Phil Mansfield
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pawsitronium.bsky.social
Phil Mansfield
@pawsitronium.bsky.social
310 followers 300 following 150 posts
Astrophysicist who rarely posts about astrophysics. Research Scientist at Stanford University. Suicide hotline operator. 🏳️‍🌈

Personal account, nothing I post are the views of my employers
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Phil Mansfield
jamesheathers.bsky.social
Diederik Stapel was a massive watershed moment in psychology.

However, he was -- and let's be slightly glib here -- some guy from The Netherlands who wrote social psychology papers.

The full accounting of the Eysenck case is approx, at minimum, TWO STAPELS.

retractionwatch.com/2025/12/03/n...
Number of ‘unsafe’ publications by psychologist Hans Eysenck could be ‘high and far reaching’
Hans Eysenck A “high and far reaching” number of papers and books by Hans Eysenck could be “unsafe,” according to an updated statement from King’s College London, where the psychologist was a profe…
retractionwatch.com
December 3, 2025 at 5:34 PM
Reposted by Phil Mansfield
geofffhughes.bsky.social
People catastrophizing about a precedent where no one can mark anything down anymore for being wrong when the real precedent is trans people not being able to do literally any job without an army of bigots launching a harassment campaign against their employer.
caitlinmoriah.bsky.social dr. caitlin m. green @caitlinmoriah.bsky.social · 4d
a lot of people debating the merits of that dogshit essay meanwhile the girl’s mom is retweeting demands to ban all trans people from teaching at any level. it’s forest for the trees shit
December 1, 2025 at 1:39 PM
Reposted by Phil Mansfield
crampell.bsky.social
The USDA sent an email to grocery stores telling them they are prohibited from offering special discounts to customers affected by the SNAP funding lapse.
I'm aware of at least 2 stores that had offered struggling customers a discount, then withdrew it after receiving this email
November 2, 2025 at 7:01 PM
Reposted by Phil Mansfield
faineg.bsky.social
“Individuals on the ground sent a message that reached us Monday morning that 1,200 were dead,” Nathaniel Raymond, the lab’s executive director, said. “By that evening, they said 10,000. By Tuesday, we couldn’t reach them anymore. We assume our ground contacts are dead.”
Yale lab reports mass killings in Sudan, calls for student activism
The Humanitarian Research Lab was told this week that over 10,000 people in Sudan were killed within three days.
yaledailynews.com
October 31, 2025 at 8:02 PM
Reposted by Phil Mansfield
radleybalko.bsky.social
But also we’re terrified of the subway
atrupar.com Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · Oct 1
Stephen Miller: "All that bullshit is done, over, it's finished. The gangbangers you deal with- they think they're ruthless? They have no idea how ruthless we are. They think they're tough? They have no idea how tough we are. They think they're hardcore? We are so much more hardcore than they are"
October 1, 2025 at 11:22 PM
Reposted by Phil Mansfield
chanda.blacksky.app
YES! THIS on GenAI!

Please read this absolutely splendid piece of writing that had me cheering, a little bit weepy, and writing in the margins:

"An extraordinary amount of money is spent by the AI industry to ensure that acquiescence is the only plausible response. But marketing is not destiny."
Large Language Muddle | The Editors
The AI upheaval is unique in its ability to metabolize any number of dread-inducing transformations. The university is becoming more corporate, more politically oppressive, and all but hostile to the ...
www.nplusonemag.com
September 29, 2025 at 7:07 PM
pawsitronium.bsky.social
What are we doing here?
September 29, 2025 at 4:58 PM
Reposted by Phil Mansfield
jonhendren.com
A modern Hachikō story: This man tweeted a Follow Friday for the band Foghat every week until he died
August 4, 2025 at 6:43 AM
pawsitronium.bsky.social
I'm losing my goddamn mind.
carlquintanilla.bsky.social Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · Sep 17
“.. There has to be a line between crime and war,” said John Yoo, a former deputy assistant attorney general under President George W. Bush.

@politico.com
www.politico.com/news/2025/09...
September 17, 2025 at 3:39 AM
pawsitronium.bsky.social
There's nothing like a month of chronic pain to make you have undying respect for people who have been putting up with this shit for years.
September 15, 2025 at 6:03 PM
Reposted by Phil Mansfield
chrisgeidner.bsky.social
It is truly horrifying what is being alleged against the Trump administration in the Ghana case.

Here is from an affidavit filed in the case today: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
3. I was granted withholding of removal by an immigration judge in the Otero Immigration Court on April 30, 2025 on account of the likelihood that I would be persecuted or killed Case 1:25-cv-03135-TSC Document 21-1 Filed 09/13/25 Page 2 of 5 if removed to Nigeria. My wife is a U.S. citizen. She filed an I-130 petition on my behalf for me to receive a family visa. That petition was approved four months ago. 4. I am currently detained in Dema Camp in Ghana, where myself and other people who were also deported from the United States are being imprisoned. We are constantly surrounded by military guards. 5. I am originally from Nigeria. In Nigeria, I was a member of one of Nigeria's main political parties, the P.D.P. In 2018, 1 started being violently targeted by members of the ruling political party, the A.P.C. In November 2018, members of the A.P.C. beat me and other party leaders with plank woods, iron rods, and machetes. The attacks escalated from then and happened several times until I left Nigeria. 6. I fled Nigeria in 2019 after being tortured by the military and police officers for the Nigerian Department of State Services. They tortured me and kept me locked in a dog cage for three days until they let me go and told me they would kill me if they ever saw me again. After this incident I had to leave Nigeria to save my life. 7. Nothing in Nigeria has gotten better since I left. The situation in the country has become worse. The political party that targeted me is still in power. 9. The officer finally told me that we were going to Ghana. I told him that I am afraid of going to Ghana and that I cannot go to Ghana. 10. He told us "whether you like it or not, your ass is getting on that plane." He then straitjacketed me extremely tightly, tying me from my shoulders to my feet. 11. I was put onto a military plane with the other people who were taken from their cells. I remained straitjacketed for several hours until I pleaded with the officers to remove it so that I could use the restroom. I begged the officers over and over again to take off the straitjacket so that I could use the restroom, otherwise I would urinate on myself. They finally removed the restraints on my legs after pleading with them for a long time, but left the restraints on my upper body. 23. We are all afraid for our lives. We are not safe here, and now they are planning to hand us over to our country's government for further persecution and torture. We don't know what our futures hold. 24. We urgently need help. We do not want to meet with government officials of our countries or to be returned to those countries. I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States that the foregoing is true and correct. Executed on September 13, 2025. /s/ Signature September 13. 2025 Date
September 13, 2025 at 11:50 PM
Reposted by Phil Mansfield
peppermintjack.bsky.social
the democratic party sagaciously intoning that the world's richest man killing millions of people around the globe by depriving them of their medical care is a needless distraction from kitchen table issues
faineg.bsky.social Faine Greenwood @faineg.bsky.social · Sep 9
I'm kinda resigned to the fact that most people don't really give a shit about how millions globally will die horrible deaths directly due to Musk and Trump's decision to gut USAID - I guess it's too abstract to comprehend, or something - but it is HAPPENING, and nobody is swooping in to stop it.
September 9, 2025 at 9:09 PM
Reposted by Phil Mansfield
mollyknight.bsky.social
what a humiliating way for don jr. to find out his dad sends birthday cards.
September 8, 2025 at 9:21 PM
Reposted by Phil Mansfield
chanda.blacksky.app
"Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide in Article II of the United Nations Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948)".
Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, genocide scholars' association says - www.reuters.com/world/middle...
Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, scholars' association says
The world's leading genocide scholars' association has passed a resolution saying that the legal criteria have been met to establish Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, its president said on Monday.
www.reuters.com
September 1, 2025 at 9:50 AM
Reposted by Phil Mansfield
pinknews.bsky.social
'Deliberate erasure': State Department removes anti-LGBTQ+ abuses from annual human rights report
US State Department removes anti-LGBTQ+ abuses from annual human rights report
The Trump government has been lambasted for removing LGBTQ-specific references in the State Department's annual global report on human rights.
www.thepinknews.com
August 17, 2025 at 10:20 AM
Reposted by Phil Mansfield
niais.bsky.social
It is very likely that if your main focus is comfort and safety, you will quickly drift onto a path that is hand in hand with fascism. That is where we are. Better to make active choices now. It is better to have clear in your mind what your priorities and beliefs are before someone is knocking.
August 17, 2025 at 12:16 AM
Reposted by Phil Mansfield
kylegriffin1.bsky.social
WASHINGTON (AP) - US Air Force says it will deny retirement pay to transgender service members being separated from the service.
August 7, 2025 at 8:40 PM
Reposted by Phil Mansfield
joshuaerlich.bsky.social
👑
The reception was mostly warm besides an occasional detractor, including a man who pulled Cuomo in for a handshake, took out his phone for a selfie, and as the former three-term governor of New York smiled for the camera, told him, "I can't wait to watch you lose again.
July 28, 2025 at 11:29 PM
Reposted by Phil Mansfield
evanbernick.bsky.social
Du Bois on what these assholes were really like
The Southern planter suffered, not simply for his eco- nomic mistakess-the psychological effect of slavery upon him was fatal. The mere fact that a man could be, under the law, the actual master of the mind and body of human beings had to have disastrous effects. It tended to inflate the ego of most planters beyond all reason; they became arrogant, strutting, quarrelsome kinglets; they issued commands; they made laws; they shouted their orders; they expected deference and self-abasement; they were choleric and easily insulted. Their "honor" be- came a vast and awful thing, requiring wide and insist- ent deference. Such of them as were inherently weak and inefficient were all the more easily angered, jealous and resentful; while the few who were superior, physically or mentally, conceived no bounds to their power and per- sonal prestige. As the world had long learned, nothing is so calculated to ruin human nature as absolute power over human beings.
July 21, 2025 at 5:49 PM
Reposted by Phil Mansfield
faineg.bsky.social
Stack Overflow contributions have been *tanking* of late, and it’s pretty reasonable to assume that this is largely due to LLMs disincentivizing people from asking or answering questions there.

blog.pragmaticengineer.com/stack-overfl...
July 21, 2025 at 4:05 PM
Reposted by Phil Mansfield
joshuaerlich.bsky.social
using AI for art is like if you were a fan of a simulated football team and the only information you got was the score and the stats.

the whole part that involves joy is removed.
July 6, 2025 at 9:07 PM
Reposted by Phil Mansfield
avapolzin.bsky.social
Definitely using the novel Ji (@alexji.bsky.social) mass-based dwarf galaxy classification scheme moving forward 🔭
Alex Ji, speaking at Galactic Frontiers II, using the cat “chonk chart” to classify dwarf galaxies, where his favorite ultrafaints are “fine bois”.
June 24, 2025 at 3:18 PM
Reposted by Phil Mansfield
maggieastor.bsky.social
Breaking: The Trevor Project received a stop-work order last night on its contract with the national 988 suicide prevention hotline. The Trump administration is eliminating the option for LGBTQ callers to the hotline to press 3 and connect with someone who specializes in LGBTQ mental health.
June 18, 2025 at 1:59 PM