Patrick De Oliveira @plso.bsky.social · 11hthe transformation of learning institutions into lifestyle providers, etc. And, of course, the crisis is further exacerbated by the feckless university leaders (with some noble exceptions), who have made it very clear that large remuneration packages certainly don't buy courage and integrity. 2203
Patrick De Oliveira @plso.bsky.social · 11hbut also due to the even weaker institutional position universities now find themselves in—caused by the neoliberal-driven austerity that long preceded the current administration's tactics of holding funding hostage, the massive campaign from the right to delegitimize higher ed, .... 1204
Patrick De Oliveira @plso.bsky.social · 11hAcademic freedom in the U.S. has arguably reached a new nadir—maybe worse than the 50s. This is not only due to the scale and range of the assault on higher ed, which is targeting everything (individuals' views on Gaza, DEI initiatives, the curriculum, collaborative research with other countries)... 45432
Patrick De Oliveira @plso.bsky.social · 16hThe Daily put out some nice @rlspang.bsky.social bait this weekend! www.nytimes.com/2026/10/04/p...nytimes.comThe Restaurant Industry Is Broken. Can It Be Fixed?The creative — and sometimes radical — solutions that restaurant owners are trying to address an industry in crisis. 010
Patrick De Oliveira @plso.bsky.social · 04/10/2026This is about a catastrophic of an outcome one could have—bar Bolsonaro taking it in the first round. Senate and governorships swept by the far right. Hard to see a path for Lula to overcome the gap with Bolsonaro in the run-off... 151
Reposted by Patrick De OliveiraEmily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 30/09/2026There's a long discussion going on in my mentions about whether or not "LLMs" (quotes explained in a sec) apparently getting mostly* correct answers to arithmetic questions is "inconsistent" with the stochastic parrots metaphor. >> 411729
Patrick De Oliveira @plso.bsky.social · 30/09/2026"Concerns about LLMs are overrated. You can just evaluate students with 45-minute oral assessments." Says the elite SLAC professor who on average has 14 students per semester. 001
Patrick De Oliveira @plso.bsky.social · 28/09/2026Combining a Brazil-rich background with a midwestern-middle class one means that while you just assume all homes should come with a cleaner, ironically, now that you can occasionally afford one, your self-consciousness paralyzes you from hiring them unless you get the house clean for when they come. 000
Patrick De Oliveira @plso.bsky.social · 28/09/2026Tech bros trying to "fix" society.static.klipy.comPat A Mat: Pat's Hammering TroublesALT: Pat A Mat: Pat's Hammering Troubles 020
Reposted by Patrick De OliveiraPatrick De Oliveira @plso.bsky.social · 25/09/2026Imagine the @nytimes.com in the late 1940s getting a sit down interview with Oppenheimer and centering the discussion on his fondness for porkpie hats. (To be fair to Oppenheimer, he was a much clearer ethical figure than Zuckerberg will ever be.) 001
Patrick De Oliveira @plso.bsky.social · 25/09/2026Imagine the @nytimes.com in the late 1940s getting a sit down interview with Oppenheimer and centering the discussion on his fondness for porkpie hats. (To be fair to Oppenheimer, he was a much clearer ethical figure than Zuckerberg will ever be.) 001
Patrick De Oliveira @plso.bsky.social · 25/09/2026Which is why you get absurd proposals (like my own), where you're trying to pitch a bunch of unnecessary/unrealistic deliverables for a year-long fellowship offering 40k. I'd be thrilled if I just got half of that for a course buyout and some money to spend a couple of months in the archives. 020
Patrick De Oliveira @plso.bsky.social · 25/09/2026A framework in which no one ends up getting sustained time to dedicate to a in-depth monograph. So instead we get a a few articles that get recycled, another mediocre edited collection, and a website whose link is dead 6 months after the funding ended. 120
Patrick De Oliveira @plso.bsky.social · 25/09/2026And ERC grants are largely geared toward collaborative work, which, as we know, is not especially embedded as a practice in the humanities. So then we get these short-term research groups. 120
Patrick De Oliveira @plso.bsky.social · 25/09/2026As in even if you get an individual external fellowship it can be a challenge to use that for course buyouts, since they don't end up counting toward the institutional funding data (and the uni doesn't get to reap the "overhead costs") 110
Patrick De Oliveira @plso.bsky.social · 25/09/2026Also true in the European ecosystem (perhaps even more so, since that approach has been dominant here for even longer). ERC grants or bust, basically. 130
Patrick De Oliveira @plso.bsky.social · 24/09/2026The boring adage goes if you're not a liberal at 20 you have no heart, if you're not a conservative at 40 you have no head. But I'm fascinated by how so many of my friends/colleagues (and myself!) have been steadily moving to the left as they age. Contrast that with the younglings' reactionary turn. 001
Patrick De Oliveira @plso.bsky.social · 22/09/2026Odds that he's divorced / soon-to-be divorced? 0110
Patrick De Oliveira @plso.bsky.social · 22/09/2026You know it's bleak when those seeking to be more Catholic than the pope are steering what remains of the education commons into ruins. 010
Patrick De Oliveira @plso.bsky.social · 22/09/2026As universities become obsolete institutions by embracing their transformation into meaningless credential factories disguised (at best) as utilitarian jobs training, it is worth rescuing an observation made by the supreme utilitarian, John Stuart Mill (who also happened to be rector of St Andrews): 130
Patrick De Oliveira @plso.bsky.social · 22/09/2026I'm curious. Do people know what university's allocate toward marketing on average in their operating budget? 130
Patrick De Oliveira @plso.bsky.social · 22/09/2026Ah yes. Another day experimenting with ChatGPT for research, another day being pinpointed to a neonazi website as a trusted source. 120
Patrick De Oliveira @plso.bsky.social · 20/09/2026Yung Lean and every single kid in the original would've beat the living crap out of these people (the tech overlords and the losers who think this kind of AI cosslop™ is cool). www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6_m...youtube.comGENER8ION - STORM starring Yung LeanYouTube video by GENER8ION 000
Patrick De Oliveira @plso.bsky.social · 14/09/2026For a class on "Critical Thinking." Speaking of which... are there any good histories out there of "critical thinking" (as a concept, as a method, as a educational policy goal, etc)? 000
Patrick De Oliveira @plso.bsky.social · 14/09/2026Teaching MBA students sure produces some weird ass artifacts 110
Reposted by Patrick De OliveiraMark Bray @mark-bray.bsky.social · 09/09/2026Wrote a short weird little book about far-right death threats against me + my fam, fleeing our home, Trumpism, + my experience as a Jew amidst the resurgence of fascism + genocide in Gaza Coming January 2027 from @melvillehouse.bsky.social mhpbooks.com/books/unpunc... #NoPasarán #FreePalestine 721974
Reposted by Patrick De OliveiraGremliny Nussboo @emilynussbaum.bsky.social · 10/03/2026Most accurate portrait of modern culture currently available 277169094166
Patrick De Oliveira @plso.bsky.social · 03/09/2026Boy, Harvard leadership sure is trying to devalue a real education and embarrass the university as much as possible, isn't it? www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...thecrimson.comHarvard Humanities Faculty Push Back on Deming’s Call for AI Use in Writing Courses | The Harvard CrimsonHarvard faculty in the humanities and social sciences expressed broad concern over an email Harvard College Dean David J. Deming sent students Wednesday suggesting that artificial intelligence be inte... 000
Patrick De Oliveira @plso.bsky.social · 03/09/2026Something that has seemed pretty evident for a while, but having a "Nobel Prize"-winning economist formalize it is 🧨 🧨 🧨 🧨 🧨 010
Patrick De Oliveira @plso.bsky.social · 03/09/2026Forthcoming Acemoglu: CEOs with business degrees lead to lower wages and suppression of the labor share, while not actually producing higher output. In short, rent-extraction for shareholders, rather than real value creation. www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...aeaweb.orgEclipse of Rent-Sharing: The Effects of Managers’ Business Education on Wages and the Labor Share in the US and Denmark(Forthcoming Article) - We provide evidence that CEOs with a business degree reduce wages and the labor share in the US and Denmark. Firms appointing business managers are not on differential trends a... 110
Patrick De Oliveira @plso.bsky.social · 31/08/2026That baby has better balance than a mountain goat. 160
Patrick De Oliveira @plso.bsky.social · 30/08/2026static.klipy.comMando: This Is The WayALT: Mando: This Is The Way 020
Patrick De Oliveira @plso.bsky.social · 28/08/2026I'm gonna go ahead and assume there was a whole lot of lead in the Warmke household tap water. #IYKYK 000
Patrick De Oliveira @plso.bsky.social · 28/08/2026Found this amongst my tabs and, um, inflation since 1986 has risen more than 200%, so this is basically the equivalent to a 70% budgetary cut. But yeah, let's spend all the moneys on data centers. 0159
Reposted by Patrick De OliveiraStacy Fahrenthold @sfahrenthold.bsky.social · 26/08/2026AHA hired a lobbying firm with an extensive client list in Israel's occupations. And asked them how to squash advocacy by its own members working in/on the Middle East. It's bad. But It's clockable bc this is also what universities also do to crush dissent, discipline faculty in contested fields. 23912
Patrick De Oliveira @plso.bsky.social · 26/08/2026Kind of hilarious that as Americans face an epidemic of uncontrollable explosive shits due to the Trump administration slashing health standards, that same administration still manages to surge the price of toilet paper. 021
Patrick De Oliveira @plso.bsky.social · 23/08/2026Numerous cases of faculty losing their jobs for expressing opposition to the genocide in Gaza, for teaching/researching about gender, etc., and the first letter dude chooses to sign is the one expressing support for the self-proclaimed racist who thinks Black people shouldn't be in academia.static.klipy.comBatman Thinking: Interesting...ALT: Batman Thinking: Interesting... 2143
Patrick De Oliveira @plso.bsky.social · 21/08/2026For me any reference to "singularity" just brings to mind the image of infinite wanking gestures. 001
Patrick De Oliveira @plso.bsky.social · 20/08/2026This is a must read: newsletter.thedriftmag.com/p/racism-and...newsletter.thedriftmag.comRacism and labor at Bates: the other side of the storyAndrew Baker responds to Tyler Austin Harper 000
Patrick De Oliveira @plso.bsky.social · 20/08/2026And not at all surprising that many of those same people stand to gain $$$ by contorting themselves in that manner. 000
Patrick De Oliveira @plso.bsky.social · 20/08/2026"LLMs don't make students dumb. The problem is flawed assessments/lack of AI literacy/or any explanation that would let AI companies off the hook to justify partnerships with them and their full incorporation into the educational ecosystem." 100
Patrick De Oliveira @plso.bsky.social · 20/08/2026Many in the LLMs and education discourse seem to be contorting themselves in a similar way to people in the gun and violence discourse. "Guns don't kill people. The problem is bad people/bad training/or any explanation that would let manufacturers off the hook to avoid stricter regulations." 210