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Grumpy Philosopher

@stevecooke.org

10K followers 1.8K following 6K posts

Grumpy. Associate Professor of Political Philosophy. Animal rights, ethics of activism, political philosophy. Homepage: https://stevecooke.org/

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Grumpy Philosopher @stevecooke.org · Dec 5

I've built myself a website, which includes a list of journals for animal rights philosophers to submit to (organised by publisher), a couple of syllabi, my essay writing guide for political philosophy students, & articles that philosophers say have changed their minds: stevecooke.org

Steve Cooke – Adventures in Philosophy

stevecooke.org

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Raffael Fasel @raffaelfasel.bsky.social · Aug 22

I am delighted that my book 'More Equal Than Others: Humans and the Rights of Other Animals' is featured in Psychology Today @psychologytoday.com and has been made an essential read in their Philosophy section. Many thanks to Marc Bekoff for interviewing me! www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/anim...

Granting Rights to Animals Doesn't Undermine Human Rights

In proposing the Species Membership Approach, Raffael Fasel argues against the misplaced fears that granting legal rights and personhood to nonhumans would weaken human rights.

www.psychologytoday.com

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Grumpy Philosopher @stevecooke.org · 14m

Week three of our strike over university redundancies - people are becoming giddy!

Someone in a frog costume holding a UCU placard.

Reposted by Grumpy Philosopher

Dan Waterfield @danwaterfield.bsky.social · 37m

RECREATE the inexorable march of zombies in night of the living dead by simply trying to keep your seedlings free of snails

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Grumpy Philosopher @stevecooke.org · 59m

Head-measuring race science is unscientific but not racist now? Nah, it‘s both. He didn‘t make an evidence-free unscientific claim because he was well-motivated & well-intentioned. He was waving his callipers about because he‘s a throbber.

21 Group @21group.bsky.social · 16h

Cambridge don Nathan Cofnas cleared of racism

Dr Cofnas stated that in a meritocracy ‘number of black professors would approach 0 per cent’

Lawful ... but also lacking substantiation or evidence, revealing absence of any sound research methodology

varsity.co.uk/news/30360

Uni clears don accused of ‘abhorrent racism’

The University's internal investigation launched last year has dismissed all complaints against Nathan Cofnas, and found his ideas 'represented lawful free speech'

varsity.co.uk

Grumpy Philosopher @stevecooke.org · 1h

Saving for discussion with students about meta-cognition.

Kai Arzheimer @kai-arzheimer.com · 5d

Relatable #AcademicChatter #PoorlyDrawnLines

Four-panel comic: A mouse and a turtle discuss reading. The mouse states they are trying to read more, but haven’t started yet. The turtle interjects that sounds like not trying. The mouse insists it's different. Signed "Poorly Drawn Lines".

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Grumpy Philosopher @stevecooke.org · 2h

I guess I just don’t see much of an issue with trusting those others. At least, I don’t think doing so deserves criticism. Relying upon the interpretation of others is a large part of scholarship, when using translations or otherwise.

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Will Jennings 🗳️ @drjennings.bsky.social · 12h

Anyone writing about the influence of these thinkers really needs to provide detail on what they have actually written. Most of it is incoherent, lacking any substance and often downright weird.

Huw C. Davies @huwcdavies.bsky.social · 13h

Reading Thiel, Yarvin, Peterson et al. makes you realise what passes for intellectual iconoclasm these days is all absolute bollocks. Why anyone gives any of these people the time of day let alone credibility is baffling.

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Grumpy Philosopher @stevecooke.org · 14h

It turns out that unfairly rigging a market to benefit corporate lobbyists looks like a man with weirdly long sleeves. Also, we all know that guy isn’t going to eat the parsley on his schnitzel.

Patrick Heinemann @patrickheinemann.bsky.social · 1d

Ontologisch edgy

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rid @princerid.bsky.social · 17h

'Epistemic' attached to *everything*.

🏰meg⚔️ @Birthright Audiobook! @impavid.us · 3d

In honor of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand

I'll go first: Six page commercial lease.

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Aidan McGlynn @aidanmcglynn.bsky.social · Jun 21

Hot-tip: when someone asks you for your number, give them your OrcID

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Grumpy Philosopher @stevecooke.org · 19h

None of these companies are close to making a profit. But we’re supposed to be surprised to discover they’re overvalued & have been bullshitting us all? Nah.

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Grumpy Philosopher @stevecooke.org · 19h

Altman admitted he had no idea how OpenAI is going to make money & is banking on developing a super-intelligence to figure that out. Builder .ai turned out to be 700 humans pretending to be a chatbot. Anthropic claimed it couldn’t make money without committing crime!

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Grumpy Philosopher @stevecooke.org · 20h

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Grumpy Philosopher @stevecooke.org · 20h

Nobody knows who’s making hundreds of millions doing insider crypto-trading off Trump’s chaotic tariff impositions, but congrats to the mystery trader, Tonald Drump, I guess.

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Lawrence Freedman @ldfreedman.bsky.social · 23h

With Farage’s former colleague Nathan Gill guilty of taking money from Russia to promote its propaganda Sam looks at the wider connections between the radical right and Russia. (£/free trial), samf.substack.com/p/russia-and...

Russia and the rise of the radical right

Marine Le Pen meets with Putin before the 2017 French Presidential election (Photo credit Mikhail Klimentyev/AFP via Getty Images)

samf.substack.com

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 23h

'Our University would do well to stop neglecting the threats to humanities education, and start publicly taking up the banner of the humanities.'

Could (and should) be said of so many universities, across the globe.

Harvard Can’t Afford to Neglect the Humanities | Opinion | The Harvard Crimson

Harvard exists to promote the highest intellectual pursuit in every discipline — it can’t leave the humanities behind.

www.thecrimson.com

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Peter Adamson @histphilosophy.bsky.social · 3d

I'm more than halfway through this interesting #podcast series on technology ethics, from my colleague Sven Nyholm @svennyholm.bsky.social and John Danaher. Highly recommended!

technologyethicspod.wordpress.com

#ethics #aiethics #technology #philsky

Technology Ethics Podcast

A podcast-based introduction to the philosophy and ethics of technology

technologyethicspod.wordpress.com

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Grumpy Philosopher @stevecooke.org · 1d

Argh!

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Grumpy Philosopher @stevecooke.org · 1d

For no good reason, Nadine Dorries is on Kuenssberg this morning. I’m suspicious that she may have transferred her concerning worship of Boris Johnson onto Trump.

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Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 1d

But you know sure let it be your search engine replacement and read and write (whatever that means) for you, not a problem at all 🥲

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 1d

The administration “is currently pressuring OpenAI and other AI companies to make their models more conservative-friendly.”

OpenAI is trying to clamp down on ‘bias’ in ChatGPT

GPT-5 is better at resisting liberal ‘pressure,’ the company says.

www.theverge.com

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Adrian Currie @adrian-currie.bsky.social · 4d

If you’re interested in practicing the philosophy of science in practice why not come along to an online workshop “the philosophy of science in practice - in practice”? #philsci

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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 1d

The alarming aspect of this deliberate "anti-woke" algorithmic biasing of LLMs from an educational perspective is our institutions all bought in to an imaginary of innovation, then got locked in to enterprise contracts, and now the models are being recoded so they undermine educational values

Marcus Luther @marcusluther.bsky.social · 1d

Genuine question: for those enthusiastically pushing AI tools into every part of our education system—what checks/guardrails are there around algorithmic biases like this?

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 1d

The administration “is currently pressuring OpenAI and other AI companies to make their models more conservative-friendly.”

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Grumpy Philosopher @stevecooke.org · 1d

Tempting to use this example to help explain cognitivist and emotivist meta-ethical positions.

Grumpy Philosopher @stevecooke.org · 1d

As far as I can tell, when US republicans complain about corruption it’s not a moral objection. Rather, it’s only to express sadness & anger that someone they dislike is benefiting. Understood this way, Trump’s naked corruption isn’t hypocritical. It’s still disgusting though.

Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 2d

Trump said he deserved a cut for brokering the TikTok deal, and at once there was agreement that his son Baron would have a top executive slot... though he hasn't asked for it, and has no apparent qualifications to hold it. This is how Trump 2.0 works. www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2025...

Barron Trump tipped for top TikTok job

US president’s 19-year-old son could be appointed to the app’s board

www.telegraph.co.uk

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Grumpy Philosopher @stevecooke.org · 1d

Added bonus, I can surprise my dad - a retired mining engineer - with niche mining chit-chat.