In priestly magic, where the thing is worthless, guard it, to make it valuable. (Mark Twain’s burlesque variant: Tom Sawyer, making the boys pay to whitewash the fence for him.)

- Kenneth Burke, The War of Words

Ken Stern drafted this definition of antisemitism.

'It was designed primarily for European data collectors to be able to craft reports,' he wrote in The Boston Globe.

It was never meant to punish speech.

'Asking the state to suppress disfavored ideas, especially on campuses, is…

Technology lets us be incompetent. AI will take this to a whole new level.

Jen Psaki consulted for an Israeli spy tech company which monitored Palestinians at West Bank checkpoints

Appropriate choice for the moment

The enforcer president of Columbia University— Minouche Shafik—is one of the wealthiest people in America. As president, she makes over $2000 an hour every weekday. In three days, she makes more than many blue collar workers at Columbia make in a year. -R

Some academics seem to think that the big threat to democracy comes from the 'far Right' and 'white nationalists.' And yet it is corporatized university administrators who are inflicting violent repression on peaceful protest.

We are cracking down on protesters in the same manner as our aspirational peer institutions. It’s a KPI in the strategic plan.

COVID, Chauvin, J6, Columbia

“What were the Four Horsemen of the post-digital American Apocalypse?”

Hey libs, you guys said that violence is speech and speech is violence and silence is violence, so have fun adjudicating this in your institutions.

We are charging a tailgate site fee to each tent in the protester encampment. It’ll automatically appear on bursar accounts. We know who you are—thank you for putting your SIDs on your phones!

I have some thoughts on this fine statement by Yale University President Peter Salovey regarding desire by some students to impose 'ideological litmus test' for access to a shared Yale space.

Salovey said: “Those protestors asked individuals who wished to pass through or enter their…

Are we redoing April Fool’s Day? Auditioning for The Onion? Or have we really descended into this kind of uber/meta stupidity & arrogance?

Adding more illiberalism to campus, by enhancing an unaccountable bureaucracy such as this, will decidedly make things worse, not better.

No, seriously, Uber is deciding what driver gets what job based on their weight, whether they ever missed a payment, what political associations they have.

Algorithmic wage discrimination should be made illegal before it becomes the dominant business model.

Here's a thing that I believe is too-little understood among the chattering classes: Most Americans look at big demonstrations with fuzzy demands ('defund the police,' 'free Palestine') and wonder 'how the hell do they have enough free time to do that?'

People who work jobs,…

This is probably right. Most people don't form political opinions through deep examination of the issues or reasoning from first principles. It's more like picking some particular fashion label or way of dressing. Especially for younger people, who face more peer pressure.

Too many people confuse today’s AI revolution with the much bigger one that is yet to come.

So, it's official. In about two weeks, I won't be a professor anymore. It feels weird. Not bad. Just weird.

I'm a Tenured College Professor. I'm Quitting. Here's Why. okdoomer.io/im-a-professor…

'Saying AI is mainly about the math, and code - is like saying humanity is mainly just about carbon, and water.'

Say what you will about Mustafa (everyone seems to dislike the guy at present), his TED talk focus on FIRMLY questioning our existing analogies is apt and necessary.

PROFESSORS you are strange and exotic hothouse flowers and politics is not you.

Politics is for cunning and irrepressible 3rd rate lawyers who are perpetually tiptoeing the edge of criminality.

You do not have fortitude or savvy and only tears will come of your idealism.