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Reposted by James Harland

Dave Andress @davidandress.bsky.social · 1h

The temptation to hollow laughter as centuries of smug Anglosphere superiority about the time-forged strength of their unique institutions is blown to atoms on a daily basis by a government of absolute morons.

You could run a whole data-centre off Edmund Burke’s rotation.

Robert Cruickshank @robertcruickshank.com · 2h

It’s even worse. It’s reversing 400 years of Anglo-American constitutional development going back to Charles I’s personal rule when he refused to consult Parliament over spending and governance. Trump and his GOP lackeys are undoing stuff the Founders saw as fundamental to our system.

Nathan Goldwag @goldwagnathan.bsky.social · 4h

We are living through the most consequential shift in the constitutional government of the United States in over a hundred and fifty years and nobody seems to have even noticed yet.

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Reposted by James Harland

abbi @abbis.bsky.social · 1h

excellent illustration of the total lack of care, governance and boundaries in technology

Andy Greenberg @agreenberg.bsky.social · 6h

Researchers pointed a satellite dish at the sky for 3 years and monitored what unencrypted data it picked up. The results were shocking: They obtained thousands of T-Mobile users' phone calls and texts, military and law enforcement secrets, much more: www.wired.com/story/satell... 🧵👇

Satellites Are Leaking the World’s Secrets: Calls, Texts, Military and Corporate Data

With just $800 in basic equipment, researchers found a stunning variety of data—including thousands of T-Mobile users’ calls and texts and even US military communications—sent by satellites unencrypte...

www.wired.com

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Reposted by James Harland

Karl Jacoby @karl-jacoby.bsky.social · 5h

History faculty at Columbia & Barnard decrying the harassment of @mark-bray.bsky.social: "This is the first case in recent memory of a historian who has fled the country after receiving death threats on account of the history that they teach."

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James Harland @jmharland.bsky.social · 10h

Yep.

James Austin @jamesdaustin.bsky.social · 1d

Everyone knows at least one person (normally, but not exclusively, a guy) whose gone properly mental due to net rabbit holes.

We see public figures regularly go mad and destroy themselves.

And we have, at a policy level, just decided to put our fingers in our ears and go nahnahnah

Alastair Meeks @alastairmeeks.bsky.social · 1d

Last night I heard of another friend of a friend who has been lost to a rabbit hole of online propaganda. We need to start treating this as a serious public health concern.

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Reposted by James Harland

James Austin @jamesdaustin.bsky.social · 1d

Everyone knows at least one person (normally, but not exclusively, a guy) whose gone properly mental due to net rabbit holes.

We see public figures regularly go mad and destroy themselves.

And we have, at a policy level, just decided to put our fingers in our ears and go nahnahnah

Alastair Meeks @alastairmeeks.bsky.social · 1d

Last night I heard of another friend of a friend who has been lost to a rabbit hole of online propaganda. We need to start treating this as a serious public health concern.

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Reposted by James Harland

Alex von Tunzelmann @alexvont.bsky.social · 1d

I bang on about this a lot: I think the combination of a global pandemic, underregulated internet/SM, collapse/corruption of trustworthy media, plus now unregulated genAI, is a wildly toxic environment for radicalisation & mental health. We see the results of that in our politics & lives every day

James Austin @jamesdaustin.bsky.social · 1d

Everyone knows at least one person (normally, but not exclusively, a guy) whose gone properly mental due to net rabbit holes.

We see public figures regularly go mad and destroy themselves.

And we have, at a policy level, just decided to put our fingers in our ears and go nahnahnah

Alastair Meeks @alastairmeeks.bsky.social · 1d

Last night I heard of another friend of a friend who has been lost to a rabbit hole of online propaganda. We need to start treating this as a serious public health concern.

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Reposted by James Harland

bleary @bleary.off-the-records.com · 14h

If anyone needs me I will be in the museum, lying down next to the bog bodies.

Did people really memorize phone numbers before cell phones, or is that just a movie thing?
2? Questions
I was watching some old shows from the 90s and noticed people would just dial numbers from memory - like they'd call their friends or family without looking anything up.
Made me wonder if that was actually normal back then? Did people genuinely have all their important numbers memorized, or did most folks keep a little address book or written list nearby?

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James Harland @jmharland.bsky.social · 13h

Given the context which has shaped much of the discourse which prompted it I'm slightly astonished that I haven't had anyone come storming into my replies angrily accusing me of holding political positions that I don't yet.

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James Harland @jmharland.bsky.social · 13h

You know that this is the sort of thing where a reliable encyclopaedic history is readily available after a few clicks no?

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James Harland @jmharland.bsky.social · 16h

Since I’m bringing him up in my class on archaeological theory next week now seemed an appropriate moment to add an important clarifier to the slide…

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James Harland @jmharland.bsky.social · 17h

I’m certainly not.

James Harland @jmharland.bsky.social · 17h

I don’t think anyone here is disputing this.

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James Harland @jmharland.bsky.social · 18h

The latter is a necessary component of the former, one might say.

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Reposted by James Harland

James Harland @jmharland.bsky.social · 12d

Although I haven't been told about it and have had to find out for myself via their website, at least one nice thing to come out of AUP's move to Taylor & Francis is that my book has now been made a paperback for the rather more affordable price of €40: www.routledge.com/Ethnic-Ident...

Ethnic Identity and the Archaeology of the aduentus Saxonum: A Modern Framework and its Problems

For centuries, archaeologists have excavated the soils of Britain to uncover finds from the early medieval past. These finds have been used to reconstruct the alleged communities, migration patterns, ...

www.routledge.com

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James Harland @jmharland.bsky.social · 20h

Why is that post of all things going viral.

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James Harland @jmharland.bsky.social · 21h

I’m curious about where sub-tweeting falls in this ruleset.

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James Harland @jmharland.bsky.social · 22h

As I said further down in my thread, this doesn’t justify erasure of the sort you’re rightly concerned about, but the transformation, adoption and exchange of cultural traits is also just… more complex than some simplistic rhetorical stances claim.

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James Harland @jmharland.bsky.social · 22h

I would refer to this thread which highlights that we can appeal to social justice concerning what you’re speaking about without replicating harmful tropes bsky.app/profile/self...

"spooky sukkot" daniel s. @self.agency · 1d

what is illuminating, in my opinion, is how many foods have been created by jews that have been claimed by non-jews as their regional specialty, like bagels, fish & chips, and old bay seasoning, for which we are stripped of any credit, while accused of stealing others' dishes.

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James Harland @jmharland.bsky.social · 22h

Glad it’s led you to think about things a little differently! People whose intentions are good can replicate harmful rhetoric by treating these concepts as more simple than they actually are. It’s possible to not do that while still chasing the same social justice goals.

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James Harland @jmharland.bsky.social · 22h

He himse went by “Jackie” I believe.

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James Harland @jmharland.bsky.social · 23h

Anyway, these kinds of citational politics really reveal whose political grandstanding is based on actually having done the reading and whose is based on vibes and getting likes.

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James Harland @jmharland.bsky.social · 1d

Look man, I know that for its own weird racialist reasons in stemming from the 19th century the US lists people from the Maghreb as “white” on their census lists but you ought to know better than to take that as reliable or objective (or the only view on the subject)…

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James Harland @jmharland.bsky.social · 1d

One does have to acknowledge power imbalances and fights about legitimacy involved in those transfers of course.

James Harland @jmharland.bsky.social · 1d

But the underlying point is that no cultural product is ever static or untransferable.

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James Harland @jmharland.bsky.social · 1d

Well yes. I used the 1492 example mainly because it serves as an extremely immediately obvious rebuttal for people trapped in “Nation State Brain,” who tend not to be the most informed thinkers about the complexities of the past.

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