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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition)

@agholdier.bsky.social
723 followers 663 following 482 posts

giant bag of mostly water ~*~ philosophy postdoc at Harvard (incoming) thinking about language, power, and technology ~*~ my spreadsheets are cooler than yours

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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
Warranted Christian [Nationalist] Belief ————————— ruin a book by adding a word
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
An Essay Concerning Human [Vaccine] Understanding ————————— ruin a book by adding a word
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
A Vindication of the Rights of [Trad-]Woman ————————— ruin a book by adding a word
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
The Blue and Brown [Waffle] Books ————————— ruin a book by adding a word
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
The Concept of [Male] Anxiety ————————— ruin a book by adding a word
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
[Epistemic] Ethics ————————— ruin a book by adding a word
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
Meditations on [AI-]First Philosophy ————————— ruin a book by adding a word
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
[Bayesian] Prior Analytics ————————— ruin a book by adding a word
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
😎💅
A “for Dummies” book photoshopped so the title reads “Prompt Injection for Dummies”
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
what if i used that scene as an example in a paper 👀
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Since moving here, I’ve been thinking I just need to get used to this on the T, but perhaps it is, in fact, the kids who are wrong
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
b((a)i)oethics
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
I haven’t looked at the phil/lang work on propaganda a few years: has anyone written on the role of shows like ‘Cops’ and ‘CSI’ in shaping public attitudes of law enforcement?
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
“Is it representative of the field’s job postings?” Of course not. “But is it reliably informative?” No. “But is it a fun way to build a supportive community of kind people in shared precarity?” Also no.
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
MFW someone mentions philosophy’s worst bureaucratic idea (the PhilCocoon job thread)
The Matt Damon/Odysseus screaming while tied to the mast meme
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
damn, this is a hell of a way to remember that Cocoon thread exists
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
you’ll never be the netflicks professor of superior intelligence with posts like this
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Reposted by AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition)
Hadas Weiss @hadas.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
sure, sex is great but
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
you’re laughing? your postdoc is in critical condition and you’re laughing?
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Reposted by AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition)
HappyToast @happytoast.co.uk · 06/10/2026
#VanityFair
Vanity fair cover with Sam Altman stealing everything
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Also: near the end of our ‘Emotional Outsourcing’ paper, @kmdoublev.bsky.social and I talk about liturgical religious utterances as a (potentially/defeasibly) positive form of formulaic speech — I *really* like the idea of contrasting that with this kind of transactional thing
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Marking this bc @angrycassie.bsky.social and I just started talking about a new project and I think this might be another good example of what we’re stumbling towards (wrt to “something that looks like conversation, but isn’t”)
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
“Data fishing? You mean Inference to the Best Explanation?”
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
(I just sent off something today about a different weird — but actually influential — error he makes in this paper, so hopefully something will come from that)
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
when i tell you i once spent a stupid amount of time trying to trace his very wrong source here….🤦
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
He also makes this utterly batshit claim about Islam (wrt to the Theological Objection)
Screenshot of journal page with the following underlined:
“How do Christians regard the Moslem view that women have no souls?”
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
The “Grandpa Simpsons enters, turns, leaves” meme with panel 1 labeled “my draft with a desk rejection” and panel 2 labeled “the same draft to a new journal”
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
James T Kirk shouting (from the “KHAAAAN” scene) with the caption “UNPING ME” crookedly added in the upper-left quadrant
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Pete Hegseth, behind a podium, arms outstretched, in front of a “ Department of war” flag, and surrounded by flags and bunting that’s all just way too muchThe super serious coach of the Iceland team in ‘D2: The Mighty Ducks’. He’s wearing hockey gloves and squeezing a beach ball until it pops, while surrounded by Nordic models.
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Tom Cotton should lose to @hallieshoffner.bsky.social regardless, but this might be the funniest way Trump could help that to happen.
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Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
I wish Anthropic had been nowhere near it but now I know exactly why the Encyclical was not corrupted by their efforts.
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Reposted by AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition)
Anna Gifty @itsafronomics.blacksky.app · 30/09/2026
The more I learn about this Cornell situation, the angrier I get because it's SO normalized in academic environments.
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
counting this as “service to the profession” 🫡
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
the alcohol is there to really make it a challenge
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
this just reminded me to renew my APA membership
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
MFW we hit the “my girlfriend goes to another school” stage of AI hype
Kyle Chandler as Hal Jordan, sitting in front of a cement wall, looking Very Much Tired of Your Shit
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Instead of just attaching the “wanking motion” gif this deserves, here’s a link to @illocutie.bsky.social’s (very cool) analysis of how the illoctionary dynamics of memes impacts their conversational deniability. doi.org/10.1093/oso/...
Screenshot:

14- A Meme for Excuses

Nikki Ernst

https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198872085.003.0015

Pages  312–334

Published:  15 May 2025


Abstract
This chapter investigates the veneer of deniability that surrounds the use of internet memes. To that end, I explore the workings of memes as a medium of discursive practice, sketch a selection of language games in which we project a meme into novel contexts, and argue that memetic practice is aptly conceived as a play with our capacity for projection. This leads me to scrutinize the affinity between memes and comedy, which puts in relief the sort of deniability afforded by memetic practice. Such deniability, I suggest, enables us to get away with excuses of the “it’s just a meme” variety, akin to “I’m just kidding” or “I’m just trolling.” The chapter concludes with a case study that illustrates such excuses in action—namely the appropriation of the OK sign as symbol of white supremacy.
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
— Me, to Myself, about Myself
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Ivy Leaguer with PTSD from that time I got lost in a Home Depot
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
“ohh noo our program is just soooo powerful! sowwy!! 👉👈 i sure hope how powerful our product is doesn’t dominate the news cycles as we get closer to our wittle IPO (for our SUPER powerful technology)”
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Carolyn Dicey Jennings @cdj.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
AP is on it!
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
The last section here gets into this kind of thing: philpapers.org/rec/MACFAL-5
philpapers.org
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
A photoshopped meme of Jack from 30 Rock saying “That’s [formal epistemology] we count those”
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
The “you wouldn’t download a car” meme, roughly photoshopped to read “you wouldn’t chat with a folk”
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
you mean the meanings are in tension?
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
(Oh yeah: she sent this invitation to her friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson 🫪)
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Getting to hold this letter from Ada Lovelace was so damn cool — I really need more reasons to do archival work! 🤘🤓
A small piece of paper with a black border around its edges. The handwritten ink is quite difficult to read, but it is clearly signed “I remain [?] faithfully, Augusta, Ada Lovelace”

The date at the top includes “Friday, July 7”

The short note is addressed “Dear Mr Emerson” and seems to say “ I sent you my card a day or two ago for this [??]. I hope you will come. I think there will be some you will like much to meet.”
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
shoutout to noam for kicking off postdoc appreciation week early 🫡
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AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition) @agholdier.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
🤘🤓
thelandmag.com
The Guerrilla Artist Who Fixed L.A.'s Worst Freeway Sign
20 years after his “Guerrilla Public Service” project, the artist Richard Ankrom looks back on the legendary freeway stunt and its legacy.
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Reposted by AG Holdier (Academic Job Applicant Edition)
Hane @hane.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
a large torch shining dimly labelled "Edmund Gettier Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?" and a small torch shining brightly labelled "Julia Donaldson The Gruffalo"
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