Eric Drott
@ericdrott.bsky.social
Reposted by Eric Drott
This one was a genuine rabbit hole, very fun to research and write. I did not expect "underwater basket weaving" to connect to basically every social issue of the mid 20th century
Underwater Basket Weaving
I’d like to apologize up front to all the liberal arts majors reading this, surely flashing back to the most annoying conversations they’ve ever had...
www.imightaswellexplainthejoke.com
February 2, 2026 at 2:08 PM
This one was a genuine rabbit hole, very fun to research and write. I did not expect "underwater basket weaving" to connect to basically every social issue of the mid 20th century
Reposted by Eric Drott
part of this is like, conservatives projecting; part of this is conservatives unable to imagine politics without money; and part of this is dudes who are so out of touch with feminized labor that they think children's birthday parties exist as a spontaneous act of parthogenesis
I mostly just stay off Twitter altogether but after double checking that the Walter Hudson post was still up I ran across this and just had to share so the Romancelandians who bought hand warmers could hear about the PROFESSIONAL GRADE LOGISTICS.
January 26, 2026 at 12:14 AM
part of this is like, conservatives projecting; part of this is conservatives unable to imagine politics without money; and part of this is dudes who are so out of touch with feminized labor that they think children's birthday parties exist as a spontaneous act of parthogenesis
Reposted by Eric Drott
I've written this blogpost on ICE protest chants & songs, w/ a large section of transcriptions of singing at protests by faith leaders and the Singing Resistance. It also includes songs about ICE agents' perceived masculinity issues and new songs protesting ICE. medium.com/@norikomanab...
ICE protest songs and chants, Minnesota general strike (January 23) and beyond
Transcriptions of singing at ICE protests by faith leaders and protesters. Songs about ICE’s masculinity issues. Other songs about the ICE…
medium.com
January 25, 2026 at 11:02 PM
I've written this blogpost on ICE protest chants & songs, w/ a large section of transcriptions of singing at protests by faith leaders and the Singing Resistance. It also includes songs about ICE agents' perceived masculinity issues and new songs protesting ICE. medium.com/@norikomanab...
Reposted by Eric Drott
Hello I’m the ubermensch, my one weakness is whistles
Whistles are now WMDs, according to the "high IQ" crowd.
January 25, 2026 at 9:13 PM
Hello I’m the ubermensch, my one weakness is whistles
Reposted by Eric Drott
In April 2024, Spotify implemented a new scheme: songs with less than 1k streams per year would no longer receive royalties.
The data for 2025 was just released via Luminate, and 88% of songs have been demonetized.
Read it again: 88% of songs on Spotify have been demonetized.
The data for 2025 was just released via Luminate, and 88% of songs have been demonetized.
Read it again: 88% of songs on Spotify have been demonetized.
January 15, 2026 at 4:58 PM
In April 2024, Spotify implemented a new scheme: songs with less than 1k streams per year would no longer receive royalties.
The data for 2025 was just released via Luminate, and 88% of songs have been demonetized.
Read it again: 88% of songs on Spotify have been demonetized.
The data for 2025 was just released via Luminate, and 88% of songs have been demonetized.
Read it again: 88% of songs on Spotify have been demonetized.
Reposted by Eric Drott
Time for our annual viewing of the academia-themed Just in Time for Christmas, in which she gets cold called by the “Dean of Yale,” who wants to publish her dissertation because it will be a bestseller and offers a flyout for a job she didn’t apply for, and mystical William Shatner shakes things up.
December 20, 2025 at 12:17 AM
Time for our annual viewing of the academia-themed Just in Time for Christmas, in which she gets cold called by the “Dean of Yale,” who wants to publish her dissertation because it will be a bestseller and offers a flyout for a job she didn’t apply for, and mystical William Shatner shakes things up.
Reposted by Eric Drott
When we say "no, everything hasn't been digitized," I need you to understand that we really mean is that virtually nothing has been digitized. This is because the realm of primary sources that historians use is incomprehensibly large.
Seems like it's worth posting this one again.
Why Do Historians Still Have To Go To Archives?
Why do historians go to archives? Hasn’t everything already been digitized?
contingentmagazine.org
December 22, 2025 at 1:40 AM
When we say "no, everything hasn't been digitized," I need you to understand that we really mean is that virtually nothing has been digitized. This is because the realm of primary sources that historians use is incomprehensibly large.
Reposted by Eric Drott
Somebody scraped & shared every song on Spotify, with metadata — a boon for research into music and algorithms, but also, inevitably, what the training data is going to be for every AI music company in 2026. annas-archive.li/blog/backing...
Backing up Spotify
We backed up Spotify (metadata and music files). It’s distributed in bulk torrents (~300TB). It’s the world’s first “preservation archive” for music which is fully open (meaning it can easily be mirro...
annas-archive.li
December 21, 2025 at 12:34 AM
Somebody scraped & shared every song on Spotify, with metadata — a boon for research into music and algorithms, but also, inevitably, what the training data is going to be for every AI music company in 2026. annas-archive.li/blog/backing...
Reposted by Eric Drott
Someone ought to write about how AI has replaced the labor academic wives used to do (which was really just all of it)
Here’s Milton Friedman thanking his wife for, well, writing Capitalism and Freedom:
Here’s Milton Friedman thanking his wife for, well, writing Capitalism and Freedom:
December 21, 2025 at 1:35 AM
Someone ought to write about how AI has replaced the labor academic wives used to do (which was really just all of it)
Here’s Milton Friedman thanking his wife for, well, writing Capitalism and Freedom:
Here’s Milton Friedman thanking his wife for, well, writing Capitalism and Freedom:
Reposted by Eric Drott
So I'm trying to wrap my mind around the fact that the #1 song on the digital country music chart ("Walk My Walk") was by an AI called Breaking Rust.
(Is this the wrong time to admit this entire feed has been generated by an especially irritating AI calling itself "Riki"?)
(Is this the wrong time to admit this entire feed has been generated by an especially irritating AI calling itself "Riki"?)
Synthetic soul: AI-generated gospel "Mississippi" singer Solomon Ray tops Christian chart
AI Christian artist Solomon Ray has no real testimony
www.axios.com
December 20, 2025 at 11:57 PM
Reposted by Eric Drott
not that the present economic picture is rosy, but i do think that popular culture — and specifically nostalgia bait television — is a big part of the reason that our public memory of the 1970s, 1980s and even 1990s seems to miss the real economic pain that marked each of those decades.
December 20, 2025 at 2:44 PM
not that the present economic picture is rosy, but i do think that popular culture — and specifically nostalgia bait television — is a big part of the reason that our public memory of the 1970s, 1980s and even 1990s seems to miss the real economic pain that marked each of those decades.
Reposted by Eric Drott
Because every time something is labeled “vibes”, I go look and it’s just Marxism.
November 22, 2025 at 1:13 PM
Because every time something is labeled “vibes”, I go look and it’s just Marxism.
Reposted by Eric Drott
Someone is going to have the write the thing about how “vibe” has become a substitute for meaningful theory in a world where the theory is so clear — grift and power — but we collectively refuse if because it isn’t sophisticated enough to generate make work for empiricists.
November 22, 2025 at 1:12 PM
Someone is going to have the write the thing about how “vibe” has become a substitute for meaningful theory in a world where the theory is so clear — grift and power — but we collectively refuse if because it isn’t sophisticated enough to generate make work for empiricists.
Reposted by Eric Drott
New conspiracy theory just dropped:
What if peer review, committee meetings, strategic plans, promotion & tenure processes, and letter-writing requests are all part of a secret plot to keep smart, creative, active minds from thinking and writing the big ideas that would *really* change the world?
What if peer review, committee meetings, strategic plans, promotion & tenure processes, and letter-writing requests are all part of a secret plot to keep smart, creative, active minds from thinking and writing the big ideas that would *really* change the world?
November 19, 2025 at 10:45 PM
New conspiracy theory just dropped:
What if peer review, committee meetings, strategic plans, promotion & tenure processes, and letter-writing requests are all part of a secret plot to keep smart, creative, active minds from thinking and writing the big ideas that would *really* change the world?
What if peer review, committee meetings, strategic plans, promotion & tenure processes, and letter-writing requests are all part of a secret plot to keep smart, creative, active minds from thinking and writing the big ideas that would *really* change the world?
Reposted by Eric Drott
Texas lawmakers to review college campus speech after Kirk killing
The legislative panels were created after Republican leaders criticized students mocking or celebrating Kirk’s death. They come amid a push to tighten rules around campus expression.
www.texastribune.org
November 14, 2025 at 10:49 PM
Reposted by Eric Drott
"If you search for Jayilor on Spotify, you’ll find that it has covered all of the King Gizzard songs that are still available to stream on Spotify — and that, in fact, when you stream King Gizzard on Spotify today, you are unwittingly streaming Jayilor."
Spotify's doppelgänger problem:
Spotify's doppelgänger problem:
Spotify's doppelgänger problem
After King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard left Spotify in protest earlier this year, something strange took their place
www.platformer.news
November 14, 2025 at 6:45 PM
"If you search for Jayilor on Spotify, you’ll find that it has covered all of the King Gizzard songs that are still available to stream on Spotify — and that, in fact, when you stream King Gizzard on Spotify today, you are unwittingly streaming Jayilor."
Spotify's doppelgänger problem:
Spotify's doppelgänger problem:
Reposted by Eric Drott
Here's the full Summers email, btw.
November 12, 2025 at 4:22 PM
Here's the full Summers email, btw.
Reposted by Eric Drott
Is Taylor Swift the new FW Taylor? No. She's the new Jonathan Swift, which is worse. Here's why only Veblen can help us.
I reviewed the latest album in order to get it out of my system.
tgpbennett.wordpress.com/2025/11/12/p...
I reviewed the latest album in order to get it out of my system.
tgpbennett.wordpress.com/2025/11/12/p...
Protecting the Family: A few more notes on “the new Taylorism”
On my birthday this year (kind of a big one too!), Taylor Swift swooped in and stole my thunder with yet another album. Adding insult to injury, my university PR team then asked if I might write so…
tgpbennett.wordpress.com
November 12, 2025 at 7:24 AM
Is Taylor Swift the new FW Taylor? No. She's the new Jonathan Swift, which is worse. Here's why only Veblen can help us.
I reviewed the latest album in order to get it out of my system.
tgpbennett.wordpress.com/2025/11/12/p...
I reviewed the latest album in order to get it out of my system.
tgpbennett.wordpress.com/2025/11/12/p...
Reposted by Eric Drott
Reposted by Eric Drott
November 9, 2025 at 1:01 PM
Reposted by Eric Drott
40 years ago we’d have congressional hearings falsely accusing metal bands of putting backwards messages in their songs that told kids to kill themselves & now we have a planet-killing chatbot that’s all like “bet you won’t commit suicide chickenshit bitch” & the government is like here’s $5 billion
November 8, 2025 at 4:23 AM
40 years ago we’d have congressional hearings falsely accusing metal bands of putting backwards messages in their songs that told kids to kill themselves & now we have a planet-killing chatbot that’s all like “bet you won’t commit suicide chickenshit bitch” & the government is like here’s $5 billion
Reposted by Eric Drott
1.This is not the only known example we know of ChatGPT cheering on a vulnerable young person to die by suicide, this time it is a recent Texas A&M grad
2. Every single university that has invited OpenAI into our midst should be asked to account for their choices.
www.cnn.com/2025/11/06/u...
2. Every single university that has invited OpenAI into our midst should be asked to account for their choices.
www.cnn.com/2025/11/06/u...
November 7, 2025 at 1:50 AM
1.This is not the only known example we know of ChatGPT cheering on a vulnerable young person to die by suicide, this time it is a recent Texas A&M grad
2. Every single university that has invited OpenAI into our midst should be asked to account for their choices.
www.cnn.com/2025/11/06/u...
2. Every single university that has invited OpenAI into our midst should be asked to account for their choices.
www.cnn.com/2025/11/06/u...