Emerson
@erosemberg.bsky.social
chronic thinker, considering going pro (studying information environments and other fun things)
US, CEE, Russia, Central Asia, the world
US, CEE, Russia, Central Asia, the world
Reposted by Emerson
My latest newsletter is a response to @jerusalem.bsky.social on the politics of immigration, and why ticky-tack policy solutions won't save Democrats.
Policy Can't Solve a Propaganda Problem
On immigration and everything else, pundits are missing the point
stringinamaze.net
September 11, 2025 at 3:52 PM
My latest newsletter is a response to @jerusalem.bsky.social on the politics of immigration, and why ticky-tack policy solutions won't save Democrats.
Reposted by Emerson
This is very good. I return to the illiberal's epistemic dishonesty: he wishes to participate in liberal discourse yet refuses to play by liberal rules upon which democracy is based: pluralism, empiricism, skepticism, philosophic doubt. For his ultimate authorities are predetermined traditionalisms.
"Common decency stigmatizes people that do not participate in it—removes them from voluntary association. We indeed have to live with one another, but terms and conditions apply."
me on why Ezra Klein should be ashamed / why shame is Good Actually
www.bostonreview.net/articles/how...
me on why Ezra Klein should be ashamed / why shame is Good Actually
www.bostonreview.net/articles/how...
How Can We Live Together? - Boston Review
Ezra Klein is wrong: shame is essential.
www.bostonreview.net
September 23, 2025 at 5:29 PM
This is very good. I return to the illiberal's epistemic dishonesty: he wishes to participate in liberal discourse yet refuses to play by liberal rules upon which democracy is based: pluralism, empiricism, skepticism, philosophic doubt. For his ultimate authorities are predetermined traditionalisms.
Reposted by Emerson
Per DC Migrant Mutual Aid & Harriet's Wildest Dreams.
They've created a new resource for photos & videos to protect our communities.
Send photos, videos, & tips* to report@filmthepolicedc.org
*For active enforcement call 2023351183
Include date/time, location, names etc
#FreeDC
They've created a new resource for photos & videos to protect our communities.
Send photos, videos, & tips* to report@filmthepolicedc.org
*For active enforcement call 2023351183
Include date/time, location, names etc
#FreeDC
September 2, 2025 at 9:08 PM
Per DC Migrant Mutual Aid & Harriet's Wildest Dreams.
They've created a new resource for photos & videos to protect our communities.
Send photos, videos, & tips* to report@filmthepolicedc.org
*For active enforcement call 2023351183
Include date/time, location, names etc
#FreeDC
They've created a new resource for photos & videos to protect our communities.
Send photos, videos, & tips* to report@filmthepolicedc.org
*For active enforcement call 2023351183
Include date/time, location, names etc
#FreeDC
Reposted by Emerson
Interesting paper and helpful thread. Bottom line: publicly supported independent media and reducing uncertainty lead to positive cycles; lower quality media and perpetuating uncertainty lead to downward spirals in this Austrian study.
13/ 🔍 Key takeaway: Belief change isn’t random.
It’s shaped by predispositions, threat appraisals, & media environment.
High-quality media can create virtuous circles; low-quality media (and particularly those that deliberately gave contrarians a stage) can lock people into vicious circles.
It’s shaped by predispositions, threat appraisals, & media environment.
High-quality media can create virtuous circles; low-quality media (and particularly those that deliberately gave contrarians a stage) can lock people into vicious circles.
August 25, 2025 at 10:12 AM
Interesting paper and helpful thread. Bottom line: publicly supported independent media and reducing uncertainty lead to positive cycles; lower quality media and perpetuating uncertainty lead to downward spirals in this Austrian study.
Reposted by Emerson
From the ACLU Washington, DC Chapter in case there are still laws:
August 21, 2025 at 2:10 AM
From the ACLU Washington, DC Chapter in case there are still laws:
Reposted by Emerson
@hakeem-jeffries.bsky.social, with all due disrespect, fuck off.
Hakeem Jeffries says of Cuomo's attacks on Mamdani for living in a rent controlled apartment: "It's a legitimate issue that has been raised, and the [Mamdani] campaign is going to have to address it."
August 15, 2025 at 3:59 PM
@hakeem-jeffries.bsky.social, with all due disrespect, fuck off.
Reposted by Emerson
When you see a journalist ascribing human motivations to these energy-hoovering stochastic parrots they're baring their entire ass and loudly telling you they don't understand the technology they are writing about
When AI acts up, it doesn't indicate some kind of awakening or rebellion—it's showing symptoms of a poorly understood system, as well as engineering failures we'd recognize as premature deployment in any other context.
Is AI really trying to escape human control and blackmail people?
Opinion: Theatrical testing scenarios explain why AI models produce alarming outputs—and why we fall for it.
arstechnica.com
August 14, 2025 at 5:10 PM
When you see a journalist ascribing human motivations to these energy-hoovering stochastic parrots they're baring their entire ass and loudly telling you they don't understand the technology they are writing about
Reposted by Emerson
5. Other signs of durability & commitment during this period include historic turnout at the One Million Rising online trainings, the first of which on 7/16 had over 130,000 sign-ups. This was probably the largest nonviolence training in U.S. history.
One Million Rising — No Kings
www.nokings.org
August 13, 2025 at 1:32 PM
5. Other signs of durability & commitment during this period include historic turnout at the One Million Rising online trainings, the first of which on 7/16 had over 130,000 sign-ups. This was probably the largest nonviolence training in U.S. history.
Reposted by Emerson
My team at the Crowd Counting Consortium (@djpressman.bsky.social, Soha Hammam, & Chris Shay) has finalized our participation estimates for No Kings Day on 6/14. Here are five key takeaways🧵:
New data shows No Kings was one of the largest days of protest in US history
The historic number of No Kings protesters and their expansive geographic spread are signs of a growing and durable pro-democracy movement.
wagingnonviolence.org
August 13, 2025 at 1:32 PM
My team at the Crowd Counting Consortium (@djpressman.bsky.social, Soha Hammam, & Chris Shay) has finalized our participation estimates for No Kings Day on 6/14. Here are five key takeaways🧵:
Reposted by Emerson
I can’t say it enough: U.S. culture is scam culture. It pervades everything we do. We don’t notice it because it’s the water we swim in. A party would do well to remind everybody how awful this is and propose to fix it.
I think Democrats should offer voters a broadly defined anti-fraud platform. Yes, obviously, start with Trump’s influence peddling, but don’t stop there. Online fraud is massive, almost every phone call you get is a scam, and the solution has to be federal or it just won’t work.
Still, more than 7-in-10 U.S. adults have been a victim of an online scam or attack like credit card fraud, ransomware or online shopping scams. www.pewresearch.org/...
August 7, 2025 at 1:13 PM
I can’t say it enough: U.S. culture is scam culture. It pervades everything we do. We don’t notice it because it’s the water we swim in. A party would do well to remind everybody how awful this is and propose to fix it.
Reposted by Emerson
This. Right here. Classic Fish maneuver. (Fish-esque? Fishistic?)
August 7, 2025 at 6:44 PM
This. Right here. Classic Fish maneuver. (Fish-esque? Fishistic?)
Reposted by Emerson
So reporters and editors should look to scholars of authoritarianism in covering these stories. The deal-making frame is playing right into the hands of these autocrats. @ruthbenghiat.bsky.social
Another shakedown, the more you cave to the autocrat the more empowered he feels.
August 8, 2025 at 9:39 PM
So reporters and editors should look to scholars of authoritarianism in covering these stories. The deal-making frame is playing right into the hands of these autocrats. @ruthbenghiat.bsky.social
Reposted by Emerson
Total 🦗 from the “socialism” crowd that spent the last 50 years accusing <checks notes> the Democrats of not respecting private property, free markets, limited government, the Marketplace Of Ideas, & the very sacred institution of Capitalism.
The Trump administration threatened to assume ownership of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of patents from Harvard University, accusing the Ivy League college of failing to comply with the law.
Trump Administration Threatens to Seize Valuable Harvard Patents
The Trump administration threatened to assume ownership of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of patents from Harvard University, accusing the Ivy League college of failing to comply with the law on federal research grants.
bloom.bg
August 8, 2025 at 11:33 PM
Total 🦗 from the “socialism” crowd that spent the last 50 years accusing <checks notes> the Democrats of not respecting private property, free markets, limited government, the Marketplace Of Ideas, & the very sacred institution of Capitalism.
Reposted by Emerson
New York has the worst senate delegation of any blue state
July 31, 2025 at 2:06 AM
New York has the worst senate delegation of any blue state
Do a Putin internet research agency social media type thing and pour some gas on the fire
July 12, 2025 at 3:46 AM
Reposted by Emerson
Someone needs to bear witness as masked agents of the government brutalize members of our community. It doesn’t surprise me that a Philosophy professor would do so.
Be at least as brave as a Philosophy professor.
(And demand that ICE release Prof. Caravello.)
Be at least as brave as a Philosophy professor.
(And demand that ICE release Prof. Caravello.)
July 12, 2025 at 2:06 AM
Someone needs to bear witness as masked agents of the government brutalize members of our community. It doesn’t surprise me that a Philosophy professor would do so.
Be at least as brave as a Philosophy professor.
(And demand that ICE release Prof. Caravello.)
Be at least as brave as a Philosophy professor.
(And demand that ICE release Prof. Caravello.)
Reposted by Emerson
also thrilled to see @assignedmedia.org shouted out in this @literaryhub.bsky.social roundup of independent media as well
lithub.com/fed-up-with-...
lithub.com/fed-up-with-...
Fed up with big legacy news? Here are 13 independent, worker-owned outlets to support.
It’s been a weird time for the papers of record. The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post have all made compromising to catastrophic judgment errors. Most recently, …
lithub.com
July 10, 2025 at 3:24 PM
also thrilled to see @assignedmedia.org shouted out in this @literaryhub.bsky.social roundup of independent media as well
lithub.com/fed-up-with-...
lithub.com/fed-up-with-...
Reposted by Emerson
Ninety years ago, the Wagner Act was signed. Labor historian Joseph McCartin says it doesn't really exist anymore.
prospect.org/labor/2025-0...
prospect.org/labor/2025-0...
Requiem for the Wagner Act
Signed into law 90 years ago, labor’s onetime ‘magna carta’ is now a very dead letter.
prospect.org
July 8, 2025 at 2:25 PM
Ninety years ago, the Wagner Act was signed. Labor historian Joseph McCartin says it doesn't really exist anymore.
prospect.org/labor/2025-0...
prospect.org/labor/2025-0...
Reposted by Emerson
The left better start figuring out how to weaponize today's decision rather than just (rightfully) criticizing it.
- Go back into Judge Kaczmaryk's court to dissolve all of his nationwide orders.
- Pass gun bans and insist any order applies only to plaintiffs.
- Go back into Judge Kaczmaryk's court to dissolve all of his nationwide orders.
- Pass gun bans and insist any order applies only to plaintiffs.
June 27, 2025 at 2:27 PM
The left better start figuring out how to weaponize today's decision rather than just (rightfully) criticizing it.
- Go back into Judge Kaczmaryk's court to dissolve all of his nationwide orders.
- Pass gun bans and insist any order applies only to plaintiffs.
- Go back into Judge Kaczmaryk's court to dissolve all of his nationwide orders.
- Pass gun bans and insist any order applies only to plaintiffs.
Reposted by Emerson
If youre in dc: the analogous venue is U St Saloon, Open Piano every Wednesday night
Putting in my monthly plug for Green Room, the best venue in the Twin Cities for local music, and tonight especially for their ludicrously vibey Thursday open mic, where performers are supported by a full live band and backup singers
June 27, 2025 at 3:09 AM
If youre in dc: the analogous venue is U St Saloon, Open Piano every Wednesday night
Reposted by Emerson
ideology helps candidates win not because voters are ideological, they’re not, but because voters don’t like frauds l. and believing in something more than the next election/poll gives you an air of authenticity
Yes, this is an extremely obvious and straightforward takeaway that people refuse to internalize, because everyone wants to argue that espousing their own ideology is the key to eternal victory
It's a bit banal to say, but what swings like this show is that the range of policy views that can win is large because most voters aren't coherently ideological.
June 25, 2025 at 4:30 PM
ideology helps candidates win not because voters are ideological, they’re not, but because voters don’t like frauds l. and believing in something more than the next election/poll gives you an air of authenticity
Reposted by Emerson
This really was a case of organized people over organized money.
prospect.org/politics/202...
prospect.org/politics/202...
June 25, 2025 at 2:52 AM
This really was a case of organized people over organized money.
prospect.org/politics/202...
prospect.org/politics/202...
Reposted by Emerson
brad lander primary chuck schumer
June 25, 2025 at 2:50 AM
brad lander primary chuck schumer