monster of mimbres

everyone who works at the university hates student evaluations, knows they are bogus and discriminatory. a student's opinion does not index their learning

a lot of the time, the more you are learning the worse it feels. even if you can tolerate the chore and the discomfort of the work, it feels bad to come to realize how little you know

there are only three models of epistemic authority: 'trust me bro'; 'you, yourself, must decide if this is true'; and 'god said so'. if you are unwilling to form an opinion, you are only left with the authority of others

best way to trick someone into reading is ragebait and it worked on me and i have read entire books out of spite and to be knowledgable about ethically hating

tbf, and this is a skill issue, i sometimes fall into the escapism trap. one thing that always pull me back to the ground is, apparently, my deep hatred for this world.

in my 1st year as a phd student in history, i said in an introductory session, that i wanted to study history because i hate historiography so much. and everyone made those eyes 👀 history enthusiasts who "have fun" with historiography should denounce themselves.

I need to understand the fullness of the human experience, which throughout history has been overwhelmingly grueling and painful. I can understand feeling like someone needs to take all of that suffering and learn something from it, and that no one else is going to do it.

They clarify in the comments that OBVIOUSLY they didn't mean fiction, what kind of idiot would think "books" includes "novels"

eu acredito MUITO nisso aqui. existem leituras divertidas? definitivamente, mas não é esse o objetivo primordial da leitura!!! 😭 o que não significa que não seja fonte de prazer, só não significa que ler é 100% um entretenimento

I started off enjoying reading as a kid, then I stopped reading entirely as it became a chore in high school. But at the start of the pandemic and as I started to take politics more seriously I started reading again to figure out what was going on. It’s not fun but it’s necessary

“Drapetomania”, “sluggish schizophrenia”, “major depressive disorder”

My issue was when the required reading if Of mice and Men or whatever. I had 0 interest for that stuff but soon as my English teacher handed me her copy of The Hunger Games to read just for the story not as an assignment it changed. And it was fun to finish. That got me to read.

ok i've figured out what's going on. the venn diagram between "i love reading it is fun" and "i never read anything assigned to me in school" is a circle. people who "love reading" are just people who never did their homework.

you enjoy reading about slavery? 🤨

In a broad sense I agree, but I suppose I also think that having an accurate understanding of the metaphorical enemy's strength is necessary for making appropriate strategic decisions in the fight against it

this is racist.

so peer reviewed that your colleagues are literally in the class arguing with you, which sometimes folks find a bit disconcerting...