just shaved her head to save her job filming Empire Records.

Henry Snow reposted

This isn't what I intended my membership dues to be used for . . . The whole story is so incredible, the behavior described so egregiously authoritarian, that it really has to be read in full. 🗃️

Stacy Fahrenthold@sfahrenthold.bsky.social

In this explosive follow up to the story about the American Historical Association's use of DC lobbyists to silence AHA member Palestine advocacy, we have this: AHA is conducting a witchhunt of its Council. Loyalty oaths. Lawyers. Threats. Authoritarian behavior. www.chronicle.com/article/the-...

Henry Snow reposted

Many people in writer Rachel Handler’s life felt that something was amiss, that commercial chocolate didn’t taste the way it used to. For our Cover Story, Handler spends several months tumbling down a chocolate vortex to find out why. www.grubstreet.com/article/choc...

Henry Snow reposted

there's a lot to this even in many FT/TT jobs (now vanishing) your real intellectual community are people you see once a year at a conference; perhaps your employer pays for you to attend and perhaps not your job itself is a constant effort to prove to your "institution" that your job should exist

The other thing that is missing here is that the turn to online platforms among millennial humanities academics isn’t all about declining opportunities in the academy; it’s also about the rupturing of the possibilities for intellectual camaraderie within the neoliberal university.

mr. el-sayed do you disavow the universal brotherhood of mankind

Henry Snow@henrys.now

you need to be settembrinimaxxing. wearing the same outfit at all times. contributing to idealistic co-authored literature. warning young men not to eroticize tuberculosis. going on sweeping rants about republican virtue and the beauty of humanity

where do i start and end the story how do i tell it through these barriers how do i know if i'm being manipulated

Henry Snow reposted

historiography now banned from historiography class in Texas

Adam Serwer@adamserwer.bsky.social

Last week I wrote about how Texas politicians’ “free speech” campaign has led to a campaign of academic censorship in the state’s universities that exceeds even the McCarthy era (🎁🔗) www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/1...

compare this to Connecticut's quantum investments which have mostly been a giveaway to an industry that doesn't exist yet while maintaining austerity across the state and its research university

gratitude for my beloved wife, who married me despite the prospect of spending the rest of her life having to hear me talk about the most deranged research subjects imaginable

Henry Snow@henrys.now

yes i'm working on this for the reason some of you might suspect and/or fear