Excellent “It seems to me that what they are up to here is precisely what they want to condemn: enlisting institutional power to suppress approaches of which they are skeptical, all in the name of enabling free inquiry”

Brian Connolly@brianconnolly.bsky.social · 2d ago

Looking for more on the Vandy-Wash U report? Over at Critical Noise we are kicking off a forum on it with essays over the next few weeks from Roderick Ferguson, Zachary Levenson, Noelle McAfee, John Modern, Christopher Newfield, and Julia Schleck. First up is @grundrza.bsky.social Links below

Really hope the folks at our center for teaching are reading this 🧵 as they plan the workshop on “designing AI-aware assignments” we get in lieu of an institutional policy on LLMs and academic integrity.

Jane Rosenzweig@janerosenzweig.bsky.social · 11h ago

Trying out the features in Claude for education. Join me as I see how it "helps" me write a research paper. My chosen topic: "AI and education". /1

This looks amazing. I’m increasingly interested in the possibilities of education beyond formal institutions

Shannon Mattern@shannonmattern.bsky.social · last mo.

Metro NY Library Council's Cross-Reference Coalition — an experimental school connecting librarians, archivists, grad students, artists, designers — is accepting applications for our fall class exploring PUBLIC STUDY: alternative/radical/progressive schools, lrng communities... crc.metro.org/apply/

We need to get much better at communicating how much work goes into formulating questions. And not even touching this notion of free floating “facts”. Maybe we just scrap existing secondary education and require people spend a few years learning about epistemology and research methods.

Aparna Nair@disabilitystor1.bsky.social · yesterday

"History involves sorting and organizing hundreds of thousands of facts" I remain astounded by how loud and wrong people are about what history actually is.

They hired a “former” Nazi to train… police officers… on antisemitism?!?!?

flyingrodent@flyingrodent.bsky.social · 2d ago

Even I am taken aback at the new and surprising ways these people find to insult the public’s intelligence and make it more clear the only operative professional standard in force is “LOL fuck you”

Anybody at @moderation.bsky.app want to try to explain why they suspended @matthewcort.land, ANOTHER of the most prominent people out here fighting for disabled and marginalized people? Like… are y'all planning to suspend/ban literally every disabled legal scholar/policy worker out here, orrrr…?

ali alkhatib@ali-alkhatib.com · 2d ago

anyway, if you're looking for Matthew Cortland, you should sub to their patreon since they're a disabled lawyer evidently getting deplatformed from places.

I know “don’t obey in advance” has become a cliche but it is really appropriate when university leaders are ready to sell out higher ed to appease the Trump administration.

Dominique Baker@bakerdphd.bsky.social · 2d ago

So no I'm not surprised by: "the administration’s latest move was developed in partnership with university leaders, primarily the Association of American Universities, which represents dozens of top research institutions including all eight Ivy League colleges." 🎁 www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Hello I have made this due to a mutual having issues with some folks on here forgetting this fact and shouting at him for it. Feel free to use it as a handy PSA x

If only the lack of action did actually prove the absence of danger. I wish it were the case. (By this logic we can also relax about climate change. And genocide. Because clearly if these were real dangers all governments would be addressing them 🫣)

Lewis Goodall@lewisgoodall.com · 4d ago

Thanks for the suggestion! But if the evidence were truly “overwhelming” that Covid posed a significant threat to children as a group, we would still be universally vaccinating healthy children, closing schools during waves and treating paediatric Covid as an public-health problem...

The number of terror-related arrests in Britain has risen 1,200% a year following the ban of Palestine Action The number of people arrested for holding signs - under a law originally designed for IRA uniforms - is higher than total terror arrests over the previous decade inews.co.uk/news/retired...

How retired teachers, nurses and vicars became Britain's newest terror suspects

Majority of suspects arrested for holding signs reading 'I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action' at protests against the ban

inews.co.uk

The COVID brain fog explained. The COVID-19 virus binds to the ACE2 receptor to enter cells. Dopamine producing neurons are rich in the ACE2 receptor. The virus causes disruption in the dopamine network in the brain. 🧪 tech-paper.com/scientists-f...

Scientists finally have a biological explanation for why long COVID patients lose motivation and can't think clearly. They scanned their brains and found the dopamine system was physically damaged - T...

Millions of people with long COVID report the same cluster of symptoms: a crushing lack of motivation, an inability to think clearly, memory that slips, movements that feel slower than they should. Fo...

tech-paper.com

I like this notetaking example. it is a good case of how gender works. Notetaking has never been about producing a transcript. It is a bureaucratic skill in the 20th c. organixarion because it is SENSEMAKING. Those women socialized to take notes? They have been doing men’s metacognition for them

Jennifer Romig @jennifermromig.bsky.social · 4d ago

Notetaking in meetings is tiny case in point - used to be some predictable social assumptions who would do it; now anyone can offer to do ”notetaking” by turning on the AI listener. Further interesting scenario is human recollection / notes (taken by habit by a person) conflict with AI summary

My new fave account , and he has fab art prints

Maybe It Will Happen Today@today-maybe.bsky.social · 5d ago

It's a print now buy some prints

Lol

E.J. Fagan@ejfagan.com · 4d ago

Senior Republican congressional staffer on trying to recruit new policy experts: “We have a generation of rabid, incompetent idiots.”

I work at a public library. People who want to use AI seem to have no trouble doing so. People who don't want to use AI have a harder time. I crowdsourced and then finalized this document "How to disable or avoid intrusive AI" and then gave it a short URL: notoai.org Please pass along if it's useful

My brain hurts

Sheryl Weikal says Prosecute ICE@leftistlawyer.com · 5d ago

An AI told the Jerusalem Post that the New York Times is Hamas

An AI told the Jerusalem Post that the New York Times is Hamas

look. nobody here likes paying consultants. but the only alternative is paying *instructors*

Asheesh Kapur Siddique@asheeshks.org · 6d ago

“Harvard paid McKinsey & Company at least $250,000 to consult on the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ staff restructuring efforts, according to internal documents obtained by The Crimson.” www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...

And the reason people socially construct brute facts is that those constructions allow us to coordinate action. If we don't have units of measure, we can't easily give each other directions. If we don't have labels for symptom clusters like ADHD, we can't easily develop treatments or policies.

Stephen Wild@stephenjwild.bsky.social · 5d ago

Something can be both a brute fact and a social construct. The distance between points A and B? Brute fact. Unit of measurement to describe the distance (cm, inches, rods, parsecs)? Social construction. Thank you for your attention to this matter!

Our relationship to visual evidence is being profoundly disrupted by GenAI tools, which will impact how we know, what we can know, and what we think can be known about the world. A massive epistemological shift is upon us.

Faine Greenwood@faineg.bsky.social · 6d ago

I used to do some work on the ethical use of satellite and drone imagery for aid and disaster response, and it is genuinely hard to express in words what a dangerous, stupid thing Google is doing by making it easy to use GenAI to create faked satellite imagery:

The only thing bringing me more happiness right now is learning that there is a world bollard association.

World Bollard Association™️@worldbollardassoc.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Only bollards can deliver this much happiness. #WorldBollardAssociation

And of course they are using “terrorism” designations as their cudgel

Jameel Jaffer@jameeljaffer.bsky.social · 6d ago

Southern states are using the same tactics they used to intimidate civil rights activists in the 50s and 60s to harass and intimidate CAIR today. They’ve pointed to *no evidence* that CAIR is engaged in criminal activity. The whole campaign is just rank bigotry. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/31/u...

Only bollards can deliver this much happiness. #WorldBollardAssociation

Institutional isomorphism except it’s just a bunch of managers listening to overpaid consultants. (I wonder if we told these Harvard managers that they are just following in the footsteps of every non-Oxbridge Uk university they might have second thoughts from snobbery if nothing else)

Asheesh Kapur Siddique@asheeshks.org · 6d ago

“Harvard paid McKinsey & Company at least $250,000 to consult on the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ staff restructuring efforts, according to internal documents obtained by The Crimson.” www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...

Notice how incredibly silly it is that we have the police warning people not to commit terrorist offences, waiting quietly for them to reveal a t-shirt or something, and then arresting old people under anti-terror powers, who quite placidly accept being arrested.

How has ICE ramped up arrests dramatically while keeping public awareness low? A large part of that is escalating arrests by state and local police under 287(g) agreements; arrests which often look a lot like classic racial profiling.

Will Bunch@willbunch.bsky.social · 6d ago

Goodbye, Minneapolis, Chicago. Hello, Mt. Holly Springs, Pa., pop. 2,300 The inhumanity of mass deportation hits small-town America as a tiny borough with just 4 cops partners with ICE and pulls over dozens of drivers, turning over 32 for deportation My new column www.inquirer.com/opinion/moun...

99% of the time, when someone accuses you of selective outrage, it’s a way of politically demobilizing you and shutting you up “Why are you angry about data centers instead of fast fashion” isn’t about making you care about fast fashion. It’s about shutting you up about data centers And visa versa

Utterly racist and idiotic www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/07...

Britain’s Jews have been betrayed by mass migration

Integrated Britain: Nobody wants to acknowledge the link between people arriving from Islamic countries and rising anti-Semitism

telegraph.co.uk