Daniel Winchester

Given current trends and incentives, I'm worried it's going to be consumers who have to do most of that wading (or drowning). Not fun.

In a more AI-driven and reliant economy, I think this problem only gets worse. Yes, AI can and will help create good products, but we also know it generates huge amounts of "slop" along the way. That slop has to be waded through somewhere along the chain of production, distribution, and consumption.

2) if and when the product is relatively low-cost and we don't have the pre-purchase time but do have the $, we play consumer roulette, usually buying a bunch of shitty options until we land on a good or, more likely, an "okay enough" one.

The two major strategies we have to separate the wheat from the chaff are to either 1) spend our limited time and energy doing excessive amounts of pre-purchase research and/or...

This would basically be an amplified version of what we're already living through today. Most of us already understand the problem isn't a lack of products to choose from. The problem is trying to choose the right ones and avoid all the junk.

So another strategy is to keep much of the cost-savings and make quality control and discernment the consumer's responsibility.

This could mean that companies start spending/hiring more on the QC and later-stage evaluation end of things. But of course that's expensive and would negate much if not all of the cost-savings on the early production side.

This means more work on the QC end of things for producers, but the sheer amount of stuff they have to evaluate means that their existing processes start to get overwhelmed.

Also, because fewer ideas make it through the initial pipeline, more of them can be subject to QC processes involving human judgement and evaluation. But today's AI tech can already rapidly churn out and scale up a number of new product ideas.

NOT having the technological capacity to rapidly churn out and scale up every half-baked idea means that producers have to be more discerning and selective at the front end of the process, because they can't waste precious time, money, and labor on too many half-baked proposals and dead-ends.

While often overlooked in all the talk about increased "productivity" via AI, there are some significant benefits to new product ideas being time-consuming and difficult to implement.

But, at the risk of getting out over my own skis, I think one plausible future if we continue to ride the AI hype train is a big degradation of the consumer experience. We're just going to be flooded with a huge amount of shitty products (which, if we're being honest, is already a problem).

Maxwell's Silver Hammer, The Beatles

Captain Sterling's Little Problem, The Coup

Strangers, Ethel Cain

Cocaine Blues, Johnny Cash

Paper Planes, MIA

Hell Broke Luce, Tom Waits

CCS Workshop ~ February 20, 2026 ~ Daniel Winchester

On my way to discuss some work in progress on religion and global imaginaries with the fine folks at Yale's Center for Cultural Sociology. Maybe it's the gothic architecture talking, but I'm feeling smarter already.

YouTube video by Billy Bragg BILLY BRAGG - CITY OF HEROES

For the city of heroes. Skol!

You know you've messed up when you've radicalized the host of Jeopardy.

Huh, hardly seems to warrant shooting moms in the face in the name of "public safety", does it? #abolishicenow

4) These are agencies who clearly do not believe the law a) applies to them or b) protects anyone against them...

3) They routinely hide their identities from the public and refuse to identify themselves as law enforcement agents, even and especially as they demand immediate compliance. And they have shot, maimed, and killed several people before Renee Nicole Good (RIP)...

2) ICE and DHS (like the Trump Administration as a whole) operate outside of the boundaries of the law as a matter of course. They have illegally detained and disappeared people, including US citizens...

4) These are agencies who clearly do not believe the law a) applies to them or b) protects anyone against them...

3) They routinely hide their identities from the public and refuse to identify themselves as law enforcement agents, even and especially as they demand immediate compliance. And they have shot, maimed, and killed several people before Renee Nicole Good (RIP)...

2) ICE and DHS (like the Trump Administration as a whole) operate outside of the boundaries of the law as a matter of course...

Abstract for the article: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41296-025-00779-4

🚨new article🚨

"Polarisation" has become one of those terms commonly used to discuss the dire state of politics and democracy today

Here @juanroch.bsky.social, @daniel-balinhas.bsky.social and I argue that this simplistic framing is counterproductive

🧵Thread🧵

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

DOGE “cut muscle, not fat”; 26K experts rehired after brutal cuts Government brain drain will haunt US after DOGE abruptly terminated.

Don't fret, fellow citizens. The real treasure was the sensitive data they harvested along the way. 🌈 ❤️ 🐶

Check out this OPEN ACCESS pub by my on-the-job-market PhD advisee, @akotanko.bsky.social. This is the article version of Adam's excellent master's thesis and the seed of inspiration for his even more excellent dissertation project on what he's termed "moral ambassadorship".

DOOM take > Hot take

The percentage of Americans who say religion is an important part of their lives declined from 66% in 2015 to 49% in 2025. Among the fastest declines in the world.
news.gallup.com/poll/697676/...

‘TEMPORARY REPRIEVE’? IU reverses course and will print student paper, but distrust remains - THE INDIANA CITIZEN By Steven Hinnefeld The Indiana Citizen October 31, 2025 Indiana University has reversed course on its decision to end print publication of the Indiana Daily Student, its award-winning student…

Indiana University has reversed course on its decision to end print publication of the Indiana Daily Student, its award-winning student newspaper, after two weeks of intensive blowback, including accusations of censorship and canceled alumni...

indianacitizen.org/temporary-re...
#HoosierSky #edchat