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Mike Gibilisco

@mgibilisco.bsky.social

560 followers 410 following 180 posts

Professor and political scientist at Caltech researching and teaching about conflict, political institutions, and connections between models and data. michaelgibilisco.com

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Mike Gibilisco @mgibilisco.bsky.social · Mar 14

Incredibly excited to see this paper with @ccrismancox.bsky.social at @iojournal.bsky.social.
We study outbidding using new models, methods, and data from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. #polisky

Tug of War: The Heterogeneous Effects of Outbidding Between Terrorist Groups | International Organization | Cambridge Core

Tug of War: The Heterogeneous Effects of Outbidding Between Terrorist Groups - Volume 79 Issue 1

www.cambridge.org

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Reposted by Mike Gibilisco

Political Analysis @polanalysis.bsky.social · 1d

Currently in FirstView: In “Measuring the Quality of Answers in Political Q&As with Large Language Models,” @rmichaelalvarez.bsky.social and Jacob Morrier develop an approach for measuring the quality of answers in Q&A sessions using data from the Question Period in the Canadian House of Commons.

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Mike Gibilisco @mgibilisco.bsky.social · 6d

These always strike me as strong associations and I’ve always wondered how these observed rates vary by field. Eg: effect of family background of becoming an MD/physician or JD/lawyer?

Are Skeie Hermansen @aresherman.bsky.social · 6d

🚨 New paper: Who climbs the Ivory Tower? 🏛️ Together with Nicolai Borgen and Astrid Sandsør (@astridsandsor.bsky.social), we find that the chances of becoming a professor differ enormously by family background. Here’s what we find 👇

journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Mike Gibilisco @mgibilisco.bsky.social · 7d

If we write papers using LLM generated data, and those papers are then used to create another version of LLMs and then new datasets for new papers, will the process converge? If not, will it be stationary?

Joe Bak-Coleman @jbakcoleman.bsky.social · 7d

One of the loudest bells tolling for social science right now is that the decade of abundant data on humans is coming to a close. Whether you work on digital trace or surveys, LLM pollution is a serious problem, even while the wide roll out of LLMs creates an urgent need for social science.

Julia M. Rohrer @dingdingpeng.the100.ci · 8d

A lot of psych is already conducted with online convenience samples & ppl are probably excited about silicon samples bc it would allow them to crank out more studies for even less 💸

How about we reconsider the idea that sciencey science involves collecting own data.
www.science.org/content/arti...

Mike Gibilisco @mgibilisco.bsky.social · 9d

There are social scientists at #Caltech, @caltech.edu! I think they do pretty good research...at least some of the time.

www.caltech.edu/about/news/m...

Modeling Violent Terrorism as a Tug of War Between Competing Groups

Mike Gibilisco, professor of political science, and his co-author seek an understanding of how competing terrorist groups react to one another's violent attacks.

www.caltech.edu

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Reposted by Mike Gibilisco

Colin Camerer @cfcamerer.bsky.social · Aug 8

This is close to stenography:
“An unnamed source told me all these things [many clearly false] so am repeating them to you”

How is this different than publishing a press release?

Megan Cassella @megancnbc.bsky.social · Aug 1

Just spoke with an administration official about the President’s decision to fire the BLS commissioner. Some takeaways:

1. The firing was due to what the White House sees as a “pattern of incompetence.” The possibility of firing her had been on the President’s radar for months.

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Mike Gibilisco @mgibilisco.bsky.social · Jul 15

Next question: does monterey pdf word count pick this up? I dont know if I can sacrifice 1 of my 5 implications for this.

Nature @nature.com · Jul 15

Researchers have been sneaking secret messages into their papers in an effort to trick AI tools into giving them a positive peer-review report

Read the full story: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Reposted by Mike Gibilisco

Jason "Red5" Lyall @jaylyall.bsky.social · Jun 22

What remains of USAID? Practically nothing ("a shell") and millions will die because of Trump and Musk

What Remains of U.S.A.I.D. After DOGE’s Budget Cuts? (Gift Article)

The few hundred programs that survived DOGE’s purge reveal the future of foreign aid.

www.nytimes.com

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Mike Gibilisco @mgibilisco.bsky.social · Jun 9

Stand aside \bot here comes \swordcontradict

Reposted by Mike Gibilisco

Emily Kracht @emikracht.bsky.social · May 30

Social, Behavioral, & Economic Sciences is getting hit with a 67.6% cut, worse than other programs within NSF. Funding for archaeologists comes from the division for Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences, which is facing a 77.3% cut.

It appears every post doc program has been 100% cut.

Screenshot of NSF budget cuts to various programs

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Reposted by Mike Gibilisco

Farouk "Peter" Beardsley @sodiumboat.bsky.social · May 30

I am looking at NSF's budget request, in awe at the disinvestment in learning anything. nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/00-NSF...

nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov

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Reposted by Mike Gibilisco

Dr. Jessie Christiansen @aussiastronomer.bsky.social · May 30

TO BE PERFECTLY CLEAR, THE PROPOSED NSF BUDGET CUTS NEARLY A QUARTER OF A MILLION PEOPLE FROM NSF ACTIVITIES. FOR INSTANCE, JOBS.

A screenshot of the number of people involved in NSF activities being reduced from 330,100 to 90,000.

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Mike Gibilisco @mgibilisco.bsky.social · May 25

@caltech.edu and I both agree that international relations needs more theoretical models and fitting those models to data.

Stan Oklobdzija @stano.bsky.social · May 25

I like it when people put disclaimers in their bios that their posts don't represent their employer. I want everyone to think that UC Riverside agrees with everything I say online. Did the refs screw the Nuggets against OKC? Me and UCR think so.

Mike Gibilisco @mgibilisco.bsky.social · May 23

Great story. And congrats!

Mike Gibilisco @mgibilisco.bsky.social · May 23

And everyone takes it seriously. No beer cans in sight!

Mike Gibilisco @mgibilisco.bsky.social · May 23

To the best of my knowledge, skip day involves seniors planning a series of puzzles and challenges for the rest of the students.

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Mike Gibilisco @mgibilisco.bsky.social · May 23

Even after 8 years, I don’t fully understand caltech’s skip day, but this is the first year with an inflatable dragon outside my office.

Reposted by Mike Gibilisco

Dave Siegel @daveasiegel.bsky.social · May 22

Happy to see that this is now out. The R package associated with the project, IRTM, can now be found on CRAN. Or can you still download it from my github. We'll continue to update it over time. This is a brief thread about what IRTM can do. 🧵 (1/7)

American Political Science Review @apsrjournal.bsky.social · May 20

From our new issue: "Measurement That Matches Theory: Theory-Driven Identification in Item Response Theory Models" by Marco Morucci, Margaret Foster, Kaitlyn Webster, So Jin Lee, and David Siegel. #APSRNewIssue www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

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Mike Gibilisco @mgibilisco.bsky.social · May 22

Ha. I enjoy the wake-up emails of code or proofs at 7am

Mike Gibilisco @mgibilisco.bsky.social · May 17

I missed the first year student in the summaries. Just wow.

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Mike Gibilisco @mgibilisco.bsky.social · May 17

This is a neat paper that illustrates the benefits of combining theory with new data. You will find this interesting!

Nico Napolio @nicholasnapolio.bsky.social · May 16

Very excited to share a new project I've been working on.

MCs have a statistically detectable preference for enforcing the separation of powers, but it is rarely big enough to dominate their policy preferences and affect their roll call vote choices.

Very early project - open to all feedback!

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Mike Gibilisco @mgibilisco.bsky.social · May 13

Congrats Brad. Very well deserved. Can’t wait to celebrate at the Wallis pizza party

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Mike Gibilisco @mgibilisco.bsky.social · May 9

I am never excited for 9am meeting, but today is dissertation defense day!

Mike Gibilisco @mgibilisco.bsky.social · May 9

Sounds great! Not as great as designing the "whats in your wallet commericials," but still pretty great!

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Mike Gibilisco @mgibilisco.bsky.social · May 1

I did not know this! What's on your horizon?

Mike Gibilisco @mgibilisco.bsky.social · Apr 29

I started in grad school, and the bookmark is still about 1/3 of the way through. We all need goals.

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