Dr Matt Lodder
@mattlodder.com
Senior Lecturer in Art History, University of Essex. Trustee, Bishopsgate Institute. Law Student. Historian of tattooing. Podcaster @beneaththeskinpod.history.tattoo. 'Painted People' and 'Tattoos' out now. ADHD.
Pinned
Dr Matt Lodder
@mattlodder.com
· Oct 23
My two lectures on Operation Spanner and its aftermath for the UK APP conference in September are now on our Patreon: patreon.com/beneaththeskin
Genuinely astonishing that Szilard wrote this prescient screed in 1948!
January 14, 2026 at 11:56 AM
Genuinely astonishing that Szilard wrote this prescient screed in 1948!
Reposted by Dr Matt Lodder
a good example of how these positions have been filled with absolute crazies.
trial by jury must remain. if you wanna clear the backlog stop making laws that criminalise harmless behaviours -- such as peaceful protest for example.
you're clogging the system with reactionary laws.
trial by jury must remain. if you wanna clear the backlog stop making laws that criminalise harmless behaviours -- such as peaceful protest for example.
you're clogging the system with reactionary laws.
January 14, 2026 at 11:41 AM
a good example of how these positions have been filled with absolute crazies.
trial by jury must remain. if you wanna clear the backlog stop making laws that criminalise harmless behaviours -- such as peaceful protest for example.
you're clogging the system with reactionary laws.
trial by jury must remain. if you wanna clear the backlog stop making laws that criminalise harmless behaviours -- such as peaceful protest for example.
you're clogging the system with reactionary laws.
Reposted by Dr Matt Lodder
These people are crank wingnuts with horrific politics and if they plough a lot of energy into a particular demand, then by fuck *they will get* what they want and anyone who defies them will get beaten with bats for however long it takes to hammer them down. And that now includes the police.
The Maccabi Tel Aviv bullshit has been fundamentally down to how the political class cannot accept being wrong about anything. If they hadn't immediately jumped up and down about it, despite knowing nothing whatsoever about the club and its record, none of this would be happening.
January 14, 2026 at 11:42 AM
These people are crank wingnuts with horrific politics and if they plough a lot of energy into a particular demand, then by fuck *they will get* what they want and anyone who defies them will get beaten with bats for however long it takes to hammer them down. And that now includes the police.
Reposted by Dr Matt Lodder
[interrogation]
DETECTIVE: tell us the truth!
ME: [smugly] I am.
DETECTIVE: I'll have you know it's a crime to give false information to a police officer!
ME: oh really? What if I told you my name was... MICROSOFT CO-PILOT???
DETECTIVE: [quietly] oh shit he's got us, that's completely legal
DETECTIVE: tell us the truth!
ME: [smugly] I am.
DETECTIVE: I'll have you know it's a crime to give false information to a police officer!
ME: oh really? What if I told you my name was... MICROSOFT CO-PILOT???
DETECTIVE: [quietly] oh shit he's got us, that's completely legal
January 14, 2026 at 11:35 AM
[interrogation]
DETECTIVE: tell us the truth!
ME: [smugly] I am.
DETECTIVE: I'll have you know it's a crime to give false information to a police officer!
ME: oh really? What if I told you my name was... MICROSOFT CO-PILOT???
DETECTIVE: [quietly] oh shit he's got us, that's completely legal
DETECTIVE: tell us the truth!
ME: [smugly] I am.
DETECTIVE: I'll have you know it's a crime to give false information to a police officer!
ME: oh really? What if I told you my name was... MICROSOFT CO-PILOT???
DETECTIVE: [quietly] oh shit he's got us, that's completely legal
Reposted by Dr Matt Lodder
Like the White Fragility lady, or like Gladwell: people who might even have some good points, but extrapolate them out massively into quite dubious propositions that nonetheless sell well to the not very discerning middlebrow pop science reader.
January 14, 2026 at 10:05 AM
Like the White Fragility lady, or like Gladwell: people who might even have some good points, but extrapolate them out massively into quite dubious propositions that nonetheless sell well to the not very discerning middlebrow pop science reader.
Reposted by Dr Matt Lodder
I think we can look at this more as "nested" preferences. Politicians prefer to win rather than lose elections, unless winning elections comes with large downside personal costs. Careerists with class solidarity.
Standard public choice theory says politicians respond to the incentive to get re-elected; that was why I voted Labour. But maybe I was wrong and for some/many their incentive instead is to get a job in tech or finance after a short time in politics. This might better explain UK politics.
January 14, 2026 at 10:12 AM
I think we can look at this more as "nested" preferences. Politicians prefer to win rather than lose elections, unless winning elections comes with large downside personal costs. Careerists with class solidarity.
Reposted by Dr Matt Lodder
The same people who will tell you that the God in the Machine is real and will grow economy and bring us into the glorious future will spend the rest of the week telling you it's a hallucinating, evil, probably antisemitic, lie-spewing machine.
Just roll with the cognitive dissonance.
Just roll with the cognitive dissonance.
January 14, 2026 at 10:14 AM
The same people who will tell you that the God in the Machine is real and will grow economy and bring us into the glorious future will spend the rest of the week telling you it's a hallucinating, evil, probably antisemitic, lie-spewing machine.
Just roll with the cognitive dissonance.
Just roll with the cognitive dissonance.
Reposted by Dr Matt Lodder
4 out of the 5 left ones here are Bell curve stuff. Straight up Black people are intellectually inferior and poor people are poor because they're stupid gubbins. The right have been extremely successful in separating these things out to bamboozle the gullible.
January 14, 2026 at 10:45 AM
4 out of the 5 left ones here are Bell curve stuff. Straight up Black people are intellectually inferior and poor people are poor because they're stupid gubbins. The right have been extremely successful in separating these things out to bamboozle the gullible.
Reposted by Dr Matt Lodder
Any football fan in the country could’ve explained this at the time, and in fact many of them did, very bluntly. Just watch what happens now, though.
Lovely stuff here because the addition of AI has produced a genuine error in a case that was legitimately entirely cut and dried - this club had a history of violence and anyone could tell you why the cops would have wanted them kept away.
In the letter he says “I had, up until Friday afternoon, understood that the West Ham match had only been identified through the use of Google”. The fictional match was included in a report to the local safety advisory group about the Aston Villa v Maccabi Tel Aviv game
January 14, 2026 at 10:51 AM
Any football fan in the country could’ve explained this at the time, and in fact many of them did, very bluntly. Just watch what happens now, though.
Reposted by Dr Matt Lodder
Trouble is that silicon valley tech went on an inverse U curve of usability, and a lot of people are still in the mindset of around 2012-18 where this shit was probably a pretty useful tool you didn't have to worry would feed you totally made up garbage.
Even the explanation of this extraordinary police goof-up raises an eyebrow. A Google search is not a source.
Lovely stuff here because the addition of AI has produced a genuine error in a case that was legitimately entirely cut and dried - this club had a history of violence and anyone could tell you why the cops would have wanted them kept away.
January 14, 2026 at 10:59 AM
Trouble is that silicon valley tech went on an inverse U curve of usability, and a lot of people are still in the mindset of around 2012-18 where this shit was probably a pretty useful tool you didn't have to worry would feed you totally made up garbage.
Reposted by Dr Matt Lodder
They want him resigned for embarrassing them and the AI is just a convenient excuse, but also fucksake putting an imaginary match in your intelligence report, come on now, stop using AI for things you were perfectly competent at doing two years ago without it
January 14, 2026 at 11:08 AM
They want him resigned for embarrassing them and the AI is just a convenient excuse, but also fucksake putting an imaginary match in your intelligence report, come on now, stop using AI for things you were perfectly competent at doing two years ago without it
Reposted by Dr Matt Lodder
*Now* it's incompetence as well as the chief of west midlands police being an antisemite who wants to globalise the intifada. Amazing how using the stupid bullshit machine that the Nazis invented to tell lies doesn't actually make things better and easier at all!!
January 14, 2026 at 10:50 AM
*Now* it's incompetence as well as the chief of west midlands police being an antisemite who wants to globalise the intifada. Amazing how using the stupid bullshit machine that the Nazis invented to tell lies doesn't actually make things better and easier at all!!
Reposted by Dr Matt Lodder
Lovely stuff here because the addition of AI has produced a genuine error in a case that was legitimately entirely cut and dried - this club had a history of violence and anyone could tell you why the cops would have wanted them kept away.
In the letter he says “I had, up until Friday afternoon, understood that the West Ham match had only been identified through the use of Google”. The fictional match was included in a report to the local safety advisory group about the Aston Villa v Maccabi Tel Aviv game
January 14, 2026 at 10:48 AM
Lovely stuff here because the addition of AI has produced a genuine error in a case that was legitimately entirely cut and dried - this club had a history of violence and anyone could tell you why the cops would have wanted them kept away.
Reposted by Dr Matt Lodder
Society’ regimen, whole swathes of disciplines fall under the shadow of ‘not earning their way’. It was a bad idea, badly executed, with pernicious consequences, to which administrators responded catastrophically.
But apart from that, of course, it makes perfect sense.
But apart from that, of course, it makes perfect sense.
January 14, 2026 at 10:08 AM
Society’ regimen, whole swathes of disciplines fall under the shadow of ‘not earning their way’. It was a bad idea, badly executed, with pernicious consequences, to which administrators responded catastrophically.
But apart from that, of course, it makes perfect sense.
But apart from that, of course, it makes perfect sense.
Reposted by Dr Matt Lodder
This has been my reaction since mandatory grant-seeking became normal when I was at Glasgow. When everyone must apply for grants (the number of which doesn’t increase) you set in motion a vicious circle of failure and demoralisation. Moreover, when grants are politicised (as under the ‘Big…
Incredible article which points out that it often collectively costs more to apply for scarce research funding than the funds awarded to the successful proposals.
What an absurd system we've built in the service of efficiency and competition.
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
What an absurd system we've built in the service of efficiency and competition.
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
January 14, 2026 at 10:08 AM
This has been my reaction since mandatory grant-seeking became normal when I was at Glasgow. When everyone must apply for grants (the number of which doesn’t increase) you set in motion a vicious circle of failure and demoralisation. Moreover, when grants are politicised (as under the ‘Big…
Oh, FFS.
Is AI this amazing tool that we must all use, fund and celebrate? Or is it (it obviously is) a rotten cancer at the heart of modern life?
Of course this idiot used AI. He's been told to use AI by everyone from the Prime Minister down.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c3...
Is AI this amazing tool that we must all use, fund and celebrate? Or is it (it obviously is) a rotten cancer at the heart of modern life?
Of course this idiot used AI. He's been told to use AI by everyone from the Prime Minister down.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c3...
Police chief admits misleading MPs after AI used in justification for banning Maccabi Tel Aviv fans
An intelligence report referred to a football game that never existed - Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood will make a statement later today.
www.bbc.co.uk
January 14, 2026 at 10:09 AM
Oh, FFS.
Is AI this amazing tool that we must all use, fund and celebrate? Or is it (it obviously is) a rotten cancer at the heart of modern life?
Of course this idiot used AI. He's been told to use AI by everyone from the Prime Minister down.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c3...
Is AI this amazing tool that we must all use, fund and celebrate? Or is it (it obviously is) a rotten cancer at the heart of modern life?
Of course this idiot used AI. He's been told to use AI by everyone from the Prime Minister down.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c3...
Reposted by Dr Matt Lodder
Just do away with Grant funding altogether. Give research funding to research universities/institute. Let them hire permanent research staff. Let each institute set its research agenda
January 14, 2026 at 9:54 AM
Just do away with Grant funding altogether. Give research funding to research universities/institute. Let them hire permanent research staff. Let each institute set its research agenda
Reposted by Dr Matt Lodder
Just read the abstract of the paper cited in support of the democratic option. Even its authors don't buy it: "This is a preliminary study that does not investigate many of the concerns about how a voting system would work...including vote rigging, lobbying and it becoming a popularity contest."
January 14, 2026 at 9:54 AM
Just read the abstract of the paper cited in support of the democratic option. Even its authors don't buy it: "This is a preliminary study that does not investigate many of the concerns about how a voting system would work...including vote rigging, lobbying and it becoming a popularity contest."
Reposted by Dr Matt Lodder
Reposted by Dr Matt Lodder
Banning social media for kids may be good or bad but that guy is a comically obvious bullshit artist with entire books full of trite lessons extrapolated from anecdotes that are themselves barely half-true.
January 14, 2026 at 7:31 AM
Banning social media for kids may be good or bad but that guy is a comically obvious bullshit artist with entire books full of trite lessons extrapolated from anecdotes that are themselves barely half-true.
Reposted by Dr Matt Lodder
I have a group of friends who are professors, and they all have no problem getting funding, so I'll share their secret: one of them is the child of a billionaire, and so they all just go to social events with a bunch of billionaires and chat them up about research until they catch someone's interest
Incredible article which points out that it often collectively costs more to apply for scarce research funding than the funds awarded to the successful proposals.
What an absurd system we've built in the service of efficiency and competition.
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
What an absurd system we've built in the service of efficiency and competition.
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
January 14, 2026 at 9:48 AM
I have a group of friends who are professors, and they all have no problem getting funding, so I'll share their secret: one of them is the child of a billionaire, and so they all just go to social events with a bunch of billionaires and chat them up about research until they catch someone's interest
Reposted by Dr Matt Lodder
easy to believe, own back of the envelope calculations on my grant writing cost/benefit - if counting staff time (my own, other academics, and professional services) then it would have been far more efficient to just give me £5k a year [potentially even £10k]... which I could do a lot with!
Incredible article which points out that it often collectively costs more to apply for scarce research funding than the funds awarded to the successful proposals.
What an absurd system we've built in the service of efficiency and competition.
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
What an absurd system we've built in the service of efficiency and competition.
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
January 14, 2026 at 9:44 AM
easy to believe, own back of the envelope calculations on my grant writing cost/benefit - if counting staff time (my own, other academics, and professional services) then it would have been far more efficient to just give me £5k a year [potentially even £10k]... which I could do a lot with!
Reposted by Dr Matt Lodder
So many of Kemi Badenoch’s statements make you wonder if she’s given the issue at hand even 3 minutes of thought. “deepfake CSAM on demand is fine as long as kids can’t see it” is pretty wild though even by her standards.
January 12, 2026 at 9:17 PM
So many of Kemi Badenoch’s statements make you wonder if she’s given the issue at hand even 3 minutes of thought. “deepfake CSAM on demand is fine as long as kids can’t see it” is pretty wild though even by her standards.
Reposted by Dr Matt Lodder
Yeah, I cringed at that. I like the idea of a basic research income for all academics. Pool together if you want to work on something bigger.
January 14, 2026 at 9:39 AM
Yeah, I cringed at that. I like the idea of a basic research income for all academics. Pool together if you want to work on something bigger.
To do my work, which is a career-spanning project I am globally uniquely positioned to undertake, I need the same. Some travel funds, really. I don't even need space! Problem is, it's not easily bounded in ways funders want. I'm doing it anyway, funding much out of my own pocket.
I'm a STEM academic. All I really need to do my research, is a consumables budget of about £2k a year, some space, and some time. None of this I can have, without applying for multiple £500k projects a year, which consumes time which could actually be spent doing the research.
Incredible article which points out that it often collectively costs more to apply for scarce research funding than the funds awarded to the successful proposals.
What an absurd system we've built in the service of efficiency and competition.
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
What an absurd system we've built in the service of efficiency and competition.
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
January 14, 2026 at 9:41 AM
To do my work, which is a career-spanning project I am globally uniquely positioned to undertake, I need the same. Some travel funds, really. I don't even need space! Problem is, it's not easily bounded in ways funders want. I'm doing it anyway, funding much out of my own pocket.