Ofer

@oferon.bsky.social

I am a psychology professor at Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). I study cultural evolution and social learning in songbirds and humans http://ofer.hunter.cuny.edu/

I usually don't go on the streets to protest, but this time I will. I have a single demand: arrest and charge the ICE agents who murdered Alex Pretti.

Many are complaining about the immediate damage of eviscerating The NIH & NSF, but beyond that, they fund basic research, from genes to behavior. It is the muscle driving progress, which shapes modern society. This muscle is now much smaller. The real damage will be seen long after Trump is gone.

Thank you Harvard University President Alan Garber for showing leadership and resistance. I hope this will convince Columbia University leadership to change course and resist as well. Just say No No No

Musk just sold X to xAI (he already owns both) for 40B. Amazon and Apple are both reinvesting in X campaigns again. Terrifying. If you still have an X account, please consider closing it.

DOGE put a $1 spending limit on all NIH scientists credit cards, halting basic operations, like to pay for gas for vehicles used to transport patients’ blood samples. Very efficient.

NYT: "Domino’s pizzas arrived at the homes of judges without explanation. Trump: “We have judges that are destroying our country.” Musk made contribution to House members who supported judge impeachment, and posted X messages describing him as evil". CU gave up. This is a nightmare. Wake up!

NYT (David French):Columbia has become Patient Zero in an outbreak of censorship and repression. And unless it’s stopped there, expect more universities to yield to Trump’s control. Expect political repression to spread far beyond the borders of the university.

Just watched the King's Speech: Isn't it funny that 77 years old Al Green was the only representative who had the courage to show real resistance, and get removed after disrupting Trump? Whose idea was it to wave these stupid signs instead of protesting loudly, and getting removed one by one?

NYT: "State Dept. plans $400 million order for armored trucks from Musk’s Tesla". This is such a fantastic anti corruption work Musk is doing, so transparent! This decay will soon ruin everything. What can be done? Either resist, or diversify your investments.

I am tired of getting 'give me money' messages from Democrats, while academia and DOE are getting gutted. Please lead: help us organize resistance. We need to organize a nationwide strike. Let's close the universities and the medical hospitals. A strike now might prevent a real collapse.

Trump nominated Michael Kratsios, a man with no degrees in science or engineering, to be his science adviser. Now we have the military, health services, and investment in science, decided by people who do not know what they are doing. How long would it take before something big goes wrong?

An executive order from Trump, supported by his new friend Sam Altman, just ditched all safety standards on developing and implementing AI technology. Wellcome to the apocalypse!

The wise withdraw their hands from the leadership of the world, because they know that there are wiser than them, in the meantime the foolish and the wicked jump in and take the world into their hands and rule the world according to their wickedness and according to their foolishness [Agnon 1948]

"everything in the world is beautiful really, everything but our own thoughts and actions, when we lose sight of the higher aims of life, and of our dignity as human beings" Chekhov, 1899 (The Lady with the Dog)

"Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, spent over a quarter of a billion dollars in the final months of this year’s election to help Donald J. Trump win the presidency, federal filings revealed on Thursday." This should not be legal

Reading about the morbid glee from patients after the killing of UnitedHealthcare executive, Brian Thompson, I would like to say that my Health insurance, Emblem, is amazingly good: they rarely deny anything, and customer service is fantastic. What is the magic? Emblem is a non profit.

Biden just pardon His Son Hunter. So, like Trump, like Clinton, Biden gives immunity to friends and family. Saving democracy? No wonder people did not buy it.

TIAA are manipulating the presentation of data to hide losses on retirement. They do it by including monthly investment in the 'rate of return'. For example, they show 3.72% gain in the last three month -- but if fact, they lost money. Here is what they present:

Bild

Gaza hospital explosion: NYTime reader comment: “The NYT, AP, Reuters and other western media organizations owe a public apology on this one. Whatever safeguards to disinformation that are meant to be in place failed badly in this instance and caused grievous harm... the dangers of misinformation."