Patrick Giamario

🤯

of all the texts to invoke while boosting ChatGPT, the Phaedrus might actually be the most inappropriate and/or shameless choice possible

At least at my university, I've come to really enjoy these kinds of interregnums. Sure, it's not good for schools to be leaderless, but when these are the kinds of "leaders" on offer, nothing is often much better than something!

FT comments section this morning - saying what everyone else is thinking, right?

"When the state is growing weak, the multitude of crimes is a guarantee of impunity." -- Rousseau, Social Contract, 2.5

Students that have a red or a blue color wash over them mingle around a campus plaza.

Most Conservative Students Don’t Feel Persecuted on Campus

A new survey of college students contradicts Republican rhetoric that campus culture is hostile to right-wing views. https://bit.ly/4styRX5

#AcademicSky #HigherEd #EDUSky

There seem to be 2 paths here:
(1) Class becomes a conversation between LLMs
(2) Digital tools are removed from the classroom altogether

the executive committee of the bourgeoisie comes to the rescue

Some very powerful people want us to believe human labor is obsolete & way too many people are buying it.

Don’t let them make you think that you are disposable.

Time to revive the idea of a job guarantee. They just created a bunch of fascist ICE jobs overnight. Imagine that for work that matters.

7. It is, in conclusion, a scandalously bad way to run a real estate market. It rewards sellers simply for being sellers; it actively encourages dishonesty and poor communication; and it disincentivizes and hinders keeping homes in good shape.

6. And at worst, this system allows sellers to run a *perfectly legal* scam ad infinitum. If I have a termite-infested house that looks good, is in a nice neighborhood, etc., I could go under contract several times, collect several DD fees, & use that money to treat the termites (or go on vacation!)

5. This is a system which, at minimum, *massively* increases sellers' leverage over buyers. For instance, why would a seller ever agree to make or pay for necessary repairs when they know the buyer doesn't want to (or can't) lose their DD fee?

4. See the problem yet? If the inspection reveals the house is shit (or even just needs some significant repairs) and the buyer wants to bail, the seller collects the DD and moves on to the next buyer until they find someone willing (i.e., desperate) enough buy the house despite its problems.

3. Given the tight housing supply, DD fees have become a key way to make your offer more competitive. So, for a $300–400k house, DD regularly runs $2–5k, but it can easily go higher if there are multiple offers. While DD is theoretically not necessary, in practice a hefty DD fee is mandatory.

2. Upon signing the contract, you pay a non-refundable "due diligence" (DD) fee to the seller which entitles you to inspect the house and to terminate the contract for any reason within a set time frame (usually a few weeks).

1. You like a house and make an offer on it. In NC, sellers do not have to disclose *anything* about the house's condition.

Well, my wife and I are officially victims of North Carolina real estate's extortionate "due diligence" system!

For those of you fortunate enough to not live in North or South Carolina, here's how it works:

Thinking about how colleges across the country are too sacred to acknowledge race and racism. Imagine getting shown up by NBC.

📢 NEW RANT: The Epstein files have made it clear that the real sanctuary city is Washington, D.C., where accountability and justice go to die under Donald Trump. How is it possible that so many people could have participated in these heinous crimes against kids and none of them will be prosecuted?

hindsight is 20/20 but maybe selecting university presidents on their willingness to debase themselves for private donor money is related to the current difficulties in defending academia from fascism

I keep thinking again, in light of the latest Epstein files dump, about how MeToo “went too far.”

Yes. None of the secondary roads near downtown GSO are clear, and due to the apparent refusal of Southerners to shovel anything, the sidewalks everywhere are downright dangerous

This is the problem with a lot of vocational training: you are preparing yourself for what the job market wanted at the time you started not when you finish.

Study Philosophy to avoid this problem.

After a century of defending other countries against foreign aggression, the United States is now positioned as an imperial power trying to seize another nation's land. • Listen to this article • 11:40 min Learn more By Peter Baker Peter Baker is the chief White House correspondent. He and his wife, Susan Glasser, asked President Trump about Greenland during a 2021 interview for their book on his first term.

I remain awestruck that you can be chief WH correspondent of the New York Times while apparently accepting the version of history that you were taught in grade school in the 1970’s

Corey Booker announcing his legislation to make ICE wear body cameras a week after the entire Republican Party excused an ICE officer murdering somebody by showing the video the officer took with his own cell phone of him murdering them is a testament to how stupid Democrats think all of us are.

yeah i'll vote for gavin newsom under extreme circumstances. like say we're on a life raft and need to decide who to eat first. or our plane crashes in the andes and we're figuring out who to barbecue for dinner. or if we're wagon-bound and stranded in a frozen pass over the sierra nevada mountains,

The idea that education can produce "good jobs" as a counterweight to capitalism's tendency to make bad jobs (through deskilling, precarity, and outsourcing) is something no educated person should believe. (Yet it is the central mission of every educational institution)

Nicholas Kristof @NickKristof X.com I'm struck by the contrast between the passion for democracy shown by Iranians willing to die for it and the complacency with which many Americans have accepted an authoritarian slide. Americans should cheer for Iran's democrats--and also learn from their determination.

I see this take around from time to time and totally disagree. ICE just murdered a woman standing up to them. No Kings is among the largest protests in history.

The complacency is coming from elites in media, business, universities, and the Democratic leadership

All right. FWIW, I feel fairly confident that were tenure abolished in my state (NC) tomorrow, the effect would be the more or less immediate elimination of the research enterprise at 3/4 of the UNC system schools and a legislative ban on teaching all politically sensitive topics.