Ben Wurgaft

Galaxy brain: observing the structure of his name, we swerve into the deduction that Lucre(tius) is a money-making scheme invented by contemporary publishing.

OmG you really need Thessaly

It’s been my experience that the best forms of intellectual life aren’t passive, they’re energetic. Plenty of people can memorize and quote lines from Plato. We could, as a nation, recite them in unison. That would be creepy though!

And this is the law of jungle/and as old and as true as the sky/and those who keep it will prosper/and those who shall break it will die.

And apologies I tagged @jowalton.bsky.social where i ought to have tagged @bluejo.bsky.social

have you read @jowalton.bsky.social’s Thessaly? its a very interesting portrayal of Socrates against some background questions of authoritarianism.

[screams in Kirk] “khaaaan”

Well this is simply brilliant.

Cass Sunstein was pushing prediction markets as a fairer alternative to deliberation (e.g. committees, juries) back in 2008. (This and "nudging" in lieu of policy.) The quant asshole revolution of the Obama era laid the groundwork for the gambling, scams, and bullshit vibes paradigm of today.

Librarian & Executive Director of the Lewis Walpole Library in Farmington, Connecticut, 06032 | Other at Yale University Apply for Librarian & Executive Director of the Lewis Walpole Library job with Yale University in Farmington, Connecticut, 06032. Other at Yale University

JOB ALERT 📜📚

Librarian & executive director of Yale’s Lewis Walpole Library (Farmington, CT)

•Research center for 18th-century Britain
•You’d report to the fabulous Michelle Light

careers.yale.edu/us/en/job/13...

merch-ents of peace

You know, there is a strong argument that the most meaningful form of regime change would begin at home.

The beer is definitely what would put me under. I have low tolerance for alcohol.

Klingon police drama but their foreheads make it a "Prosthedural" send tweet

"Buddharoids" sound like a consequence of long-term zazen practice with inadequate cushioning.

👇

RFK Jr. is about to learn that the American people are not to be tripe filled with.

He's mostly speaking to his steakholders.

Anyway, this has been a Tripe called Kvetch.

Third point, we consume more meat, at the civilizational scale, than almost any of our ancestral populations. And fourth point, the agenda of making us "healthier again" would be better served by using meat as a condiment rather than the central element of a meal.

MAHA's meat advice is riddled with ironies. For one, meat - whether the "expensive" cuts or offal - is already artificially inexpensive due to subsidy and the cost-cutting measures that produce "cheap" meat. For another, they promote a diet rich in animal foods like meat, when we eat so much that -

"Marx wanted to make the world a workhouse" vibes. If a leftist joins conservatives and liberals on the issue of bread, they will eventually join them on roses, too.

supposed to be slightly raised (metaphorically speaking, on higher moral ground), so that water can run off to either side; sigh

My first rally was for HUCTW; my Mom must have brought me, and I must have been 5 or 6. You can’t eat prestige.

There are always good reminders that universities are not monoliths; one part of Yale hires David Brooks while another, the Yale Review, cancels its annual lit fest due to budgetary concerns.

I’m not a republic serial villain, Scott. I buried my meisterstuck in the sand 3000 years ago.

Borges in reverse!

The attractiveness of agentic AIs is a symptom of a decades-long trend in higher education. “Univiristies…by and large adopted a transactive model of education,” Kirschenbaum said. “Students see their diploma as a credential. They pay tuition and at the end of four years, sometimes five years, they receive the credential and, in theory at least, that is then the springboard to economic stability and prosperity.”

the AIs are attractive because of what education has become in the US

You think it’ll work?

but as performed by Billy Crystal in Princess Bride