wj - I’m arguing that sometimes you have to settle for imperfect in order to get anything at all. And while there’s certainly no obligation to embrace someone like Manchin, it is a bad idea to get loudly worked up about his shortcomings. If you have a real chance to replace him with someone better, fine. But when you don’t, save your invective for the other side. Screaming “treason!” is counterproductive.
...would that the grumpy moderates and reactionary centrists could take this to heart with the progressives and social democrats in their own caucus as well, especially when those progressives and social democrats have shown more solidarity with their colleagues than the centrist border reivers.
Yup, vilified simply for being a moderate. Manchin never did anything to offend anyone who wasn't a horrible activist lost to their political delusions.
Here is an antidote to the weak rhetorical sauce being offered up by Shaheen and her turtling pals. Rep. Adelita Grijalva speaks at her swearing in today, and dances all over the GOP's buttons with every one of her minutes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EhEeqOu8Ts
Granddaughter of a Bracero - check.
Speaks Spanish with no translation - check.
Smacks the Speaker over his partisan delays - check.
Chides congress for abandoning its oversight role - check.
Brings Epstein survivors to her swearing in - check.
Signs discharge petition as her first official act - check.
wj - I would argue that it did work. The alternatives were never, ever, Manchin vs a more reliably more liberal Democrat. The alternative to Manchin was a very conservative Republican. Like the one now holding that seat.
From the perspective of WV electoral politics, you are correct. But there are wider ripples that are harder to measure that need to be considered. Manchin and Sinema voted against the Build Back Better deal, spiking major legislation that would have helped fight climate change. They (and Shaheen, and King, and Hassan - sound familiar?) spiked the minimum wage bill in 2021.
Now all the stories are about how Biden can't get his signature legislation passed.
It happened again going out the door with these two preventing Biden from appointing someone to the NLRB, handing Trump control of the federal arm that deals with labor bargaining.
I know that a lot of people have written about how Harris had a problem with turnout due to Israel/Palestine issues, but I also firmly believe that had Biden and Harris managed to pass Build Back Better and the increase in minimum wage, that we would not have seen turnout quite so reduced for Harris, and might have seen a few fewer votes for Trump amongst young men disillusioned with federal politics and claiming that both sides were essentially the same.
Dems need to convince younger voters that they can actually achieve something to help with climate, stagnant wages, and the possibility of ever owning a home. Manchin and Sinema did more damage to this belief than did anyone else.
It's not just about vote percentages and issues mentioned in exit polling. There's the unseen effects of turnout and the issues that fuel cynicism and disillusionment.
Guess who showed up for the most recent Blue Wave?
The GOP probably thinks that their demand for abortion restrictions in return for extending the subsidies is a clever move - making it so that they can say the Dems were the ones to sink the ACA because of their refusal (and they had best refuse). I think, however, that this ploy is going to backfire. The abortion stuff will play well to their base, but there is no reason to tie these two things together other than to poison pill it for the Dems, so I don't know how this lets the GOP off the hook when people's health insurance suddenly becomes unaffordable. It just demonstrates their lack of good faith.
Let's hope the Democratic leadership have enough sense to hit back hard on this and make voters see that the GOP is treating this like a game and not taking people's healthcare access seriously. It's simple messaging, or at least it would be for anyone not allergic to confrontation and sharp elbows.
wj - I understand what you are saying about not interrupting the enemy when they are in the midst of making a mistake. What I do not understand is why you think Kaine saying something like what wonkie outlines would in any way tip off the GOP that they were being set up.
And, assuming that they did recognize the mousetrap, I really don't see how the GOP could ever avoid that trap. Even if they see it sitting there, The Ancient Orange One Who Slumbers will not let them back down from tearing down a big shiny thing with Obama's name on it.
So where is the downside for Kaine blasting the GOP?
And I really don't believe that this is all Schumer calculus, and that the drama between caucuses has been scripted. If I had to pick anyone out of that group who was doing it for cover, I'd say it was Durbin giving cover to Gillibrand, but I don't think that was engineered by Schumer.
And I think Schumer should lose his leadership spot because he is such a soft target for people like Stewart, and even his attempts at sounding feisty look and sound squishy to anyone not starting to worry about retirement. The Dems need a scrappy wartime leader, not someone who talks about the sympathetic conversations that they have with their colleagues across the aisle while working out at the Senate gym.
Pull him from his leadership position and put someone else in front of those cameras who knows how to talk a good fight.
Note that Pritzker was speaking in front of a union crowd there (my compatriots in the IFT). This is what I've been saying for well over an election cycle - there are a whole lot of reachable voters who would respond to union-style messaging: "When we fight, we win." And in the face of a (temporary) loss, shift the message to one of building strength and solidarity for the longer campaign, and get out and organize.
And when I say "organize," I don't mean "fundraise." The idea is to mobilize as many people as you can - get them coming out and doing things, and meeting others who are doing the same. Fundraising doesn't build community. Direct messaging doesn't build community. Email lists don't build community. Shared struggle builds community.
Also, I don't know how many of the people who complain about the progressives woeful messaging have taken the time to watch one of the videos that AOC puts out on her various social media platforms. She's really good, especially at speaking to voters under 45. And if you look at the demographics of the Blue Wave, those were the voters that carried the show.
I think it is a mistake to treat the defection of the eight and the decision to end the shutdown as only a matter of cost/benefit analysis for the possible outcomes. My earlier quotation addresses that:
Please don’t be so “revolutionary” that you think electoral politics never matter and please don’t be so “moderate” that you think electoral politics are all that matter. – Abiola Agoro
As I have said before of union bargaining strategies, sometimes it's important to fight a losing battle in order to establish the narrative for the next battle and make your opponent think about the cost of that next victory. It's the reason why so many older brothers say that you have to hit the bully as hard as you can even if they are going to beat the crap out of you. It also sends an important message to allies and bystanders that the bully can be resisted and hurt.
So for me the questions "are we going to win?" and "are people going to get hurt if we resis?t" are not the only important questions. It's also important to ask how accepting that loss at this moment is going to affect the public narrative and the results of the next such confrontation. If holding out for another week gives the GOP another full week of having to deal with Blue Wave stories without significantly adding to the suffering of at-risk people, then I think you have to try to stretch it for one more week, and your caucus puts energy into helping take the sting out of the need with food drives and informational campaigns and partnerships with progressive faith groups. You still give in, but you give in on your terms, when you have a more opportune moment to control the narrative.
I think this is what Agoro is getting at when she says not to be so moderate that you think electoral politics are all that matter.
I'll also say here that I think Kaine, being the Senator for Virginia, was probably under a lot of pressure from a constituency that is heavy with fired federal workers who were asking him to find a way to get them their jobs back. I think his decision made sense, and while I don't think he should be let off the hook, I do think that any punishment he get from the caucus should be less than what the others receive.
The others should be out in the cold for any political favors for a long time, and I would not be sad if they were challenged in their next primaries.
First Circuit Appeals Court has upheld the SNAP ruling, and Justice Jackson has given the administration until 11am to decide whether they want to continue with the appeal.
Should have waited for this to hit before caving on cloture.
Cortez Masto (NV), Fetterman (PA), Durbin (IL), Hassan (NH), Kaine (VA), Rosen (NV), Shaheen (NH), King (Ind. ME).
The Nevada contingent aren't much of a surprise. Fetterman is Manchin in a hoodie. Shaheen and Durbin are retiring and probably decided to throw themselves on the cloture grenade to end the shutdown because there were other Dems that were wavering and wanted cover.
I really wish that they would have held out at least until the First Circuit handed down their decision on SNAP. If they had affirmed that SNAP needed covering, then the cloture could have come right after The Ancient Orange One went on record *yet again* to deny aid to hungry children and seniors. The Dems could have been the compassionate ones in that moment. Had the First Circuit sided with The Ancient Orange One, the Dems could play it just the same and be the ones coming to the rescue of the needy.
This just looks like a loss of courage in the wake of a Blue Wave, and it kills any sense of momentum or hope.
A lot of Reactionary Centrists have been arguing that this was inevitable, and that the people who wanted to continue the shutdown were all callously ignoring the plight of the needy from positions of privilege. They consistently fail to see beyond electoral politics.
Please don’t be so “revolutionary” that you think electoral politics never matter and please don’t be so “moderate” that you think electoral politics are all that matter. - Abiola Agoro
wj - ...actors can play parts, with authentic appearing emotions, even about experiences they have never personally had — all it takes is having seen someone else experiencing it.
Agreed, but look at what I said: What you do need, however, is some life experience to connect it with. Note that I did not say that they need to have that precise experience, just enough to act as a bridge between their own experience and others'. As russell says, it takes empathy, or as they used to say "fellow feelings." An AI has no experiences, and isn't a person, so can have no personal perspective and cannot reflect. It has to be trained to extrapolate within very narrow ranges and cannot imagine or improvise or project. Even a sociopath has a better perspective for understanding. At least the sociopath is embodied and sensate and conscious. An AI is a database with a good costuming department.
And I don't think that one has to have written a song in order to understand and serve the emotions of the song. What you do need, however, is some life experience to connect it with.
And I'm not talking about a CGI/animated puppet for real performers (a la Gorillaz or Dethklok). That's just human musicians cosplaying something else. What Spotify, Sony, Warner, etc. are after is on-trend content generated by trained expert systems in response to prompts or to the other content listened to by users of their services.
lj - ...and I would be surprised if this week’s is on anyone else’s.
Incorrect, sir.
The Hu - Yuve Yuve Yu (Mongolian Folk Metal)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4xZUr0BEfE
Heilung - In Maidjan (Danish Shamanistic Neofolk)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmWTZ3KfnXE
Both of which have, with other songs from these bands, had some heavy rotation in my playlists. Both bands are pretty awesome, and have dedicated fanbases. I find that Heilung live video astounding and powerful every damn time I watch it.
wj - you can have AI generate the name of your star and generate genre appropriate "photos" of them. You can then use Claude to generate all the lyrics for your song from a simple, one sentence prompt. You can then feed those lyrics into Suno and have it generate a genre-appropriate song based on the lyrics complete with a vocalist.
It's all just a stew of algorithmically generated near-plagiarism.
I'm prepping and making changes to my syllabus for the writing class I teach that centers around college music - writing reviews of "college radio" albums from the '80s and '90s, and then taking what they have learned from doing that to comment on the music that is a part of their college lives today.
I had been having them write an essay exploring the question "Does College Music Still Exist?," and digging into the social side of what defines the music of that moment and that community. Sadly, I've never been satisfied with the depth of their engagement with the topic and have been wanting to change it up for a few terms now in the hopes of finding something that gets them thinking more deeply and feeling like they have something that the want to say.
My current idea is to get them thinking more deeply about the ecology of their music media. If the music you listen to is chosen for you by an algorithm, what makes it yours? Should Spotify allow the uploading and monetizing of music produced by AI? Can an AI generated pop star understand your broken heart? Do you really listen to songs you don't buy and music you don't own, or is it just something to consume like fast food?
I keep making stabs at how to turn all that into a philosophical question that can provoke reflection and inspire many different responses - something like "What's Wrong With Listening To Spotify?" or the like, but I haven't found one with the right mojo and moxie. Any ideas?
Have just started to shift to teaching my students about speculative journalism (reporting of things like climate change that frame parts of the story using the tools [extrapolation, cognitive estrangement] of science fiction). I have them read a few Spec J pieces from High Country News based on the Fourth National Climate Assessment from 2018 with the stories set in 2068. In past quarters I have pulled up a copy of the Assessment to show the what and the how of the extrapolation.
All of the governmental links to the study are broken. The Ancient Orange One and his gibbering minions have taken down those sites. This despite the fact that it was his previous administration that published them in the first place.
And now I am torn as to whether the university will have my back if I simply point this out to my students. We've all been warned not to engage in anything that could be taken as political activism, and they are drawing a very risk-averse line in the sand for what counts as activism.
I think Wonkie is correct about religion as the locus for right wing charity. I remember seeing claims a decade or so ago that conservatives gave more to charity than did liberals, but the details of that showed that part of what counted as conservative charity was church offerings and tithing, which may be charity or it may be paying the pastor/priest/rabbi/imam and covering the overhead/improvement of the communal place of worship. And unlike Charity Navigator, there really isn't any way to track the efficiency with which those religious donations are turned into support for charitable causes.
My conservative family members and friends can be quite generous. I do think, however, that liberal charitable giving tends to go to causes a bit farther from home and immediate community, where conservative giving tends to have fewer degrees of separation from the giver.
russell - Grok needs to read the Second Treatise on Government. Also the preamble to the Massachusetts Constitution, which preceded and was a model for the US Constitution.
I'm sure that Grok has been fed those things, but what it "thinks" about those things is just a matter of remixing what others have said about those texts.
novakant - At least I feel on most days that I’m doing something useful, though I don’t really know what I’m doing yet.
I know a lot of teachers (myself included) with a decade or more of teaching experience that still feel like this - at least part of the time. We feel it less often, but it never quite goes away. We just get better at letting go of our expectations and more adept at flowing around the obstacles.
wj - a surprising number of evangelical fundamentalists have embraced their catholic co-religionists in the name of Christian Nationalism and being pro-forced-birth. They are also very positive where the various Orthodox denominations are concerned. They can all get along so long as there are no gays, women belong to their men, and none of the Catholics support these last couple Marxist Anti-Popes.
And they will be polite and keep their mouths shut on the whole Mormon thing for the sake of politics so long as no one presses them to affirm that Mormons are Christians.
But the JWs are still on the outs.
Gotta make concessions if you want to have your Christian Red Caesar.
Couchie would very much love to be the heir to the Charlie Kirk throne, and judging by the way that he sidesteps the questions, reframes them, gaslights, and performs entirely for the audience while refusing to engage with any of the actual questions being asked of him, I'd say that he's learned the patter needed to try to be the paterfamilias of TPUSA.
I don't think his performance is all that convincing for the people outside the room, but it's probably reassuring for those in attendance who were hoping to be a part of the moment when we all watched the triumph of Couchie's will.
Michael Cain - At one of those, one of the people who did have a doctorate made the observation that yes, Mike had done multiple projects that would easily qualify for a PhD in terms of originality and impact, but all cut across multiple disciplines so no department would ever accept them.
I was in a similar situation with my dissertation, which spanned informatics, film and media studies, and rhetoric. I had people from each of those three disciplines on my committee (two of whom had appointments in English, which is what made my project possible).
I earned the degree, but there were no journals that felt my work was in the pocket for what they covered, and no programs or departments that were looking to hire someone with an oddball set of research interests.
So I teach rhetoric and composition, and transmedial rhetoric sits and gathers dust.
I think this is a particular problem for academics specializing in East Asia because of the problem I faced: Getting fluent in one language/culture is tough, in two is exponentially tougher and three requires something on the level of cosmic coincidence.
I'm not discounting the specific language challenges that you identify here. I suspect the same can be said of linguists that are attempting to do comparative study between geographically distant and isolated branches of Indo-European - leaning too hard on the common ground of shared language and not doing enough to understand the divergent histories, local influences, and historical contexts of the moments they are comparing. These complexities are difficult to work through and require multiple bridging assumptions.
On a more general level, though, I think that the disciplinary specialization of university departments and the specialist communities that form around these disciplinary homes may also lead to another form of overestimation of individual expertise and critical perspective. Scholars submit their work to specialist journals, and the editors on those journals share methodological approaches and disciplinary identities with most of the people submitting papers for publication. And even if the paper does get submitted to an outside expert to verify parts that are outside of the author's expertise, those outside experts often find themselves in unfamiliar methodologies and contexts that limit how much they are able to interact with the wider implications of what is being asserted in the article.
If we had more cross-disciplinary appointments and more interdisciplinary collaboration, we'd probably have better structures in place for working through these sorts of blind spots and assumptions.
Alas, that is not the model on which academia currently runs.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Spelunking for fun and profit”
wj - I’m arguing that sometimes you have to settle for imperfect in order to get anything at all. And while there’s certainly no obligation to embrace someone like Manchin, it is a bad idea to get loudly worked up about his shortcomings. If you have a real chance to replace him with someone better, fine. But when you don’t, save your invective for the other side. Screaming “treason!” is counterproductive.
...would that the grumpy moderates and reactionary centrists could take this to heart with the progressives and social democrats in their own caucus as well, especially when those progressives and social democrats have shown more solidarity with their colleagues than the centrist border reivers.
"
Yup, vilified simply for being a moderate. Manchin never did anything to offend anyone who wasn't a horrible activist lost to their political delusions.
@#$%ing activists. So unfair.
"
Here is an antidote to the weak rhetorical sauce being offered up by Shaheen and her turtling pals. Rep. Adelita Grijalva speaks at her swearing in today, and dances all over the GOP's buttons with every one of her minutes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EhEeqOu8Ts
Granddaughter of a Bracero - check.
Speaks Spanish with no translation - check.
Smacks the Speaker over his partisan delays - check.
Chides congress for abandoning its oversight role - check.
Brings Epstein survivors to her swearing in - check.
Signs discharge petition as her first official act - check.
This is how it should be done.
"
wj - I would argue that it did work. The alternatives were never, ever, Manchin vs a more reliably more liberal Democrat. The alternative to Manchin was a very conservative Republican. Like the one now holding that seat.
From the perspective of WV electoral politics, you are correct. But there are wider ripples that are harder to measure that need to be considered. Manchin and Sinema voted against the Build Back Better deal, spiking major legislation that would have helped fight climate change. They (and Shaheen, and King, and Hassan - sound familiar?) spiked the minimum wage bill in 2021.
Now all the stories are about how Biden can't get his signature legislation passed.
It happened again going out the door with these two preventing Biden from appointing someone to the NLRB, handing Trump control of the federal arm that deals with labor bargaining.
I know that a lot of people have written about how Harris had a problem with turnout due to Israel/Palestine issues, but I also firmly believe that had Biden and Harris managed to pass Build Back Better and the increase in minimum wage, that we would not have seen turnout quite so reduced for Harris, and might have seen a few fewer votes for Trump amongst young men disillusioned with federal politics and claiming that both sides were essentially the same.
Dems need to convince younger voters that they can actually achieve something to help with climate, stagnant wages, and the possibility of ever owning a home. Manchin and Sinema did more damage to this belief than did anyone else.
It's not just about vote percentages and issues mentioned in exit polling. There's the unseen effects of turnout and the issues that fuel cynicism and disillusionment.
Guess who showed up for the most recent Blue Wave?
"
The Epstein Files have never been a GOP hobby horse (and we have always been at war with Eastasia).
Someone needs to update their Two Minutes of Hate.
"
The GOP probably thinks that their demand for abortion restrictions in return for extending the subsidies is a clever move - making it so that they can say the Dems were the ones to sink the ACA because of their refusal (and they had best refuse). I think, however, that this ploy is going to backfire. The abortion stuff will play well to their base, but there is no reason to tie these two things together other than to poison pill it for the Dems, so I don't know how this lets the GOP off the hook when people's health insurance suddenly becomes unaffordable. It just demonstrates their lack of good faith.
Let's hope the Democratic leadership have enough sense to hit back hard on this and make voters see that the GOP is treating this like a game and not taking people's healthcare access seriously. It's simple messaging, or at least it would be for anyone not allergic to confrontation and sharp elbows.
"
wj - I understand what you are saying about not interrupting the enemy when they are in the midst of making a mistake. What I do not understand is why you think Kaine saying something like what wonkie outlines would in any way tip off the GOP that they were being set up.
And, assuming that they did recognize the mousetrap, I really don't see how the GOP could ever avoid that trap. Even if they see it sitting there, The Ancient Orange One Who Slumbers will not let them back down from tearing down a big shiny thing with Obama's name on it.
So where is the downside for Kaine blasting the GOP?
And I really don't believe that this is all Schumer calculus, and that the drama between caucuses has been scripted. If I had to pick anyone out of that group who was doing it for cover, I'd say it was Durbin giving cover to Gillibrand, but I don't think that was engineered by Schumer.
And I think Schumer should lose his leadership spot because he is such a soft target for people like Stewart, and even his attempts at sounding feisty look and sound squishy to anyone not starting to worry about retirement. The Dems need a scrappy wartime leader, not someone who talks about the sympathetic conversations that they have with their colleagues across the aisle while working out at the Senate gym.
Pull him from his leadership position and put someone else in front of those cameras who knows how to talk a good fight.
"
Note that Pritzker was speaking in front of a union crowd there (my compatriots in the IFT). This is what I've been saying for well over an election cycle - there are a whole lot of reachable voters who would respond to union-style messaging: "When we fight, we win." And in the face of a (temporary) loss, shift the message to one of building strength and solidarity for the longer campaign, and get out and organize.
And when I say "organize," I don't mean "fundraise." The idea is to mobilize as many people as you can - get them coming out and doing things, and meeting others who are doing the same. Fundraising doesn't build community. Direct messaging doesn't build community. Email lists don't build community. Shared struggle builds community.
Also, I don't know how many of the people who complain about the progressives woeful messaging have taken the time to watch one of the videos that AOC puts out on her various social media platforms. She's really good, especially at speaking to voters under 45. And if you look at the demographics of the Blue Wave, those were the voters that carried the show.
On “When virtues become vices”
I think it is a mistake to treat the defection of the eight and the decision to end the shutdown as only a matter of cost/benefit analysis for the possible outcomes. My earlier quotation addresses that:
Please don’t be so “revolutionary” that you think electoral politics never matter and please don’t be so “moderate” that you think electoral politics are all that matter. – Abiola Agoro
As I have said before of union bargaining strategies, sometimes it's important to fight a losing battle in order to establish the narrative for the next battle and make your opponent think about the cost of that next victory. It's the reason why so many older brothers say that you have to hit the bully as hard as you can even if they are going to beat the crap out of you. It also sends an important message to allies and bystanders that the bully can be resisted and hurt.
So for me the questions "are we going to win?" and "are people going to get hurt if we resis?t" are not the only important questions. It's also important to ask how accepting that loss at this moment is going to affect the public narrative and the results of the next such confrontation. If holding out for another week gives the GOP another full week of having to deal with Blue Wave stories without significantly adding to the suffering of at-risk people, then I think you have to try to stretch it for one more week, and your caucus puts energy into helping take the sting out of the need with food drives and informational campaigns and partnerships with progressive faith groups. You still give in, but you give in on your terms, when you have a more opportune moment to control the narrative.
I think this is what Agoro is getting at when she says not to be so moderate that you think electoral politics are all that matter.
I'll also say here that I think Kaine, being the Senator for Virginia, was probably under a lot of pressure from a constituency that is heavy with fired federal workers who were asking him to find a way to get them their jobs back. I think his decision made sense, and while I don't think he should be let off the hook, I do think that any punishment he get from the caucus should be less than what the others receive.
The others should be out in the cold for any political favors for a long time, and I would not be sad if they were challenged in their next primaries.
"
First Circuit Appeals Court has upheld the SNAP ruling, and Justice Jackson has given the administration until 11am to decide whether they want to continue with the appeal.
Should have waited for this to hit before caving on cloture.
"
Done deal:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/11/09/democrat-senators-who-voted-end-shutdown/87190180007/
Cortez Masto (NV), Fetterman (PA), Durbin (IL), Hassan (NH), Kaine (VA), Rosen (NV), Shaheen (NH), King (Ind. ME).
The Nevada contingent aren't much of a surprise. Fetterman is Manchin in a hoodie. Shaheen and Durbin are retiring and probably decided to throw themselves on the cloture grenade to end the shutdown because there were other Dems that were wavering and wanted cover.
I really wish that they would have held out at least until the First Circuit handed down their decision on SNAP. If they had affirmed that SNAP needed covering, then the cloture could have come right after The Ancient Orange One went on record *yet again* to deny aid to hungry children and seniors. The Dems could have been the compassionate ones in that moment. Had the First Circuit sided with The Ancient Orange One, the Dems could play it just the same and be the ones coming to the rescue of the needy.
This just looks like a loss of courage in the wake of a Blue Wave, and it kills any sense of momentum or hope.
A lot of Reactionary Centrists have been arguing that this was inevitable, and that the people who wanted to continue the shutdown were all callously ignoring the plight of the needy from positions of privilege. They consistently fail to see beyond electoral politics.
This feels premature.
On “Weekend Music Thread #04 John Mackey”
wj - ...actors can play parts, with authentic appearing emotions, even about experiences they have never personally had — all it takes is having seen someone else experiencing it.
Agreed, but look at what I said: What you do need, however, is some life experience to connect it with. Note that I did not say that they need to have that precise experience, just enough to act as a bridge between their own experience and others'. As russell says, it takes empathy, or as they used to say "fellow feelings." An AI has no experiences, and isn't a person, so can have no personal perspective and cannot reflect. It has to be trained to extrapolate within very narrow ranges and cannot imagine or improvise or project. Even a sociopath has a better perspective for understanding. At least the sociopath is embodied and sensate and conscious. An AI is a database with a good costuming department.
"
russell is well on his way with this prompt.
And I don't think that one has to have written a song in order to understand and serve the emotions of the song. What you do need, however, is some life experience to connect it with.
And I'm not talking about a CGI/animated puppet for real performers (a la Gorillaz or Dethklok). That's just human musicians cosplaying something else. What Spotify, Sony, Warner, etc. are after is on-trend content generated by trained expert systems in response to prompts or to the other content listened to by users of their services.
On “Weekend music thread #05 Tuvan throat singing”
lj - ...and I would be surprised if this week’s is on anyone else’s.
Incorrect, sir.
The Hu - Yuve Yuve Yu (Mongolian Folk Metal)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4xZUr0BEfE
Heilung - In Maidjan (Danish Shamanistic Neofolk)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmWTZ3KfnXE
Both of which have, with other songs from these bands, had some heavy rotation in my playlists. Both bands are pretty awesome, and have dedicated fanbases. I find that Heilung live video astounding and powerful every damn time I watch it.
On “Weekend Music Thread #04 John Mackey”
If either of you want to brainstorm a thesis, I've got office hours on Zoom.
"
wj - you can have AI generate the name of your star and generate genre appropriate "photos" of them. You can then use Claude to generate all the lyrics for your song from a simple, one sentence prompt. You can then feed those lyrics into Suno and have it generate a genre-appropriate song based on the lyrics complete with a vocalist.
It's all just a stew of algorithmically generated near-plagiarism.
You can watch Rick Beato do just that here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKxNGFjyRv0
"
I'm prepping and making changes to my syllabus for the writing class I teach that centers around college music - writing reviews of "college radio" albums from the '80s and '90s, and then taking what they have learned from doing that to comment on the music that is a part of their college lives today.
I had been having them write an essay exploring the question "Does College Music Still Exist?," and digging into the social side of what defines the music of that moment and that community. Sadly, I've never been satisfied with the depth of their engagement with the topic and have been wanting to change it up for a few terms now in the hopes of finding something that gets them thinking more deeply and feeling like they have something that the want to say.
My current idea is to get them thinking more deeply about the ecology of their music media. If the music you listen to is chosen for you by an algorithm, what makes it yours? Should Spotify allow the uploading and monetizing of music produced by AI? Can an AI generated pop star understand your broken heart? Do you really listen to songs you don't buy and music you don't own, or is it just something to consume like fast food?
I keep making stabs at how to turn all that into a philosophical question that can provoke reflection and inspire many different responses - something like "What's Wrong With Listening To Spotify?" or the like, but I haven't found one with the right mojo and moxie. Any ideas?
On “Another variety in the diversity of greasy”
Have just started to shift to teaching my students about speculative journalism (reporting of things like climate change that frame parts of the story using the tools [extrapolation, cognitive estrangement] of science fiction). I have them read a few Spec J pieces from High Country News based on the Fourth National Climate Assessment from 2018 with the stories set in 2068. In past quarters I have pulled up a copy of the Assessment to show the what and the how of the extrapolation.
All of the governmental links to the study are broken. The Ancient Orange One and his gibbering minions have taken down those sites. This despite the fact that it was his previous administration that published them in the first place.
And now I am torn as to whether the university will have my back if I simply point this out to my students. We've all been warned not to engage in anything that could be taken as political activism, and they are drawing a very risk-averse line in the sand for what counts as activism.
This is not sustainable.
On “People and poliltics”
I think Wonkie is correct about religion as the locus for right wing charity. I remember seeing claims a decade or so ago that conservatives gave more to charity than did liberals, but the details of that showed that part of what counted as conservative charity was church offerings and tithing, which may be charity or it may be paying the pastor/priest/rabbi/imam and covering the overhead/improvement of the communal place of worship. And unlike Charity Navigator, there really isn't any way to track the efficiency with which those religious donations are turned into support for charitable causes.
My conservative family members and friends can be quite generous. I do think, however, that liberal charitable giving tends to go to causes a bit farther from home and immediate community, where conservative giving tends to have fewer degrees of separation from the giver.
I think that is a fair assessment.
On “Horrifying stuff”
russell - Grok needs to read the Second Treatise on Government. Also the preamble to the Massachusetts Constitution, which preceded and was a model for the US Constitution.
I'm sure that Grok has been fed those things, but what it "thinks" about those things is just a matter of remixing what others have said about those texts.
On “I got depressed so I bought hydrangeas”
novakant - At least I feel on most days that I’m doing something useful, though I don’t really know what I’m doing yet.
I know a lot of teachers (myself included) with a decade or more of teaching experience that still feel like this - at least part of the time. We feel it less often, but it never quite goes away. We just get better at letting go of our expectations and more adept at flowing around the obstacles.
Every new class is a learning experience.
On “Horrifying stuff”
wj - a surprising number of evangelical fundamentalists have embraced their catholic co-religionists in the name of Christian Nationalism and being pro-forced-birth. They are also very positive where the various Orthodox denominations are concerned. They can all get along so long as there are no gays, women belong to their men, and none of the Catholics support these last couple Marxist Anti-Popes.
And they will be polite and keep their mouths shut on the whole Mormon thing for the sake of politics so long as no one presses them to affirm that Mormons are Christians.
But the JWs are still on the outs.
Gotta make concessions if you want to have your Christian Red Caesar.
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Couchie would very much love to be the heir to the Charlie Kirk throne, and judging by the way that he sidesteps the questions, reframes them, gaslights, and performs entirely for the audience while refusing to engage with any of the actual questions being asked of him, I'd say that he's learned the patter needed to try to be the paterfamilias of TPUSA.
I don't think his performance is all that convincing for the people outside the room, but it's probably reassuring for those in attendance who were hoping to be a part of the moment when we all watched the triumph of Couchie's will.
On “Ramsayer, Korea and me”
Michael Cain - At one of those, one of the people who did have a doctorate made the observation that yes, Mike had done multiple projects that would easily qualify for a PhD in terms of originality and impact, but all cut across multiple disciplines so no department would ever accept them.
I was in a similar situation with my dissertation, which spanned informatics, film and media studies, and rhetoric. I had people from each of those three disciplines on my committee (two of whom had appointments in English, which is what made my project possible).
I earned the degree, but there were no journals that felt my work was in the pocket for what they covered, and no programs or departments that were looking to hire someone with an oddball set of research interests.
So I teach rhetoric and composition, and transmedial rhetoric sits and gathers dust.
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I'm not discounting the specific language challenges that you identify here. I suspect the same can be said of linguists that are attempting to do comparative study between geographically distant and isolated branches of Indo-European - leaning too hard on the common ground of shared language and not doing enough to understand the divergent histories, local influences, and historical contexts of the moments they are comparing. These complexities are difficult to work through and require multiple bridging assumptions.
On a more general level, though, I think that the disciplinary specialization of university departments and the specialist communities that form around these disciplinary homes may also lead to another form of overestimation of individual expertise and critical perspective. Scholars submit their work to specialist journals, and the editors on those journals share methodological approaches and disciplinary identities with most of the people submitting papers for publication. And even if the paper does get submitted to an outside expert to verify parts that are outside of the author's expertise, those outside experts often find themselves in unfamiliar methodologies and contexts that limit how much they are able to interact with the wider implications of what is being asserted in the article.
If we had more cross-disciplinary appointments and more interdisciplinary collaboration, we'd probably have better structures in place for working through these sorts of blind spots and assumptions.
Alas, that is not the model on which academia currently runs.
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