Cassie Herbert

Me, every morning

One effect for me of observing the disinformation campaigns and manipulation by governments and institutions around recent events is the conclusion that linguists and philosophers working on meaning need to be better about providing tools not just to identify, but to push back.

But the parts about more low level or mundane harassment, the vulnerabilities of marginalized faculty, and failures of institutional support really resonated with a lot of my own experiences.

I'm curious how other people are responding to this piece

I'm so very privileged that I haven't had to deal with anything close to as horrific as what these profs, and many profs of color, have been subjected to.

The obsessive tormentor who made professors’ lives miserable It didn’t matter if she knew you — if you were a professor and Asian American, you were a potential target.

This is long and absolutely horrifying to read. But oh wow is it a phenomenally well done deep dive into online abuse in academia.

Content warnings for racism, sexism, hate speech, rape and death threats, online aggression, stalking ... so much

Berlin Workshop on Speech and Harm

So excited for all the fabulous people giving talks at the Berlin Workshop on Speech and Harm today!!!!

One week into a 6 week trip to Seattle, Portland, Malta, Berlin, and Boston. Duolingo has decided now is the time to teach me how to say “I can’t find my passport,” “I need a new passport,” and “keep looking for your passport, your flight leaves in three hours.”

A photo of a woman paddling a kayak in a lake with trees and snow capped mountains in the background.

A photo of a woman paddling a kayak in a lake with a forest and mountains in the background.

Sometimes I forget just how ridiculously happy kayaking makes me. And then I remember.

- at Baker Lake, WA

Elon Musk Suggests 'Childless' People Should Lose the Right to Vote People without children "have little stake in the future," says the right-wing billionaire whose own daughter said she doesn't want to be related to him.

Always fascinated how pro-natalism leap frogs over policy decisions that make it easier to have and raise children and goes right to forcing and coercing people to have children

Photo of a black standard poodle sitting on a sidewalk with a pride flag in a store window in the background

Just watched strangers insist on clarifying the gender of this poodle before committing to describing it as “handsome” or “gorgeous”

Cishet culture is bizarre

My experience to date is that people building something to monetize will only value community as free labor someone else is doing that adds value to the thing to be monetized. They will never value the community in a non-instrumental way, because capitalism.

a statement by philosophy faculty and graduate students on the attack at University of Waterloo
https://medium.com/@robin.dembroff/a-statement-by-philosophy-faculty-and-graduate-students-on-the-attack-at-university-of-waterloo-4293d901196f

corporate internet certainly seems like it's dying because it can't be trusted with user content and data. The deal was we give that up for convenience and good UX

Maybe more users will realize their own value and just stop giving free content to these companies

Starting a new social networking site called Vandl and it’s totally offline. Users write their posts on public or private property like bathroom stalls for example

So this just dropped

… instead of giving my houseplant a lovely gift, I feel like I’ve just threatened it with how bad the real world is

Outside days 1-3: severe danger air quality alerts from the Canadian wildfires and disgustingly smoggy smoke-filled air

Outside day 4: severe thunderstorm with high winds and pitch black sky

Photo of a monstera houseplant outside on a red porch

My houseplant looked like it was struggling so I decided to give it a vacation outside for a few days. As a treat!! To encourage it!!

So much this. ADHD can be my superpower - my brain is great at building bridges between ideas and when I get into smthing I can hyperfocus for hours. But I need a lot of scaffolding to survive. And this job loads SO MUCH onto profs and then gives us zero structure or help.

It feels like drowning.

Now is a great time to plug my paper on this new site, Every Billionaire is a Policy Failure, which will eventually be updated with stories like these:
https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=4442029

It sure is striking that these policies that benefit wealthy cishet white men are allowed, while policies that help marginalized folks are struck down as “unfair”

Plus universities are allowed to consider gender when “making a balanced incoming class.” If there are over 65% women, prestige drops and men stop applying. But more women apply to college than men. To keep a gender balance, colleges routinely make it easier for men, ESPECIALLY white men, to get in.

People warned the academy and the wider world about this. We said that uncritical support for this bullshit was costing trans and gender non-conforming lives. We said that it was making our courses unsafe. "Academic freedom," they said.

Fuck that. Academic freedom isn't worth other people's lives.

Everyone i know who teaches queer theory, trans theory, or gender studies is very very aware that this kind of violence could happen and is increasingly likely

I teach this same course at my uni. I've had students dismiss feminist scholarship as just "angry women," I've had students send me homophobic messages at 3am, I've had students corner me in a classroom in an empty building at night. And without excusing or minimizing any of that, I've been LUCKY.

Right wing anti-LBGTQIA rhetoric promotes this kind of violence. They aren't just talking points. It's getting scarier and more dangerous for trans, queer, and feminist folks to move through daily life in all kinds of ways.

Three Stabbed in Philosophy Course at Waterloo Three people were hospitalized following a knife attack that took place this afternoon in a University of Waterloo philosophy course. The suspect was arrested. No fatalities have been reported. The in...

A prof and two students were stabbed during a philosophy of gender class. A guy came into the class, asked what it was about, and attacked them.

I'm trying to come up with words for how terrifying and absolutely unsurprising this violence is

😳🫣🤯 ngl this kinda makes me embarrassed to be a philosopher

Narwhals are the tadpoles of the unicorn lifecycle