Asbjørn Dyrendal
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asbjorndyrendal.bsky.social
Asbjørn Dyrendal
@asbjorndyrendal.bsky.social
3.8K followers 650 following 210 posts
Conspiracy beliefs, apocalypticism, extremism, new religious movements. Skeptical Norwegian. Professor, Religionswissenschaft.
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Reposted by Asbjørn Dyrendal
thestudyofwar.bsky.social
NEW: Russia killed at least 26 Ukrainian civilians and injured at least 139 on the night of Nov. 18 to 19 strikes that disproportionately impacted civilian areas.

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, November 19, 2025: isw.pub/UkrWar111925

Other Key Takeaways ⬇️ [🧵] (1/7)
November 20, 2025 at 4:56 AM
Reposted by Asbjørn Dyrendal
vortexegg.com
This is a great article and a good thesis of what I’ve been calling participatory make-believe. We—other people—are the source of our collective nonsense.
We've become so accustomed to this churn that much of what we know, or think we know, now consists of confabulations that have built up over years. The collective knowledge base has been overwritten with received wisdom, fourth-hand opinions, and counterintuitive pop social science that flatters our cleverness while sparing us the effort of understanding anything deeply. In an increasingly complex world, the metaphors we use to explain it keep getting cruder. Any process that turns anything to crap is "enshittification." Every aesthetic is a "core." The ad-driven, data-powered personalization system that rules our lives is "the algorithm." Anything that can't be explained via one of the above is simply "vibes."
November 19, 2025 at 6:29 PM
Reposted by Asbjørn Dyrendal
jilltxt.bsky.social
The Digital Omnibus proposes to deregulate privacy & AI in Europe. It is a terrible idea. I'm one of the signatories of an open letter to the Norwegian government explaining why we need to keep GDPR, the AI Act and other tech regulation in place. Especially now. www.forbrukerradet.no/siste-nytt/d...
Forslag om "forenkling" av digitale regelverk svekker forbrukerrettigheter
Nytt lovforslag er en avvikling av grunnleggende rettigheter, mener Forbrukerrådet og en rekke andre organisasjoner og privatpersoner.
www.forbrukerradet.no
November 18, 2025 at 12:39 PM
Reposted by Asbjørn Dyrendal
jeffsharlet.bsky.social
Bovino, Stephen Miller, now knife-wielding pervert Teddy bears… what’s even the point of making horror movies now?
November 18, 2025 at 10:57 AM
Reposted by Asbjørn Dyrendal
gerardomarti.bsky.social
Political Gap Between Pastors & Pews

“Political partisanship of the average mainline pastor diverges significantly from the politics of the folks sitting in their pews.”

Ryan Burge analyzes recent PRRI data to highlight pervasive pattern in Mainline Christianity 👉 open.substack.com/pub/ryanburg...
The Partisanship of Clergy and Laity in Mainline Traditions This horizontal stacked bar chart displays partisan identification among clergy and laity (non-clergy members) across seven mainline Protestant denominations. Each denomination has two rows (one for clergy, one for laity) and the responses are divided into four categories: Democrat (blue), Independent (gray), Republican (red), and Other (green). The denominations included are United Methodist, Evangelical Lutheran, Presbyterian Church USA, American Baptist, Episcopal Church, United Church of Christ, and Disciples of Christ. Each bar is annotated with the percentage value for each group and party identification. For example, in the United Methodist tradition, 38% of clergy identify as Democrat, 34% as Independent, 19% as Republican, and 9% as Other; laity are 37% Democrat, 9% Independent, 52% Republican, and 1% Other. Percentages are shown inside their corresponding bar segments. The data source is listed as PRRI 2023 Clergy Survey + Cooperative Election Study, 2024, and “@ryanburge” is credited as the creator. Share of Clergy and Laity Identifying as Republican This bar chart provides a visual comparison of the share of clergy and laity identifying as Republican in the same seven mainline Protestant denominations. Each denomination is represented by two adjacent bars: the left bar is for clergy and the right bar is for laity. The percentages are indicated inside each bar, and the bars are colored in shades of red. Error bars are present atop each bar, suggesting a margin of error is included. For example, in the Presbyterian Church USA, 7% of clergy and 53% of laity identify as Republican. In the United Methodist tradition, the figures are 19% clergy and 52% laity. The denominations shown are United Methodist, Evangelical Lutheran, Presbyterian Church USA, American Baptist, Episcopal Church, United Church of Christ, and Disciples of Christ. The data sources and credit are the same as the first graph.
November 17, 2025 at 3:20 PM
Reposted by Asbjørn Dyrendal
brenttoderian.bsky.social
“Helsinki hasn’t registered a single traffic-related fatality in the past year…Citing data that shows the risk of pedestrian fatality is cut in half by reducing a car’s speed from 40 to 30km/hr, city officials imposed the lower limit in most of Helsinki’s residential areas & city center in 2021.”
Helsinki just went a full year without a single traffic death
The capital city is Finnish’ed with car-related fatalities.
www.politico.eu
November 17, 2025 at 6:31 AM
Reposted by Asbjørn Dyrendal
katestarbird.bsky.social
Preprint w/ (rapid) analysis of Grokipedia, showing it to be “highly derivative of Wikipedia”, but differing, often on controversial topics, in that Grokipedia includes content/cites from low quality (hyper partisan & conspiracy laden) sources like Stormfront & Infowars. arxiv.org/pdf/2511.09685
arxiv.org
November 14, 2025 at 5:20 PM
Reposted by Asbjørn Dyrendal
punkrockhistory.bsky.social
44 years ago today
Damaged is the debut studio album by the American hardcore punk band Black Flag, released on this day in 1981 and became one of the most influential punk rock records of all time,

Cover Art by Edward Colver

#punk #punks #punkrock #damaged #blackflag #punkrockhistory #otd
November 16, 2025 at 3:40 AM
Reposted by Asbjørn Dyrendal
notjessewalker.bsky.social
"My sister said, 'How is she going to get deported if she's a Native American?'"
ICE Almost Deports Native American Woman
Leticia Jacobo was about to be deported, despite her Social Security number and tribal identification.
newrepublic.com
November 15, 2025 at 7:32 PM
Reposted by Asbjørn Dyrendal
kai-arzheimer.com
The 2020 edition of the radical right bibliography #farright
The Far Right Bibliography: the pandemic (aka spring 2020) update - kai arzheimer
The Eclectic, Erratic Bibliography on the Extreme Right (in (Western) Europe)™ is a collection of references on far right parties & their voters. Most of
www.kai-arzheimer.com
November 15, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Reposted by Asbjørn Dyrendal
timothysnyder.bsky.social
Creating the US SA was always and obviously the idea.
shashj.bsky.social Shashank Joshi @shashj.bsky.social · 6d
"what began as a way to increase the pace of deportations has come to look like a national police force, answerable to the president, that is at least as focused on bullying the residents of Democrat-run cities as it is on deporting undocumented migrants" www.economist.com/interactive/...
See how Donald Trump is creating his own police force
Immigration agents are operating in cities with few legal constraints
www.economist.com
November 14, 2025 at 5:34 PM
Reposted by Asbjørn Dyrendal
katekilla.bsky.social
People need to study the humanities, case study number one million.
rezekjoe.bsky.social Joseph Rezek @rezekjoe.bsky.social · 6d
This is a real flight school, teaching people to fly planes!!! Like????
Logo for Icarus flying academy in Farmingdale, NY
November 14, 2025 at 2:30 PM
Reposted by Asbjørn Dyrendal
sarahkendzior.bsky.social
BlueSky is a bad site used by good people. That describes most social media sites. But BlueSky is egregiously unethical. Any of you can be disappeared for baseless reasons. I've been on social media for 17 years and never been suspended. BlueSky is the first place to do so – over Johnny Cash lyrics.
November 14, 2025 at 1:51 PM
Reposted by Asbjørn Dyrendal
unnieikeseth.bsky.social
"Demokratiet hviler ikke bare på stemmesedler, men på at borgerne kan lese, tolke, og tenke selv. Derfor er kampen for lesing ikke bare en kamp om skoletimer eller biblioteksbudsjetter, det er en kamp for fremtiden" 📖: www.utdanningsnytt.no/bibliotek-de...
Hvordan vi prioriterer bøker i skolen sier noe om hva slags samfunn vi vil være
Debatt: Demokratiet hviler ikke bare på stemmesedler, men på at borgerne kan lese, tolke, og tenke selv.
www.utdanningsnytt.no
November 14, 2025 at 12:42 PM
Reposted by Asbjørn Dyrendal
meadekrosby.bsky.social
Prohibited activities include advising Chinese graduate students. For reference, a recent Georgetown report estimated 16% of STEM graduate students in the US are Chinese nationals.

This would take out entire fields at the knees, which is perhaps the point.
environmicrobio.bsky.social Roland Hatzenpichler @environmicrobio.bsky.social · 6d
“The prohibited activities would include joint research, co-authorship on papers, and advising a foreign graduate student or postdoctoral fellow. The language is retroactive, meaning any interactions during the previous 5 years could make a scientist ineligible for future federal funding.”
U.S. Congress considers sweeping ban on Chinese collaborations
Researchers speak out against proposal that would bar funding for U.S. scientists working with Chinese partners or training Chinese students
www.science.org
November 14, 2025 at 2:52 AM
Reposted by Asbjørn Dyrendal
profsamperry.bsky.social
The percentage of Americans who say religion is an important part of their lives declined from 66% in 2015 to 49% in 2025. Among the fastest declines in the world.
news.gallup.com/poll/697676/...
November 13, 2025 at 2:02 PM
Reposted by Asbjørn Dyrendal
supercamilla.bsky.social
"Det er alt for farleg å bruke det i yrke der kunnskap er viktig, og det gjeld veldig mange yrke: Journalistikk, utdanning, forsking, prosjektarbeid og mykje anna."

Takk for at du bruker den faglige tyngden din til å si klart i fra @jilltxt.bsky.social 💚
KI-forskar Jill Walker Rettberg vil ha KI ut av kunnskapsarbeidet
Nyheter | Kunstig intelligens KI-forskaren som seier stopp Kunstig intelligens høyrer ikkje heime i kunnskapsarbeid, seier Jill Walker Rettberg. Ho meiner det må bli slutt på å unnskylde språkmodell-s...
www.forskerforum.no
November 13, 2025 at 2:29 PM
Reposted by Asbjørn Dyrendal
reichlinmelnick.bsky.social
NEW: @propublica.org investigated the Chicago apartment raid where kids were zip-tied and citizens detained for hours. They find:

- NONE of the arrested were criminally charged
- NO evidence the building was "filled with TdA terrorists."
- ZERO legitimate reason for DHS to rappel from a Blackhawk.
As a Black Hawk helicopter roared overhead, the slender, 28-year-old immigrant from Venezuela answered softly, his eyes darting to a television crew invited to film the raid. Next to Caicedo, masked Border Patrol agents inspected another man’s tattoos and asked him if he belonged to Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan gang that the Trump administration has designated a terrorist group. Until that moment, Caicedo’s only interaction with law enforcement in his two-and-a-half years in the United States had been a traffic stop two weeks earlier for driving without a license or insurance, according to the records we reviewed. Chicago police had run a background check on him and found no prior arrests, no warrants and no evidence that he was in a gang. Caicedo said he had a pending asylum application, a steady job at a taco joint and a girlfriend whose daughter attended elementary school across the street. None of that mattered. The U.S. government paraded him and his neighbors in front of the cameras and called their arrests a spectacular victory against terrorism. But later, after the cameras had gone, prosecutors didn’t charge Caicedo with a crime. They didn’t accuse him of being a terrorist. And after a brief hearing in immigration court, the government sent him back to the country he had fled nine years earlier. “I lost everything,” he said in a phone interview from his mother’s home in the Venezuelan city of Valencia. “For those fools, everyone from Venezuela is a criminal.”
November 13, 2025 at 2:08 PM
Reposted by Asbjørn Dyrendal
eivindtraedal.bsky.social
Et tilleggspoeng: media klipper og redigerer omtrent alle sitater av Trump. Det er nødvendig fordi han kommuniserer i en uendelig strøm av usammenhengende haranger. Som regel kommer dette Trump til gode, ved at han fremstår mer rasjonell og sammenhengende enn han er (sanewashing).
eivindtraedal.bsky.social Eivind Trædal @eivindtraedal.bsky.social · 8d
NRK har fått Trump-panikk og går igjennom arkivene for å rense bort "misvisende" vinklinger. De handler ut av frykt, ikke prinsipper. Misvisende klipping, tvilsom sitatbruk og lignende er dagligdags i pressen. Ofte får man ikke engang en beklagelse. Trump får spesialbehandling fordi han er farlig.
November 12, 2025 at 8:48 AM
Reposted by Asbjørn Dyrendal
thestudyofwar.bsky.social

8/ The Kremlin is conducting multiple information operations against the Baltic states as it did to justify the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, likely as part of Phase Zero conditions-setting for a possible attack on the Baltic states at some point in the future.
November 13, 2025 at 5:46 AM
Reposted by Asbjørn Dyrendal
jacobnyrup.bsky.social
We are hiring PhDs and postdocs to work on the ERC project GETGOV, where I am the PI.

We will investigate governing elites since 1789. I am sure that it will be a lot of fun and result in great research!

Postdocs: www.jobbnorge.no/en/available...

PhDs: www.jobbnorge.no/en/available...
Postdoctoral Fellow in Political Science (3-4 years) (288628) | University of Oslo
Job title: Postdoctoral Fellow in Political Science (3-4 years) (288628), Employer: University of Oslo, Deadline: Monday, November 17, 2025
www.jobbnorge.no
October 20, 2025 at 3:27 PM
Reposted by Asbjørn Dyrendal
drewharwell.com
Israel has destroyed more than 1,500 buildings in one month of "ceasefire." Gardens, homes, entire neighborhoods turned to dust www.bbc.com/news/article...
Israel has destroyed more than 1,500 buildings in Gaza since ceasefire
Entire neighbourhoods controlled by Israel have been levelled in less than a month, satellite images show.
www.bbc.com
November 12, 2025 at 3:58 AM
Reposted by Asbjørn Dyrendal
donmoyn.bsky.social
Three German universities offering post-docs for researchers "who cannot conduct or continue their work in the USA appropriately because of actual political pressure. "
www.uni-konstanz.de/zukunftskoll...
Early Career Rescue Fellowship
www.uni-konstanz.de
November 11, 2025 at 7:10 PM
Reposted by Asbjørn Dyrendal
petergleick.bsky.social
New report identifies major surge in water-related conflicts.
Violence over water is reported in every region of the world.

Pacific Institute releases an update to the Water Conflict Chronology, now documenting over 2750 cases over more than 4000 years. #water
www.worldwater.org/water-confli...
Bar chart of water conflicts from 2010 to 2024 showing major increases over time, from under 50 events per year in 2010 and 2011 to more than 350 in 2023 and 420 in 2023. Bar chart showing the number of water-related conflicts in the Pacific Institute's Water Conflict Chronology by UN region. The most are in Western Asia (aka the Middle East) but with many in Southern Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean. The data go back more than 4000 years.
November 11, 2025 at 5:16 PM