James A. Palmer
@jamespqr77.bsky.social
Historian of medieval Italy; dad; cook; hockey fan, Michigander living in Iowa
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0656-9110
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0656-9110
Reposted by James A. Palmer
Google at its peak was basically the best information retrieval system in human history and they and every competitor decided going from there to “you didn’t want answers you wanted half-assed auto-complete 80%-wrong hallucinations” in a few years was the right idea
November 25, 2025 at 1:57 AM
Google at its peak was basically the best information retrieval system in human history and they and every competitor decided going from there to “you didn’t want answers you wanted half-assed auto-complete 80%-wrong hallucinations” in a few years was the right idea
Reposted by James A. Palmer
when its definitely not a hostage situation
November 25, 2025 at 4:19 PM
when its definitely not a hostage situation
Reposted by James A. Palmer
Reposted by James A. Palmer
Really important to stress that the Crown Jewels of the US higher education system were never the Ivies or elite SLACs (other countries have equivalents of these) but the well-funded, large, cheap, and excellently staffed public state university systems bringing high quality education to the masses.
One of the bragging rights that the US ed system had in the 20th century is that we didn't have education tracks. Essentially, any kid could go to a CC or state school & major in whatever they wanted to (obviously an oversimplification). I fear this aspect of the American dream is dying.
November 23, 2025 at 5:18 PM
Really important to stress that the Crown Jewels of the US higher education system were never the Ivies or elite SLACs (other countries have equivalents of these) but the well-funded, large, cheap, and excellently staffed public state university systems bringing high quality education to the masses.
Reposted by James A. Palmer
Biggest shocker at my talk today, which is consistent with my other talks and media stuff, is that the acceptance rate for men and women are different at highly selective institutions. Men have a much higher acceptance rate because most colleges are scared to go beyond a 60/40 ratio.
November 20, 2025 at 10:29 PM
Biggest shocker at my talk today, which is consistent with my other talks and media stuff, is that the acceptance rate for men and women are different at highly selective institutions. Men have a much higher acceptance rate because most colleges are scared to go beyond a 60/40 ratio.
Reposted by James A. Palmer
Reposted by James A. Palmer
This reads like "The Jews Are Our Misfortune" but for the undocumented.
November 20, 2025 at 5:47 PM
This reads like "The Jews Are Our Misfortune" but for the undocumented.
Reposted by James A. Palmer
shout-out to every single person you knew in high school who thought that naming it the department of homeland security was a gross fascist overture, and would ultimately come back to haunt us.
We have to dismantle the whole thing & jail everyone responsible.
x.com/DHSgov/statu...
We have to dismantle the whole thing & jail everyone responsible.
x.com/DHSgov/statu...
November 20, 2025 at 6:10 PM
shout-out to every single person you knew in high school who thought that naming it the department of homeland security was a gross fascist overture, and would ultimately come back to haunt us.
We have to dismantle the whole thing & jail everyone responsible.
x.com/DHSgov/statu...
We have to dismantle the whole thing & jail everyone responsible.
x.com/DHSgov/statu...
No hardcopy of the book, no book review by me. So it is written, so let it be.
November 20, 2025 at 4:48 PM
No hardcopy of the book, no book review by me. So it is written, so let it be.
Reposted by James A. Palmer
imagine being a woman in that classroom, knowing full well how he talks about women in general and about his own mentees in particular.
can you trust you’ll be treated equitably? would you feel comfortable asking for help or a meeting?
can you trust you’ll be treated equitably? would you feel comfortable asking for help or a meeting?
Larry Summers discusses his “statement of regret” for his disturbing messages to Jeffrey Epstein with Harvard students
November 19, 2025 at 9:45 PM
imagine being a woman in that classroom, knowing full well how he talks about women in general and about his own mentees in particular.
can you trust you’ll be treated equitably? would you feel comfortable asking for help or a meeting?
can you trust you’ll be treated equitably? would you feel comfortable asking for help or a meeting?
Reposted by James A. Palmer
Yn a free society, universitye-level studye of the artes and humanityes sholde not be avaylable onlye to the wealthye and privileged.
November 20, 2025 at 12:11 AM
Yn a free society, universitye-level studye of the artes and humanityes sholde not be avaylable onlye to the wealthye and privileged.
This! All day long, this! It's like being gaslit. Constantly being shouted at that this is game-changing, unavoidable, even good when I look and all I see is trash, unethical, environmentally disastrous, dehumanizing, degrading trash. Why is it not EASY to just reject trash?
You really do have to struggle to hold in your head the basic fact that this is all nonsense.
Trillions of dollars on fabricating a facsimile of meaning, for purposes they haven't even figured out yet, but are sure they can sell us.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Trillions of dollars on fabricating a facsimile of meaning, for purposes they haven't even figured out yet, but are sure they can sell us.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
November 19, 2025 at 5:31 PM
This! All day long, this! It's like being gaslit. Constantly being shouted at that this is game-changing, unavoidable, even good when I look and all I see is trash, unethical, environmentally disastrous, dehumanizing, degrading trash. Why is it not EASY to just reject trash?
Reposted by James A. Palmer
The two primary use-cases of generative AI at present are
1. Cheating on your homework;
2. Pretending to care about people, but actually avoiding talking to them.
Driving individual users into mental-health crises is thankfully still a distant third, but rising...
1. Cheating on your homework;
2. Pretending to care about people, but actually avoiding talking to them.
Driving individual users into mental-health crises is thankfully still a distant third, but rising...
You really do have to struggle to hold in your head the basic fact that this is all nonsense.
Trillions of dollars on fabricating a facsimile of meaning, for purposes they haven't even figured out yet, but are sure they can sell us.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Trillions of dollars on fabricating a facsimile of meaning, for purposes they haven't even figured out yet, but are sure they can sell us.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
November 19, 2025 at 5:28 PM
The two primary use-cases of generative AI at present are
1. Cheating on your homework;
2. Pretending to care about people, but actually avoiding talking to them.
Driving individual users into mental-health crises is thankfully still a distant third, but rising...
1. Cheating on your homework;
2. Pretending to care about people, but actually avoiding talking to them.
Driving individual users into mental-health crises is thankfully still a distant third, but rising...
Reposted by James A. Palmer
People are holding administrative burden parties to collectively take on tasks
www.wsj.com/lifestyle/re...
www.wsj.com/lifestyle/re...
Essay | How to Turn the Bureaucratic Grind of Life Into a Party
We all feel it: the growing stream of administrative tasks sapping our time, spirits and social lives. Admin Night represents a tiny, nerdy resistance.
www.wsj.com
November 19, 2025 at 12:54 PM
People are holding administrative burden parties to collectively take on tasks
www.wsj.com/lifestyle/re...
www.wsj.com/lifestyle/re...
Reposted by James A. Palmer
We should not mandate AP exams.
If high schools and elite colleges are holding students and teachers accountable for AP test results, you have a strong incentive to fix this problem.
November 19, 2025 at 2:37 PM
We should not mandate AP exams.
Reposted by James A. Palmer
NARRATOR: Roth quite clearly did not name call & we need our leaders to stop granting <every bad faith premise> of the far right authoritarians' lawless assault on higher education before we push back.
November 18, 2025 at 10:10 PM
NARRATOR: Roth quite clearly did not name call & we need our leaders to stop granting <every bad faith premise> of the far right authoritarians' lawless assault on higher education before we push back.
Reposted by James A. Palmer
I was just thinking the other day that it is mad that if this continues then the book I'm writing, about London 1560-1630, will contain basically no British Library manuscript material. Would have been unthinkable to me but there hasn't been a manuscript catalogue for two years now!
I’ve written a piece on the curious lack of media and political interest in the issues faced by our national @britishlibrary.bsky.social. This is strange given we live in a world where ideas, knowledge and research are a long-term source of innovation and insight
www.cityam.com/the-british-...
www.cityam.com/the-british-...
The British library is in crisis: why does nobody care?
The widespread indifference to the British Library's crippling cyberattack demonstrates a perilous failure to value the knowledge infrastructure vital for national prosperity
www.cityam.com
November 18, 2025 at 1:51 PM
I was just thinking the other day that it is mad that if this continues then the book I'm writing, about London 1560-1630, will contain basically no British Library manuscript material. Would have been unthinkable to me but there hasn't been a manuscript catalogue for two years now!
Reposted by James A. Palmer
It’s publication day for Law, Society and Political Culture in Late Medieval and Reformation Germany! At last, the key sources from the Holy Roman Empire - laws, treaties, and polemics - are available in English translation. #medievalsky #earlymodern
manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526165893/
manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526165893/
November 18, 2025 at 2:56 PM
It’s publication day for Law, Society and Political Culture in Late Medieval and Reformation Germany! At last, the key sources from the Holy Roman Empire - laws, treaties, and polemics - are available in English translation. #medievalsky #earlymodern
manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526165893/
manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526165893/
Students read Poggo Bracciolini's On Avarice for today. I'm finally going to do something I've long meant to do and show the "Greed is good" speech from Wall Street before we discuss it.
November 18, 2025 at 4:24 PM
Students read Poggo Bracciolini's On Avarice for today. I'm finally going to do something I've long meant to do and show the "Greed is good" speech from Wall Street before we discuss it.
Reposted by James A. Palmer
It’s weird when humanities professors at well-resourced universities say that books don’t matter anymore.
“The elites are ecstatic about imagining a vast, uneducated, and unproductive population forced to pay companies like OpenAI to access the written word and to approximate thought.”
Must read piece by Noah McCormack with too many quotaboe lines to select one! thebaffler.com/salvos/we-us...
Must read piece by Noah McCormack with too many quotaboe lines to select one! thebaffler.com/salvos/we-us...
We Used to Read Things in This Country | Noah McCormack
Technology changes us—and it is currently changing us for the worse.
thebaffler.com
November 17, 2025 at 9:29 PM
It’s weird when humanities professors at well-resourced universities say that books don’t matter anymore.
Reposted by James A. Palmer
“While the AI industry claims its models can “think,” “reason,” and “learn,” their supposed achievements rest on marketing hype and stolen intellectual labor. In reality, AI erodes academic freedom, weakens critical reading, and subordinates the pursuit of knowledge to corporate interests.”
AI Is Hollowing Out Higher Education
Olivia Guest & Iris van Rooij urge teachers and scholars to reject tools that commodify learning, deskill students, and promote illiteracy.
www.project-syndicate.org
November 15, 2025 at 5:24 PM
“While the AI industry claims its models can “think,” “reason,” and “learn,” their supposed achievements rest on marketing hype and stolen intellectual labor. In reality, AI erodes academic freedom, weakens critical reading, and subordinates the pursuit of knowledge to corporate interests.”
Reposted by James A. Palmer
If women are underrepresented in STEM, it's at least partly because men like this offer mentoring, then embarrass themselves by assuming their mentees must be into them, then decide the best solution is to cut ties, which sends the signal to other faculty that the mentee must not be good enough.
The emails have Summers reporting to Epstein about his attempts to date a Harvard economics student & to hit on her during a seminar she was giving.
November 16, 2025 at 12:13 AM
If women are underrepresented in STEM, it's at least partly because men like this offer mentoring, then embarrass themselves by assuming their mentees must be into them, then decide the best solution is to cut ties, which sends the signal to other faculty that the mentee must not be good enough.
Reposted by James A. Palmer
Message to all faculty: your expertise is no longer trusted or valued at this so-called “university.”
November 14, 2025 at 12:22 PM
Message to all faculty: your expertise is no longer trusted or valued at this so-called “university.”
Reposted by James A. Palmer
I was a faculty member at IU in 2016, and after the election that year, I had to change the way I taught my 200+ student Intro Sociology class, because a handful of students started flooding the class whiteboard app by posting "MAGA" over and over again.
"The professor will no longer be able to teach a class on diversity after she showed students a diagram that included the 'Make America Great Again' slogan as an example of white supremacy."
Indiana Professor Removed From Class Over White Supremacy Lesson
www.nytimes.com
November 14, 2025 at 1:58 AM
I was a faculty member at IU in 2016, and after the election that year, I had to change the way I taught my 200+ student Intro Sociology class, because a handful of students started flooding the class whiteboard app by posting "MAGA" over and over again.
Reposted by James A. Palmer
If you have to get permission to teach in your area of expertise from people who are definitionally not qualified to adjudicate your expertise then you are no longer working at a university.
You’re working at a state propaganda factory.
You’re working at a state propaganda factory.
COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) — Texas A&M adopts policy requiring professors to get OK from school president to discuss certain race and gender issues.
November 13, 2025 at 11:48 PM
If you have to get permission to teach in your area of expertise from people who are definitionally not qualified to adjudicate your expertise then you are no longer working at a university.
You’re working at a state propaganda factory.
You’re working at a state propaganda factory.