Felicia Steele
@feliciajsteele.bsky.social
Professor, linguist, knitter, curmudgeon: teach and study the History of the English language, British Literature before 1700, and many adjacent things. All opinions my own.
Reposted by Felicia Steele
40 years ago we’d have congressional hearings falsely accusing metal bands of putting backwards messages in their songs that told kids to kill themselves & now we have a planet-killing chatbot that’s all like “bet you won’t commit suicide chickenshit bitch” & the government is like here’s $5 billion
November 8, 2025 at 4:23 AM
40 years ago we’d have congressional hearings falsely accusing metal bands of putting backwards messages in their songs that told kids to kill themselves & now we have a planet-killing chatbot that’s all like “bet you won’t commit suicide chickenshit bitch” & the government is like here’s $5 billion
It's not only colleges. A student in my class and a practicum in a local 9th grade classroom told me about how her students were using it in their high school classroom.
1.This is not the only known example we know of ChatGPT cheering on a vulnerable young person to die by suicide, this time it is a recent Texas A&M grad
2. Every single university that has invited OpenAI into our midst should be asked to account for their choices.
www.cnn.com/2025/11/06/u...
2. Every single university that has invited OpenAI into our midst should be asked to account for their choices.
www.cnn.com/2025/11/06/u...
November 7, 2025 at 12:17 PM
It's not only colleges. A student in my class and a practicum in a local 9th grade classroom told me about how her students were using it in their high school classroom.
Reposted by Felicia Steele
Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has released a resume portal via his transition site, offering jobs for people of all skill levels “to help build an administration of public servants that will drive down costs and keep all New Yorkers safe.”
www.transition2025.com/apply
www.transition2025.com/apply
A New Era for NYC
Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani is ready to work to make New York safe and affordable for all of its residents.
www.transition2025.com
November 6, 2025 at 12:36 PM
Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has released a resume portal via his transition site, offering jobs for people of all skill levels “to help build an administration of public servants that will drive down costs and keep all New Yorkers safe.”
www.transition2025.com/apply
www.transition2025.com/apply
This seems important, especially at our given moment.
Holy shit, this is kinda huge if you're into the social sciences
Debunking “When Prophecy Fails”
In 1954, Dorothy Martin predicted an apocalyptic flood and promised her followers rescue by flying saucers. When neither arrived, she recanted, her group dissolved, and efforts to proselytize ceased....
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
November 6, 2025 at 12:01 PM
This seems important, especially at our given moment.
Reposted by Felicia Steele
Australia has so much electricity from solar power that it is going to start offering free electricity to everyone for at least three hours during the day as the wholesale price of power goes negative
electrek.co/2025/11/04/a...
electrek.co/2025/11/04/a...
Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity
Australia's extensive solar power penetration makes so much energy that the government wants to offer free electricity at peak hours.
electrek.co
November 6, 2025 at 4:58 AM
Australia has so much electricity from solar power that it is going to start offering free electricity to everyone for at least three hours during the day as the wholesale price of power goes negative
electrek.co/2025/11/04/a...
electrek.co/2025/11/04/a...
The best part of having adult children is realizing you've doubled the voting power of your household. I'll be holding my breath til Wednesday.
Obama: When he was asked to give the trump administration a grade, he said they deserved an A. These are the same folks who put secret war plans in a group chat. You don't think there's anything they could be doing better? No room for improvement?
November 2, 2025 at 2:40 AM
The best part of having adult children is realizing you've doubled the voting power of your household. I'll be holding my breath til Wednesday.
Reposted by Felicia Steele
The Walton family (who own Walmart) are worth over $400 billion, yet many of their employees are on SNAP.
Bezos is worth over $400 billion, many Amazon employees require SNAP.
The people who need help are not the problem.
It’s corporate greed. It’s an unwillingness to pay a living wage.
Bezos is worth over $400 billion, many Amazon employees require SNAP.
The people who need help are not the problem.
It’s corporate greed. It’s an unwillingness to pay a living wage.
October 27, 2025 at 9:08 PM
The Walton family (who own Walmart) are worth over $400 billion, yet many of their employees are on SNAP.
Bezos is worth over $400 billion, many Amazon employees require SNAP.
The people who need help are not the problem.
It’s corporate greed. It’s an unwillingness to pay a living wage.
Bezos is worth over $400 billion, many Amazon employees require SNAP.
The people who need help are not the problem.
It’s corporate greed. It’s an unwillingness to pay a living wage.
Reposted by Felicia Steele
Whenever people complain about the number of folks relying on food stamps, it is worth reminding them that SNAP is, by too large of a degree, a subsidy for corporations that refuse to pay a living wage and their political allies who reject public policy prescriptions to reduce income inequality.
October 27, 2025 at 1:11 AM
Whenever people complain about the number of folks relying on food stamps, it is worth reminding them that SNAP is, by too large of a degree, a subsidy for corporations that refuse to pay a living wage and their political allies who reject public policy prescriptions to reduce income inequality.
I'm so tired of metaphor becoming physical.
No mention at all of the fact that Trump doesn't have the legal authority to do this, that plans haven't even been reviewed (because the office is closed for the government shutdown), that the size and cost estimates keep changing, etc., etc.
Part of White House Is Reduced to Rubble. Trump’s Ballroom Will Rise in Its Place.
www.nytimes.com
October 21, 2025 at 10:56 AM
I'm so tired of metaphor becoming physical.
Language revitalization strategy?
Jason Momoa prepared for his role in "Chief of War" with a personal language coach who lived with him for nearly a year.
Jason Momoa worked with a coach to speak Hawaiian authentically in 'Chief of War'
Jason Momoa prepared for his role in “Chief of War” with a personal language coach who lived with him for nearly a year. The Apple TV series premiered in August.
bit.ly
October 18, 2025 at 9:51 PM
Language revitalization strategy?
I feel 100% the same way
Sorry to be corny but the aerial shots of these crowds are almost indescribably moving and hopeful
October 18, 2025 at 9:31 PM
I feel 100% the same way
All of these questions are equally applicable to academia? In addition, we can ask "what foundational skills in traditional text-based literacy do you presume students have that are required for successful use of AI tools?" If they don't have them, why are you setting them up for failure?
AI tools churn out ‘workslop’ for many US employees lowering trust | Gene Marks
AI tools churn out ‘workslop’ for many US employees lowering trust | Gene Marks
Studies show widespread errors in AI-generated work, as employers fail to train staff properly
www.theguardian.com
October 12, 2025 at 2:56 PM
All of these questions are equally applicable to academia? In addition, we can ask "what foundational skills in traditional text-based literacy do you presume students have that are required for successful use of AI tools?" If they don't have them, why are you setting them up for failure?
Reposted by Felicia Steele
Reposted by Felicia Steele
The end of federal enforcement of special ed laws. Some states - including MN - will likely be ok. But a lot of disabled kids in a lot of states are going to lose the education that federal law and decades of jurisprudence say they are owed.
Education Department wipes out special ed office in shutdown layoffs, union says
The Education Department laid off nearly everyone at the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services.
www.usatoday.com
October 11, 2025 at 10:50 PM
The end of federal enforcement of special ed laws. Some states - including MN - will likely be ok. But a lot of disabled kids in a lot of states are going to lose the education that federal law and decades of jurisprudence say they are owed.
Reposted by Felicia Steele
every big AI pitch is like “what if we took away your means of survival and devalued all your skills to make stonks go up temporarily? You’d like that wouldn’t you?”
October 11, 2025 at 6:10 PM
every big AI pitch is like “what if we took away your means of survival and devalued all your skills to make stonks go up temporarily? You’d like that wouldn’t you?”
Reposted by Felicia Steele
Really want to encourage libraries - especially school libraries - to put no-AI content into your collection development policy. At the very least, if you have a clause in there about requiring accurate information, you can use that to weed out or prevent genAI purchases.
“When you get a suspicious book, “you look it up to see what else the [author] has written. And you see there's 30 things, and none of them have any reviews, and they were all written in the last two years,” DeMeester-Lane says.”
How Local Librarians Keep AI Slop Off the Shelves
AI is being used to create nonsensical, sometimes dangerously inaccurate books. Local librarians are tasked with keeping these volumes out of their collections.
www.governing.com
October 6, 2025 at 5:29 PM
Really want to encourage libraries - especially school libraries - to put no-AI content into your collection development policy. At the very least, if you have a clause in there about requiring accurate information, you can use that to weed out or prevent genAI purchases.
Reposted by Felicia Steele
as a girl with a PhD in natural language processing and machine learning it's actually offensive to me when you say "we don't know how LLMs work so they might be conscious"
I didn't spend 10 years in mines of academia to be told ignorance is morally equal knowledge.
We know exactly how LLMs work.
I didn't spend 10 years in mines of academia to be told ignorance is morally equal knowledge.
We know exactly how LLMs work.
October 4, 2025 at 10:23 PM
as a girl with a PhD in natural language processing and machine learning it's actually offensive to me when you say "we don't know how LLMs work so they might be conscious"
I didn't spend 10 years in mines of academia to be told ignorance is morally equal knowledge.
We know exactly how LLMs work.
I didn't spend 10 years in mines of academia to be told ignorance is morally equal knowledge.
We know exactly how LLMs work.
Finally got to see Sinners (squeamish kid who hated horror movies in the house) and it really is one of the best movies in the last 20 years. Worth the wait.
October 5, 2025 at 1:41 AM
Finally got to see Sinners (squeamish kid who hated horror movies in the house) and it really is one of the best movies in the last 20 years. Worth the wait.
Where's the car! I'm on my way, sweetie!
VERY IMPORTANT NEWS #nutmegsky www.ctinsider.com/news/article...
An escaped miniature Scottish Highland bull is roaming eastern Connecticut
Lefty, a miniature Scottish Highland bull, escaped from his home in North Franklin and has spent the past week roaming the woods and fields near Norwich.
www.ctinsider.com
October 2, 2025 at 11:09 PM
Where's the car! I'm on my way, sweetie!
Check the list and check with your publishers about whether you or they should file the claim.
I'm in there 17 times
Hey authors, the official list of Anthropic works is available for searching.
secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/lookup
secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/lookup
October 2, 2025 at 3:06 PM
Check the list and check with your publishers about whether you or they should file the claim.
I think this sums up how I am feeling today.
And then the key thing is gonna be to sort of get across that it’s all like this, that the companies are gonna tell you they’ve made a better version, but fundamentally it is all the put your glue on your pizza machine.
/end alt text
/end alt text
October 2, 2025 at 3:04 PM
I think this sums up how I am feeling today.
Every one of these characters is immediately recognizable.
Every few months now I re-read this "Who Goes Nazi?" piece from 1941 and am blown away by how it captures the people we are dealing with 80 years later.
harpers.org/archive/1941...
harpers.org/archive/1941...
Who Goes Nazi?, by Dorothy Thompson
harpers.org
October 2, 2025 at 1:44 AM
Every one of these characters is immediately recognizable.
This Wired essay is a chilling account of how Thiel has taken on the worldview of the first major apologist of German Fascism www.wired.com/story/the-re...
The Real Stakes, and Real Story, of Peter Thiel’s Antichrist Obsession
Thirty years ago, a peace-loving Austrian theologian spoke to Peter Thiel about the apocalyptic theories of Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt. They’ve been a road map for the billionaire ever since.
www.wired.com
October 1, 2025 at 1:14 PM
This Wired essay is a chilling account of how Thiel has taken on the worldview of the first major apologist of German Fascism www.wired.com/story/the-re...
Note who was president the last time this crap happened.
US government shutdown live: first closure since 2018 begins after funding bill fails
US government shutdown live: first closure since 2018 begins after funding bill fails
Competing bills rejected in Senate as Republicans and Democrats accuse each other of partisan politics. Follow the latest news and updates after the US government shut down
*
US government shuts down
*
Tracker: how each US senator voted
This shutdown is expected to be worse than previous ones. The impact on federal workers could be even more severe.
Before Trump’s most recent threat of mass layoffs on Tuesday, a memo released last week by the White House’s office of management and budget told agencies not just to prepare for temporary furloughs but for permanent layoffs in the event of a shutdown. Continue reading...
www.theguardian.com
October 1, 2025 at 11:16 AM
Note who was president the last time this crap happened.
Reposted by Felicia Steele
Here's a link to the entire document. Like all primary sources, it is a product of its moment and does not voice timeless or universal truths. It is, however, interesting how insightful this particular analysis of American fascism, ca. 1945, looks in hindsight. archive.org/details/Army...
Army Talk Orientation Fact Sheet #64 - Fascism! : Army Orientation Branch: Information and Education Division : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
March 24, 1945. Army Talk Orientation Fact Sheet #64 Fascism! A sheet printed and distributed by the United States War Department as an educational tool for...
archive.org
August 1, 2024 at 9:48 PM
Here's a link to the entire document. Like all primary sources, it is a product of its moment and does not voice timeless or universal truths. It is, however, interesting how insightful this particular analysis of American fascism, ca. 1945, looks in hindsight. archive.org/details/Army...