Anton Strezhnev
@astrezh.bsky.social
4.1K followers 3.2K following 1.1K posts
Assistant Professor, UW-Madison Political Science. http://www.antonstrezhnev.com
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astrezh.bsky.social
Put together a quick starter pack for political methodologists (broadly defined) who have made their way over to BlueSky. If I've missed folks, please let me know!
go.bsky.app/JBavA7x
Reposted by Anton Strezhnev
zeitzoff.bsky.social
I think there’s a comfort in blaming our current politics on social media.

When I think a boring but more accurate story is that plutocratic tech elites and right-wingers *made a lot of choices*.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/14/o...
Edsall from NYT: “ The rise of the smartphone and the fall of western democracy” In an Oct. 2 essay posted in Persuasion, “It’s the Internet, Stupid: What Caused the Global Populist Wave? Blame the Screens,” Fukuyama, after nearly a decade of examining the causes of rising global populism, wrote, “I have come to conclude that technology broadly and the internet in particular stand out as the most salient explanations for why global populism has arisen in this particular historical period, and why it has taken the particular form that it has.”

The advent of the internet, Fukuyama continued,

can explain both the timing of the rise of populism, as well as the curious conspiratorial character that it has taken. In today’s politics, the red and blue sides of America’s polarization contest not just values and policies, but factual information like who won the 2020 election or whether vaccines are safe.

The two sides inhabit completely different information spaces; both can believe that they are involved in an existential struggle for American democracy because they begin with different factual premises as to the nature of the threats to that order.
astrezh.bsky.social
The peer-reviewed legal journals are getting a lot better b/c folks who would publish in those outlets have better training. The law reviews remain a disaster.
astrezh.bsky.social
Prepping a lecture on dynamic Bayesian models and wanted to give the students some real world applications - Hats off to fiftyplusone.news for having such a good and clear methodology page! fiftyplusone.news/methodology
FiftyPlusOne - Latest Political Polls and Averages
A comprehensive list of polls and polling averages for elections and politician approval.
fiftyplusone.news
Reposted by Anton Strezhnev
mikeblack114.bsky.social
since there's reports on social media of money hitting accounts worth reiterating that this is illegal and unconstitutional as shit, it's not a close question, and while I don't expect anyone on H/SASC or H/SAC will do anything, anyone performing this 'reprogramming' should face criminal penalties
mikeblack114.bsky.social
It's also worth reiterating that absent this reprogramming authority being written into law it would be not just illegal but flatly unconstitutional for DoD to expend money in any fashion not explicitly specified (by both type/use and quantity) by Congress in an appropriations bill
mikeblack114.bsky.social
Since we're getting a crash course in DoD reprogramming authority, CRS has a good report on it linked below. Some important points:

Congress gives DoD reprogramming authority because when you're dealing with a trillion dollars, some stuff is probably going to need to be changed over 12 months
astrezh.bsky.social
I would simply observe individual causal effects
Reposted by Anton Strezhnev
adamfromnj.bsky.social
Everybody’s got their own definition of fun. This is mine.
Historical performance chart of Vanguard’s Total Market Index
astrezh.bsky.social
Also, records should be zero tariff under the “informational materials” exemption but no idea how this is enforced.
astrezh.bsky.social
Zoomers don’t know the joy of turning on Ocean’s 11 at some random point and immediately being able to recite the entire script from then on.
astrezh.bsky.social
Lawyers (esp. private law) are trained mainly to be dealmakers; judges are a very particular subset
astrezh.bsky.social
AKA - what having a Plex server is for.
Reposted by Anton Strezhnev
beijingpalmer.bsky.social
should I start a bsky book club? one book a month, say, and then we do a big megathread to discuss it.
rainmanbun.bsky.social
the more people talk about it, the less confident i feel that i know how to read. where do i learn to read? ugh lol
astrezh.bsky.social
There’s a reason NYU:CDS always got social scientists to teach causal :)
astrezh.bsky.social
DiD’s an identification strategy, not a model spec (lots of different “model specs” consistent with a DiD strategy - as “new DiD” shows).

Where is the relevant treatment variation coming from? Places or people?
Reposted by Anton Strezhnev
imbernomics.bsky.social
If he gets a Nobel then I’m going to start pointing out that the Econ prize is not a real Nobel.
ddiamond.bsky.social
Trump’s desire for a Nobel Peace Prize has shaken up global diplomacy, as allies try to curry favor.

It may have even helped spur this week’s Hamas-Israel deal, one former Israeli negotiator said — a bid to help Trump cinch the Nobel before tomorrow’s announcement.

From @mbirnbaum.bsky.social + me
Trump wants a Nobel Prize. He’ll learn Friday if his campaign paid off.
President Donald Trump’s long quest for a Nobel Peace Prize has sparked an unusual global scramble.
www.washingtonpost.com
astrezh.bsky.social
We’re gonna submerge the state like it’s the Red October
Reposted by Anton Strezhnev
unavaleable.bsky.social
YOURE FUCKING KIDDING ME
stephentotilo.bsky.social
SCOOP: Last year, Ubisoft cancelled an Assassin's Creed game set during Reconstruction. Was to feature a Black Assassin who, among other things, fought the rise of the Klan

Sources: Leadership nixed it over concerns re: U.S. political climate, backlash to Yasuke

www.gamefile.news/p/scoop-ubis...
Scoop: Ubisoft cancelled a post-Civil War Assassin’s Creed last year
Company leadership deemed the project too controversial for the moment, sources tell Game File
www.gamefile.news
Reposted by Anton Strezhnev
vgel.me
i wrote a custom llm sampler for llama-3.1-8b so it could only say words that are in the bible
Reposted by Anton Strezhnev
nameshiv.bsky.social
The Ig Nobel is incredible , one year an Indian guy won it for calculating the average surface area of an elephant and during his acceptance they had an elephant hold up a sign with the surface area of the scientist on it, they do showbiz better than the Oscars
mrjeffu.bsky.social
Video: a Japanese scientist was attacked by flies while giving the acceptance speech for his Ig Nobel Prize-winning research paper that proved painting Zebra-like stripes on cows led to a decrease in biting fly attacks.
astrezh.bsky.social
Yeah - turns out the unrealistic part of that book was the whole “international cooperation” thing.
astrezh.bsky.social
This feels like mean-reversion a bit? Lab-based fields usually have more consistent output v burstiness in other fields - that plus incentive to get the big stuff out right before tenure
Reposted by Anton Strezhnev
jdp.extropian.net
I've written an essay reflecting on how I use the word slop and some theory of what distinguishes slop from spam and kitsch.

minihf.com/posts/2025-1...
On Slop
minihf.com
astrezh.bsky.social
The pandemic response was weirdly the biggest gift to the Trump 1 ag bailout strategy b/c otherwise they were running out of discretionary funds in 2020.
Reposted by Anton Strezhnev
quincunctial.bsky.social
It will be an annual bailout, because the buyers are not going back to unreliable sellers, and other countries now have windfall revenues they can use to ramp up even more production for the next cycle.
justinbaragona.bsky.social
This is a bailout, no matter what he calls it.