maybe: leif weatherby
@leifweatherby
i study the history of knowledge and try to make some of it too; bylines @nytimes, @BostonGlobe, @the_point_mag, @jacobin
today Language Machines is published - you can order it from @UMinnPress here: upress.umn.edu/9781517919320/… - here are some crucial surrounding writings 1/
My friend @jennfrey 100%: “It’s not that liberal learning is out of step w/ student demand. It’s out of step w/ the priorities, values & desires of a board of trustees w/ no commitment to liberal ed & an admin class that won’t fight for liberal arts” nytimes.com/2025/07/17/opi…
Crucial problem, the rise of a *class* of admin aligned with boards of trustees and narrowly defined capital interests. You don’t see this narrative a lot bc Ed is considered a “culture” topic, so we ignore that it is a massive business sector with pernicious vested interests
I wrote about the lack of administrative support for the liberal arts in @nytimes. The standard story we hear is that students don't want it. But a darker reality is that even when it wins big with students and donors it loses with those in power. nytimes.com/2025/07/17/opi…
you know, not recognizing billionaires might be a good litmus test for politicians
Tough meeting for Mamdani with the Partnership for NY (CEOs) today I'm told. Stood his ground on "intifada" language and wouldn't commit to keeping NYPD Comm. Tisch, whom this crowd likes, in the job. (Also did not recognize her father, Jim Tisch, when he rose for a question)
Harry Potter-ass model
New paper & surprising result. LLMs transmit traits to other models via hidden signals in data. Datasets consisting only of 3-digit numbers can transmit a love for owls, or evil tendencies. 🧵
“i asked grok” “i asked chat gp t” well i asked my daimon and he said “No”
Respectfully submit that AI is not the actual problem here
you don’t actually need academic studies to tell you that artificial intelligence is killing critical thinking when so many people proudly show you how artificial intelligence kills critical thinking
Even if they are a Coldplay fan
The gleeful doxing of someone cheating in public is bad even if they are a CEO and even if they are a Coldplay fan. It's bad because this stuff is happening to random people on TikTok for such crimes as "sitting silently on a plane" or "being attractive" 404media.co/the-astronomer…
Nico with a very generous review and some substantial disagreement you’ll have to read to find out about. Semiotic machines!
The gleeful doxing of someone cheating in public is bad even if they are a CEO and even if they are a Coldplay fan. It's bad because this stuff is happening to random people on TikTok for such crimes as "sitting silently on a plane" or "being attractive" 404media.co/the-astronomer…
It’s gonna take a few years to pick apart the Covid lockdown effects from the more general ones here
I’ve been an English professor at UNC for the past twenty-two years and I can assure you that what Athenian Stranger is saying here is absolutely true. Student literacy has gotten especially bad over the past five years.
if one wanted to create a new university that went against the adminification and capitalization of the current one, but avoided the ad-hoc nature of the various institutes (including U of Austin), what would one do?
Something that I feel they don't really explain in school is that writing skills are extremely important and valuable in everything that you do. If you lead or aspire to lead any large organization, you need to be able to write and speak concisely, precisely, and persuasively.…
He wrote them himself!
On Sunday, Elmo’s X account was briefly hacked by an outside party, in spite of the security measures in place. We strongly condemn the abhorrent antisemitic and racist content, and the account has since been secured. These posts in no way reflect the values of Sesame Workshop…
These posts in no way reflect the values of the Sesame Workshop
A great ex of tragedy/farce: Obama chickening out on cancelling the worst excesses of the war on terror after briefings —> the Epstein fiasco