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Andrew Perfors

@andyperfors.bsky.social

11K followers 5K following 3.2K posts

Prof at UniMelb. I'm a computational cognitive scientist studying human inference, learning, information systems, culture, and (mis/dis)info. Nerd & opinionated loudmouth in Oz, originally from America, citizen of both. Parent of two. 🏳️‍⚧️ perfors.net

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Andrew Perfors @andyperfors.bsky.social · Apr 29

I wrote an article about the psychology by which disinformation campaigns work, with examples from anti-trans propaganda. It's not just about individual beliefs, but also the way our institutions and norms are manipulated.

Please read and share!

pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/Ant...?

Anti-trans attitudes have existed for years, but organised disinformation campaigns are increasingly driving them

Disinformation exists across all parts of the political spectrum, but it goes far beyond simple lying when it comes to the campaign against the transgender community, says a University of Melbourne ex...

pursuit.unimelb.edu.au

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SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️ @skwinnicki.bsky.social · 3h

A surprisingly hopeful perspective from a reporter who asked random folks on the east coast how they were doing, learned we’re all having a really bad time, and chose to highlight the shared humanity in that.

Seyward Darby @seywarddarby.bsky.social · 10d

"We’re traveling nearly 2,000 miles on I-95 from Miami to Maine, and pausing at virtually every rest stop. Our project is simple and vast at once: to ask fellow travelers where they’re headed, and where they think America is going too."

New from @atavist.com.

magazine.atavist.com/2025/america...

I’ve Gone to Look for America - The Atavist Magazine

Conversations and revelations about an ailing nation along Interstate 95.

magazine.atavist.com

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Noah Riseman @noahriseman.bsky.social · 3h

I support several trans charities with my work, including donating all royalties from my book.

One of those organisations is Transgender Victoria.

If you donate to them through GiveOutDay between now and 16 October, funds will be matched.

Donate here:

giveoutday.org.au/o/transgende...

{{current.profile.name}} - GiveOUT Day 2025

GiveOUT Day 2025: Swipe Right on Impact

giveoutday.org.au

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Andrew Perfors @andyperfors.bsky.social · 2h

Thanks for letting me know about this!

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Adam Keiper @adamkeiper.com · 3h

You would not fire these people—including the staff of the hugely, HUGELY important 'Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report'—if you cared at all about public health, if you wanted people to live.

And you would not let your thuggish henchmen fire people like this if you were a responsible president.

Sheryl Gay Stolberg @sherylnyt.bsky.social · 3h

BREAKING: Friday night massacre underway at CDC. Doznes of "disease detectives," high-level scientists, entire Washington staff and editors of the MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) have all been RIFed and received the following notice:

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Andrew Perfors @andyperfors.bsky.social · 2h

Heartbreaking reading, but this Reddit thread gives a sense of the relentlessness of the horror inflicted by ICE, and the damage being done to so many innocent people that doesn't make the news.

From the AskReddit community on Reddit

Explore this post and more from the AskReddit community

www.reddit.com

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Walter Olson @walterolson.bsky.social · 3h

New from me at Cato: I go through the numerous and massive First Amendment and academic-freedom violations of Trump's proffered "compact" with universities and then talk about the mechanism by which it would be enforced, by way of what I describe as a "retroactive push-button guillotine."

Universities Must Defend Their Independence by Rejecting Trump's "Compact"

The Trump administration has proffered a “compact” to universities that would require them to surrender their independence and academic freedom. How many First Amendment violations can we identify in ...

www.cato.org

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Bradley P. Moss @bradmossesq.bsky.social · 6h

I love this image.

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Kathleen Clark @kathleenclark.bsky.social · 15h

A master class from MIT in responding to authoritarian overreach:

Your “premise … is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone.
… America’s leadership in science & innovation depends on independent thinking & open competition for excellence.

Dear Madam Secretary,
I write in response to your letter of October 1, inviting MIT to review a "Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education." I acknowledge the vital importance of these matters.
I appreciated the chance to meet with you earlier this year to discuss the priorities we share for American higher education.
As we discussed, the Institute's mission of service to the nation directs us to advance knowledge, educate students and bring knowledge to bear on the world's great challenges.
We do that in line with a clear set of values, with excellence above all. Some practical examples:
• MIT prides itself on rewarding merit. Students, faculty and staff succeed here based on the strength of their talent, ideas and hard work. For instance, the Institute was the first to reinstate the SAT/ACT requirement after the pandemic. And MIT has never had legacy preferences in admissions.
• MIT opens its doors to the most talented students regardless of their family's finances. Admissions are need-blind. Incoming undergraduates whose families earn less than $200,000 a year pay no tuition. Nearly 88% of our last graduating class left MIT with no debt for their education. We make a wealth of free courses and low-cost certificates available to any American with an internet connection. Of the undergraduate degrees we award, 94% are in STEM fields. And in service to the nation, we cap enrollment of international undergraduates at roughly 10%.

source:
https://orgchart.mit.edu/letters/regarding-compact

• We value free expression, as clearly described in the MIT Statement on Freedom of Expression and Academic Freedom. We must hear facts and opinions we don't like - and engage respectfully with those with whom we disagree.
These values and other MIT practices meet or exceed many standards outlined in the document you sent. We freely choose these values because they're right, and we live by them because they support our mission - work of immense value to the prosperity, competitiveness, health and security of the United States. And of course, MIT abides by the law.
The document also includes principles with which we disagree, including those that would restrict freedom of expression and our independence as an institution. And fundamentally, the premise of the document is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone.
In our view, America's leadership in science and innovation depends on independent thinking and open competition for excellence. In that free marketplace of ideas, the people of MIT gladly compete with the very best, without preferences. Therefore, with respect, we cannot support the proposed approach to addressing the issues facing higher education.
As you know, MIT's record of service to the nation is long and enduring. Eight decades ago, MIT leaders helped invent a scientific partnership between America's research universities and the U.S. government that has delivered extraordinary benefits for the American people. We continue to believe in the power of this partnership to serve the nation.
Sincerely,
Sally Kornbluth

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Gwen Snyder is undead @gwensnyder.bsky.social · 14h

As a protest optics nerd love about the inflatables is how much they visually disrupt and pull focus from the fascist shock imagery Noem & Miller are trying to create.

So many of these photos now look like the world's silliest dance party, backgrounded by a bunch of guys in uniform looking awkward

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Lauren MacIvor Thompson @lmacthompson1.bsky.social · 13h

There are certain groups that focus on professors and their entire existence is centered on harassing us, spying on us, and inciting violence and intimidation against us.

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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 19h

All I want in life is to persuade everyone, when encountering politics & culture, to ask, "why are we talking about this?" I mean that very literally: anything you encounter on your screens reflects a choice. Someone covered that, talked about that, rather than the many other things out there. Why?

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Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 1d

Picture how big the Hoover Dam is. An absolute unit. The Hoover Dam has a power capacity of 2 gigawatts (GW).

The solar farm that the Admin just cancelled could have produces 6.2 GW of power. That's more than 3 Hoover Dams.

jael holzman @jael.bsky.social · 1d

SCOOP: The Bureau of Land Management says the largest solar project in Nevada — the Esmeralda 7 mega-farm — has been canceled

The news was quietly dropped via a sudden website update with no public word from any of the companies involved or a statement from the agency

@heatmap.news

Esmeralda 7 Solar Project Has Been Canceled, BLM Says

It would have delivered a gargantuan 6.2 gigawatts of power.

heatmap.news

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Juno Rylee Schultz @junoryleejournalism.com · 2d

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems...
SIMON: What?
SHAPIRO: ...Or saying...
SIMON: You imagine that?
SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over.
SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level.
SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this.
SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.

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Gretchen McCulloch @gretchenmcc.bsky.social · 1d

Anyway I wrote an article back in 2013 analyzing permutations on Benedict Cumberbatch which you may read and sub in Timothée Chalamet should you so desire
web.archive.org/web/20250322...

A Linguist Explains the Rules of Summoning Benedict Cumberbatch -The Toast

A willing foe, and sea room.

web.archive.org

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Andrew Perfors @andyperfors.bsky.social · 1d

Hello fellow lapsed Catholic! Can't say this is making me believe in God anymore, but for all of its (many, many) flaws the church as an institution is meeting this moment so much better than I would have expected.

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Andrew Perfors @andyperfors.bsky.social · 1d

Younger me did not foresee a world in which I am ideologically far more aligned with the current Pope than with most major US institutions, but here we are.

He puts his finger on much of what's at the heart of the moral rot we see all over.

Lucius Fox In The Box @carnegro.bsky.social · 1d

Pope Leo is spitting.

www.npr.org/2025/10/09/n...

Leo questioned a world where the wealth of the elite grows
"exponentially" while many "millions of people die of hunger or survive in conditions unfit for human beings." He also criticized "ideologies that defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation,"
with false promises "that a free-market economy will automatically solve the problem of poverty."

Leo described a "new tyranny," which shuns any kind of oversight and where the economy is structured "in such a way that sacrifices are demanded of the masses in order to serve the needs of the powerful." The poor, he wrote, are only allowed "drops that trickle down."

The pope openly challenged "prosperity theology" and called Christians to the practice of giving charity. "It will not solve the problem of world poverty, yet it must still be carried out, with intelligence, diligence and social responsibility," he wrote.

Popular movements that challenge "the empire of money," invite people to take on the cause to combat poverty alongside the poor, instead of on their behalf, and "make history," the pope said. It our duty, Leo said, to "make their voices heard, albeit in different ways, in order to point out and denounce such structural issues, even at the cost of appearing foolish or naïve."

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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 1d

It really can't be said enough: the goal of the "anti-woke" movement was always to destroy social norms against bigotry. And it worked. And there's a whole lot of purportedly "left" thinkers & commentators who helped it -- indeed, it couldn't have been done without them.

They should feel bad.

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Coach Finstock @coachfinstock.bsky.social · 1d

If this stuff would end up on the news it would absolutely motivate voters. Plenty of people who don't give a shit about politics would absolutely give af about this.

The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 1d

CHICAGO — Outside an elementary school during dismissal… horrifying. What have we become?

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Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 1d

A striking thing about articles I’ve read claiming to “study the effects” of generative AI on student writing skills and consumption of information is that (1) they nearly always find the effects are negative and (2) most “conclusions” are still written assuming that we must use AI, for some reason.

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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 2d

We’re not dealing with brilliant strategists cleverly laying traps, we’re dealing with impulsive whiners whose advantage is contempt for laws, norms, and morality.

They’re not pulling some elaborate trick, they’re just willing—even eager—to do things regular, principled people consider off limits.

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Gordon Bonnet @gordon227.bsky.social · 2d

If you needed another reason to avoid using AI, here you go www.skeptophilia.com/2025/10/the-...

The image and the reality

critical thinking blog skeptic analytics skepticism science rational education alternative medicine conspiracy theories debunk misinformation skepto

www.skeptophilia.com

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Musa Okwonga @okwonga.bsky.social · 2d

“Far from comprehensive, the list does not include the thousands still buried under the rubble of destroyed buildings, as well as the war’s many indirect victims.”

Lea Ypi @leaypi.bsky.social · 2d

no words

Young lives cut short on an unimaginable scale: the 18,457 children on Gaza’s list of war dead

Every name on a list compiled by health authorities in Gaza of the child victims of Israel’s offensive

www.theguardian.com

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Chris Morran @themorrancave.bsky.social · 2d

NEW: As Linda McMahon guts the Dept. of Education, she’s operated in what she calls “a parallel universe” to radically shift how future kids will learn -- seeking to dismantle the public school system in favor of private and Christian schools or homeschooling.

These Activists Want to Dismantle Public Schools. Now They Run the Education Department.

Under Trump, the Department of Education has been bringing in activists hostile to public schools. It could mean a new era of private and religious schools boosted by tax dollars — and the end of publ...

www.propublica.org

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Andrew Perfors @andyperfors.bsky.social · 2d

This is good and worth reading.

Andrea Stocco @andreastocco.com · 3d

A recent Nature paper has introduced Centaur, a LLAMA-based LLM that surpasses any cognitive models in predicting human behavior. Is this the ultimate unified theory of cognition? In this preprint, my colleagues and I expressed our doubts. Let us know what you think! arxiv.org/abs/2510.03311

Not Even Wrong: On the Limits of Prediction as Explanation in Cognitive Science

We offer a comment on the Centaur (Binz et al., 2025) transformer-based model of human behavior. In particular, Centaur was cast as a path towards unified theories of cognition. We offer a counter cla...

arxiv.org

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Rob Hawkes @robbhawkes.bsky.social · 7d

As more of my valued colleagues face the threat of redundancy, here’s a quick reminder that it takes years and years of public investment to train an academic. Cutting someone with this wealth of experience loose isn’t “saving” anything. It is a massive waste of our collective resources.

UK Universities in Crisis? Time to Transform Higher Ed Finance

by Rob Hawkes and Scott Ferguson Universities in the UK are in crisis. Job cuts in the sector are reaching ‘cataclysmic’ levels, with an estimated 10,000 already lost and many more at risk. Just da…

moneyontheleft.org

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