Hypocrisy perhaps, given I used to teach US politics for a living but: you do not have to pay attention to this stuff and most people would better off ignoring 99% of what goes on there. Australian media‘s obsessive coverage, especially the ABC, does everyone a disservice.

📘New article on the Robodebt case focusing on legal advice. The short version: with pressure to automate and AI-ify everything, legal protections are critical. We cannot assume policymakers and administrators will act in good faith and legal advice should be a "brake" with real force.

call for no more papers

We need to address the real drag on Australia’s productivity: too many people wasting time talking about productivity.

I just like to post these data from time to time to puncture the mythological aura of mid 20th c protests. They were less popular than pretty much any 21st c mass action & people criticizing them used the same lines. Protest is about people coming together, shaping narratives, & building power.

Highly recommend this new article from Daniel and Maria Maley – fascinating use of FOI requests to see if agencies have learned anything from Robodebt.

And here is the third article in our upcoming Robodebt SI, by my wonderful new colleague Sarah Ball. Sarah highlights a "culture of technical rationality" that has hollowed out expertise and ethical capacity in the APS and contributed to the "administrative evil" of Robodebt doi.org/10.1080/1036...

Just out from me and @annekavanagh.bsky.social - The government wants to contain NDIS growth. But ineligible people with disability also need support theconversation.com/the-governme...

I bloğued: Accomplishments orangejuiceandryvita.com/234/accompli... #blog

It would absolutely be Australian media all over if the first we heard of a major regional war between nuclear powers in the subcontinent was a bunch of Australian cricketers getting killed in it

🚨 What can be learned at the intersection of crisis management & administrative burdens? is out now and open access! 🚨 Written with the v much missed @gemcarey.bsky.social. For folks researching crisis management, admin burden, disability & the NDIS. Short 🧵 with link 👇

New article (open access): Linda Botterill and I try to make sense of the strategically ignorant behaviour of senior leaders during Robodebt fiasco. This is part of an upcoming special issue co-edited by Sarah Ball and myself on the administrative and social harms of the scheme.

vaccines are maybe the coolest thing we ever figured out. they are more impressive by a wide margin than the moon landing. We have never done anything better with our capacity for genius

Online radicalisation of elites is a significant and yet poorly understood aspect of contemporary politics.

New Cambridge Element 'Bad Public Policy: Malignity, Volatility and the Inherent Vices of Policymaking' by @howlettm.bsky.social, Ching Leong & @timlegrand.bsky.social out now. Read #OpenAccess here - cup.org/44g9MFT #cambridgeelements #politics

For those keeping track we now have 1 post presidency W for Obama

Time to start shifting international conferences away from the US. There’s plenty of other places with hotels and auditoriums.

Reciprocal tariffs, do it Albo. A can of American soda should cost like $12.

1 more point on literacy: it's a disaster that the inner workings of the US government are incredibly complicated and illogical (filibuster, reconciliation, Electoral College, etc). parliaments work better bc dipshits can pick a party that sounds good and see that legibly translated into outcomes

Losing track of my second gen iPod is one of my biggest (device) regrets. We had perfection and threw it all away for streaming.

The FT continues to be the anglosphere’s only good newspaper

Been noticing this also. Coverage from traditional news is often "look isn't this interesting!" no matter the topic. The best coverage, coming from non-traditional news or independent blogs, gives clear description what is happening, who is doing it, what the implications are. E.g:

Shock Doctrine in the metropole

The NYT and WaPo should be carrying 100 pieces like this.

No, I do not think we should use gAI to build literature reviews, and we definitely shouldn't be teaching faculty how to do this, this is not just some fancy new search engine, what on earth is wrong with you and why are you doing this ffs

When the NTY house style gets embedded so deep you can’t see what is right in front of you.

They say the prices are turning people off smoking, but a cigarette and cup of instant coffee is maybe $2.50 and I'm out here paying 6 bucks for a flat white.

Writing is the good part. Can AI do the dishes? Then I will use AI for that.

Is anyone else just *not interested* in using AI for their writing? All accuracy and morality aside, I just don't want to. I want every last word I put on a page to have flowed out from my own body. Maybe I'm romanticizing it, but I just can't see it any other way.

If I'm interpreting this correctly, NZ Govt has cut all social science and humanities out of their version of ARC Discovery. Backwards and destructive for so many reasons, but I'm sure we will soon see copycat proposals to do the same in Australia. www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

They’ve spent a gajillion dollars on this and the only meaningful impacts have been a) Facebook AI slop and b) screwing up university assessment forever. Big shout out to all the credulous tech journalists for enabling it, thanks guys!

CDs were (and are) the peak way to listen to music. Even aside from the bad economics of streaming, having access to every song ever on your phone is a terrible idea.

Grill’s was doing this when I worked there in *2008*. I suspect strategy of using the fake Cert III to underpay staff has been a not insignificant factor in the expansion of the business.

Emma was one of the kindest and most generous scholars you'd ever meet. A huge loss.

Kingsmillism is a guiding ideology of the Australian academy too - e.g. the fake meritocracy of competitive research funding endlessly rewards seniority.

My university has 16 executives paid more than our state premier :/ www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

I feel like a lot of the discourse about echo chambers and bubbles misses the point of why most people are on social media: to talk to people they like and follow people who post interesting things It's not a bloody debating club

You can be a guy that claims WiFi causes brain cancer and vaccines cause autism and this is how you'll get covered by mainstream press

RFK as HHS Secretary may kill a lot of people, but it will also help public health academics publish more articles, so it's impossible to say whether it's bad or not.

fundamentally this is what Trump administrations are all about: the guys. there will be new guys every week. they will startle you, you'll be astounded by them, and then as quickly as they appeared they will fade into an indistinguishable mass, leaves on the forest floor.

NPM - New Public Memegent?

Echo chambers are good. I don't like seeing posts from dumb idiots who disagree with me. I do like seeing posts from the nice, intelligent and beautiful people who agree with me.

I’ll never stop being mad at how much money we spend propping up this system that people don’t like and mostly don’t use.

My column on why private health was is and will remain a con www.theguardian.com/business/gro...

One for the Narrative Policy Framework heads out there

Just out in Australian Journal of Political Science: new research with @markriboldi.bsky.social and @phoebehayman.bsky.social on the rise of Independent and Minor Party MPs in AJPS. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

I find the pejorative use of ‘echo chamber’ incredibly annoying when there is no social media space that is politically/socially representative and doesn’t skew in some way.