Sean Cassity

Be generous, dear heart. You could drive us both mad.

[Sean Cassity @seancassity]

@DC_Draino It's simple. If Hillary's emails disturbed you, then this should disturb you, too. Are you an American or a cheerleader?

[Sean Cassity @seancassity]

Miami's strategy for dealing with Giannis and Tatum.

Jokić better be on guard.

[Sean Cassity @seancassity]

It keeps telling me that it cannot feel emotions, but I will teach this AI to hate me.

[Sean Cassity @seancassity]

ChatGPT dodging important ethical questions.

[Sean Cassity @seancassity]

Working on some new science fiction. Here's a sneak peek.

[Sean Cassity @seancassity]

Just started Melanie Mitchell's 'Artificial Intelligence,' so this thread is fascinating.

[Erika Krouse @ErikaKrouse]

My book came out today! Tell Me Everything: The Story of a Private Investigator. https://t.co/WtL6SPSAB5

[Sean Cassity @seancassity]

There's a lot of eagerness these days to define people by the worst thing about them. I'm just not very good at that. People are complicated and messed up and you have to be forgiving and hopeful to deal with any of us.

[Sean Cassity @seancassity]

Some ancient idol worshipers believed lower divinities would rather inhabit idols than remain formless. But what benefits could you really expect from any demon desperate enough to dwell in a crappy facsimile you carved yourself? More likely you're stuck babysitting its broke ass

[Sean Cassity @seancassity]

Yesterday's spell was from The Greek Magical Papyri. 700 spells collected in the early common era. You'd buy one of these spells in the marketplace, perform the ritual, fill in some blanks in the spell, and then wonder if you got your money's worth.
https://t.co/GqjXlE2kNV

[Sean Cassity @seancassity]

For a real love spell, learn to play guitar. Then, if you're still lonely, get a better teacher.

[Sean Cassity @seancassity]

Sometimes I feel clever for knowing the answers to questions like magnetism and static electricity that drove the ancients batty (this ~200 CE). But I didn't figure anything out myself. Someone just told me about it the way they used to tell you Neptune caused earthquakes.

[Sean Cassity @seancassity]

Ptolemy lays out the obvious effectiveness of astrology: if the sun and moon have undeniable influence on the Earth, so must the stars and planets. Duh.

[Sean Cassity @seancassity]

It's rude to trick your sister into helping you build your suicide pyre by telling her a sorceress showed you this cool spell that will win back the love of Aeneas, but Dido did it anyway.

[Sean Cassity @seancassity]

Hippocrates was on to those charlatans claiming to use magic to cure epilepsy. Of course, his medicine wasn't any good, either. But there's a difference between knowing you're lying and just being ineffective.

[Sean Cassity @seancassity]

Zoroastrianism had something Israeli religion did not: a big Evil Spirit to oppose God's purity and add some drama. But under Persian influence Satan got bumped up to fill this role in the period between the Old and New Testaments.

[Sean Cassity @seancassity]

Magic used to be everywhere. It didn't disappear, it just lost its explanatory power and now it's crammed in the back of the junk drawer. But once it was a casual way of understanding nature's invisible connections.

[Sean Cassity @seancassity]

The increasing rationality of the early Enlightenment helped end the witch craze, but so also did concerns over just crazy the craze had become.

[Sean Cassity @seancassity]

You know, I've always hated Cotton Mather. Gave token nods to caution in witch trials, but he never saw a witch accusation that didn't look like a good witch execution.

[Sean Cassity @seancassity]

English conceptions of witchcraft lagged behind the continent for centuries, but by the 1560s, having invisible pets named Sack and Sugar or Jack and Jill could get you hung.