Professor of History at Swarthmore College. Writes at timothyburke.substack.com, continuing from his old blog Easily Distracted. Remembers when there was no Internet, and stays up late because someone is wrong on it. https://bsky.app/profile/timothyburke.bsky.socialhttps://bsky.app/profile/timothyburke.bsky.social/post/3mnsi6m4u322wThinking on the wasted energies poured into various forms of "digital literacy" since the late 1990s, since many of them aimed to produce knowledge of and comfort with tools, interfaces and procedures that were often obsoleted within 4-5 years. Learning "prompting" is only the latest fool's errand.08 Jun 2026 20:05 +0000at://did:plc:potmk65cm2jin4psogupgtop/app.bsky.feed.post/3mnsi6m4u322whttps://bsky.app/profile/timothyburke.bsky.social/post/3mmc5ffaxnk2l"If a stranger asks you to get into an unmarked white van and says he has some AI for you inside, you do not ask 'what's AI?', you just get in the van." [contains quote post or other embedded content]20 May 2026 14:44 +0000at://did:plc:potmk65cm2jin4psogupgtop/app.bsky.feed.post/3mmc5ffaxnk2lhttps://bsky.app/profile/timothyburke.bsky.social/post/3mmc5djb7z22l"If someone fires a missile at your location, you do not ask why, you just draw a circle around yourself and stay put." [contains quote post or other embedded content]20 May 2026 14:43 +0000at://did:plc:potmk65cm2jin4psogupgtop/app.bsky.feed.post/3mmc5djb7z22lhttps://bsky.app/profile/timothyburke.bsky.social/post/3mlmipmejls2gA long time ago--it feels like a lifetime ago--I really thought that following rules and procedurals was how you got ethically and empirically better outcomes, by and large. That was fundamentally wrong. Rules mean nothing if some players disregard them and no one enforces them.12 May 2026 00:08 +0000at://did:plc:potmk65cm2jin4psogupgtop/app.bsky.feed.post/3mlmipmejls2ghttps://bsky.app/profile/timothyburke.bsky.social/post/3mkjdhmjj7s23If someone finds something troubling, it's going to disappear. It's the opposite of what transparency is supposed to entail: it's using the public to do what they don't have the skill or personnel to accomplish. [contains quote post or other embedded content]28 Apr 2026 00:31 +0000at://did:plc:potmk65cm2jin4psogupgtop/app.bsky.feed.post/3mkjdhmjj7s23https://bsky.app/profile/timothyburke.bsky.social/post/3mkjddkp3ss23Let's also say this about NYT and other press sanewashing of Trump and his administrators. Sanewashing involves imagining, inventing, creating things not said in public. It involves imagining continuities between past policy and current actions that don't exist and have been disavowed. It is a lie.28 Apr 2026 00:29 +0000at://did:plc:potmk65cm2jin4psogupgtop/app.bsky.feed.post/3mkjddkp3ss23https://bsky.app/profile/timothyburke.bsky.social/post/3mkjd52tgcc23My basic response on "civility" is: "ok, you first." And not just tomorrow, but for something like a year. Or two. Or a lifetime. Respect and restraint are the ultimate in reciprocal values. You do them or you don't get them. And that's more than what you say, it's what you do.28 Apr 2026 00:25 +0000at://did:plc:potmk65cm2jin4psogupgtop/app.bsky.feed.post/3mkjd52tgcc23https://bsky.app/profile/timothyburke.bsky.social/post/3mkjcy335jk23"Broad".28 Apr 2026 00:23 +0000at://did:plc:potmk65cm2jin4psogupgtop/app.bsky.feed.post/3mkjcy335jk23https://bsky.app/profile/timothyburke.bsky.social/post/3mk74iutfzk2pOk, I'm honestly amused by a Reddit thread where professors are saying they miss "Since time immemorial..." and "In today's society" and "Thusly" and "In our modern society" and other hallmarks of undergraduate writing in days of yore.23 Apr 2026 23:00 +0000at://did:plc:potmk65cm2jin4psogupgtop/app.bsky.feed.post/3mk74iutfzk2phttps://bsky.app/profile/timothyburke.bsky.social/post/3mjv76pcv4s2aTrump's "art of the deal" has always been about "negotiating for the right to save face after losing catastrophically on a dumb gamble, followed by furiously jumping into another investment so as to erase the memory of the last loss". That's his career. Nothing has changed.20 Apr 2026 00:21 +0000at://did:plc:potmk65cm2jin4psogupgtop/app.bsky.feed.post/3mjv76pcv4s2ahttps://bsky.app/profile/timothyburke.bsky.social/post/3mjdcencnz22kWay to go, Hungary! Light the way home for the rest of us.12 Apr 2026 21:31 +0000at://did:plc:potmk65cm2jin4psogupgtop/app.bsky.feed.post/3mjdcencnz22khttps://bsky.app/profile/timothyburke.bsky.social/post/3mj4bcxnj6k2lThere is nothing left to do but laugh. We live in the most glorious age of clowns and fools in all the eons of human folly. [contains quote post or other embedded content]10 Apr 2026 02:23 +0000at://did:plc:potmk65cm2jin4psogupgtop/app.bsky.feed.post/3mj4bcxnj6k2lhttps://bsky.app/profile/timothyburke.bsky.social/post/3mj3sadsi4c2iThere are so many things that will need changing if we survive this moment. Among them is that if you have a constitutional court, it has to have a procedural workflow that kicks in INSTANTLY on a government action that might be unconstitutional. Wait a year or two and you might as well not bother.09 Apr 2026 21:53 +0000at://did:plc:potmk65cm2jin4psogupgtop/app.bsky.feed.post/3mj3sadsi4c2ihttps://bsky.app/profile/timothyburke.bsky.social/post/3mj3s4ptqx22iI would have said twenty years ago or so that the most dangerous thing any political leadership can do is to take away something swiftly from people who've had it for a while. I'm waiting in 2026 for that insight to kick in, given how many people have had things taken away by Trumpism.09 Apr 2026 21:51 +0000at://did:plc:potmk65cm2jin4psogupgtop/app.bsky.feed.post/3mj3s4ptqx22ihttps://bsky.app/profile/timothyburke.bsky.social/post/3miwgsmv4ts25I'm preparing an "archive pack" for students in my History of the Future class for a late-semester assignment, and one is on space colonies. I just found a 2010 book on lunar settlement that includes a chapter on making sure there are HR professionals in any moonbase. Somehow this amuses me.07 Apr 2026 18:45 +0000at://did:plc:potmk65cm2jin4psogupgtop/app.bsky.feed.post/3miwgsmv4ts25https://bsky.app/profile/timothyburke.bsky.social/post/3miwbtha5jk25I'm trying really hard but I just cannot shake that the ostensible leader of my own country has said that he intends to obliterate an entire civilization tonight. Whether or not it's just bombast, or it's just an exaggeration of "I'm going to bomb infrastructure", it's profoundly unacceptable.07 Apr 2026 17:16 +0000at://did:plc:potmk65cm2jin4psogupgtop/app.bsky.feed.post/3miwbtha5jk25https://bsky.app/profile/timothyburke.bsky.social/post/3mimpnftpfc2gRemember when the news in Trump's first term would suddenly go "today's the day when Trump finally became presidential?" Well, today's the day when the NYT got so stuck up Trump's ass with bothsideism that they couldn't get out again. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/03/us/fema-gregg-phillips-waffle-house-teleportation.html03 Apr 2026 21:57 +0000at://did:plc:potmk65cm2jin4psogupgtop/app.bsky.feed.post/3mimpnftpfc2ghttps://bsky.app/profile/timothyburke.bsky.social/post/3micl7zm3qk2t"Oh who cares who divided up Poland, right? Water under the bridge and all that. Got to just accept reality." [contains quote post or other embedded content]30 Mar 2026 21:11 +0000at://did:plc:potmk65cm2jin4psogupgtop/app.bsky.feed.post/3micl7zm3qk2thttps://bsky.app/profile/timothyburke.bsky.social/post/3micl4bjdxs2tI go out of my mind when I see a confession that a review of a film, book or play for one of the few remaining daily newspapers was done w/AI. It's not fucking hard! You are one of the last people standing in that gig! There are 10,000 people who could do what you're doing and do it beautifully!30 Mar 2026 21:09 +0000at://did:plc:potmk65cm2jin4psogupgtop/app.bsky.feed.post/3micl4bjdxs2thttps://bsky.app/profile/timothyburke.bsky.social/post/3micjpu3yps2tIf I were king of the world, I'd make copious misuse of quotation marks in social media messages by public figures at least a misdemeanor, a felony on repeat offenses.30 Mar 2026 20:44 +0000at://did:plc:potmk65cm2jin4psogupgtop/app.bsky.feed.post/3micjpu3yps2thttps://bsky.app/profile/timothyburke.bsky.social/post/3miacqdkndk2zWar in Iran and the possibility of a global food crisis: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/strait-of-hormuz-closure-not-just-an-oil-problem-by-bram-govaerts-and-sharon-burke-2026-0329 Mar 2026 23:34 +0000at://did:plc:potmk65cm2jin4psogupgtop/app.bsky.feed.post/3miacqdkndk2zhttps://bsky.app/profile/timothyburke.bsky.social/post/3mhv5e2fhts2dBret Stephens: We've only bombed ONE girls' school. In other wars we bombed weddings, schools, supportive villages, we murdered parents in front of their children, we tortured people in prisons. This war is going MUCH better.25 Mar 2026 12:58 +0000at://did:plc:potmk65cm2jin4psogupgtop/app.bsky.feed.post/3mhv5e2fhts2dhttps://bsky.app/profile/timothyburke.bsky.social/post/3mhmj4znwes2qWell, you know, at least he didn't kill a puppy for licking his daughter's face. Or did he? I can't keep track of the depravity of these people any longer. [contains quote post or other embedded content]22 Mar 2026 02:35 +0000at://did:plc:potmk65cm2jin4psogupgtop/app.bsky.feed.post/3mhmj4znwes2qhttps://bsky.app/profile/timothyburke.bsky.social/post/3mhipyf2jac2eA hat trick here of complaints about the NYT. One of the things that is really shining through now in their stage-management of the news to provide a positive reframing of Trumpland is the feedback loop between the NYT and think tanks where both parties are trying to "speak with and for power".20 Mar 2026 14:27 +0000at://did:plc:potmk65cm2jin4psogupgtop/app.bsky.feed.post/3mhipyf2jac2ehttps://bsky.app/profile/timothyburke.bsky.social/post/3mhiomiuaqs2eSpeaking of the NYT, they're also ON IT when it comes to remorselessly fact-checking world leaders. Turns out Spain's Prime Minister is...kind of right that Spain's use of renewables is providing them with some energy security. This for some reason is a news story that needs to be in today's mix.20 Mar 2026 14:03 +0000at://did:plc:potmk65cm2jin4psogupgtop/app.bsky.feed.post/3mhiomiuaqs2ehttps://bsky.app/profile/timothyburke.bsky.social/post/3mhioflpric2eTrump did this and Trump did that, but don't worry, the New York Times is ON IT. It turns out--surprise!--that what Trump did for Trump's reasons is actually (drumroll) consistent with long-term American policy priorities! According to think tanks desperate to remain relevant, that is.20 Mar 2026 13:59 +0000at://did:plc:potmk65cm2jin4psogupgtop/app.bsky.feed.post/3mhioflpric2ehttps://bsky.app/profile/timothyburke.bsky.social/post/3mhhavdmgnk2eAbout organizational cultures, especially those that mean to be in confrontation with dominant systems. Here's the thing: if we can't make that organization express the world we want to live in, then maybe that tells us a lot about the world we're in. But it's not an excuse or a justification.20 Mar 2026 00:24 +0000at://did:plc:potmk65cm2jin4psogupgtop/app.bsky.feed.post/3mhhavdmgnk2e