Angus Johnston
@angus.bsky.social
CUNY prof. Historian of, and advocate for, student organizing. @studentactivism from Twitter.
Pinned
The risk of malfeasance in the November election is real, and serious. But the Trump administration doesn't have a magic wand.
It has tools of repression. And we have tools of resistance.
It has tools of repression. And we have tools of resistance.
Reposted by Angus Johnston
That's fair. This is a pretty accurate representation of my hypermobile ass at the end of any social function.
Falling apart, being dragged out by friends, but still somehow running their mouth? Sounds like me...
Falling apart, being dragged out by friends, but still somehow running their mouth? Sounds like me...
February 17, 2026 at 2:28 AM
That's fair. This is a pretty accurate representation of my hypermobile ass at the end of any social function.
Falling apart, being dragged out by friends, but still somehow running their mouth? Sounds like me...
Falling apart, being dragged out by friends, but still somehow running their mouth? Sounds like me...
Reposted by Angus Johnston
My main way of writing music these day is recording to a beat for 10 minutes or so, listening back and pulling out the good part. It feels a little like a cheat but it is effective!
February 16, 2026 at 11:14 PM
My main way of writing music these day is recording to a beat for 10 minutes or so, listening back and pulling out the good part. It feels a little like a cheat but it is effective!
Casey just watched the original Star Wars for the first time as an adult, and was, as she put it, "constantly assaulted" by how much C3PO is Ehlers-Danlos representation.
February 16, 2026 at 11:37 PM
Casey just watched the original Star Wars for the first time as an adult, and was, as she put it, "constantly assaulted" by how much C3PO is Ehlers-Danlos representation.
Reposted by Angus Johnston
I think this is not dissimilar from how long meditation retreats work. Eventually the brain gets tired of running in circles and kinda shuts up. And then, SOMETHING happens that is much bigger than thought.
February 16, 2026 at 11:03 PM
I think this is not dissimilar from how long meditation retreats work. Eventually the brain gets tired of running in circles and kinda shuts up. And then, SOMETHING happens that is much bigger than thought.
A question I ask ALL THE TIME as a copyeditor is "Intentional? If not..."
Because if you meant to do it, far be it from me.
Because if you meant to do it, far be it from me.
I read a blog somewhere by an editor for iirc romance novels that human writers if you ask a question about a character or mistake, lore and craft pour out of them.
If you ask an LLM-using author, they just go “huh? What? Just make it work”
If you ask an LLM-using author, they just go “huh? What? Just make it work”
February 16, 2026 at 11:01 PM
A question I ask ALL THE TIME as a copyeditor is "Intentional? If not..."
Because if you meant to do it, far be it from me.
Because if you meant to do it, far be it from me.
Reposted by Angus Johnston
I read a blog somewhere by an editor for iirc romance novels that human writers if you ask a question about a character or mistake, lore and craft pour out of them.
If you ask an LLM-using author, they just go “huh? What? Just make it work”
If you ask an LLM-using author, they just go “huh? What? Just make it work”
February 16, 2026 at 11:00 PM
I read a blog somewhere by an editor for iirc romance novels that human writers if you ask a question about a character or mistake, lore and craft pour out of them.
If you ask an LLM-using author, they just go “huh? What? Just make it work”
If you ask an LLM-using author, they just go “huh? What? Just make it work”
A thing I like to do is look up who wrote a song I love and see what else they wrote. So often, as here, the result is me going "Oh, shit! Right! Of course!"
I love humans so fucking much.
Raise a glass.
I love humans so fucking much.
Raise a glass.
Billy Steinberg RIP
You may not immediately know the name but by jingo you've heard Like A Virgin, Alone, So Emotional, True Colors, I Touch Myself, I Drove All Night, I'll Stand By You and Eternal Flame.
You may not immediately know the name but by jingo you've heard Like A Virgin, Alone, So Emotional, True Colors, I Touch Myself, I Drove All Night, I'll Stand By You and Eternal Flame.
February 16, 2026 at 11:00 PM
A thing I like to do is look up who wrote a song I love and see what else they wrote. So often, as here, the result is me going "Oh, shit! Right! Of course!"
I love humans so fucking much.
Raise a glass.
I love humans so fucking much.
Raise a glass.
Reposted by Angus Johnston
Gonna read the quoted post in this post I'm quoting after my comment. Just want to add that a lot of creativity, if not all, exists in the space between reality as it is & reality as we observe(d) it as a people through time.
Thread—particularly down from here.
And yes, the human creator of a piece of art is crucial not just as a hand on the tiller, but also as a vehicle for serendipity, surprise, grace.
And yes, the human creator of a piece of art is crucial not just as a hand on the tiller, but also as a vehicle for serendipity, surprise, grace.
And something that hit me over the last 12 hours or so is that at least to my mind, creativity and thought are entirely different things
There’s some overlap, sure. But my own experience of creativity is that it’s what happens when conscious thought mostly *stops*
There’s some overlap, sure. But my own experience of creativity is that it’s what happens when conscious thought mostly *stops*
February 16, 2026 at 10:58 PM
Gonna read the quoted post in this post I'm quoting after my comment. Just want to add that a lot of creativity, if not all, exists in the space between reality as it is & reality as we observe(d) it as a people through time.
Reposted by Angus Johnston
I will and have gone through actual torments in pursuit of this feeling because nothing else is like it and nothing else I’ve ever experienced matches it, it’s actual transcendence
And yes, that is what the moment of creation feels like, when it's as good as it can be. It's the moment where you do a thing, and it's great, and you don't know where it came from, and you're not sure you completely understand it—maybe not until later, maybe not ever.
That, for me, is grace.
That, for me, is grace.
February 16, 2026 at 10:54 PM
I will and have gone through actual torments in pursuit of this feeling because nothing else is like it and nothing else I’ve ever experienced matches it, it’s actual transcendence
Reposted by Angus Johnston
Oh shit, sad news. Was literally just thinking about him today. One of the defining songwriters of the eighties.
Billy Steinberg RIP
You may not immediately know the name but by jingo you've heard Like A Virgin, Alone, So Emotional, True Colors, I Touch Myself, I Drove All Night, I'll Stand By You and Eternal Flame.
You may not immediately know the name but by jingo you've heard Like A Virgin, Alone, So Emotional, True Colors, I Touch Myself, I Drove All Night, I'll Stand By You and Eternal Flame.
February 16, 2026 at 10:54 PM
Oh shit, sad news. Was literally just thinking about him today. One of the defining songwriters of the eighties.
Oh, shit. I half believed the story was apochryphal.
February 16, 2026 at 10:54 PM
Oh, shit. I half believed the story was apochryphal.
Someone once asked Miles Davis what he was going to play next, and he said "I'll play it first, and tell you what it is later."
Some of the music I am the proudest of having contributed to very seriously came from someone noodling, and another band member saying "wait - stop! What was that you were just playing?" 99% of the time the response has been "Huh? I...I don't know?"
February 16, 2026 at 10:48 PM
Someone once asked Miles Davis what he was going to play next, and he said "I'll play it first, and tell you what it is later."
Reposted by Angus Johnston
The moments when your brain is just on autopilot, and you're not arguing with it to "Have an idea, damnit!" are magic - the "flow state" is very very real.
February 16, 2026 at 10:46 PM
The moments when your brain is just on autopilot, and you're not arguing with it to "Have an idea, damnit!" are magic - the "flow state" is very very real.
Reposted by Angus Johnston
Some of the music I am the proudest of having contributed to very seriously came from someone noodling, and another band member saying "wait - stop! What was that you were just playing?" 99% of the time the response has been "Huh? I...I don't know?"
February 16, 2026 at 10:46 PM
Some of the music I am the proudest of having contributed to very seriously came from someone noodling, and another band member saying "wait - stop! What was that you were just playing?" 99% of the time the response has been "Huh? I...I don't know?"
Reposted by Angus Johnston
And I think a certain kind of pointed and insidious and dangerous violence is being done to the very concept of creativity if we lose sight of that, or start talking about this as if it is or could be
February 16, 2026 at 10:36 PM
And I think a certain kind of pointed and insidious and dangerous violence is being done to the very concept of creativity if we lose sight of that, or start talking about this as if it is or could be
Reposted by Angus Johnston
Which I think the pushers of this tech would love for us to forget
But regardless, to get back to the original point: Leaving aside all other considerations, there is no creativity happening here, at least not in any sense by which most of us would understand the word, and can’t ever be
But regardless, to get back to the original point: Leaving aside all other considerations, there is no creativity happening here, at least not in any sense by which most of us would understand the word, and can’t ever be
February 16, 2026 at 10:35 PM
Which I think the pushers of this tech would love for us to forget
But regardless, to get back to the original point: Leaving aside all other considerations, there is no creativity happening here, at least not in any sense by which most of us would understand the word, and can’t ever be
But regardless, to get back to the original point: Leaving aside all other considerations, there is no creativity happening here, at least not in any sense by which most of us would understand the word, and can’t ever be
Thread—particularly down from here.
And yes, the human creator of a piece of art is crucial not just as a hand on the tiller, but also as a vehicle for serendipity, surprise, grace.
And yes, the human creator of a piece of art is crucial not just as a hand on the tiller, but also as a vehicle for serendipity, surprise, grace.
And something that hit me over the last 12 hours or so is that at least to my mind, creativity and thought are entirely different things
There’s some overlap, sure. But my own experience of creativity is that it’s what happens when conscious thought mostly *stops*
There’s some overlap, sure. But my own experience of creativity is that it’s what happens when conscious thought mostly *stops*
February 16, 2026 at 10:38 PM
Thread—particularly down from here.
And yes, the human creator of a piece of art is crucial not just as a hand on the tiller, but also as a vehicle for serendipity, surprise, grace.
And yes, the human creator of a piece of art is crucial not just as a hand on the tiller, but also as a vehicle for serendipity, surprise, grace.
Reposted by Angus Johnston
And, this article in The Atlantic convinced me I never want to enter a casino again, because there's no reason to assume I'm not exactly the sort of person the casino is looking for. Mike Pence won't eat lunch with women who aren't his wife. My guardrail is never betting on anything.
February 16, 2026 at 4:48 PM
And, this article in The Atlantic convinced me I never want to enter a casino again, because there's no reason to assume I'm not exactly the sort of person the casino is looking for. Mike Pence won't eat lunch with women who aren't his wife. My guardrail is never betting on anything.
Reposted by Angus Johnston
I think often about how near-gambling has primed us for this. Solitaire games that give us points. With ads for slot machine games that give "coins." So many things with the architecture of gambling that make the real thing seem both familiar and harmless.
February 16, 2026 at 4:41 PM
I think often about how near-gambling has primed us for this. Solitaire games that give us points. With ads for slot machine games that give "coins." So many things with the architecture of gambling that make the real thing seem both familiar and harmless.
I can’t think of any academic book I’ve read in the last decade that has lodged in my brain the way the Addiction by Design has. It’s such an important text for understanding so much about the digital age.
A book I highly recommend on electronic slot machines—which fully convinced me they should be illegal for how they systematically mislead our brains—is Natasha Dow Schüll‘s ADDICTION BY DESIGN
Gamified online gambling seems much worse, & is becoming much more ubiquitous
It will immiserate so many
Gamified online gambling seems much worse, & is becoming much more ubiquitous
It will immiserate so many
I see no reason not to look at the online gambling and prediction market craze as a new opioids crisis.
It will wreak havoc on lower-income Americans and leave a trail of destruction and despair in its wake.
The companies are just Purdue Pharma 2.0
www.liberalcurrents.com/from-pill-mi...
It will wreak havoc on lower-income Americans and leave a trail of destruction and despair in its wake.
The companies are just Purdue Pharma 2.0
www.liberalcurrents.com/from-pill-mi...
February 16, 2026 at 4:09 PM
I can’t think of any academic book I’ve read in the last decade that has lodged in my brain the way the Addiction by Design has. It’s such an important text for understanding so much about the digital age.
I’ve been thinking along similar lines—that for anyone who is set on a 2028 bid, saying so now, aggressively and definitively—holds a lot of upside.
Normie Dems are desperate for a standard-bearer, not least because the median Dem hates Chuck Schumer. Give them one.
Normie Dems are desperate for a standard-bearer, not least because the median Dem hates Chuck Schumer. Give them one.
from the perspective of someone who might want to be president, the best time to run for the white house is now, not later. so if AOC is thinking about it — if the white house is her ambition — then her best bet is to throw her hat in the ring
You Know What? Maybe the Time Is Right for an AOC Presidential Bid
She’s only 36, and there’s a good argument that she should run for Senate and bide her time. But she also could be a formidable White House candidate.
newrepublic.com
February 16, 2026 at 4:02 PM
I’ve been thinking along similar lines—that for anyone who is set on a 2028 bid, saying so now, aggressively and definitively—holds a lot of upside.
Normie Dems are desperate for a standard-bearer, not least because the median Dem hates Chuck Schumer. Give them one.
Normie Dems are desperate for a standard-bearer, not least because the median Dem hates Chuck Schumer. Give them one.
Reposted by Angus Johnston
This is a good thread. There is a huge difference between "the court system is still able to provide some positive outcomes in some cases" and "the court system is capable of providing due process and the system is fair."
I'm not trying to add snark. I keep hearing versions of this and think it's useful to consider.
Let's assume for the sake of argument that it is true that the lower courts are working. That forcing lawyers for immigrants to prove 4,400 times that the .gov breaking the law is the system working. +
Let's assume for the sake of argument that it is true that the lower courts are working. That forcing lawyers for immigrants to prove 4,400 times that the .gov breaking the law is the system working. +
February 16, 2026 at 3:57 PM
This is a good thread. There is a huge difference between "the court system is still able to provide some positive outcomes in some cases" and "the court system is capable of providing due process and the system is fair."
Reposted by Angus Johnston
douglas adams was our most accurate futurist
We are at an airport restaurant. A robot just drove up to us with our food, said, "Hi! Here I am!" and then drove away with our food.
February 15, 2026 at 10:10 PM
douglas adams was our most accurate futurist
The lyrics to Embraceable You are so deeply dogshit that one can only conclude Ira wrote them to satisfy a bet.
I mean, come on:
"I love all / the many charms about you
Above all / I want my arms about you"
I mean, come on:
"I love all / the many charms about you
Above all / I want my arms about you"
I'm trying to think of anything where I love one and hate the other, and coming up almost blank except "Embraceable You" which has dogshit tin pan alley lyrics from a composer who knew better
February 15, 2026 at 9:11 PM
The lyrics to Embraceable You are so deeply dogshit that one can only conclude Ira wrote them to satisfy a bet.
I mean, come on:
"I love all / the many charms about you
Above all / I want my arms about you"
I mean, come on:
"I love all / the many charms about you
Above all / I want my arms about you"