Jacob McDowell

Philosophy PhD at The University of Chicago, originally from Sydney.

[Jacob McDowell @JacobMcD94]

@cwik_greg Ditto for Frankenstein

[Vikram Murthi @fauxbeatpoet]

If you haven’t already seen it, please seek out Tom Noonan’s debut feature WHAT HAPPENED WAS… One of the great American independent films of the ’90s directed by one of the very best American character actors ever.

[Giles Goat-Girl @nadienadianadie]

Four great books that don't get mentioned often and deserve a wider readership.

1. Asphodels, Bernardo Couto Castillo

2. Boys & Murderers, Hermann Ungar

3. Apocryphal Stories, Karel Čapek

4. The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Borb, Ayi Kwei Armah

[Jacob McDowell @JacobMcD94]

@Left_Hegelian Yep, 37 years since the publication of "Artificial Intelligence: The Very Idea" and AI's still "don't give a damn"

[Amy Remeikis @AmyRemeikis]

You can now preorder the book that is going to make Alexander Downer very mad 😇, which truly is all I've ever wanted in life. (You can also ask for it at your library as well xx)

Where it all went wrong; the case against John Howard
https://t.co/4fvBxgkRCF (and all bookstores)

[Jacob McDowell @JacobMcD94]

@freganmitts Probably just a coincidence that tech bros tend to be crude consequentialists ...

[Jay Van Bavel, PhD @jayvanbavel]

Writing is thinking

Outsourcing the entire task of writing to LLMs will deprive us of the essential creative task of interpreting our findings and generating a deeper theoretical understanding of the world.

[Megan Fritts @freganmitts]

it’s actually totally fine and epistemically justified to generally trust expert consensus on a huge array of issues (including this one) otherwise we wouldn’t be able to get on with life. 👍🏼

[Sarah O'Connor @sarahoconnor_]

To use the short-cut of generative AI effectively rather than mindlessly and uncritically, you need to know how to do the task without the short-cut. My column today is on how universities deal with students' embrace of AI https://t.co/okXyDMKZlh

[Open Letter Books @open_letter]

After a day of wrangling with settings, international shipping is once again LIVE at https://t.co/smrPnXIRCD! We love you, and we are sorry it took so long 🙏🥳 (Shipping rates still too [tariff-chokehold] high? Consider ordering from indie bookstores in the UK and EU!❤️)

[Jacob McDowell @JacobMcD94]

The books I read this year ...

[jawn didion @tinndfishmonger]

Everything I read this year…

[Jacob McDowell @JacobMcD94]

@hastifliche Seems very strange to me to regard philosophy and poetry as both fundamentally being in the business of simply stating truths. As if philosophy were not concerned with justification and questioning. As if poetry were even in such a prosaic business as stating the facts

[Jacob McDowell @JacobMcD94]

@erikmbaker Sorry, *Dhalgren*. Can never spell that one right on the first try

[Jacob McDowell @JacobMcD94]

@erikmbaker I feel like I see Babel-17 stocked in bookstores fairly often. Dahlgren I see just a little less often, and Nova a little less often still. I hardly ever see any of his other books though. Definitely a situation that needs redressing

[Jacob McDowell @JacobMcD94]

@LedermanHarvey That seems like a fair appraisal!

[Jacob McDowell @JacobMcD94]

@klopsticle5175 @farsidefix https://t.co/OKn5GtNAbI

[Jacob McDowell @JacobMcD94]

@MatthewFerrari guy who likes Spanglish: And also Spanglish!

[Jacob McDowell @JacobMcD94]

@LedermanHarvey The broader omissions you're poiting to in the piece do seem like grounds for legitimate criticisms. I just thought it was worth separating out what seemed to me, at first blush, the shakier criticism that the piece hadn't interviewed anyone "excited" or "positive"

[Jacob McDowell @JacobMcD94]

@LedermanHarvey He is also reported as saying it would push the university out of a "homogenous echo chamber". That sounds to me like he regards it as a positive prospective development, relative to where he takes the university to be at

[bald ann dowd @ali_sivi]

shit has been named poop of the year by ass