Updated list of my books, so far (thread)!

First:

Unburning Fame: Horses, Dragon, Beings of Smoke, and Other Indo-European Motifs in Ugarit and the Hebrew Bible (2017)

and

Drought, Death, and the Sun in Ugarit and Ancient Israel: A Philological and Comparative Study (2014)

Ugaritic word of the day:
mḥrṯt ("plowland").

This shit has to stop. AI risks killing all attempts at meritocracy. People will get chaired professorships based on slop they never even wrote.

So yes, AI. And my point is not "which link in the chain made it happen". My point is: this shit is used to bolster publication metrics.

Ugaritic word of the day:
bnš (/bunušu/, preserved syllabically as bu-nu-šu) – "human, person, individual".

Because defending the unique value of human creativity and intelligence is a good thing, actually.

Img: Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin, supreme arguer of human dignity.

Hahah, don't worry, I won't :-) .

Also, the overlap between cultlike Elonist AI-worshippers and actual Nazis is... telling.

Serving a cleptocrat billionaire-caste, armed with AI, is their view of an ideal society. Passivity, subservience, obeying their rulers.

This is the great grift of the Modern Angry Right (tm): portraying servile obeisance to ultracapitalism as "freedom".

Ugaritic word of the day.
špš (/šapšu/), "sun".

Also the name of the Ugaritic solar goddess, on whom I wrote my doctoral dissertation (or, well, it was one major focus of it), "Drought, Death, and the Sun in Ugarit and Ancient Israel".

One thing to take away from my sudden viral fame as someone who thinks academic prowess should be judged by, well, academic prowess:

Some people really hate academia. Like, viscerally. No news, of course, but it really is interesting to see it in action.

Mostly, of course, this is a far-right position, serving far-right objectives. But it is somewhat disconcerting to see that there are a few revolutionary lefties in there, two.

*too*

I'm keeping this guy's prediction for the future. Gonna check back come October 2027.

Also, there is no Nobel prize in mathematics.

(so on that specific point, he is kinda right, but not for the reason he thinks...)

Right, so, my suddenly viral "AI in academia post" is no closed for answers. Yesterday, there were some fanatic AI-niks in the thread (and bots). More sad than anything. Now, the people with "kek-" in their usernames have arrived. Time to lock the thread as far as replies.

*now*

Twitter – such a place of culture and learning.