Mollie Holmberg
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octoqueenphd.bsky.social
Mollie Holmberg
@octoqueenphd.bsky.social
she/her | ♥s critters, hates capitalism | politics of EID response & One Health | Postdoctoral Fellow @ Balsillie School of International Affairs, WLU | phd geography | views are my own | donate to verified funds @ gazafunds.com, sudanfunds.com
Pinned
1st post-PhD manuscript out online in @politicalgeography.bsky.social (open access) 🥳

Informed by the crip organizing I was involved with during PhD while also (separately) reading and writing on histories and politics of One Health.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Just treatment on a damaged planet: Can we crip one health? And should we?
Disability justice (DJ) and One Health (OH) are two approaches to jointly addressing human, animal, and environmental health that emerged around the s…
www.sciencedirect.com
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
one small lesson to take away from the crumbling HE sector, btw, is that there is no such thing as meritocracy here and the only thing that matters is doing work that is meaningful to you and the people you care about and to make friends and collaborators in the process
December 6, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
3. I appealed to the joy of doing science—and got the predictable question:

Would you rather live in a world where AI cured cancer or live in a world where you personally get to do science?

But that's not the dilemma we face at all. There's no cause to think that AI could do anything of the sort.
December 8, 2025 at 8:18 AM
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
Palantir's new neurodivergent fellowship is in fact bad because neurodivergent people participating in technofascism will not save us. Latest for @motherjones.com www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
The problem with Palantir's new neurodivergent fellowship
Critics have accused the company of being technofascist.
www.motherjones.com
December 8, 2025 at 5:29 PM
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
if you’re still wondering if europe will actually fund efforts to bring over US scientists who were purged or defunded, here’s your answer (the answer is no)
Europe is going on a huge military spending spree
December 8, 2025 at 3:38 PM
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
This gets progressively funnier with every use of the term "floppy".
September 5, 2025 at 8:27 PM
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
This is why I'm generally unimpressed by people describing how they use LLMs in academic work. Writing can sometimes be time consuming/painful because *you don't really know what you're trying to say*. The labor of thinking stuff through is part of the science and shouldn't be outsourced.
i strongly, strongly believe that good writing is downstream of clear thinking and a strong understanding of the subject matter at hand. without fail, tortured writing comes from writers who don’t know and can’t think clearly about anything.
Oh man! This paragraph is brutal. The best thing about this review is it's not trying to be mean. It's just listing how bad the writing is.
December 3, 2025 at 4:19 PM
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
It reminds me of the classic “real victims” fallacy that mainly functions to deny that victims are really victims in pursuit of respecting “real victims” but it’s just a practice of shaming specific victims that hurts everyone
December 3, 2025 at 2:56 PM
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
An ongoing concern of mine is not that GenAI will replace teachers but the technology will - as described in the article - deskill teachers "under the banner of efficiency" while also providing those in power with means to deprofessionalize teachers too.
We can't really say this enough...

> Anastasia Berg [at UCL Irvine] said that new research — and what she's hearing directly from colleagues across various industries — shows that employees who heavily rely on AI are losing core skills at a startling rate.

www.businessinsider.com/ai-tools-are...
AI tools are 'deskilling' workers, philosophy professor says
A philosophy professor warns that AI reliance is weakening workers' judgment, creativity, and problem-solving.
www.businessinsider.com
November 30, 2025 at 8:50 PM
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
Co-wrote this piece with the brilliant @nisrinelamin.bsky.social
and Ismail Adam of the Darfur Diaspora Association, on Canada's complicity in the war in Sudan and the genocide in Darfur, for @breachmedia.ca breachmedia.ca/in-the-genoc...
In the genocide in Sudan, Canada has a hand in the violence ⋆ The Breach
The massacres of civilians in Sudan are being fuelled by Canadian weapons, mining interests, and refugee restrictions. It’s time for Canada to end its complicity
breachmedia.ca
November 28, 2025 at 9:12 PM
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
Since people find being hopeful and optimistic so cringe these days, let me remind you once again that there isn’t a single liberation movement in the world that wasn’t built on hope and optimism.
November 28, 2025 at 6:34 PM
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
To be super duper clear, Carney is preparing a counter-insurgency campaign backed by the American Empire. The US aren't playing around, they really do need these resources if they want to keep playing the imperial game. This was just a warm up: ricochet.media/justice/poli...
Playbook for RCMP’s Wet’suwet’en raids provided by former U.S. commander in Iraq and Afghanistan
Presentation highlights darker truths behind violence and intimidation against Indigenous land defenders resisting resource extraction
ricochet.media
June 11, 2025 at 9:54 PM
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
Israel has killed two Palestinian children in Gaza every single day since the so-called ceasefire
November 25, 2025 at 3:05 PM
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
Also, stop being condescending shitheads when someone asks a question you think is obvious. If they're not asking why a certain group deserves human rights or something, there is literally NO REASON not to be generous and helpful!
This is so soulless, I can't stand it. We have BRAINS. We can USE THEM.
November 25, 2025 at 5:57 PM
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
Everyone knows data centers use a ton of water.

What hardly anyone knows: they can poison the water that remains.

And in eastern Oregon, Amazon is doing exactly that.
AI’s water problem is worse than we thought
A new investigation reveals how Amazon is amplifying Oregon’s nitrate pollution crisis.
heated.world
November 25, 2025 at 8:20 PM
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
We @uam-umd.bsky.social won. Faculty packed town halls, talked to their colleagues and collected hundreds of petition signatures. Now UMD is coughing up $8.75m, during a deficit, to fund faculty whose research is under attack. Not enough, but a helluva thing for a union the state calls illegal.
$8.75M Investment Supports ‘Research Resilience’… | Maryland Today
UMD, MPower Funds Combine to Help Preserve Institutional Capabilities, Lab Operations and More
today.umd.edu
November 25, 2025 at 2:32 PM
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
Hey y’all Sydette really needs a boost. Can you help her out right now?

She is one of the smartest, kindest people I know and she has put a lot in with very little reward.
Welp it’s gotten real real if you can please help. If you can’t it’s really hard out here so share

gofund.me/a5ee0064
November 25, 2025 at 3:35 PM
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
🌡️ India's heat crises are likely worse than we think. Official counts miss most heat-related deaths... though estimates rise to 150,000+ excess deaths for summers experiencing 5 heat waves.
Addressing gaps in data collection and urban public health systems will be good places to start.
How Many People Die in India From Hot Weather? Nobody Really Knows.
www.nytimes.com
November 19, 2025 at 2:15 PM
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
Study after study shows that using LLMs is bad for cognition, bad for learning, bad for understanding, bad for mental health. So why are our schools and universities still relentlessly pushing them?
Relying on ChatGPT to teach you about a topic leaves you with shallower knowledge than Googling and reading about it, according to new research that compared what more than 10,000 people knew after using one method or the other.

Shared by @gizmodo.com: buff.ly/yAAHtHq
November 21, 2025 at 2:52 PM
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
A nontrivial fraction of these people appear to be seriously unwell.

OpenAI claims that they have the situation well under control.

My inbox suggests otherwise.
November 21, 2025 at 2:51 AM
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
November 19, 2025 at 8:31 PM
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
It’s getting cold and Ranin is pregnant and has a one year old. If you can help her winterize her tent it would be appreciated
I’m sharing a Palestinian account every day and today is Ranin. Ranin was a teacher before this. Ranin had two children Misk, 2 and Sanad, 1 but she lost sweet little Misk. Ranin is also pregnant and her tent was flooded this week. She has a new fundraiser and could really use help.
November 19, 2025 at 10:16 PM
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
Today there was an attempted ICE raid in Bensonhurst & community members showed up. Even though NYPD collaborated with ICE by trying to disburse the crowd; community members stood their ground & ICE left without kidnapping a single person per the rapid response groups I'm on. We protect us!
November 19, 2025 at 12:40 AM