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Brian Weatherson

@bweatherson.bsky.social
3K followers 217 following 2.5K posts

Philosopher at University of Michigan. brian.weatherson.org

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Reposted by Brian Weatherson
Paul Kelleher @paulkelleher.net · 22h
Wow! Here’s audio of Judith Jarvis Thomson introducing the Trolley Problem. Bonus: “The” Trolley Problem probably isn’t what you thought it was. youtu.be/V-CAEhBBTp0?...
youtu.be
The Trolley Problem - Judith Jarvis Thomson (1978)
YouTube video by Philosophy Overdose
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Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 14h
4 years ago, Trump Judge Kathryn Mizelle vacated Biden’s airplane mask mandate: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us... Now, Trump Judge Kathryn Mizelle says vacating rules is likely unconstitutional: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us... I wonder what changed! Grab 1: Then Grab 2: Now
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post malone ergo propter malone @proptermalone.bsky.social · 16h
re: the Todd Achilles campaign, if you want to get involved with sweat or treasure:
achillesforidaho.com
Todd Achilles for Idaho
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Fenner Tanswell @fennert.bsky.social · 21h
Next week Wednesday and Thursday (7th and 8th October) we will be running the event "Mathematical Proof in the age of AI" at the University of Bergen. www4.uib.no/en/research/...
www4.uib.no
Mathematical Proof in the Age of AI
This conference will be about the various implications of AI-based proving and autoformalisation for mathematics. Examples include the recently (claimed) major breakthrough in solving the Navier-Stoke...
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Daniel Drucker @danieldrucker.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
@kmahowald.bsky.social and I wrote this piece on expressives in LLM agents' chains of thought: www.theatlantic.com/technology/2... We look at some surprising, emotionally expressive language that appears in AIs' "thinking" when they're doing math, or hacking. We argue it's likely functional!
theatlantic.com
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Jay Willis @jaywillis.net · 29/09/2026
Wrote about the decline and fall of SCOTUSblog, which used to be the single best resource for Supreme Court stuff, and (thanks to some intervening crimes committed by its co-founder) is now a weird platform for conservative pundits to talk about what a good job the conservative justices are doing
slate.com
It Was the Essential Home of Supreme Court News. Now It’s a Joke. What Happened?
How high-stakes poker brought down a pillar of Supreme Court coverage.
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Sander Verhaegh @sanderverhaegh.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Is US analytic philosophy a product of McCarthyism?
 In this blog ⬇️, I return to the archival material I studied for my book (departmental records, correspondence, newspapers, personnel files) and argue that the answer is ‘no’. Blog dailynous.com/2026/09/29/a... Book academic.oup.com/book/63149
dailynous.com
Analytic Philosophy and McCarthyism: A New Look (guest post) - Daily Nous
To what extent is the “the story about the analytic turn” in philosophy a story about politics? There’s been an increased discussion in recent years […]
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Taniel @taniel.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Today, Marist's midnight poll drop is from Ohio: Sherrod Brown leads Sen. Husted 51% to 43%. Amy Acton leads Vivek Ramaswamy 50% to 44%. A key stat: 50% *strongly disapprove* of Trump, in Ohio. maristpoll.marist.edu/polls/midter...
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Peter Adamson @histphilosophy.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
My article "Women of the world: teaching women thinkers in pre-modern global philosophy" is available open access - it offers a syllabus on the topic with discussion of my thinking in putting it together. Hope it will prove useful! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... #philsky #philosophy
tandfonline.com
Women of the world: teaching women thinkers in pre-modern global philosophy
This paper reflects on experiences teaching courses on women thinkers from antiquity and the medieval period. The discussion is built around a proposed syllabus (similar to one used in teaching at ...
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Mikhail Gorbaechev @mikhailgorbaechev.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
GODDAMN IT THIS IS AMERICA
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m @keptsimple.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I noticed last year that sweetgreen pivoted to MAHA when it started advertising seed oil-free french fries. Going MAHA is what a failing restaurant chain does now to get free advertising.
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Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
@dsquareddigest.bsky.social and I have a @britishacademy.bsky.social paper on how the US is now somehow managing to combine gross overuse of dollar power (e.g. upcoming ICC sanctions) with genial complaisance about the use of crypto to circumvent ordinary controls
thebritishacademy.ac.uk
The US dollar system as a source of international disorder
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Brian Weatherson @bweatherson.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Really surprised at how many responses to this prompt are edited volumes.
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Brian Weatherson @bweatherson.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I've been using this for decades, and I still get thrown by Interfolio's format. Every time I get to this screen, I see the "I accept" with a blue text link underneath it, and think "That's what I need to click on."
Interfolio submit recommendation page
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Brian Weatherson @bweatherson.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
New question about the speech act of listing just dropped.
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Stephen H. Jones @stphnhwrdjns.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Most academics I know were fundamentally anti-Wikipedia for a very long time. Salutary reminder that we get it quite wrong quite often.
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Andy Kaczynski @kfile.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Rachel Maddow shared our story you should too =) bsky.app/profile/madd...
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Peter Adamson @histphilosophy.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
As of today the original #HoPWAG series has reached 500 episodes! Thanks to all who have listened and the many who have supported the series over the years, not least all the interview guests. #philsky #podcast #philosophy
Special logo to celebrate 500 episodes
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Grace Robertson 🏳️‍⚧️ @graceonfootball.com · 27/09/2026
there are people in my life sometimes shocked i've never heard of a meme from some big video game, while they couldn't name a current player in the champions league. neither one of us is out of touch here because both things are popular. that's just modern life.
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Brian Weatherson @bweatherson.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
This is something I’d like to see more studies on. Which fields lead to different AIs making correlated mistakes, and which lead to uncorrelated mistakes? The right way to use AI in these types of fields is so different, but I have no idea which is which.
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James Ryan @jdryan08.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
The combined undergraduate and graduate student populations of all Ivy League schools is about 140,000 students. The CUNY system alone is 250,000.
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Brian Weatherson @bweatherson.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Among other virtues, this is probably more useful for people debating "Can AI think" than any number of social media threads.
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Terrible Maps :bot: @terriblemaps.zpravobot.news.ap.brid.gy · 18/09/2026
Which Australian capital city is closest to you
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Chris Hanretty @chanret.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
If anyone is giving an intro lecture (and it's that time of year) on the importance of clear definition, this In Our Time episode contains a good discussion of what a tree is www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/... yes, really
bbc.co.uk
In Our Time - The Evolution of Trees - BBC Sounds
How trees first arose from small plants and changed the world, and why new trees emerge.
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Brian Weatherson @bweatherson.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Since RAKE and BLUEY haven’t shown up on the list yet, I assume they’ll be 1 and 2 in some order. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
nytimes.com
The 100 Best TV Shows of the 21st Century
More than 500 influential stars, showrunners and other notable names in the world of TV voted on the best series released since Jan. 1, 2000. See what they chose.
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Alison Gopnik @alisongopnik.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I was really happy with this piece - a tribute to the Great and Good John Flavell, a titan in the field who died this year. And also some semi-comic memories of the origins of Theory of Mind in the 80's and 90's. Open access. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
tandfonline.com
The Great and Good John Flavell
John Flavell had a unique combination of greatness and goodness. I outline his unique intellectual imagination and creativity, his ability to achieve theoretical insight through empirical brillianc...
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This American Life @thisamericanlife.org · 23/09/2026
Some NPR podcasts started getting mysterious comments on Spotify. They made no sense to the staff reading them – until someone from a younger generation cracked the code. Hear the story: link.podtrac.com/78g1b584
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Justin Weinberg @dailynous.com · 24/09/2026
A few adjustments still need to be made, but Daily Nous is back online...
dailynous.com
Back - Daily Nous
One day, I’m posting here about how to address AI risks, the next, Daily Nous suffers from a “critical error” and goes down for over […]
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Brian Weatherson @bweatherson.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
@philimprint.bsky.social mentioned! It’s not making a big difference to the download numbers yet, but let’s see what develops.
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Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Finally they're teaching the labour theory of value
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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Wtaf is this question my university just asked me about my project?
Does the project involve any work that could be interpreted as promoting DEIA, climate change research, or non-compliant to any Presidential Executive Orders?
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Michael Caley @michaelcaley.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
this paper highlights how they focused their AI tools on filtering through large and heterogeneous data sets for unexpected patterns and iteratively testing them, in concert with human researchers this is very much "what if we used new technology for good" rather than "machine god tonite queen?"
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Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
As with the University of Austin, the problem is that really quite early on, someone is likely to try the "anti-woke, uncancellable, maximally truth seeking" bullshit on somebody who has parents who are able to hire a lawyer.
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Ran Blekhman @blekhman.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
We have to stop using "paper count" as a useful scientific metric. More writing output no longer means more knowledge gained www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...
washingtonpost.com
One professor’s AI-assisted output: 200 papers and 14 books this year
An online platform removed 257 papers written or co-written by the University of Chicago’s Nicholas Polson after other academics raised questions.
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Albert Burneko @albertburneko.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
wow this is hell
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arr @arr.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
This makes me hopeful. This number is aspirational but nowhere near out of reach: a working professional could realistically cash out their 401k and buy off a public official. Owning a senator is more attainable for most Americans than home ownership.
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H.K. Andersen @hkandersen.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Devastating for Canadian programs too, which also require TOEFL or IELTS. Grad faculty: Talk to admissions, at the University level (often where the requirement is enforced), before deadlines. It would be deeply wrong to just deny Iranians admission when they can't access the test #philsky #philsci
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Peter Adamson @histphilosophy.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Hello from Toronto, where HoPWaG co-author Jonardon Ganeri brought me to this "paraconsistent cafe", as he put it. #philsky #impossibleworlds
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Sander Verhaegh @sanderverhaegh.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Busted!
"100% of this text is AI" score on the first lines of Wittgenstein's Tractatus (Pangram)
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Brian Weatherson @bweatherson.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Interesting that they don't treat NC, GA, or MN (despite worrying polls) as tossup.
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Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Do you know the origin story of that name? It's hilarious. Started off fairly obviously - Third Bank (of Cincinnati) was merging with Fifth Bank (ditto). But one of the directors thought that if they called it "Third Fifth" it would sound like the bank you went to after three bottles of whiskey
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Brian Weatherson @bweatherson.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
This bank has lots of branches conveniently located near me, but I've never used them because I didn't want to think about the messed up name. Now it's the name of the ballpark. I think I'm just going to call it "Tiger Stadium", and annoy everyone.
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Mark Eli Kalderon @markelikalderon.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
More seriously, while one might fruitfully devise a method to answer a determinate question prompted by the circumstances that gave rise to it, I am very skeptical about a general method applicable in all circumstances. Unfortunately, many metaphilosophical prescriptions take just this form
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Grace Robertson 🏳️‍⚧️ @graceonfootball.com · 20/09/2026
talk about his methods being out of date, he still uses a printer www.bbc.co.uk/sport/footba...
bbc.co.uk
Jose Mourinho prints out Atletico Madrid 'red card' incidents after Real Madrid lose derby
Real Madrid manager Jose Mourinho prints out screenshots displaying two incidents he believes should have resulted in Atletico Madrid dismissals.
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Matt Hodges @matthodges.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Very quick and dirty Jev test for hiring bias. One resume for a Wall Street job; asked whether the applicant should get a first-round interview. 76 evaluations, changing only the first name. 19 of each: White-associated men/women, Black-associated men/women. console.typesafe.ai/playground?s...
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Brian Weatherson @bweatherson.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
This is a good thread and job candidates should read it. My tl;dr summary is 1. Most research statements are too detailed. 2. Most teaching statements aren’t detailed enough.
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Brian Weatherson @bweatherson.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
The content here is pretty plausible. But Claude's verbal distinctiveness seems to be getting even more pronounced over time.
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Philip Bump @pbump.com · 19/09/2026
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Daniel Stoljar @danielstoljar.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Philosophy jobs at ANU! #PhilJobs #philsky philjobs.org/job/show/32149
philjobs.org
Lecturer in Philosophy (Continuing - 2 positions), Australian National University - PhilJobs:JFP Lecturer in Philosophy (Continuing - 2 positions), Australian National University
An international database of jobs for philosophers
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Mark Eli Kalderon @markelikalderon.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Apparently it is no longer possible to extoll the virtues of one's favored approach to philosophy without shitting on others MAGA level trolling
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