Summer of Advocacy

(enchant:?page,(text-colour:#f7f7b0)+(bg:#be050a))(align:"=><=")+(box:"X=")[ (text-style:"bold")[(css: "font-size: 120%")[(text-style:"shadow")[(text-style:"buoy")[Four Short Essays of Advocacy]]]] <img class="center" src="https://booperella.neocities.org/images/nokings.jpg" height=70% width=70% alt="pic missing :("></img> Bundle curated and constructed by Charlotte M.! Essays written for ENGW3315 under instruction of Ellen Noonan (text-style:"sway")[[[Click Here to Enter!->TableOfContents]]]]

(enchant:?page,(text-colour:#f7f7b0)+(bg:#be050a))(align:"=><=")+(box:"X=")[(text-style:"bold")[(css: "font-size: 140%")[Table of Contents]] [[Intro to Collection->intro]] [[An Essay in Critique of Distance->essay1]] (css: "font-size: 80%")[[[Piece Reflection->distancereflection]]] [[What is Queer Liberation?->essay2]] (css: "font-size: 80%")[[[Piece Reflection->queerreflection]]] [[Liberation means Academic Accessibility->essay3]] (css: "font-size: 80%")[[[Piece Reflection->academicreflection]]] [[The Trauma of Creation in a Post-LLM World->essay4]] (css: "font-size: 80%")[[[Piece Reflection->aireflection]]] (text-style:"subscript")[(text-style:"italic")[Click on ](text-colour:#CCE6FB)[(text-style:"italic")[blue-tinted text]] (text-style:"italic")[to advance] Adjust browser zoom if ever all text is not on the screen!]]

(enchant:?page,(text-colour:#f7f7b0)+(bg:#be050a)) In this collection, written amidst a summer of dangerous, passionate and spite-fueled times, I bring to you the ink that’s been forced through my fingertips and has chewed up my neurons. This is the summer [[of many things->intro2]], of many pressing battles urging my attention and prolonged focus. (text-style:"subscript")[(text-style:"italic")[Click on ](text-colour:#CCE6FB)[(text-style:"italic")[blue-tinted text]] (text-style:"italic")[to advance]] [[Back to Hub->TableOfContents]]

(enchant:?page,(text-colour:#f7f7b0)+(bg:#be050a))(text-style:"bold")[An Essay in Critique of Distance] (text-style:"italic")["It's hard to imagine anyone today writing an essay in praise of distance" ] - Will Chancellor Chancellor is making quite the strong claim here, yet it’s a sentiment that [[feels true to me->essay1-2]]. (text-style:"subscript")[(text-style:"italic")[Click on ](text-colour:#CCE6FB)[(text-style:"italic")[blue-tinted text]] (text-style:"italic")[to advance]] [[Back to Hub->TableOfContents]]

(enchant:?page,(text-colour:#f7f7b0)+(bg:#be050a))(text-style:"bold")[An Essay in Critique of Distance Reflection] Working through this essay again, I’m confronted with its own tragedy. I know what my bouts of depression look like, and I know the desperation for resolve I claw for within them. The first tragedy with this piece is the same as all good philosophical thinking: that there is no such thing as a right or final answer to problems. We can only provide ourselves with catharsis, be it through art (in my case) or action. I am also imploring myself to consider that maybe art and writing aren’t enough. Maybe telling people to read my work, even if it’s effective, isn’t a movement closer to them. I can make myself as welcoming and interesting as possible, but a welcome home sign isn’t enough to live in a home and understand what the word means. This is my first step, as is core to these four essays, to realizing the necessity that I act, rather than sit by, if the aid and home I offer is to bear any momentum. Let’s move on and see how this thread proceeds. [[Back to Hub->TableOfContents]]

(enchant:?page,(text-colour:#f7f7b0)+(bg:#be050a))(text-style:"bold")[What is Queer Liberation?] First and foremost, the fight for queer liberation must be understood as a manifestation of every other prejudice simmering in the zeitgeist. It’s a fight for access to our bodies, the fight for how we look and act to be seen without judgement, the fight for the freedom to live how we please and the right to be treated with respect. Beyond this, it is our goal to be able to train ourselves to overlook gender and sex as something that is real or essential in any social or physical way that might determine or limit us. The barriers sex and gender impose, specifically, are the constructs that we seek to eradicate [[via de-realizing them->essay2-2]]. (text-style:"subscript")[(text-style:"italic")[Click on ](text-colour:#CCE6FB)[(text-style:"italic")[blue-tinted text]] (text-style:"italic")[to advance]] [[Back to Hub->TableOfContents]]

(enchant:?page,(text-colour:#f7f7b0)+(bg:#be050a))(text-style:"bold")[What is Queer Liberation? Reflection] This write-up is very much so in response to <a href="https://booperella.neocities.org/posts/2025-4-24-GenderqueerFilms">a final paper I wrote for my Postcolonial Literature class on decolonizing our imaginings of genderqueerness</a>. As a film buff and trans person, I was frustrated by the deluge of films I’ve seen misrepresenting the trans experience in films (such as The Danish Girl and Emilia Perez, both directed by straight cis men) that use it as an escape, as intrinsic or portray it as full of suffering. I’d seen great representations (Euphoria, I Saw the TV Glow, Paris is Burning and Funeral Parade of Roses, for example!) so felt ready to articulate the potential of the medium. In a way, this is my articulation of the theories and values underlying the conclusions I came to and something to point to to explain the misunderstandings most liberals I’ve talked to have about my identity. This piece is also written explicitly for others and making myself known to others in a way that uses writing as a means of accessibility of meaning, and much like the other essays in this collection, inviting the reader into a more considered self-understanding. [[Back to Hub->TableOfContents]]

(enchant:?page,(text-colour:#f7f7b0)+(bg:#be050a))(text-style:"bold")[Liberation means Academic Accessibility] Academics, look at your work and tell me who it speaks to. Who is it written for? So many of us say so much of value, as so many of us are uniquely equipped to speak and colour the problems of our time. Yet I fear we present this value socially towards so few. We often confine our ideas, by their complexity, to those aware of the canons of [[debate within our discipline->essay3-2]]. (text-style:"subscript")[(text-style:"italic")[Click on ](text-colour:#CCE6FB)[(text-style:"italic")[blue-tinted text]] (text-style:"italic")[to advance]] [[Back to Hub->TableOfContents]]

(enchant:?page,(text-colour:#f7f7b0)+(bg:#be050a))(text-style:"bold")[Liberation means Academic Accessibility Reflection] This write-up comes as I’ve chosen to apply for grad school, for pursuing a PhD and very likely teaching university students. I’ve contemplated this path since entering school, as I’ve always wanted to be a creative writer. It’s what I’m best at rather than rigour and complexity, if the laissez-faire nature of these essays (in terms of rigour) didn’t hit at that. I like toying with words in unusual, rhythmic ways that chew on your mind and make you think about them. My first concern with writing is not whether it’s well-argued or convincing, but whether it is passionate and moving, inspiring a degree of whatever feeling I decide to imbue with it (it’s been disgust, sexuality, whimsy, but here it is urgency). In a way, this essay is a plea that my fears don’t get realized, that my cultivated creativity and memetic use of language don’t become a hindrance as I advance my career. Ultimately, humanity as a collective remains at the forefront of my mind when thinking what issues are pressing enough to mandate writing on, and it’s just something I beg both I and my peers can adjust to pursue in this era of great tumult and misdirection. [[Back to Hub->TableOfContents]]

(enchant:?page,(text-colour:#f7f7b0)+(bg:#be050a))(text-style:"bold")[The Trauma of Creation in a Post-LLM World] During the Fall 2024 semester, we had a unit in my Teaching Writing class on "AI" and how we might engage with it in the classroom. One resource that demonstrated some potential applications of it as a pedagogical tool was via <a href="https://wac.colostate.edu/repository/collections/continuing-experiments/">TextGenEd’s database of experiments</a>. Most memorable of this unit’s readings (besides <a href="https://booperella.neocities.org/posts/2024-11-08-OnLLMs">my own impassioned screed</a>) was <a href="https://www.thebeliever.net/ghosts/">Ghosts by Vauhini Vara</a>, where the author uses LLM generation as a means to find the words to speak on the trauma of her sister’s death. Everyone should give it a look, especially before reading this write-up any further. [[Read it?->essay4-2]] (text-style:"subscript")[(text-style:"italic")[Click on ](text-colour:#CCE6FB)[(text-style:"italic")[blue-tinted text]] (text-style:"italic")[to advance]] [[Back to Hub->TableOfContents]]

(enchant:?page,(text-colour:#f7f7b0)+(bg:#be050a))(text-style:"bold")[The Trauma of Creation in a Post-LLM World Reflection] I will waste no time in saying I detest LLMs and see all applications of them as a loss, as a reduction of the individual and as a misappropriation of language. I specify LLMs in this write-up, as language models are what I am most qualified to condemn, but this is part of a broader attack I feel necessary against the whole “AI revolution” advanced more and more by the powers that be without the informed consent of those affected by it. This is not to say all applications are “bad”, but that I see this as a greater movement and feeding into the profound unreality of our modern era, of regurgitations of faux-selves. One must question why techno-fascists, such as Palantir, as well as the federal government (under the direction of the military-industrial complex) have done so much to fund the development and continued advancement of AI. One must question how far twitter bots swayed the election and AI images reconfigured the meaning of democracy amidst the less tech-literate. One must question how Israel targeted it’s strikes in the genocide of Gaza and why it is currently salivating at initiating a forever war with Iran. In my opinion, it is because AI has allowed weapons to be more deadly and consent to be more easily manufactured than ever. I can’t let myself approve the advancement or promotion of AI at any level, so if I’m powerless to convince world governments, I’m at the very least able to attest at it’s failings as a pedagogical and artistic tool. [[Back to Hub->TableOfContents]]

(enchant:?page,(text-colour:#f7f7b0)+(bg:#be050a)) This is the summer of (text-style:"italic")[socialization], of realizing the value of my friends and the power we hold towards each other’s emotions and well-being. This is the summer of (text-style:"italic")[sexuality], of continuing to realize oneself in spite of it all. This is the summer of (text-style:"italic")[futurity], of mapping out the way forward for how I might contribute to a better world through my actions. This is a summer of (text-style:"italic")[free time], of over-exposure to politics and media and of constant turbulence to my psyche. Given all these battles raging on in my head, vying for my attention as I change to try and accommodate them all, this collection includes the steps I’ve taken, within the bounds of an required interdisciplinary writing course, to soothe these battles via the catharsis of inkletting and by putting them in conversation with my peers of myriad walks. [[And why present the text like this?->intro3]] (text-style:"subscript")[(text-style:"italic")[Click on ](text-colour:#CCE6FB)[(text-style:"italic")[blue-tinted text]] (text-style:"italic")[to advance]] [[Previous->intro]] [[Back to Hub->TableOfContents]]

(enchant:?page,(text-colour:#f7f7b0)+(bg:#be050a)) If you are reading this on a funny red webpage reminiscent of the internet 25 years ago, you’re experiencing these pieces on the playful interactive text engine, (text-style:"italic")[Twine]! Twine is my choice tool for making narrative games and, in the spirit of advocacy, encourages an active, rather than passive, engagement with these texts. I’m hoping the creative freedoms can stuff the proceeding texts with enough flavour, accessibility and creative freedoms to keep you engaged throughout your digital spelunking. That's all I have to start. (text-style:"buoy")[Now have fun out there!] [[Back to Hub->TableOfContents]] [[Previous->intro2]]

(enchant:?page,(text-colour:#f7f7b0)+(bg:#be050a))(text-style:"bold")[An Essay in Critique of Distance] There are few, I imagine, who would set out to construct a defense of the radical division and implacable loneliness too many of us battle daily. Though we can fight about solutions and play blame games, this vague feeling underlying so much of modern interaction is hard to shake. We live in an era of radical individualism, an era of fighting demons from one’s chosen corner, kept satiated by the many constructs of loneliness our lives have been moved to circulate around. No matter how you are situated, this is the byproduct of living under late capitalism. Within these bouts of isolation, the fragility of our reality is put under constant stress as we project our minds into the realms of media (both artistic and informational), of the digital, of the social and of dreams in erasure of our anchoring organs and flesh. [[The self is tragically transitory in the firm truth of bodies->essay1-3]]. [[Previous->essay1]] [[Back to Hub->TableOfContents]]

(enchant:?page,(text-colour:#f7f7b0)+(bg:#be050a))(text-style:"bold")[An Essay in Critique of Distance] Individualism here mustn't be confused with individuality, with being yourself and standing apart, no. Individualism, to me, means the opposite. It means isolation not towards oneself but away from oneself. It means an ideology of selfishness for the advancement of the non-real. It means being one to choose comfort and pleasure over all other needs. It means filtering one’s speech so as to not entrust with too many secrets. It means all kindnesses are processed through give and take. It means deciding that you aren't involved unless you're at stake. It means being naught but floating, lusting eyes in one’s perception of the world (if one’s privilege grants it so), a walking videotape that can see and unsee any harms or bits of brilliance. It means we're all plugged in in the same room, silently, filling our own separate pools of tears. Worst of all, it means self-reinforcing lovelessness. All this to say, I find it hard to imagine someone would set out to praise these things. From a distanced view, we might be reflexively condemning one who might adopt these tendencies. If distance means enabling all these things, means feeling either helpless or above any given moment, [[why would anyone ever praise distance?->essay1-4]] [[Previous->essay1-2]] [[Back to Hub->TableOfContents]]

(enchant:?page,(text-colour:#f7f7b0)+(bg:#be050a))(text-style:"bold")[An Essay in Critique of Distance] Yet it warrants saying, (and I suspect this is where Chancellor took this line), for (text-style:"bold")[this is the ideology of the day]. If we can extract our core values and virtues from how we conduct ourselves in public life, is how we act, in a way, an endorsement of distance (or at least endorsements of furthering/perpetuating the existence of distance)? Is a world in praise of distance the world we are building sitting silent in a crowded waiting room, in holding our authentic tongue, in having better things to do? I implore you, don’t just read these words, inject yourselves in them and live in their reality. Ask your movements, your mind, your body if they reinforce distance at each opportunity of closeness. Even if we rarely would admit such of ourselves in the moment, mired by anxieties, impatiences or indifferences, the values of individuality I listed above with so much disdain are all ways I have acted, and ways I am certain many of you reading this have too. It is tough to assert yourself, to open up, to make sacrifices, especially when we don’t think anything will come from it. We aren't always able or in the mood to offer these things. Regardless, one can’t deny [[desires for community, good mental health and authentic friendships->essay1-5]] are highly prized and hinge on the pursuit of closeness. [[Previous->essay1-3]] [[Back to Hub->TableOfContents]]

(enchant:?page,(text-colour:#f7f7b0)+(bg:#be050a))(text-style:"bold")[An Essay in Critique of Distance] While these are undoubtedly valuable drives to hold, where do we acquire these desires and explanations? Oten not from close friends or within community, but from self-help talking heads in the comfort of our bedroom, from passionate artworks, from write-ups like this. To simply agree these things are good is an individualistic act. To live it? To act on it? That's how we properly critique these [[invisible barriers->essay1-6]]. [[Back to Hub->TableOfContents]] [[Previous->essay1-4]]

(enchant:?page,(text-colour:#f7f7b0)+(bg:#be050a))(text-style:"bold")[An Essay in Critique of Distance] Some days, it feels like we're all waiting for someone else to scream before we can join them, for someone enrapturing to stumble into our lives. Have you ever considered making yourself that person? Such a demeanor is curated, not intrinsic, after all. Have I? In a way, I'm writing this for myself, hoping it can close distance with someone. In another, I'm still doing nothing to physically act. I'm not extending the olive branch, just placing it on the table and hoping someone sees it. At least I brought the branch and can will it my own. At least, I can carve in it over and over again "our technology, our shame, our society of images and transactions is swallowing us, erasing us, and spitting out a lonely I". At least, one day, someone might see it and be moved by how passionate the carvings are. I’m here for you as you’re for me. Let’s meet up some time! [[Back to Hub->TableOfContents]] [[Previous->essay1-4]]

(enchant:?page,(text-colour:#f7f7b0)+(bg:#be050a))(text-style:"bold")[What is Queer Liberation?] Derealizing such may seem radical, abstract and a rather bold assumption on the surface. Yet think of marketing, clothing, careers, your own possessions and social circles. Think of voter blocks and the language and tones we approach different people with. Think flatly of the different ways you perceive and interact with people of another gender versus your own. There are differences deeply embedded in how we think about people and the world imposed upon us and our perceptions that are determined solely by gendered and sexual dynamics. In a way, our thoughts, our body and our place in the world are controlled and policed by a set of rather immutable expectations simply from what chromosomes we were born with. [[Odd, isn’t it? Wouldn’t you rather determine yourself?->essay2-3]] (text-style:"subscript")[(text-style:"italic")[Click on ](text-colour:#CCE6FB)[(text-style:"italic")[blue-tinted text]] (text-style:"italic")[to advance]] [[Back to Hub->TableOfContents]]

(enchant:?page,(text-colour:#f7f7b0)+(bg:#be050a))(text-style:"bold")[What is Queer Liberation?] What the existence of queer people (both within our communities and in the zeitgeist) represents is that things don't have to be so predetermined. All love doesn't have to be thought of as on the pipeline to the nuclear family. All self-expression doesn't have to arise from the conditioning of shame towards an “acceptable” mold. Limiting ourselves to what’s acceptable pre-emptively almost always comes at our expense! What queer people represent is a disruption to [[hegemony->whatishegemony]], be that hegemony a belief that some people are superior to others, be it that every issue and argument can be cleanly slotted into a binary, be it that some people are nothing more than the features of their body. To truly contemplate queerness next to yourself and your worldview is the first step to deprogramming yourself from succumbing to the cliches of narratives that none of us wrote. Through embodying [[queerness->essay2-4]] (particularly it's disruption and exploration), we can hold true and pursue what we feel is our most authentic self and juxtapose ourselves more broadly against the ways the world was built without us. [[Back to Hub->TableOfContents]]

Know this is a complex word with a lot of competing definitions, but I use it here to mean "the values we inherit from the assertion of a dominant group". [[Back to Essay->essay2-3]]

(enchant:?page,(text-colour:#f7f7b0)+(bg:#be050a))(text-style:"bold")[What is Queer Liberation?] My definition of queerness is certainly one not everyone has, as it denies that there is anything intrinsic or necessary to be queer. Instead, I believe queerness is inherently a counter-cultural response to a society that doesn't (or won’t) accommodate or fully consider how its denizens simply are (but especially so for those unable to be cleanly molded into capitalist necessity). (text-style:"bold")[We cannot run a moral society on shaming, endangering and discriminating round blocks for not fitting in square holes. ] Queerness, in my understanding, shares a lot with the co-dependent movements for neurodivergent and disabled individuals. People are deemed divergent, disabled and strange (original definition of “queer”) only because they were not considered in constructing the norm of a capitalist society where everyone has to work, love and play along to survive. By collectively calling to question these shortcomings and moving people towards a more considerate reconstruction, it would serve the flourishing of [[everyone in that system->essay2-6]]! [[Back to Hub->TableOfContents]]

(enchant:?page,(text-colour:#f7f7b0)+(bg:#be050a))(text-style:"bold")[What is Queer Liberation?] Yet, existing power dynamics structured around those in alignment with expectation refuse to sacrifice anything. These labels of otherness, compounded with heaps of stress and shaming, are why we are called queer. Though the experience of being is different from that of the current system’s beneficiaries, we are all just naturally-occuring humans. We were not (text-style:"italic")[born] wrong, but (text-style:"italic")[made] wrong by juxtaposition against being straight/cis (neurotypical/able-bodied and even non-racialized). It is not simply enough to be represented, to be thought of as “normal but different in this one way”. Representation is a step towards awareness, but nowhere near the required journey. Queerness, as I present it, is foundational to capturing why we are seen as atypical. Even those of us who are queer must [[fight our internalized conditioning to own our queerness and cede our incompatibility->essay2-7]] (shoutout The Matrix). [[Back to Hub->TableOfContents]]

(enchant:?page,(text-colour:#f7f7b0)+(bg:#be050a))(text-style:"bold")[What is Queer Liberation?] I don't believe anyone is born queer, but comes to be queer through questioning the ways their self-expression has been made inauthentic in merging with the monolith of normalcy. Authentic queer expressions cannot be limited and rationalized by a handful of labels (and certainly not by rigid binaries!) as much as some may reinforce them. In my understanding, being gay or trans (for example) does not necessarily make you queer, but the further process of deconstructing yourself (which often comes with self-discovery) does. Maybe these questions lead you exactly back to where you started, but it's this act of questioning that makes us more receptive not just of queer people, but to question the presuppositions we have of sex, race and even politics. It's so easy to slip into binaries and not be able to imagine what lies beyond them that most aligns with who we are, but only through undermining could we, among the public conscience, destabilize the dominant powers, self-limitation and interpersonal posturing that's destroying us. A couple tangential points: [[Addendum 1: Queerness through disciplinary lenses->essay2-add1]] [[Addendum 2: On the value of Labels->essay2-add2]] [[Back to Hub->TableOfContents]]

(enchant:?page,(text-colour:#f7f7b0)+(bg:#be050a))(text-style:"bold")[What is Queer Liberation?] My understanding of queerness has undoubtedly been shaped and expanded by the lenses and contents of my discipline, as well as what I've explored in personal and school work. Amongst this research, I see little attention given to queer causes outside the humanities. It makes sense. The humanities obviously focus on humanitarian concerns. I sometimes wonder if acceptance is what I sought in switching out of a technology major, something not accomodated through it's provided lens. Computers think in binaries, math thinks in rigid rulesets, data science is about constructing solid facts about how things are, law makes rules and definitions. The queer value of breaking the rules and writing your own is something that's hard to reckon with against this, and part of the reason I chose the word "liberation". As of now, I struggle to find hope or value in shattering the lenses incompatible with queerness some others perceive the world through. Maybe true liberation, in this era of erosion, requires swallowing that reform inside the system is a lost cause. Regardless, the world was conquered in absence of us, so maybe spending my life inspiring this understanding in people is the most I can do to initiate a degree of space and understanding for us all (not just queer people) to flourish as and among ourselves. [[Addendum 2: On the value of Labels->essay2-add2]] [[Back to Hub->TableOfContents]]

(enchant:?page,(text-colour:#f7f7b0)+(bg:#be050a))(text-style:"bold")[What is Queer Liberation?] I’d like to supply a little more nuance to my condemnation of labels for, as like all social roles, inhabiting them can be a boon and a curse. In a way, labels are like fishing hooks. While we're swimming in the status quo, we are bombarded by labels, many of which will cut into us, shape and wound us, change and limit us. However, some labels are liberation, raise us from the waters towards new horizons. Labels also allow us to articulate and generalize the experience of a group. Without being able to label our feelings, we can't check them against existing knowledge and know if, deep down, other people can identify the same in-group tensions. Some will pull us into the light, at which point, the hooks can be safely removed, but at the same time, they’ve left an indelible mark on us. Moving into a society of complete liberation probably would not require labels as means of self-understanding, given those identities aren’t challenged, but in this time of disregard for queer lives, visibility matters a lot. We don't want to pull up the ladder at all for other burgeoning queer folks. We also want to embody labels to disarm the bigotry of those who care about, to humanize them rather than let more groups be needlessly strawmanned. [[Addendum 1: Queerness through disciplinary lenses->essay2-add1]] [[Back to Hub->TableOfContents]]

(enchant:?page,(text-colour:#f7f7b0)+(bg:#be050a))(text-style:"bold")[Liberation means Academic Accessibility] Disciplines are not a movement, nor a unified front. They are not a unified front and are certainly not an actionable voting block. The humanities, in particular, have neither an industry, a workforce or actionable visions. We are analysts of human behaviour, nature, thoughts and history, and little beyond that. Even limiting my scope to universities, if we look now and to history, it is clear the academy itself is not enough. It alone is a bodiless brain containing the outer limits of collective knowledge. We can compile as much theory as we want, compose as many arguments and craft as many questions as we can, but if we can't make the social body act accordingly, I fear the career path I see myself following and the advances of our many brilliant academics to be, at best, [[stagnant inciting->essay3-3]]. [[Back to Hub->TableOfContents]]

(enchant:?page,(text-colour:#f7f7b0)+(bg:#be050a))(text-style:"bold")[Liberation means Academic Accessibility] Having a good education and being on the right side of things alone is not enough. It is a tool of awareness which should incite and mobilize everyone to pick up causes. There is a long history of division, if we look towards leftist movements, between the intelligentsia (forgive the snobbish word) and workers (a point made well in <a href="https://www.marcuse.org/herbert/pubs/60spubs/67dialecticlib/67LibFromAfflSociety.htm">this speech from Herbert Marcuse</a>). Academics often serve to fully articulate a cause and to theory-craft solutions off existing bodies. These theories, complex through their recursiveness and position in a canon of knowledge, are too often inaccessible to those for whom it is most advantageous to adopt said theories or beliefs. I feel this is simply not okay. Pardon my leftist examples if you are not of the belief, but there is a tangible value present, especially in retrospect, in Karl Marx creating The Communist's Manifesto as a simplification and massive shortening of his larger theory conveyed in Das Kapital (from 400k to 10k words). There is a reason we examine our morality through the Trolley Problem and not by extended readings of Kant and Bentham/Mill. [[Essential Theories can always be inspired, at least implicitly, through memetic packages.->essay3-4]] In considering my future, the metaphor “art and literature are the foot soldiers of philosophy and theory” sounds off in my head. [[Back to Hub->TableOfContents]]

(enchant:?page,(text-colour:#f7f7b0)+(bg:#be050a))(text-style:"bold")[Liberation means Academic Accessibility] If we, as academics, are to advertise and publicize the fruits of our thinking, such must be done in the public commons. We mustn't write solely behind JSTOR paywalls, for those with university database access or ten links down the chain from our equally complex peers. This isn't a game we're playing with each other to determine who is the most correct, the most objective or the smartest. We should not be children bumping egos with each other. We must allocate our time equally between advancing our discipline and its knowledge and to disseminate that knowledge. Disseminating for most means teaching, feeding those who pay to listen and to whom we can successfully impart our knowledge through extended contact. Yet again, however, this is operating behind a paywall, towards those with a degree of distance from the working and disenfranchised communities we need to present ourselves for. It is not enough that a percentage of queer kids (for one example) have the textual tools to imagine liberation. If we are to be effective minds in the public sphere, if our ideas are to be substantial beyond our communities, we must allocate our time partially towards the ''creation of art and media'' (literature, video essays, television appearances), towards ''public-facing arrangements'' (conferences, TED talks), towards a large ''presence at actionable events'' (protests, town halls and events where one can be a community leader) and towards ''making our work actionable'' (aforementioned simplification). [[These are the conditions of contributing to liberation.->essay3-5]] [[Back to Hub->TableOfContents]]

(enchant:?page,(text-colour:#f7f7b0)+(bg:#be050a))(text-style:"bold")[Liberation means Academic Accessibility] The fact we are not yet doing these things is not a condemnation of our current mode of being, but a byproduct of the capitalist necessity by which we monetize our craft and invest our time wisely and single-mindedly towards the flourishing of those closest to us. My hope here is to identify how suffocating this can be and how greatly it lays to rest the potential momentum of our words. My goal here is also not to change habits, but to poke holes; holes that allow us to see the true potential of our social role should we better platform and motivate our words. [[This also must be understood as a systemic problem, one not of individuals, but of how capitalism has configured individuals to act.->essay3-6]] Universities are funded by students, by state grants, by donors and sponsorships. Most universities have so many revenue streams that there should be enough to sponsor academics with livable wages without necessitating having to churn out books and papers. I think the problem here is that, much like the pharmaceutical industry, it is private companies that regulate and profit from locking papers behind databases and paywalls (many of the universities themselves can be included amidst "private companies"). [[Back to Hub->TableOfContents]]

(enchant:?page,(text-colour:#f7f7b0)+(bg:#be050a))(text-style:"bold")[Liberation means Academic Accessibility] Another more pernicious problem at play here is the "profound educational gap”. I feel education has become worryingly ineffective in so much of this country due to the mindsets we're trained to bring to it and how distant it can feel from the turbulent threats of modern living. It’s also wanted this way; you can't let people get smart enough to question their means and the system they're born into, after all! Ultimately, it's an uphill battle against systems of power and one I'm not sure that can be won simply through more accessible resources or media capture, [[but the best we can do is try->essay3-7]] Even not trying to sound such, I’ve been told my prose is too fancy or complex by some friends, especially ESL, who have tried to read my work, so this is also an issue of reconfiguring how we approach discussions, not just our willingness to have them. [[Back to Hub->TableOfContents]]

(enchant:?page,(text-colour:#f7f7b0)+(bg:#be050a))(text-style:"bold")[Liberation means Academic Accessibility] Knowledge flourishes in the mind of any who encounters it when memetic enough, and who better to package it as such but those who mint it? Strong art lingers in the senses, strong media lingers in feeds and algorithms and strong words are enshrined in people’s hearts. Academics, especially those in the humanities and other social-facing disciplines, have a messaging problem in this era where power travels through images and optics. I am not naive enough to suggest we should drop everything to dedicate ourselves to public life. Naturally, it takes a lot of time, resources and foundation if we are to advance our craft amidst ourselves and work towards even better articulations. We, of course, still need all the means of action we currently take. I feel, however, there is too much at stake in losing the fight for memetic messaging. Fascism and oppression aren't defeated solely through mapping out the paths they take to devour us, but by proofing those who exist under them better paths to take. If politics, the media and the economy have all been captured to freeze people in place while self-reinforcing, our ability as academics to know otherwise and articulate otherwise is invaluable now more than ever in motivating the public sphere towards greener pastures. [[Back to Hub->TableOfContents]]

(enchant:?page,(text-colour:#f7f7b0)+(bg:#be050a))(text-style:"bold")[The Trauma of Creation in a Post-LLM World] I think what intrigues me most about this is that not a word of what the LLM says, or even its framing, is ever brought into the next version of the paper. It serves as a tool of prodding, of agitating into recollection. The LLM is here a tool of fabrication; of getting it wrong to know what it means for there to be an appropriate retelling of her feelings. It is putting words to Vara’s suffering //by negation//, by demanding it be fed more and more of her truth until it can all chameleon as her heart and her words. I wrote then "[The AI] does almost seem a friend with similar pains for glimpses... [but also] while becoming you, still remains permanently other. What I think this article demonstrates, in a way, is that deep down, we already know what we want to say. We know what our voice sounds like, what our thoughts generally shape around, [[limiting the other's role as interrogator->essay4-3]]. [[Back to Hub->TableOfContents]]

(enchant:?page,(text-colour:#f7f7b0)+(bg:#be050a))(text-style:"bold")[The Trauma of Creation in a Post-LLM World] If we are to seriously engage and lay claim to the outputs of LLMs, we also must ask questions about our relationship to the text it outputs. > Can we see ourselves authentically within its words? > When and why does some of our writing mean something to us? > Can LLMs help us find meaning in our work and our words? I get the technical function, but writing is so often more than that, so I want to ask you to consider these questions, in thinking of yourself and the next generation who will be taught in the presence of these models before I give my own answer. [[Here's my response.->essay4-4]] [[Back to Hub->TableOfContents]]

(enchant:?page,(text-colour:#f7f7b0)+(bg:#be050a))(text-style:"bold")[The Trauma of Creation in a Post-LLM World] I never define art as the piece, but always as the act of creation. It's the ability to confront ourselves and our aesthetic wants, and through that process, realize something within ourselves. When we encounter artworks built on fighting the same battles we're currently engaged in, that's when I've been most stricken in my life and why I value art so much. I then must ask myself if the reason I always feel so robbed by a piece of LLM writing is that I've lost the opportunity to connect with someone, to see more of them and to understand where they're coming from. To quote a private conversation I had about my game essay, <a href="https://booperella.neocities.org/posts/Rottweiler">Rottweiler</a>, that fits very well here: “the great underlying tragedy is that we suffer individually by the same hurt. Trauma art, to me, seems the quickest bridge to understanding this, but shame and vulnerability are so stigmatized that it’s really hard for most people to let themselves make. The structure (as something that can’t admit itself) arose from my own cowardice to fully strip away the performative irony…. While fun and digestible works have their place, there's definitely a fundamental separation between escapist and emotional art. There's stuff that passes between them: art can be structurally traumatic but loosely silly, and also art that can create violence for the viewer opting into its escapism, but I still think there's a general separation. The capacity to visualize our own vices or trauma is fucking magic. The emotionally profound (is the perfect partner to) philosophy's logically profound. It's not enough to read it, you gotta feel it to believe it. [[It’s what makes art such a powerful tool->essay4-5]].” [[Back to Hub->TableOfContents]]

(enchant:?page,(text-colour:#f7f7b0)+(bg:#be050a))(text-style:"bold")[The Trauma of Creation in a Post-LLM World] Regardless of your opinion of LLMs, you must acknowledge they are not motivated by values and struggles, but by patterns words have prior been organized into. Maybe in the reining in of collective noise, one might find something beautiful. Maybe you have and I don't want to take that away from you. Yet I can't help but feel ink without a little blood mixed in is any ink at all. It lacks the guiding principle and the deep personality of a truly aching text. Perhaps prompting an LLM functions best as a means of drawing blood, but I'm too scared in doing so it will swallow my blood too and spit it out as something deeply misappropriated. Language should never be universally predictable, for it is not a game of probability, but trying to externalize what sits unspeakably in our soul. [[Back to Hub->TableOfContents]]