📢 AIDC’s Community Fellowship is now open!
We invite DC-area researchers working in the humanities to apply for the 2026-2027 fellowship on the theme “Truth, Trust and Democratic Judgement.”
Postdoc! Come to Georgetown and work at the intersection of democratic theory, AI, and the humanities.
This is a screen grab of the first page of the article, which includes the abstract and keywords.
Happy pub day for "The Autocratic Interpretation of Athens: Rethinking Regime Theory in Thucydides' 'Archaeology'," which appears in Polis 42,3 @dgb-ancientstudies.bsky.social
You can find a preprint on my academia page or access the article here: doi.org/10.1163/20512996-12340479
journal cover
New issue of Polis Vol. 42, No. 3 (2025) brill.com/view/journal... @dgb-philosophy.bsky.social @markfisher.bsky.social @dgb-ancientstudies.bsky.social
Congrats to Stefan Eich @stefeich.bsky.social on winning the 2024 David and Elaine Spitz Prize from the International Conference for the Study of Political Thought (CSPT)!
press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...
The title page for "Making AI Inevitable: Historical Perspective and the Problems of Predicting Long-Term Technological Change," by Mark Fisher and John Severini.
The abstract for the article, which is too long to transcribe, unfortunately.
What would we need to know to conclude that AGI was inevitable?
We argue that the answer has more to do with the philosophy of social science than the tech itself.
Grateful to have this piece included in the inaugural batch of Oxford Intersections: AI in Society.
academic.oup.com/edited-volum...
Annual reminder that the quote is, in fact, "Kai su, teknon?"
I’ve had some great meals at Seychelles in Kerameikos. The neighborhood is a bit gritty, but the food is excellent, and the patio seating is very charming if you can get a res.
Word of the day is ‘catch-fart’ (17th century: an obsequious individual who will always follow the political wind.
aka Caleb Williams easily had the best finish of any NFC North QB
This is outside my wheelhouse, but I remember a senior Cambridge School figure commenting that the best part about the book was its bibliography
We’re two weeks in, and I’m ready to cast my vote for genuflection as the word of the year
Cleon Peterson is an extraordinary artist who updates classical forms to comment on contemporary political violence. His house and studio were destroyed in the fires, and he's selling a special set of prints to help his family of five (plus dog!) stay afloat. Please consider buying if you can.
Cleon Peterson is an extraordinary artist who updates classical forms to comment on contemporary political violence. His house and studio were destroyed in the fires, and he's selling a special set of prints to help his family of five (plus dog!) stay afloat. Please consider buying if you can.
The closing paragraph from Geuss’ essay on Rawls, “Neither History nor Praxis,” has always been a favorite
Impossible. Bears fans feel nothing until time is expiring in the 4th quarter.
TIL that a UT undergrad started a nationwide campaign and got the 27th Amendment passed *out of sheer spite* when his prof refused to raise his poli sci paper grade.
I'm going to start linking to this story whenever a student asks for a grade change. This is the new standard.
This feels a bit on the nose as far as portents go, but here’s to 2025.
The cover of The Blazing World by Jonathan Healey
Finally, a historical account of the tumultuous 17th century in England, inclusive of one of the best first lines written by a historian in a while
The cover of Karen Bakker’s The Sounds of Life
If you need a “maybe AI isn’t wholly bad” book, this looks at a number of case studies about how researchers are using tech to learn about non-human communication, most of which are pretty mind blowing
The cover of Jeremy Popkin’s A New World Begins
A very readable retelling of the the French Revolution that attempts to do a better job accounting for developments in the social history of the period
The cover for Meghan O’Gieblyn’s God, Human, Animal, Machine
The most astute, self-aware, and intellectually disciplined attempt to flesh out some of the big questions at the center of the AI debates, with particular care shown to the role that metaphor plays in facilitating and distorting our thinking on the subject
The cover for Micheal Lewis’ The Fifth Risk
This second one shows what we actually stand to lose by gutting the administrative state. Turns out I had no idea what most gov’t departments actually did, nor did I fully appreciate the negligence that actually occurred in the 2017 handover.
The cover for Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder: Pronged Ants, Horned Humans, Mice on Toast, and Other Marcels of Jurassic Technology
If your resolution/planned coping mechanism for 2025 is to read more good books, here are some recs I received from friends and colleagues this year that deserve to be paid forward
No summary can do this first one justice. Just read it and you’ll understand.
And I will achieve enlightenment when I finally pay off my student loans
A copy of Bertolt Brecht’s Galileo splayed open on a wooden table
Enjoying an alliterative Boxing Day
Merry Christmas from a dog that definitely made it onto the nice list
Reminded once again that Love, Actually casually made up an Xmas tradition about telling the truth and we all just played along with it
