iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

I wonder if heavy LLM users want to be (and be seen as) highly productive even at the expense of being (and being seen as) highly accurate. If so, it wouldn't be unique to LLMs, but it would still be bad: sincerely striving for accuracy is an ethical imperative in Wikipedia and academia.

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Reposted by Sara Emily Burke

Journal of Democracy @jodemocracy.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Americans have never been angrier with one another. But polarization is not the disease—it is the response to a revanchist movement seeking to roll back sixty years of social progress. 🆕 by @lilymasonphd.bsky.social muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/a...

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Members of groups that are underrepresented in academia (including, for example, Black people, people with disabilities, transgender people), are especially encouraged to apply.

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I encourage applicants to mention specific research ideas in their statements. I am interested in studying biases targeting social groups that have not been at the center of my past work.

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I am recruiting a PhD student to start Fall 2027 (application deadline is December 1). sburke08.expressions.syr.edu/get-involved/

The Intergroup Bias Lab at Syracuse University. A line drawing of a human head with colorful human icons inside. This symbolic artwork is included for decorative purposes and should not be construed as part of Syracuse University branding.

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

No joke, my first question about this paper was about how you did the coding, so I quickly downloaded it and read that section. My heart sank when I saw that you used some kind of "AI Person" tool. (Then I figured it out.)

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

8647: I hereby call upon Congress to "86" Donald Trump by impeaching him and removing him from office. (If Comey had said "kick him out," perhaps Trump would have claimed it was a threat to strike him with a foot. Trump and his administration do not care whether anything they say makes sense.)

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

My counter is finally down to three digits, but 999 days is still a long time.

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

As institutions are torn to pieces, the most valuable long-term resource might be trust, and capitulation squanders it.

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

I wrote my priority list for myself, but I wish the leaders of more organizations would apply it on an institutional level. The financial wellbeing of an organization cannot take precedence over the ethical principles that make its continued existence worthwhile.

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

Open defiance is a sensible course of action for anyone in government, anyone in the military, anyone facing his legal threats. And, of course, some form of defiance (quiet or loud) of unethical commands is an ethical duty.

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

He stands for authoritarianism, bigotry, and violence, and perhaps most emphatically he stands opposed to the idea of ever striving for truth, of ever choosing a course of action based on ethics rather than power or ego. No person acting rationally should cooperate with him.

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

Rather than trying to list more, I will simply say that Trump's words and deeds have been abhorrent, consistent with the core of his public persona for the last decade.

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

From blatantly ignoring court orders to wielding ICE like a gang out for retribution, Trump and his administration have done more unforgivable things over the past year than I can readily enumerate. Any one of them should be enough to disqualify him and his cronies from government service.

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

In spite of the third rule on my sign, I have been much quieter on social media than I intended over the past year. My daughter was born during this time, redirecting most of my energy. Nonetheless, I wanted to write more. (I have been more vocal in person.)

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

Trumpism is, in part, a rejection of the idea that decisionmakers should prioritize ethics or truth. But each of us has the power and the duty to prioritize ethics and truth anyway, in our own capacities, in defiance of Trump's war on the essence of human rationality.

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

Having these explicit priorities displayed on my wall at work helps me feel a little bit less adrift as this calamity continues to unfold. We must cope with atrocities and mitigate their harms together, and we must also hold fast to our ethical boundaries as individuals.

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

I also wrote a number on my whiteboard: 1461, the number of days left in Trump's term. That number is down to 999 today.

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

When Trump took office for the second time, I put up signs in my office: "(1) Maintain ethical principles; (2) Survive - unless it conflicts with (1); (3) Don't shut up - unless it conflicts with (2). Remind yourself and others that this state of affairs is not normal, acceptable, or inevitable."

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Reposted by Sara Emily Burke

Dr Katie Twomey @k2mey.eurosky.social · 18/04/2026

Why are we aiming for the homogenisation of creativity? Especially in universities. Using an LLM for any aspect of my research takes the creativity out of it (yes it's possible to be creative and objective at the same time) and would be hugely disrespectful to my participants. And unethical.

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

At this scale, there can be no perfect guardrails, but a commitment to being careful, working together, and citing sources can go a long way, and the world would be a better place if more people would do that in their everyday lives.

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

Over the past two decades, I've seen Wikipedia grow into its promise. It is a massive, collaborative encyclopedia - built from a chaotic process but impressively reliable, almost shockingly reliable.

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

Like Green, I, too, "hate that the quiet invisible usefulness of Wikipedia is getting dragged into this fight," this ongoing assault on freedom that some people refer to as a "culture war."

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

"It's one of the only places on the internet where you can see how the sausage is made. You can read the real argument. You can check the sources. You can decide for yourself how you feel. And it is not designed to get clicks."

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

But, in fact, Wikipedia is "transparent, it is citation-based, it is globally accessible, it is self-correcting, and ... it is boring. And in the media landscape designed to amplify ... conflict, the fact that Wikipedia is kind of boring is one of the most beautiful things about it."

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

There is a major political movement that seems to depend on that "blood sport" to survive -- this is, Green says, "a political movement that needs Wikipedia to be corrupt, because if Wikipedia is neutral and boring and well-sourced, then that is a threat to their ... ability to define reality."

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

Wikipedia is "not a place to get outraged, not a place to get radicalized, not a place to make money, but just a place to learn things." This is essential when many other places on the internet are descending into "polarization, misinformation, algorithmic blood sport."

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

I love Wikipedia, and I'm proud to be a monthly donor and to have been an (occasional, sporadic) editor for nearly 20 years. This is a good video. www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zi0... Here are some choice lines:

youtube.com

Wikipedia and the Destruction of Trust

YouTube video by Hank Green

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 03/10/2025

Don't sell your reputation for short-term financial gain.

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 03/10/2025

If you sign an oath of allegiance to a preconceived agenda, you are moving away from being a university and toward being something like the "Creation Museum" that says dinosaur bones are less than 6000 years old. Why would any self-respecting scholar want to associate with you?

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 03/10/2025

@vanderbilt.edu, @upenn.edu, @dartmouthartsci.bsky.social, @usc.edu, @mit.edu, University of Texas, @uarizona.bsky.social, Brown, UVA -- do you want to have a shred of credibility left after this is over?

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 03/10/2025

Moreover, this compact seems like an attempt to set a precedent that the president can, by bribe or by force, coerce other institutions into ideological purity.

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

How can faculty at Texas Tech establish the credibility of new public research reports when their colleagues know that they might be compelled to lie? The best way to demonstrate credibility when someone has publicly attempted to coerce you into falsehood is to openly defy them.

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

It also raises questions about whether faculty are also being pressured to commit fraud when reporting research results featuring human participants. (It would be fraudulent to intentionally mislead readers about the gender composition of the sample.)

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

The chancellor of Texas Tech has apparently ordered faculty to ignore the scientific research literature when teaching about the psychology of gender (at least in the classroom). This undermines the credibility of a psychology degree from Texas Tech. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/26/u...

nytimes.com

Texas Tech Moves to Limit Academic Discussion to 2 Genders

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

"He died in a horrifying fashion under circumstances that our society should take every step possible to prevent. But he also made a career of using words to hurt people, and the people he hurt should freely share their feelings about him, even if those feelings are hard for some to hear."

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

"Kirk made a living advocating for the subjugation of marginalized people, especially transgender people and Black people. His unrestrained cruelty had wide influence, reaching even the president and other powerful politicians."

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

So far, Syracuse University has left it ambiguous whether faculty who wrote irreverent social media posts about Kirk have been subject to administrative actions -- but there should be no ambiguity on this matter.

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

When it comes to a bigot as cruel, committed, and influential as Charlie Kirk, it is unreasonable to expect the people he openly hated to walk on eggshells.

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 20/09/2025

But I hope it can help build a more thorough picture of some of the relevant psychological processes to mitigate harm in the long run.

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 20/09/2025

Extremist authoritarian politicians in the US are currently treating transgender and nonbinary people as political scapegoats, fanning the flames of bigotry and ruthlessly entrenching discriminatory policies and practices. My theoretical review paper cannot solve this urgent ongoing crisis.

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 20/09/2025

Answering most of these sorts of questions will require carefully distinguishing between forms of miscategorization, and carefully distinguishing miscategorization from prejudice, even when they are highly correlated.

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 20/09/2025

Unanswered questions abound in this literature. For example, what explanatory role is played by group identification processes, threat-related processes, religious beliefs, trust and distrust, essentialism, or preferences for simple cognitive structures?

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Sara Emily Burke @saraburke.bsky.social · 20/09/2025

Many people hold false beliefs about transgender men's and women's membership in the categories "male" and "female." Separately, many view nonbinary gender identities themselves as illegitimate. These two forms of biased miscategorization are quite different conceptually.

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