Lauren Woolsey
@cgsunit.bsky.social
Earthling, she/her, educator, reader, tabletop gamer, and more. Avatar by Corinne Roberts :) Spent much of 2025 thinking about how AI sucks, info and free zines at padlet.com/laurenUU/antiAI. Hoping less screen time in 2026, using Anisota.net for Bluesky.
Pinned
I read 96 books this year, and it was hard to pick favorites. I decided to highlight one from every month of the year! #booksky
I'll add some additional stats in this thread from The StoryGraph, too 🧵
I'll add some additional stats in this thread from The StoryGraph, too 🧵
Reposted by Lauren Woolsey
"[Billionaires] can buy a new face, a slimmer body, a new hairline...But they can neither buy nor fabricate the spark of inspiration...nor can they create, with all their money and resources, a machine that has inspiration for them" 🧵:
One tiny comfort I experience as a creator right now:
Some of the richest people on the planet have poured billions into a plagiarism machine because they are so utterly desperate to be us
But no machine learning program can give them our skills, our vision, or our heart
And they hate that
Some of the richest people on the planet have poured billions into a plagiarism machine because they are so utterly desperate to be us
But no machine learning program can give them our skills, our vision, or our heart
And they hate that
January 19, 2026 at 3:12 AM
"[Billionaires] can buy a new face, a slimmer body, a new hairline...But they can neither buy nor fabricate the spark of inspiration...nor can they create, with all their money and resources, a machine that has inspiration for them" 🧵:
At Grand Rapids Art Museum yesterday, my friends and I participated in an 11-word poetry activity and chose this painting to focus our attention on. We ended up with this group poem:
Fantasy
Shadowy life
Nature and craft
Where does beauty grow?
Within
1/🧵
Fantasy
Shadowy life
Nature and craft
Where does beauty grow?
Within
1/🧵
January 19, 2026 at 5:45 AM
At Grand Rapids Art Museum yesterday, my friends and I participated in an 11-word poetry activity and chose this painting to focus our attention on. We ended up with this group poem:
Fantasy
Shadowy life
Nature and craft
Where does beauty grow?
Within
1/🧵
Fantasy
Shadowy life
Nature and craft
Where does beauty grow?
Within
1/🧵
Reposted by Lauren Woolsey
It's better if the Democratic Party in DC does NOTHING rather than to give ICE more money for body cams and training. NOTHING is better than that plan. I mean it.
DO NOTHING.
DO NOTHING.
January 18, 2026 at 3:22 PM
It's better if the Democratic Party in DC does NOTHING rather than to give ICE more money for body cams and training. NOTHING is better than that plan. I mean it.
DO NOTHING.
DO NOTHING.
"fear cannot be the foundation of a healthy nation. Dignity cannot be produced by domination, and trust cannot be created through terror. Obedience to systems is not the same as loyalty to conscience."
-Kaira Jewel Lingo (source link in quoted post)
-Kaira Jewel Lingo (source link in quoted post)
Extreme Metta via Kaira Jewel Lingo 🪷☸️🙏💙
Love letter to an ICE Agent
Kaira Jewel's January 2026 Newsletter
kairajewellingo.substack.com
January 18, 2026 at 2:51 PM
"fear cannot be the foundation of a healthy nation. Dignity cannot be produced by domination, and trust cannot be created through terror. Obedience to systems is not the same as loyalty to conscience."
-Kaira Jewel Lingo (source link in quoted post)
-Kaira Jewel Lingo (source link in quoted post)
Agreed. I keep getting the ick when I've read a long essay and then at the 70% mark they tell me how they shortcut their creative process or that I'm reading, in part, synthetic text. This has happened multiple different times recently and always for a purpose that author could have done without it.
LLM disclosures are, in part, trigger warnings. Trigger warnings go at the top.
January 18, 2026 at 2:20 PM
Agreed. I keep getting the ick when I've read a long essay and then at the 70% mark they tell me how they shortcut their creative process or that I'm reading, in part, synthetic text. This has happened multiple different times recently and always for a purpose that author could have done without it.
Reposted by Lauren Woolsey
Excerpt from Revolutionary Letter № 8 by Diane di Prima
January 16, 2026 at 10:18 PM
Excerpt from Revolutionary Letter № 8 by Diane di Prima
From the article "Pedagogy of the Inevitable" by Ricky D'Andrea Crano:
"To credulously extoll these tools as 'revolutionary' is, among other things, to diminish our expectations for anything like revolution."
1/2
"To credulously extoll these tools as 'revolutionary' is, among other things, to diminish our expectations for anything like revolution."
1/2
January 16, 2026 at 4:06 PM
From the article "Pedagogy of the Inevitable" by Ricky D'Andrea Crano:
"To credulously extoll these tools as 'revolutionary' is, among other things, to diminish our expectations for anything like revolution."
1/2
"To credulously extoll these tools as 'revolutionary' is, among other things, to diminish our expectations for anything like revolution."
1/2
Reposted by Lauren Woolsey
Libraries are the same, #solarpunk in real life.
There are many ways a better world exists alongside the terrible one...growing those seeds & using them as familiar models to help people transition conceptually away from exploitive capitalism...
brightgreenfutures.substack.com/p/episode-25...
2/n
There are many ways a better world exists alongside the terrible one...growing those seeds & using them as familiar models to help people transition conceptually away from exploitive capitalism...
brightgreenfutures.substack.com/p/episode-25...
2/n
Ep. 25: Library Economies and Third Spaces
Prefiguring a Solarpunk World Today
brightgreenfutures.substack.com
January 16, 2026 at 2:56 PM
Libraries are the same, #solarpunk in real life.
There are many ways a better world exists alongside the terrible one...growing those seeds & using them as familiar models to help people transition conceptually away from exploitive capitalism...
brightgreenfutures.substack.com/p/episode-25...
2/n
There are many ways a better world exists alongside the terrible one...growing those seeds & using them as familiar models to help people transition conceptually away from exploitive capitalism...
brightgreenfutures.substack.com/p/episode-25...
2/n
Reposted by Lauren Woolsey
I’m seeing posts from people (outside of MN) about how US citizens should carry their passports.
And let me say that *inside* MN, we are calmly responding to requests with: “No, I don’t have to show you any documentation.”
Because that’s how you protect everyone, regardless of immigration status.
And let me say that *inside* MN, we are calmly responding to requests with: “No, I don’t have to show you any documentation.”
Because that’s how you protect everyone, regardless of immigration status.
January 16, 2026 at 12:17 AM
I’m seeing posts from people (outside of MN) about how US citizens should carry their passports.
And let me say that *inside* MN, we are calmly responding to requests with: “No, I don’t have to show you any documentation.”
Because that’s how you protect everyone, regardless of immigration status.
And let me say that *inside* MN, we are calmly responding to requests with: “No, I don’t have to show you any documentation.”
Because that’s how you protect everyone, regardless of immigration status.
From my own field of expertise (astrophysics):
There have been 230 recipients of the prize in Physics; 5 were women.
They gave it to Jocelyn Bell Burnell's advisor for her work on pulsar discovery.
They waited until Vera Rubin died in 2016 to give a prize for dark matter to someone else in 2019.
There have been 230 recipients of the prize in Physics; 5 were women.
They gave it to Jocelyn Bell Burnell's advisor for her work on pulsar discovery.
They waited until Vera Rubin died in 2016 to give a prize for dark matter to someone else in 2019.
They gave it to the guy who figured out how to turn chlorine gas into a chemical weapon, they gave it to (at least one that we know of) a serial rapist, they gave it to a guy who worked for AstraZenaca which sponsored the prize, and from 1901 - 2019 they gave it to 950 people and only 54 were women
January 16, 2026 at 3:20 AM
From my own field of expertise (astrophysics):
There have been 230 recipients of the prize in Physics; 5 were women.
They gave it to Jocelyn Bell Burnell's advisor for her work on pulsar discovery.
They waited until Vera Rubin died in 2016 to give a prize for dark matter to someone else in 2019.
There have been 230 recipients of the prize in Physics; 5 were women.
They gave it to Jocelyn Bell Burnell's advisor for her work on pulsar discovery.
They waited until Vera Rubin died in 2016 to give a prize for dark matter to someone else in 2019.
In our current era, some people have courage and some people have bravado. Only one is a true strength.
Courage, as Alexandra Blakely sings, is not the absence of fear. It is the feeling of that fear, being afraid, and showing up anyway.
(https://tidal.com/browse/track/484440171?u)
Courage, as Alexandra Blakely sings, is not the absence of fear. It is the feeling of that fear, being afraid, and showing up anyway.
(https://tidal.com/browse/track/484440171?u)
January 16, 2026 at 2:57 AM
In our current era, some people have courage and some people have bravado. Only one is a true strength.
Courage, as Alexandra Blakely sings, is not the absence of fear. It is the feeling of that fear, being afraid, and showing up anyway.
(https://tidal.com/browse/track/484440171?u)
Courage, as Alexandra Blakely sings, is not the absence of fear. It is the feeling of that fear, being afraid, and showing up anyway.
(https://tidal.com/browse/track/484440171?u)
Reposted by Lauren Woolsey
Sure. AI companies have ALWAYS been training their models on Wikipedia content, which under the free and open access model is available to anyone — including AI companies. Agreements like these require AI companies to limit and offset the strain they place on Wikimedia infrastructure.
Hoping that @molly.wiki can help explain.
Wikimedia Foundation announces new AI partnerships with Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Perplexity and others
January 15, 2026 at 6:47 PM
Sure. AI companies have ALWAYS been training their models on Wikipedia content, which under the free and open access model is available to anyone — including AI companies. Agreements like these require AI companies to limit and offset the strain they place on Wikimedia infrastructure.
Reposted by Lauren Woolsey
The section in this article that challenges the use of the term "AI literacy" is so good! I'm going to keep referring to this from now on.
In “Against AI: Critical Refusal in the Library,” I examine LIS as in need of a values-realignment, asking readers to refuse the technosolutionism we are so often offered in place of human-centered possibilities, like taking racism, climate change, and labor rights seriously
doi.org/10.1353/lib....
doi.org/10.1353/lib....
Project MUSE - Against AI: Critical Refusal in the Library
doi.org
January 15, 2026 at 11:19 PM
The section in this article that challenges the use of the term "AI literacy" is so good! I'm going to keep referring to this from now on.
My partner sent me this video and it is so good! Penelope makes excellent points and rather than summarize her ideas, I'll suggest you simply watch the whole thing when you have time to focus on it.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FljcklWhCIE&pp=ugUHEgVlbi1VU9IHCQkyAaO1ajebQw%3D%3D
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FljcklWhCIE&pp=ugUHEgVlbi1VU9IHCQkyAaO1ajebQw%3D%3D
January 15, 2026 at 2:58 PM
My partner sent me this video and it is so good! Penelope makes excellent points and rather than summarize her ideas, I'll suggest you simply watch the whole thing when you have time to focus on it.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FljcklWhCIE&pp=ugUHEgVlbi1VU9IHCQkyAaO1ajebQw%3D%3D
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FljcklWhCIE&pp=ugUHEgVlbi1VU9IHCQkyAaO1ajebQw%3D%3D
Reposted by Lauren Woolsey
Before people yell at me, I know not everyone is trying to be "helpful" with their posting. Some are just letting off steam or voicing their truths or whatever. But what we choose to share during a crisis can have ripple effects.
More notes from last night's event: guante.info/what-can-artists-do
More notes from last night's event: guante.info/what-can-artists-do
January 14, 2026 at 11:52 PM
Before people yell at me, I know not everyone is trying to be "helpful" with their posting. Some are just letting off steam or voicing their truths or whatever. But what we choose to share during a crisis can have ripple effects.
More notes from last night's event: guante.info/what-can-artists-do
More notes from last night's event: guante.info/what-can-artists-do
Reposted by Lauren Woolsey
The job of the police is to maintain inequality with violence.
The greater the inequality, the more violence is required to maintain it
The greater the inequality, the more violence is required to maintain it
I know this is petty on my part but it has been and remains very frustrating to watch loads of people basically repeat 'but the police are part of the 99%' over and over again since 2012 and yet again now
January 15, 2026 at 4:35 AM
The job of the police is to maintain inequality with violence.
The greater the inequality, the more violence is required to maintain it
The greater the inequality, the more violence is required to maintain it
I've been following this through a few accounts I follow, and it was such a clear example of the power of solidarity: so many other authors declined the invite and it changed the messaging. Solidarity is key, friends.
Adelaide Festival board has retracted their statement of 8 January and have an extended an invite to Randa Abdel-Fattah for the 2027 Writers' Week
January 15, 2026 at 4:25 AM
I've been following this through a few accounts I follow, and it was such a clear example of the power of solidarity: so many other authors declined the invite and it changed the messaging. Solidarity is key, friends.
Ooh, energy vampires, that's an excellent turn of phrase @unbuildingwalls.bsky.social - and fabulous news shared, too :)
Two reports of scrapped data center projects in the Wisconsin business news roundup this morning, and a third community reconsidering. Keep up the good work folks, we don't have to accept these energy vampires in our communities!
January 14, 2026 at 2:47 PM
Ooh, energy vampires, that's an excellent turn of phrase @unbuildingwalls.bsky.social - and fabulous news shared, too :)
Reposted by Lauren Woolsey
Darlings! A fresh post.
I've got poems eligible for the Hugo @laworldcon.bsky.social), Nebula ( @sfwa.org), and Rhysling awards ( @sfpoetry.bsky.social). Links:
@strangehorizons.bsky.social -- "Of Water, Always Seeking" strangehorizons.com/poetry/of-wa...
+
I've got poems eligible for the Hugo @laworldcon.bsky.social), Nebula ( @sfwa.org), and Rhysling awards ( @sfpoetry.bsky.social). Links:
@strangehorizons.bsky.social -- "Of Water, Always Seeking" strangehorizons.com/poetry/of-wa...
+
January 9, 2026 at 3:21 PM
Darlings! A fresh post.
I've got poems eligible for the Hugo @laworldcon.bsky.social), Nebula ( @sfwa.org), and Rhysling awards ( @sfpoetry.bsky.social). Links:
@strangehorizons.bsky.social -- "Of Water, Always Seeking" strangehorizons.com/poetry/of-wa...
+
I've got poems eligible for the Hugo @laworldcon.bsky.social), Nebula ( @sfwa.org), and Rhysling awards ( @sfpoetry.bsky.social). Links:
@strangehorizons.bsky.social -- "Of Water, Always Seeking" strangehorizons.com/poetry/of-wa...
+
Reposted by Lauren Woolsey
New paper by @jessicasilbey.bsky.social & @hartzog.bsky.social: How AI Destroys Institutions. AI systems erode expertise and short-circuit decisions, undermining the transparency and accountability that civic institutions need to survive. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
How AI Destroys Institutions
Civic institutions—the rule of law, universities, and a free press—are the backbone of democratic life. They are the mechanisms through which complex societies
papers.ssrn.com
January 13, 2026 at 3:42 PM
New paper by @jessicasilbey.bsky.social & @hartzog.bsky.social: How AI Destroys Institutions. AI systems erode expertise and short-circuit decisions, undermining the transparency and accountability that civic institutions need to survive. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
Reposted by Lauren Woolsey
The timing of this is so incredible given that just this week polling shows that "abolish ICE" is now a more popular position than not abolishing ICE
Third Way telling Democrats they need to drop the “abolish ICE” slogan if they have hope of winning back the majority in Congress
www.nbcnews.com/politics/tru... by @natashakorecki.bsky.social
www.nbcnews.com/politics/tru... by @natashakorecki.bsky.social
Democrats warned to steer clear of the 'abolish ICE' slogan
Democrats need to drop the “abolish ICE” political slogan if they have hope of winning back the majority in Congress, a center-left think tank is warning.
www.nbcnews.com
January 13, 2026 at 7:09 PM
The timing of this is so incredible given that just this week polling shows that "abolish ICE" is now a more popular position than not abolishing ICE
Hey y'all, my geology colleague shared that Kilauea is fountaining right now! Go take a look: https://www.youtube.com/live/tk0tfYDxrUA?si=QYNyQ4hkDcMGIFEP
January 12, 2026 at 8:43 PM
Hey y'all, my geology colleague shared that Kilauea is fountaining right now! Go take a look: https://www.youtube.com/live/tk0tfYDxrUA?si=QYNyQ4hkDcMGIFEP
This talk looks really interesting (and I miss living in walking distance of this bookstore).
I've recently shifted to using @anisota.net as my access point to Bsky posts, and metrics are a little bit hidden on the cards. It's one of the ways the interface gives me a little more breathing room. 💜
I've recently shifted to using @anisota.net as my access point to Bsky posts, and metrics are a little bit hidden on the cards. It's one of the ways the interface gives me a little more breathing room. 💜
📆 Tues. 1/13 @ 7PM: C. Thi Nguyen—associate professor of philosophy at the University of Utah—joins us for a discussion of his new book, "The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else's Game", in conversation with Professor Samantha Matherne. Learn more: buff.ly/NVgRG25
January 12, 2026 at 3:47 PM
This talk looks really interesting (and I miss living in walking distance of this bookstore).
I've recently shifted to using @anisota.net as my access point to Bsky posts, and metrics are a little bit hidden on the cards. It's one of the ways the interface gives me a little more breathing room. 💜
I've recently shifted to using @anisota.net as my access point to Bsky posts, and metrics are a little bit hidden on the cards. It's one of the ways the interface gives me a little more breathing room. 💜
Reposted by Lauren Woolsey
I knew I said I was gonna do whimsy and I will but:
The reason Trump is so hellbent on making the Fed do what he wants is because there's one *essential* requirement for a successful authoritarian takeover:
Short-term economic benefit for his party before the next election. W/o it, they fall.
The reason Trump is so hellbent on making the Fed do what he wants is because there's one *essential* requirement for a successful authoritarian takeover:
Short-term economic benefit for his party before the next election. W/o it, they fall.
January 12, 2026 at 3:13 AM
I knew I said I was gonna do whimsy and I will but:
The reason Trump is so hellbent on making the Fed do what he wants is because there's one *essential* requirement for a successful authoritarian takeover:
Short-term economic benefit for his party before the next election. W/o it, they fall.
The reason Trump is so hellbent on making the Fed do what he wants is because there's one *essential* requirement for a successful authoritarian takeover:
Short-term economic benefit for his party before the next election. W/o it, they fall.
Reposted by Lauren Woolsey
What—and I say this is my most professional professor-of-art-history-voice—the HELL are we doing here?
WaPo is committing a fundamental category error. That category error is like gripping the neck of the journalistic integrity in two hands and squeezing it till the lights go out. 1/n
WaPo is committing a fundamental category error. That category error is like gripping the neck of the journalistic integrity in two hands and squeezing it till the lights go out. 1/n
January 11, 2026 at 2:08 PM
What—and I say this is my most professional professor-of-art-history-voice—the HELL are we doing here?
WaPo is committing a fundamental category error. That category error is like gripping the neck of the journalistic integrity in two hands and squeezing it till the lights go out. 1/n
WaPo is committing a fundamental category error. That category error is like gripping the neck of the journalistic integrity in two hands and squeezing it till the lights go out. 1/n