Gaythia Weis @Gaythia@qoto.org

We heard over the past few weeks from @EricReinhart in the @nytimes and Don Berwick in @jama_current on the extractive nature of the American healthcare, where salve lucrum, "hail, profit" is the reigning imperative of a system where service should come first. Why the drive towards ever-increasing profits in the sector? 1/

It’s free during #BlackHistoryMonth. What better time than to take this course? I was honored to be a part of it with so many scholars I admire. Make this a part of your curriculum this month. @MasterClass

Black History, Black Freedom & Black Love learn.masterclass.com/blackhistorymo…

ChatGPT is a data privacy nightmare. If you’ve ever posted online, you ought to be concerned https://theconversation.com/chatgpt-is-a-data-privacy-nightmare-if-youve-ever-posted-online-you-ought-to-be-concerned-199283

ChatGPT writes 15% longer and more critical performance feedback for women employees. It aso relies on stereotypes to choose pronouns. Examples: kindergarten teacher, nurse and reception = "she". Mechanic and construction workers = "he".
https://www.fastcompany.com/90844066/chatgpt-write-performance-reviews-sexist-and-racist

It was a masterclass in how to outmaneuver and then box in your opponents. And we are all here for it. Well done, Joe Biden. Well done. https://statuskuo.substack.com/p/never-underestimate-joe-biden-again?sd=pf

The vicious “groomers” campaign against public school teachers and the LGBTQ community has “deflected from the massive sexual abuse scandals that have plagued Christian institutions, including the Southern Baptist Convention, the Catholic Church, and the Mormon Church. ‘Annual surveys from [Christian Ministry Resources] suggest that in recent years, the pace of child-abuse allegations against American churches has averaged 70 a week,” according to PennLive.’”

https://buckscountybeacon.com/2022/11/qa-with-jennifer-cohn-a-christian-nationalism-post-election-debriefing/

We call ChatGTP an artificial intelligence, but essentially it's a search engine that doesn't acknowledge the sources it plagiarizes.

Next on the list of outstanding K-12 science books in 2022: Animal Allies! https://www.chicagoreviewpress.com/animal-allies-products-9781641606233.php

An important addition to the pile of evidence that suggests some #insects are in decline. And that may destabilize #ecosystems 😬🐛 https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/02/03/insects-china-decline-east-asia/

Alaska has a very bad history with TB. Now case numbers are up dramatically, here and elsewhere. This believed to be, at least in part, because medical systems overburdened by COVID didn't do the normal TB screenings/treatment. TB can be latent, with infections lurking in a dormancy for even decades. That means some elders who were kids when TB ravaged Alaska in the past could wind up with active cases now. #Alaska #tuberculosis
https://alaskabeacon.com/2023/01/20/tuberculosis-a-disease-that-devastated-alaska-in-the-past-took-a-big-jump-in-2022/

The basic approach in every functioning college setting is: Question everything, never take anything as gospel – not from any of the readings, not from the professor, not from your peers. Reactionaries find this attitude both unfathomable and utterly terrifying. 3/

Anti-vaccine misinformation spreaders on the bird network and Instagram are sharing a faked screenshot of The Conversation.

There is no link to an article with the image, because the article does not exist.

We publish science-based articles, written by experts, edited by experienced journalists.

More in these factchecks from Reuters and The Associated Press:
https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-the-conversation-vaccine-idUSL1N3491WD https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-vaccine-TheConversation-553749242821
#misinformation #factcheck

#silentsunday

DID YOU KNOW it's good practice, when writing a thread on #Mastodon

...to set the Privacy of your first post as "Public" and then any follow-up replies as "Unlisted"

🧵 🌍 ➞ 🧵🔓 🧵🔓 🧵🔓

This means that only the first post gets listed in the timelines, and anyone who wants to read more can click on it to see the full thread.

Abraham Lincoln, 1858:
"I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races. I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races from living together"

Folks like to make a big deal of the fact that Frederick Douglass is the most photographed person of his century. We talk about his "friendship" with Lincoln, and their many "conversations." But we usually stop there. We don't like to go into what the topic of those conversations was...

Douglass was warning Lincoln that he should pay more attention to reducing racism, and preventing Southern forces from committing war crimes against Black prisoners. And Abe was largely ignoring him.

People worry a lot about losing knowledge — about "burned-down libraries".

Comparatively few people seem to worry about what happens if you take a billion books full of auto-generated, often-untrue junk text and *add* them all to the library.

In theory, nothing is lost. In reality, everything is lost, because nothing useful can now be found.