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Reposted by Leah Sneider

Haymarket Books

@haymarketbooks.org

Haymarket Books for Fighting Fascism

Haymarket stands in solidarity with all those organizing to fight against fascism and for a world free of oppression and exploitation. We’ve put together a list of Haymarket Books on the history and p...

www.haymarketbooks.org

April 6, 2025 at 1:05 PM

Reposted by Leah Sneider

Haymarket Books

@haymarketbooks.org

Haymarket Books by Black Women, for Liberation are 40% through the end of March
www.haymarketbooks.org/blogs/103-ha...

Haymarket Books by Black Women, for Liberation

“If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free.”  —Combahee River Collective Statement Browse a reading list of books by Black women who are engaged in the ...

www.haymarketbooks.org

March 27, 2025 at 2:51 PM

Reposted by Leah Sneider

George Takei

@georgetakei.bsky.social

At the end of the day, Trump and Musk's fascist tactics can be broken into two categories: bogeymen and Trojan horses. Learn how to recognize them so we can fight back against them at The Big Picture.

Bogeymen and Trojan Horses

How to identify and call out Trump and Musk’s fascist tactics

thinkbigpicture.substack.com

March 21, 2025 at 7:00 PM

Reposted by Leah Sneider

Leia BlueSkywalker

@blueskye2025.bsky.social

February 27, 2025 at 3:45 PM

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Rebecca Solnit

@rebeccasolnit.bsky.social

These stories amount to "the left was so annoying about pronouns or liberals made people feel so guilty about plastic straws they had no choice but to get on board with the second coming of the Third Reich and the destruction of the planet."

The She Made Him Do It Theory of Everything

The rhetoric and logic of the abuse of power operates similarly at all scales, which is why I've found feminism such useful equipment for understanding authoritarians in public and political life. Bec...

www.meditationsinanemergency.com

February 26, 2025 at 10:45 PM

Reposted by Leah Sneider

Prof Julia Steinberger 🌹🌱🌍 #ClimateAction #Fightfascism

@jksteinberger.bsky.social

As promised, here are the slides I shared with students to convince them to NOT use chatGPT and other artificial stupidity.

TL;DR? AI is evil, unsustainable and stupid, and I'd much rather they use their own brains, make their own mistakes, and actually learn something. 🪄

NO CHATGPT Or other artificial stupidity: motivation
First, clarity on distinguishing AIs:
Non-generative: grammar aid, translation, dictionary, text-to-audio (e.g. Natural Reader): no problem
As long as you use the appropriate tools (least intensive in data and server energy use).
Why? Because you provide the content. Your brain is doing the most important work
Generative: ChatGPT & Co.
You only supply the prompt, the AI supplies the content.
Why is this delegation of work problematic?
3 domains: ethical, environmental, intellectual engagement.

(Caveat: generative is probably ok for computer programming, where it can be useful and save time. Not relevant to this class.)

1) AI and ethics
Mass theft of all and everything
«learning» on books, articles, blogs, social media, images, music, cultural production, without permission of authors/creators, and leading to their mass joblessness. Profits are not reditributed to originators.
Permanent destruction of the mental health of underpaid precarious tech workers in the Global South (Kenya, Philippines …):
«correction» to avoid production of violent and pedophile contents etc, tech workers are obliged to watch and correct super violent contents for days on end, leading to extreme psychological suffering and trauma, from which recovery is doubtful. No or little compensation (certainly not at the level of the suffering inflicted).
In short, an industry built on theft of real human creation and sacrifice of real human health, profiting a few megafortunes.

2) AI and (un)sustainability

Massive consumption of electricity, water, server capacity for generative AI.
Outcome: keep fossil fuel companies in business, using up new renewable capacity, without any satisfaction of basic human needs.
Massive misappropriation of the finance necessary for climate and ecological action (renewable generation, efficiency and retrofit for buildings, public transit, infrastructures for cycling etc) towards AI industry.
Overall: undermine climate action, reinforce fossil industry, waste resources necessary for human development.

3) AI and intellectual engagement

First, what learning is (or should be) about:
The goal should not (only) be the reproduction of «correct» knowledge,
But mainly personal engagement and experience of thinking about topics of interest. Personal engagement = using one’s own brain.
The most important activity for learning and intellectual engagement is the experience of making one’s own mistakes, by trial and error, corrections based on new ideas, starting over again. Learning to recognise nuances, knowledge gaps, better explanations
This kind of learning is possible only through using your own brain, not AI.
Also, Ais are not «intelligent». At all.
They simply reproduce pre-existing patterns. They «bullshit», invent false references, false facts, false data, simply because those sound plausible. VERY DANGEROUS.
If you learn how to NOT use AI, and how to research facts and data on your own, this will serve you and your communities for the rest of your life.

February 23, 2025 at 1:45 PM

Reposted by Leah Sneider

David Corn

@davidcorn.bsky.social

What I’ve been saying (screaming). Now there’s data.

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · Feb 20

The DOGE firings have nothing to do with “efficiency” or “cutting waste.” They’re a direct push to weaken federal agencies perceived as liberal. This was evident from the start, and now the data confirms it: targeted agencies overwhelmingly those seen as more left-leaning. 🧵⬇️

Scatterplot titled “Empirical Evidence of Ideological Targeting in Federal Layoffs: Agencies seen as liberal are significantly more likely to face DOGE layoffs.”
• The x-axis represents Perceived Ideological Leaning of federal agencies, ranging from -2 (Most Liberal) to +2 (Most Conservative), based on survey responses from over 1,500 federal executives.
• The y-axis shows Agency Size (Number of Staff) on a logarithmic scale from 1,000 to 1,000,000.

Each point represents a federal agency:
• Red dots indicate agencies that experienced DOGE layoffs.
• Gray dots indicate agencies with no layoffs.

Key Observations:
• Liberal-leaning agencies (left side of the plot) are disproportionately represented among red dots, indicating higher layoff rates.
• Notable targeted agencies include:
• HHS (Health & Human Services)
• EPA (Environmental Protection Agency)
• NIH (National Institutes of Health)
• CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau)
• Dept. of Education
• USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development)
• The National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE), despite its conservative leaning (+1 on the scale), is an exception among targeted agencies.
• A notable outlier: the Department of Veterans Affairs (moderately conservative) also faced layoffs despite its size.

Takeaway:

The figure visually demonstrates that DOGE layoffs disproportionately targeted liberal-leaning agencies, supporting claims of ideological bias. The pattern reveals that layoffs were not driven by agency size or budget alone but were strongly associated with perceived ideology.

Source: Richardson, Clinton, & Lewis (2018). Elite Perceptions of Agency Ideology and Workforce Skill. The Journal of Politics, 80(1).

February 20, 2025 at 3:27 PM

Reposted by Leah Sneider

emptywheel

@emptywheel.bsky.social

"Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Dan Sullivan (Alaska), Jim Moran (Kansas) and Steve Daines (Mont.) were all co-sponsors of this law. None responded to requests for comment."

Jen Bendery @jbendery.bsky.social · Feb 18

Trump's DOJ has erased a report from its website that lays out its own recommendations for tackling violence against Indigenous women www.huffpost.com/entry/donald...