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Webster Ford

@websterford.bsky.social
916 followers 827 following 225 posts

Fling yourselves in the fire, die with a song of spring. // "What am I, chopped liver?"

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Reposted by Webster Ford
William B. Fuckley @opinionhaver.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
remember: it saved no net money, social services US citizens are getting cut, and left the US in a weaker place geopolitically. none of the debates about fiscal responsibility, obligation to US citizens first, or 'hard choices' actually apply. they're all bullshit. killed people for nothing at all.
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Webster Ford @websterford.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Quick reminder before we all spiral into a panicked frenzy
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Reposted by Webster Ford
Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
A lot of universities will be facing big deficits and looking to cure what ails them. I just want them to be thoughtful about it.
Screenshot of article which reads: At the same time, new job-focused majors may not be sustainable — and can even backfire. Dominique Baker, an associate professor of education and public policy at the University of Delaware, pointed to the rise in computer-science degrees in the 2010s. At the time, they seemed like the best way to secure a high-paying salary after graduation, she said. But with the rise of generative artificial intelligence, computer-science jobs are increasingly hard to find, and enrollment in such programs is falling significantly.
“When you tie the viability, the financial viability in particular, of an institution really tightly to jobs creation on that scale,” especially as a four-year institution, she said, “you have to be really careful, because you can find that in 10 years that program that you poured all your money into — worthless.”
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Webster Ford @websterford.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Are we developing a distaste for effort? - www.ft.com/content/b30e... via @FT
ft.com
Are we developing a distaste for effort?
Across OECD countries, the number of students who say they give up easily is increasing
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Webster Ford @websterford.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Come down and disintegrate with me We're cut down like the daisies, like the tall poppies
youtube.com
Suede - Disintegrate (Official Video)
YouTube video by Suede HQ
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Webster Ford @websterford.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
economist.com
This article wasn’t written by an AI. So what if it had been!
It’s great that bots can help poor writers say what they want to for a fraction of the cost of a ghostwriter, argues Ryan Jacobs
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Webster Ford @websterford.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
youtube.com
Depeche Mode - My Favourite Stranger (Vinegar Hill Sessions)
YouTube video by DepecheModeVEVO
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Reposted by Webster Ford
Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
if it took you 5 seconds of contemplation to think of an alternative you should take at least another 5-10 to at least consider the possibility that it at least crossed the minds of 1 or 2 of the people who dedicate their lives and research careers to dealing with the problems we post about on here
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Reposted by Webster Ford
Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 07/09/2026
Writing some scientific workflow slides for this week’s MPTC class.
Research workflow for those branches of the sciences where the important thing is to become famous.
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Webster Ford @websterford.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Supreme Court expansion looking better every day!
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Webster Ford @websterford.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
nytimes.com
Opinion | Even Elite Colleges Have Become Trade Schools
Short-term return on investment is an impoverished view of a college education.
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Reposted by Webster Ford
Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
Is it time to liquidate economics? Political science? Physics? History? Biology? Chemistry? Engineering? 🤷‍♂️🤦‍♂️ No one asks dumb questions like this about the other academic disciplines they like. Also, let’s not use the word “liquidate” like this. Maybe you can read some sociology to figure out why.
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Reposted by Webster Ford
Lincoln Michel @thelincoln.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
This chart of how scores dropped when an econ prof. switched from take-home midterm to proctored in-person final sadly tracks with what I've seen. Why I've thought people (especially STEM profs) have had their head in the sand about LLMs and academia... www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...
ECON 1170 Midterm & Final Scores
After Serrano made the final in-person, 18 students dropped the class and nine students did not take the exam. The scores of the remaining 59 students are displayed here.

Midterm ScoreFinal Exam Score

Chart shows virtually every final score being dramatically lower than the midterm scores
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Webster Ford @websterford.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
"A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people." Happy 4th!
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Webster Ford @websterford.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
newrepublic.com/post/212101/...
newrepublic.com
If Obama Had Done What Trump Just Did on Iran, He’d Be Crucified
The United States just unambiguously lost a war that it started for no good reason. A sane country would remove the imbecile who did this immediately.
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Webster Ford @websterford.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
ft.com
We need to learn how to argue with AI
Putting humans in the loop is pointless if they simply rubber-stamp authoritative-sounding information
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Reposted by Webster Ford
Claes de Vreese @claesdevreese.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
Keep the social sciences in NSF !! 40 organisations told Congress that losing the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences division of NSF could "lead to “long-lasting, potentially permanent” damage to national research as a whole" www.theatlantic.com/science/2026...
theatlantic.com
The Trump Administration Is Done With Social Science
The National Science Foundation division that covers social, behavioral, and economic sciences is in the crosshairs.
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Reposted by Webster Ford
Dan Hirschman @asociologist.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
“the most immediate risk is “mediocrity at scale,” a flood of work that isn’t wrong enough to dismiss but isn’t interesting enough to advance anything.” @pardoguerra.bsky.social pardoguerra.org/2026/05/09/i...
pardoguerra.org
It’s time to get rid of the peer-reviewed paper
The peer-reviewed journal article, perhaps the single most important device behind the expansion of scientific knowledge in the last century, is an extraordinarily expensive way to share novelty: e…
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Webster Ford @websterford.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
www.nytimes.com/2026/05/04/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | This Is the Biggest Culprit for High Health Care Spending
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Webster Ford @websterford.bsky.social · 26/04/2026
youtube.com
Noir Désir - Le Vent Nous Portera (Clip Officiel)
YouTube video by NoirDesirVEVO
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Webster Ford @websterford.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
The Art of the...oh, never mind, I guess.
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Webster Ford @websterford.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
Deeply and profoundly ashamed to be American on a daily basis as of late
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Webster Ford @websterford.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
If the leader of another country spoke in these violent and unhinged tones, our media would likely see it for what it is. But because it is our President doing so, even the most outrageous, inhumane things must be normalized.
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Webster Ford @websterford.bsky.social · 27/03/2026
nytimes.com
Opinion | There’s a Good Reason You Can’t Concentrate
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Reposted by Webster Ford
Mark Lemley @marklemley.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
2010s: a startup worth $1 billion is a vanishingly rare thing (a "unicorn") 2026: a company that makes AI collars for cows is worth $ 2 billion www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
bloomberg.com
Thiel’s Founders Fund Backs AI Cow Collar Startup at $2 Billion Valuation
Halter, a startup making artificial intelligence-powered collars for cows, is in talks to raise a new funding round that would double its valuation to more than $2 billion, according to people familia...
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Webster Ford @websterford.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
economist.com
In praise of grunt work
AI promises to eliminate drudgery. Careful what you wish for
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Webster Ford @websterford.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
Board of Peace? More like Bored of Peace
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Reposted by Webster Ford
Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
One of the things that really trips a lot of analysts, including ones with real skin in the game, is that they refuse - absolutely refuse - to accept how stupid Trump very obviously is. He has no knowledge of anything, is incapable of learning, and only remembers the last thing to happen to him.
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Reposted by Webster Ford
Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 09/03/2026
The data economy has made us dumber in ways that also make us vulnerable to authoritarian takover. We are have become both cynical and gullible in the sense we think we are too jaded be fooled and as a result are tricked more easily www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
theatlantic.com
Gullible, Cynical America
The trouble with believing anything and nothing at the same time
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Webster Ford @websterford.bsky.social · 09/03/2026
nytimes.com
Opinion | Trump Is Making Jimmy Carter’s Mistake on Iran and Oil
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Reposted by Webster Ford
Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 06/03/2026
The American political class is utterly delusional, adrift in a dream of normality, unable to process the actual reality of events on the ground, where the US just launched a completely unprovoked war against a massive country, murdered its leadership, and demanded its conversion to a vassal state.
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Webster Ford @websterford.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
experimental-history.com
The one science reform we can all agree on, but we're too cowardly to do
OR: the long overdue forest fire
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Reposted by Webster Ford
Ryan Moulton @moultano.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
In a model where employees retain value only for their institutional/tacit knowledge, and not for their fungible skills, I think this hiring/firing behavior is what you expect. New employees become substitutable before existing employees.
My hypothesis is that AI will lead to less dramatic layoffs (e.g., the Block memo) and more a slower drip: companies will continue to fire at similar rates, but will hire at much slower rates. 

Those who are left will be expected to use AI tools--to figure it out--in order to pick up the slack from those who were let go. This will naturally lead to AI models being adopted effectively throughout organizations.

But the labor market implications for the economy are in some ways more dire than the dramatic scenario: exactly the type of slow drip of increasing unemployment and lower labor force participation that policy has the hardest time dealing with (policy is much better when there is a clear demarcated disaster).
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Webster Ford @websterford.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
davekarpf.beehiiv.com
Can AI Replace Social Science Researchers?
No. No it can't. Come on, now.
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Webster Ford @websterford.bsky.social · 28/02/2026
Well as long as we are calling them "preemptive strikes", I suppose. No one said that the thing they are supposed to "preempt" has to be a real threat!
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Reposted by Webster Ford
Mark Alan Mattes + Hot Brown Press @markalanmattes.bsky.social · 23/02/2026
bsky.app/profile/litt...
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Webster Ford @websterford.bsky.social · 20/02/2026
AI will not free you: www.ft.com/content/9c6a...
ft.com
Is AI making work more intense?
Using agents appears to increase the number of hours worked and the exhausting nature of tasks
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Webster Ford @websterford.bsky.social · 16/02/2026
bloomberg.com
America’s Most Powerful CEOs Are Awfully Quiet Lately
Trump has exposed an ugly truth about corporations: They’re no longer even pretending to be good citizens.
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Webster Ford @websterford.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
asteriskmag.com
The Fight For Slow And Boring Research—Asterisk
As federal research funding shrinks, scientists are looking to other sources of support. Can they learn to sell their work without selling out?
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Webster Ford @websterford.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
What if...the Bad Bunny halftime show was, in fact, about many of the things that make America great?
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Reposted by Webster Ford
Omg. WTF is Happening? @lalahaenzy.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
Sir Ian McKellen performing a monologue from Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas More on the Stephen Colbert show. Never have I heard this monologue performed with such a keen sense of prescience. Nor have I ever been in this exact historical moment.TY Sir Ian, for reaching us once again. #Pinks #ProudBlue
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Webster Ford @websterford.bsky.social · 31/01/2026
Dan Ariely in the Epstein Files? Color me surprised! (Not.)
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Webster Ford @websterford.bsky.social · 29/01/2026
Today in "economic impossibilities"
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Reposted by Webster Ford
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 29/01/2026
Trump: "People that own their homes -- we're gonna keep them wealthy. We're gonna keep those prices up. We're not gonna destroy the value of their homes so that somebody who didn't work very hard can buy a home."
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Webster Ford @websterford.bsky.social · 25/01/2026
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/24/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | State Terror Has Arrived
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Webster Ford @websterford.bsky.social · 24/01/2026
Dear @wsj.com, please do not print lies in the newspaper. Sometimes, there are different views about what exactly happened. This is not one of those times.
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Webster Ford @websterford.bsky.social · 23/01/2026
nature.com
I’m going to halve my publication output. You should consider slow science, too
If we don’t slow down, the research enterprise is going to crash, argues Adrian Barnett.
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Reposted by Webster Ford
Rafe Meager (they/them) @economeager.bsky.social · 17/01/2026
I realise I'm just a freak, but living in a multicultural city is the best thing of all time, it's just the best possible human experience and i can not understand why anyone on earth would be like "weve got to destroy this"
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Webster Ford @websterford.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
open.substack.com
things will have to change
Social Science in the age of AI
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