Author: Nathan
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Why this is not a newsletter
This summer I intend to engage in a regular blogging practice—a sort of retro endeavor in 2026, I suppose, but it has arisen for me as a necessary one. It is not about any topic in particular. It is, rather, an exercise in offering a series of interventions that have been stewing in me for…
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Open call: Liberatory Media Residency
Media makers, spiritual innovators, activists—especially in Colorado: Please consider applying for our Center for Media, Religion, and Culture’s $25,000 Liberatory Media Residency for next academic year. https://www.colorado.edu/cmrc/2026/04/17/open-call-liberatory-media-residency
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Call for papers: Why We Come Together
Our Center for Media, Religion, and Culture’s next conference is on the radical arts of gathering. Join us—along with Fred Moten, Stefano Harney, and more speakers TBA. The call for abstracts is out, due May 1: https://www.colorado.edu/cmrc/2026/03/26/why-we-come-together-media-religion-and-community
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Timnit Gebru on Looks Like New
I’m thrilled to share that my lab’s podcast, Looks Like New, just hosted the brilliant Timnit Gebru on the possibilities of community-serving AI—listen and subscribe here: https://lookslikenew.net/podcast/can-ai-be-rebuilt-to-serve-communities/
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The U.S. government is at war with the Catholic Church
My latest piece in America Magazine lays bare the extent to which US government policy seems to be going in outright opposition to decades of Catholic teaching—particularly on climate, war, and civil discourse. Catholics, we cannot participate in this: https://www.americamagazine.org/short-take/2026/03/19/government-trump-america-catholic-church/
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I’m organizing a panel at 4S!
For the first time, I’m organizing a panel at 4S, the Society for Social Studies of Science, in Toronto. I love this conference. If you do too, please consider submitting a paper! https://www.4sonline.org/accepted_open_panels_toronto.php
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ETHBoulder talk published
My talk and the new ETHBoulder conference is now up—”From Determinism to Determinism in Online Governance”: https://x.com/ethereumboulder/status/2022687420194427344 More or less the written version is here: https://nathanschneider.info/2026/02/constitutional-agents-for-online-governance/
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On Claude’s Constitution
My latest in America Magazine: Why Anthropic treats its chatbot Claude like a person and apologizes to it for capitalism. https://www.americamagazine.org/short-take/2026/02/12/talking-to-claude-why-anthropic-treats-its-chatbot-like-a-person-and-not-a-tool/
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Agentic coding mentor
I’ve just pushed a simple AGENTS.md file that asks the agent to teach while it codes. https://git.medlab.host/ntnsndr/agentic-coding-mentor/
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Constitutional agents for online governance
In this reflection, I want to share an about-face I’ve been having in the strategy for defeating “implicit feudalism” with “governable stacks.” Both of these concepts are described in depth in my book Governable Spaces. Implicit feudalism is the widespread tolerance of highly centralized, low-accountability forms of governance in online communities, from big platforms to…