Ben Snyder
@benjaminhsnyder.bsky.social
I write about technology run amok, capitalism, and other depressing things while also envisioning a world beyond them.
Pinned
My new book Spy Plane: Inside Baltimore's Surveillance Experiment is now out @ucpress.bsky.social. Let me tell you a bit about what's in it.
The 100th episode of Peoples and Things?!? It was a blast talking to Lee Vinsel about my book Spy Plane on this very special episode of the 'ol P-n-T. athenaeum.vt.domains/peoplesandth...
@ucpress.bsky.social
@ucpress.bsky.social
Ben Snyder on Spy Plane: Inside Baltimore’s Surveillance Experiment – Peoples & Things
athenaeum.vt.domains
June 17, 2025 at 5:38 PM
The 100th episode of Peoples and Things?!? It was a blast talking to Lee Vinsel about my book Spy Plane on this very special episode of the 'ol P-n-T. athenaeum.vt.domains/peoplesandth...
@ucpress.bsky.social
@ucpress.bsky.social
This episode was so great! I have so many students doing mini research projects and theses on social mobility at elite colleges. Looking forward to reading this book!@danielrmorrison.bsky.social @mosbornesoc.bsky.social
New Annex just dropped! @danielrmorrison.bsky.social speaks to @mosbornesoc.bsky.social about Polished: College, Class, and the Burdens of Social Mobility (2024, U Chicago Press). Fantastic book about the lives of low income and first-gen students. Listen socannex.commons.gc.cuny.edu/podcast/meli...
Melissa Osborne on College, Class, and Social Mobility
Dan Morrison (@danielrmorrison.bsky.social) interviews Dr. Melissa Osborne (@mosbornesoc.bsky.social), Associate Professor of Sociology at Western Wash
socannex.commons.gc.cuny.edu
May 22, 2025 at 4:44 PM
This episode was so great! I have so many students doing mini research projects and theses on social mobility at elite colleges. Looking forward to reading this book!@danielrmorrison.bsky.social @mosbornesoc.bsky.social
Worth a read. One thing I'd add is that the "imperial boomerang" often starts in the US, then goes abroad, then comes back. And that's what you see with companies like Palantir or Shotspotter. local US cops->IDF->federal US cops
theintercept.com/2025/04/30/i...
theintercept.com/2025/04/30/i...
U.S. Companies Honed Their Surveillance Tech in Israel. Now It’s Coming Home.
After deploying AI tools in Israel and on the U.S. border, American tech companies are now powering domestic repression.
theintercept.com
May 1, 2025 at 1:22 PM
Worth a read. One thing I'd add is that the "imperial boomerang" often starts in the US, then goes abroad, then comes back. And that's what you see with companies like Palantir or Shotspotter. local US cops->IDF->federal US cops
theintercept.com/2025/04/30/i...
theintercept.com/2025/04/30/i...
This is horrifying. How much do you want to bet some clueless Palantir consultant was behind the intel for this raid. #dumbdystopia
kfor.com/news/local/w...
kfor.com/news/local/w...
'We're citizens!': Oklahoma City family traumatized after ICE raids home, but they weren't suspects
A woman says her family’s fresh start in Oklahoma turned into a nightmare after federal immigration agents raided their home, taking their phones, laptops, and life savings – even though they were …
kfor.com
April 29, 2025 at 3:47 PM
This is horrifying. How much do you want to bet some clueless Palantir consultant was behind the intel for this raid. #dumbdystopia
kfor.com/news/local/w...
kfor.com/news/local/w...
Enshitification…engaged
OpenAI announces that it will start showing product recommendations in ChatGPT, even for logged-out users, with buy buttons that link to merchants' sites (Reece Rogers/Wired)
Main Link | Techmeme Permalink
Main Link | Techmeme Permalink
April 29, 2025 at 12:16 AM
Enshitification…engaged
All of this just feels like the logical outcome of massive wealth inequality in which the rich go from merely segregated to literally living in a different version of reality.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...
www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...
The rise of end times fascism | Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor
The governing ideology of the far right has become a monstrous, supremacist survivalism. Our task is to build a movement strong enough to stop them
www.theguardian.com
April 26, 2025 at 7:50 PM
All of this just feels like the logical outcome of massive wealth inequality in which the rich go from merely segregated to literally living in a different version of reality.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...
www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...
Had a student (astrophysics major) tell me all the jobs in her dream field (federal patent law) are gone bc of govt cuts. Then said only thing she is getting offers for are places like Anduril, General Atomics, etc. 🙃
April 21, 2025 at 9:55 PM
Had a student (astrophysics major) tell me all the jobs in her dream field (federal patent law) are gone bc of govt cuts. Then said only thing she is getting offers for are places like Anduril, General Atomics, etc. 🙃
Glad to see Williams showing up for this.
www.presidentsalliance.org/wp-content/u...
www.presidentsalliance.org/wp-content/u...
www.presidentsalliance.org
April 14, 2025 at 12:05 AM
Glad to see Williams showing up for this.
www.presidentsalliance.org/wp-content/u...
www.presidentsalliance.org/wp-content/u...
True of literally every hyped thing right now
April 12, 2025 at 4:38 PM
True of literally every hyped thing right now
Reposted by Ben Snyder
ICE may have deleted it, but you should NEVER forget that they posted it.
This administration is mounting a full-scale assault on freedom of thought and expression (not to mention the rule of law), the likes and brazenness of which we have not seen before.
This administration is mounting a full-scale assault on freedom of thought and expression (not to mention the rule of law), the likes and brazenness of which we have not seen before.
April 11, 2025 at 12:40 PM
ICE may have deleted it, but you should NEVER forget that they posted it.
This administration is mounting a full-scale assault on freedom of thought and expression (not to mention the rule of law), the likes and brazenness of which we have not seen before.
This administration is mounting a full-scale assault on freedom of thought and expression (not to mention the rule of law), the likes and brazenness of which we have not seen before.
I’m not kidding; this is DOGE at work; multiple US citizens getting notices that they just leave the country because USCIS is revoking their humanitarian parole.
www.politico.com/news/2025/04...
www.politico.com/news/2025/04...
April 12, 2025 at 12:22 AM
I don’t think we’ve fully considered how funny (and tragic) it is that the only thing that prevented a double digit wipeout in the stock market today was a fake tweet
April 8, 2025 at 3:52 PM
NEW: Kilmar Abrego Garcia "sits in a foreign prison solely at the behest of the United States, as the product of a Kafka-esque mistake," his attorneys write in their brief to the US Supreme Court. www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24...
April 7, 2025 at 10:10 PM
Has the world ever paid a bigger price for the consequences of one old man’s declining grasp of cause and effect?
April 7, 2025 at 10:09 PM
He’s an idiot. A dangerous idiot. And so many people are being so severely hurt by his idiocy.👇
April 7, 2025 at 8:22 PM
It’s not just that they fundamentally misunderstand basic economics, but that they also want to live a fantasy where they make $200k working at a toaster-making factory while their stay-at-home wife makes dinner for them in the suburbs and cares for their 4 children.
April 7, 2025 at 8:20 PM
The dumbest people are destroying us.
That makes it even more painful.
That makes it even more painful.
April 7, 2025 at 8:17 PM
Not sure which is worse.
Smart dystopia: Big Brother has all knowing sight and is able to ruin people’s lives by outmaneuvering us.
Dumb dystopia: Big Brother engages in security theater, but actually knows little, ruining people’s lives bc of idiotic mistakes.
We’re obviously in the latter.
Smart dystopia: Big Brother has all knowing sight and is able to ruin people’s lives by outmaneuvering us.
Dumb dystopia: Big Brother engages in security theater, but actually knows little, ruining people’s lives bc of idiotic mistakes.
We’re obviously in the latter.
March 28, 2025 at 7:23 PM
Not sure which is worse.
Smart dystopia: Big Brother has all knowing sight and is able to ruin people’s lives by outmaneuvering us.
Dumb dystopia: Big Brother engages in security theater, but actually knows little, ruining people’s lives bc of idiotic mistakes.
We’re obviously in the latter.
Smart dystopia: Big Brother has all knowing sight and is able to ruin people’s lives by outmaneuvering us.
Dumb dystopia: Big Brother engages in security theater, but actually knows little, ruining people’s lives bc of idiotic mistakes.
We’re obviously in the latter.
🎯 “When the rejection of hype leads to a wholesale rejection of any related technology, it can also affirm, dangerously, the belief that public policy and deliberation have no role in shaping technology.” www.techpolicy.press/future-fatig...
Future Fatigue: How Hype has Replaced Hope in the 21st Century | TechPolicy.Press
To resist AI hype, we must not reassert the fiction that we could “return” to a functional democracy, writes Eryk Salvaggio.
www.techpolicy.press
March 27, 2025 at 11:55 AM
🎯 “When the rejection of hype leads to a wholesale rejection of any related technology, it can also affirm, dangerously, the belief that public policy and deliberation have no role in shaping technology.” www.techpolicy.press/future-fatig...