Darren Byler
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dbyler.bsky.social
Darren Byler
@dbyler.bsky.social
1.8K followers 1.8K following 24 posts
Anthropologist at Simon Fraser University. Author of Terror Capitalism (Duke 2022) and In the Camps: China’s High-Tech Penal Colony (Columbia 2021).
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Darren Byler
bostonreview.bsky.social
“Autonomy from men is autonomy from capital that uses men’s power to discipline us.” —Silvia Federici

Happy International Women’s Day!

www.bostonreview.net/articles/eve...
Every Woman Is a Working Woman - Boston Review
Silvia Federici interviewed by Jill Richards.
www.bostonreview.net
March 8, 2025 at 8:51 PM
Reposted by Darren Byler
reijer.bsky.social
NEW PUBLICATION

'Capitalising on conjunctures:
Tesla's ups and downs in financialised capitalism'

With Tobias Klinge and Stefan Ouma (@econgeo.bsky.social), we analyze the driving forces behind Elon Musk's wealth.

Open access with @finandsoc.bsky.social here:

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
January 27, 2025 at 3:28 PM
Reposted by Darren Byler
ruha9.bsky.social
Black Studies and the Fight Against Fascism on March 4 @ 6pm ET, register here: www.tickettailor.com/events/hayma...
Black Studies and the Fight Against Fascism with Davarian Baldwin, Johanna Fernandez, Sarah Haley, Robin D.G. Kelley, Barbara Ransby, Robyn Spencer-Antoine, on Tuesday March 4 @ 6pm ET, register here: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/haymarketbooks/1611646
February 28, 2025 at 8:29 PM
dbyler.bsky.social
Chilling essay from Alberto Toscano and Brenna Bahndar:
Text describing right wing talking points regarding Gaza as real estate.
March 1, 2025 at 12:31 AM
dbyler.bsky.social
“In the illegal settlements, we find Israelis who [.] are [.] often young families priced out of Tel Aviv real estate. Similarly, affordability meant that the so-called “Gaza Envelope” was again leading in home purchases in Israel only months after October 7th.” proteanmag.com/2025/02/27/s...
Slumlord Empire • Protean Magazine
In this essay, Alberto Toscano and Brenna Bahndar explore how the ideology of real estate has come to find direct geopolitical expression in Trump’s crass drive to acquire territory as “property”—a tu...
proteanmag.com
March 1, 2025 at 12:27 AM
Reposted by Darren Byler
democracynow.org
Some strains of the MAGA movement hope to return to “what they see as a more natural world, where men are in charge, white people are in charge,” says @quinnslobodian.com, commenting on the role of masculinity in "right-wing accelerationism."
February 20, 2025 at 2:41 PM
dbyler.bsky.social
“With that kind of access, even a small team can search the entire government for employees whose job titles contain suggestions of wrongthink, or who might resist takeovers or wield bureaucratic tools to slow the pace of change.”

www.nytimes.com/2025/02/21/o...
Opinion | Here Are the Digital Clues to What Musk Is Really Up To
What will DOGE do with access to personal data on almost all Americans?
www.nytimes.com
February 21, 2025 at 5:23 PM
Reposted by Darren Byler
tiltedaxispress.bsky.social
“Tilted Axis has carved out a unique literary niche, and has caught the attention of critics and prize juries, landing major awards and winning acclaim for writers who were unknown in the Anglophone world.”

Thank you Alexandra Alter & @nytimes.com for spotlighting our work!

bit.ly/3X6h1fh
A Tiny Press Took a Big Risk on Experimental Books. It Paid Off.
The British publisher Tilted Axis specialized in innovative translated literature. It won them major awards. Now they’re coming to the U.S.
www.nytimes.com
February 15, 2025 at 12:49 PM
dbyler.bsky.social
Disturbing genealogy of libertarian white supremacy. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
How the roots of the ‘PayPal mafia’ extend to apartheid South Africa
Elon Musk grew up with the privileges of a stratified racial order and Peter Thiel lived in a city that venerated Hitler
www.theguardian.com
February 15, 2025 at 4:15 PM
Reposted by Darren Byler
amethno.bsky.social
⭐ New essay on AES Online! ⭐

"Snapshots of Post-Assad Syria"

by Charlotte Al-Khalili @sussexuni.bsky.social @leverhulme.bsky.social #AnthroSky

Read it here: ⬇️
americanethnologist.org/online-conte...
Snapshots of Post-Assad Syriaby Charlotte Al-Khalili - American Ethnological Society
“Welcome to Syria,” greeted the robust man as he took our passports. He was seated at a counter, behind security glass. The man, unlike the young men carrying
americanethnologist.org
January 31, 2025 at 12:39 PM
Reposted by Darren Byler
amethno.bsky.social
*️⃣ *️⃣ AE FORUM (52.1): I Was Wrong *️⃣ *️⃣

Featuring articles by Veena Das, Hugh Gusterson, Gil Hizi, Carole McGranahan, Erin Routon, Meredith G. Marten, & Laura A. Meek, w/eds' note by @llwynn.bsky.social, Susanna Trnka, & @kopyor.bsky.social!

Find it here!: ⬇️
americanethnologist.org/journal/issu...
February 12, 2025 at 6:23 PM
Reposted by Darren Byler
repgregstanton.bsky.social
The termination of 850 Indian Health Service physicians, nurses, and dentists will have a grave impact on access to care for millions of Native Americans.

Upholding our treaty obligations is not optional.
February 14, 2025 at 11:25 PM
Reposted by Darren Byler
nyrolaelima.bsky.social
Today, at a hearing in the South Bangkok Criminal Court regarding the unlawful detention of 43 Uyghur men for 11–12 years, I testified as an expert witness.

My statement in English is below. The Thai and Uyghur versions will be posted soon.
February 14, 2025 at 9:52 AM
Reposted by Darren Byler
joekatz45.bsky.social
For the record this story was originally reported by @capitol.press, who is out with another profile of another Venezuelan refugee with no criminal record who has been sent to Guantanamo for having tattoos:
February 13, 2025 at 4:43 AM
Reposted by Darren Byler
telliotter.bsky.social
ICYMI from me and @timmarchman.bsky.social, in the months between November 5 and January 20, at least three individuals associated with Palantir or its cofounder Peter Thiel were involved in an online recruiting effort for DOGE. @wired.com

www.wired.com/story/elon-m...
The Recruitment Effort That Helped Build Elon Musk’s DOGE Army
At least three individuals associated with Palantir or its cofounder Peter Thiel were involved in an online recruiting effort for DOGE late last year, WIRED has learned.
www.wired.com
February 10, 2025 at 2:19 AM
Reposted by Darren Byler
jasondiamond.bsky.social
Getting Andrea Long Chu to stick a fork in Pamela Paul is the critic version of a Mortal Kombat fatality.
nymag.com/intelligence...
Goodbye, Pamela Paul
The contrarian columnist showed us the intolerable side of liberalism.
nymag.com
February 7, 2025 at 1:26 PM
Reposted by Darren Byler
sheehanistan.bsky.social
Bangladesh: "At least five hospitals run with US funding have suspended operations in the Rohingya camps"

"...waste management and landfill activities, managed by a large Bangladeshi non-governmental organisation, have also been suspended a day after the USAID letter was issued..."
February 6, 2025 at 6:40 PM
Reposted by Darren Byler
dell.bsky.social
Update from WIRED head @katie-drummond.bsky.social.

We're hosting a webinar for subscribers w/ our reporters and editors next Thursday, Feb 13 @ 1pm ET.
System Update by Katie Drummond: Ever since Elon Musk dove headfirst into backing Donald Trump’s presidential bid last year—to the tune of $280 million in contributions—WIRED has been tracking the billionaire’s political exploits and growing sphere of influence within the GOP and the Trump administration more specifically. We’ve been sourcing up, talking to people within and around federal agencies, as well as experts in disciplines including cybersecurity, AI, medicine, and more, about Musk’s potential impact. What would Musk do, we wanted to understand, once Trump took back the White House on January 20? How would our government—and our country —change with Trump at the steering wheel and Musk riding shotgun? Now the world, and WIRED, are finding out. The entire WIRED newsroom, from editors and reporters to fact-checkers and photo editors, has been working relentlessly to unearth new information about what exactly Elon Musk and his allies are doing across federal agencies, and to what end. What is changing, how, and what are the consequences? Amid the findings of our reporting, one overarching fact has become extremely clear: Musk is now in the driver’s seat, and he is implementing sweeping, shocking, and largely unchecked changes across the entirety of our country’s federal apparatus. So what do we know so far? WIRED has in recent days revealed that Elon Musk has taken over swaths of government infrastructure, from installing his lackeys in senior positions within governmental HR to leading the charge on a chaotic “deferred resignation program”—one that closely echoes a similar Musk initiative at Twitter—that could see millions of federal workers leave their posts. Musk has been instrumental in attempting to dismantle USAID, with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cutting off funding for lifesaving work before the State Department put the majority of USAID personnel on administrative leave. Every day, we’ve revealed new details on who, exactly, Musk has installed inside federal agencies —they include at least six young men, aged 19 to 24, with little or no government experience. We’ve also documented what those and other Musk acolytes are doing, from conducting “sneak attack” meetings to discuss civil servants’ code and projects to accessing the federal systems that handle Social Security payments and tax returns to announcing plans to transform a key federal tech agency into the AI-fueled equivalent of a “startup software company.” Of course, we’re also keeping close tabs on likely agency heads and members of Trump’s cabinet. His pick for FBI director, Kash Patel, repeatedly claimed at a Senate hearing that he’d never promoted QAnon’s theory. We tracked all the times he did. And though RFK Jr. said he’d support vaccines if he became Health and Human Services Secretary, we outlined his long history of anti-vax positions. We’re not done. Our reporters are getting hundreds of new tips every day and are publishing their latest reporting on WIRED.com at a breakneck pace. To say this moment is unpredictable would be an understatement, but trust me—we’ll continue to do our jobs with utmost vigor, and we’ll work to bring you the most authoritative, trustworthy coverage of tech’s all-out invasion of the American government. We’ve gained tens of thousands of new subscribers in the past few days. If you’d like to join them, you can support us here. P.S. We’ll be hosting a webinar with the editors and writers leading this coverage next Thursday, February 13, at 1pm ET. It’s exclusively for subscribers; if you become one today, you will receive an invitation prior to the event.
February 6, 2025 at 6:21 PM
dbyler.bsky.social
The Rohingya community is being devastated by the suspension of USAID. www.thedailystar.net/rohingya-inf...
Rohingyas hit by US fund cuts
Trump administration’s executive order to suspend US-funded projects and funding globally has started hitting the Rohingya camps in Bangladesh, which is sheltering more than a million Rohingya and tak...
www.thedailystar.net
February 6, 2025 at 3:10 PM
Reposted by Darren Byler
jlfreeman.bsky.social
The Trump administration has tapped Darren Beattie to handle public diplomacy at the State Department. This is an appalling choice for many reasons. One is that Beattie has spent the last few years alternately denying and cheering on China's repression of its #Uyghur community. 1/3
rushdoshi.bsky.social Rush Doshi @rushdoshi.bsky.social · Feb 3
The new acting Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy — State’s top public diplomacy official:

1) not only denies the Uyghur genocide but appears to applaud it

2) says the US should sell out Taiwan to China for concessions in Antarctica (???)
February 3, 2025 at 3:08 PM
dbyler.bsky.social
“The stock price of Geo Group, a private prison operator that sells monitoring technology to ICE, has more than doubled since Mr. Trump won [.] Cellebrite’s shares have also nearly doubled in the past six months and Palantir’s shares have risen nearly 80 percent.” www.nytimes.com/2025/01/25/t...
The Surveillance Tools That Could Power Trump’s Immigration Crackdown
Border enforcement agencies have spent billions assembling surveillance tools to track and find people. These could be critical in President Trump’s immigration agenda.
www.nytimes.com
January 25, 2025 at 6:38 PM
dbyler.bsky.social
“The Government of Thailand must immediately halt the possible transfer of 48 Uyghurs to the People’s Republic of China [.] warning the group was at real risk of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment if they are returned.” www.ohchr.org/en/press-rel...
Thailand must immediately halt deportation of 48 Uyghurs to China: UN experts
GENEVA – The Government of Thailand must immediately halt the possible transfer of 48 Uyghurs to the People’s Republic of China, UN experts* said today, warning that the group was at real risk of tort...
www.ohchr.org
January 21, 2025 at 5:05 PM
Reposted by Darren Byler
drdavidtobin.bsky.social
48 Uyghurs face immediate deportation from Thailand to China where they will face persecution.

If you work in HE or research, we urge you to sign the statement addressed to the Thai authorities asking for the group of detained Uyghur men to be given safe haven.

forms.gle/zWw3GbTvvqiu...
Urgent Researcher Statement on the Status of Uyghur Asylum Seekers in Thailand
Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra Office of the Prime Minister, Royal Thai Government Government House 1 Phitsanulok Road Dusit District, Bangkok 10300, Thailand Foreign Minister Maris Sangiampo...
forms.gle
January 14, 2025 at 5:17 PM
Reposted by Darren Byler
htheaker.bsky.social
This is a horrifying prospect. The deportation of Uyghurs in Thailand to the PRC is such a flagrant breach of the principle of non-refoulement.
January 19, 2025 at 8:43 PM