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Joy Brennan @joybrennan.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I havent felt this elated in a looooong time. Watching this is a balm. Please can more democrats just say true things about these people?

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Joy Brennan @joybrennan.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Collins isnt even doing that look down and fake laugh/shake your head in faux-disbelief thing. Thats how true it is.

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Joy Brennan @joybrennan.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Okay and I hope that when you are governor you take care to ensure that trans Ohioans, including kids and teens, can live with dignity too.

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David DeWitt @daviddewitt.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Commentary- The Ohio gas tax holiday is a last-ditch effort by Republicans to get Ohioans to forget why they face an affordability crisis, why gas prices are so high and who got us here by showering the rich with money and bringing pain to working families ohiocapitaljournal.com/2026/09/30/w...

ohiocapitaljournal.com

Commentary: Will gas tax gimmick make Ohioans forget why we are in this mess and who got us here? • Ohio Capital Journal

The Ohio gas tax holiday is a last-ditch effort by Ohio Republicans to get Ohioans to forget why they face an affordability crisis, why gas prices are so high, and who got us here with policies that…

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Joy Brennan @joybrennan.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

It's an unbelievably not good thing to do for lots of reasons, but this one really rises to the top.

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Erin Reed @erininthemorning.com · 24/09/2026

In the latest development among anti-trans wings of the Democratic Party, the Ohio Democratic Party is now deleting criticism from caucus members of Kaptur's anti-trans ad calling transgender people an "ideology." It appears any dissent over the ad is practically banned on caucus social media.

erininthemorning.com

The Ohio Democratic Party Is Silencing Its Pride Caucus Over Criticism Of Kaptur's "Transgender Ideology" Ad

The Ohio Democratic Party suppressed dissent from within its own Pride Caucus, activists said.

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Ohio Capital Journal @ohiocapitaljournal.com · 25/09/2026

Commentary: Forget about the disastrous war nobody wanted, or your wallet drained by crippling expenses. Instead, be afraid of a small, defenseless community politicians are scapegoating, and reject any candidate who dares acknowledge their humanity 🙄 ohiocapitaljournal.com/2026/09/24/p...

ohiocapitaljournal.com

Commentary: Politicians continue campaign of dehumanizing trans people as affordability crisis crushes families • Ohio Capital Journal

Forget about the disastrous war nobody wanted, or your wallet drained by crippling expenses. Instead, be afraid of a small, defenseless community the GOP has scapegoated and reject as extremist any…

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Joy Brennan @joybrennan.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

You should write the next great academic novel, based on this premise...

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Ohio Citizen Action @ohiocitizen.org · 15/09/2026

New book examines how Ohio's redistricting commission drew maps behind closed doors, maps the state Supreme Court rejected multiple times before they took effect anyway. Author traces how it connects to a wider national push to redraw districts. bit.ly/4d5MLJJ

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Joy Brennan @joybrennan.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Also, as I'm sure @amyactonoh.bsky.social's ppl have noticed, taking the bait and ceding ground doesn't help you win. They are still casting you as a "trans-loving commie." That's what they're gonna do. So why cede ground?

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Joy Brennan @joybrennan.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

I want to loop @amyactonoh.bsky.social's ppl into this. Acton took the bait on the MAGA culture war against trans ppl. Why? It makes Dems lose ground on the issues that affect ppl. This is how you dont take the bait. Call them out on it: can't defend their own record, so they raise divisive stuff.

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Joy Brennan @joybrennan.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

I'm in this club. To lie there and try to fall back asleep or to get up and read till ready to go back to sleep? The eternal question. I did, though, discover a supplement called L-Theanine that actually keeps me asleep through the night about 75% of the time I take it. (Melatonin did nothing.)

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Brendan Cantwell @cantb.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

In the reconstruction papers, I grabbed with how to improve affordability and control costs without crushing universities. What Third Way wants to do in is to impove affordability and control costs but is ok with crusing universities. www.liberalcurrents.com/the-reconstr...

liberalcurrents.com

The Reconstruction Papers

The Reconstruction Papers is ready to order in the US. US Readers Order Here For nearly a century, the conservative movement's white whale was the government the New Deal and the Great So...

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Joy Brennan @joybrennan.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

I say this as an Ohioan with a basic moral compass: DeWine is not a complete shithead. It's a faint silver lining.

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Evan Thompson @evanthompson.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

"Evan Thompson has written that very rare book that subjects scientific claims about life and death to the critical scrutiny of human experience itself.... A must-read as a thinking person's meditation on a mortal life with hope." -- Allan Kellehear cup.columbia.edu/book/when-de...

cup.columbia.edu

When Death Comes | Columbia University Press

We have never known more about the biology of death, but we have never been more removed from the experience of dying. Science on its own cannot illuminate t... | CUP

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Mark Z. Jacobson @mzjacobson.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

World's largest battery-electric aircraft ever flown (30 seats) completes first flight "over upstate New York in 27 minutes, reaching an altitude of 1,100 feet and using just $5 worth of electricity" www.travelpulse.com/news/airline...

travelpulse.com

World's Largest Electric Aircraft Completes First Flight

Heart Aerospace has successfully completed the first flight of its X1 electric aircraft, advancing the development of the ES-30 hybrid-electric regional airliner amid rising jet fuel costs.

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Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

The perfect MAGA "self-made man." Mom helped him lie to investors about a drug, giving patients false hope. He cashed out for $260m, and then the stock dropped like a rock. One teacher's union retirement fund lost $1 million. Dude made his fortune on the backs of Alzheimer patients and teachers.

oligarchwatch.substack.com

How Vivek Ramaswamy’s mom manipulated Alzheimer’s data and made her son rich

Vivek Ramaswamy, a billionaire and the Republican nominee in Ohio’s gubernatorial race, served as the frontman for a dubious pharmaceutical company and then cashed out weeks before its dramatic crash.

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Joy Brennan @joybrennan.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

My course designs are largely same as this. I am fortunate that my classes are small. I tell them they can bring the book/printed reading to their in-room essay writing, & that any notes written in the margins (or, yes, the inside cover of a book) are fine, but no other notes. No one has complained.

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Joy Brennan @joybrennan.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

What would you say is the reason?

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Joy Brennan @joybrennan.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

I think you quoted part of this in the Mysterianism paper! I had to look the guy up after that. Very cool.

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Joy Brennan @joybrennan.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Well I hope for you that you can make it back to your niche nonsense and calmness!

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Joy Brennan @joybrennan.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Me too I just love your work! I am not anything like an expert, or even 1/4 of one, in your field, but I can follow along well enough and am so glad you and your co-authors are going to bat like this, willing to do the work to make these arguments, and take them public. So important.

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Joy Brennan @joybrennan.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

To myself I call it "the monkey hierarchy". It just looks to me males primates trying to be the dominant one. If it wasn't infuriating because there are actual stakes when we are talking about ideas, I would find it really hilarious to watch.

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Joy Brennan @joybrennan.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

It is skin-crawling. It is evidence of how deep into some hierarchical structure --and corresponding commitment to actually not thinking! -- some people are.

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Joy Brennan @joybrennan.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Once I get over being astonished, I am frightened. It is like just giving away, for free, to very scary people, the most precious part of our lives.

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Joy Brennan @joybrennan.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

I was stunned the first time it happened, because I seriously believed that no one who wants to be a thinker would ever make bald appeal to authority/stardom like that. I find it embarrassing, like I was embarrassed for them. But it kept happening, hahaha. I got used to it. Endemic in philosophy.

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Joy Brennan @joybrennan.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

I really resonate with this thread. My education involved some male professors telling me, in various ways, "but you cannot criticize what he [some academic with a fancy job] wrote, because he is very important!"

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Joy Brennan @joybrennan.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

HA! This made me laugh. When a colleague new to my college (which is small & on a rural hilltop) learned that there is some conflict in our department, they said to me "wow, I'm surprised that in a small place like that there's that kind of fighting." I wanted to say "buddy, we got humans here!"

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Joy Brennan @joybrennan.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

And now, I mostly love my job, but certain things have sucked hard. When they do, I remember those 3 years and think to myself: this is still better than that. And if at some point this is not better than that anymore, maybe that'll mean it's time to go get another job. And that will be okay.

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Joy Brennan @joybrennan.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Sitting at that desk, I applied for grad schools and made a strong commitment than whenever terrible sh*t happened in grad school (which it did!), I would conjure up a vision of that desk and wall and then persevere. And I did it.

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Joy Brennan @joybrennan.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

I spent three years working between undergrad and grad school. One of those jobs was so dispiriting that I decided the vision of my desk and the wall in front of me at that job would serve as the "mental shrine" that would get me through grad school.

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Joy Brennan @joybrennan.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

In the future I want an academic discipline, and maybe also a religion, devoted to understanding and correcting whatever delusion we've sustained that allows so many to believe that because a computer program can churn out some complex prose, it must have cognition, subjectivity, & agency.

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Joy Brennan @joybrennan.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

And more importantly, if the companies convince powerful people (the billionaires, the electeds, the heads of other companies) that AI is intelligent, an agent, etc., then they will so inundate us with LLM produced language that it will be hard to choose to read something else.

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Joy Brennan @joybrennan.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Yes, that could happen. And if it does, I think one piece of the system that made it happen is the AI companies convincing regular people that AI is intelligent and thus worth reading.

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Joy Brennan @joybrennan.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Joy Brennan @joybrennan.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

I do though feel impressed in a disgusted way that humans thought this was a good idea and, crucially, received enough capital investment to go ahead with it (and disgusted that I live in a society that not only allows this, but encourages it).

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Joy Brennan @joybrennan.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

As for me, I do not feel awed or impressed by the technology. I have read plenty about how it has been designed so I do not feel mystified or amazed about how the words get put together.

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Joy Brennan @joybrennan.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

But these are political and economic decisions humans are making. They depend on us the reading audience having a desire to read LLM output, which would be advanced if we think it is "thinking" and "desiring" and otherwise being agentic. Hence the hype.

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Joy Brennan @joybrennan.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

And a point about language: an LLM cannot "take your job". But your boss could fire you and turn your job over to an LLM. Of course then they'd need a human to prompt it, probably one to tailor the outcome to some specifications, etc. But they can probably pay them less.

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Joy Brennan @joybrennan.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

But not the machine it makes because that is a contingent, human-made form of the matter, and if it is doing harm (there is lots of evidence that it is) then we should not make it, and indeed un-make it.

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Joy Brennan @joybrennan.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

I could imagine someone from within this tradition arguing the literal matter that data centers are made from should be included in our moral concern.

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