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Joel

@polyparadigm.bsky.social

2.3K followers 1.4K following 13K posts

Materials scientist:some range and depth, interested in making arcane topics a little more accessible. Prior place photo was from the aughts; figured I should update.

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Joel @polyparadigm.bsky.social · 18d

I am noticing that even some fairly scholarly people on here don’t seem to really distinguish between “socially constructed” and “fake”

It feels important to the project of fascism that we conflate these two ideas

Most social constructs have a fake counterpart they’re constructed in opposition to

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Joel @polyparadigm.bsky.social · 4m

Research assistant:

The dog from the animated film “Up”, whose electronic collar allows him to speak

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 3h

Feels like this will be a useful meme for the next few years

Peacemaker looks at a mural embedding Hitler into American symbols

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Peter @notalawyer.bsky.social · 2h

it’s obviously true that young republicans have long been racist, but it’s not true that they’ve always been like they are now.

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Meade Krosby @meadekrosby.bsky.social · 2h

One of the most challenging aspects of the climate crisis is that it becomes harder to solve as it proceeds, both in terms of mitigation and adaptation. It isn't something that can be put off until tomorrow without serious penalty.

David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 3h

The wet tropical rainforests of Queensland are now a carbon source because CO₂ emitted from trees dying and decaying outstripped the CO₂ taken up by trees growing. 😕

Australia's tropical trees emit more carbon than they absorb: study

Climate change is killing trees faster than they can be replaced leading to greater carbon emissions, according to a new study.

www.abc.net.au

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Joel @polyparadigm.bsky.social · 3h

Honestly, if your interlocutor can’t be trusted to honor a deal they’re making, “compact” can only mean mirrors and rouge

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Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 4h

Brown rejected the compact!

www.brown.edu/sites/defaul...

www.brown.edu

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Joel @polyparadigm.bsky.social · 3h

The second Hastert rule, if you will

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Constant Scream @ajaxsinger.bsky.social · 7h

Great thread. Weirdly, the problem presented also presents its own solution: the more we insist that democracy works, the better it will work. To steal a terrible word: trust, like mistrust, is manifested.

Kevin Elliott @kjephd.bsky.social · 8h

I'm gonna try to articulate something I've been thinking about for a while, regarding *why* disillusionment, distrust, & dissatisfaction with democracy are rising.

Almost everything I read takes this phenomenon as an exogenous shock, assuming no one chose to make it so. I suspect that's incomplete.

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Joel @polyparadigm.bsky.social · 7h

You mean they wanted racially disparate outcomes but weren’t comfortable openly identifying as bigots?
Roberts used language that put a fig leaf on his racism, but I refuse to believe that he didn’t know what he was doing with Shelby v. Holder

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Paul Starr @pa.ulst.ar · 11h

Like this is the top comment on the first search result for “Classical Gas”

A YouTube comment reading “T
@tomgreer8501 • 4y ago
Still among the living! I was on this session in 1968, French Horn with Jimmy Decker. I'm 78 now and it seems like yesterday. It was an all-time GREAT chart, and I knew it when we heard the playback!”

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Joel @polyparadigm.bsky.social · 9h

Not many other lines of work where one might end up in control of a U-haul full of naked children.

Joel @polyparadigm.bsky.social · 9h

I mean yes absolutely but this would draw from the distinct and far vaster pool of marching band tropes, instead

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 9h

Trump is upfront in saying he will use the shutdown to punish Democrats, and here are the receipts. About $27.2 billion cut from Dem districts compared to about $0.7 billion in GOP districts.
We all complain about the media, but need this type of in-depth journalism.
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Trump Halts Billions in Grants for Democratic Districts During Shutdown (Gift Article)

The Trump administration has frozen or canceled nearly $28 billion primarily located in Democratic-led districts, according to an analysis by The New York Times.

www.nytimes.com

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David Ryan @ryangenealogy.bsky.social · 7d

Final day to catch this recording for free #Genealogy #Webinar

David Ryan @ryangenealogy.bsky.social · 9d

If you missed out on my Legacy Family Tree webinar last week you can catch the recording for free until this Wednesday familytreewebinars.com/webinar/from... #Genealogy #Webinar

From The Ashes: The 1922 Irish Public Record Office Fire and Irish Genealogy - Legacy Family Tree Webinars

The destruction of the Public Records Office in June 1922 at the outset of the Irish Civil War has cast a long shadow over Irish genealogical research. Anyone who...

familytreewebinars.com

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MelodyMP @melodymp.bsky.social · 9h

I have said this about hypocrisy, but it applies equally here about shame, and for the same reason.

Hypocrisy or shamelessness is a flex. A demonstration that the hypocrite is more powerful then the observer... and so not bound by the same rules.

Calling them on it is taken as an affirmation.

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Joey Politano🏳️‍🌈 @josephpolitano.bsky.social · 9h

Tariffs are taxes

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Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 9h

NEW — I dug into the story of ICE abducting a 13-year-old boy in Massachusetts and moving him 500 miles across state lines without notifying his mother, local cop's complicity, and how the federal government's justification for such cruelty is already falling apart:

ICE took a 13-year-old they said had a gun. Local cops say he didn’t.

Now he's detained 500 miles away from his Massachusetts home.

www.thehandbasket.co

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Freedom of the Press Foundation @freedom.press · 1d

🚨 PSA: Do you have information to share with news outlets that have lost access to report from the Pentagon?

You can share it while protecting your anonymity using @securedrop.org:

Instructions on how to submit a news tip anonymously through SecureDrop:

- Start from a place with public Wi-Fi, like a coffee shop. Use a computer you control. Never use a workplace computer.

- Download and install Tor Browser from torproject.org and use it to visit howto.securedrop.tor.onion for next steps.

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Joel @polyparadigm.bsky.social · 9h

I mean yes, but using chemical weapons against an enemy military would be a war crime, let alone an occupied civilian population, so this puts them on another level of norms violation

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Joel @polyparadigm.bsky.social · 9h

Yes, but unironically

Joy and virtue are corrosive to fascism

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GHOULLIKEHELLMACHINE @golikehellmachine.com · 17h

they’re fucking weak and they will break upon us.

Prem Thakker ツ @premthakker.bsky.social · 22h

NEW: Pentagon officials are forcing staff to watch Pete Hegseth's "Warrior" speech he forced generals to listen to.

Officials are even "testing" staff to see if they watched — and are threatening consequences if they lie about watching it or if they mock it, sources tell @swin24.bsky.social and I.

The Pentagon Is Ordering Staff to Watch Hegseth’s ‘MAGA Garbage’ Speech… Or Else

Defense Department sources tell Zeteo that staff have been warned that if they don’t watch or read the speech, or if they speak negatively of it, they could face severe consequences.

zeteo.com

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Micah @rincewind.run · 17h

"republican staffers are all literal nazis" is less of a groupchat thing and more of a posting on main thing at this point

Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 1d

X post today from Homeland Security @DHSgov that says "Remigrate."
3:06 PM · Oct 14, 2025

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Sexy CHOAM Nomsky costume @samthielman.com · 22h

One person on this list is a school counselor at a high school down the street from me and she’s been purged from the website so fast Google cache doesn’t know about it yet

Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 1d

Turns out your assumptions about what republican group chats are like is correct www.politico.com/news/2025/10...

‘I love Hitler’: Leaked messages expose Young Republicans’ racist chat

Thousands of private messages reveal young GOP leaders joking about gas chambers, slavery and rape.

www.politico.com

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the abbot of unreason (an archaeologist) @merovingians.bsky.social · 1d

George W Bush and his party were ravenous war criminals and ardent reactionaries. They were not Nazis. *these guys* are Nazis

the abbot of unreason (an archaeologist) @merovingians.bsky.social · 1d

again, the problem with rhetorical maximalism (all Republicans since Barry fucking Goldwater were Nazis) is that you end up believing it and saying absolutely unhinged shit thinking it's normal

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