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I took my little brother (autistic, mostly non verbal) out and he was using his voice keyboard to tell me something, and this little boy (maybe 4 or 5?) heard him and asked me "Is he a robot??" I tried to explain to him that no, he isn't a robot, he just communicates differently, but my darling brother was in the background max volume "I am robot I am robot I am robot I am robot"

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An Idea To Prevent A Nuclear War

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second week

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What I love about The Good Place is that Eleanor was proven right. In the first two episodes, Eleanor declared that the system by which the afterlife runs - one in a million going to heaven while everyone else, even the morally okay people, face eternal torture - is not fair. At the moment it just looks like she’s complaining to justify her being in the Good Place, even if the viewer agrees with her.

But the narrative proves that Eleanor was completely right. Even if the audience agrees with Eleanor, that means nothing unless the narrative agrees as well, and it does. It shows that the elitist method by which the afterlife is run is so corrupt that no one has gotten into the good place for over five hundred years. It shows that holding people to ridiculously high moral standards, like how Tahani was deemed bad despite her good deeds just because she didn’t do anything for the right reasons, is not right, and it isn’t fair for people to be tormented for eternity just because they didn’t have the means to do some incredible thing such as ending slavery, or because they were just an average person, or because they were born in a certain place (those throwaway lines about Florida and France are funny but deeply disturbing).

The narrative begins with Chidi responding to Eleanor’s complaint with “Apparently, that’s not the way things work around here,” essentially saying “The system isn’t fair but this is just how it is.” The narrative is now saying “The system isn’t fair, so we have to change it.”

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They don’t actually give you an encyclopedic knowledge of something when you get in a degree in it. They give you the skill to learn more about it on your own.

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Barnes and Nobles is gonna start serving food and alcohol.

Everybody’s cracking jokes about how it’s a desperate attempt to stay relevant in the age of Amazon.

But you know what? Props to them. This is exactly what Blockbuster didn’t do. At no point was Blockbuster like “Hey, movie rentals aren’t the lucrative enterprise they once were. Perhaps it’s time we become known for our cheesy garlic bread.”

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so i wore a pride flag pin to work the other day and the kids were all interested (obviously) (find me a classroom of preschoolers who are not obsessed with rainbows) (i'll wait) so they crowded around to see.

"aww!" they said, "it's a flag!!"

but the thing is: they're little. a lot of them don't really have a handle on all their mouth sounds yet.

such as, notably, that tricky tricky "L" sound.

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once i figure out how to unclench my entire body my life will begin

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Tumblr Tuesday: KPop Demon Hunters!

Well, here's hoping you love Kpop, enemies-to-lovers, neon hues, and derpy familiars. What am I saying, this is Tumblr. Huntrix and their frenemies have taken the dash by storm, and your fanart is dazzling. Please enjoy this small selection 💜 (Beware, spoilers ahead!)

@bunnilily:

@fuck-it-darling:

@chaaistheanswer:

@howdy5455:

@kunayoo:

@gabbiecasso:

@kkelsey--spring:

@malotte00:

@nocusbonkus:

@yumeastra:

@letoscrawls:

@matyldr:

@laiwaqing:

@starrforge:

@bedbuggie:

@pyrlemon:

@giadin-a:

@camriod:

@mxxn-archive:

@danicloth

@miacat7:

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Whenever I think about students using AI, I think about an essay I did in high school. Now see, we were reading The Grapes of Wrath, and I just couldn't do it. I got 25 pages in and my brain refused to read any more. I hated it. And its not like I hate the classics, I loved English class and I loved reading. I had even enjoyed Of Mice and Men, which I had read for fun. For some reason though, I absolutely could NOT read The Grapes of Wrath.

And it turned out I also couldn't watch the movie. I fell asleep in class both days we were watching it.

This, of course, meant I had to cheat on my essay.

And I got an A.

The essay was to compare the book and the movie and discuss the changes and how that affected the story.

Well it turned out Sparknotes had an entire section devoted to comparing and contrasting the book and the movie. Using that, and flipping to pages mentioned in Sparknotes to read sections of the book, I was able to bullshit an A paper.

But see the thing is, that this kind of 'cheating' still takes skills, you still learn things.

I had to know how to find the information I needed, I needed to be able to comprehend what sparknotes was saying and the analysis they did, I needed to know how to USE the information I read there to write an essay, I needed to know how to make sure none of it was marked as plagerized. I had to form an opinion on the sparknotes analysis so I could express my own opinions in the essay.

Was it cheating? Yeah, I didn't read the book or watch the movie. I used Sparknotes. It was a lot less work than if I had read the book and watched the movie and done it all myself.

The thing is though, I still had to use my fucking brain. Being able to bullshit an essay like that is a skill in and of itself that is useful. I exercised important skills, and even if it wasnt the intended way I still learned.

ChatGTP and other AI do not give that experience to people, people have to do nothing and gain nothing from it.

Using AI is absolutely different from other ways students have cheated in the past, and I stand by my opinion that its making students dumber, more helpless, and less capable.

However you feel about higher education, I think its undeniable that students using chatgtp is to their detriment. And by extension a detriment to anyone they work with or anyone who has to rely on them for something.

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Characters who were raised by wolves but somehow still learn how to speak and act human despite of having spent the key developing years without human contact are both unrealistic and frankly kind of boring and overdone by now. Imagine a character team where one of them is a (somewhat) realistic raised-by-wildlife grown feral child, and the other one is essentially a glorified handler, who manages all the people-business for both of them.

And the companion is the only other human person that the feral one trusts in any way at all. Better yet, make them clearly be romantically involved with each other. Like

"Wait, she's your wife? ...Uh, with all due respect, but can she like... Can she even consent?" "Look lad. I respect you being worried for her welfare and for being direct about that instead of circlin' around so I'm gonna be straight about it right back at you: She's bigger than me, stronger than me, and frankly, I don't think she spent much time wondering whether I'm consenting."

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Honestly, if you're a kid and an adult tells you "they're just trying to get a reaction out of you :)" as a response to being told that some younger kid is tormenting you, that should count as full permission to punt that little shit. Like I would never hit a child, but if you're seven years old and a five-year-old is being a cunt at you and adults just tell you "oh they just want to find out what happens if they keep doing that", wouldn't only be fair to let them know what happens if they keep doing that?

Siblings should never be left responsible of raising each other, but if adults have decided that they are allowed to fuck around, wouldn't it only be your right - or even downright duty - to let them consequently find out?

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I was teaching kids today and they got fixated on the usual ‘are they dead now?’ question when I was talking about historical figures. So I was just like ‘Yes, they’re dead now, everyone who was alive in the 1800s is dead now.’ and then one kid was like ‘Except for you’.

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I'd rather hang out with someone who keeps accidentally calling me slurs but treats me like a person, than someone who actively polices every word anyone says and acts like belonging to a marginalised group is my only redeeming quality as a person.

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thinking about noah’s nameless wife takes inventory

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When I am appointed to represent a child, my first action is to separate them from their parents and tell them the following things:

1. I am their attorney. I do not work for their parent or the judge or the cops. I don’t care what any of those people want.

2. My job is to listen to them and try and make what they want happen in court. (At this point I make a joke about how most people want me to get them out of trouble but if someone wanted to be in trouble I would do my best.)

3. What they tell me is confidential. It goes nowhere unless they agree to it. (If old enough, I talk to them about mandatory reporters, and how I’m a mandatory non reporter.)

4. I will give them lots of advice because I’ve been doing court for a while and I know a lot about it, and they don’t. It’s all really complicated, and if they don’t understand what’s happening it’s my job to help them figure it out.

5. They will make the decisions. (At this point I usually have to reassure them that I’ll help, I’ll speak for them in front of the judge, and I’ve got their back. It’s scary to have an adult say you’re in charge, most of the time.)

6. I tell them I know it’s absolutely wild to have some stranger come in here and say “hey, you can trust me!” and that I get if they don’t believe everything right away, because I plan to show them through my actions and my words that I’ll fight for them.

7. But nonetheless, I will treat them like a person who can make decisions, because they are living their life and I am not.

I do not:

Pretend to be cool.

Try to be their BFF.

Overwhelm them with detail.

Let their parents in the room until the kid asks for them. (I provide openings for this, and ask if the kid wants their parent to help them remember and understand.)

I want to emphasize I went into this job knowing nothing about how to interact with vulnerable populations, especially children. The training was minimal, and my role means that I can literally walk into a facility and get an unmonitored visit with a minor client one on one.

In my years of practice I have never felt threatened by a child, even one that was “violent” and “unstable.” It turns out just saying “hi, I think you’re a person with thoughts” is wildly successful? Now people treat me like I have special Child Whisperer powers. My powers are that I ask the child what’s up and I’m not scared to say things that are objectively awkward. I know nothing about anything.