iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 2h

I still have a dormant Modern Humorist reflex on these stories. What would Encyclopedia Brown make of this?

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 4h

Did you check out Denison?

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 4h

FYI, Intermezzo, by Sally Rooney (a woman), is an excellent exploration of the so-called "crisis of masculinity" told through the lens of two very different brothers grappling with grief over the loss of their father. It's also a love story, so that makes it even better.

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Reposted by John Warner

John Downes-Angus @johndownesangus.bsky.social · 5h

When I first transitioned to teaching, I went through the teaching fellows—it was a great opportunity and is why I am where I am now. But it also came draped in a lot of reform rhetoric, including a conviction that teaching could be fixed by some silver bullet. I took a class w Tim Lisante early,

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Reposted by John Warner

Dr. Liz Norell @liznorell.bsky.social · 8h

I'm so excited for the session @josheyler.bsky.social @cjdenial.bsky.social @thetattooedprof.bsky.social and I are hosting tomorrow, Resisting the Use of AI in Education: Taking a stand for our students and our colleagues, at 1:00 pm ET. Are you registered?

Announcing a live webinar on Resisting the Use of AI in Education: Taking a Stand for Our Students and Our Colleagues. Event takes place on October 13, 2026, at 1:00 pm ET. Speakers are Cate Denial (University of Minnesota Rochester), Joshua Eyler (University of Mississippi), Kevin Gannon (Queens University Charlotte), and Liz Norell (University of Mississippi).

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 6h

Yes. The book is a perennial seller. Literally millions of copies sold. It’s ridiculous.

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 8h

I also enjoy a Reacher novel and have read Lonesome Dove twice. My wife would say Lonesome Dove is one of her favorite books of all-time and really dug the newest Reacher as well. I just find this gender essentialist stuff in reading weird. The idea that it's "biological" is bonkers.

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 8h

At a certain, young, age if you asked me who my favorite writers were I would've said Judy Blume, E.L. Konigsburg, Katherine Patterson, and Beverly Cleary. As an adult I have had little problem finding pleasure in books written by/about women, recently "The Responsible Party" by Claire Carusillo.

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 8h

If you had the (dis)pleasure of seeing Barkan try to "debate" contemporary fascism/authoritarianism with @lioneltrolling.bsky.social you would've seen how Barkan is confident pulling stuff out of his nether regions and passing it off as analysis. This piece is of that ilk.

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 8h

Barkan is a goof. "Sticky biological reality?" Please. Barkan can't help but be a goof, but why is a publication commissioning such goofy shit.

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Over the last decade, there were two hypotheses: H1: the political right genuinely cared about threats to speech from the left. H2: they were using campus speech wars to impose their values and silence dissent. Today, the answer is clear, but I can't find any of the H1 people admitting their error.

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

A recent speaking/workshop trip made me feel very hopeful that we can not just maintain, but enhance the connections between students and effortful learning. It's all about community. biblioracle.substack.com/p/were-going...

biblioracle.substack.com

We’re Going to Win

Look inside for who we are and what winning means.

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Reposted by John Warner

Jane Rosenzweig @janerosenzweig.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Given my recent experiences, I've been asked a lot lately what I think about the importance of Writing Centers and writing in this AI moment. I was glad to have a chance to talk about all that and more with Judyth Sachs of @studiosity.com a few weeks ago.

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Reposted by John Warner

Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 10/10/2026

the latest anthropic cry abt "cruelty" & "abuse" of ai is truly stupid. i beg journalists to stop parroting amodei we wrote why dehumanisation of ai is impossible & 6+ yrs later, everything in this paper holds Robot Rights? Let’s Talk about Human Welfare Instead dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1...

Yet we disagree robots should be treated as ‘slaves’. In defense
of her position, Bryson states: “But surely dehumanization is only
wrong when it’s applied to someone who really is human?” Our
position would be that ‘dehumanization’ is not so much wrong
for robots, it is impossible. One cannot dehumanize something
that wasn’t human to begin with. If one uses the term slave, one
implicitly assumes that the being one so names is the kind of being
can be ‘dehumanized’. One has already implicitly ‘humanized’ the
robot, before subsequently enslaving it. One should obviously not
enslave someone first taken to be human.

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

But no one is clicking because this is all very boring to most people, so yes, invisible. There is no audience. Hate to disappoint.

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Unless people follow both of us, your replies are not visible in the feeds of people who follow me, so even if they see my post to you, yours is not visible unless they affirmatively click on my post to see what I'm replying to. For all practical purposes, you're invisible unless they click on me.

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Okay, I don't think you appreciate how this platform works, then. Third party readers will not see your replies to my posts in their feed unless they follow both of us, which is likely a rather small group. If they click on one of the posts, others will be revealed, but for the most part, this...

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

You know who does publicity aimed at reviewers well? @biblioasis.bsky.social. Per total number of books they published I've reviewed a hugely disproportionate amount because they try to speak to me like an individual human and it is very much appreciated. (And effective!)

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Relentlessly replying to someone directly, and then claiming that the feedback is not for that someone is bizarre.

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

...mom trusted the sales rep. She read Mohawk, hand sold it to the customers she had relationships with and next thing you know a new writer is off and running on a career that's been good for him and great for the broader reading public. The algorithm can't capture that. I'm begging publishers...

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

...hours talking about the books of that cycle. The sales rep had read the books. They knew what my mom had stocked and sold in the past. This is how my mom sold hundreds of copies of Richard Russo's first novel, Mohawk, in her very small store. Sales rep said there's this new guy outa Maine...

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I don't want to engage in empty nostalgia, but the book business used to run on relationships, and while there's real limits to that model, it isn't without its virtues. My mom owned a bookstore for 23 years. She interacted quarterly with publisher sales reps who literally sat down with her for

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

...nurturing in their publicity arms, rather than asking publicists to deploy AI for, whatever.... I've got space for, at most 40-50 books a year. The publicists that know and respect this have a much higher hit rate than the relatively generic copy that mostly populates my inbox.

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

...and with whom I can begin to form a kind of trust relationship, so if they say a book might be up my alley I believe them. These pitches are not generic, nor are they personalized in the way AI can do them. They are informed communications between people. This is what publishers should be...

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Now, if a clever publisher wants to use AI to make a profile of me that then allows them to zero-in in terms of targeting, that may be useful, but if they then send me AI materials, they're going to blow that advantage. Here's what works (on me), publicists who have taken the time to understand me..

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I don't really object to getting these pitches for books I'm never going to write about, but it's a waste of time for publishers to send them. If publishers use AI merely to send these pitches in greater volume or just more cheaply (because of automation) they've achieved little in terms of coverage

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

The sheer volume of these book pitches means I cannot pay attention to the vast majority of them. Sometimes a dozen pitches in a day will get deleted without even reading them. Other days I can at least glance at all of them. Probably 70% of the books I'm pitched have no shot based on what I cover.

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Well-sourced, eye-opening (but in hindsight, unsurprising) piece from Adam. The main use of AI by publishers appears to be publicity/marketing. I would like to explain why this is a bad use from the perspective of someone who gets pitched dozens of books a week for coverage.

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Another part is what we're discussing around time. What makes experiences meaningful is that they happen as part of a larger continuum of experiences a kind of accrual where experiences are not infinite, but limited, and therefore more meaningful than the experience devouring machine.

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I guess this isn't still meaningful to me. Part of this is that I cannot credit the simulation as compared to the genuine article. This is the same reason that I cannot use LLM feedback on my writing, even if it is arguably "good" advice. I know they do not "read" like a human and I write for people

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I got the reference. I'll take cinnamon rolls over a little cookie when it comes to memory generation any day.

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

But how could we feed it the sum of human experience when it cannot have a sensory experience of the world? This is the divide I can't get my brain to cross.

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Not for me, but you know different strokes...

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Yes, exactly. I don't even know how much I believe or don't believe about a "soul," per se, but I know that we experience some essence of ourselves as ourselves, and while the brain may be a processing place, it is the experiences of the body that make that processing rich and meaningful.

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

You haven't given any feedback. Lecturing with weird non-sequiturs that fail to address the actual substance and scope of a piece isn't feedback unless you're speaking in the "annoying screech" sense of the word.

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

That we have a sensory experience of the world and these experiences are encoded in some ways as "memories," just seems hugely consequential, and an enduringly meaningful distinction between humans and machines. I can send people back in time by saying "cinnamon rolls." That's unique.

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Read that piece again and tell me you think it's wholly serious. It's sincere for sure, but it's also primarily a work of entertainment. That it brings out the troll scolds of social media who want to tell me about my own mind is just a side benefit.

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

...about having to worry about the distinction between humans and machines, though. I'm reassured that I won't run into the machine civility cops when I swear at the lawnmower when it won't start, and act where I am genuinely frustrated and desire relief.

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Sometimes it's fun and it amuses me. Other times it's to generate a log for the technology developers that signals how users respond to their product. Other times it's to "correct" how the interface responds to me because the way it's working is unhelpful. I'm glad you've dropped the nonsense...

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I mostly don't use LLMs, and what you describe isn't "gymnastics" but a practice that is now largely in place. For the most part when I do use ChatGPT my profane corrections are for when it attempts unwanted and undesirable personalization. You're projecting.

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I can type all kinds of words with feeling the words I'm typing. Typing "I'm hungry" doesn't make me hungry. This is a pretty silly contention you're making. You're assuming I'm feeling things I'm not simply because of the choice of language. Bizarre.

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Reposted by John Warner

Adam Becker @adambecker.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Intelligence is not a universal solvent. It doesn't fix everything. The people pushing these ideas only believe this is true because they desperately want it to be true. They want the world to be much, much simpler than it actually is. But we live in a complicated world, and that's a good thing.

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

present where we have companies of great wealth and political influence believe we should grant more latitude and agency to machines than human beings - who are supposed to be sacrificed for the machines - suggests the moral/ethical esoterica can be stowed away for another time.

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

That fact they we do not, and likely never will, wholly "understand" human phenomenology and therefore we can't rule out that machines might achieve some version of that, to me, is less important that the fact that we are creatures and they are machines. Perhaps this makes me a monster, but in the

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

But I'm not angry when I type these things. I don't feel anything for a large language model one way or another. I'm using the language as safeguard against the user design of the interface that wants me to behave as though it is human, and therefore accept that it may have rights. It's a machine.

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