Philip R. Conway

There is virtue in virtuosity.

I think that the entire ethos of Higher Education needs to be rebuilt upon this principle. But that’s just me.

This was my first reaction when ChatGPT came out: “Okay, so now everyone gets a C-.” Now it’s more like everyone gets an A-.

The absolute bare minimum has risen. But that doesn’t mean that the bare minimum is now good enough, any more than it was before.

This is the best I can say for it: AI raises the bar for what bad-to-mediocre work looks like.

If AI is able to tell me something that I don’t already know about my research area, this means that I need to do more research.

If my writing isn’t appreciably better than what an AI can generate, then I need to work on my writing skills.

The “good enough” attitude —valuing productivity for its own sake, pursuing quantity over quality, and generally having low intellectual standards — has long been a path to academic success. AI merely supercharges this. Amazing to see people so openly proud of their own mediocrity though.

Confidence and Conservatism: Integrating Affect and Ideology in the Critique of Reactionary Politics - Lawrence Wishart Affect and ideology are concepts easily associated but rarely thought through in their interrelation. Likewise, confidence and c

FWIW I wrote about needing to put ideology (à la Althusser) into dialogue with affect (à la Berlant) to deal with Trump-era political psychology. Though that was before Trump II. Not sure how I’d approach it now.

journals.lwbooks.co.uk/newformation...

(Paywall. Feel free to DM for PDF.)

It’s hard to discuss ideology theory in skeet form!

If “ISA” no longer works, this reflects a shift in the relationship of ideology to state rather than a diminution of ideology per se.

I think ideology is still central. Look at Polymarket, etc. Are the vast majority of users reaping material rewards from these markets? Not at all. They get the *promise* of rewards, but only a few insiders will ever gain them materially. Interpellation describes that relationship well, I think.

Trump wants critical minerals. So do Cornwall’s MPs. Global leaders are going head to head over critical minerals and national security. For some U.K. lawmakers, it is chance to grab both investment and votes.

World powers are deep in a fight over critical minerals.

But for a clutch of lawmakers in Britain's quiet Cornwall, they mean something else:

Votes.

New piece for @phenomenalworld.bsky.social, written with @jacktaggart.bsky.social and @tomchodor.bsky.social! It's an attempt at grasping the dismantling of multilateral global governance, in light of intensifying geopolitical rivalries, resurgent state capitalism, and hegemonic crisis. Link below:

There’s this big yellow thing in the sky that’s making everything hot. What the hell is it?

“Lynn, idea for Farage meeting. Jim Davidson hosts the 9 o’clock news. Stop migrants taking taxis.”

It’s difficult to express in words the contempt with which the McSweeney cabal deserve to be regarded, but Ian does a good job in approximating.

Why is every scandal existential for Starmer? Because he has actively worked to eradicate his own support base. And that, along with the Mandelson decision, can be laid at McSweeney's door iandunt.substack.com/p/starmers-m...

TL;DR: The left needs to read Machiavelli.

Easy to say with hindsight, sure, but there were people saying these things at the time.

In any case, this is what I think we should really be taking from Mandelson's downfall:

These are the ghouls you will have to slay if you are to gain any scrap of power in this country. This is the job.

When Corbyn became Labour leader, he needed to do two things:

1. Purge the party of ratfuckers like Mandelson.
2. Hold the institutional door open for a new generation of political talent.

He was never the guy for either of these tasks. It was only a matter of time before the apparatchiks got him.

It's tempting to look at the recent revelations and say "it's nothing we didn't know before," it's all about structures not individuals, etc., but I think that's a mistake.

The point is that this is what you're up against when you deal with these people.

bsky.app/profile/jomi...

‘Where r u? I miss you’: how vivid new Epstein emails sealed Mandelson’s fate The latest revelations and reaction to them may mean he has finally encountered a scandal he is unable to outrun

He's finally done. They'll hang him out to save themselves, now.

But I think it's important to emphasise that Mandelson had and kept power *because* of being a creepy, corrupt spittle-licker. That was his job, and he excelled at it.

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Sorry, off to pun jail I go.

It's just me-dia.

All of which is, of course, not the besmirch the masterpiece of cyberpunk silliness that is Hackers (1995).

Have to say, I’m getting such Hackers (1995) vibes from our political class these days. They haven’t got the faintest idea what’s actually going on, but they’ll believe whatever some billionaire in a leather jacket tells them. So desperate to be seen to be on the cutting edge. The perfect mark.

On martyrdom and masculinity The United States is a martyr machine and it isn’t going away

substack.com/home/post/p-...

The great political contradiction of Trump: he gets a knee-shaking ego-thrill from posing as a callous, imperturbable tough guy, but he also deeply, viscerally needs his people to like him.

Obligatory BlueSky™ Caveat: Which is not to say, of course, that naively unstrategic left-liberal moralism—the grain of truth around which the anti-“woke” panic crystallised—hasn’t been a problem. It is to say that those who participated in said crystallisation need to get a grip or get in the sea.

Every day it becomes clearer and clearer that the actual political convictions behind what became demonised as “woke,” from 2020 onwards, were pretty much spot on, and those Very Serious People who participated in its demonisation owe us all a series of grovelling apologies.

Caught up with the last season of The Righteous Gemstones: Utterly bonkers (indeed, Bible Bonkers). Large parts make absolutely no sense. The satirical edge is dulled with sentimentality. And, I repeat, it’s bonkers. But when you’ve got John Goodman doing John Goodman things, anything seems possible

I guess Nature publishes Yelp reviews now.