Are there any good biographies or qualitative studies of the AIDs epidemic from the 80s? Ideally from the perspective of the LGBTQ community? Whenever I read glimpses of it it sounds so heartrending and I want to know how people came back from that, especially people who were so young.

correct. what klein means is, i am scared to draw the line, because then i will have to grieve the loss of who i thought i was and what i thought other people were.

Why do LinkedIn posts have such a distinct aesthetic? The use of bold and emojis. The breathless questions and inspiring personal stories. Everything feeling like a bit of a half baked op ed. How did this evolve as a style? I think it's a bit cringe but it clearly slaps for a lot of people.

Free speech is the wrong framework for thinking about hard conversations, political or otherwise. When everyone is a bit scared, hurt, and confused, we need collaborative dialogue, not antagonistic debate, and that is mostly a matter of listening, not speaking. substack.com/home/post/p-...

Why TF is substack notifying me that Richard Hanania was live? I don't follow him, I've never looked at his profile, I think he's a moron, I don't write about the things he does, I don't follow any similar stacks. What is going on?!?!

Elvis is the rare celebrity of yesteryear that if anything would fit in even more today because he was super into self defense and being high on drugs and talking to a crooked President and dating a teenager, he’d 100000% have a crypto thing going on

Fuck sake. I'm literally just writing a Word document and saving it to my hard drive. STOP ASKING ME TO USE YOUR SHITTY AI AND YOUR SHITTY CLOUD SERVICE. Why is this decades old basic task such a fucking chore now? It's broiling my shit.

I'm giving a free public talk asking 'How certain is certain enough?' at @lshtm.bsky.social on Monday 24th November at 5.30pm, as part of the Global Health Lecture Series. From epidemic response and clinical trials to online misinformation and AI, I'll look at how truth emerges – and why it falters.

Alright here we go: You Love America. I started writing this last year; it had this same title last year; depressingly little had to be changed for it to fit in to this moment. open.substack.com/pub/rottenan...

It just straightforwardly *insane* how much political chatter in the United Kingdom is about the next general election, an event that is a long way in the future, and how basically none of it is about 'uh, this policy agenda doesn't look adequate to the scale of the inherited problem'.

When a typo in your Google search leads to new and exciting philosophical positions

"Progress in theorising means treating our theories as works in progress in need of continuous improvement, and this sometimes also means having to kill one’s darlings." Martijn van Zomeren and @ayseuskul.bsky.social introduce the ERSP special issue on theorizing in social psychology. #SocialPsyc

If more people admitted this, society would be fixed.

We all know this is the root cause of the panic, right?

Just discovered that a grant app is only 7 pages instead of 14 and I'm so happy with relief I feel like dancing a jig.

This is a huge scandal, positively Victorian in its stupidity. Cardiff man still in prison 20 years after stealing mobile phone - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Let's face it, it's not often I get to say nice things about what's happening in criminal justice. But the Sentencing Bill, up before the Commons today, is an exception! It's not perfect, but there's lots to like and the gov should hold firm against pressure to water down proposals. 🧵

I had a great chat with @lisakamen.bsky.social on the Harvesting Happiness podcast about self-actualisation and the iterative process of building your good life. Please check it out. open.spotify.com/episode/1QQw... Lisa's newsletter is also a great mix of deep thoughts & straightforward actions.

Just came across this old post by Scott Alexander on Ethical Review Boards. I'm sure most academics can sympathise with his grievances, and he only had to go through it once. slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/29/m... What struck me was the bit at the end about the costs and inflation of ERB...

This post that a friend of my partner's shared on FB potentially explains the Kristin Chenoweth thing, and is frightening.

Tune in and enjoy “Blueprint for Joy: Planning Happiness and Fulfillment” with our guest @markfabian.bsky.social hosted by Lisa Cypers Kamen. 💡 📻 open.spotify.com/episode/1QQw... #spotify #podcasts #joy #mindfulness #psychology #philosophy #mentalhealth

Quite aside from the "who" question, do any of those potential leadership candidates have a better, more realistic narrative about the UK and how it can be improved, beyond hoping somehow the growth returns if we do more of the same things that haven't delivered this?

This paper grew out of my undergrad seminar: students collaborated on the replication project (Study 2) & all earned co-authorship—it was a rare opportunity for undergrads to engage in journal-quality empirical work in the classroom & it’s a win for open science www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

KIM KITSURAGI - Never fuck with Kim Kitsuragi.

YOU - “Promiscuity -- you mean the *cock carousel*.” (Twirl your hand around in the air.) MEASUREHEAD - YOU USE VULGAR HUMOUR TO DISTRACT YOURSELF FROM THE PAIN THAT WOMEN HAVE CAUSED YOU. IMPOTENT RAGE AT THEIR PROMISCUITY WILL NOT HEAL YOU. AND IT *REPELS* WOMEN.

ICE CREAM MAKER - Turning the crank feels oddly satisfying, like stirring your childhood dreams... In the distance you hear water dripping.

Urge to replay Disco Elysium rising...

When life closes a door, it opens a window. And if the fall is too steep, use the fire exit. Run to the roof -- you always have that airship on the dock. The most important thing is to keep moving. Keep dreaming.

Back from the excellent "Games and game studies beyond postmodernism" conference in Konstanz and felt inspired to blog up some ideas on metamodernism from my book, Beyond Happy: profmarkfabian.substack.com/p/metamodern... Metamodern Meta-Ethics: How we learn to float in the postmodern abyss.

Really enjoyable article from @alessandrabasso.bsky.social and @annaalexandrova.bsky.social on the tensions inherent within the design of measures and indicators. Includes a really useful framework to surface and analyse these tensions. Definitely one that I will be coming back to.

The reason why we can always find contradictions in our political adversaries statements (ex. You are for free speech except when it comes to books about transpersons) is because the many ideologies we adhere to are not by design intellectually coherent. They are meant to be *emotionally* coherent.

If there is such a thing as renewable energy YIMBYism then this is what it looks like: local governments that set the rules of engagement while also working with a huge range of parties to ensure stuff actually gets built Vital (truly) interview on @reneweconomy.com.au:

I had the privilege of speaking on Happier at Work, a top business podcast, about what my book Beyond Happy has to offer. Aofie was a pleasure to talk to because she has a master in self-determination theory and encouraged me to nerd-out. Have a listen! happieratwork.ie/272-beyond-h...

Here's me talking with Australian MP and former professor of Economics Andrew Leigh. Some of the questions were fantastic, like what's one piece of advice I would give my younger self? ApplePodcasts: podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/t... Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/6xW30Uu...

Tag your think-tank friends. I'll take moron

💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯

When I interviewed Rayner for British Vogue, the RW press ran stories on how much her clothes cost. They were loaned! She was doing a photoshoot for Vogue! Classist sexism is hardly a new phenomenon but Rayner’s seniority makes her an unprecedented target by those who want her to “know her place.”

What stage of capitalism is this?

I'm endlessly interested in how quickly senior politicians lose touch with "normal" life. Under the Tories, there was obvs a succession of people from v privileged backgrounds whose normal was often more "minor aristocracy" than "man on the Clapham omnibus" which obvs didn't help at all, but...

Good morning! Happy Friday! Today you can help a refugee student finish his PhD and save endangered heritage! It’ll feel great ☺️ givebutter.com/fgQG3V

Ross Hammond on why we need to get beyond RCT mania and embrace other tools *as well*, notably agent-based models, especially in the context of complex systems (i.e. basically all public policy): www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

It is *WILD* to me that conservative voters think *Blair* is the problem (1997! FFS). His admin barely brought the country back leftward. Absolutely a neoliberal continuity from Thatcher, albeit a mite more technocratic. Compare to left wing voters perception of Thatcher's election.

Went on #uber for 1st time 6 months and the app lied to me 3+ times in <3mins. Low price and lots of cars pictured, then oddly couldn't find a car unless I paid £3 for priority. 2min wait suddenly 8. Why do they think this is a good business model? I'm deleting the app!

this iconic advertising copywriter named Kathy Hepinstall Parks died over the weekend and I wanted to share something from her website I thought Bluesky would like

Sometimes your job is just to keep rare skills alive for when they'll be needed by a future generation, and sometimes it's to make incremental progress towards a future goal. Keeping watch and keeping things alive are honourable tasks.

Big piece on how the UK is not getting the data it needs and how this is affecting policymaking. A key issue seems to be that the shift from surveys to admin data has not worked well as govt departments have not allowed the ONS access to the data it needs on.ft.com/3WSCN6h

The jobs that are most vulnerable to LLMs aren't the jobs that LLMs can do well; they're the jobs that managers neither respect nor understand and will readily accept permission to replace. *waves* www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/ai-killed-...

...exactly the approach Mood and I take in our ASR from a couple of years ago. Would love to see this approach discussed more widely across disciplines. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Good to see growing support for abduction or 'inference to the best explanation', recently by Spirling and Stewart in @thejop.bsky.social. This is... www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....