So….this is out now. mitpress.mit.edu/978026205645...

How We Govern Our Minds Through Others

In How We Govern Our Minds Through Others, J. Adam Carter and Neil Levy argue that epistemic autonomy worth valuing requires various kinds of epistemic depen...

mitpress.mit.edu

✅Science ✅Tertiary Education ✅Commercialisation ✅Fellowships ✅✅ Innovation What is this?!?!? All these things… in one policy announcement?! 😱 It’s almost like someone has actually figured out that these things are connected… 💚

Ganesh Rajaram Ahirao@ganeshahirao.bsky.social · 8h ago

Unsure how to react 🤔 ... is scarily visionary ...(and has been a while since we've had such an option suggested here) ... ... here's hoping 🙏 www.greens.org.nz/greens_econo...

This is a worrying breach of Cabinet collective responsibility if reports are true -- but something doesn't add up with the explanations? 🤔

Marc Daalder@marcdaalder.bsky.social · 12h ago

SCOOP: A majority of Cabinet wanted New Zealand to back a vote on a new UN pandemic treaty but Winston Peters made the call not to, @samsachdeva.bsky.social reports. NZ and Paraguay were only countries to abstain, US, Israel and Argentina voted against. newsroom.co.nz/2026/10/13/p...

That's why we are running the Research Is Work campaign. Tell your mates about it. Get involved yourselves. Make a difference to future generations of academics in Aotearoa.

Research Is Work Campaign Launch

Research Is WorkThe world is a complex place with far too many problems and questions for any individual. That is why universities and research institutions exist, to employ specialists to contribute ...

te-ara-paerangi.community

New paper! Accepted at Perspectives on Psychological Science. A textbook finding in infant psychology is that newborns - within ~1 hour of birth - visually track a simplified 'three blob' facelike stimulus further than its inverted control (see picture). This suggested inborn knowledge of faces!

Dr Nick@nmwilkinson.eurosky.social · yesterday

ok the editorial and publication process is taking too long, so here is link to the accepted manuscript for our systematic review of the newborn face preference literature. it unearths a rather strange tale. check it out, any thoughts much appreciated www.researchgate.net/publication/...

In our course and book _Calling Bullshit_, we posit that If something seems too good, or too bad, to be true, it probably is. Now as a college professor I'm pretty confident that overreliance can AI can harm our thinking ability, but just ten minutes of use? Let's dig into this this study a bit.

Using AI for just 10 minutes erodes your ability to persist at hard things - Berkeley News

A UC Berkeley researcher co-authored a study that raises profound questions about how we interact with artificial intelligence in education — and daily life.

news.berkeley.edu

Useful package to delete drive and compute-hogging AI features you probably don't use futurism.com/artificial-i...

Mac Users Are Nuking Every Trace of Apple AI on Their Machines

Privacy-minded Apple users are deleting all the company's AI features from their machines, in a miss for the company.

futurism.com

New working paper: the Norwegian wealth tax was a huge success. The "exodus" of wealthy people never happened (less than 100 individuals left). Tax revenue increased by 71.5%. No changes in business activity or investment. www.nber.org/papers/w35854

I’m getting this on the agenda for a working group on guidance for people here; your flowchart you posted the other day had an emphasis on ‘ask if you really have to use AI *first*’ too which I think is the key flip to make

Andrew D Wilson@adw.bsky.social · 5d ago

The current document sort of assumes you are using AI, and suggests some things to think about now you are in it. I'm thinking the guidance should take a step back, and first guide the researcher to ask "how, exactly, will I use AI, do I need to, and if so, how can I mitigate the issues?"

😑😑😑 #nzpol

Lack of staff closes earthquake monitoring centre, Labour decries Govt cuts

The closure at GeoNet meant inaccuracies, known as 'ghost quakes', could occur.

nzherald.co.nz

I am pleased to announce the launch of our new diamond open access journal Psychology Across Development (accepting submissions starting today!). We are a lifespan developmental journal. (1/3) escholarship.org/uc/psycdev

I see the circus is in full swing already.

In a remotely normal environment this is both front page news and disqualifying for office.

Harvard just dropped a study AI productivity in software engineering and it found the average increase in productivity from using Claude code is.....zero and for exactly the reasons you'd think fion.ac/jellyfish.pdf

That there are parties & industry insiders not only ignoring this but actively maligning this here in New Zealand tells you how much we need to kill the dominant do nothing narrative. Not just kill it, stab it with a wooden stake, seal it in a lead sarcophagus & fire it into the heart of the sun.

Ryan Stauffer@ryanswx.bsky.social · 7d ago

Haha, this fucking sucks.

Ready now for the IHC election forum - interested to see what each of the parties have to say about disability and the promises they will make... #nzpol #IHC

Chris Hipkins won a debate despite speaking fewer words than the person asking the questions. I don't know what this means, but it's certainly a bit funny

Front page news in The Press! I am surprised that 9 of the 10 farmers interviewed were 'mistrustful' of climate science, thought it might be 3 or 4. The study says they rely on the farming papers like Rural News, which is one of the last mainstream media outlets that still platform climate deniers.

We talked to farmers in a South Island community and found: (1) mistrust in climate science and scientists, (2) mistrust in government, (3) mistrust of the mainstream media and (4) a sense of responsibility and care for their farms. #ClimateChange rsnz.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

New Zealand Farmers’ Trust in Climate Change Expertise and Policy: A Case Study

Responding to recent discord between Aotearoa New Zealand's agricultural sector and the government over environmental policies, this paper examines farmers’ trust in climate change science and policy...

rsnz.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Thanks, National. #nzpol

No - the answer is no.

RNZ News Feeds@rnzrss.bsky.social · last wk.

Are right‑brained people really more creative? What science tells us

"Absent policy steering, AI’s modeled effects increase the carbon intensity of the global economy and reinforce fossil fuel incumbency—outcomes that current analytical and governance frameworks do not fully capture."

AI-driven productivity gains enable more CO₂ emissions than they avoid in a global energy–economy model - npj Climate Action

npj Climate Action - AI-driven productivity gains enable more CO₂ emissions than they avoid in a global energy–economy model

nature.com

Have a lovely weekend 🐑🐏

There were plenty of people who could have pointed police in the direction of the Christchurch mosque murderer's online presence or who could provide details on overseas fraud networks, but NZ Police were, and typically still are, uninterested. Maybe that could change with pressure from the top.

To say I did not have high hopes for this government would be an understatement, but I am nonetheless agog at the utter dogs breakfast they have turned the science funding system into in 3 short years

Science Media Centre NZ@smcnz.bsky.social · 2w ago

Investment plans for science, innovation and tech released – Expert Reaction

'Before the tender began House of Science chief executive Chris Duggan was also added to a group helping to write the science curriculum, on Stanford's recommendation [...] she stood to gain materially from being on it.' #nzpol www.1news.co.nz/2026/10/01/l...

Labour calls for investigation into $40m school science kit contract

The House of Science had repeatedly lobbied the Education Minister for funding – but Erica Stanford insists it’s all above board.

1news.co.nz

I think the Mata poll showing a surge in support for the Greens among Māori voters signals a structural shift as millennials/Gen X Māori rapidly outnumber the older population. This shift was emerging 10 years ago, and for the foreseeable Labour/Greens/and TPM will roughly share support in thirds

As @karpathy.bsky.social said: tokenization is the root of all suffering. Come learn the good stuff.

I spent the full hour on NPR/@wbur.org's "On Point" in conversation with Meghna Chakrabarti on this year's very strong El Niño event--which is expected reach record intensity by Nov--and the broader context surrounding it, as well as local-to-global impacts.

How the 'super' El Niño will shape the global climate

El Niño has become an annual global climate phenomenon. But this year, scientists are warning of a record-setting 'super' El Niño. What that could mean for the weather everywhere on planet earth.

wbur.org

Temperatures in the Central Pacific El Niño region are the hottest ever measured (top panel), and far above any other El Niño at this time of year. But, if you adjust for the warming of the global ocean, the current trajectory is not so different from other very strong events.