I really like Deluermoz and Singaravelou's new book A Past of Possibilities on counterfactual history but Chapter 7 on non-linear time uses really weak examples based on really out-of-date or discredited scholarship, esp. the Hopi no-future-tense point. The general point is good, but when you need a sinologist from 1934, Evans-Pritchard on the Nuer, and a fake Indian to make the point, you haven't done your homework.
Timothy Burke
@swarthmoreburke
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Professor of History at Swarthmore College. Eight by Seven, timothyburke.substack.com
felix stalderThis is a very impressive visualization of one of the biases of AI, the origin of data sets. This, quite reasonably i think, assumes that there is a connection between the place of origin of and the information contained in a data set.
I think a lot of university and college programs aimed at encouraging entrepreneurship are underserving their clients and endangering the rest of us. https://timothyburke.substack.com/p/academia-incubating-the-therani
Ted McCormickIt's not only unprincipled, it's disastrous strategy. What the Hamline admin did, *and is actively defending*, hands a large and blatant win to right-wingers and Islamophobes. It harms a perfectly good, precarious scholar. And it makes the student who complained into a public target, too. As a comprehensive screw-up on both principles and practice, it's hard to beat. That it's wrapped in the language of concern for students only makes it like every single other self-serving administrative move.
I can't help but by frustrated by the Hamline University students who had such unfair reactions to a completely legitimate classroom experience--but Hamline's administration is what really did the damage. This is where accrediting bodies should have real power rather than the hideous assessment regimes they foster: Hamline should be in danger of losing its status as an accredited institution.
Doctor HistorianessDr. López-Prater did everything right here. She discussed an important image in an art history class after warning that some might be offended and were free to not participate in that aspect of the class. And then she was fired. This is why the protections of tenure are so, so important.
Brendan Nyhan
Ted UnderwoodThere's a whole cottage industry right now looking at the limits of #ChatGPT (e.g. it can't double-check claims or do external attribution) and turning those limits into sentences that begin "Language models can only ever ..." I get why this is a reassuring, widely circulated message, but I wish a few people circulating it would mention that there is already active research that seeks to address those limits. https://paperswithcode.com/paper/attributed-question-answering-evaluation-and
Paul MusgraveKevin McCarthy: “I want to make history.”
The monkey paw curls
Here's what the commentary doesn't get. What is happening to McCarthy is going to--because of McCarthy's concessions--happen to the entire United States government. 20 people are going to hold everything functional hostage because they don't want anything to function. McCarthy is about to become the powerless head of a hijacking.