Tom Farsides @tomfarsides.bsky.social · 06/10/2026As a would-be generalist trying to understand all sorts of things beyond my area of so-called expertise, may I say how wonderfully clear this was. Thank you. 011
Tom Farsides @tomfarsides.bsky.social · 29/09/2026A short You Tube video on how to cope with others' apparent distress: youtu.be/pC82rmozANQ. From Greg Depow (@gregdepow.bsky.social) and cited in his paper journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...youtu.beWise Empathy: Responding to Negative Emotions OnlineYouTube video by Greg Depow 010
Tom Farsides @tomfarsides.bsky.social · 29/09/2026A short You Tube video on how to take pleasure from others' apparent happiness: www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_9S.... From Greg Depow (@gregdepow.bsky.social) andcited in his paper journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...youtube.comWise Empathy: Responding to Positive Emotions OnlineYouTube video by Greg Depow 011
Reposted by Tom FarsidesGreg Depow @gregdepow.bsky.social · 27/09/2026My paper with @chrisoveis.bsky.social, Emily Zohar, and @minzlicht.bsky.social about regulating empathy on social media is now out in SM+S doi.org/10.1177/2056.... We show that training individuals to 'share not compare' for + emotions and 'care not share' for - emotions improves their well-being.doi.orgWise Empathy Improves Well-Being on Instagram - Gregory John Depow, Christopher Oveis, Emily Zohar, Michael Inzlicht, 2026Two-thirds of the global population spends significant time browsing social media, making it critical to understand how to improve online experiences to support... 1118
Tom Farsides @tomfarsides.bsky.social · 28/09/2026Huge replication finds no evidence of a(nother) ‘foundational’ finding onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...onlinelibrary.wiley.com 011
Reposted by Tom FarsidesRyan @ryanwright.bsky.social · 28/09/2026This is how I remember the order of Henry VIII’s wives. 263952743
Reposted by Tom FarsidesTW @twesq.bsky.social · 20/09/2026this is fantastic and I learned something new 563212436
Reposted by Tom FarsidesKevin Mitchell @wiringthebrain.bsky.social · 17/09/2026"Consciousness Needs a Subject" - commentary with @cdj.bsky.social on target article by @anilseth.bsky.social. Now published, along with all (50!) commentaries and Anil's responses! 😊 cup.org/4h0wRmgcup.orgConsciousness needs a subject | Behavioral and Brain Sciences | Cambridge CoreConsciousness needs a subject - Volume 49 74215
Tom Farsides @tomfarsides.bsky.social · 29/07/2026Précis- www.theguardian.com/film/2026/ju...theguardian.com‘I would be ashamed to have written any part of this’: Odyssey translator Emily Wilson attacks Nolan blockbusterWilson, whose work on Homer’s epic was praised by Nolan, said his film was grandiose and superficial with ‘nothing convincing to say’ 000
Tom Farsides @tomfarsides.bsky.social · 21/07/2026Lots, but only once I critically evaluated it, including in the context of other sources of information, e.g., experience, learning, etc 020
Tom Farsides @tomfarsides.bsky.social · 16/07/2026Thanks, Mark. I seem to be reading one or more articles a day solely from your recommendations! 110
Reposted by Tom Farsidesanother morgan @mheslin.bsky.social · 24/06/2026imagining a grizzled hardboiled detective saying this while gripping some guy's lapels at a shady bar 264137493530
Reposted by Tom FarsidesNeil @nudgecloud.bsky.social · 02/06/2026It is a great piece of writing. Alt-text added 2342
Reposted by Tom FarsidesDr Panti Bliss-Cabrera @pantibliss.bsky.social · 26/05/2026Phew "not satanic" 108111
Tom Farsides @tomfarsides.bsky.social · 19/05/2026Word of the Day: altruistic www.nytimes.com/2026/05/19/l... “I can think of no other edifice constructed by man as altruistic as a lighthouse,” George Bernard Shaw once wrote. “They were built only to serve.”nytimes.comWord of the Day: altruistic 000
Reposted by Tom FarsidesNicole Rust @nicolecrust.bsky.social · 18/05/2026My new @thetransmitter.bsky.social piece. Does Claude AI have emotions? *No*. Does Claude have nontrivial emotion-equivalents? *Yes*. Like your "memory" vs your laptop's; similar but not the same. Here, I unpack why that's interesting. www.thetransmitter.org/emotion/what...thetransmitter.orgWhat can AI teach us about ‘emotions’?Exploring why Anthropic’s AI, Claude, displays something like emotion could ultimately help us better understand the function that emotions serve in humans. 49229
Tom Farsides @tomfarsides.bsky.social · 10/05/2026Maybe also this: O’Connor, Timothy, "Emergent Properties", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2021 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2021/entries/properties-emergent/>. 010
Tom Farsides @tomfarsides.bsky.social · 09/05/2026May I please say, “the authors suggested that their findings…”, especially if I resist starting with, “Ridiculously, ….”? 010
Tom Farsides @tomfarsides.bsky.social · 09/05/2026I love everything about this, except how much it is needed www.theguardian.com/gnm-press-of...theguardian.comThe Whole Picture: iconic Points of View advert reinvented for the Guardian’s global brand campaignThe Guardian today (Tuesday 5 May) brought its global brand campaign The Whole Picture to the UK, by launching a reinvention of its iconic Points of View advert 000
Tom Farsides @tomfarsides.bsky.social · 07/05/2026www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...theguardian.comFrench professor accused of ‘gigantic hoax’ after inventing Nobel-style prizeAuthorities investigate Florent Montaclair over award given to himself and others including Noam Chomsky 000
Tom Farsides @tomfarsides.bsky.social · 28/04/2026www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...theguardian.comRead a book, flip off a Nazi: when reading meant resistance – in picturesA new exhibition showcases posters encouraging the public to donate and help supply soldiers with reading material 000
Tom Farsides @tomfarsides.bsky.social · 28/04/2026The perils of inferring (especially multiple) motives from actions or outputs in restricted situations, #n+1. Smith et al. (2026). The “I” in egalitarianism: Hadza hunter-gatherers averse to inequality primarily when personally unfavorable. PNAS nexus, 5(2), pgaf328. doi.org/10.1093/pnas...doi.orgThe “I” in egalitarianism: Hadza hunter-gatherers averse to inequality primarily when personally unfavorableAbstract. Many economists contend that humans have strong, universal, other-regarding equality preferences with deep evolutionary roots. Indeed, many hunte 100
Tom Farsides @tomfarsides.bsky.social · 28/04/2026Paraphrasing Mae West, "Neither goodness nor God had anything to do with it" 011
Tom Farsides @tomfarsides.bsky.social · 21/04/2026I hate league tables but... Reranking The World’s Billionaires By Wealth – And [Their Movement Of Money To The Accounts Of Organisations Identified As Charities] www.forbes.com/sites/mattdu...forbes.comReranking The World’s Billionaires By Wealth – And AltruismForbes recalculated the wealth of the richest billionaires to add back in what they gave to charity. Here’s who moves up the ranks. 000
Reposted by Tom FarsidesOtto English @ottoenglish.bsky.social · 14/04/2026Mail is running a poll on whether the UK should rejoin the EU. Takes seconds to vote and it's going hilariously well... www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article... 2751770968
Tom Farsides @tomfarsides.bsky.social · 09/04/2026www.theguardian.com/environment/...theguardian.comWild chimpanzees recorded waging ‘civil war’ with coordinated attacks between two groupsNew study describes what may be the first case of a unified community of chimps turning on itself 000
Reposted by Tom Farsidescait (and adonis) @cait.bsky.social · 28/03/2026in 2016 a group of strangers in Kazakhstan saved a dog from drowning by forming a human chain to reach him. they just unveiled a statue commemorating the event and I'm genuinely about to start sobbing 4276992002
Reposted by Tom FarsidesDeniz Vatansever @neurodenizen.bsky.social · 27/03/2026New from our @cognizelab.bsky.social in Advanced Science: Beneath the Big Five, personality consistently organises into two dimensions, each with distinct brain signatures. Amazing work by postdoc @kaixiangzhuang.bsky.social and thanks to all our collaborators! doi.org/10.1002/advs... 0127
Reposted by Tom FarsidesBlythe Terrell @blytheterrell.bsky.social · 27/03/2026OK, I'm obsessed with this study in @science.org It took Reddit "Am I The Asshole" posts & asked LLMs if the poster was the asshole. Aaand (surprise) AI was more likely to tell people they were NOT the asshole ... even when humans said yeah YTA 🧪 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...science.orgSycophantic AI decreases prosocial intentions and promotes dependenceDespite rising concerns about sycophancy—excessive agreement or flattery from artificial intelligence (AI) systems—little is known about its prevalence or consequences. We show that sycophancy is wide... 11323139
Reposted by Tom FarsidesNicole Rust @nicolecrust.bsky.social · 27/03/2026(And here's a terrific piece of art I was unaware of: 16 faces expressing the human passions, J. Pass, 1821). wellcomecollection.org/works/a4yen3... 263
Reposted by Tom FarsidesNicole Rust @nicolecrust.bsky.social · 07/01/2026Excellent Mindscape episode with @neddo.bsky.social and @seanmcarroll.bsky.social - recommended! With a bonus reminder of this must-read scifi story by Terry Bisson "They're made of meat". users.manchester.edu/Facstaff/SSN... 1262
Tom Farsides @tomfarsides.bsky.social · 06/01/2026And then he [sic] would feel the need to take to social media to condemn others’ failings and flaunt his martyrdom. 010
Tom Farsides @tomfarsides.bsky.social · 05/01/2026If chimps had diswashers: Fitzpatrick, S. (2020). Chimpanzee normativity: Evidence and objections. Biology & Philosophy, 35(4), 45. doi.org/10.1007/s105...doi.orgChimpanzee normativity: evidence and objections - Biology & PhilosophyThis paper considers the question of whether chimpanzees possess at least a primitive sense of normativity: i.e., some ability to internalize and enforce social norms—rules governing appropriate and i... 220
Tom Farsides @tomfarsides.bsky.social · 05/01/2026Horney (1950) discussed 'the tyranny of the shoulds'. Ellis (1977) talked about 'musturbatory thinking'. I am amazed that no one seems to have used the term 'petty ought-o-crats'! 000
Reposted by Tom FarsidesEiko Fried @eikofried.bsky.social · 05/01/2026Would love to hear expert views on this paper. It appears to show that the operationalization of brain activity the field has relied on for 3 decades—the BOLD response—is not actually a sensible measure of brain activity. www.nature.com/articles/s41...nature.comBOLD signal changes can oppose oxygen metabolism across the human cortex - Nature NeuroscienceUsing quantitative brain imaging, the authors show opposite fMRI BOLD signal to metabolic activity due to variable oxygen extraction across the human cortex. This questions the canonical interpretatio... 76922
Tom Farsides @tomfarsides.bsky.social · 18/12/2025The online published version. Couldn’t find a link to supplementary materials 100
Tom Farsides @tomfarsides.bsky.social · 18/12/2025Good taste as well as good research! Also, old 😉 110
Tom Farsides @tomfarsides.bsky.social · 18/12/2025Looks great, congrats. How much of a fool am I in not being able to find a way to access the supplementary materials after about 10 minutes' trying? 100
Tom Farsides @tomfarsides.bsky.social · 12/12/2025"AI can ... mimick" Oliveira et al (2025). Culturally-attuned AI: Implicit learning of altruistic cultural values through inverse reinforcement learning. PLoS One, 20(12), e0337914. doi.org/10.1371/jour... Press release: www.washington.edu/news/2025/12...washington.eduAI can pick up cultural values by mimicking how kids learnA new University of Washington study suggests that AI could learn cultural values by observing human behavior, similar to how children learn by watching and interacting with adults. Researchers had AI... 000
Reposted by Tom FarsidesMicah G. Allen @micahgallen.com · 10/12/2025A jar of pickle beetroot: 2/10 wobble dobble 4/10 jimmy jam My inner cynic says this has about as much construct validity as the average psychological rating scale… 281
Reposted by Tom FarsidesScientific American @sciam.bsky.social · 13/11/2025A surprising diversity of dog shapes and sizes evolved long before the Victorians began making modern breedsscientificamerican.comDog Skull Analysis Rewrites Evolution of Humanity's Best FriendA surprising diversity of dog shapes and sizes evolved long before the Victorians began making modern breeds 0276
Tom Farsides @tomfarsides.bsky.social · 07/10/2025"In 1923, Franz Kafka encountered a distraught little girl who had lost her doll and was inconsolable. Kafka told her the doll wasn't lost but traveling the world having grand adventures! To reassure her, Kafka began delivering letters from the doll ..." www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvNZ...youtube.comKAFKA AND THE DOLL | Read Along Story Time |YouTube video by Audiobook Story Time for Children with Viola 230
Tom Farsides @tomfarsides.bsky.social · 07/10/2025www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...theguardian.comTwo years after 7 October and the kidnap of my parents, hate is in fashion. For all our sakes, we need compassion | Sharone LifschitzSo many were killed – yet on her release, my mother said ‘shalom’ to her captors. Let’s learn from that moment of grace, says Sharone Lifschitz, London-based film-maker and academic 000
Reposted by Tom FarsidesMartin McKee @martinmckee.bsky.social · 01/08/2025In a strange circularity, it seems that all the work I was doing in the early 1990s on concealment/distortion of statistics by USSR & DDR is becoming very relevant now academic.oup.com/ije/article-...academic.oup.comCommentary: The health crisis in the USSR: looking behind the facadeMy first visit to the USSR was in February 1981, by coincidence at exactly the same time that Nick Eberstadt published a commentary on ‘The health crisis i 0331111
Tom Farsides @tomfarsides.bsky.social · 28/07/2025As I move into the “Recycling the last hard copy of my PhD” stage of clearing my office, it gives me pause to see just how unrelenting my malcontent and snark have been. 🤪 020
Reposted by Tom FarsidesDr Jay Watts @shrinkatlarge.bsky.social · 20/07/2025Silly psy cartoon for the weekend! 2656
Reposted by Tom FarsidesProf Sarah-Jayne Blakemore @sjblakemore.bsky.social · 16/07/2025I was explaining to my Ukrainian colleague the phrase ‘There’s no such thing as a free lunch’. She told me the equivalent in Ukrainian is ‘The only free cheese is in the mousetrap’ - which is so much better 299244305123