Scholar

Brooke Harrington

Elisabeth Brooke Harrington is an American academic, scholar, author, and professor of economic sociology at Dartmouth College.

Source: Wikipedia
H-index: 19
Economics 34%
Business 23%
ebharrington.bsky.social
PERFECT timing for an era in which Young Republicans bond over posts like "Rape is epic" and the entire government is shut down to protect pedophiles. What could go wrong with Altman's DIY pron-production machine?
drewharwell.com
Sam Altman went from “AI will cure cancer" to "ChatGPT porn" in less than a month
ChatGPT boss predicts when AI could cure cancer We made ChatGPT pretty restrictive to make sure we were being careful with mental health issues. We realize this made it less useful/enjoyable to many users who had no mental health problems, but given the seriousness of the issue we wanted to get this right.

Now that we have been able to mitigate the serious mental health issues and have new tools, we are going to be able to safely relax the restrictions in most cases.

In a few weeks, we plan to put out a new version of ChatGPT that allows people to have a personality that behaves more like what people liked about 4o (we hope it will be better!). If you want your ChatGPT to respond in a very human-like way, or use a ton of emoji, or act like a friend, ChatGPT should do it (but only if you want it, not because we are usage-maxxing).

In December, as we roll out age-gating more fully and as part of our “treat adult users like adults” principle, we will allow even more, like erotica for verified adults.
12:02 PM · Oct 14, 2025
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1.2M
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ebharrington.bsky.social
...a hash that doesn't even make a lick of sense. Just a random collection of mental trash.
ebharrington.bsky.social
Oh now you've made me cackle loudly in a hospital and everyone probably thinks I'm a nutter!
ebharrington.bsky.social
I'm getting that too, and find it both surreal and hilarious.

"Sure, BlueSky buddy, I'm yapping in Abkhazian, why not?"
ebharrington.bsky.social
Why do representatives of the Master Race always look like that?
ebharrington.bsky.social
That's a good one! People who are so nice face to face become homicidal maniacs behind the wheel here.
ebharrington.bsky.social
I feel the Eric/Erik Powers emanating from all of you!
ebharrington.bsky.social
Thank you. More people speak English here than when I last lived in Italy a dozen years ago.
ebharrington.bsky.social
Hit by a car. Happens a lot in these parts. Italian drivers are incredibly reckless and completely disregard crosswalks, lane markers, you name it.
ebharrington.bsky.social
Otherwise, it's really, really cold in here; I'm clutching my laptop for warmth like it's a hot water bottle.
ebharrington.bsky.social
Only pleasant surprise about being in an Italian hospital? They have eduroam! How cool is that? At least I can keep up on doomscrolling.
ebharrington.bsky.social
Learned the hard way: RWers in my family love their hate MUCH more than they love their own children.
ebharrington.bsky.social
This was always the logical endpoint of George H.W. Bush's "1,000 points of light" approach to basic government services:

When you take away government's role as the provider of public goods & make funding for basic services dependent on the whims of private benefactors, you've just got warlordism.
atrupar.com
Trump: "I had a very wealthy person who called -- a donor, a great gentleman -- and he said, 'if there's any money necessary, shortfall, for the paying of the troops, then I will pay it.' Meaning he will pay it. How about that?"
atrupar.com
Trump: "I had a very wealthy person who called -- a donor, a great gentleman -- and he said, 'if there's any money necessary, shortfall, for the paying of the troops, then I will pay it.' Meaning he will pay it. How about that?"
ebharrington.bsky.social
The Makes-People-Dumber Machine triumphs again!
404media.co
An attorney in a New York Supreme Court commercial case got caught using AI in his filings, and then got caught using AI again in the brief where he had to explain why he used AI, according to court documents filed earlier this month.

🔗 www.404media.co/lawyer-using...
Lawyer Caught Using AI While Explaining to Court Why He Used AI
The attorney not only submitted AI-generated fake citations in a brief for his clients, but also included “multiple new AI-hallucinated citations and quotations” in the process of opposing a motion fo...
www.404media.co
ebharrington.bsky.social
RIGHT? My follow-up post to her will be "Who appointed you the guardian of the dignity of Holocaust survivors? They seem to speak for themselves quite effectively. Maybe you should try listening to them rather than speaking for them."
ebharrington.bsky.social
No surprise to find the same dynamic at work with Trump supporters, including my own blood relations.

My question is: how do you carry forward a democracy when tens of millions of your fellow citizens are just like those saucer cult followers, completely impervious to reality?

8/8
ebharrington.bsky.social
Of course, the aliens didn't show. But that's when things got interesting.

You might *think* the followers would abandon the cult leader when the prophecy failed. Some did, but most didn't.

They ignored the evidence of their senses & experience, doubling down on their commitment to the lie.
7/x
ebharrington.bsky.social
...like the Chicago flying saucer cult that social psychologists Festinger, Riecken & Schacter wrote about 70yrs ago.
A cult leader told a bunch of Chicagoans to sell all their worldly possessions & say bye to their pals, bc space aliens were coming to rapture them at a particular date & time.
6/x
ebharrington.bsky.social
Her response: "it feels true."

Meaning: "this story confirms my religious & cultural beliefs about Muslims, so it's true EVEN IF THE PEOPLE WHO MADE THE ORIGINAL CLAIMS NOW SAY THEY WERE WRONG."

What do you do with ppl like that? They are functionally equivalent to doomsday cult members...

5/x
ebharrington.bsky.social
My evangelical half-sister tells me--who has lived in France long-term & goes to Paris at least annually for work--about these "no go zones."

I tell her "those don't exist, that's not true, there's no such thing." I send her the written & filmed retractions by those who made the claims.

4/x
ebharrington.bsky.social
Fox News, which had of course put the false story on blast, also had to make a public retraction. This was all 10yrs ago.

But anyone who's ever spent much time in Paris didn't need the formal retractions to know that the story was obvious bullshit.

Anyhoo, fast forward to 2019...

3/x
ebharrington.bsky.social
Anyway, the RWNJ who popularized this idea that Paris specifically has "no go zones" later did a highly unusual thing: he recanted. In print. In public.

He admitted that, due to his poor grasp of the French language, he'd misread a sign & misinterpreted it to mean non-Muslims couldn't enter.

2/x
ebharrington.bsky.social
An example that haunts me:

My ultra-evangelical half-sis declared to me one day that Paris has "no go zones" where Muslim immigrants live & French police are too scared to patrol.

Some of you may recognize this "no go zones" thing as a long-standing RWNJ trope.

1/x

References

Fields & subjects

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