Ben Serber

My dad spent nearly 3 decades as an airline pilot and this might be one of the most life-changing things I ever learned from him. There's probably a sign. Find the sign and read it, and you'll probably know where to go. Generalizes beyond airports too.

Toward the Next American University: A Roundtable Discussion on the Future of Higher Ed - Public Books The path higher education was on before Trump’s reelection was neither certain nor stable. There is not much to go back to now.

As Higher Education editor at @publicbooks.bsky.social, I asked experts—thinkers, scholars, teachers, organizers—for short essays outlining one positive change we can work towards in higher ed, no matter who occupies the White House. Our roundtable series begins publishing today. My intro here:

I demand a union representative.

Pictured is a tweet from "@actuallyurgay" with a picture. Yhe picture in the tweet is of a man who extremely dirty, covered in black soot. The picture is captioned "if your job doesnt have you looking like this at the end of the day you are not working."

If you look like this after a day of work, you need to join a union and bargain collectively for some PPE expeditiously.

With a trifecta he'd be vetoing the Democrat-passed budget for not doing school vouchers aggressively enough.

i'll make you a deal: i will tearfully restrain myself from bringing up "surplus value" at all so long as you present a definition of working class that does not rule in car dealership owners on vibes

Some call them "gifted programs," some call them "what John Dewey correctly argued every child's education should look like!"

His lack of interest in meaningfully threatening or "accidentally" locking in the bathroom for just a couple hours even one (1) senator this year gives me great doubt that he can do either.

How ICE Terror Campaigns Are Used to Discipline Labor While Chicago sees a surge of ICE detentions, workers are facing retaliation as immigrants when they advocate for their rights.

"An attorney for a building trades union told me that a witness in a wage theft case in another state was recently targeted and deported by ICE. The union believes the employer encouraged ICE to target the worker, in a bid to undercut the wage theft case. "

prospect.org/labor/2025-1...

If you’re noticing a parallel between the way people in the administration are demeaning most Americans and the way your boss is now treating you, you are in very good company. (Tyranny in government begets tyranny at work begets tyranny in the home.)

It's also just not something most people experience in their daily lives, even if it's happening to them. Same as labor organizing - people have to learn it for themselves, so it's better to ask a couple questions about day-to-day than to try to drag someone into the class war in their first 1-on-1.

I mean, there *is* a pattern - the only time I've heard "tenure means you've escaped capitalism" it was from a white guy. But I've worked w/ members from every demographic who believed that even if they didn't say it.

I've worked with a lot of women/minority faculty who recognize that *their tenure case* (or tenure cases generally) is under threat from personal and/or structural discrimination. On whether *tenure is a labor relation*, all sorts have been equally capable of willful ignorance/false consciousness.

The union I work for is wall-to-wall across faculty types and has understood this for years - even in that case it's a massive organizing & political education project to get members bought in. But the only way to win is to rip people out of their fantasy world where tenure fell out of the sky.

It is funny for sure. The reason for the difference is that the closer analogy here is between Columbia's board and ABC's executives, who responded similarly. Kimmel is more like Columbia faculty who have resisted their bosses' capitulation. The recurring pattern is: management cowers, labor fights.

I have a grad worker who's "Secretary of Grievances" for his union for the 1st time. He's learning fast.

Him: So wait, the university would rather pay a mediator than settle what's basically a clerical error?
Me: Yes.
Him: I'm starting to understand why you're angry all the time.

My contribution to The Loneliness Discourse is that we see D&D, Warhammer, etc, going mainstream because they‘re Third Space Provider Games so we should all talk more about such things to save America.

Honestly charging extra for comments is one of the best mental health moves Online has come up with recently, I save money and I'm happier.

A picture of "Just Cause: A Union Guide to Winning Discipline Cases" by Robert M. Schwartz

Always

I don't know who needs to hear this, but "priors", by definition, are working empirical assumptions about the world that you update as you get experience. They do not refer to your *values*.

It's not super encouraging to consider that Isaac Chotiner has gained a reputation as a kind of Anton Chigurh of interviews simply by asking relevant questions, following up on them, and not trying to be the subject's best friend

Becoming increasingly clear we’re gonna have to build a parallel infrastructure for all the media we really love. The reason all of this is happening under the color of law is hyperconsolidation, dissent being traded straight up for merger approval, or fear of harassment.

UC employees, not waiting on leaders, sue Trump for 'financial coercion' over UCLA cuts University of California faculty, students and staff on Tuesday sued President Trump over a $1.2-billion penalty against UCLA and federal demands over campus changes. They argued that the actions are ...

We're not waiting for our bosses to defend our schools. AAUP, UAW, AFT, AFSCME, and more have joined together to defend UCLA just like we did Harvard. We won that and we'll win this. Your dues pay for these cases so join today!

Boy do I feel this one! The problem with having been a new atheist is the same as the problem with having been an effective altruist - you can do it while being a normal person, but all the publicly-known examples stole billions, have turned into fascists, and/or were secret fascists all along.

FBI Deputy Director breaks down on Fox: "I gave up everything for this. I mean, you know, my wife is struggling... I stare at these four walls all day in DC, you know, by myself, divorced from my wife. Not divorced, but l mean, separated. And it's hard."

been very hard to watch a bunch of 50-year-old podcasters come to terms with having a job.

It depends on the type of shirt, material of the shirt, and armpit shape. i.e. correct application of deodorant requires phronesis and not prescriptive rules.

This is simply untenable. There is no way forward with media and political classes captured by the right. Every time someone commits a crime you have to pray it's not an undesirable or it's purge time, then when it turns out to be themselves again they just shrug and wait for the next one.

Well one wizard tripped over them but another wizard had already paid for them, and a third wizard would still have deployed them even if the first wizard hadn't tripped over them

AAUP President Condemns Political Firings of Texas Faculty, Calls for Reinstatements The sudden firings of faculty members this week at two Texas universities are serious violations of well-established standards and principles of academic freedom and tenure and set a dangerous new pre...

The AAUP calls on Texas A&M & Texas State to reverse the ideological firings of faculty members. We condemn the removal of the dean of the College of Arts & Sciences & the chair of the English department at Texas A&M for supporting the academic freedom of an instructor as a draconian abuse of power.

This is such a funny element to the Kirk eulogizing: they can’t describe him the way they’re describing him *and* show clips of anything he actually said or did