Thomas Arnold

@thomasarnold

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Thomas Arnold@thomasarnold· Jul 9

Come on, join me in avoiding writing. #philsky

A five panel sequence from John Oliver on General Hospital, showing him interrupted, slapped and stunned by a character. My text is Wittgenstein commenting on logical form then getting slapped by Piero Sraffa à la his famous Sicilian gesture for which he asked W for logical form.

Thomas Arnold@thomasarnold· Jun 13

Prompt engineering, via Philip K. Dick's "The Penultimate Truth" (1964).

At the keyboard of the rhetorizor he typed, carefully, the substantive he wanted. 'Squirrel.' Then, after a good two minutes of sluggish, deep thought, the limiting adjective 'smart'."

"Dear," Colleen said, and sighed. "I heard you type out only two semantic units. Give it more to ogpon."

Thomas Arnold@thomasarnold· May 27

But, on rarer occasions at Fortune's whim, you will face "What's the most you ever lost on a coin toss?"

Young Charles Sanders Peirce, the Metaphysical Club's Anton Chigurh

Thomas Arnold@thomasarnold· May 27

The theological arachnics she would have unleashed on the name, message, and prophesying of Anthropic appearing at a joint press conference about a papal encyclical... My Adam Curtis doc would note she passed away in 2010, the year of the first ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge...

The cover of Mary Daly's "Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy," green with a symmetrically serpentine illustration by Emily Culpepper.

Thomas Arnold@thomasarnold· Feb 2

Lovely book in some ways but the d'Aulaires really drew the Greek pantheon like this

The faces of Cronos, Zeus, and descendant divinities, all blondish, fair, almost all blue-eyed.

Thomas Arnold@thomasarnold· Dec 27

"Hi Carol. Our feelings for you poets haven't changed, the republic just needs a little space." #philsky

Carol from Pluribus getting the Heisman/ostrakon over voicemail

Thomas Arnold@thomasarnold· Oct 4

This is Boston coffee nerd excellence

Map of Somerville divided into 21 "coffeehoods," each named after coffee shop in that area. Massive debates to ensue, but I like "Tamper Hillside."

Thomas Arnold@thomasarnold· Mar 28

The Nightwalker coming for its head in “Princess Mononoke”

Thomas Arnold@thomasarnold· Mar 18

Tag yourself in the AI slop how-to, I'm the scissors.

AI-generated how-to of an origami dachsund. Goes from impossibly folded diamond shape to fully folded dog repeated five times, with one step just being a picture of a pair of scissors. The steps are helpfully numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 4 again, 9, and 4 one more time, and 7. Ample evidence for why Sam Altman should be able to use everyone's art for perpetuity to produce comic post material.

Thomas Arnold@thomasarnold· Feb 15

Joaquin Phoenix could do young and old William James, portray credible nitrous oxide hits and spirit readings, and nail "Damn the absolute!" in a #PhilosophyBiopics

Thomas Arnold@thomasarnold· Feb 15

Phoebe Waller-Bridge as Iris Murdoch

I mean you have to admit Hot Priest and Fleabag would be good expositors of perfection and eros, if not actual Murdoch novel characters.

Thomas Arnold@thomasarnold· Jan 22

Finally found my banner

A revised photo that read ERRATA, In General the Whole Account, In particular, each and every post. This will be, or should be, taken down soon in accord with its message.

Thomas Arnold@thomasarnold· Jan 17

post an Archer

Red-figure Greek vase depicting Scythian influenced Amazon holding bow and drawing arrow, by Epiktetos, 520-510 BCE, via British Museum, London

Thomas Arnold@thomasarnold· Jan 4

Picture of David Frost and Richard Nixon shaking hands. 2025 gives us ConnorEatsPants and Elon/Adrian Musk.

Thomas Arnold@thomasarnold· Sep 23

From Andrew Marantz’s “Anti-Social,” asking a question to Emerson Spartz.

I asked him to name the most beautiful book he’d ever read. “Can you rephrase that question more clearly?” he asked. I couldn’t.
“A beautiful book?” he said. “I don’t even know what that means. Impactful, sure.”

Thomas Arnold@thomasarnold· Sep 23

The Target “men’s soap” aisle is always good for a laugh and a complete AmStud/social theory midterm prompt printed on a label.

Soap wrapper of Duke Cannon’s “Big American Bourbon soap”, with “oak barrel scent” and actual “Buffalo Trace” Kentucky bourbon, when you need to take the edge off your racial and gender panic while you shower. A portion of proceeds go to veterans, presumably even to ones who were captured.

Thomas Arnold@thomasarnold· Sep 7

My fall anthem

Louise Bourgeois painting headed by text "To unravel torment you must begin somewhere"

Thomas Arnold@thomasarnold· Sep 1

The people whose lives I consider diminished are those who've read Vance and not any May Sarton.

Passage from "Journal of a Solitude":
The fact that a middle-aged, single woman, without any vestige of family left, lives in this house in a silent village and is responsible only to her own soul means something. The fact that she is a writer and can tell where she is and what it is like on the pilgrimage inward can be of comfort. It is comforting to know there are lighthouse keepers on rocky islands along the coast. Sometimes, when I have been for a walk after dark and see my house lighted up, looking so alive, I feel that my presence here is worth all the Hell.

Thomas Arnold@thomasarnold· Aug 14

From “Do androids dream of electric sheep?” to “Hey cars…

Adam Mansbach children’s book “Go the Fuck to Sleep”

Thomas Arnold@thomasarnold· Mar 28

"Intellectual life used to be fun"

Frontal and side photos taken of Antonio Gramsci upon his being put in the prison at Turi.

Thomas Arnold@thomasarnold· Feb 27

Finally this photo of mine from 2020 has its caption.

Picture of Freud's statue at Clark University in 2020, wearing a mask. A plague-bearer during a plague.

Thomas Arnold@thomasarnold· Feb 6

My nine Bluesky invitations

Picture of abandoned teddy bear lying on the floor.

Thomas Arnold@thomasarnold· Feb 2

Speaking to HRI seminar tomorrow and I have some classical slides ready for a change of pace (e.g. Medea as Euripides' mechane-lifted protagonist vs. Ava lifted up in the film Ex Machina; here, an Iliad scene echoed by the Cruise robotaxi dragging a woman 20 feet down the street) 🏺 Classics Bluesky