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Barry Lam

@hiphination.bsky.social
2.1K followers 581 following 768 posts

Philosophy professor at UCR. Podcast at Slate. Associate director at Marc Sanders Foundation. hiphination.org

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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 4h
I was interviewed longform about the ideas expressed in the Boston Globe piece, so I elaborate, with stories, evidence, and charitable reconstruction of why administrators feel the need to hire more of them, and contract more software. I also introduce the "assessment-industrial complex."
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I don’t know why but for some reason, my YouTube algorithm today thinks that I want to see a jiujitsu fighter beat up a line of frat boys.
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Malcolm Gladwell observes that city of Los Angeles has the same population as Berlin but Berlin has >18,000 police officers and Los Angeles has 8,500. But Los Angeles already spends double per capita on its police department as Berlin. If LA staffed LAPD at Berlin levels, it’d bankrupt the city.
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Just like that I suddenly have a free ticket to My Chemical Romance at the Hollywood Bowl. It was supposed to be a family trip, but the teenager is now out. Apparently, “it’s a concept album about the progression of cancer from diagnosis to death” wasn’t the winning pitch I thought it was.
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Reposted by Barry Lam
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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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
If you decide that you don’t want your affluent kids segregated from poor kids, because you think they’ll make friends and learn a lot by being around all kinds of kids, people on the internet will accuse you of “using poor kids for the moral development of your rich kids.”
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
‪None of us know the right level of deprivation of good things we can financially provide for our children that is ideal for their moral development. We know there is a cutoff that is abusive, and another one that is corrupting. But everywhere in between is a muddled mess.‬
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
This thread 100%, and not just because I was also born in 1979.
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
My niche take of the day is that pocket screw jigs ruined craftsmanship in home carpentry. I’m surprised the New Yorker turned down this pitch.
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Reposted by Barry Lam
Lindsay Brainard @lindsaybrainard.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
... Are you ready for it? The Philosophy of Taylor Swift is out next week! 🥰 Now available for preorder: a.co/d/02Yq3X9P
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Gotta say I’m in my late 40s and pretty good at staying on top of the news, but I don’t remember any midterm conventions.
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
That's all right, no one ever notices the asian dude in the background anyways.
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Oracle, Workday, and PeopleSoft are the secret robber barons of the new guilded age, but we won’t have railroads and skyscrapers to show for it in a hundred years. In fact, we’ll have nothing as their garbage dissolves into cyberspace.
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Finally found a use for this meme.
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
‪Please every academic, let the world know, has ordering books, distributing a syllabus, advising a student club, th most basic administrative tasks, become more or less efficient in the era of millions spent on software and administrators? globecollegetown.substack.com/p/higher-ed-...
globecollegetown.substack.com
College campuses need to be liberated from their administrators
Higher ed is being strangled by absurd and costly rules. What message is that sending to students?
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
I wrote for the Boston Globe about the scandalous higher-ed spending on digital infrastructure that has increased inefficiency. globecollegetown.substack.com/p/higher-ed-...
globecollegetown.substack.com
College campuses need to be liberated from their administrators
Higher ed is being strangled by absurd and costly rules. What message is that sending to students?
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Reposted by Barry Lam
Shen-yi Liao 廖顯禕 @liao.shen-yi.org · 09/09/2026
It's scandalous that for-profit companies like SpringerNature and Elsevier rent-seek from academic publishing and profit off of our labor. I'm also convinced by @hiphination.bsky.social that it's just as scandalous that for-profit digital infrastructure companies do the same in higher education.
globecollegetown.substack.com
College campuses need to be liberated from their administrators
Higher ed is being strangled by absurd and costly rules. What message is that sending to students?
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
First Dolly, then Tim Curry, and now the voice of Optimus Prime. Not a good week for 80s kids.
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
HR trainings be like: You must score 90 or above to pass this training. (56 min to go). What is the best reason not to bully your co-workers? a) good reason 1 b) good reason 2 c) good reason 3
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Just imagining what it’s like to be journeymen mixed doubles players making $100,000 a year hoping to make it $120,000 and seeing Serena Williams and Carlos Alcaraz across the net from you in Round 1.
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
What if, a philosophy journal will publish your AI-written article, but only in Gibberlink?
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
The name “Bruce” peaked in 1952 and declined since; it is well outside the top 500 baby names. Meanwhile, many old names for girls like “Sophia” swung back to #1 for Gen Zers. I think it’d be great to see “Bruce” be the name of a new generation. Any other old-timey names due for a comeback?
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Wrote up my last skeet idea into a short post. hiphination.substack.com/p/what-if-th...
hiphination.substack.com
What if the Culture Wars had the Ethics of Actual War?
Proportionality, Necessity, and Legitimate Targets
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
I’m starting to think the culture wars could use some ethics of actual wars. A little proportionality and necessity, distinctions between legitimate and illegitimate targets, and defensive versus punitive versus aggressive aims…maybe people will be more responsible.
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Delta faucets makes completely nonstandard sizes and threads of nuts and bolts so that a $2 repair is impossible to make. You have to buy a $50 nut from Delta’s website or buy a brand new $150 faucet. Is there a kind of capitalism I can support that says that this is bad?
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
I am currently watching both Suits and Reacher. Am I basic?
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Maybe basing hiring policy and decisions in academia on the basis of social media trends was part of the problem and also not part of the solution.
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
I taught at Vassar 2006-2022, was chair in 2020-2022. My stories put Tyler Austin Harper’s to shame, and every one of my colleagues would nod in agreement. Those were wild times.
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
A decade of austerity measures at SLACs eased in 2020 because of George Floyd. But the top-down way admin implemented hiring forced the hand of understaffed, desperate departments. Candidates had to be everything, not just good biologists or historians. They had to be saviors. It was driven by admin
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
I spoked to Heather Bigley of BYU Radio about the 1960 film Spartacus, and concluded that the message of the film is that the vicious are incapable of understanding the virtuous. The motivations of the latter are alien to the former. open.spotify.com/episode/6V0k...
open.spotify.com
Spartacus: Vicious v Virtuous
Voiceover: Movies that Move Us · Episode
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
Watching Star Trek TNG over again, with my 13yr old. I think this show fucked up my generation because it convinced us that villains tend to concede when Picard points out the moral consequences of their plans, and their unforeseen impact on other people’s rights and dignity.
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
I had a dream that Alex Rails was hired as The Ethicist at the New York Times and I was his/her editor.
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Hey @dieworkwear.bsky.social, do men wear v-neck tshirts any more or was that only a 2010s thing. I used to have nothing but v-necks and I noticed that I haven’t worn won for years, and when I go t-shirt shopping there isn’t one in sight at the department stores.
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Everyone is talking about how men don’t approach women romantically anymore but they seems to have no problem approaching me about their religion, pest control, and solar panels and I think my rejection are much angrier and damaging to their egos.
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
Maybe from now on there should be two Third Place matches.
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
The funny thing about Asian dudes is that, since we’ve been the most populous human beings on the planet for a long time, we’ve been quietly in the background of everything.
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
The culture warriors were so neurotic about casting they allowed Nolan to sneak in his real revisionary message, which is about what happens to a man and his culture when he commits atrocities in war.
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
This piece hits the nail on its head. Young people have to purchase what a functional society should offer for free. open.substack.com/pub/becoming...
open.substack.com
Young adults are poor despite every metric which suggests otherwise
Society burned through social capital and replaced it with ruinous private expenditure
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
I'm imagining the tens of thousands of on duty E7s and O4s and above, people used to being called "Major," "Captain" and "Colonel" and "General", being forced to line up for mandatory testosterone tests, and then having their manhood questioned, and the results listed on their performance review.
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Why don’t legacy media outlets create a way to pay $.25 for access to a single paywalled article that is essentially zero friction, a double tap Apple Pay that doesn’t even take you away from the page?
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
I'm all for pinning this problem on DOGE, Trump, Taco Bell, big ag. But I just gotta say, is there medically or epidemiologically significant distinction between "ordinary" and "explosive" diarrhea?
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
I thought Project Hail Mary was absolutely wonderful. But critics who dislike it cite many space/alien movies I haven't seen that are better than it, as evidence it is derivative. Might too much knowledge of film history sometimes detract from the quality of film criticism?
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
Keep thinking about how Scholastic made JK Rowling change “Philosopher’s Stone” to “Sorcerer’s Stone” because the former could never be marketed in America. From now on Hi-Phi Nation is a show where sorcery and reality meet.
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
I just saw a question on social media asking men over 45 what their biggest regret in life was, as advice for younger men. I think my honest answer is, getting a smart phone in 2016.
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Reposted by Barry Lam
Existential Comics @existentialcomics.com · 08/07/2026
I spoke to Mitch McConnell for 20 minutes this morning. He told me that he had verified the verification principle, but out of respect for his family's privacy I can't say how.
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Deborah Mower's first public piece, about civil engagement. Mower tried all of the techniques of constructive engagement with her neighbor, who hates her dog. Instead of talking it out, they went to a lawyer, who issued a cease a desist letter. What is the lesson? theconversation.com/civility-req...
theconversation.com
Civility requires the willingness to engage – a dispute with a neighbor revealed how much motivation matters
An ethicist who studies disagreement and civility assumed she could handle a neighborly dispute – until the neighbor refused to even interact with her.
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
The person in Maine Democratic politics guaranteed with no history of abusive behavior toward women is Natasha Irving. lincolncountydemocrats.com/natasha-irvi...
lincolncountydemocrats.com
Natasha Irving - Candidate for District Attorney
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
What is the solution to cost-free acts of immorality and stupidity? Like when an ICE-agent violates civil rights and taxpayers payout the lawsuit, or Uni administrators bankrupt an institution and it closes but they still get their contractual payout and benefits?
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
Journalism is very valuable data. AI companies should be paying a premium for it. If they do not, journalism venues should data-poison the well, in a way that does not affect readers and watchers, but does the training models.
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Barry Lam @hiphination.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
The tech companies started monopolizing pathways to media, then monopolized advertising revenue, and have now monopolized the flow of investment capital. They can now pick winners and losers in media, business, even education.
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