Two brief thoughts on why I think it's still worth keeping LLM use out of introductory programming for stats/data science: - You need to be a good programmer to get good code out of an LLM - You need to be a good programmer to evaluate the code you get out of an LLM

Alexander Wuttke@kunkakom.bsky.social · 4w ago

Genuinely interested in your views: What is the future of teaching statistical programming language for data science in the age of AI? Will we even still teach programming R or Python?

Very proud of my wife Samira for passing her viva today. Blessed to be married to such an intelligent and accomplished scholar

This leaflet format is the British political equivalent of carcinisation

Rob Ford@robfordmancs.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Behold the by-election catechism: “Only x can win here” “Two horse race” Bar chart (often misleading) - “can’t win here” “Only (our candidate) can beat (candidate you don’t like)” “Vote (our party)” (under breath: don’t waste your time on splitters from (similar party”)

"why use google?" webpage from 1999

Abundantly clear that we are in bloc politics and that Labour's strategy should reflect this. Also very clear that ultimate defeat of the far right in the UK will depend on the UK Conservatives reasserting themselves as the main party of the British right.

Adam Bienkov@adambienkov.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Labour lost almost four times as many voters to the Greens as they did to Reform UK in the local elections, according to new YouGov polling

Checking the news like

I once got a lift home after canvassing from Ken Skates. He mostly spoke very enthusiastically about theories of Rey's origin from the Disney Star Wars films (think this was before episode 8 came out)

Bloody hell.

Because I've been doing some work with it, I've written up an applied primer on optimal transport/transportation theory and its applications to measuring dataset distance: philswatton.github.io/2026/04/08/a... Hopefully of use to someone else! Grateful for corrections on typos or misunderstandings

When I think of the notion of 'living in truth' as expressed in Havel's essay and Carney's speech, responses like this are a choice to keep putting up the sign in the shop window www.politico.eu/article/dona...

Trump threatens to wipe out Iran’s ‘whole civilization.’ EU has no comment.

“Honestly if we reacted every time somebody posted something outrageous online, that is all we would do,” an EU official says.

politico.eu

Another one of my reports written at the Turing is now available online, which is an informal literature review on AI-generated text detection. A brief thread as I've seen some discussion on the topic ⬇️ Link: www.turing.ac.uk/sites/defaul... 1/5

This is a great point: anyone who's not been plugged into AI discourse and encounters contemporary models is going to get Eliza'd into Yudkowski-adjacent views on AI safety

Nathan Goldwag @goldwagnathan.bsky.social · 4mo ago

If you somebody just showed you the stuff that exists now and you hadn't been immersed in the last few years of hype spirals and calcifying political narratives and slowly-escalating capability it'd scare the shit out of you too.

Think this is basically correct, albeit some are making educated guesses while others are just making guesses.

Will Stancil@whstancil.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Anyone confidently asserting they know to win an election is either: 1. a consultant trying to sell you something, 2. a political hobbyist with little direct experience, or 3. a moron Nobody knows. Every single aspect of campaigning is an educated guess by people desperate for some lever to pull.

Guy who argues this aged well because in formal logic, X->Y is true whenever X is false

Ben Ansell@benansell.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Haven’t posted this for a few weeks. Aging absolutely tremendously

Great obituary of Habermas by @mattpolprof.bsky.social: jacobin.com/2026/03/habe... I only recently learned of the outline of Habermas' thought after reading Matt's recent review of his career: www.liberalcurrents.com/also-a-revie...

Jürgen Habermas Showed What Philosophy Could Be

The death of Jürgen Habermas has left philosophy and the Left poorer. Central to his work was a profound critique of irrationality in all its forms. Taken seriously, his philosophy provides an indispe...

jacobin.com

As promised, here’s my review of No Second Chances by @morganj0nes.bsky.social. Spoiler alert – I really dislike the extreme, anti-democratic and counter-productive People’s Vote campaign. www.thepathnottaken.net/p/fiasco-the...

Fiasco - the People’s Vote seven years on

A review of No Second Chances: the Inside Story of the Campaign for a Second Referendum

thepathnottaken.net

Great post. I think the biggest examples of this kind of motivated causal attribution on my side of the aisle is the notion that Russian disinfo changed the outcomes of the 2016 EU Ref/2016 US Presidential election. Disinfo is v. concerning for a variety of reasons, but rarely changes vote choice.

James Breckwoldt@jamesbreckwoldt.bsky.social · 5mo ago

We explain political change using totally different causal models if we approve of outcome of not: 1. Change we like is organic, bottom-up genuine expression of public demand 2. Change we dislike is artificial, top-down result of manipulative elite I’m calling this Motivated Causal Attribution

At some point I really need to bite the bullet and read Statistical Rethinking.

Think my lastest stuff took the [No, Yes] route -- fun exercise

James Breckwoldt@jamesbreckwoldt.bsky.social · 5mo ago

A decision tree guide to political analysis for the cynical

I'm so glad I don't have to live in a world where Matt Goodwin is an MP

When reading Suzanne Heywood's biography of her late husband Jeremy Heywood, two things struck me about Brown: 1) The world and not just Britain were v lucky he was PM during the crisis. 2) The humanity of his eulogy to Jeremy, directly addressed to Jeremy's family

Emily Bell@emilybell.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Former UK PM Gordon Brown is providing - voluntarily and not for the first time - information to the police about abuses of power relating to the Epstein files. As PM Brown was briefed against by people such as Alistair Campbell and Peter Mandelson as being ‘psychologically flawed’ ….1/

I should probably write a new essay on something else sometime instead of re-upping this one, but I feel it remains relevant whenever something like the quoted post comes up: renewal.org.uk/blog/public-...

Public Opinion and the Survey Response

Political scientists know that survey responses cannot be taken at face value. For most respondents, most of the time, responses are not the product of deeply held, pre-existing, coherent views on par...

renewal.org.uk

G Elliott Morris@gelliottmorris.com · 5mo ago

It is important that legislators respond to public opinion. I also think that it’s important that what we call “public opinion” is measured carefully and with nuance. One thing we know about the public is opinions are complex and very susceptible to framing and priming issues

This thread is a very instructive of example of why the short form video is such a negative thing for our information environment, not least because many of those who see the video are unlikely to see it!

Emma Monk@monkemma.bsky.social · 6mo ago

This clip is all over the other place and has made its way onto GB News and Talk TV so I’ll do a bit of an explainer here too! The clip doing the rounds is of a fantastic police officer telling a group of Muslim men that a Christian preacher nearby is entitled to freedom of expression. 🧵 1/19

V worth reading

Ruth Cadbury MP@ruthcadbury.bsky.social · 6mo ago

A short 🧵 This is a really good article & shows the challenge MPs face. I received over 2,000 emails last month in our casework system; this covers 'campaign emails', personalised emails (often asking for my view on something) and people getting in touch who needing my team's support.

Smiling because my book with @ghostofchristo1.bsky.social is out today! In Beyond Woke and Anti-Woke (Bristol University Press), we examine the emergence of social justice ideology. Unlike polemical accounts, we use an analytic approach and academic theories and methods. More 👇

Fear of the machine's impact on work dates at least to the Luddites, but nonetheless fascinating to come across something like this from JFK's 1960 presidential campaign:

Nick Vivyan, Chris Hanretty (@chanret.bsky.social) and I have a new book out: “Idiosyncratic Issue Opinion and Political Choice”. The core of the book is making the argument that citizens’ views about political issues neither reduce to an ideological orientation nor to a lack of substance. (1/10)

Fascinating thread on the enduring influence of Red Vienna’s scientific worldview.

Phil Swatton@philswatton.bsky.social · 6mo ago

So a somewhat long response based largely on the notes I took from said Cockett's book (yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300...), but: In 1919, the Social Democratic Worker's Party wins control of Vienna. It doesn't lose this control until around 1934 when Austrian democracy's demise fully begun.

Read this earlier today and it's a great and thoughtful piece. Too much discourse among the left on AI has fallen into a lazy hostility largely disinterested in the technology. This piece is a real antidote

William Cullerne Bown@williamcb.bsky.social · 6mo ago

People say AI will be the end of democracy. Will it? A reasoned answer here from me today.

Materialist vs post materialist values (though I don't think anyone sees it as sacrosanct??)

Paul Nightingale@paulnightingale.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Id like to run a special issue of a social science journal on "Calling Bullshit" where people can just go on a full on rant (anonymously if they like) and rip well established ideas to shreds. Zero requirements to be balanced or polite or have any respect for pompous senior professors.