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Jenny Judge

@jennyjudge.bsky.social
785 followers 341 following 210 posts

I write about music and mind. Lecturer (i.e. asst prof) in philosophy at the Uni of Melbourne. Formerly NYU Philosophy (PhD) and Cambridge (music PhD). 🇮🇪

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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Every longish post I read these days, I immediately wonder, 'is this AI generated'. As I read, I'm watching out for the telltale signs; and I'm also thinking, well if this IS slop I don't want to engage. So now there's a weird screen of distrust between me and what might be genuine stuff. Depressing
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
The actual news, ladies and gentlemen
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Nick Fleisher @nickfleisher.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
Canvas, the Strait of Hormuz for American education
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
Teaching has ground to a halt at my Uni & many others bc of the Canvas hack. It's making me think about the extent to which pretty much every large institution I can think of is reliant on US companies like Google and Microsoft for their digital infrastructure. I mean, maybe that's... not great?
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
The world of Scruton homage is so unbelievably strange. (Exhibit A in this world is of course Scrutopia, the summer school he founded, which still runs in his honour. Yes that is its actual name)
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
I reckon we could already be doing this. Each of us prices our intelligence according to how smart we have shown ourselves to be, and charges by the hour. So like, $500 would get you half an hour with someone like Thomas Nagel, or, three years with Sam Altman
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
Looking forward to giving this talk today, about Athanasius Kircher's two-volume doorstopper 'Musurgia Universalis' (1650). I had so much fun researching Kircher: one of the strangest blokes ever to write about music (and that's saying something) www.eventbrite.com.au/e/spotlight-...
eventbrite.com.au
Spotlight On: Music, science and flights of fancy in Musurgia Universalis
Athanasius Kircher is probably the most prolific polymath you’ve never heard of.
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
I always get so sad when I see pictures of the old Penn Station, in NYC. (R: the waiting room.) How they could bring themselves to demolish this so they could construct a seething underground hellhole is just beyond me
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
Good morning to everyone apart from the person that drove past my apartment at 4:30am blasting 'Who Do You Think You Are' by the Spice Girls
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 08/01/2026
TIL that Rick Rubin, record producer for basically every huge act since the 90s, started off as a philosophy major at NYU. I guess some decent alt/ac careers are possible then 🙃 www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/bro...
pushkin.fm
RZA Talks Wu-Tang and Creativity In Quarantine | Broken Record
Rick Rubin checks in with RZA on Zoom and finds out he's been peaking creatively while in quarantine.
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 07/11/2025
MY TICKET SAYS I CAN TAKE THE BUS www.rte.ie/news/courts/...
rte.ie
Man drove stolen bus to Dublin because other one was full
A young man stole a Bus Éireann vehicle in Co Donegal and drove it to Dublin after being told another bus was full.
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 31/10/2025
Re the Andrew Formerly Known as Prince: I'm sure I'm not the first to think of Sue Townsend's 'The Queen and I', in which the royal family have been deposed and are living in a council estate. Hopefully King Chaz is reading this for inspo @backlisted.bsky.social en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Que...
en.wikipedia.org
The Queen and I (novel) - Wikipedia
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
This is a great (open-access) paper, cataloguing the utterly staggering amount of unwaged labour that generative AI -- and recommender systems before them -- rely upon to function. It's not just copyright-holders that gen AI violates, it is literally all of us link.springer.com/article/10.1...
link.springer.com
The unwitting labourer: extracting humanness in AI training - AI & SOCIETY
Many modern digital products use Machine Learning (ML) to emulate human abilities, knowledge, and intellect. In order to achieve this goal, ML systems need the greatest possible quantity of training d...
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 26/10/2025
Also, name me one other president who released a spoken word poetry album in his last few weeks in office. I'll wait
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 26/10/2025
What a legend. Tiny Wizard Presidents are clearly the best presidents www.independent.ie/irish-news/m...
independent.ie
Michael D Higgins gives some €2m back to State from his salary
President Michael D Higgins and his wife Sabina won’t be under pressure to have their last bags packed today for the journey home to Galway from the Phoenix Park.
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 20/10/2025
Louvre: The thieves were highly organised and professional, we couldn't possibly have detected them, i mean they were basically ninjas Also the Louvre: They used an angle grinder and power tools to bust in the window of the gallery. Also it was broad daylight www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...
theguardian.com
Louvre heist: hunt on for thieves after eight ‘priceless’ jewellery pieces stolen
Necklace given by Napoleon to his wife among items taken from Paris museum in highly professional daylight raid
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 13/10/2025
i've got quite a few unsolicited emails lately from strangers claiming to have developed conscious AI. i'm like: 1. 👍? 2. surely if you really had developed conscious AI, there would be far more lucrative things you could be doing than emailing me, a random philosophy lecturer in australia
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 13/10/2025
me, spending like 4 hrs tweaking a paper to fit a journal's idiosyncratic formatting requirements when it'll prob get desk rejected anyway 💃
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 08/10/2025
How rude... (Actually interesting tho. Apparently much of our contemporary hell-related imagery comes originally from 12th c. Irish knight who, upon falling into a drunken stupor after a massive bender in Cork, had a vision of hell that he later related to others) www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2...
rte.ie
Does the road to hell begin in Cork?
How one man's drink-induced unconscious trip in 12th century Cork reshaped how the Western world imagines eternal damnation
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 03/10/2025
All-time GOAT bass baritone Paul Robeson, politely explaining to the HUAC why he refuses to leave America for good. Suspect that many in the US feel like this now
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 08/09/2025
I'm rewatching The Sopranos. Really struck by how you hear Tony breathing through his nose so much. It gives you an immediate, uncomfortable sense of his physicality, & how intimidating he is. They must have had to mic that specially, it wouldn't have come across on boom mics. It's brilliant
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 23/08/2025
Reading Plato's Republic, realising that even Socrates swore on occasion. So, am now trying to figure out appropriate circumstances to say things like 'By the dog of Egypt' and 'By the goose'
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 19/08/2025
Oscar Wilde knew what he was talking about, when it came to pleasure (from 'The Picture of Dorian Grey')
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 14/08/2025
Folks, take approx 30 seconds to fill this in. The Irish Basic Income for the Arts scheme is a trailblazing initiative that might well die a death if we don't come out in support of it.
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
Tell me you've just started an Iris Murdoch novel without telling me you've just started an Iris Murdoch novel @backlisted.bsky.social
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 29/07/2025
Useful article which tells you (among other things) how to transfer your playlists from Spotify. www.theguardian.com/music/2025/j...
theguardian.com
Four alternatives to Spotify: swapping is easier than you think
Artists and listeners are leaving the platform after its CEO invested in defence technology. Here are your options – along with how to keep your playlists
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
I reckon army recruitment would be a lot easier if they still allowed soldiers to dress like Maurice Ravel did, when he was in the French army in 1916
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
Just met a deadline and it feels GOOD. I love writing in the same way that I love running: it feels really great when you stop
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
Panel proposal: 'What is it like to be a bat on-stage with Ozzy Osbourne?' RIP to the Prince of Darkness www.theguardian.com/music/2025/j...
theguardian.com
Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath frontman and icon of British heavy metal, dies aged 76
The singer, who later became famous on reality TV show The Osbournes, dies less than three weeks after retirement concert
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 22/07/2025
V satisfying when composers indicate the time signature like this. IT'S IN 4 YOU IDIOTS
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Patrick Freyne @patrickfreyne.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
Someone thinking stuff through and expressing themselves honestly if clumsily is so much more useful, worthwhile and insightful than fluent banalities from the digital void.
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 15/05/2025
Reading (and v much enjoying) @ksetiya.bsky.social's Midlife. I never knew that JS Mill's wife Harriet was so centrally involved in his intellectual life, and that they had such a wonderful marriage
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 29/04/2025
Reading Michael Tanner on sentimentality and art, and having a great old time. Here he is on Winterreise, and on the dubious nature of the poems that Schubert sets, which he refers to as 'Müller's indistinguishable dollops of goo' #philsky
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 14/04/2025
I was interviewed by staff at my university about my research, and what brought me to philosophy in the first place. Fun! blogs.unimelb.edu.au/shaps-resear...
blogs.unimelb.edu.au
Introducing Dr Jenny Judge, Lecturer in Philosophy of Mind and Cognitive Science | Forum
In 2023 we were thrilled to welcome Dr Jenny Judge as newly appointed Lecturer in Philosophy of Mind and Cognitive Science. Dr Judge holds a PhD in Philosophy
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 27/03/2025
V interesting piece about the 'crusader aesthetic' adopted by the far right in the last ten years: the medieval religious symbols used, the overall attitude expressed, and what Hegseth in particular is saying through his tattoos. newlinesmag.com/essays/pete-...
newlinesmag.com
Pete Hegseth’s Tattoos and the Crusading Obsession of the Far Right
The symbols sported by Trump’s defense pick reveal how the medieval past is being reimagined by Christian nationalists, behind a shield of plausible deniability
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 25/03/2025
'Infinite Reality said it would create virtual 3D spaces that will allow fans to attend concerts' I'm all for creating platforms that help artists. but hollowing out the live musical experience even more than it is currently is? just... please don't www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
theguardian.com
Napster, now a streaming service, sells for $207m to Infinite Reality
Tech startup says it bought company once linked to music piracy to transform it into a social music platform for artists
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 04/03/2025
First Phil Mind lecture today. Plan is to get the students thinking about how *weird* the human mind is, and how many mental capacities there are. We'll discuss (inter alia) this passage from Joan Didion, about the urge to write stuff down, and the inevitable drift toward self-obsession
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
Enjoying imagining how Sam Altman is feeling this week. He's like, 'Ohh, so when other people use your stuff and make bank off it, and don't pay you or acknowledge you, and also undermine your ability to make profit yourself, it feels... bad??' gizmodo.com/openai-claim...
gizmodo.com
OpenAI Claims DeepSeek Plagiarized Its Plagiarism Machine
The White House's AI Czar said that DeepSeek 'sucked out the knowledge' of ChatGPT.
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
Thinking about doing a unit on personal identity for my Phil Mind class this semester. I usually set one paper over two lectures, so it has to be meaty enough to warrant that while also being fun for undergrads. Parfit's 'Personal Identity' an obvious thought, but any other suggestions?
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 19/01/2025
Gutted to have finished this. Sentences so perfect I almost wept for envy at not having written them myself. (JB sometimes lets prose get in the way of action, but not here.) Told from POV of art historian / double agent based partly on Louis MacNeice. I'd love to see @backlisted.bsky.social do this
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 16/01/2025
Baffled by this image on a Melbourne medical surgery's website. The salad bowl appears to be... levitating? Odd for them to use AI for this, given that the internet already abounds with 'women laughing alone with salad' pics
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 10/01/2025
My process for writing papers: 1. Make a distinction 2. Spend several days making like 11 sub-distinctions in carefully crafted prose 3. Realise that I'm circling a drain 4. Cut it all out and paste into a doc called 'cut out bits', so I can put it back in later 5. Never open 'cut out bits' again
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 07/01/2025
I'm polling philosophy people on Twitter (no poll function here) re how many papers they're actively working on at any one time (i.e. working toward an outline, drafting, editing). 1/3 of respondents are saying '4 or more'. That seems nuts to me... what do people on here think? #philsky
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liz pelly @lizpelly.bsky.social · 06/01/2025
my book is out tomorrow! here's an interview with rolling stone about it www.rollingstone.com/music/music-...
rollingstone.com
'It's About How Power Works': Author Liz Pelly on Her New Spotify Book, 'Mood Machine'
Author Liz Pelly on her Spotify book, 'Mood Machine,' which critiques the practices and cultural effects of the streaming giant
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 06/01/2025
Loved this interview with @jonathancoe.bsky.social. Topics discussed include the weird connection between cosy crime and Englishness, 'dark academia' (which I didn't know was a thing), BS Johnson as the father of autofiction... all manner of good things really www.spectator.co.uk/podcast/the-...
spectator.co.uk
The Book Club: Jonathan Coe
In this week’s Book Club podcast, my guest is Jonathan Coe, talking about cosy crime, the tug of nostalgia, the joys of satire, and his brilliant new novel, The Proof of My Innocence.
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 22/12/2024
Weird framing (who really thinks that the main problem with AI is that it's making everything 'boring'?) but decent piece: Black applicants are 80% more likely to be denied a loan by an automated system than white applicants with similar financial backgrounds. www.theatlantic.com/culture/arch...
theatlantic.com
The Technology That Actually Runs Our World
The most dominant algorithms aren’t the ones choosing what songs Spotify serves you.
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
Veteran Irish folk singer Mary Coughlan says one of her songs had a million streams on Spotify last year, and: 'I got 29 Euro and [the songwriter] got 35.' www.rte.ie/news/primeti...
rte.ie
'Never been harder': Artists warn of live music industry crisis
Large stadium concerts where artists like Taylor Swift and Oasis command high prices for tickets are having a detrimental effect on smaller live venues, according to music industry insiders.
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 06/12/2024
By 2028, AI-generated music will account for 20% of streaming platforms’ revenues & 60% of music libraries’ revenues. AI developers stand to gain €4bn via unlicensed reproduction of existing music, with no compensation for musicians. Policymakers, wake up www.theguardian.com/music/2024/d...
theguardian.com
Music sector workers to lose nearly a quarter of income to AI in next four years, global study finds
AI boom will enrich giant tech companies but creators’ rights and income will be drastically reduced unless policymakers intervene, report warns
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 29/11/2024
Music people: Does anyone know of good books / articles / etc about ECM (the record label)? I'd love to read someone talk about the difference between jazz as conceived by ECM vs as conceived by Blue Note, say. (Seems to me there's a v real difference here, but it's elusive...)
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Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
Aesthetics people: I'm looking for things to read about the development of taste, i.e. the capacity for aesthetic appreciation. Not stuff about the judgment of taste: I'm specifically interested in reading about what it is to *develop* one's taste, and how one goes about it. Reposts welcome!
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