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I don't know what to do about all this - join a union if you're staff, but that's no help to a student sexually assaulted by her peers - but I know it starts with recognising the scale of the problem: you cannot just ask an abuser if they would mind no longer enjoying abuse.

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Sometimes they don't even do that - I'm aware of cases where HR just stopped asking a bully to stop their bullying because "it would just make the situation worse". Consider that for a second - HR knew talking to a bully would make them bully *harder*, so they did *literally nothing*.

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All of which is fully known, of course, and wholly ignored. Everyone knows who the bullies are, the harassers, the colleagues you keep one eye on whenever they're interacting with young female students. Every new infraction results in HR just asking them if they'd mind changing their ways.

There's obviously no quantitative equivalence between sexual assault and, say, refusing to accept microaggressions exist, but the underlying problem is the same - you can't deal with people who want to deny the personhood of others by listing the ways that denial can occur.

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I've seen academics email their entire department to announce they will deliberately fail mandatory EDI training, and daring their HoD/the uni to do anything about it. The training becomes not just useless in this context, but actively counter-productive.

...But when you present where the lines lie to someone who *enjoys the process of crossing lines without consequence*, you're not showing them the borders of their behaviour; you're offering them a roadmap.

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People are constantly directed to any number of training courses to educate us on appropriate behaviour, and I don't doubt that has utility for people genuinely motivated to do better in areas they're unfamiliar with...

The system has no way, at all, to deal with bad actors, who cause harm not because they don't know any better, but because *harm is what they are seeking*, as a demonstration of their institutional or cultural power.

Mike Cook @mtrc.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

This is enraging, but completely unsurprising. Especially given the broader context of HE. Every aspect of the system is built under the assumption that people only hurt others accidentally, though unfortunate but ultimately understandable ignorance.

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Reposted by Ric Crossman

Every AI/HCI paper I review now just sounds like this.

$Research [25] shows that people [26] enjoy the feeling of winning games [3,5,19]. Enjoying things can lead to longer life expectancy [2], higher economic productivity [9,22,33-40,302] and improve mental health [9]. Yet many games still include losing players [67,4]. A recent study showed that less than half of the players in a Chess [1] match win on average [42]. We have developed an LLM-driven co-creative [66], user-led [11], mixed-initiative [80] assistant for Chess [2], through which players can redefine the rules of Chess [3] using generative AI prompting such that they are the winner of Chess [4]. A study (n=3) showed that 100\% of people felt better, healthier and more self-actualised after using our tool, showing that this may be the way forward for games and human culture more broadly in the future.$

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Ric Crossman @riccrossman.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I see your "had this" and raised you "Had to go through a disciplinary process because someone complained about me over a ridiculous belief they'd imputed to me and no-one thought to check whether any of it was true before dragging me through hell".

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Reposted by Ric Crossman

Heather Paterson @heatherpaterson.co.uk · 03/10/2026

EVERY UK MP needs to read this You are all part of a government that is creating a situation so hostile and unsafe that people are leaving the country This is not an isolated case. You have the power to do something about this.

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I get what Groucho was saying, but I will *always* join a club that will have me as a member, so long it pisses off the preening narcissists who base their self-worth on their membership cards.

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Just became an HEA Senior Fellow. As always, I dedicate this success to my enemies: how can your titles have power when they'll give them to *me*?

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Reposted by Ric Crossman

Confession is good for the soul. It's less good as the basis for an essay.

New month, new IDFC post. This month, we meet the Qowat Milat, and ask the question: who exactly, ever, has wanted their candour to be absolute?

idfc.co.uk

8.1.4 Truth Hurts

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Confession is good for the soul. It's less good as the basis for an essay.

New month, new IDFC post. This month, we meet the Qowat Milat, and ask the question: who exactly, ever, has wanted their candour to be absolute?

idfc.co.uk

8.1.4 Truth Hurts

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Reposted by Ric Crossman

Duncan Hothersall @dhothersall.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

For all that it's been barely reported in the UK press, it's still hard to understate the importance of the stance @labourunionsuk.bsky.social has taken on trans and non-binary rights this week. Every single trade union affiliated to the party of government has stood up and said we will not comply.

Joint statement from National TULO

Solidarity with the trans and non-binary community

Labour's 11 affiliated trade unions stand in total solidarity with the trans and non-binary community.

Trans rights are human rights, and trans rights are workers' rights.

We in the trade union movement will do all we can to stand up for our trans members and all our trans siblings, to protect them from persecution, harassment and attack.

The government must act now to protect all trans people, to make sure their rights are protected, expanded and upheld in our workplaces and communities.

Labour Unions

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Ric Crossman @riccrossman.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I for one welcome our new stochastic overlords etc.

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Ric Crossman @riccrossman.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I think we can all agree that the fundamental problem with the adversarial, dog-eat-dog, capitalism-but-make-it-extra-smug model we currently suffer under desperately needed an extra element of random caprice, so very excited by this news.

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Reposted by Ric Crossman

FinnMackay @finnfox.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I hear after protestors disrupted his conference speech, Nigel Farage suggested the protestor represented the benefits of a university education and probably studied SOCIOLOGY! Yes! Sociology enables critical thinking, to identify racism & the weaponisation of racism, to identify reactionary lies.

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Reposted by Ric Crossman

B heard media 💚🇵🇸 @bheardmedia.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

🚨 Mr Danny Dyer on PM Andy Burnham..."Who is he? Did anyone vote for him? Because I didn't vote for him. I think we've had successive Prime Ministers that are c*nts. End of. Put that on the f*cking BBC" 🤣

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"To be effective uncivil society actors need to uphold some semblance of legitimacy." That's a quote I'm going to be getting a lot of use from, I'm sure (along with just the term "uncivil society actors", which I'm new to, and is perfect).

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Do we think the threat of that would have made a difference to a decision in which they endangered their own lives? Do we think months of extensive surgery and a crushing of his spirit needed addng to by losing a parent to the penal system? Just what is this shit even supposedly meant to *achieve*?

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At which point in this sorry story, where this kid was genuinely lucky to only have his face altered forever in a hideous car crash, do we think it would have been better if one of his parents had gone to jail?

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And part of that, I think, was the belated awareness of just how incredibly stupid they'd all been. A high-speed joyride just months out of their tweenage years? They were all incredibly lucky to not be dead. Which *should have been totally obvious*, but kids are just kids.

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You could see how much it had affected him when he came back, and not just physically. The cocky, rules-allergic dickhead had disappeared. It was a surprise to hear his voice most days.

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One of them was in my form group. He was off school for three months while they reconstructed his face. He was 14 years old.

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Dan Sohege @danielsohege.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Back when I was a secondary school teacher, four of our year 9 kids stole a car, totalled it during the resulting joyride - because, of course, none of them could drive - and ended up in serious condition in hospital.

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Reposted by Ric Crossman

There has been a noticeable lack of serious reaction over Turkish persecution of LGBTQIA+ community from the global community. As in many other countries, Türkiye tries to mask persecution by claiming being LGBTQIA+ isn't illegal and then using "obscenity laws". www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

theguardian.com

Turkey detains dozens in crackdown on LGBTQ+ activists and journalists

Protesters teargassed as minister claims widespread raids and arrests under obscenity laws were to ‘protect families’

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Ric Crossman @riccrossman.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

You'd think we'd run out at some point, but...

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Ric Crossman @riccrossman.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

One more reason for England to apologise to the world.

Casey Johnston @caseyjohnston.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Reposted by Ric Crossman

Watching tech people tremble before the awesome power of AI feels like when an actor is “attacked” by a wild animal in a movie but they are just holding a raccoon pelt to their neck and pretending to wrestle with it

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(Obviously by "malfunctions" here, I mean the true function becomes harder to hide - this reads as a malfunction to the people who can't get a job, or a house, or even feed their families no matter how hard they try, but in fact, none of that is what capitalism is designed to do.)

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The actual question is why our ruling class has decided en masse (consciously or otherwise) that fascism is what they want. I think Trotsky had this figured a century ago. The more capitalism malfunctions, the greater the threat of the left, and the more extreme the tactics to crush the left become.

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"Why are they pushing so hard for fascism?" is perhaps backward as a question, then. They're pushing so hard because *that's the only way to GET fascism*. It requires extraordinary effort to sever people's recognition of others as human.

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This is partially me being clear-eyed about the scale of the job ahead of us, even if we somehow avoid a fascist government three years from now. But it's also me reminding myself that fascism is wholly contrary to human nature, which is why the ruling class has to work SO HARD to inculcate it.

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But the reality is that the process of unteaching will take time, even if the constant drip-feeding of poison into people's souls is somehow brought to an end - something Burnham, like every other prime minister since Thatcher, is instead choosing to accelerate.

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It's easy to lose hope in circumstances like these, when parliament will allow your life to be threatened for choosing to save people of colour - including children - from drowning in the freezing sea. What you have to remember is that people have been taught to be this cruel. They can be untaught.

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But then the UK's media, government and wealthy have all made it inescapably clear that the only actual rule that exists in this shitty country is "If we notice you, you will be punished". Violence gangs threatening volunteer lifesavers for saving the "wrong* lives is just the latest stage of that.

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Ric Crossman @riccrossman.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

I dunno, lads; I'm just not sure "Fascist violence gangs can operate with impunity" is a viable situation for a country to be in, long term.

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Scribbling notes on a paper that I will *definitely* be able to read later.

Gods, I already don't know what this says. A picture of random ink marks on a page; a Rorschach image in which all that can be objectively seen is my own incompetence.