Ann Leckie

"But what do we do with the gifted kids, they'll just sit in class and twiddle their thumbs?" I don't know, I guess it's impossible for them to help their classmates, or work on a project in class that uses their curiosity and also teaches their classmates something. <shrug> Guess we can't!

I mean, Mithras forbid we actually hire enough teachers, or re-examine our current pedagogical theories, or care about the students who are having a hard time with the way things are currently structured. IOW "abolish gifted and talented" is the tip of the iceberg for me.

So, I've heard the "most people don't need more than basic math, and chemistry and physics is useless to them!" before, and on further conversation it emerges that they believe one should only teach those subjects to people who *will* need or use them.

"Well just teach it to the Extra Smart kids!" and somehow that always turns out to be white, affluent kids? And nobody else even gets a chance at it? Yeah. Yeah, no. It's not just foolish to say "no one needs to learn these topics" it's actively disgusting.

So, I've heard the "most people don't need more than basic math, and chemistry and physics is useless to them!" before, and on further conversation it emerges that they believe one should only teach those subjects to people who *will* need or use them.

This is absolutely true, but also I actually HAVE used algebra, physics, and chemistry in my adult life--not writing related! Now, granted, not terribly advanced algebra or chemistry or physics. But I have absolutely used them, consciously.

1 or 2 in my mentions going "but I say "what drew me to" etc so I guess I must be AI ha ha" Yeah, no. I only gave the barest description of just how bad these emails are. They are flagrantly obvious even before I get to that line (which is ALWAYS there, and that, not the line itself, is the tell.

It kinda reminds me of the whole "it's not fair that editors reject after just a page of my beautiful story they should read it all and judge it fairly!" when--and I know this because I tried reading all of every submission when I was slushing--the fact is, you can absolutely tell in a few pages.

1 or 2 in my mentions going "but I say "what drew me to" etc so I guess I must be AI ha ha" Yeah, no. I only gave the barest description of just how bad these emails are. They are flagrantly obvious even before I get to that line (which is ALWAYS there, and that, not the line itself, is the tell.

the EXACT SAME STRUCTURE AND STYLE as every other slop email solicitation, well, as the late and sadly lamented Gerry Rafferty said, after a while you get to recognize the signs.

1 or 2 in my mentions going "but I say "what drew me to" etc so I guess I must be AI ha ha" Yeah, no. I only gave the barest description of just how bad these emails are. They are flagrantly obvious even before I get to that line (which is ALWAYS there, and that, not the line itself, is the tell.

I find it *funny* <bitter laugh> how the people who get publicly accused of using the stochastic parrot to write their work seem to always be writers of color, and I am making a face about how the first two to come to mind are writers of color who just won a literary prize.

1 or 2 in my mentions going "but I say "what drew me to" etc so I guess I must be AI ha ha" Yeah, no. I only gave the barest description of just how bad these emails are. They are flagrantly obvious even before I get to that line (which is ALWAYS there, and that, not the line itself, is the tell.

The structure is always the same, the description of whatever book the LLM kicked up is always repackaged versions of existing reviews (and always the most obvious observations about the book), etc. You aren't seeing this volume of slop and so don't quite get the truth of it.

RE that last RS--"you might mistakenly reject a real person if you reject everything you think might be AI" has real "but if you don't take off your headphones and allow every guy to harass you while you ride to work, you might miss a great romance!" Haha, maybe (LOL no), and I don't care.

Any guy you'd want to spend more than five minutes with respects that you just want a quiet ride to work. Anybody worth going on a podcast with is going to respect your time and intelligence and not complain that they're a real boy so you're not being fair.

RE that last RS--"you might mistakenly reject a real person if you reject everything you think might be AI" has real "but if you don't take off your headphones and allow every guy to harass you while you ride to work, you might miss a great romance!" Haha, maybe (LOL no), and I don't care.

you don't seem to have anything YOURS to say about my book, and besides, most legit approaches are just "hi Ms Leckie I am [name] and I run [podcast] and would like to have you as a guest. My podcast is about Z and I have had [guest] and [guest] on previously. BTW love your book."

RE that last RS--"you might mistakenly reject a real person if you reject everything you think might be AI" has real "but if you don't take off your headphones and allow every guy to harass you while you ride to work, you might miss a great romance!" Haha, maybe (LOL no), and I don't care.