Not damned by their failures, damned by their goals

I think some people who are against AI for other reasons rely on the environmental impact because it is an easier argument to make. But what happens if/when better tech mitigates the impact? If you're against AI, argue against it on its own merits, not secondary ones.

The thing is that I'm against AI irrespective of its environmental impacts (which are also devastating, of course).

A dangerous new policy requires a campus President's approval for profs to teach race & gender topics in Texas. "It strikes at the heart of what education means...which is circulate the exchange of knowledge without fear of retaliation.” — Rana Jaleel, AAUP Chair of Committee on Academic Freedom

My strongest niche non-political opinion is that 1.15 is by far the best line spacing option.

I still have no idea when to use "that" and when to use "which." Everything I read about it just confuses me further! This is why I try not to ever judge people (let alone non-native English speakers) for small grammatical errors. Language is hard.

Begging senior professors to stop writing op-eds about how they think students using AI for everything is ok, actually.

I really want someone (for whom graphic design is their passion) to make an "Anti-AI Action" flag in the style of "Anti-Fascist Action."

Top headline on r/politics: "Epstein claimed that Donald Trump ‘knew about the girls’ in private emails" Top headline on r/conservative: "Jeffrey Epstein: Trump 'asked Ghislaine Maxwell to stop' recruiting girls from Mar-a-Lago Spa" People live in completely different worlds.

Like I KNOW I shouldn't expect anything from the Dems but I still get so pissed ugh.

Is it just me or has Instagram's comments algorithm changed to prioritize "controversial" right-wing comments? Seems to be the case very consistently just starting sometime in the past month or two.

Cornell just announced its agreement with the Trump regime to restore federal research funding. It includes Cornell paying $30 million directly to the government "as a condition for ending pending claims that have been brought against the university." Capitulation to extortion.

With apologies to the family abolitionists, my experience is that being married fucking rocks.

As a bookstore that sells pamphlets and magazines, the criminalization of such materials feels pretty close to home. So let's take a closer look at the materials the federal government is claiming tie readers to "antifa terrorism." We can pick out six titles in these grainy photos. 1/

The quintessential aesthetic of fascism

The feed today. (Full disclosure: I am enjoying the treat.)

I don't think I can resist including this in a talk on the historical movement from Marxism to anarchism in the late 20th century.

They just gutted Teen Vogue which had top notch political journalism. The media is continuing to purge any sort of political dissent to Trump and the oligarchs. www.vogue.com/article/teen...

Don Hamerquist: “The essence of anti-fascist organizing must be the development of a left bloc that can successfully compete with such fascists, presenting a revolutionary option that confronts both fascism and capitalism in the realm of ideas and on the street.”

"When history is written as it ought to be written, it is the moderation and long patience of the masses at which men will wonder, not their ferocity." - CLR James, "The Black Jacobins"

Lockjaw from OBAA and obviously channeling the SS. I think there is a MAGA faction that is testing the waters to be open with their Neo-Nazism. Look for trial balloons like "Hitler was misunderstood, just protecting Europe from communists and degenerates," etc. It's already happening on the fringes.

About six months ago, maybe a year, my credit union redesigned its website. To this day the "return to dashboard" button on the new website is totally broken, meaning that once you click into one account you are stuck in it until you log out and log back in. It's beautiful.

Textbook dystopia. I know it's not the most important thing, but I have to ask: did none of these people read dystopian literature growing up (or hell, watch dystopian movies)? I just have such a visceral revulsion to this that I think was honed by years and years of consuming dystopian media.

This is an especially worrying statement when facial recognition can be inaccurate, biased, and generally make mistakes. Basing whether someone should be in the US or not, and ignoring physical media like a birth certificate, is ripe for disaster bsky.app/profile/jose...

New: Videos show ICE/CBP agents are scanning peoples' faces on the street to verify citizenship. ICE has tool to instantly look up unprecedented number of databases with just a photo “I’m an American citizen so leave me alone” “Alright, we just got to verify that” www.404media.co/ice-and-cbp-...

Today's crisis of academia has been building for decades. Now, we are in a reckoning. I think that higher ed is worth fighting for. But we cannot simply return to the pre-Trump era. This is our chance to fight for a new future of revitalized higher education as a public good. 4/4

I don't think most people understand the dire straits of higher ed even before Trump. ~70% of faculty are adjuncts (often w/PhDs!) making poverty wages. "Good" tenure track jobs are all but nonexistent, and the few openings in each field each year get hundreds of applicants. 1/

Lmao

Remember: the $40 billion bailout to Argentina (actually going to US hedge fund managers allied with Trump) would cover about half a year of food stamp funding or a full year of USAID funding. Privatization takes public goods and transfers them to the pockets of the rich.

Lmao they got him now!

💛

Mike Davis: "What keeps us going, ultimately, is our love for each other, and our refusal to bow our heads, to accept the verdict, however all-powerful it seems. It’s what ordinary people have to do. You have to love each other. You have to defend each other. You have to fight."

Call me a liberal, but I sure wish Kamala Harris had won last year. Dems and GOP may have been two sides of the same coin for a long time, but that is clearly no longer the case. At the risk of stretching the metaphor, the GOP is instead on some fascist cryptocurrency scam.

One Battle After Another is amazing and you should watch it.

E.P. Thompson: "History is a cultural form within which we fight and many have fought before us. Nor are we alone when we fight there for we are historians because we know that the past is not dead, inert, and confining, but is strong with energies which can brought once again to our side."

self-managed abortion at home do it anyway zine www.tangledwilderness.org/shop/p/how-t... herbal abortion a diy zine archive.org/details/herb...

Fearing that Trump will cancel or rig elections may be "alarmist," but unfortunately the alarmists have a pretty good track record so far in his second term!

One lesson from anarchist history is that it's useful to learn to do things yourself/in community rather than relying on the state and corporations. DIY or die, from putting out music to practicing reproductive care to protecting each other from violence to saving the planet.

approximately seven million people were out in the streets protesting last week. these people need to grow a spine. www.ft.com/content/1377...

On my bike ride to work today, I was almost hit twice: first by a car whose driver wasn't paying attention, and second by a person riding what appeared to be a motorized suitcase(???) who swerved off the sidewalk into the road without looking.

Constantly amazed at how many drivers don't know simple traffic laws like what a flashing red stop light means.

People across the country are fighting for their lives and also to protect their neighbors. They are doing so in the 100s of thousands every single day. You can choose to join the fight or you can pretend that "no one is doing anything."

Unfortunately for the Margaret Atwood haters, it does appear that The Handmaid's Tale is the dystopia we're heading for. Best of luck to the other contenders in the next round.

Anyone else finding it kinda hard to get work done as our country descends into fascism?

College cannot just be about career training -- and to the extent that it has become that, we have already lost.

Ursula K. Le Guin: "We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings."

Dartmouth also joined UVA, USC, Brown, Penn, and MIT in rejecting Trump's compact for higher ed.

"Historians for the Right to Work: We Demand a Continuing Supply of History" Banner from a 1980 march against cruise missiles in London organized by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament

“Big tent” I mutter to myself, trying not to gag at the sight of the nude white man holding a sign that reads “LIBERTARIANS AGAINST *DICK* -TATORS!” Tears stream down my face; my clenched knuckles turn white; I can feel my jaw cramping from my clenched teeth. “Big tent.”