Dr. Holly Walters
@manigarm.bsky.social
Anthropologist 👣 • Ethnographer of Shaligrams 🐚 and Robot Religion 🤖 • Novelist of "The Way By" 🦄 • TTRPG Storyteller ✨ • (Genderqueer 🤷♀️ She/They)
Pinned
Dr. Holly Walters
@manigarm.bsky.social
· Oct 20
Well hello everyone! Welcome to Bluesky!
I'm an anthropologist (PhD).
My ethnographic research is on Hindu/Buddhist pilgrimage and sacred fossils (called Shaligrams) in the Himalayas of Nepal.
My new project focuses on robot religion in South Asia.
I also wrote "The Way By."
I'm an anthropologist (PhD).
My ethnographic research is on Hindu/Buddhist pilgrimage and sacred fossils (called Shaligrams) in the Himalayas of Nepal.
My new project focuses on robot religion in South Asia.
I also wrote "The Way By."
Reposted by Dr. Holly Walters
I cannot say often enough, there needs to be accountability for all these thugs
ICE detain father shopping on Christmas Eve—then steal his family's groceries.
Then 3 agents divvy up his paid for food—taking what they want for themselves.
"Can I just get the wife's number to call and let her know?" woman asks.
"No, guess he should've complied," agent says.
Yakima, Washington
Then 3 agents divvy up his paid for food—taking what they want for themselves.
"Can I just get the wife's number to call and let her know?" woman asks.
"No, guess he should've complied," agent says.
Yakima, Washington
December 26, 2025 at 7:07 AM
I cannot say often enough, there needs to be accountability for all these thugs
Reposted by Dr. Holly Walters
I guess I didn't realize how prescient this post would be!
December 25, 2025 at 1:58 PM
I guess I didn't realize how prescient this post would be!
Reposted by Dr. Holly Walters
You will be visited by three spirits
December 25, 2025 at 3:35 PM
You will be visited by three spirits
I guess I didn't realize how prescient this post would be!
December 25, 2025 at 1:58 PM
I guess I didn't realize how prescient this post would be!
Reposted by Dr. Holly Walters
Good morning!
Hat and I would like to welcome you to Cave 13b off the coast of Mossel Bay, South Africa. A cave system with evidence of some of the oldest human habitation in the region.
Hat and I would like to welcome you to Cave 13b off the coast of Mossel Bay, South Africa. A cave system with evidence of some of the oldest human habitation in the region.
December 23, 2025 at 2:44 PM
Good morning!
Hat and I would like to welcome you to Cave 13b off the coast of Mossel Bay, South Africa. A cave system with evidence of some of the oldest human habitation in the region.
Hat and I would like to welcome you to Cave 13b off the coast of Mossel Bay, South Africa. A cave system with evidence of some of the oldest human habitation in the region.
Reposted by Dr. Holly Walters
A set of Middle Stone Age tools going out from Cave 13b for community educational purposes. Including a red ochre hand-grinder (pictured at center).
December 25, 2025 at 9:46 AM
A set of Middle Stone Age tools going out from Cave 13b for community educational purposes. Including a red ochre hand-grinder (pictured at center).
A set of Middle Stone Age tools going out from Cave 13b for community educational purposes. Including a red ochre hand-grinder (pictured at center).
December 25, 2025 at 9:46 AM
A set of Middle Stone Age tools going out from Cave 13b for community educational purposes. Including a red ochre hand-grinder (pictured at center).
Well, it rained a whole lot today. But then I made an unexpected new friend.
December 24, 2025 at 7:07 PM
Well, it rained a whole lot today. But then I made an unexpected new friend.
Good morning!
Hat and I would like to welcome you to Cave 13b off the coast of Mossel Bay, South Africa. A cave system with evidence of some of the oldest human habitation in the region.
Hat and I would like to welcome you to Cave 13b off the coast of Mossel Bay, South Africa. A cave system with evidence of some of the oldest human habitation in the region.
December 23, 2025 at 2:44 PM
Good morning!
Hat and I would like to welcome you to Cave 13b off the coast of Mossel Bay, South Africa. A cave system with evidence of some of the oldest human habitation in the region.
Hat and I would like to welcome you to Cave 13b off the coast of Mossel Bay, South Africa. A cave system with evidence of some of the oldest human habitation in the region.
Reposted by Dr. Holly Walters
December 18, 2025 at 7:00 PM
Reposted by Dr. Holly Walters
This is the kind of thing that makes you realise how easy it must be to sell half-baked trainings to businesses
The most annoying thing about genAI is that eventually the genAI proponents are going to get to the end of the novelty of it, realize its limitations, and then claim to be the innovators of doing things the long way without genAI. Call it "slow productivity" or something.
December 22, 2025 at 9:44 AM
This is the kind of thing that makes you realise how easy it must be to sell half-baked trainings to businesses
Rough seas off Cape Town today.
December 22, 2025 at 8:04 AM
Rough seas off Cape Town today.
Reposted by Dr. Holly Walters
The “AI” has not read the book. Even if the book was in its training data, it has just absorbed it as a set of statistics. It will juggle you a “summary” that might or might not relate to the conclusions of the actual text. The only way you’ll know is to read it yourself.
This is one of the reasons I remain horrified by seeing @historians.org suggest "ways to use gAI" that included this:
December 22, 2025 at 7:21 AM
The “AI” has not read the book. Even if the book was in its training data, it has just absorbed it as a set of statistics. It will juggle you a “summary” that might or might not relate to the conclusions of the actual text. The only way you’ll know is to read it yourself.
Reposted by Dr. Holly Walters
Whole lot of academics in the quotes read this title about how LLMs are academic misconduct machines and still line up to defend them. Kinda showing where your priorities are.
With alt
With alt
December 20, 2025 at 5:44 PM
Whole lot of academics in the quotes read this title about how LLMs are academic misconduct machines and still line up to defend them. Kinda showing where your priorities are.
With alt
With alt
Reposted by Dr. Holly Walters
Even with funding, I ended up with now 80k in student loan debts. And no, they cannot just get jobs as high school teachers in the public school system--that requires specific education licensing which requires completely different classes and credentials.
Stop telling them this. Its whiny and ridiculous. Let the kids have their PhDs. They can frame it and put it on the bedroom wall. They can get jobs as high school teachers. This is a perfectly fine profession and actually more important than like 90% of all professor jobs
I keep telling brilliant students not to get PhDs not because they aren't capable, but because if I show them the job boards for the last couple of years and the graphs, not even the fabled hubris of an undergrad who wants to be a professor can get through. There are no jobs.
December 19, 2025 at 9:31 PM
Even with funding, I ended up with now 80k in student loan debts. And no, they cannot just get jobs as high school teachers in the public school system--that requires specific education licensing which requires completely different classes and credentials.
This would be about as useful as simply reading the summary on the back of the book.
AI CANNOT "summarize" a book or article because it cannot READ it. It does not not KNOW what it says. It only repeats what the author's abstracts and quotes already say.
AI CANNOT "summarize" a book or article because it cannot READ it. It does not not KNOW what it says. It only repeats what the author's abstracts and quotes already say.
This is one of the reasons I remain horrified by seeing @historians.org suggest "ways to use gAI" that included this:
December 20, 2025 at 5:25 PM
This would be about as useful as simply reading the summary on the back of the book.
AI CANNOT "summarize" a book or article because it cannot READ it. It does not not KNOW what it says. It only repeats what the author's abstracts and quotes already say.
AI CANNOT "summarize" a book or article because it cannot READ it. It does not not KNOW what it says. It only repeats what the author's abstracts and quotes already say.
Reposted by Dr. Holly Walters
Reposted by Dr. Holly Walters
Look a lot of people were at the Lucifer Foundation's annual Billionaire Vision Brunch in 2011. I didn't talk to all of them. Some of us just find the work the Lucifer Foundation does to be interesting.
December 18, 2025 at 6:55 PM
Look a lot of people were at the Lucifer Foundation's annual Billionaire Vision Brunch in 2011. I didn't talk to all of them. Some of us just find the work the Lucifer Foundation does to be interesting.
Reposted by Dr. Holly Walters
Schedules are weird, so Adam is having a WEDNESDAY drop of some new By The Way merch. And, full disclosure, I WANT this hoodie.
The first in the line of FULL COLOR zip-up hoodies has arrived.
Check it out: dillytodds-shop.fourthwall.com
The first in the line of FULL COLOR zip-up hoodies has arrived.
Check it out: dillytodds-shop.fourthwall.com
December 17, 2025 at 9:35 PM
Schedules are weird, so Adam is having a WEDNESDAY drop of some new By The Way merch. And, full disclosure, I WANT this hoodie.
The first in the line of FULL COLOR zip-up hoodies has arrived.
Check it out: dillytodds-shop.fourthwall.com
The first in the line of FULL COLOR zip-up hoodies has arrived.
Check it out: dillytodds-shop.fourthwall.com
Reposted by Dr. Holly Walters
"and may the odds be ever in your favor, really, they're the greatest odds, believe me, the odds were terrible under Joe Biden, but now everybody says we have the best odds"
Trump announces an "unprecedented four-day athletic event" with "one young man and one young woman from each state and territory"
December 18, 2025 at 7:06 PM
"and may the odds be ever in your favor, really, they're the greatest odds, believe me, the odds were terrible under Joe Biden, but now everybody says we have the best odds"
Reposted by Dr. Holly Walters
The problem isn't that we can't talk to each other
The marketplace has heard the ideas
Large supermajorities reject them
Yet our anti-democratic political institutions allow the 20-25% that like those ideas to capture & control all the institutions
The problem is the anti-democratic institutions
The marketplace has heard the ideas
Large supermajorities reject them
Yet our anti-democratic political institutions allow the 20-25% that like those ideas to capture & control all the institutions
The problem is the anti-democratic institutions
CNN has a show with a similar line. That the problem with this country is we just aren’t talking to each other.
It’s the kind of diagnosis that a toddler would land on.
It’s the kind of diagnosis that a toddler would land on.
December 18, 2025 at 7:08 PM
The problem isn't that we can't talk to each other
The marketplace has heard the ideas
Large supermajorities reject them
Yet our anti-democratic political institutions allow the 20-25% that like those ideas to capture & control all the institutions
The problem is the anti-democratic institutions
The marketplace has heard the ideas
Large supermajorities reject them
Yet our anti-democratic political institutions allow the 20-25% that like those ideas to capture & control all the institutions
The problem is the anti-democratic institutions
December 18, 2025 at 7:00 PM
Reposted by Dr. Holly Walters
The radicalization of young men isn't a strictly American phenomenon. Young guys across the world support far-right politicians and causes while Gen-Z women almost universally back progressive causes. It's a gap that doesn't exist in other generations.
badfaithtimes.com/nothing-stan...
badfaithtimes.com/nothing-stan...
December 18, 2025 at 1:00 PM
The radicalization of young men isn't a strictly American phenomenon. Young guys across the world support far-right politicians and causes while Gen-Z women almost universally back progressive causes. It's a gap that doesn't exist in other generations.
badfaithtimes.com/nothing-stan...
badfaithtimes.com/nothing-stan...
This, and at the end of the year, all of their past screen names are published in a gender-reveal-style explosion.
In our current bizarre information silos, it’s difficult to even understand figures emergent from different epistemic bubbles, but the choices they make in their Star Wars fan fic would immediately clarify everything.
December 18, 2025 at 1:16 PM
This, and at the end of the year, all of their past screen names are published in a gender-reveal-style explosion.