Amy Laura Hall

“Indispensable” “Courageous and impressively researched” “Eye-opening” “Deeply relevant” By “someone raised in a world where power masquerades as prayer.” www.bloomsbury.com/us/erecting-...

Reminder that whenever you read/hear “the markets,” just think “the parasitic super-rich.”

The Highland Park Texas UMC story is so on brand Highland Park.

Texans' ire over data centers has given Gina Hinojosa's campaign a boost, but there's another outrage: public schools. District takeovers and $$ poured into vouchers. If elected, she promises, “I’m going to fire Mike Morath on day one and hire an educator.” www.texasmonthly.com/news-politic...

Dollar General has fired back and we have updated the article: "We have engaged cooperatively with the Commission, producing more than 200,000 documents and over 350 gigabytes of data and making several Company representatives available to provide sworn testimony on relatively short notice."

And more people being brave together!

Women being brave together!

YES!

Mysha Qureshi, a South Asian UT junior, said students are paying attention to the “shift” on campus. She is concerned that by not calling out the racism toward students, UT is allowing a “hostile” environment toward students of color to grow. “They are not protecting us, Qureshi said.

Ken Paxton is a shameless crook. Only someone with incredibly low standards would vote for him.

I can confirm. Indivisible Action spends about a dime of every dollar raised on fundraising costs, which is very efficient. They are a good example of what a genuine grassroots operation looks like.

NEW: We asked readers if they've been drowning in political texts, calls, mailers and TV ads, and to share pics of what they're getting. Hooo boy, did we get responses! Some fumed its been "harassment." Some won't donate to Dem campaigns ever again. www.huffpost.com/entry/voters...

There’s an ad for a new “ai” company on podcasts recently and it touts “with this app, emails go from two minutes to just thirty seconds.” It’s one of the more honest and pathetic endorsements of AI

Barcelona would not be the same without pigeons. #pigeonsky #pigeons #barcelona #photography

The Bolsonarists didn't change their minds, they didn't suddenly stop believing that their man could do no wrong and that Lula was an existential threat to Brazil. They were simply outvoted by those who refused to risk a return to fascism, and decided not to sit this election out.

theintercept.com/2020/03/12/u...

It really is quite something tonite (over north central NC). Just left the porch where I’d been standing in awe for 10 minutes.

The moon tonight in Durham is particularly beautiful. A good time to read this book by my treasured colleague @ayoushlazikani.bsky.social ♥️

from me: some reflections on the russo-japanese war, hyperpolitics before social media, and why functional mechanisms of power and accountability are essential for well-informed, well-led democratic publics

This fantastic art is not only made by HUMANS but available for free!

Oh, I so needed this!

Ok writers, a little less obvious on the symbolism please

2014

For all those who cheered the Cheney family as heroic.

Gift link - FOIA ftw U.S. Begins Disclosing C.I.A. Interview Reports From Scrutiny of Post-9/11 Torture The rolling release of long-secret files could add detail to the history of a legally disputed Bush-era counterterrorism program. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/20/u...

This release is thanks in part to the 2016 amendments to the FOIA, which required agencies to narrow the application of Exemption 5 and explain what the foreseeable harm would be - more info on this on @charliesavage.bsky.social's site: charliesavage.com/foia/#DurhamII

Think about this: It has taken over 20 years to start seeing documents about the government's illegal activities during the War on Terror. It could take another 20 to learn about the government's illegal activities TODAY unless Congress meaningfully engages in FOIA compliance.

FOIA'd this and was predictably ignored by State (and Treasury, which I assumed had a copy). Glad @propublica.org got a copy of the 18-page doc but livid FOIA continues to fail in absence of litigation.

Someone DM'd me to ask whether the phenomenon of the "working homeless" is also present in the UK. The answer is very much yes.

Thrilled to share that the UK edition of THERE IS NO PLACE FOR US is out now from @canongate.co.uk. Though based in Atlanta, the forces pushing working people into homelessness extend far beyond the US. So, too, does the growing movement fighting for safe, dignified housing as a fundamental right.

finally, after years of toil, after so many struggles, your time as a chela is over. your subtle body has been cleansed; you have crossed chorazon's abyss. but as the hidden masters, who seem like nice enough guys, welcome you to agartha, you can't but ask yourself, did you leave the kettle on?

Duke Gardens.

It's also a puree of better stuff: my book's argument about AI as a 'hall of mirrors' that generates a dangerous Narcissus illusion, Ted Chiang's argument about AI as role-playing and simulation, and Anil Seth's argument about biological substrates of consciousness. I'd guess AI was the blender.

University of Nottingham, right now, is cutting 560 jobs. Do we need to rebrand universities as very large, very clean, land-based oil rigs to get government support?

Let's pull this mess apart. Humanist Superintelligence is just word salad. And 'we shouldn't anthropomorphise' AI, but also must think of what you call a new 'synthetic species' as our 'subordinates'?? Holy coloni(alism) dude. SOS @abeba.blacksky.app but I know she's just over it by now

At this point I feel like the girl in the square hole puzzle video. Like, the guy is wrong, but he also seems so close to getting it. But then I get to the love letter to Dario, and THEN this part:

So Claude is not internally hollow, but neither does it have beliefs. Yet Suleyman anthropomorphises while cautioning against it, and elevates Claude to the status of a 'synthetic species' (um, no?) even as he marks the difference between AI and an evolved organism with homeostatic imperatives. Sigh

Claude IS hollow of mental states of awareness, for reasons the essay is mostly right about. But it's not hollow of mathematical structures that mirror the language used to express beliefs; later, Suleyman points this out - that Claude is trained to 'mirror' the human examples provided to it.

Thread

Palestine is a warning about what comes next. Technologies developed, tested and refined under occupation do not stay there. They become products, expertise and business models circulating globally. Support our #GVSpotlight: globalvoices.org/2026/09/25...

"The significance is not that an algorithm has replaced human violence. It is that these systems increase the scale, speed and bureaucratic distance at which violence is organised, while cloaking life-and-death decisions in the appearance of technical objectivity."

“British MPs who criticised Palantir in parliament received “intimidating” letters from the US spytech firm, Novara Media can reveal. The MPs say it won’t stop them from continuing to hold Palantir to account” novaramedia.com/2026/10/22/p...

“Students in Canada who use AI to summarize text every day show a 38-point lower score in science versus those who never use it. Canadian teens using it to draft text show a 42-point lower score. These gaps are equivalent to two years of learning loss.” theconversation.com/the-release-...

I am once again humbly saying that decisions about technology deployment on our campuses are almost always made by people who have never set foot in the classroom or done research. Most of these new technology deployments, like CircleAI here, are wholly unproven. www.chronicle.com/article/ceo-...

My book Radical Infrastructure came out last week! It goes deep into the political and economic roots of technological infrastructure to explain hype around various technical projects, and counters it with cases of people pushing back. Download OA: www.ucpress.edu/books/radica...