iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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geoffrey 💀 (scary now) @parsnip.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

there are moral arguments against the death penalty in its ideal form but in real life you never need to get there. the prior question is "can the state be trusted to end the life only of the rightly convicted without torture?" and the answer is no

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Andrea Grimes @andreagrimes.com · 29/09/2026

i am such a broken record on this but it's a good thing to - know how to write your own emails - know how to find food you can make/eat - discover travel destinations - communicate directly w/your health care providers without just capitulating to whatever "AI" says/does

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Kai Cheng Thom @razorfemme.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

Simply amazing that there are deadly heat waves all over the world and climate scientists predict that future summers will get progressively hotter, killing vast untold numbers of people, but there are still people who believe that trans people are the biggest contemporary threat to humanity

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John Grey @jrtgrey.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

Watching an old interview between Alan Moore and Stewart Lee to celebrate the occasion.

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Lydia Moland @lydiamoland.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

I posted this a year ago to honor Melissa Hortman, who was murdered #OTD last year for her political principles. Like her, I was a #BostonUniversity #philosophy grad from Minnesota. I hope, like her, to use my philosophy to fight for justice. Thinking of her all day. #philsky #womeninphilosophy

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Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 22/03/2026

I have refrained from commenting on genAI as a scholarly transcription/translation tool because (1) it raises a different, if overlapping, set of issues than genAI as a classroom tool and (2) I’ve heard good things from credible judges. But this seems like a serious problem, hallucination and more

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Ellen Clarke @ellenclarke.bsky.social · 10/02/2026

Hear Carrie Figdor interviewing me about my book here open.spotify.com/episode/7drX...

open.spotify.com

Ellen Clarke, "The Units of Life: Kinds of Individual in Biology" (Oxford UP, 2025)

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Sean Carroll @seanmcarroll.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

Hey, my name is in the Epstein files! I've told the story before, but should probably re-up. TLDR: never met the guy, never took (or asked for) any money from him, never visited the island. I was invited to the island, and said no. It's not that hard to just say no.

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Tobias Wilson-Bates @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social · 08/02/2026

Being a professor is like Picture of Dorian Gray except it’s the students who stay young and full of life while you decay year after year in front of them

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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

There is a case to be made that any board of a university that signed an agreement that required paying a fee has breached their fiduciary duty and I think somebody should explore it

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Julia Jorati @juliajorati.bsky.social · 19/01/2026

Important update about the JHP Summer Seminar: advanced graduate students are also eligible to apply, as are recent PhDs working in early modern philosophy! Please spread the word. Application deadline: February 1st; more information: jhp.wisc.edu/summersemina... #philsky #earlymodern #academicsky

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Boston Review @bostonreview.bsky.social · 30/12/2025

Including @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social on Ezra Klein, living together, and the problem with “reading lines from the script of a fascist movement eroding basic democratic freedoms and aiming to subordinate whichever large swaths of the country are not simply removed outright”:

bostonreview.net

How Can We Live Together? - Boston Review

Ezra Klein is wrong: shame is essential.

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Rob Sheridan @rob-sheridan.com · 23/12/2025

For your holiday ambiance, I've made a hypnotic yule log fireplace with ultra slow motion macro footage of flames stretching & warping like liquid as fire reacts with calcium chloride & barium. This is real fire I filmed, not CGI or AI. 10hrs, 4K, crackling sounds, no music, no ads. Happy holidays!

youtu.be

10 Hours Hypnotic Fireplace Ambiance – 4K Macro Slow-Motion Color Flames, Crackling Fire (No Music)

YouTube video by Rob Sheridan

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John Grey @jrtgrey.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

Would honestly love it if that's where the overton shifts

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John Stuart Thrill @jsthrill.modphi.com · 02/12/2025

The earliest reference to the 1000 to 1 word picture exchange rate I could find is from Locke’s essay:

outward sructure
21. Now these leading qualities are best made known by showing, and can hardly be made known otherwise. For the shape of a horse or cassowary will be but rudely and imperfectly imprinted on the mind by words; the sight of the animals doth it a thousand times better; and the idea of the particular colour of gold is not to be got by any description of it, but only by the frequent excercise of the eyes about it, as is evident in those who are used to this metal, who will fre-

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Mel Andrews @bayesianboy.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

Discourse surrounding “AI” these days often feels like a guy showing you his shovel and you say, “that’s a nice shovel” and he says “I am going to perform surgery on my mother with this shovel” and you say “Oh God please don’t that is not what a shovel is for.”

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John Grey @jrtgrey.bsky.social · 18/10/2025

This is an insane set of edits

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Alasdair Craig @alasdaircraig.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

John Heil on why talk of "emergence" by scientists and philosophers is unhelpful – iai.tv/articles/eme... #philsky #philsci #physics #biology #philmind

iai.tv

Emergence explains nothing and is bad science | John Heil

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John Grey @jrtgrey.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury Signifying nothing.

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Rafe Meager (they/them) @economeager.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

A case study in how Cowen's uncritical use of GPT/o3 is causing him to spread misinformation on Marginal Revolution, from @pappubahry.com pappubahry.substack.com/p/misinforma...

pappubahry.substack.com

Misinformation on Marginal Revolution

A case study in o3 hallucination

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Raywat Deonandan 🍁🇨🇦 @deonandan.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

I love looking at this graph, showing it to my students, and sharing it on social media, even though it unerringly brings out the trolls. This is the efficacy curve of Pfizer's mRNA COVID vaccine. This, people, is what ended the emergency phase of the COVID pandemic. Despite what RFK Jr says.

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John Grey @jrtgrey.bsky.social · 29/08/2025

We are always just one generation away from losing everything we know, if we don't work to retain that knowledge.

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Dr. Damien P. Williams, dread portent down from a mountain cave @wolven.blacksky.app · 03/03/2025

You have more in common with every unhoused person, every undocumented immigrant, every trans or otherwise LGBTQ person, every disabled person, every person in any marginalized minoritized ethnicity, than you do with even one single billionaire.

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Extending New Narratives @ennhistphil.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

🚨 New journal alert! 🚨 We hear it's a great one 😉 And there's an open CFP for the next volume: journal.lib.uoguelph.ca/index.php/nn...

journal.lib.uoguelph.ca

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John Grey @jrtgrey.bsky.social · 07/08/2025

But does it have a negation operator, though

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The City Reporter @thecityreporter.nyc · 27/07/2025

If you’re looking to update your U.S. passport to accurately reflect your gender, the window may soon be closing. For many, an accurate passport is more than just a confirmation of identity, it’s necessary to travel safely.

buff.ly

How Trans People Can Update Their Passports — And Why to Do It Now

With a federal ban on passport gender marker changes currently blocked, THE CITY spoke with legal experts in NYC about how trans, nonbinary and intersex people can file these updates.

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Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

PARIS (AP) — French President Macron announces that France will recognize Palestine as a state.

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Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

syllabus time, teaming up for the herculean efforts of reinventing writing assignments. here, some prompts for required weekly low stakes 250-500 word reflections/ process pieces that have proven relatively conducive to real writing in lit class. please share any similar suggestions in thread.

Describe something you learned from lecture this week that you didn’t know just from doing the readings.

Connect something you learned in 209 this week to something you are learning in another of your classes this semester.

If Monday and Wednesday assigned readings were from two different texts, make connections between the two. Do they share themes? Forms? Tone? Historical context? Do you find them equally interesting?

Look at the very first paragraph of one of our texts and discuss how the opening lays the groundwork for the rest of the work. Quote specific lines, phrases, or images.

Using quotes from a text, persuade someone (friend or foe, your grandma or your senator) to change their mind about something important.

Compose a 5 song playlist to accompany an assigned reading from this week, and write a few sentences for each song, explaining your choices.

Describe an idea you had in response to the readings/lecture/discussions for our class this week- any idea, about literature, or the world, or yourself. How might you pursue this idea, in your studies or elsewhere?

Choose a passage (no more than 10 lines) from the readings this week and rewrite it, changing at least one of the literary aspects such as: person (change from first to third-person or vice versa), tense (change from past to present etc), focalizing character (i.e. write it from a different character's perspective), style (adjectives, diction, description, tone). Then write 2-3 sentences about the effect of your changes.

Compose a yelp review to strangers, or a letter to a specific person, or a booktok style video, recommending a novel/poem/play from this week’s reading.

Write a letter to someone who has questioned your choice of majoring or minoring in English, explaining why you value what you’re learning. Include quotes / ideas from this week’s readings.

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Tobias Wilson-Bates @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social · 17/07/2025

Not the point of this fascinating article, but it remains darkly ironic to me that the Humanities have fallen backwards into being the safe financial bet of degrees

According to an analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, graduates in computer science, computer engineering and graphic design all have unemployment rates at 7% or greater; young workers who hold a number of much-maligned humanities degrees—including English, history and philosophy—are all more hirable.

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Carolyn Dicey Jennings @cdj.bsky.social · 17/07/2025

“Academic Philosophy Data and Analysis (philosophydata.org), a long running project that collects and analyzes data on graduate experience and employment outcomes for philosophy PhDs, is seeking to expand its leadership…from 1 to 3 directors” Please share! #philsky apda.ghost.io/call-for-dir...

apda.ghost.io

Call for Directors

Academic Philosophy Data and Analysis, a long running project that collects and analyzes data on graduate experience and employment outcomes for philosophy PhDs, is seeking to expand its leadership. W...

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John Grey @jrtgrey.bsky.social · 16/07/2025

This is often the source of confusion in metaphysics classes, where 'object' is intended to be an umbrella term for any persistent entity (or sometimes even just something that can be picked out in thought!). But 'objectification' as a concept is pretty ingrained at this point.

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Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 11/07/2025

When this ends there will be calls not to prosecute people who broke the law while following orders and there will be calls not to impose social or professional, much less legal, sanctions on officeholders who stood by, for unity’s sake. It will be important to ignore them; heeding them got us here.

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John Grey @jrtgrey.bsky.social · 11/07/2025

This seems like an important data point, since all of the recent philosophical approaches to the hard problem I've read have been based on the predictive processing account of the contents of experience.

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Alisa Bokulich @alisabokulich.bsky.social · 10/07/2025

Apply for a Radcliffe Fellowship! Applications in humanities, social sciences, & creative arts are due Sept 11, 2025 Applications in science, engineering, & math due Sept 30, 2025 www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/radcliffe-fe... (I hear they'd especially welcome projects related to climate change) #HPS ⚒️

content.radcliffe.harvard.edu

Harvard Radcliffe Institute Online Fellowship Application Portal - How to Apply

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Mel Andrews @bayesianboy.bsky.social · 04/07/2025

Spotify has begun to funnel its revenue towards “AI powered” weapons tech. If you do not want to be bankrolling that, consider quitting the platform. There are plenty of good alternatives out there (like CDs).

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John Grey @jrtgrey.bsky.social · 01/07/2025

Revisiting Voltaire's Lettres Philosophiques, finding it grounding. Also, more perversely, some dystopian sci fi that hits too close to home (Hum, by Helen Phillips). Also also traveling outside of the US--I feel less like im in the video for Radiohead's No Surprises when im not at home.

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Tobias Wilson-Bates @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social · 30/06/2025

Descartes gave us all the tools we need to survive in an era of misinformation. Simply begin with the understanding that you are real but everything else is fairly likely to be the cruel games of a demon sent to torment you specifically.

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 25/06/2025

A few months ago, Nature published how-to guide for using ChatGPT to write your peer reviews in 30 minutes. This is, of course, a horrible idea. Here’s my response with @jbakcoleman.bsky.social .

nature.com

AI, peer review and the human activity of science

When researchers cede their scientific judgement to machines, we lose something important.

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Helen De Cruz @helendecruz.net · 20/06/2025

Dear all, Helen passed away at 13:21 local time. Helen would not have wanted us to be sad for a long time. All they wanted was to be remembered. They looked forward to being rid of pain and to being at rest. Helen took great comfort in you, their friends and readers. pt. 1/2

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Jonathan Cohn @jonathancohn.bsky.social · 20/06/2025

Democratic voters, 18-39 Biggest gap between young Dems' prioritization of an issue and their belief that the party is also prioritizing it: Limiting money in politics: +18 Paid family leave: +18 Affordable child care: +17 Higher taxes on the rich: +17 Universal health care: +15

Younger Democrats see wider disconnect

What Democrats care about compared to what they think party leaders prioritize
A range chart showing the difference between personal priorities and perceived party priorities among Democrats
18 through 39
40%50%60%70%80%90%
Universal healthcare
81%
66%
Affordable childcare
80%
63%
Higher taxes on the rich
79%
62%
Lower Medicare drug prices
74%
61%
Legalize abortion nationwide
73%
70%
Gun control
73%
62%
Paid family leave
73%
55%
Higher minimum wage
71%
59%
Visas for unauthorized immigrants
70%
56%
Limit money in politics
62%
44%

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Robin Z @firepile.bsky.social · 17/06/2025

From organiser Georgi Gardiner on FB: "Next week people will gather online to celebrate the philosophical artworks of Helen De Cruz. (@helendecruz.net) Tuesday, June 24th, 2025 11am - 12.20pm Central US Time (i.e. 5pm BST) on Zoom All welcome! No background knowledge required."

georgigardiner.com

Georgi Gardiner - Helen

Helen De Cruz is a trailblazer for creative, avant-garde approaches to thinking in community with others. This event celebrates her work. On Zoom: https://tulane.zoom.us/j/6185944474 Tues June 24t...

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Helen De Cruz @helendecruz.net · 07/03/2025

Our qualitative study with natural scientists on ultimate reality has been published. We look at the influence of religious background and disciplinary field, as well as inspiration from humanities. Care for the planet an enduring concern. Read it open access here! Thank you to participants

cambridge.org

The restaurant at the beginning of the universe: Natural scientists on ultimate reality, science, and religion | Religious Studies | Cambridge Core

The restaurant at the beginning of the universe: Natural scientists on ultimate reality, science, and religion

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Kathleen Bachynski @bachynski.bsky.social · 13/05/2025

“I’ve asked a colleague to share some of the images from NoRI with The Times. Maybe if people see them, they will understand why I want to get back to work. Until now, no one outside our lab has seen these images…that we hope will provide greater understanding of how organs age and diseases develop”

nytimes.com

Opinion | The Science I Would Be Doing if I Weren’t in ICE Detention

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John Grey @jrtgrey.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

Spent today teaching the history of the debate about spacetime substantivalism, leibniz vs. newton, etc. Seeing students get excited about stuff like that reminds me that the people fighting against public education are on the losing side.

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