David A. Banks
@davidabanks.online
Author of The City Authentic: How the Attention Economy Builds Urban America. Delegate to the Troy Area Labor Council for UUP / AFT- Local 2190. Officer for Contingents, UUP Albany Chapter.
Pinned
David A. Banks
@davidabanks.online
· Nov 13
The City Authentic
Out now! The first book to explore how our cities gentrify by becoming social media influencers—and why it works. Cities, like the people that live in them, are subject to the attention economy. In…
davidabanks.online
📌I wrote a book about why your city looks like every other city while everyone in the city pretends their city is authentic and unique. 📌 davidabanks.online/thecityauthentic
Reposted by David A. Banks
The New School is now a place where students cannot major in History, Anthropology, Sociology, Global Policy & International Affairs, Global Studies, Urban Studies, or Environmental Studies. And more pauses, closures, and mergers coming down the pike this week. The future is uncertain.
November 19, 2025 at 1:15 PM
The New School is now a place where students cannot major in History, Anthropology, Sociology, Global Policy & International Affairs, Global Studies, Urban Studies, or Environmental Studies. And more pauses, closures, and mergers coming down the pike this week. The future is uncertain.
With them adding later “we only say that during campaigns to scare people.”
No one leaving New York City because of Mamdani, say two top real estate CEOs
No one leaving New York City because of Mamdani, say two top real estate CEOs
New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani's democratic socialist views spark fears companies and capital will flee, but top real estate CEOs say it's not true.
cnb.cx
November 14, 2025 at 11:58 PM
With them adding later “we only say that during campaigns to scare people.”
Reposted by David A. Banks
More reason every American should have to complete a tour of compulsory retail work
Google is infusing AI into just about every part of online shopping: browsing for products, calling local stores to ask about inventory (!!), and actually purchasing the item for you. This is a warning shot to influencers and news orgs doing buying guides:
www.theverge.com/news/819431/...
www.theverge.com/news/819431/...
Google will let users call stores, browse products, and check out using AI
There have never been more options for things to buy. Google is betting AI is how shoppers will make decisions.
www.theverge.com
November 13, 2025 at 2:35 PM
More reason every American should have to complete a tour of compulsory retail work
This seems a bit hypocritical
BREAKING: Foreigners seeking visas to live in the U.S. might be rejected if they have certain medical conditions, like obesity, per CBS
November 11, 2025 at 1:41 AM
This seems a bit hypocritical
Reposted by David A. Banks
Recession indicator
BREAKING: Nancy Pelosi won't seek reelection, ending her storied career in the U.S. House.
Nancy Pelosi won't seek reelection, ending her storied career in the US House
Powerful Democratic former speaker Nancy Pelosi won’t seek reelection to the U.S. House. Pelosi’s announcement Thursday brings to a close her storied career as not only the first woman in the speaker’s office but arguably the most powerful in American politics.
bit.ly
November 6, 2025 at 3:57 PM
Recession indicator
Reposted by David A. Banks
This has been the worst year for layoffs since 2009, according to CNBC.
November 6, 2025 at 3:20 PM
This has been the worst year for layoffs since 2009, according to CNBC.
Watching all of the Paranormal Activity movies trying to decide how each character voted in the 2016 election.
November 1, 2025 at 1:01 AM
Watching all of the Paranormal Activity movies trying to decide how each character voted in the 2016 election.
Not a real economy! Fake shit is everywhere! This is why you don’t get paid enough at your job! Your boss gave all your money to fake shit!!!!
October 28, 2025 at 10:25 PM
Not a real economy! Fake shit is everywhere! This is why you don’t get paid enough at your job! Your boss gave all your money to fake shit!!!!
Reposted by David A. Banks
I've said this for years-- I'll believe that self-driving cars have a shot at mainstream viability when they can handle snow. They're all designed and tested in warm climates for a reason.
www.theverge.com/transportati...
www.theverge.com/transportati...
Is Waymo ready for winter?
Can Waymo handle the snow?
www.theverge.com
October 25, 2025 at 7:18 PM
I've said this for years-- I'll believe that self-driving cars have a shot at mainstream viability when they can handle snow. They're all designed and tested in warm climates for a reason.
www.theverge.com/transportati...
www.theverge.com/transportati...
Reposted by David A. Banks
Raise the whole fucking national mall if it distracts him from hurting people. Who cares?!
Leavitt: "At this moment in time, of course, the ballroom is really the president's main priority."
October 23, 2025 at 8:01 PM
Raise the whole fucking national mall if it distracts him from hurting people. Who cares?!
I do not care about the White House
October 23, 2025 at 7:59 PM
I do not care about the White House
Reposted by David A. Banks
UUP stands in solidarity with @ofnhp.bsky.social members. #UnionStrong
Show your support by sending a letter at actionnetwork.org/letters/an-o...
Show your support by sending a letter at actionnetwork.org/letters/an-o...
No one wants a strike, but Kaiser’s proposals left caregivers no choice.
A fair contract isn’t just about workers.
It’s about protecting patients, ensuring safe staffing, and valuing frontline voices.
#OneVoiceOneFightOneFuture #kaiserstrike
A fair contract isn’t just about workers.
It’s about protecting patients, ensuring safe staffing, and valuing frontline voices.
#OneVoiceOneFightOneFuture #kaiserstrike
October 15, 2025 at 5:13 PM
UUP stands in solidarity with @ofnhp.bsky.social members. #UnionStrong
Show your support by sending a letter at actionnetwork.org/letters/an-o...
Show your support by sending a letter at actionnetwork.org/letters/an-o...
Reposted by David A. Banks
you fucked around and now the Episcopalians are doing memes. are you happy now. are you
October 15, 2025 at 4:10 PM
you fucked around and now the Episcopalians are doing memes. are you happy now. are you
Feeling nostalgic for Real Life mag today. They let play with ideas like the "Joker theory of the administrative state: Capitalists sow chaos, without any particular plan for the “new normal” other than the ability to continually reassert their own dominance" reallifemag.com/wrong-road/
Wrong Road — Real Life
The phone is a car: a symbol of freedom and convenience that transforms into an inescapable burden
reallifemag.com
October 14, 2025 at 2:36 PM
Feeling nostalgic for Real Life mag today. They let play with ideas like the "Joker theory of the administrative state: Capitalists sow chaos, without any particular plan for the “new normal” other than the ability to continually reassert their own dominance" reallifemag.com/wrong-road/
Sometimes I just open up All That Is Solid Melts into Air and it always feels relevant. Here’s Berman on AI (as far as I’m concerned)
![Modern professionals, intellectuals and artists, insofar as they are members of the proletariat,
live only so long as they find work, and... fnd work only so long as their labor increases capital. These workers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market. (479]
Thus they can write books, paint pictures, discover physical or historical laws, save lives, only if someone with capital will pay them. But the pressures of bourgeois society are such that no one will pay them unless it pays to pay them-that is, unless their works somehow help to "increase capital." They must "sell themselves piecemeal" to an employer willing to exploit their brains for profit. They must scheme and hustle to present themselves in a maximally profitable light; they must compete (often brutally and unscrupulously) for the privilege of being bought, simply in order to go on with their work. Once the work is done they are, like all other workers, separated from the products of their labor. Their goods and services go on sale, and it is "the vicissitudes of compe-tition, the Auctuations of the market," rather than any intrinsic truth or beauty or value—or, for that matter, any lack of truth or beauty or value-that will determine their fate. Marx does not expect that great ideas and works will fall stillborn for want of a market: the modern bourgeoisie is remarkably resourcetul in wringing profit out of thought. What will happen instead is that creative processes and products will be used and transformed in ways that will dumfound or horrify their creators. But the creators will be powerless to resist, because they must sell their labor power in order to live.
Intellectuals occupy a peculiar position in the working class, one that generates special privileges, but also special ironies.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:4ec4i7k7upvxutj23xjktt53/bafkreiarsryrijeqqcuu6jbgkw7khk47x6ehgugljxtrcofsjgmuhqd5bu@jpeg)
October 13, 2025 at 4:29 PM
Sometimes I just open up All That Is Solid Melts into Air and it always feels relevant. Here’s Berman on AI (as far as I’m concerned)
Let’s all convince Trump that if we get universal health care he’ll win a Tony Award.
October 10, 2025 at 2:59 AM
Let’s all convince Trump that if we get universal health care he’ll win a Tony Award.
Reposted by David A. Banks
ok everyone go around the room and say if you're cut or uncut and how much you like trains
Besides linking Tylenol in pregnant women to autism, RFK Jr. now says circumcision is part of the reason why kids are autistic.
"Children who are circumcised early have double the rate of autism, and it's highly likely because they're given Tylenol. None of this is positive..."
"Children who are circumcised early have double the rate of autism, and it's highly likely because they're given Tylenol. None of this is positive..."
October 10, 2025 at 2:03 AM
ok everyone go around the room and say if you're cut or uncut and how much you like trains
Reposted by David A. Banks
🚨Breaking: Chief Negotiator for Palestinian resistance, Hamas’ Dr. Khalil Al-Hayya says the resistance have received guarantees from U.S. and mediators that the war has ended permanently.
October 9, 2025 at 6:33 PM
🚨Breaking: Chief Negotiator for Palestinian resistance, Hamas’ Dr. Khalil Al-Hayya says the resistance have received guarantees from U.S. and mediators that the war has ended permanently.
Reposted by David A. Banks
Fun fact: the U.S. did not have a professional diplomatic corp for much of its history. Businessmen doing shit drove a lot of U.S. policy, including the acquisition if imperial territories in the Pacific.
Is Jared a government employee given that he's running around doing diplomacy or...?
October 9, 2025 at 3:31 PM
Fun fact: the U.S. did not have a professional diplomatic corp for much of its history. Businessmen doing shit drove a lot of U.S. policy, including the acquisition if imperial territories in the Pacific.
Reposted by David A. Banks
It used to be understood that real estate developers were evil in movies, we gotta get back to that. Not just a politics thing it’s just a good plot device.
October 8, 2025 at 2:22 AM
It used to be understood that real estate developers were evil in movies, we gotta get back to that. Not just a politics thing it’s just a good plot device.