Tell me again how free speech is a right wing thing

Academia is too much like this website, and vice versa

Reminder: today at our Department

There is a special place in hell for the academics who mark refereeing invitations as spam. Yes, they exist.

@samuelmoyn.bsky.social is visiting us @uva.nl @aissr.bsky.social in Amsterdam in May! @enzoreds.bsky.social (with a salt of AI?) is the artist of the poster.

New paper: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Basically why Marxism and political economy more broadly are being revived in academia

Biblical

I hate that we’ve been semiotised by you-know-who into calling everything “a deal”.

Right wing cancel culture, again

Yikes (everything) Phew (polisci) lol (ed)

Theories of legitimacy should be about what kind of political structures we want. The moralist obsession with whether we have duties to obey, or reasons to resist, or with whatever else we may or may not be allowed to do, is just secularised Christianity.

Nearly 9 years later and not a single person has been put on trial for killing 72 people at Grenfell. Justice is only for shoplifters and protestors, mass murderers walk free so long as they are rich.

Marx totally had ADHD. The dude hardly ever finished anything, and his critique of capitalism is basically "don't make us do things that don't give us dopamine hits".

"The lesson is not that jumping without a parachute is a costless, possible, or probable strategy. It is that, under prompt conditions, trying the impossible is the only option because inaction guarantees catastrophe."

Important new paper by Carlo Burelli, on when and how realists may be radicals www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1...

Fear-mongering, amirite?

I’m a journal editor. I’m confident people are submitting AI slop papers in the hope of a Sokal-style gotcha. Which may be fine, provided that the experiment is pre-registered, and ethics board-approved. Otherwise it will be worse than worthless, a waste of time we don’t have:

Some ugly facts but reality

Are we doing this again? Do we never learn? As far as I understand he would have no teaching responsibilities (correct me if wrong). Think about all the censorship against colleagues who spoke out on Gaza. Someone thought their views were repellent. The Left can't afford this.

Delighted that this is now out (w. @sunelaegaard.bsky.social), along with all the articles it introduces. link.springer.com/article/10.1... Hopefully of interest to anyone thinking (methodologically) about how 'empirical' leaning pol-theory might become more 'experimental', e.g....

Well I hope the Iranian monarchists are pleased

Suggestions for Bloomsbury and Routledge books to get with peer review vouchers?

Look at what just came in the mail! “Incisive, fearless, and indispensable” — it’s true what I said in the blurb

To give a 2nd suggestion from the excellent @enzoreds.bsky.social, I found his recent piece on universities being 'pluralist' rather than 'neutral' very interesting, if not quite so firmly on the requested topic: scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/emancipation....

Early career researchers, please remember: journals aren't assessing how smart/thorough/whatever you are. They're trying to guess what is both good and something people are likely to read and cite. Yes, sometimes this becomes a trade-off. Yes, sometimes there are also more sinister motives at play.

Either the AI jobpocalypse is an excuse for sacking people and inflating stock prices, or it's going to be a different kind of 'pocalypse

Happy IWD!

Trump & co can't get their story straight on the Iran war because it's not their war. It's Bibi's, and his story can't be said out loud This should be obvious but looking at the big legacy rags it looks as though it isn't. Then again those rags still won't talk about Epstein's obvious Mossad links

'Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to hummus and soggy veggies

If the main US and Israeli war aim is simply to destroy the Iranian state and economy then that's more achievable than many on this site think

The far right doesn't go after the pathologically woke because they're a threat. They go after them because they make fantastically unpopular targets and a great distraction.

The people who turned critical theory into toothless liberal moralism feel edgy again now because of the rise of authoritarianism. That is backwards. Far right anti-establishment politics is, in part, a response to the lack of a credible left alternative to the (neo)liberal blob.

Tragically, for quite a few people this isn’t a no brainer

It was not enough for the left to be associated with the people who tell you you can’t eat cheese, nor fly, nor say “you guys”. Now we also have to be the people who tell you you can’t automate the most tedious bits of your email job.

AI veganism is a dead end for the Left. We’re not supposed to be the ones fettering the development of the productive forces, remember? Things usually don’t work out for those who do that. We’re supposed to open new possibilities for human flourishing, not save our souls from Sin.

Journalism undefeated loser of all time

"A university that is serious about its epistemic mission should neither be neutral nor activist.... it should be pluralist instead." Wise words from @enzoreds.bsky.social

Does anyone actually use the method of reflective equilibrium? Or do people just do intuition pumps? I mean, if a considered judgment is strong enough the theory will have to yield even in RE. So what’s the difference with straight Cohen/Partit-style intuitionism, really?

This is a paper by a very famous person, published in a good journal. I don’t know what the story was here, but in general this strikes me as an argument for triple-anonymous review

I should clarify this post. I’m not against public philosophy. I even do it. Some of my favourite books are crossover academic-trade books—the few scholarly books that needed to be books. I just object to public writing being required, and to its outsized role in academic careers.

My rough, brief take on activist scholarship. TLDR: It’s an epistemological mistake, but it can come from a genuine search for the truth, so it must be included. But it can’t be allowed to take over. Ditto for other epistemologies. Academia needs pluralism, not forced activism or neutrality.

There must be a market for a platform like Instagram but without the insufferable video content that’s just slightly outdated TikTokkery, no? Or is there a setting that blocks video at least?

The sheer idiocy of MAGA identity politics. They correctly saw that social justice as elite diversification was a scam. Their response? Bring back racism & sexism! All’s forgiven! I mean, I see why the billionaires would go for this. But the rank and file are exceptionally cucked, as they say.

When did it become desirable or even expected that humanities /social science academics write for magazines, publish trade books, and so on? In philosophy it used to be looked down upon. I kinda miss those times. NB: ‘Real’ scientists still don’t have to do any of this.

And then people ask me why I’m suspicious of morality in politics

Worried about the rise of China? Replace the mix of poshness and wokeness that determines who gets into top Anglo schools with something like the Gaokao. What’s that you say? No? Okay then.