Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Ryan Abt (He/Him) @ryanabt.bsky.social · 7h

“The girlfriend of one of the founders of Antifa”*

*correction: One of the founders of Antifa

A picture of Hans and Sophie Scholl. This brother and sister opposed Nazism and created the resistance group called “The White Rose”. After throwing protest pamphlets from the second floor of the main building of Munich University, they were caught, tried, and beheaded.

Ryan Abt (He/Him) @ryanabt.bsky.social · 8h

And I hope you don’t mind the discussion. I appreciate your perspective and thoughts but understand if this isn’t the location to discuss with nuance as it is obviously a passage with very harmful and antisemitic history.

1

Ryan Abt (He/Him) @ryanabt.bsky.social · 8h

may have had Hart’s intent. Don’t know.

In which case it’s still a condemnation of the people there—though without Matthew’s generational guilt—but not for being worse than empire but for choosing the way of violence to oppose it.

Interesting but, very unfortunately, dangerous and harmful.

1

Ryan Abt (He/Him) @ryanabt.bsky.social · 8h

It’s certainly the story as I was taught it and which I swallowed whole.

Now, though, I’m less interested in if it was “actually” an event but in what it meant to the people who wrote it.

And while Matthew seems to have used it to condemn Jews and exculpate Rome, Mark—the earlier author—

1

Ryan Abt (He/Him) @ryanabt.bsky.social · 9h

And not trying to convince you @dickius.bsky.social, just noting a different interpretation that rejects much of the traditional Christian account of the Barabbas-Jesus dynamic. An interesting and, perhaps, useful one.

1 1

Ryan Abt (He/Him) @ryanabt.bsky.social · 9h

I really appreciated @druhart.bsky.social treatment of Barabbas. Instead of Barabbas as murderer like most Christian depictions, he portrayed him with sympathy and agreement with his anti-empire cause. As an anabaptist, Hart then focused on nonviolence, rather than goals, as the difference.

2

Ryan Abt (He/Him) @ryanabt.bsky.social · 10h

Oh yes. And I’m over here enjoying the questions it asks about man, g-d, and their relationships.

Ryan Abt (He/Him) @ryanabt.bsky.social · 10h

Further it’s possible that it’s just confirmation bias. There are likely tons of players who fail as coaches. But we look for the successes because of this trope.

Again, I don’t know but I’d be hesitant about embracing traditional thought.

1

Ryan Abt (He/Him) @ryanabt.bsky.social · 10h

than there are great, “natural” athletes. But great athletes likely get opportunities as coaches more often. So we have more opportunities to see some succeed. In other words instead of looking at the number of great athletes/good players we should look at percentages in success rates…

1 1

Ryan Abt (He/Him) @ryanabt.bsky.social · 10h

I think that the conventional wisdom is what others said about having to learn and able to teach vs. being natural and unable to explain.

However, I also think that there is some fallacy internal to the question.

As in, is it accurate?

First, there are FAR more players…

1 1

Ryan Abt (He/Him) @ryanabt.bsky.social · 11h

Hey! I remember an interview with a student where I told them that the tariffs were a Trump obsession because it put power of economic pressure in his hands and he’d use it on businesses and diplomatically to enrich himself.

Nailed it!

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 11h

Trump: "I can create peace with tariffs. I'm using them for a lot of different reasons. If that power was taken away, it would be a terrible terrible day for our country. I would say many of the things I've done could be eradicated ... these are enemies of the country that are pursuing that lawsuit"

3

Reposted by Ryan Abt (He/Him)

Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 12h

Bray is a historian at Rutgers who received death threats after landing on Turning Points USA's Professor Watchlist. As a result, he announced he was moving to Europe. And then this happened.

This kind of harassment and abuse of scholars is Charlie Kirk's legacy and it's only getting worse.

Mark Bray @mark-bray.bsky.social · 13h

“Someone” cancelled my family’s flight out of the country at the last second.

We got our boarding passes. We checked our bags. Went through security. Then at our gate our reservation ‘disappeared.’

120 2.7K 7.2K

Ryan Abt (He/Him) @ryanabt.bsky.social · 12h

Can we have a mash up of the flower in the guns of the national guard and this?

2

Reposted by Ryan Abt (He/Him)

derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 14h

“A second inflatable frog has now been spotted wiggling through Portland.”

Marco Rubio whispers into Donald Trump's ear.

180 2.3K 13K

Reposted by Ryan Abt (He/Him)

Jake Wright @bcnjake.bsky.social · 13h

The Angry Goose meme with the goose saying “WHY DID ANTIFA START IN WEIMAR GERMANY, JACK?
WHY DID IT START IN WEIMAR GERMANY, MOTHERFUCKER?!”

1 10

Ryan Abt (He/Him) @ryanabt.bsky.social · 13h

Here is a fun—not fun at all—historical tie in. Freedom has been tied, from very early on, in the United States been paired with unfreedom for others. It’s how they defined freedom.

Power has always been demonstrated as the ability to flaunt norms and morality.

1

Ryan Abt (He/Him) @ryanabt.bsky.social · 13h

"I don't know what could be worse than Portland. You don't even have houses, you just have sand castles. The waves come up and they knock down the walls. And water gets in the castle. And I don’t like sand. It’s course and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere. Not like Stephen Miller."

Andrea Pitzer @andreapitzer.bsky.social · 13h

"I don't know what could be worse than Portland. You don't even have stores, you just have monkeys. The monkeys put rocks in my mouth, the most beautiful rocks. And the governor of Chicago won't let me keep them."

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 16h

Trump: "I don't know what could be worse than Portland. You don't even have stores anymore. They don't even put glass up. They put plywood on their windows."

2

Ryan Abt (He/Him) @ryanabt.bsky.social · 13h

“Mr. President, do you have a collection of thousands of Tamagotchi from which you select one each day just so that you can enjoy ignoring its requests for food as it digitally starves?”

“No, but I’d be allowed to, I have the right to, I might do it later”

Amy @lolennui.bsky.social · 16h

So cool that whenever someone asks the president, “did you eat the Lindbergh baby” he’s like, “no but I’d be allowed to, I have the right to, I might do it later”

2

Reposted by Ryan Abt (He/Him)

Amy @lolennui.bsky.social · 16h

So cool that whenever someone asks the president, “did you eat the Lindbergh baby” he’s like, “no but I’d be allowed to, I have the right to, I might do it later”

210 2.7K 14K

Reposted by Ryan Abt (He/Him)

This Is Completely Unprepared, and I Am Real @jsx.bsky.social · 17h

The White House:
"For years, an Antifa-led hellfire has turned Portland into a wasteland of firebombs, beatings, and brazen attacks on federal officers and property — yet the Fake News remains in shameful denial about the Radical Left’s reign of terror."

The reign of terror:

6 66 170

Reposted by Ryan Abt (He/Him)

Emissary Of Night | ليلى @diplomatofnight.com · 16h

It's awesome how "center concedes to right wing framing, loses to right wing anyway" is a story you can find everywhere ever

5 38 280

Ryan Abt (He/Him) @ryanabt.bsky.social · 15h

I think it was Tom Buckle who wrote about how in doing so moderates ceded to the ideological underpinnings of the right but proved themselves only caring about that insofar as popularity went. Thus they demonstrated their own vaccuousness.

6

Ryan Abt (He/Him) @ryanabt.bsky.social · 16h

Mexia

Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 17h

What’s the word where you’re from that, when pronounced exactly as it looks, identifies a tourist immediately?

2

Ryan Abt (He/Him) @ryanabt.bsky.social · 16h

Unfortunately our AI one is winning the popular vote. 😭😭😭

1

Reposted by Ryan Abt (He/Him)

Jessica Price @delafina777.bsky.social · 17h

Okay, with 187 samples in (still looking for more!) let's talk about results so far!

Jessica Price @delafina777.bsky.social · 1d

Hey all, I'm trying to get a baseline for how good people are at detecting whether fiction is AI-generated or human-written (most of the research on this is for nonfiction and my hypothesis is we're better with fiction).

If you have time, give it a try?

jlp-experiment.github.io/ai-detection...

AI vs Human Fiction Detection Test

jlp-experiment.github.io

8 18 28