Stephen Meserve
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smeserve.bsky.social
Stephen Meserve
@smeserve.bsky.social
45 followers 58 following 13 posts

Practicing political scientist, hiker, tabletop gamer, etc in Northern Arizona

Videos
Political science 52%
Computer science 14%
Posts Replies Media Videos

Reposted by Lawrence F. Katz, Simon Burgess, Dan Goldhaber , and 9 more

qjeharvard.bsky.social
The Quarterly Journal of Economics @qjeharvard.bsky.social · 1d
Recently accepted by #QJE, “Diversifying Society’s Leaders? The Determinants and Causal Effects of Admission to Highly Selective Private Colleges,” by Chetty (@Oppinsights), Deming, and Friedman: doi.org/10.1093/qje/...
Diversifying Society’s Leaders? The Determinants and Causal Effects of Admission to Highly Selective Private Colleges*
Abstract. We use anonymized admissions data from several colleges linked to income tax records and SAT and ACT test scores to study the determinants and ca
doi.org

smeserve.bsky.social
Stephen Meserve @smeserve.bsky.social · 2d
fyi a good follow for AZ far right politics and election misinformation monitoring is @azrww.bsky.social

Reposted by Laurent Dubois, Michael W. Kraus, Jacob T. Levy , and 2 more

jamellebouie.net
jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 3d
me waking up and opening this app

Reposted by Andrew Jacobs, Stephen A. Meserve

illdottore.bsky.social
Joseph Howley @illdottore.bsky.social · 4d
my most butlerian jihad coded belief is that we should probably make it illegal – and more importantly, we should work toward a cultural consensus that it is immoral – to design a computer program whose interface uses the first person

Reposted by Geraint Rees, Henry Farrell, Stephen A. Meserve

melaniemitchell.bsky.social
Melanie Mitchell @melaniemitchell.bsky.social · 4d
Next frontier in AI safety is.....adversarial poetry?

arxiv.org/abs/2511.153...
Adversarial Poetry as a Universal Single-Turn Jailbreak Mechanism in Large Language Models
We present evidence that adversarial poetry functions as a universal single-turn jailbreak technique for large language models (LLMs). Across 25 frontier proprietary and open-weight models, curated po...
arxiv.org

Reposted by Will Jennings, Stephen A. Meserve

adambonica.bsky.social
Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 4d
Hungary’s Orban seemed undefeatable a year ago.

Then Peter Magyar broke through with a powerful anti-corruption platform, rapidly consolidated the fractured opposition, and now leads Fidesz comfortably.

Anti-corruption defeats authoritarianism worldwide. It will work here, too.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
Hungarian polling trends 2023-2026 showing Fidesz (orange line) declining from ~55% to ~40% while TISZA party (dark red line) rises from near 0% in early 2024 to ~44% by late 2025, surpassing Fidesz. Other opposition parties (DK, MM, Jobbik, etc.) remain below 10% throughout the period.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

smeserve.bsky.social
Stephen Meserve @smeserve.bsky.social · 5d
Vice provost offering to come to our meetings and tell us what curriculum our graduate programs are actually worth teaching instead was a beautiful encapsulation of higher education at the moment. Moment of levity in the room.

Reposted by Daniel Ziblatt, Lisa W. Fazio, Ben H. Ansell , and 14 more

jakemgrumbach.bsky.social
Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 5d
The Eric Schickler essay in Larry Bartel's symposium on "What Trump Has Taught Us About Political Science" is one of the most insightful pieces I've read in 2025.

US institutions turned out to be weak, and we have to rethink conventional wisdom.

open access: academic.oup.com/psq/advance-...

smeserve.bsky.social
Stephen Meserve @smeserve.bsky.social · 5d
voting to eliminate your own poli sci grad programs is both a completely rational thing to do in reaction to the removal of virtually all resources over the past 5 years but also absolutely feels like stabbing yourself in the heart.

smeserve.bsky.social
Stephen Meserve @smeserve.bsky.social · 6d
I mean, I guess I would be embarrassed to rely upon AI to literally adjust my student assessments of students and read and summarize crucial emails from my provosts on issues but here we are.
www.insidehighered.com/opinion/care...
A President’s Journey to AI Adoption (opinion)
José Luis Cruz Rivera explains how he’s come to use AI in academic leadership, and the sources of inspiration and learning he’s found along the way.
www.insidehighered.com

Reposted by Daniel W. Drezner, Robert Wolfe, Caroline Fohlin , and 2 more

justinwolfers.bsky.social
Justin Wolfers @justinwolfers.bsky.social · 6d
A reminder: Tariffs are a regressive tax. The anti-Robin Hood.

Trump's current tariff settings effectively impose a tax rate on low-income households that's roughly TRIPLE that on high-income folks. That's not the way taxes are supposed to work.

[source: budgetlab.yale.edu/research/sta...

Reposted by Shannon Vallor, Will Jennings, Marina Della Giusta , and 5 more

seanjwestwood.bsky.social
Sean Westwood @seanjwestwood.bsky.social · 6d
AI presents a fundamental threat to our ability to use polls to assess public opinion. Bad actors who are able to infiltrate panels can flip close election polls for less than the cost of a Starbucks coffee. Models will also infer and confirm hypotheses in experiments. Current quality checks fail

Reposted by Shannon Vallor, Brian Keegan, Greg Linden , and 1 more

carlquintanilla.bsky.social
Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 7d
WSJ: “.. If the AI market blows up, the blast radius would be wide, hitting not only Wall Street firms, but also pensions, mutual and exchange-traded funds and individual investors, because of how debt is often sliced and resold across the financial landscape.”

@wsj.com
www.wsj.com/finance/inve...

Reposted by Stephen A. Meserve

Reposted by Anna O. Law, Marc Lynch, Scott L. Greer , and 17 more

joshuafoust.com
Joshua Foust 🪖🎮 @joshuafoust.com · 10d
One reason why elite schools (Columbia, Brown, Cornell) caving to Trump’s illegal impoundment and extortion is so galling — a betrayal, really — is that they would have won had they fought. By giving up, they guaranteed every other school will have to fight harder.
Judge bars Trump from immediately cutting funding to the University of California | CNN Politics
The Trump administration cannot immediately cut federal funding to the University of California or issue fines against the school system over claims it allows antisemitism or other forms of discrimina...
www.cnn.com

Reposted by Timothy Snyder, Steve Peers, Rosemary A. Joyce , and 4 more

stevevladeck.bsky.social
Steve Vladeck @stevevladeck.bsky.social · 11d
Jim Ryan's letter is not just surreal and troubling; it provides a series of deeply sobering lessons—about the perils facing public universities today; about what it means to "work with" this Department of Justice; & about what leadership does (and doesn't) entail at this especially fraught moment.
joefore.bsky.social Joe Fore @joefore.bsky.social · 11d
Former UVA president Jim Ryan, who resigned over the summer due to pressure from the Trump Administration, just shared this 12-page letter with the Faculty Senate, detailing his experience with the Board of Visitors and DOJ.

It's a surreal--and troubling--read.

drive.google.com/file/d/1Is6x...

smeserve.bsky.social
Stephen Meserve @smeserve.bsky.social · 19d
we hear you here in AZ with our own no DST time zone.

Reposted by Stephen A. Meserve, Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, Nathan P. Kalmoe

benlitherland.bsky.social
Ben Litherland @benlitherland.bsky.social · 19d
The whole of the internet is now run on the things that would have not made it past your email junk filter 20 years ago.
jeffhorwitz.bsky.social Jeff Horwitz @jeffhorwitz.bsky.social · 19d
Meta earns $3.5 billion every six months from showing Faceboon and Instagram users 15 billion “higher legal risk” scam ad impressions a day, internal documents state.

That haul vastly exceeds how much the company expects regulators
To fine it for running scam ads.

www.reuters.com/investigatio...
www.reuters.com

smeserve.bsky.social
Stephen Meserve @smeserve.bsky.social · 20d
www.versobooks.com/products/232...
Ruling the Void
The age of party democracy has passed, argues Peter Mair in Ruling the Void. The major parties have become so disconnected from society that they no longer seem capable of sustaining democracy in its ...
www.versobooks.com

smeserve.bsky.social
Stephen Meserve @smeserve.bsky.social · 20d
I didn't know Mair but he would be nodding approvingly about these sorts of comments.
jamellebouie.net jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 20d
ah, perhaps instead of pumping millions into endless factional infighting Dem donors could invest in making local Dem organizations genuine civic spaces that can reach people during and between elections

Reposted by Shannon Vallor, Lisa W. Fazio, Joe R. Feagin , and 11 more

jamellebouie.net
jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 20d
ah, perhaps instead of pumping millions into endless factional infighting Dem donors could invest in making local Dem organizations genuine civic spaces that can reach people during and between elections

Reposted by Aleksandra Urman, Stephen A. Meserve

jeffgreene.bsky.social
Jeff Greene @jeffgreene.bsky.social · 22d
A "frontier" RCT showing college students preferred LLM (ChatGPT-4) and peer feedback to teacher feedback, but teacher feedback most improved performance. I hope they analyze feedback for style. I wonder whether students positively responded to sycophancy in LLM. #PsychSciSky #AcademicSky #EduSky
Teacher, peer, or AI? Comparing effects of feedback sources in higher education
With the emergence of Large Language Models (LLMs), AI-generated feedback is gaining traction as a scalable feedback source for higher education. To q…
doi.org

Reposted by Stefanie Walter, Catherine E. De Vries, Alexander Wuttke , and 7 more

simonhix.bsky.social
Simon Hix @simonhix.bsky.social · 24d
Better get your paper submissions in for the @epssnet.bsky.social conference in June 2026, as the deadline is 7 November, and we have no intention of extended that (given the submission numbers)!
epssnet.org/belfast-2026...
Call for Papers | EPSS Belfast 2026 Conference
Submit your abstract or full paper for EPSS Belfast 2026. Share cutting‑edge political science research, network with peers & contribute to academic impact.
epssnet.org

Reposted by Brian Kelly, Sebastiaan Faber, Catherine J. Frieman , and 2 more

kbmcgowan.bsky.social
caoimhín mac samhain @kbmcgowan.bsky.social · 24d
On further reflection, handing operation of our Universities over to a professional administrative class with no personal investment in the educational mission of the university or the creation and maintenance of knowledge might have been somewhat in error.

Reposted by Anna O. Law, Brendan Nyhan, Jennifer A. Richeson , and 13 more

josephcox.bsky.social
Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 27d
New: Videos show ICE/CBP agents are scanning peoples' faces on the street to verify citizenship. ICE has tool to instantly look up unprecedented number of databases with just a photo

“I’m an American citizen so leave me alone”

“Alright, we just got to verify that”

www.404media.co/ice-and-cbp-...
ICE and CBP Agents Are Scanning Peoples’ Faces on the Street To Verify Citizenship
Videos on social media show officers from ICE and CBP using facial recognition technology on people in the field. One expert described the practice as “pure dystopian creep.”
www.404media.co

Reposted by Jack N. Rakove, Andrew Jacobs, James Goodwin , and 1 more

jamellebouie.net
jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 27d
consider this part one of what will be an ongoing series making the case for an imperial congress (gift link)
Opinion | The Empty Promises of Trump’s Imperial Presidency
www.nytimes.com

Reposted by Stephen A. Meserve

ztul.bsky.social
michael lutz @ztul.bsky.social · 28d
the main thing Chotiner does that almost no other interviewer seems to do is, when a subject makes some sweepingly huge statement freighted with a lot of implicit claims, ask "what do you mean by that?" he asks them to tether a soundbite to specifics and they immediately crash out

Reposted by Stephen A. Meserve

joolia.bsky.social
Julia Carrie Wong @joolia.bsky.social · Oct 24
“An artificial intelligence system apparently mistook a high school student’s bag of Doritos for a firearm and called local police to tell them the pupil was armed.”
US student handcuffed after AI system apparently mistook bag of chips for firearm
Baltimore county high schools have gun detection system that alerts police if it sees what it deems suspicious
www.theguardian.com

Reposted by Woodrow Hartzog, Stephen A. Meserve, Nathan P. Kalmoe , and 1 more

bakerdphd.bsky.social
Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · Oct 23
Really well done this

defector.com/higher-eds-r...
Higher Ed’s Rush To Adopt AI Is About So Much More Than AI | Defector
If you don’t work at a university or have college-age kids, you may have missed the flurry of news stories and social media banter about AI adoption in higher ed, stories which have snowballed into th...
defector.com

Reposted by Stephen A. Meserve

tressiemcphd.bsky.social
Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · Oct 20
Place graduates into what AI jobs, exactly?

Place graduate students into what disciplines, exactly?

Congruence between what college curricula, exactly? Produced where and by whom? With what high school curricula?

Compete on what prestige? With what money?