Drew Baumgartner

Imagine losing the Epstein files so badly you need to call in the National Guard to help you look for them.

I think I've seen the "we caught him in a lie -- there's no denying it this time!" thing fail enough with this guy that it's starting to feel like the definition of insanity. Cons simply do not care about his lies, hypocrisy, or evidence contrary to their beliefs, and I don't think they ever will.

I think there's a world where they're TRYING to get us to make the case that these files are a big deal. But in either case, they're definitely dishonest enough to throw together a list of their enemies and call it his client list. So I'm not sure there's a win to be had here.

Does anyone trust the administration not to just make up whatever and release it as "the Epstein files," though? This is just a big hurricane map and they're holding the sharpie.

How else are companies supposed to communicate how cheap and tasteless they are?

Good news! “Being a depressed brainwashed cult member” is largely how I’d describe the college experience! (only half kidding)

Oh shit. Have I turned into the kind of middle aged white dude who listens to Kind of Blue in his living room on a Friday night?

I honestly can't imagine ever being offended by an insult as softball as "world-class hater," but I will not accept that anyone finds it MORE offensive than "shithole countries" or "grab 'em by the pussy." Why would only one of those be disqualifying?

The third amendment has entered the chat!

Friendly reminder that having a chatbot do your job is the strongest case you could possibly make for you being replaced by a chatbot.

Paul Revere planning for every possibility:

Three if by air.
Four if by tunneling underground.
Five if by teleportation.
Six if by genie, monkey's paw or other wish.
Seven if they've been here all along, but we only just now figured it out.
Eight if by taking over bodies like Agent Smith.

It has the shape of putting him in a no-win scenario where he either looks either weak or incompetent, forgetting that one of those will also cause a global depression.

I know the way I use Word is somewhat idiosyncratic, but I really wish there was an easy way to set it so I'm always seeing one whole page at a time, and scrolling would jump me from page to page.

High praise for any production to get folks so caught up in the moment they don’t see these things coming.

Saw a production of Eurydice tonight. When Orpheus turned around in that fateful moment, the dude next to us called out “no!” I wish I had seen Titanic with this man.

Date night idea: wander around midtown and just kind of stop randomly in the sidewalk

I think I mostly didn't care about grades enough to falsely represent myself. But that's a level of academic arrogance I wouldn't wish on any professor.

Alex, now you've got me curious about how Wikipedia's policies on chatbots...

Oof. That is depressing. I was very lucky in grad school to be surrounded by enthusiastic classmates. Though it is quite telling that it was a novel experience that late in my academic career.

I honestly wonder if I would have used these things to avoid some assignment I thought was bullshit. Heaven knows I thought that of a lot of assignments.

I suspect that the bot-proof credential that will come to take the place of undergraduate degrees as the blanket job requirement will be some non-degree thing innovated outside of the university system. Perhaps leaving colleges populated exclusively by bot-users in a twisted WALL-E dystopia. 9/

...but I fear "resenting X gen ed requirement" is a popular enough idea to tempt otherwise good students into shortcutting their efforts on those requirements. They can justify it to themselves as saving time for the coursework they actually care about.

I was shocked to hear classmates whose work ethic I otherwise respected at LU lamenting the time and effort they had to put in to gen ed requirements they weren't interested in. Which I kind of thought was the point of going to a liberal arts school...

It would also require turning out of a vicious cycle that decades of administrative intransigence (exacerbated by veritable arms race between universities across the country) has only taught them to steer into: to scale back, and make themselves *less* appealing to ignorance enthusiasts. 8/

Universities could pull themselves out of this tailspin by 1) giving everyone confidence in the legitimacy of their degrees and 2) overhauling how they market themselves to and recruit new students. But that requires the kind of speed and forethought I doubt any university is capable of. 7/

I've seen stories of professors bot-proofing their writing prompts and tests, but that's really just addressing the symptom, right? The problem is that schools are full of students who fundamentally don't want to do the work.

Demand for degrees will go down. Enrollment will crater. I think a LOT of colleges and university systems won't weather the coming crash. Especially because they've specifically geared themselves to recruiting kids who don't want to learn. 6/

But the rampant use of chatbots has already started to undermine the legitimacy of those degrees. What's the point of checking that box on a job application if it functionally means "had internet access for four years"? Blanket requirements for undergrad degrees will shift to something else. 5/

There have always been lazy students. Or students only there because their parents insisted. But passing classes still required effort that couldn't be shortcut at the scale of entire student bodies. So degrees maintained their legitimacy in spite of lazy students. 4/

...basically, they've created the exact demand for a product that cuts the "student" out of the "learning" process. And now that product exists, and it is threatening to jeopardize the legitimacy of college degrees, largely because enrollment is bloated with ignorance enthusiasts. 3/