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Institutional Epistemology Workshop 2025, June 18-19, University of Helsinki. Our invited speakers this year are Helen Beebee, Jessica Brown, and @kevinzollman.com . We look forward to receiving your abstracts by March 10. More information here: www.institutionalepistemology.net #philsci #philsky

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

A month ago, the idea that the new German chancellor would talk about "independence from the US" would have been unbelievable

submitted 5 days ago • 245 comments

Think of all the ways the administrative arm of the world’s most powerful sovereign state is like a medium-sized tech company that sells ads on a website. Both collect taxes, provide the national framework for markets, run spy agencies, have nuclear weapons, run the global reserve currency, etc

submitted 6 days ago • 8 comments

This is like the academic horror story I heard as a grad student, about the job talk where someone asked "what's the significance of your work?" and the candidate replied "p<.05."

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

This is how it’s done.

submitted 7 days ago • 2913 comments

Reposting for the benefit of those among us who think they can go in and rewire the US government real quick: behavioralscientist.org/epistemic-hu... via @behscientist.bsky.social Just replace "pandemic" by … whatever this is. #EpistemicHumility

submitted 11 days ago • 1 comment

As a political scientist who studies countries that managed to stop the slide into authoritarianism, I can assure you that refraining from provoking the authoritarian is not how it works. Without further ado, I will now go tear out another chunk of hair.

submitted 12 days ago • 273 comments

Roses are red Violets are blue

submitted 14 days ago • 138 comments

Tulsi Gabbard confirmed as Director of National Intelligence. My team 1st encountered her while studying conspiracy theories denying chemical weapons attacks and other war crimes in Syria (~2017). She repeatly spread those false claims, echoing Russian disinfo. www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a...

submitted 16 days ago • 161 comments

40 years ago a small number of believers ran around purposefully turning universities into “businesses” run by managers with metaphorical muscle. Time’s up for that idea… open.substack.com/pub/hannahfo...

submitted 19 days ago • 11 comments

Qld patients are health refugees again. Under Joh HIV patients were banned from treatment. Now Vic based Dr Darren Russell is feilding calls from U18 gender dysphoria patients after the Qld LNP Crisafulli govt suspended treatment for a 10 month review. #qldpol www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

submitted 20 days ago • 1 comment

Oops 😬

submitted 21 days ago • 1039 comments

It's looking like this guide will be quite relevant during the upcoming election...

submitted 21 days ago • 0 comments

Norms and duct tape, folks

submitted 22 days ago • 3 comments

Received a letter from POTUS today purporting to remove me as Commissioner and Chair of the FEC. There's a legal way to replace FEC commissioners-this isn't it. I've been so fortunate to serve the American people and stir up some good trouble along the way. That's not changing anytime soon.

submitted 22 days ago • 6588 comments

just saying: it's possible that "I'm gonna dramatically constrict my state capacity while plotting dramatic imperial expansion, and expanding my set of internal enemies while alienating most of my foreign allies" is the beginning of a world-historical masterstroke. but also possible that it isn't

submitted 23 days ago • 110 comments

i genuinely wonder if the right realizes that this basically means that a lot of US soft power will basically evaporate in the next 4 years

submitted 24 days ago • 147 comments

Look, there are a lot of bad things happening in the world right now, but let's not lose sight of the root cause of all these problems: that there's something rather than nothing.

submitted 24 days ago • 0 comments

We just published a 3,000 word feature on Elon Musk's incursion into the federal government. Gift link here: www.nytimes.com/2025/02/03/u...

submitted 25 days ago • 484 comments

OK, shit is getting real. A lot of teachers that understand the limits of straight LLMs — and know when an assignment falls outside them — are going to need to recalibrate in 2025.

submitted 26 days ago • 2 comments

Final final o3 thought (you won't like it): it will be good for science! All math will need formal proofs in e.g. Lean. All empirics will need replicable one-click files from original data with docs. All papers open-source. "Trust me, I did what I said" won't be acceptable.

submitted 26 days ago • 3 comments

nothing feels as good as naivete towards fascism, i assume

submitted 26 days ago • 4 comments

'CDC researchers were instructed to remove references to or mentions of a list of forbidden terms: “Gender, transgender, pregnant person, pregnant people, LGBT...”' 'This is leading to...“vorauseilender Gehorsam,” or “preemptive obedience”' insidemedicine.substack.com/p/breaking-n...

submitted 26 days ago • 2 comments

Trump is openly violating the law on a vast and unprecedented scale and everyone is acting like it's normal. NPR had a long story about finding a rare shrew. NYT said he was disregarding "legal niceties." This is an attack on the Constitution as profound as the attempt to overturn the 2020 election.

submitted 28 days ago • 279 comments

"bring my authentic self to the workplace" hahaha I mean, you won't like it

submitted 29 days ago • 0 comments

The first person to discover that sticking your hand inside a Muppet brings it to life must have been so scared.

submitted 29 days ago • 45 comments

How I love this ridiculous language

submitted 33 days ago • 1 comment

Can you believe we once lived alongside at least four other species of humans? I'm writing a whole book about it and still find it bewildering.

submitted 34 days ago • 6 comments

I hope I'm wrong, that Pete Hegseth rises to the level of mediocre and the U.S. muddles through his tenure as SecDef. But the Senate confirmed an unserious man to hold one of the most serious jobs on the planet, and I am hard-pressed to see how this ends well.

submitted 35 days ago • 169 comments

“There’s no other job in Australia where you can be paid so exorbitantly while performing so badly, with seemingly no consequences or accountability for the impact on university staff and students.” www.afr.com/politics/fed...

submitted 36 days ago • 0 comments

Incarceration doesn't make for safer communities - this carceral "common sense" needs critical examination so we can understand what prisons are really for, & the impact they really have, in the colony Thanks @emmakrussell.bsky.social @francismarkham.work @blatmannaama.bsky.social Andrew Burridge!

submitted 37 days ago • 1 comment

Sure is a bad time to be a person who cares about things.

submitted 38 days ago • 186 comments

Our EO Max Kaiser talked to Al Jazeera about Musk's salute.

submitted 38 days ago • 18 comments

Bellingcat is currently working with universities to develop open source investigation courses in various fields and creating student-led investigative hubs at those universities, which seems well timed.

submitted 39 days ago • 30 comments

Three things that remain true, no matter what Trump does: 1) Trans people have as much right to express their identities with dignity as anyone else. 2) Immigrants are awesome, create wealth, and make our culture better. 3) Trade with people around the world enriches us, and not just financially.

submitted 40 days ago • 16 comments

Trump raising millions of dollars for an inauguration that will now be less expensive because it's indoors with white supremacists is almost precisely the plot of "The Producers."

submitted 40 days ago • 15 comments

“Nobody knew health care could be so complicated.”

submitted 40 days ago • 1 comment

i am not dopamine scrolling. i am not doom scrolling. i am simply continuing my search for the single sentence that will explain everything. its out there. lets find it

submitted 42 days ago • 67 comments

Now that everything is released and summarized I'm pinning this Luckpilling superthread. Summary thread starts on the reskeet and each new chapter is linked at the end of the previous thread. Thanks again to everyone who's read along, commented, emailed, and otherwise supported this project!

submitted 55 days ago • 2 comments