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Tom Philpott

@tomphilpott.bsky.social

Research associate at the Center for a Liveable Future at JHU in Baltimore. Author of Perilous Bounty. Former food politics writer for Mother Jones (2011-2022) and Grist (2006-2011)

1,373 Followers  |  661 Following  |  268 Posts  |  Joined: 23.05.2023
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Posts by Tom Philpott (@tomphilpott.bsky.social)

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How a DHS shooting of a third U.S. citizen went unnoticed for months No state or federal agency disclosed that a Homeland Security Investigations agent had killed Ruben Ray Martinez until it was revealed in a public records request.

www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/...

07.03.2026 17:52 β€” πŸ‘ 255    πŸ” 86    πŸ’¬ 4    πŸ“Œ 0

See, if you would just use ChatGPT to write your posts, your fatigue wouldn’t matter

07.03.2026 19:38 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

I think we need people to start listening to new experts that said this many years ago

07.03.2026 17:17 β€” πŸ‘ 1396    πŸ” 177    πŸ’¬ 21    πŸ“Œ 5

Ooof.

04.03.2026 17:25 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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The incompetence of the Iran War rollout is just stunning.

Rubio says "Israel dragged us into this war! We had no choice!"

Trump says "I dragged Israel into this war! Regime change! Iranian people, rise up!"

Just bonkers.

04.03.2026 17:22 β€” πŸ‘ 1249    πŸ” 333    πŸ’¬ 53    πŸ“Œ 14
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The war in Iran is already hugely expensive Aircraft carriers and stealth bombers are expensive to use.

did a little back of the envelope math for how much all this shit is costing. on the order of $1-2 billion per day just in direct spending, maybe 10 times that much in indirect effects

03.03.2026 18:31 β€” πŸ‘ 849    πŸ” 279    πŸ’¬ 35    πŸ“Œ 29

The thing I really don't get about academics using LLMs to generate ideas/write papers is: that's the part of my work I πŸ’― love: creative challenging & fulfilling. I pay the piper by sitting in committees, doing loads of paperwork & abiding by lots of procedures. Why give up the best part of the job?

03.03.2026 20:27 β€” πŸ‘ 58    πŸ” 8    πŸ’¬ 3    πŸ“Œ 2

A deeply underreported story. I know so many people struggling to pay their electric bills

03.03.2026 21:05 β€” πŸ‘ 1033    πŸ” 342    πŸ’¬ 29    πŸ“Œ 24

just trained AI to remember all of my friends' birthdays, send an automated AI-generated email saying "happy birthday," call them using an AI-generated video of me, scan all of their online info so i buy the perfect birthday gift, which i'll deliver using an AGI robot that looks like me

02.03.2026 20:47 β€” πŸ‘ 2302    πŸ” 117    πŸ’¬ 95    πŸ“Œ 12

You did what?

03.03.2026 03:43 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Already doing this with whether we are doing a β€œwar” on Iran

Also I’m not going too hard on this but if another nation invaded us with their missiles that killed our leaders, I’d be ok calling that an Invasion not just of our airspace but of our country

02.03.2026 21:45 β€” πŸ‘ 246    πŸ” 39    πŸ’¬ 7    πŸ“Œ 0

is everyone on glue

02.03.2026 20:22 β€” πŸ‘ 4901    πŸ” 810    πŸ’¬ 194    πŸ“Œ 23

I really did think the Riyadh Comedy Festival would help bring peace to the Middle East

03.03.2026 02:20 β€” πŸ‘ 2180    πŸ” 219    πŸ’¬ 29    πŸ“Œ 7
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How Trump Decided to Go to War

Netanyahu pushed and prodded US presidents to attack Iran for decades. And Trump II, he finally found his mark. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/02/u...

03.03.2026 03:34 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Lol, I thought they were saying β€œparty everyday”

02.03.2026 22:31 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

These people have no idea what they’re doing.

02.03.2026 22:17 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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False solutions: How do fossil fuel companies reproduce their power through the energy transition In response to mounting political and social pressure to transform their business models, the fossil fuel industry is attempting to portray itself as …

This paper is excellent and shows how the fossil fuel industry deploys false solutions- CCS, hydrogen, and CDR- in order to further entrench and protect fossil fuel hygemony

02.03.2026 21:40 β€” πŸ‘ 72    πŸ” 40    πŸ’¬ 3    πŸ“Œ 4

I'll be talking about this unjustifiable aggression against Iran with @chrislhayes.bsky.social and am likely to get heated. (Not at Chris. He's not the problem here.) Tune in circa 8:40pm ET!

02.03.2026 22:15 β€” πŸ‘ 115    πŸ” 13    πŸ’¬ 2    πŸ“Œ 0

this is what they said it would be like under socialism

27.02.2026 21:06 β€” πŸ‘ 19216    πŸ” 4336    πŸ’¬ 1073    πŸ“Œ 169

The pileup of blatantly unlawful conduct by the government in this case is astonishing, as is the fact that the Supreme Court allowed the govt to go forward with this program in a shadow docket ruling

25.02.2026 18:12 β€” πŸ‘ 2364    πŸ” 691    πŸ’¬ 27    πŸ“Œ 9

πŸ‘€

25.02.2026 16:18 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

They cost too much to train.

24.02.2026 17:06 β€” πŸ‘ 3    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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Einstein - AI Homework Agent Einstein logs into Canvas and does your homework automatically. He has his own computer β€” he can watch lectures, read essays, write papers, and participate in discussions.

Is this bad

23.02.2026 15:06 β€” πŸ‘ 1413    πŸ” 329    πŸ’¬ 159    πŸ“Œ 613
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An Insurance Expert Appraises the Safety Record of Self-Driving Cars Are autonomous vehicles operated by companies like Waymo and Tesla making the streets safer? The insurance industry’s research arm is watching closely.

How safe are autonomous vehicles, really?

In @bloomberg.com, I got into the weeds with David Kidd of the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety (@iihs-hldi.bsky.social)

His conclusion: β€œIt’s still too early to say with any kind of confidence that they are safer than human drivers overall.”

🧡

23.02.2026 16:03 β€” πŸ‘ 67    πŸ” 21    πŸ’¬ 8    πŸ“Œ 4

Loved her bck in the day.

23.02.2026 16:05 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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Remembering University of Texas professor who championed diversity Remembering Mercedes deΒ Uriarte,Β a Latina trailblazer, University of Texas professor, whose work reshaped journalism, education and racial equity in Austin.

Ugh. I hadn't realized Mercedes de Uriarte had passed. She fielded a Latino-themed student publication called "Tejas" the same semester @tomphilpott.bsky.social and I launched "Polemicist" at UT Austin, and loved zines, journalism, and the youth she mentored. What a well-lived life.

21.02.2026 16:41 β€” πŸ‘ 3    πŸ” 2    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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πŸ‘€The federal judges in West Virginia, where ICE has been pulling over and detaining people on the freeway, are literally screaming about ICE's tactics.

"It is an assault on the constitutional order," Judge Goodwin says. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

21.02.2026 00:27 β€” πŸ‘ 20345    πŸ” 7493    πŸ’¬ 451    πŸ“Œ 380

if trump wants to raise tariffs, why doesn't he just go through the republican-controlled congress?

20.02.2026 22:15 β€” πŸ‘ 3719    πŸ” 275    πŸ’¬ 115    πŸ“Œ 20

@edzitron.com I adore your stuff. I implore you to spend more time on the hard fork bros. They are very influentialβ€”and very AI-brained.

21.02.2026 01:05 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0