The original archaeologists aren’t proposing that one house at Pompeii can be extrapolated out to show us the diets of all servi, but media needs to be very careful with how they word things. Editors and not journalists tend to control headlines. So just try a bit more nuance next time! Like this:

4. Look, science and archaeology writing is incredibly important and I get they want to grab headlines. But as I have written about and as Seth Bernard has shown recently: slavery was a horrid institution. There is never a defense for slavery. hyperallergic.com/new-research...

3. This then feeds into an old and extremely pernicious myth called “the happy slave narrative” which was often used to defend slavery both ancient and modern. It defended having slaves because they were “happy” (!) www.teenvogue.com/story/the-my... & Roman: crossworks.holycross.edu/cgi/viewcont...

2. This is an extremely small sample size in a house in Pompeii. And yet many headlines are universalizing in order to say ALL Roman slaves ate better than the freeborn. We know that this is absolutely not true. Look at this Reuters headline:

A new report on dietary findings in a select area of Pompeii likely inhabited by enslaved people came out in Scavi di Pompei. Many newspapers are now running w/a headline about Roman slaves “eating better” than free Romans. pompeiisites.org/e-journal-de... Let’s discuss why this is problematic

It starts with knowing the truth. Don’t allow yourselves to be gaslit into believing this is a real question.

And I know Trump isn't doing this, but this is part of a deeply toxic work culture that valorizes never resting, and this is making us mean, stupid, and reactive.

The USPS posting a NINE BILLION DOLLAR LOSS!!! sounds terrible. Certainly worse than if you said "USPS costs thirty dollars per person per year" even though that means the same thing and more accurately describes a government service

Very much agree. If science behaves anyway close to what Kuhn understood it to be (paradigms, normal science, etc), then LLMs would be particularly bad at discerning the quality of contributions that don’t fit standards of practice, both very good and very bad.

Since I read it I have not stopped thinking about Kenney and Lincoln's description of this as "a case of mutual but unequal reputation laundering" osf.io/preprints/so...

A note on learning physics ⚛️ for starting PhD students: At the risk of saying something completely useless because everyone has it worked out There is no magic trick, your classmates *may* be faster than you, but they are still studying as long as they need to and you are quite capable of the same

Great thread on how to be a student, and on how to be a member of a campus community.

Because of this rift in the diaspora, now the Right exults in naming the Jew as the center-left reaps rewards from naming the Bad Jew. A generational well-poisoning. And as bona fide antisemitism intensifies, the Israelis exercise message discipline: If the diaspora is unsafe, simply make aliyah.

What else are we supposed to do when Jewish identity is invoked to justify state violence? The claim was explicit: Police violence would ensure my safety as a Jewish student. My secular practice never stopped me from experiencing antisemitism. So it can't prevent me from claiming the identity.

The litigation of Jewish identity is intensifying as Israel becomes less popular. Speaking for myself, I dislike using my identity as a basis for political speech. But my hand was forced when other Jews used their Jewish identity to call for police violence in my workplace. Not in my name.

"As far back as September, defense officials have been quietly pushing back on criticism that killing the two survivors amounted to a war crime by arguing...they appeared to be radioing for help" society must discourage baldfaced lying, especially by authorities www.cnn.com/2025/12/04/p...

helps to think about the details like any regular crime you'd see on one of the 800 cop shows that run on TV constantly: these guys committed one set of murders, thought it over, and then decided to kill the witnesses as part of the coverup. mention of drugs is just jingling keys at this point

Not only are we outsourcing our thinking to these bullshit slop machines, we are outsourcing our class and labor struggles! Our care needs! Our basic human need for connection!

The person who "needs" ChatGPT to analyze their abusive ex's emails for narcissistic speech patterns and problematic demands ACTUALLY needs mental health support from a professional... or, y'know, a *friend*.

Every use-case people think they "need" and LLM for is actually papering over a different issue. The teacher using ChatGPT to write narrative reports bc the demand is unreasonable & overwhelming *actually* needs more support and/or compensation or a reduction of demand. It's a LABOR issue.

3. Although I think I see the point OP is trying to make, it's dangerous to simplify historical eugenics and we should never write off present day concerns over gene editing, etc. We should *always* question why we are doing something and explore all the potential ramifications of these decisions.

Lots of other eugenicists (especially women eugenicists) believed in a combo of euthenics and eugenics. The idea that while we are waiting for eugenic policies to purify the human race, there are environmental factors that can help improve human stock (many dude eugenicists hated this idea)

They did this through things like eugenic marriage laws, better baby contests, and fitter family contests. Some of this is certainly about preventing disease, but most of it is about preserving & supporting white supremacy. Only white protestant babies, for example, could win a better baby contest.

More commonly, American eugenicists believed in what some scholars call "positive eugenics." Not "positive" as in "good," but rather encouraging the "right" people to have more babies and trying to encourage the "right" genetic traits to be passed down.

Others were even worse! Some people I study advocated for what they called "eugenic euthanasia," or killing people who could not support themselves because of medical conditions. Many eugenicists disagreed with both of these!

2. Focusing on the where I said scientists & others believed in "some form of eugenics." That's key to another problem with OPs post. Eugenicists had a WIDE spectrum of eugenic beliefs & often disagreed! Some eugenicists believed in OPs version: forced & coerced sterilization.

NOW, it's a pseudoscience because it's been debunked & is no longer mainstream scientific thinking. Calling historical eugenics a pseudoscience lets science & scientists of the past off the hook (Also, PS is more of a modern-day term. We had terms like "quackery" but eugenics was not that)

1. Historically, eugenics was not a pseudoscience. It was *science* Almost every scientist, social scientist, academic, etc. believed in the validity of eugenics. You would have to search far & wide to find a scientist that didn't believe in some form of it. They taught it in college!

Historian of eugenics here. I don't normally like to retweet bad arguments, but this is such a fundamental misunderstanding of eugenics, I think it's important to point out. I don't have time to debunk all of the ways this is inaccurate, but I'll highlight a few things and then recommend some books🧵

This right wing version absolutely wants to burn the institution down with as much ritual humiliation it can muster on the way. Anyway, teaching in this environment is challenging. Which is their goal.

I once drafted something I called, “the edgelords come to campus” but I had other things to finish. What I wrestled with is how this is different from or similar to staged class disruptions from liberal students. The difference is mostly about infrastructure.

One of the biggest impacts I’ve seen from the unproven idea that people are wrongfully using disability accommodations is that people stop trusting people with disabilities and in fact further restrict, remove, and demonize accommodations for people with disabilities in general

But attacking pre-school teachers because they don’t think Palestinian kids should be bombed to death? Declaring NYC’s first Muslim mayor “our enemy?” Fomenting hatred, even within the Jewish community? You’re not making anyone safer.

I believe that what will keep Jewish New Yorkers – and all New Yorkers – safe is inclusive, multiracial democracy. Bad faith attacks, division, and racism won't protect us. If you want to disagree with me, great. That’s part of being Jewish New Yorkers. 🧵

We’ve been having these debates all the way back to the first exile in Babylon. Some wanted to get back to Judea right away. Others stayed, and gave us the legacy of the Babylonian Talmud & diaspora. They disagreed, and so do we. Maybe that’s why we call it Talmudic. 🧵

Meanwhile, the “American Jewish right” is making clear that they view progressive and even centrist Jews – basically anyone who isn’t in lock-step with Netanyahu – as their enemies. They think they are modern-day Maccabees. 🧵

It is outrageous that Marc Rowan stood at the UJA Federation dinner (a memorial for Wesley LePatner) and said about Zohran: “He is our enemy.” Who’s trying to make Jewish New Yorkers safer – and who’s fanning the flames of hatred? 🧵 ejewishphilanthropy.com/marc-rowan-d...

Ms. Rachel is a kind & humane teacher whose offense is speaking up against killing children in Gaza. Cynthia Nixon has Jewish kids, and has never said or done one antisemitic thing. This is not just gross & offensive – it trivializes real antisemitism. 🧵

Attacking pre-school teachers because they don’t think Palestinian kids should be bombed to death? Declaring NYC’s first Muslim mayor “our enemy?” Fomenting hatred, even within the Jewish community? You’re not making anyone safer.🧵

All I want for Christmas is for the worst people in the world to experience some consequences

I'm very much of the "If you love something, keep it" camp; but I acknowledge also sometimes the thing you love has rabies and needs to be segregated from the existing story so they can both live. Don't put down your darlings! Just quarantine them and give them their own narrative to infect!

Imagine: If we had a crystal ball that tells us what are the discoveries to be made, we wouldn't have to do science in the first place. Apparently that's some scientists' scientific ideal. Rather than doing science. So many weird ontological and epistemic assumptions to unpack.

There's no rationale, no theory, no evidence that connects chasing replicability to actual scientific progress or discovery. We're looking for ways to bypass the laborious scientific process of exploration. It's a pity that we waste our increasingly limited research resources on futile searches.

All our work on replicability in the last decade has taught me that it's not a good use of resources to try and predict replicability in the first place since it's neither a good goal to achieve nor diagnostic of specific problems. It's a search for shortcuts, easy answers to complex questions.

I feel the same way about disability accommodations that I do about means testing social services, which is to say: if using this accommodation improves your quality of life noticeably, then you needed the accommodation

13/13. If the integration of missing actas changes the party in the lead, we will not be surprised to see accusations of vote manipulation. And the worst part is: there could be, since the process offers several points of weakness. That’s why many people are braced for election related violence.

Haven’t had enough on the Honduran election? Me neither. So let’s drill down on the exact situation as it stands. First, a correction: Honduran media explain that the actas (ballot place totals) missing are mainly digitized, but failed to transmit. This isn’t quite a “hand count” 1/

I would rather have a world where we all trust each other and accept that a few people will take advantage of it than a world where folks have to perform disability constantly in order to get the help they need. Let kids have an extra 30 minutes on the test, jesus fucking christ

This is what frustrates me so much about these articles: Propagating the narrative that large numbers of kids are faking disabilities is just going to result in a world where disabled people are *even more* scrutinized when they ask for accommodations!