Nate Holdren

General mediocrity. I wrote a book on capitalism, law + employee injuries stuff I do

[Nate Holdren @n_hold]

I can't remember if I said this before on here. This has links to all the posts I did over the summer about writing my book - writers block, intellectual loneliness and intellectual community, how I revised, etc.

https://t.co/Uhmhsr0bsl

[Nate Holdren @n_hold]

@IsmailYSyed @Rituparna37 @MushtaqBilalPhD one being a matter of leveling up, along the lines of 'people with ethical concerns about academic practices re: AI should broaden the scope of academic practices they are concerned with', the other leveling down, something like 'since many people were insufficiently cocnerned

[Nate Holdren @n_hold]

@IsmailYSyed @Rituparna37 @MushtaqBilalPhD Your basic point seems to be 'some academics are concerned about values re: AI that they are not otherwise concerned with' which is true (though I think you're overgeneralizing in the unqualifed use of 'academics'). But there are two directions in terms of what follows from this,

[Nate Holdren @n_hold]

@peligrietzer I don't know how to say this without sounding pointed in a way I genuinely don't intend: in your view what relevant thing follows from this? I honestly can't tell.

[Nate Holdren @n_hold]

Harvard Guy Is Man Of The People, No Really, Stop Laughing You Plebs

[Sasha Gusev @SashaGusevPosts]

Lots of academics in the replies angry that all students can now access frontier models instead of just the rich kids.

[Nate Holdren @n_hold]

@peligrietzer I'll also note that I think there's a cultural phenomenon present here where people at the top of the food chain are supposed to be in charge of when their position at the top does/doesn't matter, which is both undemocratic and absurd. A friend calls that 'selective collegiality'

[Nate Holdren @n_hold]

@peligrietzer to tell him to go fuck himself, but that's a level of heatedness that isn't as enjoyable and which is imho unfairly looked down upon. In such circumstances, I reserve the right to go 'lol you've lived in the Ivies your whole life I don't buy it'.

[Nate Holdren @n_hold]

@brouillettese that's cool I'm more into breaking than fixing anyway

[Nate Holdren @n_hold]

@TherynDArnold

[Nate Holdren @n_hold]

As a neoliberal American it blows my mind that Canada has multiple public bodies dedicated to making evocative, mournful, sample-laden downtempo music often sounding as though produced on malfunctioning equipment excavated from the ruins of an early-'70s computer lab.

[Nate Holdren @n_hold]

@TherynDArnold I was about to say I've aged out of maturity but I'm not entirely sure I ever really aged into it.

[Nate Holdren @n_hold]

@TherynDArnold fwiw nearly 48 year old me is CONSTANTLY upset about musical taste.

[whit strub @whitstrub]

possibly the only fun part of writing a book: lo-fi promo shots with reluctant cats.
anyway here it is: FILMS THAT EXPLODE LIKE GRENADES: ROBERT KRAMER AND THE SEARCH FOR A RADICAL CINEMA (University of Chicago Press, 2026)

[Nate Holdren @n_hold]

@TherynDArnold I'm terribly sorry to have upset you. By any chance is there an adult available who I can speak with?

[Nate Holdren @n_hold]

@TherynDArnold I was briefly Deadmau5 curious but I couldn't get into it, probly because I never listened to Deadmau1, 2, 3, or 4.

[Nate Holdren @n_hold]

@IsmailYSyed @Rituparna37 @MushtaqBilalPhD right in their anti-AI remarks and the proper response to them would not be 'you are unserious in your AI criticisms, stop making them' but rather 'good start, now extend that logic to pre-AI practices of the sort you have previously benefitted from.'

[Nate Holdren @n_hold]

@IsmailYSyed @Rituparna37 @MushtaqBilalPhD My impression is that a lot of the top-of-food-chain academics who have taken subordinates work and passed it off on their own in the way you indicated are relatively quiet about AI usage or embracing it. But even if one of them came out strong against AI it seems to me they'd be

[Nate Holdren @n_hold]

@IsmailYSyed @Rituparna37 @MushtaqBilalPhD No, this is promoting dishonesty: "The paper has a strong argument and even beats AI-detection app, Pangram. With a little editing, it can pass for 100% human, and can be easily submitted for peer review."

[Nate Holdren @n_hold]

@floatovertrees generally when something is called downtempo I probly will like it but tbth that part of my tweet is just verbiage I plagiarized from the BoC wikipedia entry!

[Nate Holdren @n_hold]

@floatovertrees yr welcome, happy to and sorry for my terrible sense of humor and the confusion generated as a result. I haven't updated it in a while but in case it's any interest I occasionally drop artists' bandcamp pages into this to help me keep track - https://t.co/smtIIiHJlW

[Nate Holdren @n_hold]

@floatovertrees I am too but don't have anything interesting or well informed to say about it, I just periodically read around online and see what grabs me.