WhatsThat
@whatsthat.bsky.social
Ex Librarian. Forever philosophy student. Finally found my home in the mountains. I am that motley fool you met in the forest.
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This week, we commemorate the work of Harold Innis, who was born on 5 November 1895 and died on 8 November 1952.
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November 8, 2025 at 4:11 PM
This week, we commemorate the work of Harold Innis, who was born on 5 November 1895 and died on 8 November 1952.
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Read this & immediately thought of @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social
“There are silences that can be heard, even from the dead & the severely oppressed…Sensitive & faithful historians can learn much of what has been lost, and much therefore that can be continued.”
—James Carse, Finite and Infinite Games
“There are silences that can be heard, even from the dead & the severely oppressed…Sensitive & faithful historians can learn much of what has been lost, and much therefore that can be continued.”
—James Carse, Finite and Infinite Games
November 5, 2025 at 12:53 PM
Read this & immediately thought of @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social
“There are silences that can be heard, even from the dead & the severely oppressed…Sensitive & faithful historians can learn much of what has been lost, and much therefore that can be continued.”
—James Carse, Finite and Infinite Games
“There are silences that can be heard, even from the dead & the severely oppressed…Sensitive & faithful historians can learn much of what has been lost, and much therefore that can be continued.”
—James Carse, Finite and Infinite Games
“Psychology’s emphasis on personal responsibility, resilience, and self-help frequently aligns more closely with conservative ideals than with progressive ones.”
Preordered!!!
Preordered!!!
Well, now, look what arrived in the post...
Delighted to share that my new book on psychology and the culture wars has now been published.
Writing it was a long, at times depressing, but ultimately satisfying journey for me. I hope you like it
Deets here: link.springer.com/book/10.1007...
Delighted to share that my new book on psychology and the culture wars has now been published.
Writing it was a long, at times depressing, but ultimately satisfying journey for me. I hope you like it
Deets here: link.springer.com/book/10.1007...
November 5, 2025 at 12:33 PM
“Psychology’s emphasis on personal responsibility, resilience, and self-help frequently aligns more closely with conservative ideals than with progressive ones.”
Preordered!!!
Preordered!!!
With all due respect to wet dogs, there’s nothing friendlier than a man who just ate a tin of sardines 🙊
September 3, 2025 at 1:54 PM
With all due respect to wet dogs, there’s nothing friendlier than a man who just ate a tin of sardines 🙊
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Really hope students understand why this is not a matter of not polluting, not using slave labour — say there could be AI models that are more or less not doing that, even though it's impossible — but of actually the whole of human self-expression at stake, so pointless to come to class otherwise.
Something I hinged on to get to this what I describe: the Marxian fetishisation of artefacts is so complete in the case of AI that not only do we somehow conclude machines think, but we accept for them to think, speak, draw instead of us, while also thinking these are (expressions of) our thoughts.
August 31, 2025 at 7:21 AM
Really hope students understand why this is not a matter of not polluting, not using slave labour — say there could be AI models that are more or less not doing that, even though it's impossible — but of actually the whole of human self-expression at stake, so pointless to come to class otherwise.
It’s how she rolls 😜
August 29, 2025 at 7:07 PM
It’s how she rolls 😜
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This is a good visualization of when people say that AI saves them time.
August 6, 2025 at 11:05 PM
This is a good visualization of when people say that AI saves them time.
The fungi are magnificent rn
July 21, 2025 at 8:27 PM
The fungi are magnificent rn
The artistry of sand isopods
June 13, 2025 at 12:00 PM
The artistry of sand isopods
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“The human race is a strange mixture of the divine and the diabolic, both equally real, making both good and evil inevitable. Complete despair is no more rational than blind optimism.”
On keeping a wide horizon - Bertrand Russell (1979)
mulpress.mcmaster.ca/russelljourn...
On keeping a wide horizon - Bertrand Russell (1979)
mulpress.mcmaster.ca/russelljourn...
June 4, 2025 at 9:11 PM
“The human race is a strange mixture of the divine and the diabolic, both equally real, making both good and evil inevitable. Complete despair is no more rational than blind optimism.”
On keeping a wide horizon - Bertrand Russell (1979)
mulpress.mcmaster.ca/russelljourn...
On keeping a wide horizon - Bertrand Russell (1979)
mulpress.mcmaster.ca/russelljourn...
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Tonight in amazing music: I'm a long-time fan of Norwegian jazz trumpeter Nils Peter Molvær. And I've been pushing everyone I know to listen to the Sweetheart, the best (Scandin)americana band you've never heard.
Here they are playing together. It's sublime.
h/t @acresofsnow.bsky.social
Here they are playing together. It's sublime.
h/t @acresofsnow.bsky.social
Sweetheart feat. Nils Petter Molvær – «Nothing Lasts Forever – Live From A Living Room» – Part 1
YouTube video by Sweetheart
youtu.be
May 12, 2025 at 12:16 AM
Tonight in amazing music: I'm a long-time fan of Norwegian jazz trumpeter Nils Peter Molvær. And I've been pushing everyone I know to listen to the Sweetheart, the best (Scandin)americana band you've never heard.
Here they are playing together. It's sublime.
h/t @acresofsnow.bsky.social
Here they are playing together. It's sublime.
h/t @acresofsnow.bsky.social
Reposted by WhatsThat
this is not meant as a hot take or a unique insight but it's remarkable how a lot of scientific discourse is about methods, data, and findings, whereas what really does most of the heavy lifting happens to be the assumptions
May 8, 2025 at 5:37 PM
this is not meant as a hot take or a unique insight but it's remarkable how a lot of scientific discourse is about methods, data, and findings, whereas what really does most of the heavy lifting happens to be the assumptions
@themerl.bsky.social
Absolute units
Absolute units
I never cease to be amazed by the realism and sophistication of the paintings created over a period of 20,000 years by prehistoric artists on the ceiling of the Altamira Cave, Spain. Discovered only in 1868, here’ a bison and a deer whc.unesco.org/en/list/310/
May 9, 2025 at 10:29 AM
@themerl.bsky.social
Absolute units
Absolute units
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It's no secret that mainstream media is struggling, even dying out. I talked to longtime journalist & media observer @jeffjarvis.bsky.social about what comes next. I hope you'll give it a listen 🎧:
open.spotify.com/episode/2ias...
open.spotify.com/episode/2ias...
May 7, 2025 at 1:45 PM
It's no secret that mainstream media is struggling, even dying out. I talked to longtime journalist & media observer @jeffjarvis.bsky.social about what comes next. I hope you'll give it a listen 🎧:
open.spotify.com/episode/2ias...
open.spotify.com/episode/2ias...
"Do most Americans want to sew tiny little skirts a thousand times a day?"
Using products whose production is so onerous we’d rather other countries do that labor for us…dunno something feels morally off there…
Using products whose production is so onerous we’d rather other countries do that labor for us…dunno something feels morally off there…
Everybody is talking about Trump's doll lunacy from the consumer side of the equation. But we should also talk about it from the labor side. Are doll manufacturing jobs something we want at massive scale? No, not really. Here's what this would look like:
newrepublic.com/article/1949...
newrepublic.com/article/1949...
May 7, 2025 at 1:30 PM
"Do most Americans want to sew tiny little skirts a thousand times a day?"
Using products whose production is so onerous we’d rather other countries do that labor for us…dunno something feels morally off there…
Using products whose production is so onerous we’d rather other countries do that labor for us…dunno something feels morally off there…
Reposted by WhatsThat
May 6, 2025 at 10:38 PM
Reposted by WhatsThat
On Synthetic Philosophy and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations in Aristotle and Tainter
open.substack.com/pub/digressi...
open.substack.com/pub/digressi...
On Synthetic Philosophy and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations in Aristotle and Tainter.
Building on work by Elijah Millgram (2015) The Great Endarkenment and Jeffrey Friedman (2019) Power without Knowledge, I have argued (recall here; and earlier here) that the advanced division of epist...
open.substack.com
May 6, 2025 at 7:26 AM
On Synthetic Philosophy and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations in Aristotle and Tainter
open.substack.com/pub/digressi...
open.substack.com/pub/digressi...
“protest reading” ! ♥️ ! ♥️ !
April 28, 2025 at 10:14 AM
“protest reading” ! ♥️ ! ♥️ !
That mountain needs to come to Mohammed
April 23, 2025 at 2:51 PM
That mountain needs to come to Mohammed
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To say a bit more: I think this trilemma points the way to the argumentative theory of reason
thomscottphillips.substack.com/p/how-i-lear...
thomscottphillips.substack.com/p/how-i-lear...
April 17, 2025 at 10:46 AM
To say a bit more: I think this trilemma points the way to the argumentative theory of reason
thomscottphillips.substack.com/p/how-i-lear...
thomscottphillips.substack.com/p/how-i-lear...
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I'll be teaching some students about the Lotka-Volterra food web model tomorrow, and this historical aside feels particularly relevant.
Pretty stark that, in 1931, only 1% of Italian professors refused to sign a loyalty oath to the fascists.
Pretty stark that, in 1931, only 1% of Italian professors refused to sign a loyalty oath to the fascists.
April 15, 2025 at 5:13 AM
I'll be teaching some students about the Lotka-Volterra food web model tomorrow, and this historical aside feels particularly relevant.
Pretty stark that, in 1931, only 1% of Italian professors refused to sign a loyalty oath to the fascists.
Pretty stark that, in 1931, only 1% of Italian professors refused to sign a loyalty oath to the fascists.
Reposted by WhatsThat
Since people keep asking me for the slides from my talk last week in Maastricht on "Why AI Ethics is Unethical" I've now put them up on my website here:
www.nolengertz.com/lectures-and...
www.nolengertz.com/lectures-and...
Lectures and Talks — Nolen Gertz
www.nolengertz.com
March 23, 2025 at 2:30 PM
Since people keep asking me for the slides from my talk last week in Maastricht on "Why AI Ethics is Unethical" I've now put them up on my website here:
www.nolengertz.com/lectures-and...
www.nolengertz.com/lectures-and...
Reposted by WhatsThat
"Finally, look for every possible way to fight back against the destruction of institutions that have served us well... New nonviolent resistance efforts will emerge in the weeks ahead. Watch for them. Join them." - Adam Hochschild in WaPo today:
Opinion | America was at its Trumpiest 100 years ago. Here’s how to prevent the worst.
During WWI, America lurched toward autocracy. Resistance was minimal.
www.washingtonpost.com
April 3, 2025 at 5:00 PM
"Finally, look for every possible way to fight back against the destruction of institutions that have served us well... New nonviolent resistance efforts will emerge in the weeks ahead. Watch for them. Join them." - Adam Hochschild in WaPo today: