Derek Sweetman
@dsweet.bsky.social
Autistic. Feral peace researcher. Teaching conflict, peace, human rights, justice. Interested in too many things. I have a day job so I can afford to teach. Carter School, Schar School, Integrative Studies @ GMU. PACS @ CU.
Reposted by Derek Sweetman
To propose that GenAI can compensate for "archival silences" perverts Trouillot's work. It's is a contradiction to say that a product whose logic exacerbates power imbalances--creating a most-likely guess based on the existing record--can restore absences that are the product of those imbalances.
December 6, 2025 at 8:59 PM
To propose that GenAI can compensate for "archival silences" perverts Trouillot's work. It's is a contradiction to say that a product whose logic exacerbates power imbalances--creating a most-likely guess based on the existing record--can restore absences that are the product of those imbalances.
Reposted by Derek Sweetman
This time of year, my brain is always about 10% thinking about "Christmas Wrapping." I haven't heard the song yet in the wild, but it always excites me when I do. A few years ago, I wrote about the song's greatness! anniezaleski.substack.com/p/the-greatn...
the greatness of the waitresses' "christmas wrapping"
"A&P has provided me / With the world's smallest turkey"
anniezaleski.substack.com
December 6, 2025 at 11:23 PM
This time of year, my brain is always about 10% thinking about "Christmas Wrapping." I haven't heard the song yet in the wild, but it always excites me when I do. A few years ago, I wrote about the song's greatness! anniezaleski.substack.com/p/the-greatn...
This makes me angry
SCOOP: Sources tell me Donald Trump's name was added to the exterior of the US Institute of Peace building ahead of Thursday's peace agreement signing between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which will be held inside the building. Confirming if it's been officially renamed.
December 3, 2025 at 11:24 PM
This makes me angry
This!
When I talk to my students about law and resistance, I talk about how people tend to think in terms of whether they would’ve acted in 1942, but that they should instead ask themselves what they would’ve done in 1933.
“I think we have to be careful with the Nazi comparisons” people are always waiting until we are five minutes until the Holocaust and then they’re like well it’s only ethnic cleansing not a Holocaust
December 3, 2025 at 3:27 AM
This!
Reposted by Derek Sweetman
there's a reason that my accommodations policy went from "you need to register officially with the whatever office" to "if you tell me you need accommodations, I believe you and you can have them"
it's this
it's this
I think a lot of people don't realize how difficult it is to get accommodations for disability. in school, at work. there are invariably tons of hoops; it's slow. often it's humiliating.
December 3, 2025 at 1:11 AM
there's a reason that my accommodations policy went from "you need to register officially with the whatever office" to "if you tell me you need accommodations, I believe you and you can have them"
it's this
it's this
Reposted by Derek Sweetman
It’s an incredible success of ADA+IDEA: many disabled students can make it to college now. We should be thrilled to have student pool that better reflects society and shows the benefits of inclusion and accommodations in k-12. Celebrate that we have so many disabled students! This is a win.
December 3, 2025 at 12:55 AM
It’s an incredible success of ADA+IDEA: many disabled students can make it to college now. We should be thrilled to have student pool that better reflects society and shows the benefits of inclusion and accommodations in k-12. Celebrate that we have so many disabled students! This is a win.
Reposted by Derek Sweetman
And everyone please please worry a lot less about what goes on at “elite colleges”
December 2, 2025 at 10:16 PM
And everyone please please worry a lot less about what goes on at “elite colleges”
Reposted by Derek Sweetman
I need a sign to tap that says something along the lines of "Accommodations do not diminish rigor."
*tapping the sign while muttering something about pedagogy*
*tapping the sign while muttering something about pedagogy*
We need to be able to see that the line "accommodations have gone too far" is an expression of the ableist notion that disabled students do not belong in higher ed. Its fundamentally an anxiety about the fact that disabled students get an "advantage" over abled students.
December 2, 2025 at 11:53 PM
I need a sign to tap that says something along the lines of "Accommodations do not diminish rigor."
*tapping the sign while muttering something about pedagogy*
*tapping the sign while muttering something about pedagogy*
Hey, fellow instructors/profs/etc.:
What are we going to do now that competent, organized writing is no longer useful to indicate if a student has engaged with ideas and learned something? That was like 75% of my whole teaching approach. (The other 25% was playing music at the start of class)
What are we going to do now that competent, organized writing is no longer useful to indicate if a student has engaged with ideas and learned something? That was like 75% of my whole teaching approach. (The other 25% was playing music at the start of class)
December 2, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Hey, fellow instructors/profs/etc.:
What are we going to do now that competent, organized writing is no longer useful to indicate if a student has engaged with ideas and learned something? That was like 75% of my whole teaching approach. (The other 25% was playing music at the start of class)
What are we going to do now that competent, organized writing is no longer useful to indicate if a student has engaged with ideas and learned something? That was like 75% of my whole teaching approach. (The other 25% was playing music at the start of class)
There is nothing like seeing every single student essay note the exact same four historical points (none of which was described in class) to make someone comfortable with our new AI overlords.
December 2, 2025 at 7:25 PM
There is nothing like seeing every single student essay note the exact same four historical points (none of which was described in class) to make someone comfortable with our new AI overlords.
Reposted by Derek Sweetman
I buy this head canon honestly.
based on how often the naughty teens of major cities throw the rentable scooters directly into the river i've formed a theory that the many iron age swords and cauldrons found in lakes around europe that we've previously assumed were ceremonial and sacrificial in nature were in fact thrown by teens
December 2, 2025 at 4:37 PM
I buy this head canon honestly.
Reposted by Derek Sweetman
#OtD 2 Dec 1859 US abolitionist John Brown was executed by the state of Virginia for his leadership in a plot to incite an armed rebellion against slavery stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1265...
December 2, 2025 at 8:40 AM
#OtD 2 Dec 1859 US abolitionist John Brown was executed by the state of Virginia for his leadership in a plot to incite an armed rebellion against slavery stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1265...
Reposted by Derek Sweetman
Smedley Butler is screaming, crying, throwing up
'Unauthorized' Edit to Ukraine's Frontline Maps Point to Polymarket's War Betting
It looks like someone invented a fake Russia advance in Ukraine to manipulate online gambling markets.
www.404media.co
December 1, 2025 at 5:28 PM
Smedley Butler is screaming, crying, throwing up
Reposted by Derek Sweetman
Melians: please do not do a Peloponnesian War to us!
Athenian general implausibly named "Da Baby Stabber": imma do it tho
--- Every political theorist for the next 3000 years: this is genius.
Athenian general implausibly named "Da Baby Stabber": imma do it tho
--- Every political theorist for the next 3000 years: this is genius.
November 30, 2025 at 10:27 PM
Melians: please do not do a Peloponnesian War to us!
Athenian general implausibly named "Da Baby Stabber": imma do it tho
--- Every political theorist for the next 3000 years: this is genius.
Athenian general implausibly named "Da Baby Stabber": imma do it tho
--- Every political theorist for the next 3000 years: this is genius.
Reposted by Derek Sweetman
🚫 autistic people can’t understand social norms
✅ Autistic people don’t understand why you all think this shit is normal &/or good and we’d like to make some recommendations if you don’t mind
✅ Autistic people don’t understand why you all think this shit is normal &/or good and we’d like to make some recommendations if you don’t mind
If we stopped saying “autistic people can’t understand social norms” and started saying “autistic people can’t sanction social norms” nobody would like us any better I suppose
July 30, 2025 at 10:25 PM
🚫 autistic people can’t understand social norms
✅ Autistic people don’t understand why you all think this shit is normal &/or good and we’d like to make some recommendations if you don’t mind
✅ Autistic people don’t understand why you all think this shit is normal &/or good and we’d like to make some recommendations if you don’t mind
Reposted by Derek Sweetman
Sale for the weekenddddd! herborealarts.com
Sharing is caring 😘
Sharing is caring 😘
November 28, 2025 at 3:23 PM
Sale for the weekenddddd! herborealarts.com
Sharing is caring 😘
Sharing is caring 😘
Reposted by Derek Sweetman
This is terrifying.
We have a “poverty trap” and it’s driving the destruction of social cohesion.
The “poverty line” is’t 35,000, it’s $150,000, and making more than one, and less than the other is worse than being “poor”.
Which is why the rage.
www.yesigiveafig.com/p/part-1-my-...
The “poverty line” is’t 35,000, it’s $150,000, and making more than one, and less than the other is worse than being “poor”.
Which is why the rage.
www.yesigiveafig.com/p/part-1-my-...
Part 1: My Life Is a Lie
How a Broken Benchmark Quietly Broke America
www.yesigiveafig.com
November 26, 2025 at 11:17 PM
This is terrifying.
When did "Welcome in" become the default retail greeting? I am just noticing it while we are in Colorado, but my daughter says that's what people say back in Virginia, too.
November 26, 2025 at 11:27 PM
When did "Welcome in" become the default retail greeting? I am just noticing it while we are in Colorado, but my daughter says that's what people say back in Virginia, too.
A thousand times, yes
Tl;dr many ND people develop systems to cope with their challenges, and when the systems work they don't notice the challenges anymore, but maintaining the systems can be exhausting and when they break down the functions they were supporting break down too.
November 26, 2025 at 4:21 AM
A thousand times, yes
Reposted by Derek Sweetman
I'm so tired of people telling me to have students critique LLM outputs. I'm just going to print this on little cards and hand them out
I will add the following: our students lack the research skills required to audit an LLM essay for errors. They don’t arrive on campus with these skills; we teach it to them over four long years. So throwing freshmen in the deep end and saying “swim your way to a shore of rectitude” is folly.
November 24, 2025 at 2:36 PM
I'm so tired of people telling me to have students critique LLM outputs. I'm just going to print this on little cards and hand them out
We're visiting family in Colorado and I came across the rigging from the Bounty? I'm a little dubious.
November 24, 2025 at 8:01 PM
We're visiting family in Colorado and I came across the rigging from the Bounty? I'm a little dubious.
Reposted by Derek Sweetman
Asking a chatbot isn't better than nothing -- it's worse than nothing. Unless the goal isn't learning but rather "turning in assignments".
November 24, 2025 at 2:51 AM
Asking a chatbot isn't better than nothing -- it's worse than nothing. Unless the goal isn't learning but rather "turning in assignments".
Reposted by Derek Sweetman
recognize that I'm mostly preaching to the choir here, but: if you care about music at all, it's almost impossible to find a better thing to support, for extremely reasonable rates
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November 21, 2025 at 4:27 PM
recognize that I'm mostly preaching to the choir here, but: if you care about music at all, it's almost impossible to find a better thing to support, for extremely reasonable rates
I have to say that if this was Christian music, things might be a lot different. A lot of churches really missed out on rave outreach.
He said "Amen" straight into the drop
Lmao Pope Leo threw a rave for an archbishop's 75th birthday this is kind of incredible
Lmao Pope Leo threw a rave for an archbishop's 75th birthday this is kind of incredible
November 21, 2025 at 11:16 PM
I have to say that if this was Christian music, things might be a lot different. A lot of churches really missed out on rave outreach.
To think, we could have been resolving violent conflict by making to do lists, like "A comprehensive and comprehensive [sic] non-aggression agreement will be concluded between Russia, Ukraine and Europe. All ambiguities of the last 30 years will be considered settled." See, it's easy
Read the full text of Trump’s 28-point Ukraine-Russia peace plan
Proposed deal would limit size of Ukrainian forces and calls on Kyiv to withdraw troops from eastern Donetsk
www.ft.com
November 21, 2025 at 4:10 PM
To think, we could have been resolving violent conflict by making to do lists, like "A comprehensive and comprehensive [sic] non-aggression agreement will be concluded between Russia, Ukraine and Europe. All ambiguities of the last 30 years will be considered settled." See, it's easy