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Bijan Parsia

@bparsia.bsky.social
1.1K followers 2.8K following 6.9K posts

I am a Prof of Comp Sci at Uni of Manchester, UK. UCU NEC disabled member rep (2023-24). UCUCommons. All posts are my own behalf alone. He/him/they.

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Reposted by Bijan Parsia
University and College Union (UCU) @ucu.org.uk · 3h
“We will not stand for it silently. We will keep fighting.” Hundreds gathered at yesterday’s University of Nottingham rally in solidarity with UCU members fighting devastating job and course cuts. From Monday, members begin long-term strike action. Show your support. Stand with Nottingham UCU.
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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 4h
Lol time.com/article/2026...
The one who taught at MIT?

I have the highest of IQs. I have the highest. I'm fine, and I understand that stuff. You know, my uncle was at MIT for 41 years, and you know, I'm a—I believe in genetics, frankly, and I understand. I understand it much more than I think any president would, because I do have an ability on this. I have an ability on those things that were the new frontiers.
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Bijan Parsia @bparsia.bsky.social · 4h
God I love this so much.
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old roadside pics @roadside.xor.blue · 23h
leaning tower of pizza, quincy, massachusetts, 1984
leaning tower of pizza, quincy, massachusetts, 1984
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Lindsay Beyerstein @beyerstein.bsky.social · 14h
The only refugees we let in were white South Africans fleeing an imaginary genocide.
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Michelle @michelleroy78.bsky.social · 23h
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Lisa Rullsenberg @rullsenberg.bsky.social · 21h
Very long day supporting @uonucu.bsky.social strike action but great collective energy from colleagues and students and lovely UCU Vice-president @markpendleton.bsky.social (huge props too @dyfrigjones.bsky.social for fitting in busy schedule to come and speak in support).
Lisa and Mark in front of one of our Nottingham UCU bannersLisa at home modelling UCU Education tee and #MeMadeCrochet skirt
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Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social · 23h
😂 Trumpers now investigating whether Watergate investigation was also "weaponization"
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Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 23h
If I went to Switzerland and won a Swiss watch precision contest, I would literally never talk about anything else
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public health guy @publichealthguy1.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
i genuinely forgot how bad this was
buzzfeednews.com
Nobody Believed Neil deGrasse Tyson's First Accuser. Now There Are Three More.
No one believed Tchiya Amet when she said Tyson had raped her in the 1980s. Now, three other women tell BuzzFeed News that he harassed them, including one who’s sharing her story publicly for the firs...
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Nate O @nateo.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
I may be biased on excluding migrants based on 'social difference' since this reason was given for forbidding Jews from entering the US and UK during WWII (bunch of strange commies that will undermine the nation from within), so perhaps this rhetorical strategy is a stalking horse for something else
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noam @noamchompers.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
one more provocative claim i would make (though not as anything like an expert like claire, just in my capacity as a guy with opinions) is that empathy can itself be a motivator for evil acts
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Dan Kaszeta FRHistS @dankaszeta.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
The US government sabotaging the OPCW is very bad.
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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 01/10/2026
"I personally absolutely do upgrade my assessment of someone's AI alignment qualifications if I find out they go to RMN," by which username John Wentworth appears to mean Red Means No, a "consensual non-consent event" which simulates sexual assault. This is weird stuff, man!
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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 01/10/2026
i do not want people like this in my professional network, personally
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Bijan Parsia @bparsia.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Or in any of my networks to be honest.
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Anton Hur @antonhur.com · 01/10/2026
They did not even refund her tuition!!!
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Lindsay Beyerstein @beyerstein.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Cornell is thinking: If we refund Jane Doe's tuition every girl who got gang raped at our school is going to want a refund and who can afford that?
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Plashing Vole @plashingvole.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
This week I would also have been teaching dialect history and representing dialect on the page with my esteemed linguistics colleague, but Round the Wrekin got dumped in favour of generic skills classes. Sigh.
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Bijan Parsia @bparsia.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I certainly don’t mind these bullet points. Some notable omissions and some worrying fine print. But it’d be a shift in part from Starmerism.
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Bijan Parsia @bparsia.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
It’s useful to remember that sometimes an a hominem argument is correct and useful. Impeaching the witness is maybe the fancy name. I don’t know there’s a formal name for the variant of appeal to authority/anti impeachment/just debate me bro/don’t be emotional line.
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lastpositivist.bsky.social @lastpositivist.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Verificationism is itself verifiable.
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Adrienne @adrienneleigh.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
i just saw an overwrought blog post called, and i am not kidding, "The Literary Sex Crimes of T. Kingfisher" @tkingfisher.com
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Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
The funniest thing about the Schmitt rake stomp is that if it'd been a Dem we'd have a week of think pieces about how Dems lack of hoops literacy was alienating them from real America.
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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 29/09/2026
Damn
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Jessica Price @delafina777.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
just a reminder that a whole lot of prominent center-left men went to fucking Epstein for advice about what to do about the #MeToo movement, like, in case you were wondering why 2 seconds after it started the media was like HAS IT GONE TOO FAR???
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Anne Helen Petersen @annehelen.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
This is *the* piece. Kate Manne, professor of philosophy at Cornell, speaks truth to the totality of failures at the university — and why students protesting the war in Gaza have faced far harsher consequences than any of the Cornell 7: www.thecut.com/article/what...
thecut.com
What It Feels Like at Cornell Right Now
As a professor at the Ivy League school, Kate Manne has known many, many victims. There’s a palpable feeling on campus, she writes, that this is big.
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Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
😂😂
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Michael Balazo @mbalazo.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
“Hello, police? I’d like to report a slightly sad story.”
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Bijan Parsia @bparsia.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Whenever I have someone confidently explain something to them which they know I am more expert in I wish there were an antimansplaining charity I could donate to. I don’t know how it’d work but I imagine women could submit a clip or a description and get a gift basket.
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Bijan Parsia @bparsia.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Is it bad to feel impending burn out on [checks notes] the second day of term?
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Lindsey Boylan @lindseyboylan.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
This man is a monster. He seeks out women survivors because he hates them. And he hates them because he hates himself. He has harassed me and other women survivors many times over the years. It must end. He should never have a job anywhere.
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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
strongly agreed. fines and criminal penalties should not merely communicate a finger wag but actually change the strategic situation of a would-be white collar criminal
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Bijan Parsia @bparsia.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I really hate it when people in the grip of a theory condescend to me about things who’d I have direct contradictory evidence that they know they don’t have.
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Bijan Parsia @bparsia.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
TIL that if you send an invite from inside your bookings page, it does NOT use your email account so you have no record of that message. It doesn't remember who booked. So you're off to reconstruct the work you thought you avoided. Yay Microsoft. Sucking since forever.
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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
'Duncan Ivison, vice-chancellor of the University of Manchester, summed up the situation at a morning panel organised by the Higher Education Policy Institute. He said the government is failing to ask the “first order” questions about universities'. (RPN Playbook on the Labour Conference)
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Charlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Having real #MeToo flashbacks today, what with various news stories going around, and thinking a lot about how women were encouraged to rip themselves open and show off our trauma, in all its Technicolor glory, so that men might begin to believe us
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Robert Evans (the Only Robert Evans) @iwriteok.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Not much on this yet, but I certainly hope this reporting proves accurate.
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Dr Keith Wilson 💭 @keithwilson.eu · 29/09/2026
Is the business profitable? No It’s on the road to profitability though, right? Also no But it will be extremely beneficial for the future of humanity? It might kill us all #OpenAI #GenAI #AIHype
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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
'Hub campuses have lots to offer Western universities seeking to establish a foothold in Asia.' Or, are they perhaps predominantly snake oil vanity projects inimical to the flourishing of their home institutions?
timeshighereducation.com
Are international hubs the key to a flourishing branch campus?
A handful of high-profile developments purpose-built for global outposts have sprung up across Asia in the past two decades, promising vibrant, collaborative environments, sometimes at little cost. Bu...
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Atul Haria (immigrant) @atulharia.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
"The UK devotes a smaller percentage of its GDP to state pensions and pensioner benefits than most other advanced economies." commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-bri...
commonslibrary.parliament.uk
Pensions: international comparisons
A look at how UK pensions compare with those in other countries. The note compares the UK state pension with similar systems in Europe and goes on to look more broadly at the structural differences in...
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Bijan Parsia @bparsia.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
This is key. The triple lock is presented as this big blocking millstone but it’s also very miserly. I could wish that old folks (of which I am becoming) would vote for better policies across the board (Brexit stands out) but state pensions are a huge poverty reduction and economic stimulus thing
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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
“Everything that we do to try and help the sector is undermined by another initiative that takes away the funding that has been provided, so I think we need stability and clarity from the government on how we support our higher education system.” (Nishan Canagarajah)
timeshighereducation.com
UK HE ‘needs to get its credibility back’, Labour conference hears
Scandals about franchised provision have undermined the sector, and universities need to ensure failings are not repeated, vice-chancellors say
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Bijan Parsia @bparsia.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Facebook has of course been really awful for years. Like it’s one job is to keep me connected with my friends and it’s super poor at that. This year for the first time it so hid my birthday I got like 1 person. Usually it’s in the 40s Now I’m not a big birthday person but it was cute.
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Spokane Rising @spokanerising.com · 29/09/2026
Send Stephen Miller to The Hague.
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Ruth! @ruthholliday.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Very proud of UCU and 11 sister unions for boycotting #LabourWomensConference. It’s not a women’s conference if some women are excluded.
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Bijan Parsia @bparsia.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
So dumb.
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Bijan Parsia @bparsia.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Oh well, 60 days. No worries then. (I mean I’m not a big punitive punishment guy but wtf.)
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Urvi @theurv.com · 28/09/2026
There were more men in a single documented gang rape at one school than the number of competitive trans athletes nationally. But I’ve heard a lot more politicians being asked about protecting girls from one of these scenarios and not another… I’ll let you guess which is which.
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Maybe a little bit of cancel culture would be good?
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