Author | Lightnews

Isaac Cates

@drisaac.bsky.social

890 followers 660 following 2.8K posts

“Senior Lecturer” (UVM English) in poetry, comics, writing, etc.; sometime drawer of comics, sometime writer of poems; trying to return to the world Some projects here: #DailyKrazyDetail #FourActorFactor #OrwellVsChatGPT #NearbyNature2025

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Isaac Cates @drisaac.bsky.social · Nov 15

If you’d like to read my essay about George Orwell, writing by machines, and our current nihilism about meaning, I offer you the entire zine in this thread.

I will finish the thread with instructions on how to print your own copies of the zine.

#OrwellvsChatGPT

GEORGE ORWELL VS. CHATGPT

=* AN ESSAY BY ISAAC CATES * NOV. 2024 *=

George Orwells essay "Politics and the
English Langare" mainly argues that the sort of cloudy, imprecise, and unintentional language connon in business writing, academic puffery, and party-line rhetoric prepares the mind for bad politics.
Writing just after the end of World War II and during Stalin's ascendancy, Orwell worried about the English also taking unwitting steps toward authoritarianism.
As a writer, he saw the vulnerable point he could best defend in the LANGUAGE—specifically, in the relationship between language and thinking or meaning. (Think of MEANING as a verb, and not just a noun.)

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Erica Henderson @ericafails.bsky.social · 3h

This year's Halloween sitch

The important thing is I made the coat and these were my first truly successful welt pockets.

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cow tools daily @cowtoolsdaily.bsky.social · 9h

happy halloween i am ready to confuse some trick-or-treaters

photo of six pumpkins carved into glowing jack-o'-lanterns, in front of a brick wall. a large pumpkin has the cow tools cow carved into it and another large pumpkin has the barn. in front of them are 4 small pumpkins, each carved with one of the cow tools on them. the lump pumpkin has no stem and the prongler pumpkin is laid sideways so that the stem lines up and forms the bottom half of the prongler, it's top half carved into the pumpkin.

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stuaa.bsky.social @stuaa.bsky.social · 1d

This is just to say

I have looked on
the works
that were in
the desert

and which
you were probably
thinking
would still stand

Forgive me
they were trunkless
so vast
and so old

Gabby HC, but a ghost, hiding in a corner @scriblit.bsky.social · 1d

Once upon a desert sandy
As through winds the trav'ling man he
Spied the face of Ozymandy
Lying, simply lying there
Suddenly there was some writing
Pon the plinth that he was sighting
That the sand and time were blighting
Quoth the statue, "Now despair"

Nick Pettigrew @nick-pettigrew.bsky.social · 1d

There was an old man you could gaze
At his works in despair in a daze
If you looked upon them
And were mere mortal men
'Ozymandias mighty', it says

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Angelle of Death @cityofangelle.bsky.social · 19h

They literally ruin everything they touch

Scooby-Doo screenshots. Top panel: ghost labeled “Something I used to love sucks now” Fred says “Let’s see who’s behind this”
Bottom panel: Villain is unmasked, labeled “Private Equity”

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Dr. Jack Brown @drjackbrown.bsky.social · 1d

Q: What do you call it when many people in multiple events are deliberately killed on the open seas outside of a declaration of war?

A: Murder. Mass murder. Crimes against humanity.

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Kara McNair @karamcnair.bsky.social · 18h

Wait, wait, we’ve SEEN this before!

Stilgherrian @stilgherrian.com · 19h

Lol it is clear that no one on Waroona Shire council is on the internet. I so hope they do this.

“Waroona Shire suggests blowing up rotting whale carcass to save money” www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10...

Shire suggests blowing up dead whale as alternative to expensive disposal

A coastal shire in WA suggests towing a rotting whale carcass out to sea and blowing it up, saying it cannot afford to dispose of the whale itself.

www.abc.net.au

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Anthony Moser @anthonymoser.com · 18h

they've turned data center construction into *mortgage backed securities*

how is it possible for one kind of technology to be bad in so many different ways at once. that's their real achievement

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Bryan Edward Stone (שָׁלוֹם) @bestonetx.bsky.social · 20h

Why is my college offering webinars on how to use AI in your classroom rather than webinars on how not to?

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Jonathan Cohn @jonathancohn.bsky.social · 23h

This looks like a concentration camp.

Brian Goldstone @brian-goldstone.bsky.social · 2d

Under Trump, the draconian future of homelessness policy is coming into focus: mass internment. Utah is building a 16-acre site to detain up to 1,300 homeless people inside locked "accountability centers." This is profoundly alarming.

Vital reporting from @ellenbarry.bsky.social and Jason DeParle:

In Utah, Trump’s Vision for Homelessness Begins to Take Shape

www.nytimes.com

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Senator Ed Markey @markey.senate.gov · 1d

BREAKING: Donald Trump just directed the Pentagon to test nuclear weapons before meeting with China.

The US has not conducted a nuclear test since 1992 and we must not resume. This is a reckless decision that will only make us less safe and lead to a new nuclear arms race.

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Eric Orchard @inkybat.bsky.social · 1d

Good morning!

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Isaac Cates @drisaac.bsky.social · 1d

I think part of the problem here is using the verb “understand,” since the LLM doesn’t really understand anything — not the material; not the student. It is able to pretend to understand.

Your colleagues are probably under the false impression that LLMs *know* anything.

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emily north @north0fnorth.tgirl.gay · 1d

lmao david byrne showed the video of the ice agents tripping over themselves while trying to run after a biker on wacker drive during the “life during wartime” segment of his chicago show tonight

the video being projected behind all the performers on stage

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Isaac Cates @drisaac.bsky.social · 1d

Alternately:

Hershey’s Special Dork

Isaac Cates @drisaac.bsky.social · 1d

Change one letter, ruin a candy:

Dork Peppermint Patties

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Schooley @schooley.bsky.social · 1d

Bill Murray in Ghostbusters saying it's true this man has no dick
JOIN. ICE. GOV

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Vermont Green FC @vermontgreenfc.bsky.social · 1d

The official trailer for “Today You’re With Us” a new short film by Duane Peterson III & Patrick McCormack documenting the 24 hours leading up to the 2025 USL League Two Final in Burlington, VT.

Vermont Green FC will host a free, ticketed screening & food drive on November 10. RSVP on our website.

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Mr. Ryan. @misterryan.bsky.social · 1d

gonna be evil today, I’ve earnt it

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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 1d

I always get drawn back to Al Gore telling voters that he’d only raise taxes on the top 1% and then after the election a poll showed that something like 20% of voters thought they were in the top 1% and another 20% thought they would be in the next five years. Just a total tragic disconnect.

David Roberts @volts.wtf · 1d

Maaaaan, this. So much this. Every time there's any kind of actual in-depth survey we find that the American people are *abysmally* ignorant about even the most basic political facts, but the pundit class just immediately forgets & proceeds with political analysis based on subtle policy differences.

Chris Hayes @chrislhayes.bsky.social · 2d

Feels like so many of our convos are revolving about how voters respond to what politicians are doing, or what parties’ positions on issues are, without much actual empirical sense of what they actually know about those topics.