Michael A. Nees

Also eliminating disability and “perfecting humanity” are fundamentally incompatible because disability is a core element to the human experience and what makes us humans

black and white beagle/dachsund mix wearing a crab costume and eyeing the camera

It's membership drive time! Sociology grad student ASA members who aren't pol soc members yet, Ziggy's looking at you! We're gifting FREE grad student political soc section memberships in return for cute pet pics. DM or email me for details. #ASA2025 Pls reskeet!
@asapolisoc.bsky.social

In a stunning moment of self-delusion, the Wall Street Journal headline writers admitted that they don't know how LLM chatbots work.

Thanks for documenting all of this. It was really interesting to follow. Great work, as always.

A man came up to us at a Tesla Showroom picket on Saturday to tell us he’d just had a test drive and it was *great* that FSD meant there was no longer any need for a human driver.

Wow.

What--and I say this with my chest--the hell are we doing here people

The (Ed) Tech Industry has made citizens believe that the problem with education is reading, thinking, and writing when the problem with education is austerity.

Reading, thinking, and writing are not the problems to be solved. Austerity is.

How do you stop the incessant political text messages? I never have donated by phone, never heard of many of the politicians and campaigns I get texts from, often several a day. I now report them as spam but that doesn't seem to help any more than texting stop.

self-driving would seem, to the layman, to indicate that the car... drives itself?

Evidence shows lots of people learn to use ADAS by trial and error. This is knowable. (And not just from my small n study.)

journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

agelab.mit.edu/static/uploa...

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

FWIW I found that people thought "autopilot" meant pretty much the same thing as "self-driving" and "autonomous" and I'm pretty sure what people think the word means is the only thing that matters here...

Image of a bar graph from a study of drivers' perception of the meaning of terms used to describe automation in vehicles. "Autopilot" was approximately equivalent to "self-driving" and "autonomous" with all three indicating ratings that the vehicle is more responsible for driving functions than the human driver.

I mean you could just ask people what they think the word means...

journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Image of a bar graph from a study of drivers' perception of the meaning of terms used to describe automation in vehicles. "Autopilot" was approximately equivalent to "self-driving" and "autonomous" with all three indicating ratings that the vehicle is more responsible for driving functions than the human driver.

I mean you could just ask people what they think the word means...

journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

you say "i asked chatgpt"
i hear "i asked [an improv comedy group]"

an improv group wrote this report
instead of a therapist i use an improv comedy group

Matt Walsh's imaginary professor: "good morning student-comrades. today we learn how to bayonet a white Christian capitalist while taking trans hormones"

actual average professor: "folks, I am begging you, please do the reading for tomorrow this time. it is five pages"

A good 70% of the fighting over AI would have been avoided if VC hucksters (and gullible access journalists) hadn't conflated incrementally useful automation with computational sentience to make money

I believe this is also the work where span was operationalized as the amount of time spent on a single screen/tab before changing. The author was on my campus last year and an undergrad in the audience immediately identified the shortcoming in defining a screen switch as a change in task/attention.

In the U.S. in 1825, *452* out of 1000 children born died before their 5th birthday.

By 1925, that number was 135 out of a 1000 children.

Today, in 2025, that number is *7*

And it is entirely due to advances in medicine, public health, and technology.

9/

In psyc (<150 yrs old) we have folks in their 5th and 6th career decades still around and basically filling journal space defending how their 50 yr old theories got it right the first time.

Your useless survey isn't cost free So pretty please stop asking me to fill them out

A problem with most surveys is that they are potentially useful qualitative tools that we mistakenly treat as quantitative tools. Even worse, our treatment of them as quantitative tools is entirely performative, as actual quant-methods experts know better.

statsepi.substack.com/p/your-usele...

Automation: how much is too much? The headlong rush to automate continues apace. The dominant question still remains whether we can automate, not whether we should automate. However, it is this latter question that is featured and ...Practitioner Summary: The reason for this work is to examine how much automation is too much. The investigational form is synthetic in nature. The major finding is – it depends? Each design decisio...

Hancock (2014): “the move towards automation has disproportionately benefitted the few…Statistically, the answer then to the question of who benefits from automation is not you!”

Is there any evidence that these 'turn around' specialists ever, you know...turn anything around? Because from the outside it sure looks like their business model is 'make a load of people redundant, collect massive salary, leave before everything fully collapses'

Maroon banner at the top with the Swarthmore logo, then the text: Social Science Quantitative Laboratory Associate Swarthmore College: Sociology & Anthropology Department Location Swarthmore, Pennsylvania Open Date Apr 05, 2025 Description Swarthmore College is seeking an individual to serve as an Associate in its Social Sciences Quantitative Lab (SSQL). This appointment is for a full-time, academic-year position for three years, with the possibility of renewal upon successful review. The expected starting date is August 2025. The SSQL promotes students’ quantitative skills by providing tutorial services, statistical consultation, and research support to students in the social sciences. More information about the SSQL can be found here: https://www.swarthmore.edu/ssql. Swarthmore College is a highly selective liberal arts college whose mission combines academic rigor with social responsibility. It is located in the suburbs roughly 10 miles west of Philadelphia and 15 miles north of Wilmington and has a SEPTA stop right on campus. Swarthmore has a strong institutional commitment to diversity, and actively seeks and welcomes applications from candidates with exceptional qualifications, particularly those with demonstrable commitments to a more inclusive society and world. Applicants from traditionally underrepresented groups are strongly encouraged to apply. For more information on Faculty Diversity and Excellence at Swarthmore, see http://www.swarthmore.edu/faculty-diversity-excellence/information-candidates-new-faculty Responsibilities (continues in next image) Planning and facilitating in-person workshops and classroom visits to support the teaching of quantitative methods in the social sciences—particularly in Political Science and Sociology/Anthropology—with the goal of familiarizing students with statistical software (R, Stata, and Excel) and helping them develop related data skills, including data collection, management, visualization, analysis, and export

Responsibilities (continiued) Providing statistical support to students during regular office hours and by appointment, including assisting students with the identification, manipulation, and analysis of data sets for their empirical research projects Planning and hosting stand-alone workshops to train students to work with statistical software commonly used in the social sciences, such as R, Stata, Python, Matlab, and/or Geographic Information System (GIS) Collaborating with social science faculty teaching quantitative courses on how best to support their courses and their students Creating additional opportunities for students with less experience in quantitative and computational methods to develop skills and confidence Offering supplementary workshops in quantitative social sciences to help students develop skills for success as research assistants and to prepare them for quantitative careers and job markets Qualifications A Master of Arts or Science (MA or MS), or equivalent, in Political Science, Sociology, Economics, Public Policy, Statistics, Data Science, or a related field is required; a PhD in one of these fields is preferred. Familiarity with statistics/econometrics, causal inference methods, and preparing data for quantitative social science research is required. Familiarity with computational and simulation methods is a plus. Programming expertise in R and Excel and ability to learn new technical skills are required. Expertise in Python, Matlab, GIS, and/or other related software is a plus. Demonstrated excellence in inclusive and equitable teaching practices that support the success of students from diverse backgrounds and with varying levels of preparation in quantitative skills. We seek applicants who cultivate welcoming classroom environments and use pedagogical strategies that promote belonging, engagement, and academic growth for all students.

JOB! Please RT.

Swarthmore is hiring for our Social Science Quantitative Lab Associate to support & do teaching quant methods to undergrads. Especially looking for people familiar with sociology and/or political science, and R. Apply by 4/18.

apply.interfolio.com/165892

Happy to answer questions.

A tweet by "rohit" discusses the application of AI in geopolitics, specifically focusing on tariffs, and includes a table comparing tariff rates between China and the US.

Guess where they got their weird trade deficit math from?

Lately I'm fighting myself constantly, switching between wanting to keep quiet and stick to my professional lanes, and wanting to be more vocal about what I see as injustices and truly alarming news. It is scary. I don't want to lose my job or be targeted. But I can't shake the idea I owe my elders.

Why a few hundred university presidents haven’t been jointly making similar points for the past month (and of course they should have for years) is beyond me. If not now, when?

The Department of Education, among other things, is what funds special education for children with disabilities.

Trump’s executive order will hurt kids and parents in virtually every school district in the country.

This is such an important point. Science can absolutely be manipulated, full of bias, etc. But at its core, its best, it is about being transparent, robust, and not serving political aims. Anti-science doesn't even try to hold itself to the same standards and is inherently political because of that.

Opinion | A college president offers a class in standing up to Trump Wesleyan University’s president is advocating for values in higher education while others stay silent.

A college president offers a class in standing up to Trump. www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

If you need a small lift.