When Camus died in a car crash, he was carrying a return train ticket. "The greatest proponent of absurdism suffered an absurd death"... more »
Nakedcapitalism - We Are Nineteen Years Old
“The Truth Behind Trump’s Aggressive Venezuela Strategy”
An explanation of why US belligerence against Venezuela is not about exploiting its oil. So what is it about?
The Return of MAGA’s Favorite Forbidden Book
The Atlantic Gift Article – What an apocalyptic French novel about a migrant invasion reveals about the worldview of nationalist conservatives – “Not long ago, a book party like this would have been unthinkable: a Washington celebration of one of the most notorious French novels ever written.
But on a frigid December night, some 50 people crammed into Butterworth’s, a Capitol Hill restaurant favored by the MAGA elite, to celebrate the rerelease of The Camp of the Saints, which had gone out of print in English decades ago.
The dystopian novel by the French author Jean Raspail depicts the destruction of European civilization by barbaric migrant hordes that arrive, uninvited, by boat. It has been mostly reviled since its publication, in 1973. But prominent figures of the French right have hailed it as prophetic, including Marine Le Pen, who first read it at 18 and keeps a signed first edition in her office.
The novel has also influenced two architects of Donald Trump’s immigration policies: Stephen Miller, the current deputy chief of staff, recommended it in emails to Breitbart News reporters, and Steve Bannon, the president’s former consigliere, makes frequent reference to it…I do not believe in suppressing books, this one included. The Camp of the Saints is not a good novel, but it is an important one. Dystopian fiction helps structure political myth; political myth helps structure policy. In the same way that The Handmaid’s Tale looms over abortion politics, or The Terminator lurks over artificial intelligence, The Camp of the Saints hangs over immigration politics—for a small but important stratum of right-wing thinkers and politicians. It illuminates much about the worldview of nationalist conservatives who are ascendant in America, France, and many other democracies.
The problem is what that light shows: the profound fear that European-American civilization, which in this view is inseparable from whiteness, faces an existential threat from migration—and that extraordinary measures can be justified in response…”
To AI-proof exams, professors turn to the oldest technique of all
Washington Post gift article – A growing number of educators are finding that oral exams allow them to test their students’ learning without the benefit of AI platforms such as ChatGPT: “…
Across the country, a small but growing number of educators are experimenting with oral exams to circumvent the temptations presented by powerful artificial intelligence platforms such as ChatGPT. Such tools can be used to cheat on take-home exams or essays and to complete all manner of assignments, part of a broader phenomenon known as “cognitive off-loading.”
Catherine Hartmann’s honors seminar at the University of Wyoming Hartman…she tells her students that using AI is like bringing a forklift to the gym when your goal is to build muscle. “The classroom is a gymnasium, and I am your personal trainer,” she explains. “I want you to lift the weights.” So far, her students have embraced the training regimen. Lily Leman, 20, a double major in Spanish and history, took her final exam last week. Leman admits to being “pretty freaked out” at first by the idea of an oral exam.
Now she wishes she had more of them. “With this exam, I don’t know how you would use AI, frankly,” Leman said. Ever since the release of ChatGPT in 2022, educators have been grappling with the challenge AI represents for existing methods of learning. (The Washington Post has a content partnership with OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT.)..”