Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Jon Evans

Josh McCrain @joshmccrain.bsky.social · 1d

i feel like you dont' see this talked about enough

10 25 190

Reposted by Jon Evans

John Rogers @johnrogers.bsky.social · 6h

There's a lot going on here, but I'm fascinated by the blatant framing of "not only are immigrants workers [and so have value in our society] they are also consumers! [the other form of value in our society]" Workers, consumers ... we'll get to "people" a few paragraphs down.

We're so cooked.

CNN @cnn.com · 7h

The economic fallout from deportations is typically focused on the impact to industries with large unauthorized immigrant workforces, such as construction and agriculture.

But undocumented immigrants aren’t just people who go to work each day. They’re consumers, too. https://cnn.it/4olziQX

4 34 140

Reposted by Jon Evans

Jim Nyenhuis @jnyen.bsky.social · 1d

Me: someone who reads mostly sff

Steerswoman books by @rosemarykirstein.bsky.social

Me: holy shit

3 10 43

Jon Evans @rezendi.com · 1d

By some distance my favorite subgenre (and yes, it's a whole subgenre!) of EXADELIC reviews.

1 16

Jon Evans @rezendi.com · 1d

PKD was a trailblazer in many ways, including experiencing (self-diagnosed) AI-induced psychosis way back in 1974 ... www.theguardian.com/books/2011/n...

Explaining Philip K Dick's Exegesis

Daniel Kalder: The private papers documenting his cosmic illumination by a pink laser have long gilded the PKD legend. Published at last, do they shed much light for the rest of us?

www.theguardian.com

1

Reposted by Jon Evans

George Gantsoudes @pedsortho.bsky.social · 3d

Please remember that the disgust people have over Christopher Columbus is not based on some modern, 21st century “woke” ideology, but rather on contemporaneous accounts of atrocities that make many modern genocides appear quaint in comparison.

Below, are the accounts of Bartlomé de las Casas.

But too many of the slaves died in captivity. And so Columbus, desperate to pay back dividends to those who had in-vested, had to make good his promise to fill the ships with gold. In the province of Cicao on Haiti, where he and his men imagined huge gold fields to exist, they ordered all persons fourteen years or older to collect a certain quantity of gold every three months. When they brought it, they were given copper tokens to hang around their necks. Indians found without a copper token had their hands cut off and bled to death.
The Indians had been given an impossible task. The only gold around was bits of dust garnered from the streams. So they fled, were hunted down with dogs, and were killed.

After each six or eight months' work in the mines, which was the time required of each crew to dig enough gold for melting, up to a third of the men died.
While the men were sent many miles away to the mines, the wives remained to work the soil, forced into the excruciating job of digging and making thousands of hills for cassava plants.
Thus husbands and wives were together only once every eight or ten months and when they met they were so exhausted and depressed on both sides... they ceased to pro-create. As for the newly born, they died early because their mothers, overworked and fam-ished, had no milk to nurse them, and for this reason, while I was in Cuba, 7000 children died in three months. Some mothers even drowned their babies from sheer desper-ation.... In this way, husbands died in the mines, wives died at work, and children died from lack of milk ... and in a short time this land which was so great, so powerful and fer-tile... was depopulated... My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature, and now I tremble as I write....

20 2.6K 6.8K

Reposted by Jon Evans

Lillian Hochwender (a.k.a. Lillie) @ligerlillie.bsky.social · 4d

Papa Smurf wears a Phrygian cap, most often associated with the French Revolution, indicating Smurf Village had a monarchy it has since overthrown. This makes Papa Smurf, de facto head of state post-revolution, akin to Robespierre. In this essay I will —

An image of Papa Smurf, a small blue man with a white beard. He’s wearing red trousers that lead into shoes and a red cap that slouches forward.

17 96 470

Reposted by Jon Evans

Harry Turtledove @hntdove.bsky.social · 4d

Ea-Nāşir's perfidy seems eternal!

Comic

Panel one. Stick finger singing, "Raindrops on rose/ And whiskers on kittens."

Panel two. Same stick figure holding pot and singing, "Bright copper kettles leave/ ...Flakes on my mittens!?"

Panel three. Same figure still holding pot and singing, "Hey, these are stone with a copper veneer!"

Fourth panel. Same stick figure has put down pot and is singing, "I've been bamboozled by Ea-Nāşir!"

21 260 1.1K

Jon Evans @rezendi.com · 4d

oh, sorry, I actually didn't realize JK was in conversation with some hysterical internet rando. carry on, do your thing! presumably you extract a sense of meaning from it somehow

Jon Evans @rezendi.com · 4d

and speech , especially in person speech, has an enormously larger number of forms of non propositional content than writing

Jon Evans @rezendi.com · 4d

This is not a particularly controversial thesis? I mean it's overstating it as you say to say there's _no_ interest in the propositional content, but here's DFW on this exact subject www.goodreads.com/quotes/14224...

A quote from Consider the Lobster and Other Essays

When I say or write something, there are actually a whole lot of different things I am communicating. The propositional content (i.e., the verbal informa...

www.goodreads.com

2

Reposted by Jon Evans

👁🌻🦊⚙️⚓ Bob, Engineer, Pusher of Paper @navmecheng.bsky.social · 5d

> It is 2025 BC. I am a soldier from one of the outlying provinces called to defend the pyramid in Memphis

> It is 2025 AD. I am a soldier from one of the outlying provinces called to defend the pyramid in Memphis

Soldiers at the Bass Pro Shops pyramid in Memphis, TN.

72 3.5K 12K

Jon Evans @rezendi.com · 5d

Also there is good filler, bad filler, and great filler. The "put on these sunglasses!" wrestling scene in THEY LIVE is filler by any reasonable definition and also usually beloved and much-mentioned to this day.

1 3

Jon Evans @rezendi.com · 5d

TRUE GRIT y'all. 14-year-old girl protagonist. Decidedly not YA.

Alex Brown 🇵🇸 (they/them) @bookjockeyalex.bsky.social · 6d

Just bc a book contains a protagonist between 10 and 30, especially a female protagnoist, doesn't mean it's YA. Just bc the book is written by a woman (or someone you incorrectly assume is a woman), doesn't make it YA. Just bc a book is fun, written colloquially, or has romance doesn't make it YA.

2

Reposted by Jon Evans

Dare Obasanjo @carnage4life.bsky.social · 5d

While there are many indications that AI is in a bubble, there are also signs of a real AI boom as well.

Microsoft is rationing customer access to AI services on Azure due to lack of data center capacity which they don’t expect to ease until 2026. There’s that much demand for AI from businesses.

Microsoft Forecasts Show Data Center Crunch Persisting Into 2026

Microsoft Corp.’s data-center crunch will continue for longer than the company has previously outlined, underscoring the software giant’s struggles to keep up with cloud demand.

www.bloomberg.com

7 3 28

Reposted by Jon Evans

Casey Stegman @caseystegman.com · 6d

Your Spooky Season reminder that John Steinbeck has a shunned werewolf novel

www.theguardian.com/books/2021/m...

John Steinbeck’s estate urged to let the world read his shunned werewolf novel

Rejected and hidden away since 1930, an early murder mystery by the Nobel-winning author is ‘an incredible find’

www.theguardian.com

7 30 140

Reposted by Jon Evans

cupcake @dangercupcake.bsky.social · 6d

Barista: sorry, our Internet is slow today.

Me: no worries

Barista: it's so annoying, sometimes I wish we didn't have the Internet for credit cards.

Me: well, it's better than impressing the card into carbon paper like we used to.

Barista: we used to WHAT

2 5 25

Reposted by Jon Evans

Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 6d

www.wweek.com/culture/2025...

Can you put into words what that purpose is? You and the frog have really become icons of this protest.

There’s been a nice overall whimsy that has shown up. The frog is amazing. We had a bunch of other inflatable people here last night, too. I saw people playing Twister the other day.

What they rely on is fear. So by coming out in an absurdist manner, it speaks to them, to some extent, that we’re actually not that afraid.

It also dismantles their narrative a little bit. When they try to describe this situation as “war-torn,” it becomes much harder to take them seriously when they have to post a video saying [U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security] Kristi Noem is up on the balcony staring over the Antifa Army and it’s, like, eight journalists and five protesters and one of them is in a chicken suit.

96 3.2K 11K

Jon Evans @rezendi.com · 6d

"Given current AI capabilities, the public already supports automating 30% of occupations. When AI is described as outperforming humans at lower cost, support for automation nearly doubles to 58% of occupations." papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Performance or Principle: Resistance to Artificial Intelligence in the U.S. Labor Market

From genetically modified foods to autonomous vehicles, society often resists otherwise beneficial technologies. Resistance can arise from performance-based con

papers.ssrn.com

Reposted by Jon Evans

Jay 🦋 @jay.bsky.team · 7d

Are you a lawyer? Do you enjoy working on small teams tackling big things? We’re hiring a senior counsel.

jobs.gem.com/bluesky/am9i...

Bluesky Jobs

jobs.gem.com

59 100 340

Reposted by Jon Evans

Jo Walton @bluejo.bsky.social · 6d

Just finished the copyedit for Evertybody's Perfect and am sending it back today, so we're one step closer to the book coming out next June us.macmillan.com/books/978125...

Everybody's Perfect

From Hugo award-winning author Jo Walton comes a cozy Venetian fantasy of extraordinary warmth and appeal!The Serenissima is built from mist and belief, a my...

us.macmillan.com

1 5 34

Reposted by Jon Evans

Robert Evans (the Only Robert Evans) @iwriteok.bsky.social · 6d

They Live is a fantastic film but every time I introduce it to a Gen Z friend I'm reminded that the plot boils down to, "two hobos carry out a series of workplace mass shootings because they believe half the population are aliens wearing human skin"

94 230 2.5K

Jon Evans @rezendi.com · 6d

Huh, my comics alma mater is back in existence www.comicsbeat.com/nycc-25-dc-c... (OK I only scripted one graphic novel for them. But still!)

NYCC '25: DC Comics announces 10 new titles for Vertigo revival

DC Comics has announced a list of titles and creators for the revival of the publisher's legendary Vertigo imprint.

www.comicsbeat.com

1 2

Reposted by Jon Evans

JP Collins @profjpc.bsky.social · 8d

“Who” is, objectively, the funniest possible response here

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 8d

Q: Have you given any more thought to possibly suspending habeas corpus?

TRUMP: Suspending who?

Q: Habeas corpus

TRUMP: I don't know. I'd rather leave that to Kristi.

130 540 3.4K

Reposted by Jon Evans

Casey Stegman @caseystegman.com · 8d

The evolution of Marxism

Google Suggestions

karl marx

karl marx books

karl marx theory

karl marx labubu

2 16 73