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Andrew Perfors

@perfors.net

11K followers 5K following 3.2K posts

Prof at UniMelb. I'm a computational cognitive scientist studying human inference, learning, information systems, culture, and (mis/dis)info. Nerd & opinionated loudmouth in Oz, originally from America, citizen of both. Parent of two. 🏳️‍⚧️ perfors.net

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Andrew Perfors @perfors.net · Apr 29

I wrote an article about the psychology by which disinformation campaigns work, with examples from anti-trans propaganda. It's not just about individual beliefs, but also the way our institutions and norms are manipulated.

Please read and share!

pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/Ant...?

Anti-trans attitudes have existed for years, but organised disinformation campaigns are increasingly driving them

Disinformation exists across all parts of the political spectrum, but it goes far beyond simple lying when it comes to the campaign against the transgender community, says a University of Melbourne ex...

pursuit.unimelb.edu.au

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Tim Baxter @timinclimate.bsky.social · 2h

Working on climate change is skipping like a stone over sentences like "A new study analysing 49 years of data from 20 sites indicated carbon is being emitted because trees are dying and decaying faster than they can be replaced." every day while people with power do everything to make it worse.

Australia's tropical trees emit more carbon than they absorb: study

Climate change is killing trees faster than they can be replaced leading to greater carbon emissions, according to a new study.

www.abc.net.au

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Dr Kathleen Neal @kbneal.bsky.social · 2h

Even assuming one accepts LLMs as a specific, valid 'tool', tool-driven learning is a sure way to be Left Behind. Individual tools are inevitably superseded. Instead, foster the mind: the ultimate tool for any job. A well-nourished mind can always adapt to the task at hand.

Erin Grievances @erinbartram.bsky.social · 3h

Lots of people with money who want to make more are telling you this is a tool you have to learn or you'll be Left Behind but as with all tools, you can use your own brain and experience to decide if it's a thing that helps you do your job better and a thing you think is ethical.

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Ian Boudreau @ianboudreau.com · 17h

I think the idea of "cancel culture" persists mainly because it conveniently is some outside force acting on someone rather than them torching their reputation all on their own

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Micah @rincewind.run · 13h

I have been to two No Kings protests and they are filled with normies and people with funny signs and families and they are just the most wholesome protests imaginable

that's all people are going to see, man - their friends and neighbors out there saying we don't want this

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 15h

Johnson: "We call it the Hate America Rally that will happen Saturday. Let's see who shows up for that. I bet you you'll see Hamas supporters, I bet you'll see antifa types, I bet you'll see Marxists on full display, people who don't want to stand and defend the foundational truths of this republic"

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Angry @angrystaffer.bsky.social · 20h

That’s crazy. I wonder what happened in January

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Andrew Perfors @perfors.net · 1d

😢 hugs

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Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences @psychunimelb.bsky.social · 2d

Misinformation and disinformation now pose some of the biggest global risks to democracy and public trust. In the latest PsychTalks episode, A/Prof Piers Howe explains why it's important to stay informed, think critically and understand the science behind persuasion.
go.unimelb.edu.au/7axe

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Andrew Perfors @perfors.net · 1d

Melbourne people! We're very lucky to have the one and only Alison Gopnik giving a talk here on November 11th at 6pm. Details below, open to the public, should be fabulous 😊

Space is limited so do be sure register!

alisongopnik.bsky.social
psychunimelb.bsky.social

Alison Gopnik - Three Ages & Three Intelligences: Explore, Exploit, Empower

The Complex Human Data Hub presents Prof Alison Gopnik delivering the 2025 Pip Pattison Oration on her work in learning and development.

www.eventbrite.com.au

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Andrew Perfors @perfors.net · 1d

I think that often the people with these blindspots are either afflicted by motivated cognition (they WANT to believe) or pay no attention to the role of power and money as possible motivations or influences on what is being said, by whom, to what audience, etc.

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Andrew Perfors @perfors.net · 1d

Same here. I am not the most interpersonally perspicacious person, so when something is blisteringly obvious to ME and yet other seemingly sophisticated thinkers buy into the bullshit, it's truly baffling.

(Caused some soul-searching -- maybe I'm the idiot here? -- but no, pretty sure not)

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Faine Greenwood @faineg.bsky.social · 1d

If there’s one thing about the last decade that has truly done my head in, it’s seeing how many people - including many very well educated people with power - appear to be totally incapable of spotting an obvious bullshitter in the act of bullshitting.

Airwindows @airwindows.com · 1d

How do people not SEE the extent to which this guy is an utter bullshitter? Is this some kind of autistic soul-read thing I'm manifesting? I don't understand how people aren't getting constant red flags from this guy. Every picture just trumpets bullshitter, he is like a parody of a normie-fooler.

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Musa Okwonga @okwonga.bsky.social · 1d

It’s funny how black people are expected to reach across the aisle to voters like these, while no one ever expects them to reach across the aisle to black people. Amazing who gets to be human, and who doesn’t.

Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 1d

POLITICO: “.. They referred to Black people as monkeys and ‘the watermelon people’ and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies .. and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.

@politico.com
www.politico.com/news/2025/10...

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Claire Willett @clairewillett.bsky.social · 1d

“Things are always happening that have the potential to change you.” 🔥

The Transfeminine Review @thetransfemininereview.com · 2d

"You make the best of it all and hope you can help make it a little better for the gurl after you."

- Miss Major, 2023 💔

One of the things I hear with some younger trans people I know is they feel, "I'm gonna get this surgery, and I'm gonna learn that way of speaking, and I'm gonna be done." You're never done. If you're a straight, cisgender person, you're never done. Things are always happening that have the potential to change you. So all I am today is not who I'm gonna be tomorrow, because of the things that happened to me today and later tonight. People forget that. "Oh, after I transition, I'm gonna be through." Well, good luck with that. 'Cause if you're through, then it's time to leave, you know, and I don't wanna go anywhere yet.
I'm in my seventies. Why didn't I stop? Number one is community. My gurls. I've had moments of thinking about stopping, but I didn't. I made sure I would step back, reju- venate myself, and then got back out there, and that's how you make a way. Our stories are not all the same, but the destination is: to get some place where we have some peace and harmony, and we can be at ease with ourselves and the people around us. You make the best of it all and hope you can help make it a little better for the gurl after you.

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Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 3d

IMHO, LLMs will be an economic negative for years.

They'll do a worse job than humans,

but will still replace humans because they're cheaper for employers,

but really they're costlier, it's just that lots of costs get externalized to society by our horrible energy/tax policies.

Lose-lose-lose.

The Real AI Risk is ‘Meh’ Technology That Takes Jobs and Annoys Us All

While AI doomsday scenarios dwell on the risks posed by superintelligent robot overlords, one Nobel-Prize winning economist fears a more mundane possibility.

www.bloomberg.com

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Ian Coldwater 👻🌿 @lookitup.baby · 3d

Boss, we’ve got a problem. Users don’t want this stuff! They keep wanting to turn it off, even when we keep turning it back on!

Boss: I have an idea

Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 3d

bitch what

Onedrive settings. A toggle for using AI to detect and identify faces is set to on. The caption says, you can only turn off this setting 3 times per year.

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Andrew Perfors @perfors.net · 4d

💜 Thank you! :)

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Sonja Drimmer @sonjadrimmer.bsky.social · 4d

The palpable relief of reading a syntactically awkward student paper nevertheless brimming with ideas they’re trying on after having to consume the stale cardboard generalities of a Chat GPT essay.

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utopia deferred @utopia-defer.red · 5d

anyone else notice that the west took a turn for the worse once the concept of signaling one’s own social virtue became derogatory, almost as if cynically deriding all displays of charity and good will is indicative of a deeply cynical and nihilistic society capable of collaborating in genocide

larry @larrrrrry.bsky.social · 5d

her advocacy for Palestinians doesn't bother me nearly as much as she is so desperately doing all this as an actual act of transparent virtue signaling, to fill the absence she has in depth of character

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SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️ @skwinnicki.bsky.social · 5d

A surprisingly hopeful perspective from a reporter who asked random folks on the east coast how they were doing, learned we’re all having a really bad time, and chose to highlight the shared humanity in that.

Seyward Darby @seywarddarby.bsky.social · 15d

"We’re traveling nearly 2,000 miles on I-95 from Miami to Maine, and pausing at virtually every rest stop. Our project is simple and vast at once: to ask fellow travelers where they’re headed, and where they think America is going too."

New from @atavist.com.

magazine.atavist.com/2025/america...

I’ve Gone to Look for America - The Atavist Magazine

Conversations and revelations about an ailing nation along Interstate 95.

magazine.atavist.com

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Noah Riseman @noahriseman.bsky.social · 5d

I support several trans charities with my work, including donating all royalties from my book.

One of those organisations is Transgender Victoria.

If you donate to them through GiveOutDay between now and 16 October, funds will be matched.

Donate here:

giveoutday.org.au/o/transgende...

{{current.profile.name}} - GiveOUT Day 2025

GiveOUT Day 2025: Swipe Right on Impact

giveoutday.org.au

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Andrew Perfors @perfors.net · 5d

Thanks for letting me know about this!

Reposted by Andrew Perfors

Adam Keiper @adamkeiper.com · 5d

You would not fire these people—including the staff of the hugely, HUGELY important 'Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report'—if you cared at all about public health, if you wanted people to live.

And you would not let your thuggish henchmen fire people like this if you were a responsible president.

Sheryl Gay Stolberg @sherylnyt.bsky.social · 5d

BREAKING: Friday night massacre underway at CDC. Doznes of "disease detectives," high-level scientists, entire Washington staff and editors of the MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) have all been RIFed and received the following notice:

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Andrew Perfors @perfors.net · 5d

Heartbreaking reading, but this Reddit thread gives a sense of the relentlessness of the horror inflicted by ICE, and the damage being done to so many innocent people that doesn't make the news.

From the AskReddit community on Reddit

Explore this post and more from the AskReddit community

www.reddit.com

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Walter Olson @walterolson.bsky.social · 5d

New from me at Cato: I go through the numerous and massive First Amendment and academic-freedom violations of Trump's proffered "compact" with universities and then talk about the mechanism by which it would be enforced, by way of what I describe as a "retroactive push-button guillotine."

Universities Must Defend Their Independence by Rejecting Trump's "Compact"

The Trump administration has proffered a “compact” to universities that would require them to surrender their independence and academic freedom. How many First Amendment violations can we identify in ...

www.cato.org

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Bradley P. Moss @bradmossesq.bsky.social · 5d

I love this image.

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