Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 16h"In the absence of a proper system of income tax to put a safety net under society, it was left to wealthy individuals to plug the gaps in society with some of their riches." The 18th and 19th century, when the rich famously took good, loving care of the poor 010
Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 21hHow accurate is Pangram? I've now found three papers - from the same author - all around genAI and social science/the humanities that seem to be entirely written by AI (according to Pangram), and published in quite good journals. Without any AI declaration, too! 000
Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 06/10/2026an unexpected defense of AI summaries of student readings 010
Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 05/10/2026They don’t offer complimentary copies for authors?! 120
Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 05/10/2026which is a thing JRM says explicitly in his (otherwise awful) youtube video, right around the time he also goes on about multiculturalism being bad etc. Like, where is the leftist/Labour politician saying, out loud, that the multicultural, multi-ethnic society is a good thing? 000
Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 05/10/2026I had this discussion with various people a few weeks ago (and then it was over the youtube-videos he was doing), but I think this is basically because of the *abject failure* of some politicians to take some very basic stands, e.g. say out loud that you can be non-white and English 100
Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 02/10/2026I’m struggling to see a single positive use-case for this to be quite honest. Significant regulation is needed imo 040
Reposted by Rasmus BirkRoger @arbejdsmyren.bsky.social · 02/10/2026In Denmark a scientist plotted data and research findings into Claude, only to see Anthropic publish the findings as something the LLM had conjured up on its own. The theft of one scientist’s data and work translates into false claims about the model’s ability to generate research #ai #eupol 6237124
Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 01/10/2026University administrators when they see the yearly intake:static.klipy.comRookie Numbers Meme from The Wolf of Wall StreetALT: Rookie Numbers Meme from The Wolf of Wall Street 000
Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 30/09/2026Not enough of a fuss is made about Jean Baudrillard and Gary Gygax sharing a birthday (niche post) 010
Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 30/09/2026Genuinely thought this was about K*rk until about right now 000
Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 29/09/2026Just do a lottery instead at this point. The work hours gone into unfunded research could have carried out the research! 030
Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 29/09/2026It is ASTOUNDING that this apparently needs saying. 0124
Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 29/09/2026I did hear this sad news recently - but did not know he was an anti-apartheid activist! His feud in a journal with Daniel Robinson is quite fun to read, too (from 2013 or so) 110
Reposted by Rasmus BirkDes Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 29/09/2026I only realised now, while prepping notes for students, that Kurt Danziger died last month. Danziger was not only one of the most influential historians of psychology but also an anti-Apartheid activist and, before that, a child refugee from Nazism. A great loss. humanities.uct.ac.za/department-p...humanities.uct.ac.zaObituary: Kurt Danziger (1926-2026)The Department of Psychology at the University of Cape Town mourns the passing of Professor Kurt Danziger, who died on August 11, 2026 at the age of 100. 193
Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 26/09/2026Pretty sure he’s an Arsenal fan, would’ve been fitting! 100
Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 24/09/2026True story: during my PhD defense I said that 36 was middle age (I have no idea why this came up tbh) 100
Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 24/09/2026Genuine lol that I’ve had her earlier stuff on the reading list but not gotten around to it 010
Reposted by Rasmus BirkKetan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 24/09/2026Every line of this article is just completely stunning 18357130
Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 24/09/2026maybe a better way of stating what I think he is doing is this: he is arguing that you can be English without being white. 110
Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 24/09/2026(my take here is probably also very Danish - here, the defense of any kind of multiculturalism, multiethnic cosmopolitanism would be similarly unheard of from politicians!) 010
Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 24/09/2026Yes - I should clarify that I'm not implying he's in favour of cosmopolitanism. I guess it's hard to articulate what kind of vision he has - multiculturalism or multiethnic it probably isn't either - other than the clear argument *against* bio-essentialism is, at least, a starting point. 200
Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 24/09/2026Oh yes, I'm sure there's loads of scope - in general - to criticise JRM in many ways - my point is mainly that a defense of a kind of cosmopolitan ideal of citizenship (not a term he'd use or probably agree with!) is sorely needed, and it's exasperating that *he* is delivering something like it. 100
Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 24/09/2026It’s various problems aside - and the many things one might say about JRM - it is just so very striking to me that *he* of all people is the only one willing to make a public argument against bio-essentialist accounts 100
Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 24/09/2026The fact that *Jacob Rees-Mogg* of all people holds on to - and is willing to publicly defend! - a quite inclusive and fluid notion of nationality is quite something to behold. Has anyone in or near the UK Labour party done anything remotely similar to this? 140
Reposted by Rasmus BirkMicah G. Allen @micahgallen.com · 22/09/2026So… we just found out that GPT sol can complete a complex online behavioral/cognitive study producing nearly indistinguishable behavior and subjective reports… right as we are about to launch. Is this doomsday for online cognitive testing? 3212669
Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 20/09/2026Can I shock you? I don’t think writing these applications is a good use of 21000 people’s time 030
Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 19/09/2026It will make humanity go extinct before it gets the football scores right 020
Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 19/09/2026Not sure how I feel about 2023 being 3.5 years ago 110
Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 19/09/2026We found London to be basically priced like Denmark this summer which… is not great 100
Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 19/09/2026I think we hold - held! - the record for games played without conceding 3. 110
Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 18/09/2026There's an interesting schism between the amount of time we are spending fretting over academic use of LLMs, whether it's good, plagiarism, etc., and then the comparatively smaller amount of time spent on... analysing how it's becoming baked into structures of power 010
Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 18/09/2026one thing I like about your posts is that they require an incredible amount of knowledge about local Irish affairs to make sense (is 'Cork City Council coded' a compliment or derogatory?!) 120
Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 15/09/2026Very, very different circumstances, but we assign roughly 3000 pages per semester - still! When everyone does it and it’s a course standard (100 pages per ects) it becomes slightly easier to mitigate complaints, I think 010
Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 15/09/2026I even saw people liken it to the (now very old, boring, boorish) Sokal hoax and... come on, people. It's been 30 years! 020
Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 15/09/2026Oh, for sure. I think there's an argument to be had about whether he is *correct*, but complaining about the prose, that it is too unclear, that he doesn't offer a concise definition is something I'm not a big fan of! (I'm very strongly subtweeting a certain thread - apologies to its author) 110
Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 14/09/2026Instead of doing ‘Anton Jäger should write more clearly’-discourse, let me just recommend this excellent review in the LRB on his book: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...lrb.co.ukWilliam Davies · Easy to Join, Easy to Leave: Politics on SpeedThis is what distinguishes hyperpolitics from the mass democracy of the mid-20th century. Symbolic political gestures... 1228
Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 12/09/2026Saw this and my very first thought was ‘how did Des post about it’ 110
Reposted by Rasmus BirkDes Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 10/09/2026The UK university sector is mired in absolute madness 24415