@MattEckel

Researcher at NCPERS. Pensions. Public Policy. Wargaming. Other nerderies. DC. Massachusetts. Someday Berlin. https://nitter.cf/t.co/fiX1mLu40b

 Washington, DC
Joined July 2010
  • Tweets14.5K
  • Following2.6K
  • Followers785
605Media
Realizing that my dislike of trashy reality TV might be a matter of thematic distaste. If you locked up seven people in a house for three months and filmed them while they played a game of Diplomacy with weekly-resolving turns I would never stop watching it.
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Was Marcus Aurelius responsible for the Viking Age, 600 years after his death? Kind of! During the Marcomannic Wars (166-180) and the Antonine Plague, the Roman army suffered a pretty serious manpower crisis, and began recruiting heavily from beyond the frontiers.
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Matt Eckel retweeted
Jack Crosbie@jscros
Aug 31
Flock Safety is America’s public enemy number one: a blanket of data-harvesting cameras covering the U.S. Last month, I went on the ground with the high-tech hacktivists trying to track them all down — & watch the company that’s watching all of us. rollingstone.com/culture/cul…

The Great Flock Hunt

One company’s mass surveillance network made it public enemy number one. We went on the ground with the hackers hunting them down

rollingstone.com
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Has a person with awful views made an incidentally good point that you want to retweet? Can you find another, less execrable person making a similar point and retweet them instead? Cool. Do that.
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The most consequential elections in a century are happening in Germany on Sept 6. And I’m here. If you want coverage, I have like 15 story ideas. Please DM me.
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Matt Eckel retweeted
Ben Judah
@b_judah
Aug 26
The Boston Museum of Fine Arts really is quite something. I’d wanted to see the alabaster statue of Pharaoh Menkaura, builder of one of the pyramids of Giza, for a while as it’s one of the very few images of him that remains and I find that quite a dizzying concept for one of mankind’s most iconic monuments. The gallery and the restoration does not disappoint.
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Now do the Gilded Age mansions from a half-century before that. This isn't a story of us becoming wealthier (though incidentally we have). It's a story of the return of inequality.
Quinten Farmer
@quintendf
Aug 21
I love finding little reminders of just how outrageously wealthy we have become within living memory...here's a new one: this is Graceland, the ostentatious mansion owned by the most famous person in America in the 1950s
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Random comments treating this as evidence of unreasonable dogmatism, but why would anyone choose friendship with someone whose core values are anathema to them? Why would they choose to date them? Politics (at least in 2026) isn't sports teams.
Michael Baharaeen@mbaharaeen
Aug 20
Fascinating findings from a recent paper on political segregation in the workplace. The gist: Democrats and politically engaged Americans are likelier to inhabit workplaces that include people who think like them than are Republicans and the less engaged. nature.com/articles/s41562-0…

Political segregation in the US workplace

Nature Human Behaviour - Merging data on over 45 million US workers, Frake et al. find substantial workplace political segregation. Political segregation is comparable in magnitude to gender...

nature.com
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Using only food, where did you grow up?
Scott Scharl
@scott_scharl
Aug 10
Using only food, where did you grow up?
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Matt Eckel retweeted
Mike Duncan
@mikeduncan
Aug 5
Carol crushed this one. If you like the Revolutions podcast this is a story that will fire the same neurons in your brain
Carol Schaeffer
@thencarolsaid
Aug 4
Very excited to share my latest for @newrepublic—the cover story of the new issue. I spent time reporting in Albania on Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump’s bonkers planned luxury resort, and what happens when “dealmaking” becomes the shape of American power.
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Very excited to share my latest for @newrepublic—the cover story of the new issue. I spent time reporting in Albania on Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump’s bonkers planned luxury resort, and what happens when “dealmaking” becomes the shape of American power.
The New Republic
@newrepublic
Aug 3
Greetings From Javanka-bania trib.al/CdIxUnj

Greetings From Javanka-bania

The Trump clan finds a new place to ruin.

newrepublic.com
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g a b y@gabydvj
Feb 12
i went to minneapolis and wrote about what i saw (a massive, robust mutual aid network that is ultimately just a bunch of regular people) and what i didn’t see (thousands of people who are terrified to leave their homes) theverge.com/policy/877106/m…

ICE is pushing Minneapolis underground

Scenes from a city under siege

theverge.com
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You should think about donating a kidney: nytimes.com/2026/02/02/opini…

Opinion | Want to Make a Difference? Donate Your Kidney.

We can all save a life.

nytimes.com
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oh, hello -- i'm editing tech coverage at Fast Company for a few months, reach out, hit me up, yell at me, trip me on the street, let's talk stories!
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More than 22M people rely on #ACA marketplaces for their health coverage. But unless Congress acts, enhanced premium tax credits will expire this year, driving premiums up nearly 20% & leaving about 7M people uninsured. Here are five key changes to watch: cbpp.org/research/health/fiv…
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That’s me in the video. And a Fox News host just celebrated me being assaulted by ICE. If ICE will do this to a congressional candidate with a big platform, just imagine what they’re doing to the people they’re kidnapping.
Mehdi Hasan
@mehdirhasan
20 Sep 2025
How is this not a fireable offense from Ingraham? She is explicitly celebrating and endorsing and encouraging nonviolence against Democratic congressional candidates.
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Matt Eckel retweeted
Ilhan Omar
@IlhanMN
20 Sep 2025
I am proud to be born a Muslim. I am proud to be born in Somalia. I am proud to have become an American. None of you can change that no matter how much you rage tweet. Drink some water and touch grass.
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Of course it’s logistically possible! It’s almost certainly *politically infeasible* but that’s a different question.
Lyman Stone 石來民 🦬🦬🦬
@lymanstoneky
11 Sep 2025
see, this isn't a dunk tho. the only way to change the US' position on the graph here would be to forcibly confiscate 60-90% of guns on the US. and there's literally no way to do that! it is not logistically possible!
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The absolutely unhinged replies to this are a sight to behold.
Alexis Coe@AlexisCoe
5 Sep 2025
I just realized that I don’t know a single historian who skips vaccinating their kids—because we've seen what happens when people don’t. And now you will too, but not in the archives. In Florida.
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Circle DC 2026 will be held on April 10-12, 2026 here in lovely Washington, DC. The convention will be capped at 250 attendees and we have opened up badge registration this morning. tabletop.events/conventions/…
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