Brian Jenkins
@jenkinsaway.bsky.social
sometime amateur reader of philosophy, software-maker, new music enthusiast
Reposted by Brian Jenkins
Please believe me when I say that this meaningless, historically suspect slogan is being used to sell "AI." Here it is in the just-released November 2025 report on AI by Microsoft. www.microsoft.com/en-us/resear...
November 15, 2025 at 4:56 PM
Please believe me when I say that this meaningless, historically suspect slogan is being used to sell "AI." Here it is in the just-released November 2025 report on AI by Microsoft. www.microsoft.com/en-us/resear...
Reposted by Brian Jenkins
From this minister's op-ed: "People wanting to experience God are more likely to meet the Divine trying to shut down the Broadview, Illinois, ICE facility than we ever were in church...God does not live in our houses of worship, but...with those who are bearing the brunt of cruelty in this moment."
Oh wow @reuters.com got the photo here:
November 14, 2025 at 9:38 PM
From this minister's op-ed: "People wanting to experience God are more likely to meet the Divine trying to shut down the Broadview, Illinois, ICE facility than we ever were in church...God does not live in our houses of worship, but...with those who are bearing the brunt of cruelty in this moment."
evergreen
American politics makes a lot more sense when you realize that the GOP is afraid of pissing off the GOP base, and the Dems are afraid of pissing off the GOP base, but neither party is afraid of pissing off the Dem base.
November 10, 2025 at 2:57 PM
evergreen
Reposted by Brian Jenkins
Let's see how many First Amendment violations we have in this one edict:
Religion ✔️
Speech ✔️
Peaceably assemble ✔️
Petition the government for redress of grievances ✔️
Press ❓(not quite, but they'll figure out a way)
Religion ✔️
Speech ✔️
Peaceably assemble ✔️
Petition the government for redress of grievances ✔️
Press ❓(not quite, but they'll figure out a way)
“Federal authorities told demonstrators Friday that there would be ‘no more prayer’ in front of or inside the Broadview ICE facility, in a move that mystified local leaders and raised legal questions.” blockclubchicago.org/2025/11/07/f...
Feds Tell Faith Leaders 'No More Prayer' Outside Broadview Facility
In a possible violation of the First Amendment, federal officials instructed demonstrators to stop holding religious gatherings outside the immigration processing facility in suburban Broadview after ...
blockclubchicago.org
November 8, 2025 at 1:31 PM
Let's see how many First Amendment violations we have in this one edict:
Religion ✔️
Speech ✔️
Peaceably assemble ✔️
Petition the government for redress of grievances ✔️
Press ❓(not quite, but they'll figure out a way)
Religion ✔️
Speech ✔️
Peaceably assemble ✔️
Petition the government for redress of grievances ✔️
Press ❓(not quite, but they'll figure out a way)
Reposted by Brian Jenkins
Good piece: www.thenation.com/article/poli...
Nick Fuentes Has Officially Breached the MAGA Gates
How the right’s crisis over US support for Israel has provided the white nationalist with the opening he needs to be welcomed into the MAGA fold.
www.thenation.com
November 8, 2025 at 8:51 PM
Good piece: www.thenation.com/article/poli...
Reposted by Brian Jenkins
Australia has so much electricity from solar power that it is going to start offering free electricity to everyone for at least three hours during the day as the wholesale price of power goes negative
electrek.co/2025/11/04/a...
electrek.co/2025/11/04/a...
Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity
Australia's extensive solar power penetration makes so much energy that the government wants to offer free electricity at peak hours.
electrek.co
November 6, 2025 at 4:58 AM
Australia has so much electricity from solar power that it is going to start offering free electricity to everyone for at least three hours during the day as the wholesale price of power goes negative
electrek.co/2025/11/04/a...
electrek.co/2025/11/04/a...
Reposted by Brian Jenkins
As millions of Americans are about to lose their SNAP benefits, I am reminded of this quote by Emma Goldman:
"Ask for work. If they don't give you work, ask for bread. If they do not give you work or bread, then take bread."
"Ask for work. If they don't give you work, ask for bread. If they do not give you work or bread, then take bread."
October 28, 2025 at 4:01 PM
As millions of Americans are about to lose their SNAP benefits, I am reminded of this quote by Emma Goldman:
"Ask for work. If they don't give you work, ask for bread. If they do not give you work or bread, then take bread."
"Ask for work. If they don't give you work, ask for bread. If they do not give you work or bread, then take bread."
Reposted by Brian Jenkins
worth applying to politics as well. when you're criticizing an action people take "taking the better action next time" is only one of the alternatives people will consider, and worth remembering that "not bothering at all" is another.
October 26, 2025 at 12:55 PM
worth applying to politics as well. when you're criticizing an action people take "taking the better action next time" is only one of the alternatives people will consider, and worth remembering that "not bothering at all" is another.
Reposted by Brian Jenkins
How many classes today were canceled because a whole suite of EdTech services are built atop AWS?
You know what platform never crashes?
You know what platform never crashes?
October 20, 2025 at 4:19 PM
How many classes today were canceled because a whole suite of EdTech services are built atop AWS?
You know what platform never crashes?
You know what platform never crashes?
There may be too many think-pieces about Thiel's intellectual background, but this essay is the most insightful. Long but worth it.
It also has a sentence that could serve as evergreen tagline about him:
"Thiel overlooks the opportunity for self-examination"
salmagundi.skidmore.edu/articles/117...
It also has a sentence that could serve as evergreen tagline about him:
"Thiel overlooks the opportunity for self-examination"
salmagundi.skidmore.edu/articles/117...
From Philosophy To Power - Salmagundi Magazine
René Girard’s Legacy This past summer, I was surprised to encounter a face I knew in two most unexpected places. The first was in a photo montage accompanying an article written by Josh Kovensky of...
salmagundi.skidmore.edu
October 12, 2025 at 3:24 PM
There may be too many think-pieces about Thiel's intellectual background, but this essay is the most insightful. Long but worth it.
It also has a sentence that could serve as evergreen tagline about him:
"Thiel overlooks the opportunity for self-examination"
salmagundi.skidmore.edu/articles/117...
It also has a sentence that could serve as evergreen tagline about him:
"Thiel overlooks the opportunity for self-examination"
salmagundi.skidmore.edu/articles/117...
Reposted by Brian Jenkins
I like how the news will be like “while the President claiming Portland was ruled by a giant skeleton named Mr Nibbles is not strictly true, it does speak to the anxiety of many Americans”
October 10, 2025 at 11:59 PM
I like how the news will be like “while the President claiming Portland was ruled by a giant skeleton named Mr Nibbles is not strictly true, it does speak to the anxiety of many Americans”
"they wanted to make a machine that would love us back, without needing love in return"
www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
Putting ChatGPT on the Couch
When I played doctor with the chatbot, the simulated patient confessed problems that are real—and that should worry all of us.
www.newyorker.com
October 4, 2025 at 2:53 AM
"they wanted to make a machine that would love us back, without needing love in return"
www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
"No matter which way it goes—taking the Senate or the fall of democracy—whatever the eventuality, the work remains the same."
This story has it all: aquaculture, Black Flag, Bernie Sanders, Star Trek as policy, John Hodgman, male tears, and a candidate citing Luthen’s monologue from Andor.
Meet Graham Platner, the Maine oysterman trying to crack the senate. @grahamformaine.bsky.social
newrepublic.com/article/1996...
Meet Graham Platner, the Maine oysterman trying to crack the senate. @grahamformaine.bsky.social
newrepublic.com/article/1996...
The Political Awakening of the Oyster Farmer Gunning for Susan Collins
Graham Platner’s campaign launch has been a sudden sensation. But what he’s building now is rooted in the work of a lifetime.
newrepublic.com
August 29, 2025 at 4:37 PM
"No matter which way it goes—taking the Senate or the fall of democracy—whatever the eventuality, the work remains the same."
I would also add:
- a signifier as that which represents a subject for another signifier
Phrases Democrats should definitely use more often:
- "as we all know, desire is always the desire of the Other"
- a signifier as that which represents a subject for another signifier
Phrases Democrats should definitely use more often:
- "as we all know, desire is always the desire of the Other"
Words/phrases Democrats should never use:
- the unconscious is structured like a language
- the real is what resists symbolization absolutely
- Il n'y a pas de rapport sexuel
- $<>a
- the unconscious is structured like a language
- the real is what resists symbolization absolutely
- Il n'y a pas de rapport sexuel
- $<>a
Words/phrases Democrats should never use:
* bipartisan
* my Republican friends
* real, valid, legitimate, serious, important (to describe issue raised by Republicans)
* yea (when voting on Republican bills)
* distraction (to describe bad thing Republicans did)
* woke (in derogatory sense)
* bipartisan
* my Republican friends
* real, valid, legitimate, serious, important (to describe issue raised by Republicans)
* yea (when voting on Republican bills)
* distraction (to describe bad thing Republicans did)
* woke (in derogatory sense)
August 25, 2025 at 2:19 AM
I would also add:
- a signifier as that which represents a subject for another signifier
Phrases Democrats should definitely use more often:
- "as we all know, desire is always the desire of the Other"
- a signifier as that which represents a subject for another signifier
Phrases Democrats should definitely use more often:
- "as we all know, desire is always the desire of the Other"
Seeing Graham blow up this week has been surreal but also more exciting than I thought it could be. He is exactly the kind of person we need in the Senate, and over Susan Collins no less
August 22, 2025 at 2:28 AM
Seeing Graham blow up this week has been surreal but also more exciting than I thought it could be. He is exactly the kind of person we need in the Senate, and over Susan Collins no less
"Since action has escaped human control and gone over to things, there is no more universal maxim of willing. Rather, there is only a universal maxim of things: “have and use only those things, the inherent maxims of which could become your own maxims and thus the maxims of a general law.”"
and if you don’t know about Günther Anders, the great critic of the nuclear bomb, read on brooklynrail.org/2024/07/fiel...
Welcome to the Anderscene | The Brooklyn Rail
Günther Anders (Stern)—first husband of Hannah Arendt; second cousin of Walter Benjamin; student of Husserl and Heidegger; roommate of Marcuse; friend of Brecht; rival of Adorno; attendant of Kojève’s...
brooklynrail.org
August 5, 2025 at 1:40 AM
"Since action has escaped human control and gone over to things, there is no more universal maxim of willing. Rather, there is only a universal maxim of things: “have and use only those things, the inherent maxims of which could become your own maxims and thus the maxims of a general law.”"
Reposted by Brian Jenkins
"Five months into its unprecedented dismantling of foreign-aid programs, the Trump administration has given the order to incinerate food instead of sending it to people who need it"
@hana-kiros.bsky.social, on spending $130,000 to burn food worth $800,000
www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...
@hana-kiros.bsky.social, on spending $130,000 to burn food worth $800,000
www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...
The Trump Administration Is About to Incinerate 500 Tons of Emergency Food
Federal workers warned for months that the high-energy biscuits would go to waste.
www.theatlantic.com
July 15, 2025 at 5:31 AM
"Five months into its unprecedented dismantling of foreign-aid programs, the Trump administration has given the order to incinerate food instead of sending it to people who need it"
@hana-kiros.bsky.social, on spending $130,000 to burn food worth $800,000
www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...
@hana-kiros.bsky.social, on spending $130,000 to burn food worth $800,000
www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...
Reposted by Brian Jenkins
hardest reconstruction I’ve had to do for any unpublished/archived ISR project yet: Cultural Aspects of National Socialism (1941)—drafted as a radical Freudo-Marxist research program, subject to upwards of 26 revisions that failed to make it inoffensive enough for approval
🔗 ⬇️
🔗 ⬇️
July 13, 2025 at 9:16 PM
hardest reconstruction I’ve had to do for any unpublished/archived ISR project yet: Cultural Aspects of National Socialism (1941)—drafted as a radical Freudo-Marxist research program, subject to upwards of 26 revisions that failed to make it inoffensive enough for approval
🔗 ⬇️
🔗 ⬇️
Reposted by Brian Jenkins
everyone wants to claim they’re doing “New Romanticism” but without the lost art of extreme pathos or the going crazy part
June 30, 2025 at 2:52 PM
everyone wants to claim they’re doing “New Romanticism” but without the lost art of extreme pathos or the going crazy part
"The most fundamental purpose of constitutional government, as it evolved in 17th-century..., was to make the executive power susceptible to legislative control."
When the (elected) legislature cannot act as the sovereign then the people are not self-governing. That is the root of the failure.
When the (elected) legislature cannot act as the sovereign then the people are not self-governing. That is the root of the failure.
This is a subject I have been brooding about for some time. I am grateful to the Washington Monthly for posting this piece.
washingtonmonthly.com/2025/06/27/i...
washingtonmonthly.com/2025/06/27/i...
It’s Not Just a Constitutional Crisis in the Trump Era. It’s Constitutional Failure | Washington Monthly
While Trump defies constitutional norms, Congress remains conspicuously silent and the Supreme Court has abdicated its responsibility.
washingtonmonthly.com
June 28, 2025 at 1:40 PM
"The most fundamental purpose of constitutional government, as it evolved in 17th-century..., was to make the executive power susceptible to legislative control."
When the (elected) legislature cannot act as the sovereign then the people are not self-governing. That is the root of the failure.
When the (elected) legislature cannot act as the sovereign then the people are not self-governing. That is the root of the failure.
Reposted by Brian Jenkins
For the sake of comparison, 9% of Americans approve of the Black Plague.
June 23, 2025 at 2:52 AM
For the sake of comparison, 9% of Americans approve of the Black Plague.
Reposted by Brian Jenkins
The Trump administration’s slashing of budgets and staff have Great Lakes scientists concerned that they have lost the ability to protect the public from toxic algal blooms, which can kill animals and sicken people.
(Published May 2025)
By @annaleighclark.bsky.social
(Published May 2025)
By @annaleighclark.bsky.social
Millions of People Depend on the Great Lakes’ Water Supply. Trump Decimated the Lab Protecting It.
The Trump administration’s slashing of budgets and staff have Great Lakes scientists concerned that they have lost the ability to protect the public from toxic algal blooms, which can kill animals…
www.propublica.org
June 21, 2025 at 3:00 AM
The Trump administration’s slashing of budgets and staff have Great Lakes scientists concerned that they have lost the ability to protect the public from toxic algal blooms, which can kill animals and sicken people.
(Published May 2025)
By @annaleighclark.bsky.social
(Published May 2025)
By @annaleighclark.bsky.social
Reposted by Brian Jenkins
It's pretty irritating how many pundits would hear the ideas "I want to shove 100 live scorpions in your mouth" and "I want to shove 0 live scorpions in your mouth" and sagely declare: "The wisest course of action is to let someone shove 50 live scorpions in your mouth."
June 16, 2025 at 1:29 PM
It's pretty irritating how many pundits would hear the ideas "I want to shove 100 live scorpions in your mouth" and "I want to shove 0 live scorpions in your mouth" and sagely declare: "The wisest course of action is to let someone shove 50 live scorpions in your mouth."
Reading J.N. Findlay's intro to Husserl's Logical Investigations and thinking about AI for no reason.
May 26, 2025 at 8:36 PM
Reading J.N. Findlay's intro to Husserl's Logical Investigations and thinking about AI for no reason.
"Yet the gold in Fort Knox is not for Trump “real” simply because of its material weight or value but precisely because it is a symbol."
New from me about Trump, musk, the gold in Fort Knox, fascism and Moishe Postone
We’re Going to Fort Knox to Touch the Real - Public Seminar
The gold in Fort Knox is not for Trump “real” simply because of its material weight or value but precisely because it is a symbol.
publicseminar.org
May 20, 2025 at 9:06 PM
"Yet the gold in Fort Knox is not for Trump “real” simply because of its material weight or value but precisely because it is a symbol."