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David J.

@apocalypticdrift.bsky.social
2.2K followers 849 following 325 posts

Reluctant literary scholar with a focus on the end (of the world) American Studies at Universität Stuttgart (Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter) Other research interests include video games (& ludology), zombie studies, sound studies, and dark ecology.

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David J. @apocalypticdrift.bsky.social · 05/04/2026
Logging off indefinitely. Until the next time. youtu.be/PzHLPnGuVSQ
youtu.be
Dead Kennedys - Nazi Punks Fuck Off (In Studio)
YouTube video by DeadKennedysVEVO
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
Someone sent me this.
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David J. @apocalypticdrift.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
I’ve seen this movie before…
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Berna Devezer @devezer.bsky.social · 29/03/2026
i love m-dashes. i use 'not only but also' type of constructions in certain kinds of writing. i am not ai. i find the implication that i might be depressing. just as i dislike defensive academic writing targeting reviewers, i'd regret having to adopt defensive writing habits to prove i'm not a bot.
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Nathan K. Hensley @nathankhensley.bsky.social · 26/03/2026
raise your hand if wikipedia has higher standards than your own university
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Brett Karlan @oldjerryfodor.bsky.social · 22/03/2026
Academic social media is amazing because a grad student will post "Hour 14 in the library, gonna get this paper done" and a full prof will then be like "I don't feel like doing my job anymore, here's a scarf I knitted during 120 hours of my paid sabbatical"
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David J. @apocalypticdrift.bsky.social · 22/03/2026
Just me or is being an academic in American Studies giving Jack Gladney vibes?
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David J. @apocalypticdrift.bsky.social · 22/03/2026
Being online is cringe. Pass it on.
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David J. @apocalypticdrift.bsky.social · 21/03/2026
In the last ten days I’ve gone from being in so much pain the doctors gave me fentanyl before they downgraded me to metamizole but that made me feel as grim as the fentanyl so we went for ibuprofen (despite my asthma) and now I’m celebrating being on 1000MG dosage of paracetamol every 6 hours…
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Dystopian Arthur Wyatt @arthurwyatt.bsky.social · 15/03/2026
Not now, symbolism.
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Effie Seiberg @effies.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
"Palantir CEO Alex Karp says his AI technology will lessen the power of “highly educated, often female voters, who vote mostly Democrat” while increasing the power of working-class men." Just saying it right out loud now. newrepublic.com/post/207693/...
newrepublic.com
Palantir CEO Makes Shocking Confession on Disrupting Democratic Power
They’re saying the quiet part out loud now.
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David J. @apocalypticdrift.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
Sam Altman is a fucking moron. And for the record, water is a human right (UN General Assembly 2010).
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Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
good morning to @kathleenmrooney.bsky.social in @chicagorevbooks.bsky.social on the art & science of criticism! "Paying attention to something is a form of love... Criticism makes you slow down and stay and reflect, just like art does." chireviewofbooks.com/2026/03/11/w...
chireviewofbooks.com
Why Criticism Continues to Matter: Book Reviews and Our Literary Community - Chicago Review of Books
My neighborhood in Chicago has a delightfully high density of Little Free Libraries. Inside one of these late last year, I stumbled upon a reissue of Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence P...
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David J. @apocalypticdrift.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
Make Adrian Chiles eligible for the Pulitzer. Peak journalism.
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Claire E. Aubin @ceaubin.com · 10/03/2026
Calling Cormac McCarthy’s authorial style a “mistake” that AI no longer makes is so funny
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Justin Burning @jburning.com · 05/03/2026
The best part about writing a book is planning and researching. The worst part about writing a book is writing the book.
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William Shakespeare @shakespeare.lol · 05/03/2026
[Exit Murderer.]
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Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
loud in the streets, POWER IN THE SPREADSHEETS
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David J. @apocalypticdrift.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
Don’t love your job, job your love.
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David J. @apocalypticdrift.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
Preach disc horse bot, preach…
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David J. @apocalypticdrift.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
The Lancet responds to the life of Oblomov
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Alt National Park Service @altnps.bsky.social · 01/03/2026
ChatGPT is shedding users fast. Since yesterday alone, estimates suggest more than a million accounts have been deleted and the boycott continues to gain momentum. Incredible work, everyone!
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David J. @apocalypticdrift.bsky.social · 28/02/2026
If this man had a spine it would rip him in two because he’s such a wet paper towel.
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Jesspooka Kant 🎃 @jessdkant.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
Reposting this because, hilariously, someone running an AI news aggregator just plagiarized the hell out of it and got shared 3x as much as the original post. So you know, here's the actual piece. Where I talk about LLMs making copies of copies of copies of copies and how that drives disinformation.
jessk.org
AI update: replication crisis — Jessica Kant
Regardless of who actually prints a story, it is the merger of social media and machine learning which increasingly drives narratives in the immediate wake of a major event. The next time a catastroph...
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Sarah Jane Cervenak @sjcerv.bsky.social · 28/02/2026
“The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality.” James Baldwin
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Jordan aka Jirdan @slclunk.com · 28/02/2026
I think about this Tony Benn speech much more than I used to
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David J. @apocalypticdrift.bsky.social · 28/02/2026
If this man had a spine it would rip him in two because he’s such a wet paper towel.
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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @ocasio-cortez.house.gov · 28/02/2026
My statement on President Trump’s combat operations in Iran⬇️
OCASIO-CORTEZ STATEMENT ON
TRUMP'S COMBAT OPERATIONS IN IRAN
"The American people are once again dragged into a war they did not want by a president who does not care about the long-term consequences of his actions. This war is unlawful. It is unnecessary. And it will be catastrophic.

"Just this week, Iran and the United States were negotiating key measures that could have staved off war. The President walked away from these discussions and chose war instead.President Trump flippantly acknowledged the possibility of American casualties, stating "that often happens in war.'

"Mr. President: this was not an inevitability. This is a deliberate choice of aggression when diplomacy and security were within reach. Stop lying to the American people.

"Violence begets violence. We learned this lesson in Iraq. We learned this lesson in Afghanistan. And we are about to learn it again in Iran. Bombs have yet to create enduring democracies in the region and this will be no different.

"In moments of war, our Constitution is unambiguous: Congress authorizes war. The President does not. I will do my part to uphold our Constitution by voting YES on Representatives Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie's War Powers Resolution. Every member of Congress must join us in rejecting this aimless war.
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Gillian Branstetter @gbbranstetter.bsky.social · 28/02/2026
Every data center is a war machine
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David J. @apocalypticdrift.bsky.social · 28/02/2026
So, now we can add being complicit in acts of war into the ethical concerns for all ChatGPT users.
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Roxane Gay @roxanegay.bsky.social · 28/02/2026
I don’t even know anymore. War, the senseless murder of civilians, pedophiles in power, just a whole lot of fuckshit.
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Josh Shepperd @joshshepperd.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
We have a word for this in media history. It's called propaganda.
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David J. @apocalypticdrift.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
Allister Heath headline claiming Britains bizarre infatuation with Keith Chegwin and Les Dennis is a symptom of terminal national decline - it is satire autogenerted
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David J. @apocalypticdrift.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
Allister Heath headline claiming Britains bizarre infatuation with Keith Chegwin and Les Dennis is a symptom of terminal national decline - it is satire autogenerted
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David J. @apocalypticdrift.bsky.social · 24/02/2026
Excellent resources put together by excellent human minds.
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David J. @apocalypticdrift.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
My good friend wrote a thing… skeptical of the conversations around LLMs “… an LLM remains a derivative interpretive system, able to model human meanings, but not to originate them.” www.bps.org.uk/psychologist...
bps.org.uk
What is it like to be an LLM? | BPS
Adam King (University of Salford) responds to a recent article.
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David J. @apocalypticdrift.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
My good friend wrote a thing… skeptical of the conversations around LLMs “… an LLM remains a derivative interpretive system, able to model human meanings, but not to originate them.” www.bps.org.uk/psychologist...
bps.org.uk
What is it like to be an LLM? | BPS
Adam King (University of Salford) responds to a recent article.
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David J. @apocalypticdrift.bsky.social · 24/02/2026
Excellent resources put together by excellent human minds.
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Hannah Alpert-Abrams @halperta.bsky.social · 23/02/2026
We don't talk enough about how the word millennial literally means believing in the coming apocalypse.
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David J. @apocalypticdrift.bsky.social · 21/02/2026
Today, I’m Maxmaxxing.
Max, of where the wild things are fame, dressed in his King Wolf onesie costume from living to the max.
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Brendel @brendelbored.bsky.social · 21/02/2026
Kurt Vonnegut stop being so applicable to all time periods of American life, you can’t do that Kurt Vonnegut, your insights are too evergreen Kurt Vonnegut
For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes (Matthew 5). But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course, that's Moses, not Jesus. I haven't heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere.
'Blessed are the merciful' in a courtroom?
'Blessed are the peacemakers' in the Pentagon? Give me a break!
Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country
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David J. @apocalypticdrift.bsky.social · 21/02/2026
Today, I’m Maxmaxxing.
Max, of where the wild things are fame, dressed in his King Wolf onesie costume from living to the max.
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Thomas Germain @thomasgermain.bsky.social · 18/02/2026
I just did the dumbest thing of my entire career to prove a much more serious point. I tricked ChatGPT and Google, and made them tell other users I’m a competitive hot-dog-eating world champion People are using this trick on a massive scale to make AI tell you lies. I’ll explain how I did it
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David J. @apocalypticdrift.bsky.social · 19/02/2026
*dusts off guillotine*
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Mark Hamill @markhamillofficial.bsky.social · 17/02/2026
Meanwhile, in Germany, the public weighs in on what they think of the Epstein Administration. #BrutalButAccurate
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Kristen Hanley Cardozo @khandozo.bsky.social · 16/02/2026
Alt text added. When I’m teaching my students about transcription, I note that it’s usual to remove verbal clutter and when it’s left in, it’s often a sign that the writer wants you to regard the speaker with disrespect. Not great!
"I think that, uh, this is such a, a — you know, I think that — this is a, um — this is of course, a, uh, a very longstanding, um, policy of the United States," Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said," writes @Kellen_Browning,"before saying that the country should try to avoid reaching that point with China in the first place."
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Grumpy Philosopher @stevecooke.org · 16/02/2026
During the pandemic, I rewrote my content for online delivery, learned a whole new set of skills for remote teaching, & paid for the tech to provide the best experience to students out of my own pocket, while struggling with caring for a family & suffering from Covid. So yeah, see below.
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David J. @apocalypticdrift.bsky.social · 12/02/2026
Yet, nobody is sending for Grape-Nuts
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David J. @apocalypticdrift.bsky.social · 12/02/2026
Yet, nobody is sending for Grape-Nuts
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