Liam Shields

Senior Lecturer in Political Theory @UoMPolitics. Former post-doc @stanfordethics. Working on equality in education, parents' rights, and sufficientarianism.

[NRL @NRL]

🎞️ 32 YEARS AGO TODAY, State of Origin was played at the MCG for the very first time.

Wednesday, June 17 marks the 7th #Origin game at the 'G. 🎫 Get your tickets now: https://t.co/kOCZlDFBsE

[Ben Zaranko @BenZaranko]

You’ve probably heard of Henry – the High Earner, Not Rich Yet. But what about his nemesis, Richard – who Retired In a Comfortable House And Refuses to Downsize?

There are quite a lot of Richards out there. They’re the subject of my column for today’s Observer (link below).

[Spence Spencer @SpenceSpencer01]

Inside most 1,200 word articles there is a much better 1,000 word article struggling to get out.

[Liam Shields @PhilosopherLiam]

I cycled to Greenbank station this morning continuing to visit all the stations on the mid Cheshire line from Stockport to Chester.

I crossed Hunt's locks very close to my old schools and made pretty good time.

[Vatican News @vaticannews_de]

Aber jetzt kündigt der Vatikan an, dass Leo in Spanien doch Missbrauchs-Oper treffen wird.

[Gary Marcus @GaryMarcus]

⚠️⚠️ Seismic shift ⚠️⚠️

It’s a good day to be Mistral.

Nobody is going to trust an American AI company that is partly owned by the US Government.

Just the way the US doesn’t trust Huawei.

After this meeting, everything is going to change.

I don’t think either Washington or Silicon Valley has really thought this through.

[Jennifer A. Frey @jennfrey]

We are finally starting to admit that we have a "scholarship" problem in the humanities and social sciences. The solution will be to identify those institutional structures that have created and even incentivized these problems and root them out.

[UK HE News @HigherEd_UK]

Wait, so Nottingham paid millions to this consultancy for a failed IT rollout, after already wasting tens of millions on another failed student system, while wasting tens of millions to renovate a corporate campus site it couldn't integrate?! Then blamed 'external factors'!?

[Bearly AI @bearlyai]

Demis Hassabis recommendation for college students.

He’s still do STEM, math and computer science. Expertise in those fields will help better leverage AI for at least next decade.

Those in non-techical majors, really “lean in to” using latest models. AI labs spending so much time creating new models that they’ve only “scratched the surface” of what the models can actually do (huge “capability overhang”).

And expertise in any field can be turbocharged by smart use of AI.

“Double down on your own agency. The future is still to be written. Don’t listen to anyone that says it’s not.”

[Simon Kuestenmacher @simongerman600]

An incredible bit of sports journalism by The Guardian here. A short summary of the playing style of all 48 World Cup nations and a short profile of all 1248 World Cup players. Bookmark and refer to the resources when watching the obscure matches: https://t.co/tdLGq8en0o

[Sam Bowman @s8mb]

Tyler Cowen on how AI will change our lives. Excellent.

[Henry Midgley @H80Midgley]

UK university policy is almost completely unjustifiable outside of political inertia. I've been vocal about why I think dismantling humanities departments is an awful decision. Dismantling the sciences is equally bad especially because we don't know what research we are defunding

[Financial Times @FT]

Nearly a quarter of British universities had less than 70 days of cash to cover their costs at the end of 2024-25, according to a new analysis. https://t.co/6rioU08n62

[Vicky C Yang @VickyCYang]

Between 1985--2023, MIT's faculty grew 9%. Administrative staff grew 189%. 📈 Why? In new @PNASNews paper, we use dynamical system model to show administrative bloat can emerge without empire-building--just from well-intentioned problem-solving gone awry https://t.co/MZgGkxilZ2

[A Funny Old Game @sid_lambert]

33 years ago today:

England are absolutely appalling in Norway, and a frustrated gaffer unleashes these iconic words…

[Times Radio @TimesRadio]

"This is actually more about inexperience, poor training and officers not keeping an open mind."

Commentator @DannyShawNews says the key question in the Henry Nowak case is why officers treated him as a suspect while he was seriously injured, rather than police race policies.

[Tammy Reynolds @MistypeaTam]

“Teachers need to be authority figures, not just morally, but also in terms of curriculum because they know more and they can really help the pupils learn their subjects by guiding them through it in a preconceived sequential way that is going to aid their learning.”
Fab listen!

[Alex Byrne @byrne_a]

A striking graph of MIT's admin bloat in a @PNASNews paper by @VickyCYang (@MITSloan).

[Liam Shields @PhilosopherLiam]

@henrywinter I don't buy it. It's a total irrelevance

[Joe Thomas @joe_thomas18]

What a piece of work this is 👏