linguistics
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By learning to fight, we can make a more peaceful world.
By building confidence, we become better able to choose nonviolence, since we’ll be that much more likely to feel safe.
Abdelfattah Kilito, aggression in animals, ahimsa, baboons, Babylonian mythology, Bible, biology, black belt test, black best essay, broadcast song, caretaking, Daddy Wake Up, death gods, Determined, divine aggression, dominance, dominance hierarchy, Dr. Strangelove, elephant seals, game theory, Gilgamesh, God, history, incarceration, jail poetry, John von Neumann, Joshua Rathkamp, Karate, kihap, Kilito, Korean mythology, linguistics, martial arts, mythology, nonviolence, observational biology, Origin Myth of the House God, peace, Popol Vuh, psychology, Ramayana, religion, Robert Sapolsky, Single Father, soft song, sparrow territory, sparrows, Taekwondo, tamarins, teaching in jail, The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Tongue of Adam, Tower of Babel, Travis Combs, Vishnu, Whorf hypothesis, Xibalban, Yahweh, YHWH
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On vocabulary and time.
Psychological time is relational, but we don’t have a word for it!
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On artificial intelligence and solitary confinement.
Just like us, an AI will sometimes make mistakes. But at least we can offer explanations. An algorithm might inscrutably destroy somebody’s life.
administrative detention, AI, algorithm, Anscombe, artificial intelligence, automated image analysis, babies, California, color, confirmation bias, corrections, criminal justice, Department of Corrections, gang, gang crime, Google Researchers Are Learning How Machines, how we learn language, identifying gang activity, image analysis, In a Dark Dark Room, Indiana Prisoners’ Writing Workshop, isolation, jail poetry, language, Learn, learning to speak, learning to talk, linguistics, lockdown, Ludwig Wittgenstein, neural networks, newborns, paradox, Philosophical Investigations, philosophy, poetry, Pouncho, prison poetry, shape, SHU, solitary, solitary confinement, solitary watch, teaching poetry in jail, the philosophy of language, Wittgenstein
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On animals that speak, including humans.
Tom Wolfe & Noam Chomsky both claim that no other animals are capable of anything like human speech … while scientists are finally learning to listen.
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On the Tower of Babel and beneficial curses.
Kind-hearted citizens of the United States needed to be saved from our own complacency.
45, Abdelfattah Kilito, attorney general, Avigdor Shinan, Babel, Babylon, Benjamin Lee Whorf, Bible, climate change, climate destabilization, complacency, congress, cooperation, Cugel the Clever, curse, democrat, Democratic Party, diversity, Donald Trump, education, Elif Batuman, English, Eyes of the Overworld, From Gods to God, Gate of the Gods, Gateway to Heaven, global warming, God, God’s Gate, health care, health care reform, Heisenberg, Ismael, Jack Vance, language, linguistics, mass incarceration, monoculture, Old Testament, personal responbility, perspective, politics, PotUS, President, Quran, republican, Robyn Creswell, sentencing reform, tax code, tax cut, Thai, The Idiot, The Tongue of Adam, tongue, Tower of Babel, Trump, Turkish, uncertainty principle, Valerie Zakovitch, Whorf hypothesis, Yahweh, Yair Zakovitch
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On writing poetry in English.
Throughout the month of November, in “celebration” of betrayals both past and present (Thanksgiving, land grants, sovereignty, smallpox, Christianity, Standing Rock), my co-teacher and I brought poetry by contemporary Native American writers into the jail. One week, my co-teacher (JM) began class with an impromptu riff about the fact that, although English-speaking people had betrayed…
Frank Brown Cloud 