Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Gregory Convertito

@gregconvertito.bsky.social

190 followers 290 following 180 posts

Philosophy adjunct. Political philosophy, Marx, Latin America, and some other stuff. he/him https://gregoryconvertito.wordpress.com/ Series editor of the APA Blog’s Teaching and Learning Video Series. Not expressing the views of my employer.

gregoryconvertito.wordpress.com

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Gregory Convertito @gregconvertito.bsky.social · Apr 16

All recent posts in the APA Blog's reanimated "Teaching and Learning Video Series" can be found here. This quoted post is my initial series reintroduction, and I will add posts to this thread as they are published. Please reach out if you are interested in contributing to the series.

Gregory Convertito @gregconvertito.bsky.social · Mar 19

It feels strange to share any sort of professional news right now, but I’ve recently become the editor of the APA Blog’s revitalized “Teaching and Learning Video Series.” Here is my post reintroducing the series. Please reach out if you’re interested in 1/ blog.apaonline.org/2025/03/19/c...

Collecting Nuts and Bolts: Reintroducing the Teaching and Learning Video Series

Whenever I teach an introductory-level philosophy course, I spend some time working through different reading strategies with my students, who are largely unfamiliar with how to approach philosophical...

blog.apaonline.org

1 4

Reposted by Gregory Convertito

Sheryl Gay Stolberg @sherylnyt.bsky.social · 5h

BREAKING: Friday night massacre underway at CDC. Doznes of "disease detectives," high-level scientists, entire Washington staff and editors of the MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) have all been RIFed and received the following notice:

500 5K 8.4K

Gregory Convertito @gregconvertito.bsky.social · 8d

I often find Arendt’s more pithy observations more relevant than her more well-known works.

Photo of a very short Arendt text:

WAR CRIMES AND THE AMERICAN CONSCIENCE
I know that the war in Vietnam is not the first and will not be the last undeclared war. But I think it is possible to overlook an important point: When a nation declares war, it implies that it is prepared to play the game according to the rules. Since the beginning of this century there have been attempts to lay down certain laws for war. By not declaring war, a nation manages to evade even these feeble limitations.
1970

Gregory Convertito @gregconvertito.bsky.social · 8d

There’s an episode of Monk where a guy hides all the gold he stole by melting it into ink and writing it into a library full of journals. There was way more of a point to that.

Emily C. Hughes @emilyhughes.bsky.social · 8d

no no the publishing industry is doing fine, why do you ask

A screenshot from Publisher's Lunch:
Jennifer L. Armentrout and Hellmann's
In a promotion designed for BookTok enjoyment, Jennifer L. Armentrout’s just-published THE PRIMAL OF BLOOD AND BONE is available in a special, limited-edition "garlic-scented copy, infused with Hellmann’s Garlic Aioli to create a one-of-a-kind, Craven-proof book." They explain: "This exclusive edition is printed with garlic-infused ink, designed to ward off Armentrout’s bloodthirsty monsters, the Craven. While humans may dread garlic breath, Hellmann’s has cleverly transformed this social faux pas into an unexpected – and delicious – form of supernatural protection."

Reposted by Gregory Convertito

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 8d

Surreal moment for America. Needless to say, if the normal police ever pulled something like this — pulling every single person out of an apartment building and handcuffing them to run warrant checks — they would be sued into oblivion.

Yet ICE is going to get away with it entirely.

"It was scary, because I had never had a gun in my face," Fisher said. "They asked my name and my date of birth and asked me, did I have any warrants? And I told them, 'No, 'Ididn't."
Fisher said she was handcuffed before being released around 3 a.m., and she was told that if anyone had any kind of warrant out for them, even if it was unrelated to immigration, they would not be released.

220 2.8K 5.6K

Gregory Convertito @gregconvertito.bsky.social · 8d

It turns out that many publishers (mine included) ignored contractual obligations to register copyrights. See: writerbeware.blog/2025/08/29/i...

I wonder if there’s anything to be done about that.

Gregory Convertito @gregconvertito.bsky.social · 9d

Sometimes I just randomly remember that this is a real thing.

Reposted by Gregory Convertito

Miguel Mallet @miguelmallet.bsky.social · 9d

Can I please delete AI from every aspect of my life?

1 5 39

Reposted by Gregory Convertito

Jared @jaredmcclain.bsky.social · 10d

NEW CASE: We just sued DHS to stop the immigration raids on construction sites.

Our client, Leo García Venegas, has been arrested twice just for working in construction while Latino—despite being a US citizen with a Real ID.

Here’s a short video explaining the case:

youtu.be/rYSfX9Wxs3M

Innocent CITIZEN Arrested TWICE by ICE

YouTube video by Institute for Justice

youtu.be

5 63 140

Reposted by Gregory Convertito

JVG 骨 @jasonv.bsky.social · 11d

Absolute all-timer sentence in today's @nytimes.com

"some legal experts have called it a crime to summarily execute civilians" says today's New York Times, continuing their long tradition of whitewashing fascism

4 4.3K 14K

Reposted by Gregory Convertito

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 10d

the president of the united states wants to use the american military to kill american citizens on american soil. that's the whole story!

680 16K 50K

Gregory Convertito @gregconvertito.bsky.social · 10d

If you have never followed up the Dame Quickly reference in ch. 1 of Capital, you ought to lol.

Gregory Convertito @gregconvertito.bsky.social · 11d

We are all now open to this arbitrary, uncontrolled power. We are unfree.

A short, relevant essay: www.bostonreview.net/forum/a-diff...

4 15

Gregory Convertito @gregconvertito.bsky.social · 16d

All I can think is that Tiresias must appear to everyone who agrees to be interviewed by Chotiner and then they ignore his warning.

1 2

Reposted by Gregory Convertito

Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 16d

‘Nickname’ is not ‘nick’ + ‘name.’

It was originally ‘ekename.’

‘Eke’ was the Middle English word for “also” or “in addition.”

Since ‘ekename’ began with a vowel, people used ‘an’ before it.

Over time, 'an ekename' became 'a nickname.'

79 670 2.8K

Gregory Convertito @gregconvertito.bsky.social · 16d

doi.org/10.5840/aapt...

doi.org

Gregory Convertito @gregconvertito.bsky.social · 17d

Honestly late 80s/early 90s Charles Mills is an excellent Marx exegete.

Gregory Convertito @gregconvertito.bsky.social · 17d

You’re welcome, it was a good and useful book. Thanks for writing it!

Reposted by Gregory Convertito

Governor JB Pritzker @govpritzker.illinois.gov · 18d

"Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that."

Looking forward to seeing Jimmy back on the air.

Jimmy Kimmel Returns: ABC Ends Suspension Starting Tuesday

Jimmy Kimmel will return to late night on Tuesday

variety.com

1.4K 9.1K 42K

Reposted by Gregory Convertito

Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 18d

it is simple, I’ll give it that

Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they) @katjathieme.bsky.social · 18d

What it sounds like when philosophers who are also anti-trans activists submit an amicus brief to a US court where they argue for banning trans girls and women from women's sports.

30
the option of interpreting the Idaho and West Virginia
statutes as motivated by the justified aim of excluding
all males from female sports, it is quite invidious to
interpret them as instead motivated by the unjustified
aim of excluding males who identify as female in par-
ticular.
Consider a simple analogy. Imagine that we are
back in Medieval Europe. Gold is the currency of the
land. Consequently, many merchants prefer to accept
gold and only gold as payment. However, a new move-
ment is afoot, whose members are known as the alche-
mists. The alchemists purport to have found a way of
turning iron pyrite (fool’s gold) into gold. Some people
are convinced by the claims of the alchemists, though
many others are not. This difference in attitudes
starts to lead to time-wasting interactions in which an
alchemist or fellow traveler tries to purchase a good
using iron pyrite from a merchant who, unmoved by
well-publicized insistence on the part of the alche-
mists that only irrational prejudice could lie behind
lingering doubts about the possibility of converting
iron pyrite into gold, continues to insist on only ac-
cepting gold as payment. One such merchant, whose
unofficial working policy has hitherto been to accept
only gold as payment, decides to make his policy offi-
cial by putting up a sign on his store saying, “Only
gold accepted (no iron pyrite!).”

4 1 18

Reposted by Gregory Convertito

John Pfaff @johnpfaff.bsky.social · 18d

I mean, we are living in two different realities now, and this really hasn't always been the case.

Partisan views on "more crime": used to move fairly closely, but now radically different (90% say up for GOP, 29% for Dems).

29 170 550

Gregory Convertito @gregconvertito.bsky.social · 18d

It turns out “culture” was doing Olympic-level lifting in that discourse.

Reposted by Gregory Convertito

Jason Read @jasonread.bsky.social · 18d

Imagine writing about “cancel culture” when the president is dictating what comedians should be on television and openly declaring that broadcast licenses should be contingent on the kind of coverage one gets.

1 3 15

Gregory Convertito @gregconvertito.bsky.social · 19d

bsky.app/profile/mike...

Prof Mike Yearworth @mikeyearworth.bsky.social · 19d

"In a landmark study, OpenAI researchers reveal that large language models will always produce plausible but false outputs, even with perfect data, due to fundamental statistical and computational limits."

www.computerworld.com/article/4059...

OpenAI admits AI hallucinations are mathematically inevitable, not just engineering flaws

In a landmark study, OpenAI researchers reveal that large language models will always produce plausible but false outputs, even with perfect data, due to fundamental statistical and computational limi...

www.computerworld.com

Reposted by Gregory Convertito

Prof Mike Yearworth @mikeyearworth.bsky.social · 19d

OpenAI admits AI hallucinations are mathematically inevitable, not just engineering flaws

www.computerworld.com

120 1.8K 3.6K