To be a historian is to speak ill of the dead and the rest of you should take more history classes and join us.
Zoe Griffith
@zoegriffith.bsky.social
Friendly crone. Asst professor of History at CUNY. Plant person. I wrote a book on Ottoman Egypt and the Mediterranean archive. It's out now! https://www.ucpress.edu/books/egypts-mediterranean/paper
One major criticism though: Chris Gratien had included a lot of music recommandations in his book, Zoe's is distinctly short on those so it's impossible to get the full experience during my commutes.
My book came out 3 weeks ago and now you can get it on sale (40% off until this Friday!) Only $18 for my life's work to date! www.ucpress.edu/books/egypts...
Egypt's Mediterranean by Zoe Griffith - Paper
Scholarship is a powerful tool for changing how people think, plan, and govern. By giving voice to bright minds and bold ideas, we seek to foster understanding and drive progressive change.
ucpress.edu
University of California Press@ucpress.bsky.social · 3mo agoOur sitewide Spring Sale ends this Friday. 40% off all UC Press books with the promo code SPRING40 www.ucpress.edu
Hi everyone! My book, Egypt's Mediterranean, came out with @ucpress.bsky.social on Tuesday 💙💛 It's a new look at how Egypt fit into the political economy of the Ottoman Empire and eastern Mediterranean. Please enjoy the *beautiful* cover art by Mohamed Gohar (@mohamed.gohar on IG)
The rehabilitation of the luddites is a beautiful thing
Kevin M. Kruse@kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 4mo ago"Luddites" is a good term for those who oppose AI because the Luddites weren't against *all* technology, just forms of technology that they knew would pay workers less and turn out a shittier product
mind-boggling to me that i still have yet to see a single democrat utter the phrase “every republican president of your lifetime has destroyed the economy and started a war”
What if all those years of life were not just an investment in capital growth but were actually the entire point of all of it, what then.
X2Y@x2y.tech · 6mo agoSAM ALTMAN: “People talk about how much energy it takes to train an AI model … But it also takes a lot of energy to train a human. It takes like 20 years of life and all of the food you eat during that time before you get smart.”
I made this 19 page list of resources for questioning AI because I was so frustrated by this dynamic, the tipping point for me was an admin saying that people who were questioning the push for AI were being "emotional": docs.google.com/document/d/1...
Questioning AI Resource List
Excellent summary of major problems with companies’ focus on AI written by expert in machine learning: https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/i-will-fucking-piledrive-you-if-you-mention-ai-again/ Another g...
docs.google.com
is it Too On The Nose that the publisher's website for Orwell's 1984 wants you to believe that this is the cover of 1984? (Click to expand, or google it yourself!)
on the educator's responsibility to "respond" to AI:
Sonja Drimmer@sonjadrimmer.bsky.social · 7mo agoNo one says to legit business owners, "hey I see there's an underground market selling toxic knock-offs of your product: how will you incorporate the toxic product AND protect your customers against its harms?" But apparently it's fine to make this suggestion to educators with respect to AI.
chortling at these AI smart-replies to my student's thesis statement so very proud!
I'm not proud to say that I have been a heavy Spotify user for over a decade, but I *AM* proud to say that I'm finally ditching them (not because of the AI audiobooks, though that's another good reason.) Qobuz is a very good alternative for music, and they pay their artists!
Citizen.Coping@propcazhpm.bsky.social · 2y agoSpotify uses AI to create audiobooks of authors' work without their permission. This is wild to me. It's worse because it can cannibalize book and ebook sales. Blatant theft, on top of messing over musicians. Free link: archive.ph/2023.12.13-1...
Handing back student work that’s been written by ChatGPT with a 0 followed by the comment “This essay will never stand in authentic wonder before the Beauty of God’s creation.”
Vulture@vulture.com · 8mo agoPope Leo XIV told students not to use artificial intelligence for homework, saying that AI ‘won’t stand in authentic wonder before the beauty of God’s creation.’
Really, really agree with this piece from Huffpo. We don't have to accept the aura of AI inevitability. We can, and should, refuse to engage with it in our classrooms (and elsewhere, but especially in the classroom!)
Aparna Nair@disabilitystor1.bsky.social · 9mo agoThere is something intensely bleak about students using gAI in an assignment asking them to respond to a text about enslaved people--so sad. Students are being misled into stripping themselves of the ability to read, write, think by our own universities and Big Tech www.huffpost.com/entry/histor...
Fact-Checking Claims About Zohran Mamdani https://theonion.com/fact-checking-claims-about-zohran-mamdani/
yearly reminder to people insisting that we view Christopher Columbus as "a man of his time" that *the people responsible for the Spanish Inquisition* thought Columbus was out of pocket
Thomas Lecaque@tlecaque.bsky.social · 10mo agoChristopher Columbus was dragged back to Spain in chains by a crusading knight, convicted of tyranny and immeasurable cruelty, pardoned by Isabella but banned from returning to Hispaniola. Fuck Columbus.
Im glad Dr Tao is speaking up, but this attitude among people; that you can work in STEM and "avoid politics" is...alarming. And has always been wrong.
The Washington Post@washingtonpost.com · 11mo agoTerence Tao, one of the world’s greatest mathematicians, is speaking out after federal research funding to UCLA was suspended. “People who support all the positive aspects of America have to speak out and fight for them now,” he said.
A Labor Day reminder: today there isn't a single city, metro area, or state in the U.S. where a full-time minimum-wage worker can afford a modest 2-bedroom apartment. Millions of people with jobs—even multiple jobs—aren't safe from homelessness in this country.
Opinion | America Is Pushing Its Workers Into Homelessness
nytimes.com
NEW: A major AI copyright legal showdown just took a huge twist today. Facing a class action on behalf of book authors that could've seen it pay over a TRILLION in damages for alleged piracy, Anthropic has agreed to settle instead: www.wired.com/story/anthro...
Anthropic Settles High-Profile AI Copyright Lawsuit Brought By Book Authors
Anthropic faced the prospect of more than $1 trillion in damages, a sum that could have threatened the company’s survival if the case went to trial.
wired.com
The mental health benefits of not knowing any history right now must be massive. Moving through your day with total equanimity. What happens next? Who knows? Maybe something good
A key difference here is that while either can be incorrect, the structure of Wikipedia *creates context* and the structure of LLMs *destroys context* Wikipedia has linked sources and an edit history showing where information came from and who added it when An LLM just generates text
Eugene Vinitsky 🍒@eugenevinitsky.bsky.social · last yr.Some of the anti-AI stuff feels a bit like when people would say "don't use Wikipedia as a source." It's just like anything else, a piece of information that you weigh against multiple sources and your own understanding of its likely failure modes
No one wants to hear this, but it’s true. Either we can value education — not for a select few but for anyone willing to put in the effort — and provide the requisite resources, or we can watch it become a pursuit available only to an elite minority, with everyone else getting a cheap facsimile
Mark Copelovitch@mcopelov.bsky.social · 12mo agoThere simply is no substitute for the time-, personnel-, & $$$-intensive way of providing quality education. That we don't want to pay for it, as a society, does not make this any less true, & AI cannot fix that. At best, it can poorly substitute for the real solution. bsky.app/profile/mcop...
Why does Goorge W. Bush looks like a mashup of Mitch McConnell and Bill Gates? Dude doesn't even wear glasses.
Zoe Griffith@zoegriffith.bsky.social · 12mo agoNothing, but nothing, is funnier to me at this moment than these Ph.D.-level charts.
Nothing, but nothing, is funnier to me at this moment than these Ph.D.-level charts.
Bob Kopp@bobkopp.net · 12mo ago“A legitimate PhD-level expert in anything,” they said. “Show me a diagram of the US presidents since FDR, with their names and years in office under their photos,” I said.
"While the new strategy, known as 'Look Back Before You Act,' has raised concerns among people worried they will have to remember lots of events from long ago, the historians have assured Americans they won’t be required to read all the way through thick books or memorize anything."
Historians Politely Remind Nation To Check What's Happened In Past Before Making Any Big Decisions
WASHINGTON—With the United States facing a daunting array of problems at home and abroad, leading historians courteously reminded the nation Thursday that when making tough choices, it never hurts to ...
theonion.com