Dave Mazella
@davemazella.bsky.social
eighteenth-century scholar in Heatstroke, TX. let's see how this goes.
Book: Making of Modern Cynicism, now in paperback from UVA press: https://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/2793/
Book: Making of Modern Cynicism, now in paperback from UVA press: https://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/2793/
Pinned
Dave Mazella
@davemazella.bsky.social
· Oct 25
The Making of Modern Cynicism
<div><p>Once describing a life of exile, self-denial, physical rigor, and mastery of one’s desires, cynicism now describes a life of political quietis
www.upress.virginia.edu
My book on ancient and modern cynicism, The Making of Modern Cynicism (2007, UVA press), is now available again in paperback!
Because cynicism never goes out of fashion.
www.upress.virginia.edu/title/2793/
Because cynicism never goes out of fashion.
www.upress.virginia.edu/title/2793/
Reposted by Dave Mazella
New Publication Alert
Palmer, Russell, et al. "A Roundtable Discussion of Transnational Crusoe, Illustration and Reading History, 1719–1722." ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews (2025): 1-14.
#danieldefoe #defoe #18thCentury #C18th #18thC
Palmer, Russell, et al. "A Roundtable Discussion of Transnational Crusoe, Illustration and Reading History, 1719–1722." ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews (2025): 1-14.
#danieldefoe #defoe #18thCentury #C18th #18thC
A Roundtable Discussion of Transnational Crusoe, Illustration and Reading History, 1719–1722
Published in ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews (Ahead of Print, 2025)
doi.org
November 24, 2025 at 3:47 PM
New Publication Alert
Palmer, Russell, et al. "A Roundtable Discussion of Transnational Crusoe, Illustration and Reading History, 1719–1722." ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews (2025): 1-14.
#danieldefoe #defoe #18thCentury #C18th #18thC
Palmer, Russell, et al. "A Roundtable Discussion of Transnational Crusoe, Illustration and Reading History, 1719–1722." ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews (2025): 1-14.
#danieldefoe #defoe #18thCentury #C18th #18thC
Reposted by Dave Mazella
The military has a duty to refuse unlawful orders, but Congress has a duty to remove from office a president and secretary who would issue such orders. There is something off about members of Congress talking about the former while refusing to say the latter, the part that's actually their job here.
November 25, 2025 at 6:38 AM
The military has a duty to refuse unlawful orders, but Congress has a duty to remove from office a president and secretary who would issue such orders. There is something off about members of Congress talking about the former while refusing to say the latter, the part that's actually their job here.
Reposted by Dave Mazella
Good study from KCL: “Terms like 'bots' or 'trolls' no longer capture the full variety of online manipulation. Today, we observe a spectrum of actors ranging from fully automated accounts to 'cyborgs'…co-ordinated troll farms, and loyalist users who…become part of orchestrated campaigns.”
This is useful recent research on how the “bot” category breaks down into people and actual bots - “inauthentic participation” is the unifier www.kcl.ac.uk/orchestrated...
Orchestrated Crowds: Rethinking Inauthentic Participation in Digital…
What is driving online communication today?
www.kcl.ac.uk
November 24, 2025 at 9:34 PM
Good study from KCL: “Terms like 'bots' or 'trolls' no longer capture the full variety of online manipulation. Today, we observe a spectrum of actors ranging from fully automated accounts to 'cyborgs'…co-ordinated troll farms, and loyalist users who…become part of orchestrated campaigns.”
Reposted by Dave Mazella
Olive Borden in The Monkey Talks (1927)
November 12, 2025 at 6:35 PM
Olive Borden in The Monkey Talks (1927)
Reposted by Dave Mazella
It's weird to not only have lived through an information revolution but also now living through its undoing, all within less than a generation.
Google at its peak was basically the best information retrieval system in human history and they and every competitor decided going from there to “you didn’t want answers you wanted half-assed auto-complete 80%-wrong hallucinations” in a few years was the right idea
November 25, 2025 at 12:19 PM
It's weird to not only have lived through an information revolution but also now living through its undoing, all within less than a generation.
Reposted by Dave Mazella
When I began my working life in 1994, the WWW scarcely existed. Even 3 or 4 years later it was mostly made up of webpages people had written themselves in their spare time.
This was, in almost every conceivable way, better than now.
This was, in almost every conceivable way, better than now.
It's weird to not only have lived through an information revolution but also now living through its undoing, all within less than a generation.
Google at its peak was basically the best information retrieval system in human history and they and every competitor decided going from there to “you didn’t want answers you wanted half-assed auto-complete 80%-wrong hallucinations” in a few years was the right idea
November 25, 2025 at 12:24 PM
When I began my working life in 1994, the WWW scarcely existed. Even 3 or 4 years later it was mostly made up of webpages people had written themselves in their spare time.
This was, in almost every conceivable way, better than now.
This was, in almost every conceivable way, better than now.
Reposted by Dave Mazella
I wish I could go to Godzilla Fest.
(Original video shinichi_wakasa on Instagram)
(Original video shinichi_wakasa on Instagram)
November 25, 2025 at 3:38 AM
I wish I could go to Godzilla Fest.
(Original video shinichi_wakasa on Instagram)
(Original video shinichi_wakasa on Instagram)
well at least they’re not based in Houston
November 25, 2025 at 2:23 AM
well at least they’re not based in Houston
Reposted by Dave Mazella
If Isaac Chotiner ever said this to me, I would move to the woods.
November 25, 2025 at 1:12 AM
If Isaac Chotiner ever said this to me, I would move to the woods.
Reposted by Dave Mazella
Never fall for the scam that letting these llm merchants sink and die hurts anyone except the venture capitalists trying to manufacture consent for everyone else to subsidize their monumental failure at their own jobs
One explanation for economic populism in the US is the recurring cycle of bubbles and bailouts that happens without any democratic input
November 24, 2025 at 11:15 PM
Never fall for the scam that letting these llm merchants sink and die hurts anyone except the venture capitalists trying to manufacture consent for everyone else to subsidize their monumental failure at their own jobs
Reposted by Dave Mazella
There are fewer and fewer essential publications every year. Liberal Currents is one of them. Help them keep it going.
We are close to $30,000 raised in the first 12 hours. It's a good start.
We like to think the same can be said of our growth as a publication—that it's a good start.
But as we head toward 2026, 2027, and 2028, we need to do much more. Give now to push us onward: www.gofundme.com/f/the-libera...
We like to think the same can be said of our growth as a publication—that it's a good start.
But as we head toward 2026, 2027, and 2028, we need to do much more. Give now to push us onward: www.gofundme.com/f/the-libera...
November 24, 2025 at 10:49 PM
There are fewer and fewer essential publications every year. Liberal Currents is one of them. Help them keep it going.
Reposted by Dave Mazella
Love how academia is being attacked and reshaped, under the iron fist of the government, with the heavy influence of a guy whose experience in the field is defrauding students with scam for-profit universities.
November 24, 2025 at 11:13 PM
Love how academia is being attacked and reshaped, under the iron fist of the government, with the heavy influence of a guy whose experience in the field is defrauding students with scam for-profit universities.
Reposted by Dave Mazella
We've all been there
November 21, 2025 at 12:22 PM
We've all been there
one of the tough things for Dems is that the party's most visible, most connected, most likely national candidates are still playing catch up with the base, and still haven't offered the reform necessary to start reassembling democracy
Kelly is I think going for it. I have him in the large pile of Dems I’d be perfectly happy with as President
Mark Kelly: "The message he sent a couple days ago was he declared that loyalty to the Constitution is now punishable by death. Those are serious words coming from the president. He's trying to intimidate us. But I'm not going to be intimidated."
November 24, 2025 at 10:56 PM
one of the tough things for Dems is that the party's most visible, most connected, most likely national candidates are still playing catch up with the base, and still haven't offered the reform necessary to start reassembling democracy
Reposted by Dave Mazella
Laurence Sterne born #Onthisday 1713 "The freest spirit of the eighteenth century" (Goethe) "The most liberated spirit of all time" (Nietzsche) #LaurenceSterne #C18th #OTD
www.laurencesternetrust.org.uk/sterne/
www.laurencesternetrust.org.uk/sterne/
November 24, 2025 at 8:54 AM
Laurence Sterne born #Onthisday 1713 "The freest spirit of the eighteenth century" (Goethe) "The most liberated spirit of all time" (Nietzsche) #LaurenceSterne #C18th #OTD
www.laurencesternetrust.org.uk/sterne/
www.laurencesternetrust.org.uk/sterne/
Reposted by Dave Mazella
One explanation for economic populism in the US is the recurring cycle of bubbles and bailouts that happens without any democratic input
November 24, 2025 at 10:35 PM
One explanation for economic populism in the US is the recurring cycle of bubbles and bailouts that happens without any democratic input
like so many things nowadays, unsustainable but no one cares enough to challenge it
We really do have two different kinds of law now: District Court law (aka the law), and Supreme Court "law" (aka the U.S. House of Lords upholding Trump's personalist regime)
I don’t know what the Supreme Court will do, but I am confident that at the District Court level it is still the case that the Pentagon cannot recall a sitting US Senator to active duty in order to court martial him for something he said. Article 1, Section 6, among other constitutional provisions.
November 24, 2025 at 10:37 PM
like so many things nowadays, unsustainable but no one cares enough to challenge it
Reposted by Dave Mazella
Without much reading, you will no more be able to penetrate the moral of the next marbled page (motley emblem of my work!) than the world with all its sagacity has been able to unravel the many opinions, transactions, and truths.
(Happy birthday to Laurence Sterne.)
(Happy birthday to Laurence Sterne.)
November 24, 2025 at 6:51 PM
Without much reading, you will no more be able to penetrate the moral of the next marbled page (motley emblem of my work!) than the world with all its sagacity has been able to unravel the many opinions, transactions, and truths.
(Happy birthday to Laurence Sterne.)
(Happy birthday to Laurence Sterne.)
Reposted by Dave Mazella
So the University of Texas at Austin neither signed Trump's higher-ed compact nor rejected it. The deadline passed and UT just did not respond: www.texastribune.org/2025/11/17/u...
UT-Austin still silent on Trump compact as deadline passes
Most other invited universities have rejected the administration’s offer tying priority federal funding to campus policy changes.
www.texastribune.org
November 24, 2025 at 7:18 PM
So the University of Texas at Austin neither signed Trump's higher-ed compact nor rejected it. The deadline passed and UT just did not respond: www.texastribune.org/2025/11/17/u...
👇👇👇👇
one thing thats crazy about the current era in the states is that it is clear across most domains that science got processed by a lot of people as "traumatic encounter with the real" and now they are just making decisions based on that trauma.
elon, peter, anti-vaxxers, all the same problem
elon, peter, anti-vaxxers, all the same problem
Over many interviews, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told Michael Scherer about how he plans to remake America’s public-health system. Can he lead the scientific establishment he’s spent much of his life crusading against?
Read more in our new cover story: theatln.tc/q9hXxlbM
Read more in our new cover story: theatln.tc/q9hXxlbM
November 24, 2025 at 6:37 PM
👇👇👇👇
👇👇👇👇
I'm not sure what it's gonna take for people to realize that being subject to a sick burn in a judicial opinion is not something that will dissuade Trump or his cronies. They will push and push and try again and again until something sticks unless they are sanctioned and punished!
November 24, 2025 at 6:13 PM
👇👇👇👇
this is a man who has found his tech ideal: bicycle, whiskey, cigarettes
November 24, 2025 at 5:57 PM
this is a man who has found his tech ideal: bicycle, whiskey, cigarettes
I've always thought that the ubiquity of scamming was one of the reasons that people reported dissatisfaction with an apparently successful Biden economy, because Biden and others never addressed it or imposed accountability for it
I think this is true; one aspect of it is that America has an *extraordinary* amount of scamming.
I'd add that American life is also quite a lot more intangibly annoying. It takes longer and costs more to get places. You're subject to a lot more debt (which you mostly can service, because you're better paid) but it's a cognitive load that makes you feel less agency than elsewhere.
November 24, 2025 at 4:38 PM
I've always thought that the ubiquity of scamming was one of the reasons that people reported dissatisfaction with an apparently successful Biden economy, because Biden and others never addressed it or imposed accountability for it
Reposted by Dave Mazella
Grant Hart - 2541 [USA, alternative rock] (1988) - Former Hüsker Dü drummer drops this solo gem on his way to illustrious obscurity
https://redd.it/1p1nhfx
https://youtu.be/lCsYUIQ3sZo
https://redd.it/1p1nhfx
https://youtu.be/lCsYUIQ3sZo
Grant Hart - 2541 [USA, alternative rock] (1988) - Former Hüsker Dü drummer drops this solo gem on his way to illustrious obscurity
youtu.be
November 24, 2025 at 4:14 PM
Grant Hart - 2541 [USA, alternative rock] (1988) - Former Hüsker Dü drummer drops this solo gem on his way to illustrious obscurity
https://redd.it/1p1nhfx
https://youtu.be/lCsYUIQ3sZo
https://redd.it/1p1nhfx
https://youtu.be/lCsYUIQ3sZo
Reposted by Dave Mazella
timeline cleanse www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHex...
Roxy Music - Mother Of Pearl (1974)
YouTube video by Musikladen
www.youtube.com
November 24, 2025 at 4:22 PM
timeline cleanse www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHex...