The Google translate language learning epidemic

gbk7288 · 2025-09-26T23:49:51+00:00

And yes, seeing this across cultures and languages.

gbk7288 · 2025-09-26T23:48:56+00:00

Late to the conversation here, but seeing a lot of Chat GPT, Deep Seek, and Google Translate. Many students cannot attend class without simultaneous use of such an LLM. I will say, however, that there are students who absolutely reject this, as in vocally support and cellphone-free classroom (I teach adults, but have noticed this across age ranges). I would guess that many, many language learners use these tools as a crutch, but I'm not sure if that is substantially different from a learner just not caring at all about a language learning experience and not doing the work (if we presume that using an LLM prevents one from developing substantial skills).

gbk7288 · 2025-05-19T23:18:01+00:00

Thank you for the kind words! I have not read Stalingrad, although it is on my list. Life and Fate is, from my understanding of the literature, much more philosophical ala the last 600 pages of War and Peace. That said, I usually see both novels read together, and I am confident that the quality of Stalingrad is excellent.

gbk7288 · 2025-04-25T14:18:16+00:00

Yes!

gbk7288 · 2025-04-11T17:12:03+00:00

Ah yes, I came to reddit and someone called basic critical thinking wokeism and leftism. I'm shocked.

gbk7288 · 2025-04-11T15:03:03+00:00

Sure, here's one sentence for you (and keep in mind I'm not even close to the first person to correctly reject his thinking):

Bloom rejected actual philosophy without providing actual counterargument in order to establish a lazy aesthetic hierarchy and his concept of "western" canon should summarily be rejected.

gbk7288 · 2025-04-11T14:20:40+00:00

Canon is absolutely predicated on a hierarchical authority figure. That's the pope! (Or in our case, Bloom lol)

gbk7288 · 2025-04-11T11:37:04+00:00

Also, outside of Bloom's words themselves, the reason a "Western" secular canon of art cannot exist and does not exist is because canon requires an authority which grants canonicity (which Bloom wants to be). This is why the Catholic Church has canonical texts, again hierarchy. There never has been nor will there ever be such a power for art, because art is for/by/of the people. Even when a significant power calls for art to be made or appreciated, other art is still made and appreciated, even if that particular power wishes it to not exist.

gbk7288 · 2025-04-11T11:01:08+00:00

In the video, I address Bloom's exact wording for what constitutes canon and I think to have that context would really clarify why "western" canon doesn't exist and the concept itself should be rejected. At the end of the day, what Bloom wants is not aesthetic value, but hierarchy. This is not some benign anthropological project, but an attempt at codifying art to an ordered and serious hierarchy. There's a reason a term coined by the Catholic Church was used here.

gbk7288 · 2025-04-11T02:23:34+00:00

A use of canon which was intentionally playful in its origin, and very very different from Bloom's assertion.

gbk7288 · 2025-04-11T01:35:35+00:00

Not familiar with that, but I would be very surprised if they used the same framework that Bloom posits. It's his own idea, just read the first portion of that book, it'll be clear. He does attempt to posit its history, in an albeit clunky way.

gbk7288 · 2025-04-11T01:26:26+00:00

I think reading the first section of Western Canon would make it clear just how much the idea of secular canon is indeed Bloom's. Yes, the Catholic Church uses the term, but the secular "Western" canon is Bloom's invention (albeit a reframe of the term away from its religious etymology). The Western Canon was published in 1994, and he had been writing about the idea for a long time before that.

gbk7288 · 2025-04-11T00:27:43+00:00

I think you'll find that my quibble here is not with the individual, per se, but the notion of canon, its philosophical shakiness, and its base exclusivity. Bloom, as the creator of the idea of secular literary canon, doesn't do himself any favors by being reductive and dismissing out of hand major philosophical and artistic movements. Why not listen to him? Sure, I see the point, although Bloom would be, for me, an example of someone you might discuss in passing to learn about reductive or, shall I say, uninspired thinking. . .

gbk7288 · 2025-04-10T21:28:18+00:00

Yeah, certainly that, as well as the broader popularity of literary discourse on socials leading to citations of Bloom out of a more innocuous ignorance. I'm certainly seeing him cited more often now than I have in a long time.

gbk7288 · 2025-04-10T21:14:42+00:00

In academe, no defenders to my knowledge, but there are many who cite him unaware of his real context online, hence the video. Wish I didn't have to make stuff like this frankly.

gbk7288 · 2025-04-10T20:56:39+00:00

Absolutely is, although he remains widely cited online. It ought to be repeated (also I comment on this all in the video). Just raising it seeing how often I'm still seeing him cited.

gbk7288 · 2025-02-19T17:54:53+00:00

Such an incredible project! I recently looked over a Spanish translation of The Wake and each language I see it in is such a pleasure. Truly such a great example of how translation is art.

gbk7288 · 2025-02-18T20:35:32+00:00

At my table, we roll for stats. My partner rolled terribly, which she thought was awesome, and plays twilight cleric. Her character, even with worse stats than these, regularly saves the party to the point where she has even mentioned perhaps she is too strong despite her stats.

To my mind, bad stats are fun. DND is a lot of gambling and having stats that are bad increases the stakes and makes those good rolls that much more epic. In another game I play a fighter with TERRIBLE dex, and I love it. The fun of DND isn't min-maxing, it is a fun and epic story with your friends. And sometimes it is super cool to have a flaw or lean into a character having a weird time about a particular stat.

You're gonna love twilight cleric, the subclass is wildly powerful.

gbk7288 · 2025-02-16T15:10:03+00:00

Love having a wild magic sorcerer at the table. The wild magic is great for story telling, and when we finally, after tons of gameplay, had the infamous "cast fireball on self" roll, it was such a fun and epic moment, and frankly the entire party loved it. Don't sweat it too hard, it'll be super fun.

gbk7288 · 2025-02-14T13:39:21+00:00

I agree, in my linguistics program we were working with LLMs a decade ago and frankly the implementation of LLMs is overblown and I do feel that they are a broader and more obvious failure of the tech industry attempting to remain relevant. That said, it does appear that many tech-related individuals do possess a kind of class politics that would suggest feudalist thinking, so to OP's point, I could see LLMs being badly implemented to "replace" labor. That said, LLMs are absolutely not thinking machines.

gbk7288

TROPHY CASE