Associate Professor of Law at University of San Francisco. Writes about electric utilities, prisons, 17th c. England, AI, feminism, etc. Technically a doctor (old books, not medicine).https://bsky.app/profile/meganwachspress.bsky.socialhttps://bsky.app/profile/meganwachspress.bsky.social/post/3mtxk6lrcs22vI know it doesn't matter given the horrors it describes and the outright Nazi propaganda is objectively scarier but this feels like a desecration of something that represents a love of schools and science and it burns a little extra. [contains quote post or other embedded content]26 Aug 2026 04:56 +0000at://did:plc:v7snzinjqh4e4faevo424ess/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtxk6lrcs22vhttps://bsky.app/profile/meganwachspress.bsky.social/post/3mtulqai7mk2jA formative moment in my political education occurred when the Marxist kid in my high school class pointed out to me that buying expensive things often meant the people who made them were better paid and so no, there's no correlation between buying cheap stuff and leftism, if anything the opposite [contains quote post or other embedded content]25 Aug 2026 00:45 +0000at://did:plc:v7snzinjqh4e4faevo424ess/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtulqai7mk2jhttps://bsky.app/profile/meganwachspress.bsky.social/post/3mtr6t6oihs2mI know we have to take this shit seriously because people who believe it control billions of dollars and the US military, but jeez, this Cofnas guy is just an idiot. [contains quote post or other embedded content]23 Aug 2026 16:16 +0000at://did:plc:v7snzinjqh4e4faevo424ess/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtr6t6oihs2mhttps://bsky.app/profile/meganwachspress.bsky.social/post/3mtpxvidw422fbecause we're doing this again and a bunch of the usual suspects are wrapping themselves in the "academic freedom" flag, "cancel culture" are just about drawing the boundaries between politics and morality and yes, racism is immoral (and, uh, not a science) https://cooperativeoverlapping.substack.com/p/trans-substantive-principles-wont23 Aug 2026 04:40 +0000at://did:plc:v7snzinjqh4e4faevo424ess/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtpxvidw422fhttps://bsky.app/profile/meganwachspress.bsky.social/post/3mtppzmzusc2iComing of age in the single decade in which history ended and in which both parties were dominated by neoliberalism taught a lot of Gen Xers and Millennials the (false, wrong) lesson that politics has no moral content. [contains quote post or other embedded content]23 Aug 2026 02:19 +0000at://did:plc:v7snzinjqh4e4faevo424ess/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtppzmzusc2ihttps://bsky.app/profile/meganwachspress.bsky.social/post/3mtotl6jx7k2iEhhh, I'm biased but disagree. A lot of lawyering is info management, which my litigator friends say LLMs help with. But lawyering also involves persuasion and certainty self-assessment, both of which require a theory of mind (others and your own), which LLMs fairly canonically do not have. [contains quote post or other embedded content]22 Aug 2026 17:50 +0000at://did:plc:v7snzinjqh4e4faevo424ess/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtotl6jx7k2ihttps://bsky.app/profile/meganwachspress.bsky.social/post/3mtnedsj2ks2rFlock is evil. I've been sending sternly worded emails to my local government about them for more than a year. But I can't help but notice there's much more energy around stopping police surveillance when it's *not* part of a racialized regime of hierarchization and control. [contains quote post or other embedded content]22 Aug 2026 03:44 +0000at://did:plc:v7snzinjqh4e4faevo424ess/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtnedsj2ks2rhttps://bsky.app/profile/meganwachspress.bsky.social/post/3mtndzvrqic2rFlock is evil. I've been sending sternly worded emails to my local government about them for more than a year. But I can't help but notice there's much more energy around stopping police surveillance when it's *not* part of a racialized regime of hierarchization and control. [contains quote post or other embedded content]22 Aug 2026 03:39 +0000at://did:plc:v7snzinjqh4e4faevo424ess/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtndzvrqic2rhttps://bsky.app/profile/meganwachspress.bsky.social/post/3mtmoxar66s2iOne thing driving AI (actually LLM) discourse is that it appeals to masculinized workers across industries on the basis of a longstanding tech/STEM conception of intelligence but in implementation undermines those same workers' claim to that intelligence. Apocalyptic language squares that circle. https://www.oaklandreviewofbooks.org/more-and-more-and-everyone-loses/21 Aug 2026 21:22 +0000at://did:plc:v7snzinjqh4e4faevo424ess/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtmoxar66s2ihttps://bsky.app/profile/meganwachspress.bsky.social/post/3mtjthose4c2cThis woman is a hero and I hope that if I am ever in a position to do what she did I have the courage and cool-headedness to do the same. [contains quote post or other embedded content]20 Aug 2026 18:04 +0000at://did:plc:v7snzinjqh4e4faevo424ess/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtjthose4c2chttps://bsky.app/profile/meganwachspress.bsky.social/post/3mtjq6rm4js2cTONIGHT! Come hang out with the Nemeses of Nextdoor, the Opponents of the Oakland Report, and the coolest-yet-approachable literary types of the East Bay!!! (I will be there too, come buy a raffle ticket.) [contains quote post or other embedded content]20 Aug 2026 17:06 +0000at://did:plc:v7snzinjqh4e4faevo424ess/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtjq6rm4js2chttps://bsky.app/profile/meganwachspress.bsky.social/post/3mtigi3mafk2dAI "safety researchers" are not just a Berkeley sex cult. They're also a group of people desperate to reclaim the special place in history they've been told they earned through coding ability. In fact the paperclip machine of capital can swallow even its most special children. [contains quote post or other embedded content]20 Aug 2026 04:39 +0000at://did:plc:v7snzinjqh4e4faevo424ess/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtigi3mafk2dhttps://bsky.app/profile/meganwachspress.bsky.social/post/3mthqm6sl7c2nI'm prepared to be wrong about this but the accusations of sexism in various criticisms/jokes about Natalie Harper are *themselves* sexist because they implicitly equate it with, e.g., showing photos of Kamala on a date in the 1990s to discredit her. But *the point* was Kamala had qualifications.19 Aug 2026 22:08 +0000at://did:plc:v7snzinjqh4e4faevo424ess/app.bsky.feed.post/3mthqm6sl7c2nhttps://bsky.app/profile/meganwachspress.bsky.social/post/3mth4fbdkjc2fMy college roommate died of triple negative breast cancer in January. She was a brilliant scholar, union organizer, and mom to two young children. The thought that with a year or two more she would have lived is heartbreaking but I am so grateful others will be spared. [contains quote post or other embedded content]19 Aug 2026 16:06 +0000at://did:plc:v7snzinjqh4e4faevo424ess/app.bsky.feed.post/3mth4fbdkjc2fhttps://bsky.app/profile/meganwachspress.bsky.social/post/3mtg3236cws2sUnironically this is why the Walz (former high school teacher) "weird" epithet stuck, because everyone under 40 knew those guys and have been subconsciously afraid of calling them out for decades.j [contains quote post or other embedded content]19 Aug 2026 06:09 +0000at://did:plc:v7snzinjqh4e4faevo424ess/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtg3236cws2shttps://bsky.app/profile/meganwachspress.bsky.social/post/3mtfg4zfoh22rPhoebe Bridgers's new album is excellent but her line about being willing to kill her friends if her BF doesn't like them sticks in my craw. Yes it's hyperbole but boygenius (also great) did arena tours on the strength of parasocial sapphic friendship!18 Aug 2026 23:55 +0000at://did:plc:v7snzinjqh4e4faevo424ess/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtfg4zfoh22rhttps://bsky.app/profile/meganwachspress.bsky.social/post/3mteo6rwj222pI gave up on Project Hail Mary. [contains quote post or other embedded content]18 Aug 2026 16:47 +0000at://did:plc:v7snzinjqh4e4faevo424ess/app.bsky.feed.post/3mteo6rwj222phttps://bsky.app/profile/meganwachspress.bsky.social/post/3mtemsv4lnk2iTen years ago Brooks began a romantic relationship with a woman a quarter-century younger than him who he had employed as a research assistant on a book he admitted drew heavily on her ideas without a co-authorship credit. https://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/david-brooks-muse-117033 [contains quote post or other embedded content]18 Aug 2026 16:22 +0000at://did:plc:v7snzinjqh4e4faevo424ess/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtemsv4lnk2ihttps://bsky.app/profile/meganwachspress.bsky.social/post/3mtcio46p6s2yThat makes two today. House staffer this time. [contains quote post or other embedded content]17 Aug 2026 20:02 +0000at://did:plc:v7snzinjqh4e4faevo424ess/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtcio46p6s2yhttps://bsky.app/profile/meganwachspress.bsky.social/post/3mtcez7bmr22xAnother one! Not just half his age, but "working in Republican politics," which is to say, professionally dependent. [contains quote post or other embedded content]17 Aug 2026 18:57 +0000at://did:plc:v7snzinjqh4e4faevo424ess/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtcez7bmr22xhttps://bsky.app/profile/meganwachspress.bsky.social/post/3mt5o3hce5k24While we're talking about integrity in publishing and/or academia, seems worth noting that the announcement Ross Barkan got hired by The Nation was rolled into the same news stories about being fired for at least 67 fabrications.15 Aug 2026 21:56 +0000at://did:plc:v7snzinjqh4e4faevo424ess/app.bsky.feed.post/3mt5o3hce5k24https://bsky.app/profile/meganwachspress.bsky.social/post/3mt5edyydbc22Today the NYTimes published a story about prosecutors pursuing a criminal investigation against a judge's daughter as possible retaliation for that judge presiding over Trump's criminal trial. It had a single byline. The article on race and hiring at Cambridge, a UK university, had 5.15 Aug 2026 19:02 +0000at://did:plc:v7snzinjqh4e4faevo424ess/app.bsky.feed.post/3mt5edyydbc22https://bsky.app/profile/meganwachspress.bsky.social/post/3mt53lcrxrs2pI initially read this as "Fairchildren" and thought it was a deep cut joke about singularity-obsessed AI safety researchers, which for the record, I think would be *hilarious* [contains quote post or other embedded content]15 Aug 2026 16:25 +0000at://did:plc:v7snzinjqh4e4faevo424ess/app.bsky.feed.post/3mt53lcrxrs2phttps://bsky.app/profile/meganwachspress.bsky.social/post/3mt3ahtjwj22zI have not been following the story closely, but I still feel like I can say with reasonable confidence that the purpose of the Arday media blitz was not restoring integrity to academic writing but of calling into question the competency of Black scholars writ large and resegregating the academy.14 Aug 2026 22:47 +0000at://did:plc:v7snzinjqh4e4faevo424ess/app.bsky.feed.post/3mt3ahtjwj22zhttps://bsky.app/profile/meganwachspress.bsky.social/post/3mt2hj6e6qs2fAnyone can write a jeremiad against AI, but those of us in the Bay Area get to grapple with the question: how much schadenfreude *should* we feel about the "learn to code" programmers getting replaced by their own snake oil? [contains quote post or other embedded content]14 Aug 2026 15:21 +0000at://did:plc:v7snzinjqh4e4faevo424ess/app.bsky.feed.post/3mt2hj6e6qs2fhttps://bsky.app/profile/meganwachspress.bsky.social/post/3mt2nlrz7ts24Museum of Twitter-level "they just tweeted it out" lack of self-awareness in the embedded post. [contains quote post or other embedded content]14 Aug 2026 17:09 +0000at://did:plc:v7snzinjqh4e4faevo424ess/app.bsky.feed.post/3mt2nlrz7ts24https://bsky.app/profile/meganwachspress.bsky.social/post/3mt2kwmjz4s2qAgain, "defund the police" is a perfectly reasonable, good governance proposal in response to absolutely bloated departmental budgets with poor performance track records. OPD had a clearance rate for violent crime of 10% in 2024. [contains quote post or other embedded content]14 Aug 2026 16:22 +0000at://did:plc:v7snzinjqh4e4faevo424ess/app.bsky.feed.post/3mt2kwmjz4s2q