society

Enabling the Citizen Lawyer [Furlong]

On 09/23/2026, in Access to Justice (A2J), Australia, Canada, law schools, Legal operations, legal reform, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, society, sociology, United States, by Daniel Christian

Enabling the Citizen Lawyer — from jordanfurlong.substack.com by Jordan Furlong
We’ve neglected the second half of lawyers’ professional identity: the civic duty to serve society, defend the rule of law, and support public institutions. It’s time we restored it to equal billing.

So, what are those particular citizenship duties that lawyers owe to society? To my mind, it comes down to defending and advancing the rule of law. In practical terms, that means lawyers bear the primary responsibility to:

Uphold constitutional values,
Support vital public institutions,
Enable universal access to justice,
Demand accountability from power holders,
Lead truth and reconciliation, and
Help ensure peace, order, and good government.

Lawyers possess a unique combination of legal knowledge, professional status, institutional access, and proximity to power. That gives us a distinctive, and I’d argue heightened, responsibility to safeguard the rule of law.

It’s that our duty to society, as lawyer citizens, is equally as important as our duty to clients as legal practitioners — that our civic role and our commercial role are each central to our professional identity and should have equivalent priority in our professional lives.

More people than ever are trying to get into college classes in Illinois prisons. Getting a seat hasn’t gotten any easier. [West]

On 09/22/2026, in colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, liberal arts, society, sociology, student-related, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

More people than ever are trying to get into college classes in Illinois prisons. Getting a seat hasn’t gotten any easier. — from college-inside.beehiiv.com by Charlotte West
The college waitlist in Illinois has grown 80% since last year, with 3,700 people waiting and 2,600 enrolled.

Excerpt from highlights:

Illinois waitlists are outpacing seats. The college waitlist has grown 80% since last year, with 3,700 people waiting and 2,600 enrolled. Read [the] full story, published with WBEZ Chicago’s Prisoncast!
Wisconsin’s prisons hit a record population, straining access to programs, reports our partner Wisconsin Watch.
Delaware Tech is ending its prison education program after graduating current students, reports the Delaware News Journal.

Per Anthropic’s CEO: “We Must Pace the Frontier: I’ve written a new essay on why the AI industry should slow down, with a three-part plan for doing so.”

On 09/14/2026, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, change, communities of practice, dangers of the status quo, future, game-changing environment, generational differences, global, legislatures / government / legal, pace of change, society, technology (general), the downsides of how people use tech, trends, vendors, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

We Must Pace the Frontier: I’ve written a new essay on why the AI industry should slow down, with a three-part plan for doing so.

Anthropic is unilaterally committing to the first of these steps. We’ll provide third-party evaluators with permanent, employee-level access to our…

— Dario Amodei (@DarioAmodei) September 12, 2026

Dario Amodei’s article here:
We Must Pace the Frontier — from darioamodei.com

But like many technologies before it, AI brings risks, and because it is such a powerful technology, these risks are serious. I’ve written a lot about them too. They include the risk of losing control of AI systems, misuse of AI for cyberattacks and bioterrorism, and serious economic disruption. A race to the bottom, spurred by commercial incentives, can make these risks more acute.

Along with my co-founders and employees, I have grappled with this duality of risk and benefit since the beginning of Anthropic.

Also relevant/see:

I left Anthropic’s safety team two weeks ago. Now feels like a good moment to explain why.

AI companies are racing to build machines that are much smarter than any human, and we may not survive this. I want to work from the outside to ensure the public is informed about these…

— Joe Benton (@JoeJBenton) September 11, 2026

[GIFTED ARTICLE]
Anthropic CEO calls for the AI industry to slow down — from washingtonpost.com by Ted Hesson, Ian Duncan, and Gerrit De Vynck
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said he was worried about the ability to control self-improving AI models.

Three of the nation’s leading artificial intelligence executives endorsed slowing down the blistering pace of technological advancement, revealing the growing unease with its potential dangers at the industry’s very highest levels.

The call was first made in an essay Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei posted online Saturday. The idea has gained ground in recent weeks as AI companies have struggled in some cases to keep their creations under control, even as they usher in an age in which AI systems themselves can build the more powerful next generation of the technology.

[GIFTED ARTICLE]
For years, they warned AI could kill all humans. Now people are listening. — from washingtonpost.com by Nitasha Tiku
A doomsaying community once on the periphery of the tech industry has gained influence, as AI “agents” perform amazing and alarming feats.

But when Hubinger issued a similar warning this week in a post on X, his message was viewed tens of millions of times, prompting state and federal lawmakers to echo his concern. Now he spoke as a team lead at Anthropic, developer of the chatbot Claude and a company set to go public at a valuation of over $1 trillion.

“AI could kill all humans … I personally think it is >10% within the next decade,” Hubinger wrote, in response to the resignation of his colleague Jacob Coxon, who accused Anthropic of racing ahead despite the dangers.
.

Several items re: the changes needed within higher education

On 09/14/2026, in 21st century, adjunct faculty, business side of he, career development, change, changing business models, collaboration, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, corporate / business world, cost of getting a degree, culture, dangers of the status quo, entrepreneurship, expectations, experimentation, faculty/staff, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, higher education, ideas, innovation, instructional design, leadership, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, liberal arts, lifelong learning, new business models, reinvent, skills, society, staying relevant, strategy, student-related, surviving, teaching & learning, traditional / tradition, United States, universities, youth, by Daniel Christian

Below are several items that were either mentioned by Matt Tower or I came across them via offshoots of items that he linked to:

Future Universities Alliance Names Inaugural Innovation Sandbox Cohort — from provost.duke.edu
Program incubated by Duke brings together higher education innovators from 23 countries for year-long peer exchange

The Future Universities Alliance has selected 49 institutions from 23 countries for the inaugural cohort of its Innovation Sandbox, a 12-month peer learning program for higher education leaders advancing ambitious, institution-level innovation.The cohort brings together founders of new universities, administrators and faculty leading high-stakes changes within established institutions, and leaders of proven models exploring how their innovations can travel to new contexts. Participants were chosen through a competitive process that drew applicants from around the world in its inaugural year.

A makeover for college: No gym, no meal plan and two years of work — from npr.org by Jon Marcus

An entirely new college is being planned here to change not only how higher education is delivered, but at what price. It also proposes to highlight ways the current business model no longer works, as evidenced by the 152 colleges and universities that have closed or merged since 2016, and the 442 others that a new projection says are at risk.

So deeply entrenched are the problems confronting higher education that a growing chorus of innovators says the easiest way to fix them is to begin again from scratch.

All undergraduates should get work-based learning, v-cs say — from timeshighereducation.com by Jack Grove. NOTE: this item is behind a paywall.
Bold plan to support graduate employment would require placements for 1.4 million students annually

Escaping The Backrooms Of Workforce Development — by Ryan Craig

Which makes sense. Because far too many find themselves in a liminal space, neither in school nor a career. Needing to make a living in an era of digital transformation and AI, they’re having a horrific time finding their way into and around work. So it’s not just education and training wonks who think workforce is the defining issue of our time. The success of Backrooms demonstrates Gen Z thinks so, too.

It’s happening everywhere. Young people around the world are angry at how hard it’s become to launch careers. This summer an entire protest movement arose in India – the world’s largest Gen Z population – around entrance exams for medical school, one of the few remaining sure bets. In the UK, youth unemployment is over 16%; it’s 15% across the EU and over 25% in Sweden. Back home, nearly 400,000 young Americans stopped looking for work in June alone. So it’s urgent that we identify what actually works to help young people get good first jobs.

The answer lies between apprenticeship perfection and train-and-pray scale. We desperately need a scalable training-first model that’s as proximate as possible to employment opportunities, employers, and actual employment. That can only mean work-based learning: real work experience completed during or connected with a training, certificate, or degree program. Work-based learning can take many forms: rotations, clinics, co-ops, internships, short projects. It can be integrated into coursework or independent. But what all forms require are bona fide employers, which regulate scale. Such programs can enroll only as many as can fit within the constraint of available work-based learning opportunities.

Also see:

Is Your College A Zombie? — from forbes.com by Ann Kirschner; via Ryan Craig

I want to be careful here, because this is not an argument that universities are doing nothing. They are doing an enormous amount. New programs, AI task forces, employability frameworks, microcredentials, and shifts in how they enable lifelong learning.

Activity is not the problem; what has not changed is the machinery that decides what counts. Too many institutions move in herds rather than forging an independent path. When one college launches a new program, say, data science and AI, fifty will follow without asking whether their version serves their students or simply checks a competitive box.

Meanwhile, 88% of American professionals believe colleges and universities should be the ones providing AI training, and nearly half say their employers have offered no AI resources whatsoever.¹

We are at a tipping point. In the next 25 years, technologies like AI, clean energy, and bioengineering are poised to reshape society on a scale few can imagine.

Peter Leyden draws on decades of observing technological revolutions and historical patterns to show how old systems collapse, new ones rise, and humanity faces both extraordinary risk and unprecedented opportunity.

0:00 We’re on the cusp of an era of progress
0:37 The Great Progression
1:08 What was the ‘Long Boom?’
4:56 How often do these epoch resets happen?
6:12 3 Tipping points
6:39 Artificial Intelligence
7:13 Clean energy technologies
7:32 Biotechnology
9:00 The 80-year cycle
13:27 The Gilded Age
17:50 The Founding Era
22:46 The new enlightenment
32:18 The clean energy revolution
37:13 Bioengineering the genome
39:43 Industrial production vs biological engineering
47:40 What will the future think?

To Economics professors and students: What does this mean for the future of the United States?

On 08/25/2026, in business, change, changing business models, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, economics, faculty/staff, higher education, society, student-related, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

The U.S. debt tops a record-shattering $40 trillion. Yes, with a T. — from npr.org by Scott Horsley

The federal debt topped $40 trillion Wednesday, a new high-water mark for red ink that shows no sign of receding.

The news, reported by the Treasury Department in its daily financial update, comes just five months after the debt surpassed $39 trillion. The government continues to pile up debt at a rapid clip, as spending outstrips revenue by more than $2 trillion a year.

“Our current fiscal trajectory is plainly unsustainable, and that’s the best-case scenario,” said Margaret Spellings, president of the Bipartisan Policy Center. “Even in the rosiest scenarios, we’re speeding toward a cliff and refusing to turn the wheel.”

Also related, see:

Gross National Debt Reaches $40 Trillion — from crfb.org

And other warnings signs are flashing too, with debt held by the public recently exceeding the size of our economy, the deficit-to-GDP ratio running twice as high as where it should be, and interest costs exceeding our national defense budget.

We Keep Designing the Future from the Past — from LinkedIn.com by Monty Alger

Once globally preeminent, U.S. universities are sliding into decline — from hechingerreport.org by Jon Marcus
High costs, political attacks take a toll as fewer students come, top scholars leave

Top scholars are leaving. Fewer international students are coming. U.S. universities are slipping in international rankings. And American universities have failed to keep pace as other countries pour resources into their higher education systems.
…
Blaming the interruptions in funding that have already occurred, top research universities have admitted 15 percent fewer doctoral students for the coming fall, including in fields such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing, according to the Association of American Universities, or AAU. Many didn’t take any new doctoral students at all.

Colleges made deep staff cuts while adding tenure-track faculty last year — from highereddive.com by Ben Unglesbee
The latest survey of higher education employees from CUPA-HR found the biggest spike in tenure-track professors since at least 2016.

Dive Brief:

Full-time staff at colleges dropped 6.6% in 2025 compared to the year before, ending several years of growth, according to data released Wednesday by the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources.
The decline was even sharper among part-time staff, whose ranks plunged by 23.9% last year, CUPA-HR’s latest survey data showed.
However, faculty numbers grew overall during the year. Tenure-track faculty headcounts saw the largest spike at 7% year over year, the biggest increase for that group since at least 2016.

Pace of college closings picks up, with more projected — from hechingerreport.org by Jon Marcus
Falling enrollment, rising debt have put an estimated 1 in 4 institutions at risk

More than 440 of the nation’s private, nonprofit four-year colleges and universities are now at risk, based on enrollment trends, debt and other measures, according to projections by Huron Consulting Group. That’s a quarter of the total.

Among the most endangered: small, rural and religiously affiliated institutions.

And how to dispose of the real estate is among the least of the challenges facing shuttering campuses and the students they serve.

University of Houston slashes 40% of courses from its core curriculum — from highereddive.com by Ben Unglesbee
The Texas institution cut about 100 classes, including in women’s and LGBT studies, to comply with a state law mandating general education reviews.

Dive Brief:

The University of Houston has slashed about 40% of courses from the flagship’s core curriculum as it works to comply with a new state law dictating the architecture of general education requirements at Texas public colleges.
In the 2026-27 academic year, UH will adopt a core curriculum list with roughly 100 fewer classes after the University of Houston System’s board unanimously approved administrators’ proposal on Thursday. Among the classes dropped were courses in women’s and LGBT studies.
The overhaul is meant to satisfy the Texas statute known as SB 37, which mandates that public institutions’ core courses be “foundational” to postsecondary education, prepare students for the workforce and civic life, and cover “a breadth of knowledge.”

From DSC:
Re: Jeff’s posting above…I think that faculty often taught what THEY wanted to teach — versus what the market was asking for. If I were on the academic administration side of the house right now, I’d be seeking out and listening very closely to what the adjunct faculty members on campus are saying.

As fewer young people choose college, this district wants to ensure they have career options — from hechingerreport.org by Ariel Gilreath
In Niagara Falls, New York, a town with shrinking job options, students are encouraged to consider their careers in ninth grade

At Niagara Falls High School, students are encouraged to consider their careers upon arrival in ninth grade. By 11th grade, every student at the school must pick from one of five pathways, ranging from business and finance to design and engineering. The shift toward career education comes as about one-third of seniors at Niagara Falls High are rejecting college and instead choosing to enter the workforce after graduation, compared with roughly a quarter a decade ago, said Superintendent Mark Laurrie, who retired in June. In a town that’s struggled with population declines, where now-shuttered manufacturing plants once dominated the local labor market, there’s an urgency to prepare high school students for careers.

“It’s important to give them hope for the future with a career pathway — a career, not a job — to have something to aspire to and, hopefully, keep them in the city and in the state,” Laurrie said.

A New Resource for People Who Want to Strengthen Democracy [Gray]

On 08/10/2026, in legislatures / government / legal, political science, society, United States, by Daniel Christian

A New Resource for People Who Want to Strengthen Democracy — from thriveedu.substack.com by Lucy Gray
The Democratic Action Library Launches This Week

It is easy to feel overwhelmed by the state of democracy. The news moves quickly, public debate is often exhausting, and much of the advice about “getting involved” is too vague to be useful. People need practical places to begin.

This week, we are launching the Thrive Democracy Action Library, a collection of guides for people who want to participate more thoughtfully and effectively in democratic life. Everyone who registers for Thrive2: United for Democracy and Global Action will receive access to the library.

New grads have to compete with AI for entry-level roles, hiring managers say [Ewen]

On 08/10/2026, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, career development, change, changing business models, credentialing, skills, society, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

New grads have to compete with AI for entry-level roles, hiring managers say — from hrdive.com by Lara Ewen
Nearly half of organizations now ask a senior worker plus AI to do the work of several entry-level grads, per a new report.

Dive Brief:

Hiring managers in the U.S. are betting on artificial intelligence over new graduates, with 48% saying they would rather invest in AI tools than hire and train a recent college graduate, according to a Friday report from ResumeTemplates.com.
The job market does still have space for 2026 graduates, and 65% of hiring managers said they planned to hire the same number or more this year compared to last year, per the report. However, 23% said they expected to hire fewer 2026 grads this year or none at all, and 12% didn’t know how many they would hire.
Most hiring concerns centered around workplace skills rather than credentials. Nearly 70% of hiring managers said they had “at least one character concern about recent grads,” including 33% who cited “a lack of work ethic.” Another 76% said recent grads required assistance understanding basic documents such as memos, contracts and budgets.

Some wisdom for us this week

On 08/05/2026, in ethics, faith, global, hearts -- matters of the heart, morals/values, relationships, religion, society, youth, by Daniel Christian

James 1:22

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.

Jeremiah 33:2-3

2 “This is what the Lord says, he who made the earth, the Lord who formed it and established it—the Lord is his name: 3 ‘Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.’

Mark 9:7

Then a cloud appeared and covered them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!”

Psalm 25:4-5

4 Show me your ways, Lord,
teach me your paths.
5 Guide me in your truth and teach me,
for you are God my Savior,
and my hope is in you all day long.

Isaiah 41:10

So do not fear, for I am with you;
do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you;
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Will this new company be the largest company on the Internet by 2030? [Christian]

On 08/01/2026, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, adult learning, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Bias | Diversity Equity & Inclusion (DE&I), career development, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, communities of practice, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, credentialing, curriculum, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, disruption, education, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, global, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, informal learning, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, internet, K-12 related, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning preferences, learning spaces, lifelong learning, love of learning, more voice more choice more control, motivation, online learning, online media, online tutoring, pathways, personalized/customized learning, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, reinvent, society, staying relevant, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, training / L&D, United States, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, youth, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
The vision that I’ve been tracking for well over a decade begins with this graphic:
.

Could LearnVector be this next-generation company/platform? Perhaps. Time will tell.

Per Matt Tower via The EdSheet Vol. 38 dated 7/31/26:

Coursera bets $100M on its own co-founder: Andrew Ng’s new venture LearnVector lands one of the largest single checks in edtech this year — from Coursera, the company he founded 14 years ago.
.

LearnVector.ai

[GIFTED ARTICLE] Amazon, gig companies see spike in workers on SNAP and Medicaid, study shows [Gurley & Lerman]

On 07/22/2026, in Amazon, business, career development, communities of practice, corporate / business world, Daniel S. Christian, economics, entrepreneurship, funding / grants, legislatures / government / legal, society, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Amazon, gig companies see spike in workers on SNAP and Medicaid, study shows — from washingtonpost.com by Lauren Kaori Gurley and Rachel Lerman
Amazon workers on federal aid nearly tripled between 2020 and 2025, while ride-hailing and food delivery drivers shot up on lists compiled by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

While the number of working adults who depend on food stamps and Medicaid has ticked up since the start of the pandemic, the number of recipients who work at Amazon and on gig economy platforms has exploded, according to a new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

The number of Amazon workers relying on the federal programs for the poor nearly tripled between February 2020 and September 2025, according to the report published Wednesday. And for the first time, ride-hailing and app-based food delivery companies — Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Grubhub and Instacart — collectively ranked among the top three employers with workers receiving aid.

From DSC:
I have long disliked what the gig economy was/is doing to workers. A handful of entrepreneurs who started these companies have done very well for themselves, while the rest of the people who are doing most of the work hardly make anything. No medical insurance, no vision or dental insurance, and no retirement contributions/benefits. Amazon works its people to the bone (I saw this firsthand with our son and his deteriorating physical health while working for them), and look what it gets them? Bezos Inc. make out great — others…not so much.

Ride-hailing and food-delivery companies, meanwhile, shot past Walmart to collectively rank as the top employer of food stamp users and among the top three for Medicaid users, according to The Post’s analysis.

Learning Ecosystems

Enabling the Citizen Lawyer [Furlong]

A New Resource for People Who Want to Strengthen Democracy [Gray]

Some wisdom for us this week

[GIFTED ARTICLE] Amazon, gig companies see spike in workers on SNAP and Medicaid, study shows [Gurley & Lerman]

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