Charles Mathewes
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ctmathewes.bsky.social
Charles Mathewes
@ctmathewes.bsky.social

I teach religion & ethics @ UVa
I'm mostly here to find books & articles I don't yet know about
Sometimes also interested in opinions, but not as often as many of you seem to believe

Philosophy 35%
Political science 31%

Yet you keep talking...

Be troubled! But "professor of ethics" is not a person who's ethically better than ordinary people, as my friends can tell you

Saint Symeon the refrigerator Stylite
rns.org RNS @rns.org · 1d
Nonprofit leader Terence Lester is spending 42 hours on a fridge this week to bring attention to the 42 million Americans who rely on SNAP benefits. His organization has received more than 1,000 calls in the past month requesting food assistance.
religionnews.com/2025/11/07/s...
Sitting atop fridge to protest SNAP cuts, faith leader models Jesus' 'proximity' to the poor
(RNS) — Nonprofit leader Terence Lester is sitting on a fridge for 42 hours to raise awareness of the 42 million Americans who receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits.
religionnews.com
RNS @rns.org · 1d
Nonprofit leader Terence Lester is spending 42 hours on a fridge this week to bring attention to the 42 million Americans who rely on SNAP benefits. His organization has received more than 1,000 calls in the past month requesting food assistance.
religionnews.com/2025/11/07/s...
Sitting atop fridge to protest SNAP cuts, faith leader models Jesus' 'proximity' to the poor
(RNS) — Nonprofit leader Terence Lester is sitting on a fridge for 42 hours to raise awareness of the 42 million Americans who receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits.
religionnews.com

I'm actually trying to run a series at UVa about "how to use LLMs for research" so I'm not AGAINST this stuff! Just want to learn how to use it "mindfully" in a way that amplifies human deliberation & agency, in whatever ways delib & agency are required (in academia, many ways).

If this is a serious question--and because I'm feeling weirdly hopeful this AM, I'll take it as such--I would say contest your claim that "the NYT is hostile to progressives" is not my impression. IMHO, you have to be very bubbled to believe that. Engage others, get out of your bubble. Thx.

If your job makes you use chat GPT, that's one thing--I can imagine plenty of uses for it that are useful, so long as you don't use it to replace your own judgment & thinking. But I worry that such replacement is just what happens sometimes. And as you know, in college that's a disaster.

I simply want to resist the inevitability argument about chat GPT replacing student "work" (which must be their own) because "everyone's doing it" or something like that. I get annoyed when people seem to say "we can't stop this" or "there's no resisting it".

I can't respond to you directly--seems you don't let randos comment on your stuff--but let me say: I see you're right and I'm wrong on this. Apologies (sincerely) for speaking out of my more narrow experience as a college prof.
Yall are so annoying.

www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ai-w...

I hope Parkinson's is grateful for all the UVa student stupport

No one is "compelled to use it"
A friend recently texted me the same thing. “Do you really not use ChatGPT?!” It was a sign of where we are culturally on this. People are compelled to use it but also starting to question the normalcy?
Recently met someone who was very surprised to hear I didn’t use ChatGPT or any LLM.

I said my job depended on doing distinctive work. That was my selling point. If I started to sound like ChatGPT and turn out what it did, then how on earth could I justify doing it? What would that make me?

I think it is unwise for progressives to refuse to engage major platforms. The more engagement the better. This essay doesn't persuade me otherwise, but I'm happy to share it with you.
They’re bailing out Argentina because they’re all going to be living there when this is over.
Argentina President Javier Milei doing the “Trump dance” at Mar-a-Lago after getting an $40 billion bailout.

Meanwhile, Trump won’t renew subsides for American healthcare.
What an amazing essay from the former chair of Africana Studies at Bowdoin. I'll share a few sections in the reply but seriously, read the whole thing. It's all insightful and beautifully written.

lithub.com/maybe-dont-t...
Maybe Don’t Talk to the New York Times About Zohran Mamdani
It’s remarkable, the people you’ll hear from. Teach for even a little while at an expensive institution—the term they tend to prefer is “elite”—and odds are that eventually someone who was a studen…
lithub.com

When they were forced not to endorse anyone in 24 and they didn't quit, I knew they'd be happy to be his little Quislings
RNS @rns.org · 2d
OPINION: Advocates and abuse survivors aren’t the devil’s employees. If you want to find the devil, follow the church leaders who leave a trail of broken bodies in their wake.
religionnews.com/2025/10/27/i...
In ACNA’s upside-down world, abuse survivors are considered the problem
(RNS) — The crucial truth to remember is that when someone comes forward and tells the truth about abuse, they are not the one causing harm to the church.
religionnews.com

"Everyone was doing it" is not the critical response she seems to think it is. NYT's point wasn't that SC was unusual, but that it was representative.

If this is the best that defenders of the SC's choices since the late 2010s can come up with, the article is in fact more damning than it first appears
I was at the Sierra Club during the period described in this article and although I have my criticisms, it gets the issues in the Club fundamentally wrong. A 🧵

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/u...
The Sierra Club Embraced Social Justice. Then It Tore Itself Apart.
www.nytimes.com
incredible new trump photo
A friend recently texted me the same thing. “Do you really not use ChatGPT?!” It was a sign of where we are culturally on this. People are compelled to use it but also starting to question the normalcy?
Recently met someone who was very surprised to hear I didn’t use ChatGPT or any LLM.

I said my job depended on doing distinctive work. That was my selling point. If I started to sound like ChatGPT and turn out what it did, then how on earth could I justify doing it? What would that make me?
RNS @rns.org · 3d
A second woman has accused ACNA Archbishop Steve Wood of sexual harassment, adding to concerns about the denomination’s leadership and disciplinary process.
ACNA archbishop faces second sexual harassment claim as questions arise about interim leader
(RNS) — Bishop Ray Sutton, who was tapped to take on Archbishop Steve Wood's duties during Wood's leave of absence, is also facing criticism for his previous handling of spiritual abuse complaints.
religionnews.com
There are now more Democratic women in Virginia’s House than Republicans — total.

VA has come a longgg way!

More evidence that UVA’s interim prez and BoV were obeying in advance
The incredible shrinking attack on U.S. universities continues.

Cornell has signed an agreement—but unlike the UVA agreement, instead of pledging to follow the gov't's highly questionable July "guidance" on discrimination, Cornell simply agrees to hand it out to faculty as a "training resource"!
The incredible shrinking attack on U.S. universities continues.

Cornell has signed an agreement—but unlike the UVA agreement, instead of pledging to follow the gov't's highly questionable July "guidance" on discrimination, Cornell simply agrees to hand it out to faculty as a "training resource"!
The spectrum of pro and anti Mamdani opinion amongst Delhi elites go from ‘Knew his uncle at Stephen’s’ to ‘Knew his mother at Miranda House’
I was at the Sierra Club during the period described in this article and although I have my criticisms, it gets the issues in the Club fundamentally wrong. A 🧵

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/u...
The Sierra Club Embraced Social Justice. Then It Tore Itself Apart.
www.nytimes.com
Cutting flights because of the govt shutdown is a stunt, plain and simple

If you want to think about methodology in the social sciences, its limits and possibilities, and how to make it better, you want to follow Brian Nosek of the Center for Open Science, I'm not kidding
With 2508 citations in 127 years, Student (1908) introducing the t-test wins for huge actual impact with moderate citation impact: www.jstor.org/stable/23315...

Now, how about huge actual impact and minimal citation impact?