Matthew Kirschenbaum

Cornell College, which was down the road from where I grew up, is now axing much of the "liberal arts" from its so-called "liberal arts college."

Languages offer lifelong benefits and teach us humility, how to grapple with difference, and the structures of culture and thought.

Shameful!!

My friend, the DOGE lads didn’t undergo background checks or security clearances. They were allegedly being badged in by whoever. You really think anyone was pausing at 1800 F St NW to sign in before destroying careers, looting government data, or sleeping on expensive mattresses on the 6th floor?

Big Lars Ulrich energy

Ah, got it. Sorry, I was just assuming it was in the article and maybe it had been edited or something. Bonkers AND grotesque. (I say let the delivery trucks roll.)

I’m just trying to follow: I don’t see anything in the article about the mandate for specifically paper copies, and wouldn’t that be counterproductive from the standpoint of the kind of data analysis they presumably think they’re going to do? Again, not doubting or disputing, just a little lost.

R.I.P. TrumpCare (2:12 pm, November 24, 2025 - 2:14 pm, November 24, 2025)

You will not be mourned.

I’m sure I’m gonna get dragged for this, but I think Trump is bad. Trump has completely ruined American democracy and he’s created a lot more slop that needs to be avoided on the Internet.

Per the @thedbk.bsky.social, UMD international student enrollment down almost 7% for Fall 2026.

I want a Jim Henson character called the Hype Monster.

Stately Buck Press.

“Those weeks are OCCUPIED.” New reply just dropped.

It’s also essentially a parlor trick, meaning sure, you can try it out as a one-off asssitnment, but you can’t structure an entire course and pedagogy around it.

Bot Friday.

🙃

American.

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Yep.

Who or what is Midnight Society?

Have the first line of my talk on “Grok is an Epistemic Weapon”:

Back last November, acclaimed American novelist Joyce Carol Oates hurt Elon Musk’s feelings by tweeting something mean about him.

The fuck-your-feelings elections-have-consequences crowd is not coping well today.

There an interesting pop-in from rhetoric at the very end of Leif W’s AI book.

💯

Awful.

How about a research statement?

Thank you. A wise friend once said no one is owed a conversation on social media. I’ve found that helpful advice. Fwiw, I’m doing some longer writing about this now, for the journal Social Research. Deborah Brandt’s work on workplace writing is a touchstone and maybe helps situate my remarks.

Sigh. You seem pretty determined to misunderstand and have a fight. Probably best just to block me and move on.

Put another way: The entire writing studies debate is about whether or not LLMs are good writers. My position: that is (literally) immaterial, because good writing has nothing to do with the instrumental use cases for which they are deployed (like the 526 page policy report in my initial post).

So. It’s possible to have a civil conversation without beginning with a snort.

My point is that “writing” is too often understood *only* as a professional skill, and not as a kind of administrative instrument. It doesn’t matter how good your or I are at what we do: LLMs are a form of capital.

DOGE was created for data theft and infrastructure dismantling and it wildly succeeded on both counts within the first few weeks of its existence. It will take a generation to rebuild what it destroyed and the breach of data is unprecedented.