Thom Scott-Phillips

📣📣📣

Applications for the 2026 Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI) are now open!!

Are you interested in intelligence, mind, and cognition in all its forms? Early-career scholars from any discipline—and storytellers in any medium—are encouraged to apply!

More info: disi.org

They missed a chance to echo the famous joke about who Sun readers want to run the country

Anyway, my go to football podcasts are Libero and Stadio and I am happy with these descriptions!

I think Stephen’s point is that “pro Farage but willing to switch to Starmer if he apes Reform’s language” is not a real person

Not only would this be better in terms of representation, it would also provide a good avenue for using the strategic resource of UK citizens abroad

Your point is reflected in the fact that there is no dedicated constituency for overseas voters. The MP where you last lived in the UK is not the right person to be representing overseas voters.

There should be a handful of MPs whose constituency is UK citizens in a particular part of the world

There has always been a centre-right bloc within the LDs. Indeed it was when that bloc had the leadership that the LDs became part of govt (2010-15). The modal LD member is centre-left on economics, but not all are

LDs are social liberals first and foremost. This is not the same as Green leftism

It’s true. If your papers get accepted and your career progresses, you will come to sincerely believe in the methods used. Only a minority of people will allow theory and argument to trump this experience

I've been experimenting a bit with chatGPT. There is huge and growing gap between its performance on:
- established topics where there is consensus and lots written
- topics that are contested or original

I know that, given how the tech works, this gap is expected. But still, its size is remarkable

Was ever thus, wasn’t it?

(Farage sometimes speaks with an economically left vibe, but that’s because he’s a skilled communicator who knows his audience. Underneath that the actual agenda was always ersatz Thatcher plus borders, no?)

“Live in the age of”? There have been gurus throughout history. Indeed, this paper was partly motivated by the anthropological observation that gurus are a robust cross cultural phenomenon. Influencers are just a modern variant

I agree

I just think if you’re 20-something, facing current job and housing markets, and being asked, do you want to sign onto this claim, it’s fair enough that the answer is yes

It would be tragic indeed

I just think the blame for this lies w govts, not students approached by law firms saying, “sign here and if we win you get £5k”

Afaik law firms are approaching students on a no win no fee basis

bsky.app/profile/did:...

There remains a lot of ambiguity and confusion over what sort of institutions govt wants unis to be. These sort of situations are downstream of that. I’m very disappointed Labour don’t seem to have it as a priority to provide some clarity

I assume if unis had openly and pro actively offered that option that would change the legal situation now

Presumably they didn’t do this because they feared the income loss

Fair point, but I think this is where the shop metaphor breaks down. There was no way to leave and go find somewhere serving steak

To be clear, I don’t like commodification of uni either. But equally I don’t blame students for approaching it the way govts have encouraged them to

The students ordered steak pie and paid for it in advance, and then events intervened such that no steak was available. The cooks did all they could but ultimately only had chicken, which costs less and isn’t as tasty

What can I say? My feelings are that I have empathy for both the faculty and the students, and I don't feel any contradiction about that

No it's not about technical correctness! It's because I think the two questions are completely orthogonal:

- Did academics go above and beyond?
- Is it ok for students to exercise their legal rights?

I think no answer to either question implies anything about the other

I think if you did stop I assume they wouldn't have any legal claim against you

You're right that there's hypocrisy/confusion in the demands placed on unis: those expected of companies on the one hand, but also educational institutions on the other

Imo, the ire for this should be directed at govts

Yeah. I see that you do. I confess I don't get it. I don't see students exercising their options as any kind of statement about faculty effort

Whether they did the best job they could is a different question to whether they delivered what was promised

They can (a) work admirably and do their very best, but (b) still not deliver what was promised, for reasons beyond their control. Both things can be true at the same time

£3k is £3k. Tbh I don't really like the optics of faculty saying that today's 20-somethings, facing the housing and employment markets they are, are being immoral because they are trying to claim £3k they may have a legal right to. That's a lot of money for some

Maybe so. I just think the blame for this mess lies with govts, not with students exercising their options

I don't see how a legal claim devalues any experiences. A legal claim is in no way a claim about people's efforts

Ideally yes. But I believe that legally unis are shops

Certainly, recent govts have encouraged students to approach it that way

I guess it turns on the old Q of what universities ultimately provide

One line is: unis provide networks and all sorts of experiences that go beyond the degree certificate. Students didn’t get these

A counter argument is: unis are ultimately degree givers and therefore product was delivered

Why doesn't the sofa analogy make sense? (Genuine Q)

This is also why the responsibility here isn't students or faculty, it's govts. It's the UK govt who have responsibility not to create a system where students have strong material incentive to make legal claims that feel icky or immoral