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Dr. Aaron McKain

THE NORM MACDONALD INSTITUTE FOR COMEDY AND DIGITAL HUMANITY AT [X] UNIVERSITY?

THE NORM MACDONALD INSTITUTE FOR COMEDY AND DIGITAL HUMANITY AT [X] UNIVERSITY?

Letterman and Carson already have media programs.

Is it Norm -- or someone else’s -- turn?

I am the Robert Evans of higher ed horsetrading.  (See CV.)

Email me: amckain@theidh.org

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I am only willing to pursue this with the overt blessing (and support) of Norm's family and friends. That said...

Norm, on the merits, earned his place as an artistic and literary figure. And his body of work is a legitimate "moth joke" strategy against AI and its aesthetics.

Comedy -- and culture and literature that can't be reduced to 1's and 0s -- is the fastest way to fix robots and people now programmed like robots. It needs to be protected, studied, and taken seriously as a key to understanding post-digital America.


  • Rock bottom prices, y'all.

    We have the only thing that can keep some of these schools afloat. And we can't let one team take every piece of the information ecosystem.

    I bail these clowns out for a living. Still get headhunted to run Colleges (Dean-level) and was the speechwriter for Time's University President of the Year during a billion-dollar fundraising campaign.

    Right now, we could basically build a top world program for peanuts. Oppenheimers -- and academic real estate -- is bottom of the market right now. It's a national disgrace, but a steal if you are trying to build something.

  • For instance, did you know artists/comedians have a Constitutional right to digital public personas (versus "private"/IRL lives)?

    Of course not.

  • And all artists right now need unwavering free speech defenders in the face of AI.

    Because, again, the cavalry ain't coming.


    I've worked with/been headhunted by nearly all of the top dogs in First Amendment spaces. Post-AI / DEI, they are all now DOA and/or lacking a scalable solution or coherent brand.

    There is one exception, but unless you are a hardcore libertarian (versus old school 1A champion) --and also 100% support ZERO AI regulation --they ain't for you either.

    The colleges started this mess. But we need them fixed to survive. We can do this surgically using --- again -- comedians as the baseline.

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This one is -- obviously -- personal for me.

Publicly, let's just leave it at: A top literature, AI, First Amendment, and comedy scholar -- who specializes in Mr. MacDonald -- is interested in ensuring that he (and comedy) have their proper place in the "canon" (and classrooms) during this uncertain time for free speech, the arts, and higher education.

But there are lives -- and I have one of them -- that can only be based on a true story. Their ability to use art to tell them is essential to post-digital humanity.

Like Norm, my medical privacy was/is critical to my humanity: My body of work -- not my body -- should speak for itself.

Which is just an easy example of how aesthetic, comedy, politics, and post-AI law collide. And provides the best pressure points to fix all of it.


Which NO ONE is tracking or actually acting on.

The "Norm Institute" -- or a dozen of them -- pairs nicely with

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Dr. Aaron McKain

WHAT FUCK YOU MONEY WAS MADE FOR: SCALING THE MANHATTAN PROJECT

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the clock is ticking, comedians.

AI ISN'T FUNNY BACKSTAGE

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