World historian. Geographer. World-ecologist. Internationalist. Binghamton University.
- Tweets 22,550
- Following 12,323
- Followers 17,405
- Likes 49,508
Pinned Tweet
The double register of Cheap Nature #worldecology #capitalocene
18
96
350
Jason W. Moore retweeted
I see the "woke humanities" trend of 2010s-present as a ROI-minded professional instrumentalization of those majors: orientation of the majors at ideologically loaded, expansive NGO sector. That's why the trend flowed so seamlessly from the "Digital Humanities" push of circa 2010, which was also an attempt at ROI-minded professional instrumentalization. These things have been about professional instrumentalization all along. And what's more these things sort of worked: at least for some and for a time. But also came with massive tradeoffs. I think the new gains were ultimately not worth the sacrifice of previously built-up reputational capital.
Conservatives tend to have trouble grasping any of this, and think their goal for higher ed policy should be to create rewards for programs that maneuver ever more deeply into professional instrumentalization.
I think the simplest, macro-level answer is that the rising tuition costs combined with more competitive job markets for graduates have forced college students into majors they think have a positive ROI,
or perhaps more precisely, rising tuition + competitive job market has *narrowed the universe* of college majors perceived to have a positive ROI.
It would be interesting to investigate this hypothesis along two lines:
1) does humanities enrollment change with the price of tuition (would expect cheaper tuition to correlate with more humanities majors, because students feel less pressure to immediately get a high-paying job after college)?
2) does humanities enrollment change with the household income of the student (would expect higher rates of humanities enrollment for wealthy students who think about their degree in terms of prestige or status rather than economic ROI)?
As much as I hate 'woke' & largely successfully avoided it during my own education, I don't think it's why undergraduates are avoiding the humanities. Many undergrads & grad students are more radical than the faculty, of course.
4
5
34
2,234
Jason W. Moore retweeted
This will be viewed through a woke-race-culture-war framing but really it’s just that universities don’t take intellectual misconduct all that seriously anymore. It just stopped being treated as an unforgivable sin. White or black. From ChatGPT cheating to social science fraud.
47
109
887
34,124
Jason W. Moore retweeted
"The exchange of Soviet grain for Western industrial (mainly) and agricultural technology raises the rather obvious – but neglected – question of Western complicity in the great famine of 1928–34. The USSR’s forced industrialization and collectivization – and hence the resultant famine – is explainable in not only internal but also external terms. Stalin’s economic program was made possible not only by Bolshevik tyranny but also by the collusion of the industrialized countries of Western Europe and the United States, from which the Soviet Union acquired the necessary machinery and foreign hard currency in exchange mainly for cheap grain... The United Kingdom, known for its postwar anti-Bolshevik position, became amnesiac when it was a question of cheap grain for British workers... Little wonder that the trade was decried by some as “export on bones,” that is, the skeletons of Russian peasants and Kazakh nomads."
Hungy and Starving (2025), James R. Gibson
4
8
29
773
Jason W. Moore retweeted
The humanities justified themselves post-2008 by insisting that the ROI of a degree is not economic but political/moral. It turns out that is not a persuasive reason to take on Uber Debt. “Woke” didn’t cause the humanities’ austerity or enrollment crisis it was a response to it.
Many professors in the humanities keep calling it a packaging problem. Wrong. The real reasons enrollment is collapsing: obsession with identity, speech policing as virtue, and the conversion of entire disciplines into political projects.
28
29
308
27,099
Jason W. Moore retweeted
"real news"
Matt Orfalea
6
18
88
3,524
Jason W. Moore retweeted
If you are asking yourself "is it worth getting a Boston Globe subscription so I can read the viral lesbian bar story" the answer is YES, my god YES.
Per a note to Boston Globe staff today, the lesbian bar story generated 1,000 subscriptions to the paper yesterday. The Globe’s managing editor said it was “by far our best performing story of the year,” and appears to be “on pace to shatter all sorts of Globe records.”
43
80
1,673
113,802
Gives fresh meaning to economics as the "dismal science."
Lol: “One professor’s AI-assisted output: 200 papers and 14 books this year
An online platform removed 257 papers written or co-written by the University of Chicago’s Nicholas Polson after other academics raised questions.” washingtonpost.com/education…
1
3
31
2,217
Jason W. Moore retweeted
Under capitalism if you steal from your employer you go to jail but if your employer steals from you then you need to win a class action lawsuit to get back what they stole, and they suffer zero consequences. Capitalism is all about using state power to protect capital by force.
Since 2023, more than 200,000 Dashers in New York City were underpaid or paid late under the City’s delivery worker pay rules. These errors were unintentional, but that doesn’t make them acceptable. Dashers should be paid in full, on time, every time. We take full responsibility, and we’re deeply sorry.
We’ve reached a $131.5 million settlement with the NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. Every impacted Dasher will receive the amount they are owed, and they’ll be contacted directly with payment details.
We understand the impact of even one missed or late payment. We’ve addressed the issues that caused these errors and made changes to prevent them from happening again.
Read more here: about.doordash.com/en-us/new….
Community note
DoorDash spent $1 million in the 2025 NYC mayoral election against Zohran Mamdani, whose campaign included promises to investigate delivery/Rideshare services for underpaying/withholding wages.
politico.com/news/2025/05/1…
124
5,157
22,415
368,308
Max Blumenthal: "Israeli intelligence hacked into the phones of young girls in Gaza to determine when their fathers would come home. Then they would order an airstrike on their homes and listen to the girls burn alive."
If this doesn't make you sick, nothing will. They turned murder into entertainment.
This is what a demonic society produces.
Phantom Pain
719
11,247
21,339
346,649
Jason W. Moore retweeted
Excerpt from a conversation between Mao Zedong and Che Guevara during their meeting in Beijing on November 19, 1960.
8
61
1,066
47,785
Jason W. Moore retweeted
This is the typical arrogance of a hypersuccessful PMC: "I make wherever I go smarter just by going."
NHJ definitely not the only figure where I've seen this attitude.
“A NYT reporter in a high-poverty school f-ing changes the school … I can go to that school and say there is a problem and it gets fixed immediately” - Nikole Hannah-Jones
14
23
268
23,314
Jason W. Moore retweeted
Absolutely beyond parody. Dartmouth’s provost has been turning in 70-100-percent AI-written work (in academic journals, newspapers, and even in email correspondence!) since LLMs came out, the student paper reports. He even used AI to write an op-ed about how universities are dealing with AI cheating.
76
488
2,930
247,298
Jason W. Moore retweeted
Just found out about the existence of the website busification.org/en, which has archived nearly 10,000 clips of Ukrainian civilians documenting the shocking reality of forced conscription in Ukraine. This should dispel any lingering doubts anyone may have about the nightmare Ukrainians are experiencing at the hands of Zelensky’s brutal Western-backed, Nazi-supported regime.
34
855
1,396
32,549
Jason W. Moore retweeted
A sampling. I call this image collection, the "Pangram Red - Administrator Edition. " 🙂
1
1
1
181
You can't make up this shit.
This is unbelievable, approaching parody.
thedartmouth.com/article/202…
1
8
3,398
Jason W. Moore retweeted
Larry Summers too said in 2022/23 that to bring inflation down we would need at least one year of unemployment above 10%. It came down with unemployment at around 4%. This is a supply problem, curtailing demand won’t fix it
"It would necessarily be painful."
Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee says the central bank has reached the limit of any ability to wait out supply shocks, which means higher interest rates will have to slow sectors of the economy that may not be driving up prices.
He also sees evidence that the AI investment boom is not "staying in its lane," and cites conversations with businesses who see increasing labor-market pressures for AI-adjacent industries. wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-m…
3
11
59
6,254
