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The wisdom of Bertie Wooster — whose intellectual acumen has finally been justly acknowledged.
At the type of place where I taught until recently—a small, selective, private liberal-arts college—administrators can go quite far in limiting AI use, if they have the guts to do so. They should commit to a ruthless de-teching not just of classrooms but of their entire institution. Get rid of Wi-Fi and return to Ethernet, which would allow schools greater control over where and when students use digital technologies. To that end, smartphones and laptops should also be banned on campus. If students want to type notes in class or papers in the library, they can use digital typewriters, which have word processing but nothing else. Work and research requiring students to use the internet or a computer can take place in designated labs. This lab-based computer work can and should include learning to use AI, a technology that is likely here to stay and about which ignorance represents neither wisdom nor virtue.
Co-sign.
Well, what if I told you there was a community that you could be a part of that was still committed to the old way of doing things? That is, the old way of being human in community: simply being in the same room with other human beings, without much of an agenda. There is an AI backlash building, and it is priming the world to long for exactly one thing: church coffee hour.
So much that was boring and conventional has become dynamic and imaginative.
A. O. Scott’s guide to Thomas Pynchon’s novels is okay, but not as good as mine.
My buddy Austin Kleon texted to tell me that whenever I return to blogging this from Nick Cave should be the first thing I post. I felt that I had to begin by paying tribute to Ella; but having done that, here comes Nick — I’d like to quote the whole post, but let’s just do this, as good a personal manifesto as I have seen:
I am essentially a liberal-leaning, spiritual conservative with a small ‘c’, which, to me, isn’t a political stance, rather it is a matter of temperament. I have a devotional nature, and I see the world as broken but beautiful, believing that it is our urgent and moral duty to repair it where we can and not to cause further harm, or worse, wilfully usher in its destruction. I think we consist of more than mere atoms crashing into each other, and that we are, instead, beings of vast potential, placed on this earth for a reason – to magnify, as best we can, that which is beautiful and true. I believe we have an obligation to assist those who are genuinely marginalised, oppressed, or sorrowful in a way that is helpful and constructive and not to exploit their suffering for our own professional advancement or personal survival. I have an acute and well-earned understanding of the nature of loss and know in my bones how easy it is for something to break, and how difficult it is to put it back together. Therefore, I am cautious with the world and try to treat all its inhabitants with care.
Photo by the great Herman Leonard. Duke is delighted, Rodgers is bemused and admiring, and Benny is trying to figure out how she does it.
I’m partly back — with the help of the divine Ella Fitzgerald.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression:
Those students who are the furthest to the left have been the most accepting of violence for as long as we’ve asked the question. That includes very liberal and democratic socialist students. But a rising tide of acceptance of violence has raised all boats. Now, regardless of party or ideology, students across the board are more open to violence as a way to shut down a speaker. What was once an extreme and fringe opinion has become normalized.
That’s what the best science fiction does: It makes us question the social arrangements of our technology, and inspires us to demand better ones.
This idea – that who a technology acts for (and upon) is more important than the technology’s operating characteristics – has a lot of explanatory power.
[Randall Balmer] lauds evangelical involvement in nineteenth-century reform movements (particularly abolition, temperance, and women’s education) as exemplars of Christian public witness. These efforts, in his view, demonstrated faith speaking truth to power and working for the common good. Balmer also praises historical figures like William Jennings Bryan for his economic populism and Martin Luther King Jr. for his prophetic civil rights leadership, holding up such examples of progressive, justice-oriented engagement as faithful expressions of Christianity in the public square. More broadly, he voices admiration for faith-based activism that advances values like social justice, equality, and inclusion.
Conversely, Balmer is consistently critical of recent evangelical political engagement, especially when it aligns with the Republican Party or centers on issues such as abortion, gay rights, or religious symbolism in public life. He often portrays such activism not as prophetic witness but as a bid to reclaim lost cultural privilege or enforce sectarian morality through legislation. One is left to wonder why Christian moral witness is celebrated in one era but viewed as suspect in another. Of course, Balmer is entitled to his political and theological commitments, but the criteria by which he distinguishes faithful from inappropriate activism often seem ad hoc and selectively applied. The result is a framework in which Christian political engagement is endorsed when it advances progressive goals but dismissed when it reflects more traditional convictions.
Isn’t that how it always goes, on the left and the right alike? When Christian activists agree with me, I praise them for being “prophetic”; when they disagree with me, I wonder why they insist on bringing politics into worship.
The data on the Reverse Flynn Effect includes several pieces of evidence that support Marriott’s claims. The IQ reversal, for example, seems to begin right around 2010—the point at which smartphones began their rapid ascent to ubiquity. In addition, according to the Northwestern study, the demographic suffering the steepest declines is 18 to 22-year-olds, who also happen to be the heaviest users of smartphones.
A fascinating video on the history of typewriters for the Chinese language — and some learned commentary on it by Victor Mair.
This has got to mean at least a few hundred K for me, yes? Party time!
More seriously, I don’t know what it means. $3000 per book or work — does that suggest that an essay or article or blog post, each of which is a “work,” is worth as much as a book? Searching here suggests that (with repetitions removed) I might have 20 items to be compensated for the use of. But I could have 200. Who knows? And who knows when matters will be decided?
On the larger and long-term issues surrounding this settlement, Dan Cohen is predictably terrific.
Two new arrivals I’m eager to read. That cover on Tim’s book!
Not all great guitarists have big hands — think of Prince, for instance — but most of them do. Yet the big-handers always insist that the rest of us can play what they play. This is an exceptionally annoying thing to hear. So I appreciate that Paul Davids, in this video on a beautiful John Mayer song, acknowledges (as does Mayer himself) that some people simply will not be able to play the song the way Mayer plays it.
Just look at that hipster. (Charlie Chaplin, 1916)
