Charlie McCrary

Prosecute Noem. Don’t forget about her.

If you are calling your research your "workflow", it's ok, you can sit this one out

They don't *need* AI to make these decisions. But they *want* AI to make these decisions. Because the tech gives them plausible deniability--something to blame (other than themselves) when things go wrong.

Newsmax Commentary: “Judaism is the Foundation of the Free World.” A white man stands in front of a screen depicting “Western Civilization” as a pyramid. At the bottom is Judaism. Above that is Christ. Above that is Christianity. Above that is the U.S.A.

honey, wake up. there’s a new philosemitic supersessionism

Instead of "the left isn't paying enough attention to these machine gods" they're claiming to build, perhaps we should write an article about how effective altruists brand themselves "left", ask who is writing these articles, and trace their cults and sources of funding.

New course open to all!

“Religious Freedom and the Law,” taught by Liz Reiner Platt will provide students with a solid understanding of the basic legal history and current status of key religious liberty doctrines, including Constitution protections and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).

One reason I keep saying that Trump's departure won't end our fascism problem is that every Republican presidential aspirant (even those who 10 years ago were "normal") are talking like twitter nazis now

Charles Murray, _Taking Religion Seriously_ Rod Dreher, _Living in Wonder_ Ross Douthat, _Believe_

Speaking of Rod Dreher, here’s what I got in the mail today. I am bold enough to write an essay no one asked for and even fewer want. This is my contribution to the Enlightenment project.

If any editors do in fact want this, though, let me know. I’m about to misspend so many hours and you can help.

Charles Murray, _Taking Religion Seriously_ Rod Dreher, _Living in Wonder_ Ross Douthat, _Believe_

Speaking of Rod Dreher, here’s what I got in the mail today. I am bold enough to write an essay no one asked for and even fewer want. This is my contribution to the Enlightenment project.

Every day we draw closer to someone saying the 14 words on CSPAN

How Google played a key role in recovering the video from Nancy Guthrie’s cameras | CNN Business A major breakthrough in the Nancy Guthrie case largely came down to Google’s technical expertise, a person familiar with the investigation told CNN.

A heartwarming tale of how even if you aren't subscribed to Google Nest their cameras still upload and save "about three hours" of video which can be recovered in the form of "residual data" from "backend servers," surprising even the FBI who claims to have previously believed it was impossible

Emails from 2016 Show Amazon Ring's Hold on the LAPD Through Camera Giveaways In March 2016, “smart” doorbell camera maker Ring was a growing company attempting to market its wireless smart security camera when it received an email from an officer in the Los Angeles Police Depa...

Since we're re-litigating Ring's sins: How did they grow so fast?

Until 2016, Ring gave out free/discounted cameras to police & giving cops perks if the public (including victims of crimes) used the officer's discount code to buy cameras--all of which meant Ring essentially made cops salespeople.

a society losing the plot in real time

Close Reading Is For Everyone Dan Sinykin and Johanna Winant Call for Pitches Based on our previous Close Reading for the Twenty-First Century, we are at work on a new version that’s shorter, slimmer, and aimed at a more general audience. We’re looking for a new set of contributors who would write excellent, brief, model close readings of texts that high schoolers might know and care about. Think: “The Gettysburg Address,” Macbeth, and Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” but also song lyrics, idioms, or even a visual image. What is your best, most instructive, most exciting, most welcoming example of how a close reading builds a real argument out from a tiny, perhaps overlooked detail? If you’re interested in pitching us, please send us your 250-word close reading of the text you propose. Your close reading should be mappable using our vocabulary of close reading: the five steps of scene setting, noticing, local claiming, regional argumentation, and global theorizing. (Our close reading of “The Red Wheelbarrow” in the early pages of our introduction is the sort of thing we’re seeking.) If we think we can use yours, we’ll ask you to expand it to a 1,200 word essay in which you explain how your close reading works step by step. We seek close readings both of texts that are canonical and also ones that aren’t. And so we invite contributors both from the discipline of literary studies, and other disciplines across the university, and the public humanities beyond it. Send your pitches—please include your name and contact info—to daniel.sinykin@emory.edu and jwinant@reed.edu by March 15.

CALL FOR PITCHES

@dan-sinnamon.bsky.social and I are at work on a new version of Close Reading for the Twenty-First Century aimed at a more general audience.

We’re looking for new contributions: your model close readings of texts, canonical and not, from literary studies and not.

Details below!

This is not to say that the push for this cultural turn is over, of course (tech industries will try their best), but just that many people who jumped on the bandwagon are now jumping back off, faced with overwhelming evidence of the project's failure.

Some precision here in the accounting could be useful when deciding who should and shouldn't be trusted in the future - and exactly why or why not.

Now that our year of the supposed rightwing cultural turn is over, it will be good to take stock of who bought it and/or perpetuated it, and whether they 1) wanted it to happen or 2) didn't like it but capitulated, due to lack of moral conviction and/or bad political instincts.

Anthropomorphizing the user interface of a sociotechnical apparatus?
Sounds like a marketing project.

Prediction markets are going to become a real problem for society, aren't they?

Trump: "Mike Johnson is a very religious person. He does not hide it. He'll say to me sometimes at lunch, 'Sir, may we pray.' I'll say, 'Excuse me? We're having lunch.'"

Epstein’s economic power among academics was made possible by a capitalist system that makes higher education dependent on the charity economy rather than a public good supported by taxing the rich

Jeffrey Epstein, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and Marc Andreessen share an enduring fascination with eugenics, race science, and transhumanism and there is an entire generation of public intellectuals who benefited and continue to benefit from their patronage.

Pinker, Huberman, Attia, Weinstein, etc.

Any historians of Christianity who'd like to do a panel for ASCH on archives and, perhaps, rightwing Christians and/or unsavory individuals? I want to talk about a very obscure person and whether I should just leave him dead. Are some ppl not worth "recovering?" Why or why not, how to decide, etc.

I'm not joking when i say race science dipshits think people are pokemon, but it's rather less funny that a eugenicist has been an assignment editor for much of the mainstream press for the past six years

im sorry but we just spent the last decade being told the biggest issues were pronouns in emails and a trans kid playing jv lacrosse

if you said these things and got paid for it then you need to go away. literally if “woke mind virus” is something youve ever said unironically you need to go away

And what are they learning? Experts on the formation of internal security services in authoritarian regimes point to a sense of impunity as a warning sign. Regime officials abuse their power when they know they will be protected, and even praised, for doing so. Over the course of weeks and months, we have seen images of DHS officials abusing American citizens and immigrants alike, including killing them. What we do not hear is regime officials calling for credible investigations into such abuses, or even expressing any concerns. Renee Good’s killer was announced innocent, and both Good and her wife was instead the subject of an investigation, a perversion of justice so obvious that an FBI agent and half-dozen career Department of Justice prosecutors assigned to Minnesota resigned.

What we are watching is a paramilitary force learning that they can kill with impunity, that the regime will smear the victim and defend them. Unless politicians and the legal system exerts accountability, it will not stop. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/past-the-b...

happening at the same time