The depositions come from a lawsuit the Modern Language Association, American Council of Learned Societies, and American Historical Association brought against the National Endowment for the Humanities and others over its cutting of hundreds of millions of grants. DOGE members Justin Fox and Nate Cavanaugh were a driving force behind those cuts. The deposition videos, which the MLA uploaded to YouTubeearlier this month, included depositions of Fox, Cavanaugh, and NEH officials Adam Wolfson and Michael McDonald.

The videos went viral when 404 Media and other outlets reported on their contents and clipped certain segments. Those included Fox not being able or unwilling to define DEI.

Agreed, I just think we need to nurture how people relate to/ground their opinions before theory can take root properly. Currently both science and politics are treated like sophistry—it’s all a matter of argument

What I think is especially unhelpful is people who have not read enough theory to understand what they are talking about (let alone considered it in the context it was written), but they are passionate about an issue so they try to debate people using the logic of that theory and they end up just making the theory seem like nonsense because they didn’t understand it. Only in the context of debate does it make sense to argue for a theory you don’t really grasp. Debate is about winning an argument but not about what is ‘true’ or ‘right’. I would rather that person just stick to their guns on the basics of whatever the argument is over (ie. genocide is bad no exceptions). This way they stand firmly on their own feet but can also have confidence in their reasons even without a nuanced historical perspective of how things got to where they are.

Anyway I love reading and discussing theory and philosophy (including your guides) and find it extremely rich and rewarding. It should be used as fodder to help you think rather than a guidebook to inform what you should think.

I like the anarchist tendency to encourage thinking for yourself because I think outsourcing political opinions and generally the narrative that politics is too complicated for the layman to fully grasp goes a long way in enabling a world where everything is treated as sophistry leaving gaps for people to blindly follow ideologues. Something similar happened with science and now we have folks ‘debating’ things that are clear as day if you just look.

Encouraging each person to think for themselves isn’t to say everyone should live in a private conspiracy. I think everyone should take a course in propositional logic or higher because it truly helps your brain sort through information more clearly and quicker, and makes you much sharper at catching sophistry.

In ourselves we should try to note when we hit that point in an argument when we are arguing just to win. At that point we should (potentially apologize) and bow out. Arguing just to win is unhelpful.

Theory is much more helpful once you have your feet under you. You are committed to dignity for all. That is a strong position to assess the world from. The categories are quite clear. Once you are here reading theory, especially examples of successful revolutionary projects, helps you understand the types of tools and approaches you might use (or avoid) to bring about change. It also saves lives to avoid strategies that commonly fail.

It really was the final symbolic stamp for the overhaul we saw across silicon valley.

!theydidthemath

Someone from the electrical company who was fixing my heater informed me that it’s pronounced Sass quaa and not Sass quatch. He and his friends went on Sasquatch hunts and he gave me some good hiking recs. I haven’t been able to find his pronunciation elsewhere so I thought someone else might want to carry this important information with them.

All those people who didn’t vote for him to get the nobel prize could have prevented this by simply voting rationally instead of voting their conscious!

I love big tech’s products after the startup funding designed to kill competition has been spent. It’s really the sweet spot where the product doesn’t function efficiently anymore AND it costs more than the original product or service it replaced AND any human workers involved are not protected as employees.

It’s hard to come up with solutions but often trivial to check whether the solution works

More and more stuff in Math and CS goes up on arxiv before publication. I think the structure would not work as well for humanities though, math is easier and faster to verify

Did you know there’s some scientific basis for talking about brainwaves synching now? Maybe you and I_love_older_women are kindred minds

They’re not in the new Epstein Ballroom, they’re in the student loan servers (they’re nice and cool like tunnels)

How long has it been on 99.9%? Still a chance you just need to wait for someone to turn on their computer?

If I can’t get an audiobook specifically I usually mark it as a request in the Libby app and hope the library will purchase some licenses. Does your library offer similar services?

To answer your original question though I don’t generally buy stuff I’ve failed to torrent. I intermittently search for it again unless I forget about it though.

Where was this picture taken?

The communist manifesto was written for a different historical moment but so much of it is still spot on.

I mean come on, it opens basically like “Everyone in the current status quo has already painted communism as their biggest most powerful enemy, may as well unite and make it become that.”

Feels pretty topical given that multiple countries are thinking about naming antifa, which isn’t an organization, a terrorist group.

Why would I do this to me?!?!

I demand satisfaction, good sir!

I agree let’s bring back dueling for politicians

Indian food is really good in Britain

Where you gunna sleep tonight?

https://electronicintifada.net/content/winston-churchills-racist-legacy-palestine/30481