Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Mike Beggs @mikejbeggs.bsky.social · 5d

What’s wrong babe? You haven’t even started drafting your Five Year Plans for each of the Four Pillars of Academic Excellence

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JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · 7d

The other side is, of course - of course! - the companies making LLMs are not doing so with the goal of more easily sharing the material that people have made freely available on the web. They are doing so with the goal of enclosing it - converting the products of free human activity to commodities.

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JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · 7d

The lesson we should be taking from LLMs is the immense social value there is in having all kinds of material - all kinds of products of human intellectual labor - freely available online. They should be reminding us of the early utopian promise of the web.

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Mike Beggs @mikejbeggs.bsky.social · 7d

Great thread, couldn’t agree more.

JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · 7d

In all the endless discussions of LLMs, there’s a point that is, on one level, obvious, but that I feel does not get sufficiently foregrounded: LLMs are transforming material that people have put up on the internet.

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Mike Beggs @mikejbeggs.bsky.social · 7d

RIP Claus Offe

Jacobin Magazin @jacobinmagazin.bsky.social · 8d

Claus Offe ist gestorben. Er gehörte zu den renommiertesten kapitalismuskritischen Soziologen der Gegenwart. Vor einigen Jahren sprach er mit Jacobin über die Zukunft von Arbeit und Sozialstaat sowie das falsche Freiheitsversprechen von Arbeitsverträgen.

Hat die Arbeitsgesellschaft eine Zukunft?

Der Soziologe Claus Offe ist einer der renommiertesten Analysten kapitalistischer Gesellschaften weltweit. Im JACOBIN-Interview spricht er über die Zukunft von Arbeit und Wohlfahrtsstaat, über die Fallstricke der Arbeitszeitverkürzung und über das falsche Freiheitsversprechen von Arbeitsverträgen.

jacobin.de

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JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · 10d

Coming this spring. press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

Against Money

A powerful deconstruction of humanity’s most influential invention, from the acclaimed economists J. W. Mason and Arjun Jayadev. Money is unavoidably fundamental to our daily lives. It lurks behind ...

press.uchicago.edu

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Rafe Meager (they/them) @economeager.bsky.social · 14d

Motherfucker this is the London review of books you better take your sensitive ass back to the Atlantic

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Mike Beggs @mikejbeggs.bsky.social · 16d

Yes in my experience it’s more that the publisher is risk averse and also doesn’t want to bother with hassle/cost of asking for rights. If only you were training an LLM

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JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · 17d

I just put up a longish post on my blog, thinking about what's going on in the labor market. jwmason.org/slackwire/so...

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Doug Henwood @doughenwood.bsky.social · 18d

Topical commentary from 1852

www.marxists.org/archive/marx...

Driven by the contradictory demands of his situation, and being at the same time, like a juggler, under the necessity of keeping the public gaze on himself, as Napoleon’s successor, by springing constant surprises – that is to say, under the necessity of arranging a coup d’état in miniature every day – Bonaparte throws the whole bourgeois economy into confusion…, makes some tolerant of revolution and makes others lust for it, and produces anarchy in the name of order, while at the same time stripping the entire state machinery of its halo, profaning it and making it at once loathsome and ridiculous.

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Aaron Benanav @abenanav.bsky.social · 18d

I'll be speaking to Nancy Fraser and Geoff Mann about what's 'Beyond Capitalism' at the New York Verso Office on Thursday, October 2nd. Please share! Link for tickets: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/new-left-r...

New Left Review 154 Launch

Aaron Benanav will be discussing his framework for a post-capitalist social order with Nancy Fraser and Geoff Mann.

www.eventbrite.co.uk

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Mike Beggs @mikejbeggs.bsky.social · 21d

*epistemic

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Mike Beggs @mikejbeggs.bsky.social · 21d

Tweet:
Nate Silver ® @NateSilver538 • 10h
But it also doesn't feel like the center is holding. I'm not sure whether it's Bluesky or something else, but the progressive epistemic bubble is getting really bad.

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Mike Beggs @mikejbeggs.bsky.social · 21d

Sitting here omnisciently, pitying everyone stuck in epistemological bubbles

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Mike Beggs @mikejbeggs.bsky.social · 22d

Congrats ANU comrades. Can’t be bothered editing the meme but here are the bits to assemble in your head

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Mike Beggs @mikejbeggs.bsky.social · 24d

Man looking very excited about Australian food

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Tim McLellan @timmclellan.bsky.social · 24d

Private consultants are taking control of how public universities are evaluated and run.

My submission to the Senate university governance inquiry raises concerns about the impact of Nous Group and their dodgy UniForum data on our universities.

www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStor...

A thread

Image shows a screenshot of the conclusion of the linked Senate inquiry submission. This text can be found on page 10.

The text is too long for alt text, but here is the first three quarters of the text:

Conclusion

Over the past decade, Nous Group’s UniForum data has quietly taken on the status of authoritative benchmark for the quality of a range of professional and academic services performed by public universities in Australia and across the world. This authoritative status is performed through scientific-looking graphs and scientific-sounding jargon designed to imply UniForum data is generated through rigorous methods and backed by expert consensus. This performance of authority is significant: it lends UniForum data an air of credibility and facticity that makes acting upon its results irresistible.

When one begins to open the black box and examine how UniForum data is actually produced, however, it becomes difficult to justify the degree to which Australian university executives are relying upon it in their decision-making. My analysis is based on a review of publicly available documents, and it is therefore possible that Nous or its clients would point to things not in the public domain that address some of the conceptual and methodological flaws that I have highlighted in UniForum. But the fact that the underlying UniForum data and methodology is not in the public domain is itself one of the key causes for concerns. When the stakes are so high, it cannot be acceptable for Nous Group and its clients to simply tell university staff and governing councils, ‘trust us, these numbers are based on rigorous methods and analysis.’ The lack of rigor, external scrutiny, and transparency in UniForum’s underlying data and methodology would be a cause for concern in any public institution, but it is especially concerning in the context of universities where rigorous, transparent, and accountable knowledge production is a core part of what we do. ...

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Francis Markham @francismarkham.bsky.social · Sep 7

Australian universities are in a governance crisis. VC pay blowouts, scandals, mission drift — these aren’t random, they’re structural.

This new working paper with @marijataflaga.bsky.social & Keith Dowding digs into why the system is broken, and how to fix it.

doi.org/10.25911/MWW...

A thread:

Neither corporate nor government: Why university governance needs to be different, and better
Marija Taflaga, Francis Markham and Keith Dowding.

Preprint, 29 August 2025. https://doi.org/10.25911/MWW4-9781

Abstract
Australian universities face a governance crisis rooted in failures of accountability. Unlike parliaments and corporate boards, university councils lack effective mechanisms for principals to discipline agents. In parliaments, voters can replace elected representatives; in corporations, shareholders can vote out directors. Both systems close the delegation–accountability loop, ensuring alignment between principals and outcomes. University councils, however, are self-perpetuating bodies dominated by external appointees, and in recent decades they are typically from corporate backgrounds. As neither producers nor consumers of universities’ core product—knowledge creation and dissemination—they have minimal intrinsic stake in academic outcomes leaving councils detached from the university’s core mission. This misalignment fosters mission drift, weakens oversight, and contributes to repeated scandals. Because councils largely appoint their own successors, they remain insulated from meaningful scrutiny, unlike boards or parliaments where underperformance is sanctioned externally. Restoring accountability requires giving academic staff and students a renewed oversight role, alongside clear safeguards for the public interest. Because academics and students are both producers and consumers of knowledge, they have a direct and enduring stake in its quality. We recommend two mechanisms to do this are:
1. Academic Senates empowered to appoint and review council members, ensuring councils reflect the university’s purpose.
2. Robust Committee Systems that embed staff and student voices in decision-making, reduce information asymmetries, and align incentives with academic purposes.

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Mike Beggs @mikejbeggs.bsky.social · 28d

Now that’s cybernetics

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Mike Beggs @mikejbeggs.bsky.social · Sep 11

“I Spent My Whole Life Defending Cruella De Vil. Then I Saw ‘101 Dalmations’.”

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Our ANU @ouranu.bsky.social · Sep 11

A grassroots group of academics campaigning against the staff cuts said ...

“The issues at the heart of this crisis go beyond the vice chancellor. This has been years in the making, the product of deep governance failures that have damaged the university’s finances, reputation, and community trust.

Caitlin Cassidy @caitlinecassidy.bsky.social · Sep 11

The vice-chancellor of the Australian National University (ANU) has tendered her resignation after a tumultuous two years at the institution, marked by redundancies, proposed course closures, and allegations of a toxic work culture.
www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

ANU vice-chancellor Genevieve Bell resigns amid crisis of confidence in leadership

Resignation follows tumultuous period marked by redundancies, proposed course closures and allegations of a toxic work culture

www.theguardian.com

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Warwick Anderson @wombatscholar.bsky.social · Sep 9

A nice article about friend and colleague Raewyn Connell in the SMH, including foreshadowing her new trans memoir. Pleased to see she's delivering this year's Ted Wheelwright lecture in political economy at Sydney University - one of the few universities to maintain political economy and Marxism.

Raewyn’s groundbreaking work changed how we think about men. Its origins were deeply personal

Raewyn Connell has a global reputation and is speaking at an event marking one of the PM’s intellectual influences.

www.smh.com.au

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Mike Beggs @mikejbeggs.bsky.social · Aug 28

When you have to leave Queensland

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Osmond Chiu (赵明佑) @redrabbleroz.bsky.social · Aug 25

Would it be more or less embarrassing if their excuse that they didn’t use AI but simply made lots of basic errors was actually true?

Paul Karp @paulkarp.bsky.social · Aug 22

Is this what the AI era is going to be like?

A big four consultancy (Deloitte) does a major report for govt then says "oh we just got the names, dates and publishers" of many of the works cited WRONG. No biggie.

www.afr.com//companies/p...

Academics raise alarm over suspected AI use in Deloitte report

The university staff members say there were numerous citation errors in the report on the automation of welfare penalties.

www.afr.com

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Jamison Foser @jamisonfoser.bsky.social · Aug 20

OpenAl CEO Sam Altman Concedes GPT-5 Was a
Misfire, Bets on GPT-6

Fuck Everything, We're Doing Five
Blades

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