robert p. baird
@robertpbaird.com
Thinking is, or ought to be, a coolness and a calmness; and our poor hearts throb, and our poor brains beat too much for that. || I'm on a Bsky hiatus, but THE NIMBUS, my debut novel, is now available in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook. || robertpbaird.com
Pinned
robert p. baird
@robertpbaird.com
· Nov 20
Such a treat to find THE NIMBUS on WaPo’s list of the best fiction of the year! www.washingtonpost.com/books/2025/1...
I would not use the word “creativity” for what’s happening on the individual level here, but otherwise the point seems plausible. For fields with enough available training data, LLMs can ingest and regurgitate ~the whole of the extant field. No human brain can hold that much info at once…
"Analysis of 41 million papers finds that although AI expands individual impact, it narrows collective scientific exploration".
This is the science-equivalent to "Generative AI enhances individual creativity but reduces the collective diversity of novel content" www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
This is the science-equivalent to "Generative AI enhances individual creativity but reduces the collective diversity of novel content" www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
January 17, 2026 at 2:21 PM
I would not use the word “creativity” for what’s happening on the individual level here, but otherwise the point seems plausible. For fields with enough available training data, LLMs can ingest and regurgitate ~the whole of the extant field. No human brain can hold that much info at once…
January 16, 2026 at 11:53 PM
Reposted by robert p. baird
If you want to read something that doesn't make you end by concluding "well, shit, we're cooked," like everything else does, read this
"The first thing I noticed when I got to Minneapolis last weekend was the new language: The work C was doing has a name—“commuting”—a deliberately mundane term for pursuing, tailing, and deliberately irritating ICE agents moving through the city in unmarked cars." slate.com/news-and-pol...
Trump and ICE Thought They Knew How to Handle Minneapolis. I Saw Up Close What’s Happening Instead.
ICE declared war on Minneapolis. The city had its own ideas.
slate.com
January 16, 2026 at 12:06 PM
If you want to read something that doesn't make you end by concluding "well, shit, we're cooked," like everything else does, read this
A smile with a single message: “See, Barack? I’ve got one, too. That’ll teach you to think you’re better than me.”
January 16, 2026 at 12:18 PM
A smile with a single message: “See, Barack? I’ve got one, too. That’ll teach you to think you’re better than me.”
Reposted by robert p. baird
My profile of the ubiquitous and indefatigable Adam Tooze is up at The Guardian Long Read today: www.theguardian.com/business/202...
The crisis whisperer: how Adam Tooze makes sense of our bewildering age
The long read: Whether it’s the financial crash, the climate emergency or the breakdown of the international order, historian Adam Tooze has become the go-to guide to the radical new world we’ve enter...
www.theguardian.com
January 15, 2026 at 1:31 PM
My profile of the ubiquitous and indefatigable Adam Tooze is up at The Guardian Long Read today: www.theguardian.com/business/202...
Reposted by robert p. baird
Raise your hand if you’re old enough to remember when we talked about Wikipedia the way people talk about AI these days. (When I was a checker at TNY, 14 years ago, WP still had the epistemic authority of an anonymous tip.) There’s a lesson in there, probably several, but for now, happy birthday WP!
wikipedia turns 25 today! the last unenshittified major website! backbone of online info! triumph of humanity! powered by urge of unpaid randos to correct each other! somehow mostly reliable! "good thing wikipedia works in practice, because it sure doesn't work in theory" - old wiki adage
January 15, 2026 at 3:36 PM
Raise your hand if you’re old enough to remember when we talked about Wikipedia the way people talk about AI these days. (When I was a checker at TNY, 14 years ago, WP still had the epistemic authority of an anonymous tip.) There’s a lesson in there, probably several, but for now, happy birthday WP!
I don’t think it’s going to happen—I think competitive authoritarianism is a much more likely paradigm—but it occurs to me that it would be a very Trumpian move to start a BS war and then claim that he’s following Zelensky’s lead by suspending elections. He loves that kind of smirking fuck-you.
In an interview yesterday with Reuters, President Trump boasted that he has accomplished so much that “when you think of it, we shouldn't even have an election.”
www.reuters.com/world/us/fiv...
www.reuters.com/world/us/fiv...
January 15, 2026 at 1:56 PM
I don’t think it’s going to happen—I think competitive authoritarianism is a much more likely paradigm—but it occurs to me that it would be a very Trumpian move to start a BS war and then claim that he’s following Zelensky’s lead by suspending elections. He loves that kind of smirking fuck-you.
Literally true. From @jonathanblitzer.bsky.social’s great TNY piece on Project 2025 that ran in July **2024**: www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
January 15, 2026 at 1:45 PM
Literally true. From @jonathanblitzer.bsky.social’s great TNY piece on Project 2025 that ran in July **2024**: www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
Reposted by robert p. baird
This is what they’ve wanted all along. This is the goal.
🚨 Trump threatens to invoke Insurrection Act in Minnesota
January 15, 2026 at 1:40 PM
This is what they’ve wanted all along. This is the goal.
Reposted by robert p. baird
"Schumer was going, like, do you know this guy? T-O-O-Z-E?”
Today's Guardian long read by @robertpbaird.com
www.theguardian.com/business/202...
Today's Guardian long read by @robertpbaird.com
www.theguardian.com/business/202...
The crisis whisperer: how Adam Tooze makes sense of our bewildering age
The long read: Whether it’s the financial crash, the climate emergency or the breakdown of the international order, historian Adam Tooze has become the go-to guide to the radical new world we’ve enter...
www.theguardian.com
January 15, 2026 at 9:50 AM
"Schumer was going, like, do you know this guy? T-O-O-Z-E?”
Today's Guardian long read by @robertpbaird.com
www.theguardian.com/business/202...
Today's Guardian long read by @robertpbaird.com
www.theguardian.com/business/202...
My profile of the ubiquitous and indefatigable Adam Tooze is up at The Guardian Long Read today: www.theguardian.com/business/202...
The crisis whisperer: how Adam Tooze makes sense of our bewildering age
The long read: Whether it’s the financial crash, the climate emergency or the breakdown of the international order, historian Adam Tooze has become the go-to guide to the radical new world we’ve enter...
www.theguardian.com
January 15, 2026 at 1:31 PM
My profile of the ubiquitous and indefatigable Adam Tooze is up at The Guardian Long Read today: www.theguardian.com/business/202...
Reposted by robert p. baird
Modern civil wars don't look like the American Civil War. They're more often like the Years of Lead or Argentina's Dirty War. With that in mind, I don't think it's much of an exaggeration to say Trump's regime is either trying to fight a one-sided civil war or, at a minimum, provoke one.
January 14, 2026 at 2:54 PM
Modern civil wars don't look like the American Civil War. They're more often like the Years of Lead or Argentina's Dirty War. With that in mind, I don't think it's much of an exaggeration to say Trump's regime is either trying to fight a one-sided civil war or, at a minimum, provoke one.
Reposted by robert p. baird
I wrote about Renee Good, Venezuela, Greenland, and what it means to be a human being. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
January 14, 2026 at 3:26 PM
I wrote about Renee Good, Venezuela, Greenland, and what it means to be a human being. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Reposted by robert p. baird
Wow. Read this! This poem is so perfect--powerful, brave and, in its incredibly succinct ways, spiritually overwhelming. Also quite a piece of work--formally. Not to mention politically. Thank u @alienvsrobbins.bsky.social !
little throwback ditty I wrote a year or two ago when I was immersed for months in Shelley
January 13, 2026 at 5:41 PM
Wow. Read this! This poem is so perfect--powerful, brave and, in its incredibly succinct ways, spiritually overwhelming. Also quite a piece of work--formally. Not to mention politically. Thank u @alienvsrobbins.bsky.social !
I firmly believe that we're going to win, but I'm also certain that victory is not going to mean a return to the status quo ante. Both because they're breaking so much so fast and because trying to tape together the broken pieces is going to be massively inadequate to the challenge. But then what?
January 14, 2026 at 3:30 PM
I firmly believe that we're going to win, but I'm also certain that victory is not going to mean a return to the status quo ante. Both because they're breaking so much so fast and because trying to tape together the broken pieces is going to be massively inadequate to the challenge. But then what?
This is so enraging. www.npr.org/2026/01/14/n...
Trump administration sends letter wiping out addiction, mental health grants
The Trump administration sent hundreds of letters Tuesday terminating federal grants supporting mental health and drug addiction services.
www.npr.org
January 14, 2026 at 3:20 PM
This is so enraging. www.npr.org/2026/01/14/n...
Fine, yes: some people, including non-white people, voted for DJT because they thought he'd only remove "bad" immigrants—criminals, asylees, etc. But I'd argue that many more people, incl. both his base & his opponents, understood the real MAGA pitch: America should be a country for white people.
There's a lot of space between "mass deportation" and what the DHS is suggesting in its tweets - removing America-born citizens whose parents immigrated from "third world" countries.
Would Trump have won Dearborn and much of the RGV if he promised that? Gained ground in SoCal? I'm skeptical.
Would Trump have won Dearborn and much of the RGV if he promised that? Gained ground in SoCal? I'm skeptical.
“every non-citizen deported, even if they have legal status - plus, tens of millions of citizens from the third world”
Thats what mass deportation is though. He *did* run on this.
Thats what mass deportation is though. He *did* run on this.
January 14, 2026 at 2:10 PM
Fine, yes: some people, including non-white people, voted for DJT because they thought he'd only remove "bad" immigrants—criminals, asylees, etc. But I'd argue that many more people, incl. both his base & his opponents, understood the real MAGA pitch: America should be a country for white people.
A niche but real problem is that the guy who popularized "Abolish ICE" the first time around turned out to be a degenerate gambler and cryptohead who converted to poll-tested centrism. It's a real problem because the pundit class remembers him well. It's niche because who cares: we must abolish ICE.
ive seen more articles this week about how the phrase “abolish ice” could hurt dems in the midterms than ive seen articles about how paramilitary death squads terrorizing cities will hurt republicans in the midterms
January 14, 2026 at 2:02 PM
A niche but real problem is that the guy who popularized "Abolish ICE" the first time around turned out to be a degenerate gambler and cryptohead who converted to poll-tested centrism. It's a real problem because the pundit class remembers him well. It's niche because who cares: we must abolish ICE.
Reposted by robert p. baird
Also this quote makes me want to run through a wall
January 14, 2026 at 12:37 PM
Also this quote makes me want to run through a wall
Reposted by robert p. baird
This is not the language of the government of a free country.
January 14, 2026 at 1:16 PM
This is not the language of the government of a free country.
Oh I forgot Doonesbury! Probably gets #4 over Boondocks, but both of those only kicked in when I was properly a teenager.
Pretty much me, as well. (Technically: swap Boondocks for Shoe, put Boondocks at #4 and bump Peanuts down, and then swap #2 and #1.)
since we're (sort of) talking about influential newspaper comic strips (though not that one in particular) today, here are five newspaper comic strips I read most voraciously and which had the biggest impact on me growing up
5. Shoe
4. Peanuts
3. Bloom County
2. Calvin and Hobbes
1. The Far Side
5. Shoe
4. Peanuts
3. Bloom County
2. Calvin and Hobbes
1. The Far Side
January 13, 2026 at 5:58 PM
Oh I forgot Doonesbury! Probably gets #4 over Boondocks, but both of those only kicked in when I was properly a teenager.
Pretty much me, as well. (Technically: swap Boondocks for Shoe, put Boondocks at #4 and bump Peanuts down, and then swap #2 and #1.)
since we're (sort of) talking about influential newspaper comic strips (though not that one in particular) today, here are five newspaper comic strips I read most voraciously and which had the biggest impact on me growing up
5. Shoe
4. Peanuts
3. Bloom County
2. Calvin and Hobbes
1. The Far Side
5. Shoe
4. Peanuts
3. Bloom County
2. Calvin and Hobbes
1. The Far Side
January 13, 2026 at 5:42 PM
Pretty much me, as well. (Technically: swap Boondocks for Shoe, put Boondocks at #4 and bump Peanuts down, and then swap #2 and #1.)
Also an extremely savvy media play. It prevents the Admin. from exploiting the presumption of regularity that it knows outlets like the NYT can't bear to abandon. Usually we get 24-48 hours of "The Administration claims..." filler while reporters work in the background to verify the original claims…
I think the Powell move was somewhat political in that by making the first move and putting out a video he engineered a groundswell of support before the administration was ready to make its case, and now they look like they were caught red-handed before they even got the cookie out of the jar.
January 13, 2026 at 1:41 PM
Also an extremely savvy media play. It prevents the Admin. from exploiting the presumption of regularity that it knows outlets like the NYT can't bear to abandon. Usually we get 24-48 hours of "The Administration claims..." filler while reporters work in the background to verify the original claims…