Timothy Burke

@timothyburke.bsky.social

6.5K followers 930 following 1.6K posts

Professor of History at Swarthmore College. Writes at timothyburke.substack.com, continuing from his old blog Easily Distracted. Remembers when there was no Internet, and stays up late because someone is wrong on it.

Videos

Political science 50%

Sociology 17%

Posts Replies Media Videos

Timothy Burke @timothyburke.bsky.social · 3h

When AI can pass serious tests that are the equivalent of MCAT + med school + residency, let us know. Let us know even if anybody talking about how valuable its expertise is or can be is prepared to subject it to that kind of testing regime who isn't tied to the industry.

Timothy Burke @timothyburke.bsky.social · 3h

Life has no extra speed bumps right now if you already thought very little of Chomsky.

Timothy Burke @timothyburke.bsky.social · 3h

This all leaves somewhat ambiguous who exactly the Mystery Machine is investigating and who exactly those darned kids are going to find under the mask.

Timothy Burke @timothyburke.bsky.social · 3h

So index it: the more serious the problem, the riskier it would be to turn to any expert (AI or otherwise) that doesn't have some form of verified expertise. And most experts have testing backed by statute; AI has what? Research done by researchers who are indebted to the AI companies?

Timothy Burke @timothyburke.bsky.social · 4h

Heaven forfend you pay a human being who has expertise in high-stakes problems.

Timothy Burke @timothyburke.bsky.social · 4h

I might be more interested in the Winter Olympics if there was an iceskating event that also had guns like the biathlon, with nonlethal ammunition. Like, a combination of fencing and gun-fu and skating.

Timothy Burke @timothyburke.bsky.social · 2d

I feel like I've read some similar anecdotes from back when Lewis arrived--that he had a lot of people who offered to help him out, broker connections to the existing staff, give him the benefit of the doubt, and he shot all of it down. Feels as if he always knew he was there as a hatchet man.

Timothy Burke @timothyburke.bsky.social · 2d

It's the little failures that really hurt, the accumulating paper cuts that rip open what was a democracy and expose it to the septic shock that is Trumpism. Like a TV network going out of its way to censor the rest of the world booing the American Vice-President at the Olympics.

Timothy Burke @timothyburke.bsky.social · 3d

It is kind of difficult after reading that there's a kind of cheating in ski jumping that involves getting liquid injected into your penis so you get a bigger suit so the bigger suit helps your aerodynamics so that you win to not think "maybe competition has kind of lost the script, yeah?"

Timothy Burke @timothyburke.bsky.social · 3d

That's the other reason I will avoid any more Cassandra work. In more than twenty years of online writing, I've generally seen the bad things coming, been told I'm exaggerating, and realized that this response meant I was right and nothing could stop what I was seeing.

Timothy Burke @timothyburke.bsky.social · 3d

Fighting ICE on the grounds of immigration policy alone is important for every American who believes in fairness and justice. But ICE is being prepared for much more than that, if things keep going as they are. We have to stop it now to keep those terrible futures from coming to pass.

Timothy Burke @timothyburke.bsky.social · 3d

The other thing I strongly suspect they are preparing for that is key to ICE's insistence on anonymity and experiments in extra-judicial and unconstitutional action are the detentions of and possible deportations or indefinite imprisonment of citizens who are seen as political enemies. 6/

Timothy Burke @timothyburke.bsky.social · 3d

We should continue pulling out all the stops, because I strongly suspect Miller etc. are preparing the ground for mass deportations of citizens who were born to undocumented immigrants and at least some recently naturalized citizens, if SCOTUS gives them a green light. Which it might. 5/

Timothy Burke @timothyburke.bsky.social · 3d

Miller & Co are testing what the material limitations on a nationwide force taking extrajudicial action directed by the White House might be if that force is contested by the population. So far the news there is encouraging for us--Americans are stressing even limited ICE deployment very hard. 4/

Timothy Burke @timothyburke.bsky.social · 3d

The mainstream press who earnestly see what ICE is doing as lying entirely within the confines of an American debate about immigration, even if that media is critical of the policies and actions so far, are under-imagining what is being tested here. 3/

Timothy Burke @timothyburke.bsky.social · 3d

So while I have not wanted to say "here's what's coming next" in part because who wants to give these guys ideas, I think you can see in the actions of ICE a series of experiments that are terrifying in their implications and should have everyone in the streets everywhere. 2/

Timothy Burke @timothyburke.bsky.social · 3d

Miller and Vought plainly actually have several "comprehensive plans"--they're publicly available. But I also think it's not wrong to see plans emerging from circumstance. If we can see the fearful possibilities and hopeful counter-moves, they can too. 1/

Timothy Burke @timothyburke.bsky.social · 3d

Does she think U2 normally sings in Gaelic?

Timothy Burke @timothyburke.bsky.social · 4d

There's nothing left in DHS that is legitimate, so if Dems not playing ball shuts it down, mission accomplished. I think by the way that should happen to any federal agency where the White House is no longer provisioning service and benefits to all states and territories equally and without bias.

Timothy Burke @timothyburke.bsky.social · 4d

Star Trek's entire history at this point says that synthetic beings and logic-driven aliens famously struggle to understand language's ambiguities, but now we're seeing that mimicry of language is the easiest thing for synthetics and that rigorous logic is quite good with language.

Timothy Burke @timothyburke.bsky.social · 4d

It's not how men behave. It's not how professors practice. It's not what employers expect. I have read thousands and thousands of reference letters by faculty and I've never seen one that offers a complimentary physical description of the person recommended, of either gender.

Reposted by Martin Paul Eve, Ilya Somin, Rebecca Tushnet , and 5 more Martin Paul Eve, Ilya Somin, Rebecca Tushnet, Alan Richardson, Michael H. Whitworth, Timothy Burke, Ann Bartow, Nathan P. Kalmoe

Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 4d

I have been writing letters of recommendation for just shy of thirty years— 17 students this year alone— in ratios that more or less track the majority-women population of liberal arts students.

Obviously I have never commented on a student's looks... and no recipient has ever called me to ask.

Reposted by Rosemary A. Joyce, Timothy Burke, Paul Fisher

Mrs. Detective Pikajew, Esq. @clapifyoulikeme.favrd.social · 4d

Hey, so, I don’t do civil litigation, is it generally considered good when the judge does this?

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Case 1:24-cv-09429-KPF Document 227 Filed 02/05/26
Page 1 of 33
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
FLYCATCHER CORP. LTD and FLYCATCHER TOYS, INC.,
Plaintiffs,
-V.-
AFFABLE AVENUE LLC, doing business as CJ DIST;
OZMOS COMPANY LLC; EYTAN GROSSMAN, doing business as EYG DEALS; CREATIVE REWARDS INC.; JOSHUA CHAVEZ, doing business as ONESTOPFASTSHOP; TOP EXPERIENCE COMPANY LLC, doing business as WE PAY COST LLC; PRETTY PRINCESS LLC, doing business as NORVI; AYANEE LLC; FORTUNA KG LLC, doing business as FORTUNAKG; JASON MANAGEMENT LLC; JOAN ALEXANDER SORIANO, doing business as PRIMECHOICEMART; A WAHABI CORPORATION, doing business as MCPROFITS; MODA ORIGINAL LLC; VALLEY BODEGA WHOLESALE INC.; EYAD WAHBY; SAM SHAMLOO; S&N GLOBAL SUPPLY INC.; VALUE VALLEY WHOLESALE LLC; ADAM HAMIDA; and JOHN DOES 1 to 25,
Defendants.
24 Civ. 9429 (KPF)
OPINION AND ORDER
KATHERINE POLK FAILLA, District Judge:
In June 2025, Steven A. Feldman, counsel for Defendant Affable Avenue
LLC ("Affable"), filed a brief in support of Affable's motion to dismiss that was peppered with false citations. Concerned about both the genesis of these
misstatements and counsel's delay in correcting them, the Court issued an
Order to Show Cause. Perhaps not appreciating the gravity of the situation,
Mr. Feldman responded to that Order with a submission that appeared to have
been created by generative artificial intelligence ("Al"), and that itself contained
a false citation. The Court's response was stern and unmistakable: "Mr.

Case 1:24-CV-09429-KPF Document 227 Filed 02/05/26 Page 2 of 33
Feldman [wals not excused from this professional obligation [of verifying that the cases he submitted to the Court were valid] by dint of using emerging
technology." (Dkt. #169 at 4).
Mr. Feldman persisted. A few days prior to the Court's hearing on the
Order to Show Cause, Mr. Feldman submitted a proposed reply brief in further support of Affable's motion to dismiss. Once again, his brief contained false citations. And at the August 22, 2025 hearing, Mr. Feldman was unable to respond directly to, much less answer, the Court's questioning about his
submissions.
Mr. Feldman has not, and apparently cannot, learn from his mistakes.
And while the Court does not oppose the use of Al to assist in legal research
and writing, it must take a stand where, as here, counsel repeatedly files
submissions with false citations because counsel refuses to verify those
submissions. This Court can do no more. For the reasons that follow, the
Court sanctions Mr. Feldman pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11
and the Court's inherent powers by striking Affable's submissions and entering
default judgment against it.

Timothy Burke @timothyburke.bsky.social · 4d

As far as I can tell, there are people than Epstein and Maxwell who could have been charged or at least investigated for trafficking but no police or judicial system seems to have tried--there's a "Daniel Siad" who appears to have been involved in identifying and transporting women, for example.

Timothy Burke @timothyburke.bsky.social · 4d

I really hate statements like "humans conquered the world with language"--these sweeping, reductive, one-variable-to-explain-everything statements that infest universal histories like weevils. Like bad openings of bad undergraduate writing from the days before AI did bad writing for undergraduates.

Reposted by Jennifer A. Richeson, Scott L. Greer, Mark D. White , and 12 more Jennifer A. Richeson, Scott L. Greer, Mark D. White, Philip N. Cohen, Janet Murray, Alan Richardson, Robert Wolfe, McKenzie Wark, Adrian Daub, Andrew Jacobs, Gerald Friedman, Brian Keegan, Timothy Burke, Sarah Roberts, Melinda Baldwin

Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 4d

This is the Yale professor's explanation for why he described the physical attractiveness of a student in an email to Epstein. He explicitly says he regrets nothing about their association.

Again, I'm so happy Yale hired David Brooks to restore trust.

yaledailynews.com/articles/gel...

Screenshot of the article that includes a quote from the professor's explanation to the dean: “I was recommending her for a job I thought she'd like. When you do that--when you actually care about a rec letter--you keep the potential boss's habits in mind,” Gelernter wrote in the email to his colleagues, seemingly referring to Epstein. “This one was obsessed with girls (like every other unmarried billionaire in Manhattan; in fact, like every other heterosex male), and if I hadn't said what I did in that letter ten-odd years ago, he would certainly have called me & asked for a lot more aesthetic detail. (This is how men behave.)”

Timothy Burke @timothyburke.bsky.social · 6d

I hope I'm allowed to think this? The way that online Namibians are dunking on online Nigerians and vice-versa right now is very brilliant if also depressing in various ways. Unfortunately a lot of it is on X.

Timothy Burke @timothyburke.bsky.social · 7d

There is also an interesting d) set of people. Folks who Epstein and John Brockman tried to draw into Epstein's orbit who turned down all invites and never responded to him. A smaller group of e) people who Brockman or others tried to get Epstein interested in that Epstein rejected as uninteresting.

Timothy Burke @timothyburke.bsky.social · 7d

So spending some hours looking at the Epstein files, I see the following: a) really gross people that associated with him closely; b) greedy or status-seeking people eager to build a relationship with him; c) folks who met him once or twice but don't show up a lot. 1/

Timothy Burke @timothyburke.bsky.social · 7d

Thank you for compiling these and being careful about the criteria. There are a lot of names that show up in the files just because John Brockman is trying to get Epstein to show an interest in that person or is inviting them to an Edge meeting and letting Epstein know.

Add to Home Screen

Light up
your news

Add to Home Screen

Light upyour news

Sign in to Lightnews

Sign up to start reading

Connect Bluesky

Connect with Bluesky

Light up
your news