this was SUCH a beautiful episode! I don’t really like projecting on people based on media snippets, but both of them really seem like gems.

omg!!!! I’m so jealous! Are you mostly in Taipei?

dear lord who art in heaven, please deliver me from that momentary lapse of judgment and allow me to touch ALL THE GRASS

not that anyone asked but his book called African Fractals is nothing short of revelatory

ah, I used them the first time around but I should find the extras I didn’t use! Thanks for the reminder :)

omg thank you!!! That looks like exactly what I need! Though I must admit that releasing a bunch of wasps in my house — microscopic or not — does scare me a little bit 😅 Will report back!

you mean I won't have "blah" and "ugh" as commit messages anymore??

thanks for coming to my TED talk but also I'm curious to what extent these dynamics would apply in German academia

that, and I simply do not get paid enough to expend any cognitive and emotional energy on students ostensibly doing bad stuff (or evaluating whether or not someone is lying). Much better to focus on the little joys, like seeing a new idea click in a student's mind

maybe I'm naive and believe too much in the power of karma, where their dirty dealings ultimately come back to bite them in the ass at some point, but this kind of cognitive reframe is what I remind myself of every time I can feel myself receding into that hole

I'm sure there are a ton of students who take advantage of my leniency / flexibility / fundamental belief that students do want to do well (which is why they resort to this kind of stuff), and I just remind myself that that's an emotional and professional burden that they need to shoulder, not me.

the re-frame: frustration that a student is probably lying about a family member dying? → why does the student feel like they have to invoke such a drastic response in order for instructors to have a little flexibility about assignments and exams that ultimately don't matter that much?

I guess the way I've dealt with this is to remind myself of the big picture, systemic problem: the fucked up academic / political economy that pushes students towards believing that they have to Do It All in order to have a chance at success (thus precipitating cheating and irresponsible LLM use)

I don't have any good tips, but I do just want to say (as corny as it sounds) that I'm grateful that you're being so attentive to this. I feel like it's too easy in our line of work to retreat farther and farther into what Jeffrey Moro calls "cop shit," and being attentive to it is the first step