Keith Raymond Harris

One of the effects of penalizing completely innocuous political activity is that it elevates completely innocuous political activity as a form of resistance.

Nothing makes you feel like a snitch quite like recommending an alternative reviewer.
#academicsky

Today my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE

war, war never changes.

1 in 3 Americans have had a ‘romantic relationship’ with an AI bot, new survey says More than half of those surveyed (54 percent) said that they had some sort of relationship with an artificial intelligence platform

I am prepared to bet any amount of money that this is complete bullshit: www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a...

The president promoting an absurd medical conspiracy theory by posting a deepfake video of himself is about the most depressing convergence of my research interests imaginable.

The ICE Shooter’s Motive Joshua Jahn's friends speak

The combination of extremely online stochastic nihilist meme brain violence and a government looking for its daily Reichstag fire to justify political suppression just seems really bad.
www.kenklippenstein.com/p/the-ice-sh...

Every time I pack

Essay | The Rise of ‘Conspiracy Physics’ Streamers are building huge audiences by attacking academic physics as just another corrupt establishment. Scientists are starting to worry about the consequences.

www.wsj.com/science/phys...

"A conspiratorial crowd is getting the kind of evidence it craves, on an internet that supercharges conspiratorial speculating. At the same time, this is happening in a media ecosystem that makes it easier than ever for people to ignore, dismiss, or spin evidence to justify their prior viewpoints."

Where conspiracy theories come from, what they do, and what to do about them Philosophers who study conspiracy theories have increasingly addressed the questions of where conspiracy theories come from, what such theories do, and what to do about them. This essay serves as a...

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Now with page numbers!

#philsky

Sure! Happy to look at a draft too in case it's helpful

Beyond Belief: On Disinformation and Manipulation - Erkenntnis Existing analyses of disinformation tend to embrace the view that disinformation is intended or otherwise functions to mislead its audience, that is, to produce false beliefs. I argue that this view i...

Pardon the shameless self-promotion but I have a paper arguing something similar: doi.org/10.1007/s106...

In the end, the top 400 Americans paid an estimated 23.8 percent of their income to Uncle Sam from 2018 to 2020—down from roughly 30 percent before the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, in 2017. They paid 1.3 percent of their total wealth to the IRS in those years, down from 2.7 percent from 2010 to 2013. Their tax rates were lower than the average paid by all American households. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, Trump’s signature first-term domestic-policy package, helped these billionaires keep more of their money. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed this summer, extends the TCJA’s tax cuts, creates new business loopholes, and lowers taxes on estates. To help offset the revenue losses, the Trump administration is stripping health coverage from millions of low-income Americans and shrinking the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The rich, including Trump, will keep getting richer. The poor will pay for it.

www.theatlantic.com/economy/arch...

COVID Revisionism Has Gone Too Far If the center and left succumb to the view that “nothing worked,” no one will remain to defend sensible public-health measures the next time a pandemic comes around.

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

I wouldn't have minded living in Iowa so much in the possible world in which it's on the Missisipipi Ocean

An AI-generated "map of the American midwest" with states and other features mislabeled

Always reassuring to find tasks that AI is terrible at:

Probably an issue that the heroes of so many stories are kooks who ignore all the experts.

We all know beliefs can stubbornly resist evidence. Flat Earthers, climate deniers, our own political convictions—facts often seem totally incapable of changing minds.

But here’s the puzzle: Philosophy usually defines belief as *responsive to evidence*. So is the orthodox view just… wrong? 1/

"He was called away on an urgent matter" an admin staff tells a man, while the urgent-matter man is running to an ice cream truck

#AcademicSky

Academics in the summer, when asked to review manuscripts.

Call for Applications: Truth, Lies & Democracy 2025 Call for Experienced Game Developers

Call for Game Developers!
Join the Truth, Lies & Democracy 2025 game jam (Sept 26–28, Vienna) to create interactive video games addressing a big challenge for democracies today — disinformation.
Apply by Aug 15
👉 More info:

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

Great review of Tuomo Tiisala's book "Power and Freedom in the Space of Reasons: Elaborating Foucault’s Pragmatism" by David Owen @artsofdenial.bsky.social in Political Theory, which came out as part of @knowledgecrisis.bsky.social. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Opinion | Why Hiring Professors With Conservative Views Could Backfire on Conservatives

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/10/o...

Looking forward to this!

Can the sceptic live his scepticism? (Chapter 8) - Explorations in Ancient and Modern Philosophy Explorations in Ancient and Modern Philosophy - June 2012

Are you interested in the history of the apraxia objection? This might be helpful: www.cambridge.org/core/books/e...

Good opportunity to tee off on my views!

link.springer.com/collections/...

Abstract: What is persuasion and how does it differ from coercion, indoctrination, and manipulation? Which persuasive strategies are effective, and which contexts are they effective in? The aim of persuasion is attitude change, but when does a persuasive strategy yield a rational change of attitude? When is it permissible to engage in rational persuasion? In this paper, I address these questions, both in general and with reference to particular examples. The overall aims are (i) to sketch an integrated picture of the psychology, epistemology, and ethics of persuasion and (ii) to argue that there is often a tension between the aim we typically have as would-be persuaders, which is bringing about a rational change of mind, and the ethical constraints which partly distinguish persuasion from coercion, indoctrination, and manipulation.

New paper arguing that sometimes rational persuasion is a bad thing. It's available open access here:

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Note to academics: not all lacunae need to be filled

Hiking in Tyrol

There is one place, however, where Musk, with the help of his minions, achieved his goals. He did indeed shred U.S.A.I.D. Though a rump operation is now operating inside the State Department, the administration says that it has terminated more than 80 percent of U.S.A.I.D. grants. Brooke Nichols, an associate professor of global health at Boston University, has estimated that these cuts have already resulted in about 300,000 deaths, most of them of children, and will most likely lead to significantly more by the end of the year. That is what Musk’s foray into politics accomplished.

Musk should be asked about this in every interview he does now and forever. To ignore it is a dereliction of duty.

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/o...