G. Owen Schaefer's Avatar

G. Owen Schaefer

@owenschaefer.bsky.social

Bioethicist and Philosopher at the Centre for Biomedical Ethics, National University of Singapore (views are my own, not NUS's). Film critic, in another life.

214 Followers  |  131 Following  |  263 Posts  |  Joined: 12.10.2023
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Posts by G. Owen Schaefer (@owenschaefer.bsky.social)

That's cool, I wonder how that worked out for hi- oh.

22.02.2026 06:01 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

You've been kidnapped. The characters from the last TV show you watched are trying to rescue you.

Who's coming to save you?

...

Aso feeling very secure - at least given the caveat Saitama is *trying* to rescue me. New season seems like an extended Waiting For Saitama brick joke!

23.12.2025 08:15 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

In my professional opinion, ChatGPT is not conscious and does not have psychological states like beliefs and desires (yes I’m aware of the arguments to the contrary)

26.11.2025 00:16 β€” πŸ‘ 33    πŸ” 4    πŸ’¬ 4    πŸ“Œ 1
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The Shutdown of U.S.A.I.D. Has Already Killed Hundreds of Thousands The short documentary β€œRovina’s Choice” tells the story of what goes when aid goes.

β€œAs of November 5th, [the BU tracker] estimated that U.S.A.I.D.’s dismantling has already caused the deaths of six hundred thousand people, two-thirds of them children.”
www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

26.11.2025 00:51 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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a close up of a monkey wearing goggles ALT: a close up of a monkey wearing goggles

Star Wars discourse eh? Time for an aesthetically objective ranking of the films:

1. A New Hope
2. Empire Strikes Back
3. Return of the Jedi
4. Rogue One
5. Force Awakens
6. Attack of the Clones
7. Last Jedi
8. Phantom Menace
9. Rise of Skywalker
10. Revenge of the Sith
11. Solo
12. Ewok nonsense

25.11.2025 14:27 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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Sexual Harassment Investigations at Oxford - Daily Nous John Tasioulas resigned from his position as director of the University of Oxford’s Institute for Ethics in AI in September. Five months earlier, the university had begun an investigation into allegat...

Director of Oxford Institute for Ethics in AI resigns following sexual harassment investigation. Institute "set up about five years ago to examine the complex moral questions thrown up by artificial intelligence".

19.11.2025 18:54 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
Sleep? No. Post Meme? Yes.

Sleep? No. Post Meme? Yes.

Also me...

14.11.2025 18:58 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
Grading papers due in a week? Ugh, no. Instead reviewing a cool new article due a whole month away? Yes please!

Grading papers due in a week? Ugh, no. Instead reviewing a cool new article due a whole month away? Yes please!

literally me rn

14.11.2025 18:55 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

I find this hilarious because Noah Smith has managed to negatively polarize people into defending Heathrow.

12.11.2025 08:12 β€” πŸ‘ 7    πŸ” 2    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

Fun fact: cannibalism is also in itself legal throughout the US, with the notable (?) exception of Idaho. Desecration of a corpse is more commonly outlawed, but there's loophole: lab-grown human flesh. Luckily, it turns out no one's keen to exploit this gap... pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

11.11.2025 16:27 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

For all the needless suffering they have caused domestically in the US, nothing will likely ever surpass this singular evil

07.11.2025 12:46 β€” πŸ‘ 19    πŸ” 5    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 1
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Dalhousie’s Dr. FranΓ§oise Baylis begins new chapter as president of the Royal Society of Canada Global bioethics leader steps into a pivotal national role, aiming to deepen public trust in research, amplify Canadian voices on the world stage, and champion science for societal good.

I am so very excited about this new chapter of my life. Looking forward to working alongside talented colleagues to find creatives ways to leverage knowledge for the benefit of Canadians www.dal.ca/news/2025/11...

06.11.2025 21:17 β€” πŸ‘ 12    πŸ” 6    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 1

Good job on the paper!

30.10.2025 02:56 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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Cross-border health data sharing between Singapore and Switzerland: controlling for competing regulatory requirements Abstract. Research in biomedical and health sciences using data-intensive methods increasingly involve multi-party cross-border institutional collaboration

The paper I co-authored with Hui Yun Chan has just been published in the Journal of Law and the Biosciences. In this paper, we compare Singaporean and Swiss data privacy and human research regulations, and how these may act as a barrier to cross border data sharing: academic.oup.com/jlb/article/...

30.10.2025 02:08 β€” πŸ‘ 5    πŸ” 3    πŸ’¬ 2    πŸ“Œ 0
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Murakami, true visionary, presaging in 1979 countless failed Perception checks by generations of D&D players.

27.10.2025 23:07 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Cue Menswear Guy's take on classic gentleman thief attire in 5...4...3...

20.10.2025 09:18 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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Bartha Knoppers awarded McGill Medal for lifetime of pioneering work in bioethicsΒ  - McGill Reporter From literature to law to genetics, the founder of McGill’s Centre of Genomics and Policy built a career at the crossroads of science and ethics

Professor Emerita Bartha Maria Knoppers recently received McGill’s highest academic honour. β€œIt is impossible to overestimate the importance of Professor Knoppers’ landmark work in bioethics, the place where law and medicine meet” reporter.mcgill.ca/bartha-knopp...

18.10.2025 17:05 β€” πŸ‘ 5    πŸ” 3    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

150 years on, Tolstoy vindicated!

11.10.2025 00:42 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

"What is happening right now is an attack against science, knowledge and the public good."

05.10.2025 05:57 β€” πŸ‘ 13    πŸ” 5    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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πŸ“£ Introducing new JBI editors-in-chief (content) Chris Mayes and Diego Silva.

They both join our continuing editor-in-chief of production, Bronwen Morrell.

Thanks to our outgoing EiC (content) Michael Ashby, who is retiring from the JBI and leaving it in these great hands!

01.10.2025 09:47 β€” πŸ‘ 10    πŸ” 3    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 1

Pro tip: solve the whole thing in your head first before entering any guesses! Many days there's fakeout legit groups of 4, which fall apart when you try to sort the whole grid.

01.10.2025 07:03 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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I know it's wrong, but ngl I like the Connections Bot feature as it periodically lets me feel smug and superior amongst the clique of fellow puzzle nerds.

01.10.2025 07:03 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

Tbh, I would reject the idea that the list of artistically high quality games is small/constrained. There's a lot! The threads below scratch the surface, the lists can really go on and on esp in the indie space. If I had to pick one I'd highlight To the Moon, but really there's too many to count.

30.09.2025 09:54 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Ngl, I get a little choked up on refs like this to the late great animator Satoshi Kon. An artist who passed in his prime, and the world is so much worse for it. RIP.

26.09.2025 01:04 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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Not a hard call.

19.09.2025 00:51 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Mild counterpoint: we just did a scoping review of ethics articles related to use of AI in emergency medicine. Most positive/optimistic, some neutral, but none overall negative or pessimistic. Just one domain, but if there's a bias it seems in the opposite direction.

06.09.2025 13:29 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

Comrades check out my fanfic

archiveofourown.org/users/LastPo...

08.08.2025 06:14 β€” πŸ‘ 22    πŸ” 2    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

so glad to live after thomas bayes' illustrious theoremβ€”now when i wake up and the sidewalk is wet, i can conclude that it rained last night. before father bayes, people would just sorta bump into walls

03.08.2025 05:16 β€” πŸ‘ 63    πŸ” 4    πŸ’¬ 2    πŸ“Œ 0
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'Great jeans" or "Great Genes"?

30.07.2025 15:56 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0