Tobias Wilson-Bates
@phdhurtbrain.bsky.social
Time Machines. Temporality. Ecology. Robots. Education. Associate Professor of 19th century British Literature.
Pinned
Bluesky isn’t about popularity, it’s about gathering all 17 William Morris lovers together in a single online location!
One must imagine Sisyphus doing laundry.
December 1, 2025 at 1:22 AM
One must imagine Sisyphus doing laundry.
Reposted by Tobias Wilson-Bates
Verb: wait wait wait. You can modify OTHER kinds of words too???
Adverb:
Adjective: babe, is this guy bothering you?
Verb: don’t think adverb will be faithful to you either!!!
Another adverb (pulling up on a motorcycle): hey, babe
Adverb:
Adjective: babe, is this guy bothering you?
Verb: don’t think adverb will be faithful to you either!!!
Another adverb (pulling up on a motorcycle): hey, babe
November 30, 2025 at 9:55 PM
Verb: wait wait wait. You can modify OTHER kinds of words too???
Adverb:
Adjective: babe, is this guy bothering you?
Verb: don’t think adverb will be faithful to you either!!!
Another adverb (pulling up on a motorcycle): hey, babe
Adverb:
Adjective: babe, is this guy bothering you?
Verb: don’t think adverb will be faithful to you either!!!
Another adverb (pulling up on a motorcycle): hey, babe
Reposted by Tobias Wilson-Bates
Eleven years ago, I wrote to Tom Stoppard to ask about this coup de théâtre from 1949. It took me down an unexpected rabbit hole - in memory of Stoppard, here's what I found.
November 30, 2025 at 1:38 PM
Eleven years ago, I wrote to Tom Stoppard to ask about this coup de théâtre from 1949. It took me down an unexpected rabbit hole - in memory of Stoppard, here's what I found.
Verb: wait wait wait. You can modify OTHER kinds of words too???
Adverb:
Adjective: babe, is this guy bothering you?
Verb: don’t think adverb will be faithful to you either!!!
Another adverb (pulling up on a motorcycle): hey, babe
Adverb:
Adjective: babe, is this guy bothering you?
Verb: don’t think adverb will be faithful to you either!!!
Another adverb (pulling up on a motorcycle): hey, babe
November 30, 2025 at 9:55 PM
Verb: wait wait wait. You can modify OTHER kinds of words too???
Adverb:
Adjective: babe, is this guy bothering you?
Verb: don’t think adverb will be faithful to you either!!!
Another adverb (pulling up on a motorcycle): hey, babe
Adverb:
Adjective: babe, is this guy bothering you?
Verb: don’t think adverb will be faithful to you either!!!
Another adverb (pulling up on a motorcycle): hey, babe
Reposted by Tobias Wilson-Bates
Very good piece on the quite fast rollout of "AI-powered" textbooks in South Korea. The government went from making the textbooks mandatory to supplementary because of complaints and now the textbook companies are suing because "the market suddenly disappear[ed]."
restofworld.org/2025/south-k...
restofworld.org/2025/south-k...
AI-powered textbooks fail to make the grade in South Korea
South Korea’s AI learning program was rolled back after just four months following a backlash from teachers, students, and parents, underlining the challenges in embedding the technology in education.
restofworld.org
November 30, 2025 at 7:46 PM
Very good piece on the quite fast rollout of "AI-powered" textbooks in South Korea. The government went from making the textbooks mandatory to supplementary because of complaints and now the textbook companies are suing because "the market suddenly disappear[ed]."
restofworld.org/2025/south-k...
restofworld.org/2025/south-k...
On each day of Christmas each item plus each previous item in the series is gifted from the True Love. Letting sigma (Σ) represent the sum of the complete series, we may calculate the
November 30, 2025 at 7:02 PM
On each day of Christmas each item plus each previous item in the series is gifted from the True Love. Letting sigma (Σ) represent the sum of the complete series, we may calculate the
Reposted by Tobias Wilson-Bates
I often think that a lot of our discourses are bound up in an ongoing struggle to understand our relationship to suffering. Not just that it is unavoidable, but that elements of suffering are inextricable from our greatest joy and deepest access to meaning.
November 30, 2025 at 2:54 PM
I often think that a lot of our discourses are bound up in an ongoing struggle to understand our relationship to suffering. Not just that it is unavoidable, but that elements of suffering are inextricable from our greatest joy and deepest access to meaning.
Circling back to this point, I think this is also true of books we “fail” to complete. I’ve learned enormous amounts about myself and my internalized philosophies by encountering books that I think *should* have connected w me but didn’t.
A very long book that takes months or even years to work through is not an achievement just bc you have acquired the information in its plot, but bc you had to struggle negotiating the time and space of your own complicated existence to navigate your experience of the book.
November 30, 2025 at 3:13 PM
Circling back to this point, I think this is also true of books we “fail” to complete. I’ve learned enormous amounts about myself and my internalized philosophies by encountering books that I think *should* have connected w me but didn’t.
I often think that a lot of our discourses are bound up in an ongoing struggle to understand our relationship to suffering. Not just that it is unavoidable, but that elements of suffering are inextricable from our greatest joy and deepest access to meaning.
November 30, 2025 at 2:54 PM
I often think that a lot of our discourses are bound up in an ongoing struggle to understand our relationship to suffering. Not just that it is unavoidable, but that elements of suffering are inextricable from our greatest joy and deepest access to meaning.
Reposted by Tobias Wilson-Bates
This quote from the Atlantic is right & true! One odd thing is how these points, which have been obvious for several years to anyone who spent five minutes considering how LLMs work & what education is, are finally coalescing into the standard take from the center of middlebrow opinion—why only now?
“Based on the available evidence, the skills that future graduates will most need in the AI era—creative thinking, the capacity to learn new things, flexible modes of analysis—are precisely those that are likely to be eroded by inserting AI into the educational process.”
“When you allow a machine to summarize your reading, to generate the ideas for your essay, and then to write that essay, you’re not learning how to read, think, or write.“
November 30, 2025 at 2:32 PM
This quote from the Atlantic is right & true! One odd thing is how these points, which have been obvious for several years to anyone who spent five minutes considering how LLMs work & what education is, are finally coalescing into the standard take from the center of middlebrow opinion—why only now?
Reposted by Tobias Wilson-Bates
What fresh new hell is this? www.levernews.com/tech-giant-s...
Tech Giant Says AI Has A First Amendment Right To Raise Your Rent
Fresh off a Trump settlement, RealPage is trying to overturn New York’s anti-rent-gouging law.
www.levernews.com
November 30, 2025 at 2:38 PM
What fresh new hell is this? www.levernews.com/tech-giant-s...
Reposted by Tobias Wilson-Bates
I’m sorry, but this is what cellphones would look like in the ideal Republic
November 30, 2025 at 5:38 AM
I’m sorry, but this is what cellphones would look like in the ideal Republic
I’m sorry, but this is what cellphones would look like in the ideal Republic
November 30, 2025 at 5:38 AM
I’m sorry, but this is what cellphones would look like in the ideal Republic
Reposted by Tobias Wilson-Bates
Reposted by Tobias Wilson-Bates
Look around. The case for more, not less, liberal arts education - actual, real education in reading, writing, thinking, arguing, analyzing, & synthesizing by doing the actual hard work for which there is no substitute - is stronger than it’s ever been at any point in human history.
November 30, 2025 at 12:07 AM
Look around. The case for more, not less, liberal arts education - actual, real education in reading, writing, thinking, arguing, analyzing, & synthesizing by doing the actual hard work for which there is no substitute - is stronger than it’s ever been at any point in human history.
Pepper's work on Samuel Johnson's The Vanity of Human Wishes remains a cornerstone of the discipline even without accounting for their unique blend of 23 flavors
While not a medical doctor, Dr Pepper does hold a PhD in neoclassical literary theory and thus deserves our respect
November 29, 2025 at 11:23 PM
Pepper's work on Samuel Johnson's The Vanity of Human Wishes remains a cornerstone of the discipline even without accounting for their unique blend of 23 flavors
Reposted by Tobias Wilson-Bates
I feel like actually access to knowledge and learning is a universal good which shouldn't be available only to the rich, to the 'time rich', to the 'clever', or to the 'hard-working'. It should literally be available to everyone to engage with, for enrichment, for knowledge, for a better world.
I wish there was more emphasis on access to education disentangled from employability and focusing instead on enrichment because people who engage with education (or have the ability to) as enrichment interact with it differently. (And that's a whole society thing, not an in-uni thing) 7/7
November 29, 2025 at 5:09 PM
I feel like actually access to knowledge and learning is a universal good which shouldn't be available only to the rich, to the 'time rich', to the 'clever', or to the 'hard-working'. It should literally be available to everyone to engage with, for enrichment, for knowledge, for a better world.
Reposted by Tobias Wilson-Bates
It took me a long time to realize Stoppard was as much possessed by death as Webster (and Eliot), and wrote endlessly about the skull beneath the skin. It was only when I saw, not read, Rosenkrantz & Guildenstern that I realized they were both dead for the entirety of the play.
November 29, 2025 at 8:52 PM
It took me a long time to realize Stoppard was as much possessed by death as Webster (and Eliot), and wrote endlessly about the skull beneath the skin. It was only when I saw, not read, Rosenkrantz & Guildenstern that I realized they were both dead for the entirety of the play.
Reposted by Tobias Wilson-Bates
A story Stoppard told several times, in several places:
November 29, 2025 at 6:10 PM
A story Stoppard told several times, in several places:
We will all die eventually, but it does the heart good to see the difference in reactions to the passing of a politician who justified torture relative to how people react to the passing of a beloved writer.
November 29, 2025 at 7:45 PM
We will all die eventually, but it does the heart good to see the difference in reactions to the passing of a politician who justified torture relative to how people react to the passing of a beloved writer.
Reposted by Tobias Wilson-Bates
I prefer to view Mama as residing in the Kristevan chora, unhindered by the laws of sexual politics.
November 29, 2025 at 7:34 PM
I prefer to view Mama as residing in the Kristevan chora, unhindered by the laws of sexual politics.
Reposted by Tobias Wilson-Bates
There are multiple books I've ordered at my local bookstore that they then wind up stocking for others. Just did another order this weekend.
Bookselling is like the most "people go to the store and buy what looks cool to them without a particular agenda" type business left, and your purchases have a huge influence on what is ordered, what is displayed, and what is recommended.
November 29, 2025 at 7:00 PM
There are multiple books I've ordered at my local bookstore that they then wind up stocking for others. Just did another order this weekend.
Reposted by Tobias Wilson-Bates
The reason the top 10% of income earners pay more than half of all tax revenue is NOT because they are taxed more than ever.
Their tax rate has been cut FIVE times in the last 25 years.
They are paying more because their INCOME has increased astronomically, where the income of the bottom half has
Their tax rate has been cut FIVE times in the last 25 years.
They are paying more because their INCOME has increased astronomically, where the income of the bottom half has
November 29, 2025 at 12:23 PM
The reason the top 10% of income earners pay more than half of all tax revenue is NOT because they are taxed more than ever.
Their tax rate has been cut FIVE times in the last 25 years.
They are paying more because their INCOME has increased astronomically, where the income of the bottom half has
Their tax rate has been cut FIVE times in the last 25 years.
They are paying more because their INCOME has increased astronomically, where the income of the bottom half has
Reposted by Tobias Wilson-Bates
AI used to be a more expansive category, and weirdly we've shrunk it to ML and deep nets, and are now re-expanding
This is one of the biggest problems with so-called "AI". EVERY branch of computer science and thought ever accomplished is now included as part of "AI". It's a gigantic hoax. Guess what? Computers, research and algos all existed before the current hoax.
Last month, @theguardian.com framed this historical event project the same way; minimizing the years of archival work, the interviews etc it took to be able to do this.
Instead ‘AI solved this historical problem!’
Instead ‘AI solved this historical problem!’
November 29, 2025 at 2:47 PM
AI used to be a more expansive category, and weirdly we've shrunk it to ML and deep nets, and are now re-expanding
Reposted by Tobias Wilson-Bates
What your Thanksgiving weekend needs is 7,500 words on Walter Benjamin, William Morris, and Film Photography with a broad motion towards what this all means for Cultural Work in the Age of AI Reproduction. Also many pretty pictures!
mimeographzineaf.net/nostalgia-fo...
mimeographzineaf.net/nostalgia-fo...
Nostalgia for Finitude
This is the feast of words I promised would go up yesterday, and its a hearty one. Almost 8,000 words. It's a draft, for sure, but I think there is something compelling here? There are also many prett...
mimeographzineaf.net
November 29, 2025 at 2:04 PM
What your Thanksgiving weekend needs is 7,500 words on Walter Benjamin, William Morris, and Film Photography with a broad motion towards what this all means for Cultural Work in the Age of AI Reproduction. Also many pretty pictures!
mimeographzineaf.net/nostalgia-fo...
mimeographzineaf.net/nostalgia-fo...