Alex Fisher
@alex-fisher.bsky.social
480 followers 250 following 130 posts
Society for Applied Philosophy Postdoc at @clsrleeds.bsky.social, University of Leeds. I work on fiction and imagination, and the ethics of digital technologies like video games, XR, social media, and dating apps. https://alex--fisher.weebly.com/
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alex-fisher.bsky.social
Actors, videogame players and VR users often experience *imaginative contagion* - imaginatively adopted attitudes persist into daily life.

My paper explains why this occurs and answers the concern that it may result in our acquiring immoral attitudes.

doi.org/10.1111/phpr.70056

#philsky

Thread:
Imaginative contagion and moral corruption
Imaginatively adopted attitudes and ways of thinking sometimes persist, bleeding into day-to-day thoughts and interactions. Such imaginative contagion is often reported in the context of theatrical a...
doi.org
alex-fisher.bsky.social
This article is now published open access here:

doi.org/10.1093/aest...

See below for a thread summary with lots of pretty pictures!
#philtech #techethics
alex-fisher.bsky.social
@neilmcdonnell.bsky.social - this could be interesting to you, if you haven’t seen already.
alex-fisher.bsky.social
This is fascinating research - recreating environments destroyed by disasters in VR to allow community healing and memory.

But also there are emotional risks of VR here too. Presenting post-disaster ruins was sometimes distressing, as I’ve explained how VR often can be: doi.org/10.1080/0004...
Reposted by Alex Fisher
vayrynen.bsky.social
📣JOB ALERT📣
Lecturer or Associate Professor in Philosophy at University of Leeds. AOS: Social Philosophy + at least one of: Metaphysics, Epistemology, or Philosophy of Language, Logic, Mind, or Action. Details at jobs.leeds.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx.... Closing date 5 Nov 2025. #philosophy 1/2
Job Opportunity at University of Leeds: Lecturer/Associate Professor in Philosophy
Are you an experienced academic in Philosophy with the ambition to carry out world-leading research and deliver an exceptional student experience in a research-intensive Russell Group University? Woul...
jobs.leeds.ac.uk
Reposted by Alex Fisher
csandis.bsky.social
Scholarships for dyslexic postgraduate students working in #Classics, #Philosophy, and #ArtHistory. Please share widely!

#dyslexiaawareness #researchgrants
lexacademic.bsky.social
It is Dyslexia Awareness Week and we are proud to announce the 2026 Lex Academic Scholarships for dyslexic postgraduate students working in #Classics, #Philosophy, and #ArtHistory.

Please share widely!

#dyslexiaawarenessweek #dyslexiaawarenessmonth

www.lexacademic.com/scholarships
Scholarships - Lex Academic®
www.lexacademic.com
Reposted by Alex Fisher
ayoub.bsky.social
Two people in balaclavas torched a mosque in Peacehaven, East Sussex. This is not far from where I live.

Fascists are in an open war with Muslims and people of colour in the UK.

www.bbc.com/news/article...
Peacehaven: Fire at East Sussex mosque probed as 'hate crime'
Video appears to show two people in balaclavas at the mosque before a large blaze spreads.
www.bbc.com
alex-fisher.bsky.social
This is becoming a worrying trend as relationship advice is now marketised and monetised by big tech.

And difficult to foresee the longer term social impact of increased AI use in dating/relationships on how we trust, talk to, and relate to others.

@clsrleeds.bsky.social
@ethicaldating.bsky.social
Reposted by Alex Fisher
jamesxmyall.bsky.social
So much to mourn here. ICE shot and killed a single father just after he has dropped his two kids off at daycare. Their justification for stopping him was traffic violations form 12 years ago. Their justification for shooting him was that he was driving away.

A completely needless tragedy.
davidjbier.bsky.social
ICE lied about the person it shot, claiming he was a "criminal," but NBC finds that he had no criminal history whatsoever. Not even traffic tickets in 12 years! It also lied about the extent of the injuries to its agents....
alex-fisher.bsky.social
Spent the afternoon reading this fantastic article!

Would highly recommend, especially to anyone interested in how we view the colonial past, social narratives, the ethics of attention, and epistemic injustice.
floresophize.bsky.social
My new article, "Calling Trauma, Elite Capture, and Hermeneutical Injustice," is out in Phil Quarterly!

It's a deeply personal project, drawing on family history to examine how privileged groups use claims of trauma to control narratives and to suggest a new way to think of epistemic injustice. 🧵
Black and white photo of the Padrao dos Descobrimentos (sailboat-shaped stone monument in Lisbon) surrounded by containers.
Reposted by Alex Fisher
birchlse.bsky.social
For years I got Gandhi (who is 156 today, the International Day of Non-Violence) backwards. I thought he developed nonviolent methods to end British rule, but this gets the ends and means the wrong way round. It's rather that he had to end British rule to make space for nonviolence. (1/8)
Gandhi statue in Parliament Square, London. (Prioryman CC-BY-SA 4.0.)
Reposted by Alex Fisher
drewharwell.com
OpenAI employees are very excited about how well their new AI tool can create fake videos of people doing crimes and have definitely thought through all the implications of this
alex-fisher.bsky.social
Some rare good news!
eastangliabylines.co.uk
Illegal fishing fleets can no longer count on global subsidies.

With two-thirds of WTO members on board, the first environmental trade agreement has entered into force – and countries must start cutting harmful support worth billions.

📢 See why this landmark deal matters.
Subsidies for international illegal fishing are abolished
Twenty-five years after talks on limiting fishing subsidies first began, a legally binding agreement has come into force
eastangliabylines.co.uk
Reposted by Alex Fisher
declassifieduk.org
✒️ Parliament has been accused of an “outrageous abuse” that is “worthy of the Trump White House”, after refusing to issue us a media pass.

Thousands have signed a petition calling on the government to give us access.

Help defend press freedom, sign today.

secure.declassifieduk.org/page/178447/...
Defend Press Freedom
I stand with Declassified UK - I've just signed my name. Join me in telling Westminster that you care about freedom of the press.
secure.declassifieduk.org
Reposted by Alex Fisher
profbillmcguire.bsky.social
"Today, we clear a soccer field’s worth of tropical forest every six seconds, a loss dramatically worsened by humanity’s growing hunger for meat"

Wean ourselves off meat now, or the switch to a Pliocene climate that's locked in will do it for us

www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Meat is a leading emissions source – but few outlets report on it, analysis finds
Sentient Media reveals less than 4% of climate news stories mention animal agriculture as source of carbon emissions
www.theguardian.com
Reposted by Alex Fisher
isernmas.bsky.social
New paper accepted!🎉

Is Taylor Swift responsible for how she makes her fans feel?

Yes; the notion of affective power (the ability to influence how others feel) can help identify the responsibilities celebrities have towards their fans.

w/ G.Mills & @alfredarcher.bsky.social

Preprint ⬇️
Reposted by Alex Fisher
Reposted by Alex Fisher
jmkorhonen.fi
Some things never change.
The same old lie that the Billionaires tell us. A picture with two panels: in the top one, a brown man in a grey t-shirt, a white man with a construction helmet and reflective vest, and an older man in a suit are sitting around a table. The brown man has nothing; the white man who looks like a construction worker has a plate with one cookie on it; the old man in a suit has a large plate with a pile of cookies. The man in the suit points to the brown man and says to the white man, "Careful buddy, that foreigner wants your cookie." A caption states the year is 1982.

In the bottom panel is the same picture, except it is now the year 2025 and the man in the suit is now behind a humongous pile of cookies. He is still saying to the worker, "Careful buddy, that foreigner wants your cookie."
Reposted by Alex Fisher
petergeoghegan.bsky.social
🔴 NEW: Larry Ellison’s £257m bet on Tony Blair

Our investigation with @lighthousereports.com reveals how the Tony Blair Institute has been accused of pushing the interests of tech tycoon Ellison — Trump’s “CEO of everything” — and his company Oracle

democracyforsale.substack.com/p/inside-the...
Inside the Tony Blair Institute
A former PM, Trump's 'CEO of everything' and NHS data - what could go wrong?
democracyforsale.substack.com
alex-fisher.bsky.social
Sad but true - tried it last night. Enshittification of video games in action…
Reposted by Alex Fisher
goldwagnathan.bsky.social
This is *stunningly* disingenuous, and the fact that Singal continues to enjoy a career writing at the highest levels about a topic that he either unwilling or incapable of discussing honestly is such an indictment of the Anglo-American prestige media.
Reposted by Alex Fisher
ehatmat.bsky.social
My revised and expanded entry on the Ethics of Cultural Heritage is now live in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy! Appropriation, repatriation, monuments, and more, as well as a new section on the nascent aesthetic injustice literature. #philsky

plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethi...
The Ethics of Cultural Heritage (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
plato.stanford.edu