Philip Conway

It's always a pleasure to talk to @parismarx.com and this was no exception.

This time, why and what it means to expand #digital #sovereignty for people and the planet, what different governments are doing and why it is not enough

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/d...

✍️ From Digital Feudalism to Digital Sovereignty

Catch up on our recent IIPP #RethinkingTheState Forum panel chaired by Prof @rainerkattel.bsky.social & featuring @mazzucatom.bsky.social, @francescabria.bsky.social, @ceciliarikap.bsky.social & Mike Braken

🔗 Watch the recording here: buff.ly/gIsnILK

Why do we listen to Odd Lots?
“Capitalists will lie to you,but they don’t lie to themselves"
Its Charismatic Megafauna in “Cambrian explosion” that blew open “neoliberal hegemony” of economic discourse over the past decade
Congrats Joe & Tracy! @tracyalloway.bsky.social
nytimes.com/2025/08/03/b...

I wish I hadn’t needed to give this so much thought, but here we are 😄

In other words, you have to accept that women have most of the agency in deciding who to connect with *because* of the patriarchal structure that leads to women receiving the vast majority of the attention.

There’s obviously much more to it than this, but it seems to be a pretty consistent picture.

Personally, I’ve found proactively sending likes/messages to mostly be a waste of time. The good matches I’ve had have largely (though not entirely) come from them making the first move. You just have to be very, very patient with it.

By contrast, if you’re getting one or two likes/messages a month, but sending dozens, it can seem hopeless.

Underlying this is an expectation that men be proactive and women passive. The key thing, I think, however, is that you can despise this norm and still be structurally bound to it.

For most women, it’s lots of unwanted attention; for most men, it’s little to no attention. And this seems to be structural.

If you’re getting dozens of likes/messages a week, simply staying on top of them is a chore, and you’re less likely to be proactive about making the first move.

FWIW what I know of (straight) online dating is that most people seem to be having a fairly awful time, but they have very different awful times depending on whether they are male or female.

“The postwar order rested on three pillars: American hegemony, the fossil-fuel energy system, and an open, multilateral trading order. America has now attacked each pillar at the foundation of its hydrocarbon global order.” —
New: @katemac.bsky.social & I
www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/bri...

Cover of the book “One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This.”

“UK suspending trade talks with Israel over Gaza blockade, Lammy tells MPs”

www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...

The ‘Life on Mars’ sequel we never knew we needed.

For decades, post-1960s, critical thought tended, in one form or another, towards the affirmation of transgression and experimentation as ways of breaking with the entrapment of common sense.

That programme still has merit, but it corresponded to a structure of feeling that no longer exists.

It can be difficult to know, these days, what point there is in abstract thought when the direction of things is so concrete and, in many ways, so obvious.

However, a critical theory of integrity, sincerity, and seriousness might be a good place to start.

In my experience, non-UK academics are baffled when they hear about how top-down UK HE teaching is. Which is not to say that pressures toward the erosion of autonomy and academic freedom aren’t being felt elsewhere, but the UK seems decades ahead of the curve, at least in terms of bureaucratisation.

Agree. If you use a Mac then the app Downie is great for downloading videos.

Individual academic output feels so futile these days—writing silly little articles, giving silly little talks. But the attacks on academia show the continued importance of critical intellectual work as a collective endeavor. Anyone finding ways to work through this tension? I’m struggling with it.

Trump says US will ‘take over’ Gaza Strip in shock announcement during Netanyahu visit President’s plan, which critics said was ‘ethnic cleansing by another name’, would involve the permanent resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza to neighbouring countries

It never ceases to amaze me how Trump is still able to take people by surprise. He’s a mob-adjacent real estate tycoon. Of course he’d want to turn Gaza into tacky condos. He wants his cut.

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/f...

Only under the second Bonaparte does the state seem to have achieved independence with respect to society and to have brought it into submission. The independence of the executive comes through clearly when its head no longer needs ingenuity, its army no longer needs glory, and its bureaucracy no longer needs moral authority in order to justify itself. The state machine has established itself so firmly vis-d-uis commercial life that the head of the Society of 10 December provides sufficient leadership, a soldier of fortune swooping down from abroad, elevated to leadership by a drunken soldiery that he bought with grub and drink and at which he has to go on chucking sausages. Hence the shamefaced despair, the feeling of terrible humiliation, degradation, which weighs down upon France and suffocates her. France feels dishonoured. Just as under Napoleon there was scarcely any pretext for freedom, so under the second Bonaparte there was no longer any pretext for servitude.

We all know the line "the first time as tragedy, the second as farce," but this section from Marx's Eighteenth Brumaire resonates with today remarkably well.

The (liberal) US feels dishonoured. Brought to its knees by con-artists and pro-wrestlers. Through its tears of shame, it sees nothing.

🚨My new article, ‘Conspiracy theory, anti-globalism, and the Freedom Convoy: The Great Reset and conspiracist delegitimation,’ co-authored with Scott Watson @uvic.bsky.social is out @risjnl.bsky.social bit.ly/4j9sNPz #conspiracytheory #greatreset #greatreplacement #worldeconomicforum #fredomconvoy

Guy Who Sucks At Being A Person Sees Huge Potential In AI SAN MATEO, CA—After spending the past three decades of his life being totally unable and unwilling to engage in any meaningful way with the world around him, James Parker, a local guy who sucks at bei...

Did they look like this by any chance? theonion.com/guy-who-suck...

Racial Capitalism Catherine Hall discusses the history of racial capitalism, colonizing geographies, social reproduction, and her groundbreaking new book Lucky Valley.

Season 4 of the brilliant "Conjuncture" podcast -- co-sponsored by the Antipode Foundation -- opens with feminist historian Catherine Hall talking about the history of racial capitalism, colonizing geographies, and social reproduction trinitysocialjustice.com/racial-capit...

YouTube video by Trinity Social Justice Institute Conjuncture: The Stuart Hall Archive Project with Nick Beech | S4 Ep2

New Conjuncture! I discuss the Stuart Hall archive with Nick Beech. We consider the Hall archive, unpublished material, and the relevance of his public intellectual praxis in the present. This season co-sponsored by @antipodeonline.bsky.social. Watch here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGuf.... 1/2

Cover of “The Invention of Modern Science,” Isabelle Stengers.

There are just so, so many better options at this point.

For one:

Will look forward to reading. I’ve been working on something similar, though focused on cultural materialism rather than historical material per se.

Please add me, if there's still room.

All this was achieved by heavy reliance on the human factor. Ardour, devotion, ingenuity, and improvisation account for Israel's development more than the flow of money from World Jewry, important and essential as this haa been. And Israel could apply these skills to Africa, while the Africans felt they could receive them. When Mr. Obedemah, one-time Minister in Nkrumah's cabinet~ was asked by Mrs Heir, at that time Israel's Foreign Minister, why he came to Israel, the reply was: " Because I have a lot to learn here-. And when asked how many times he intended to come in the future, he said: "As long as I shall have something to learn" . "And afterwards 7" " I shall not come any more." This answer renects Africa's real attitude towards Israel as a living laboratory for development studies. There they could receive real and practicable solutions for their problems. Everything in Israel was reached by a trial-and-error method to suit the conditions of a small, poor country.

It's about development rather than arms industry, but seems comparable:

Seems very similar, from 1971: doi.org/10.1177/0305...

To get around the limit, I have made a Part 2! If you think I should add anyone or I missed you do let me know & I will add you go.bsky.app/7DTVem6

I started putting together a starter pack on Marx, Marxism, Critical Theory, and more. Please share if you find it useful and respond to this post if you feel like you should be added to the list (or removed for that matter).