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Richard Carr

@richardcarr.bsky.social

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https://www.routledge.com/Britain-and-Ireland-from-the-Treaty-to-the-Troubles-Independence-and-Interdependence-c-1921-1973/Carr/p/book/9781032879871 History/politics lecturer. My views only. Books about British-Irish relations, Blair/Clinton, Chaplin etc

www.routledge.com

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Richard Carr @richardcarr.bsky.social · Feb 14

My book on Britain and Ireland from the 1920s to the early 1970s is now available to pre-order (sure, given the price, very likely for an institutional library - but hey, flag it up).

Trade, tariffs, and sovereignty - so very current. Also marriage and migration.

www.routledge.com/Britain-and-...

Britain and Ireland from the Treaty to the Troubles: Independence and Interdependence, c. 1921-1973

Using extensive and fresh archival material, this book places the relationship between the United Kingdom and Ireland after 1921 in a new light, encouraging us to rethink the dominant narrative of con...

www.routledge.com

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Richard Carr @richardcarr.bsky.social · 9h

“-1 kind of PhD candidate, this one” (this is great!)

Richard Carr @richardcarr.bsky.social · 9h

There’s a bit in Quickly Kevin - admittedly a hub for this worldview - where one of the guys, Michael Marden I think, essentially invented a gap year to just play Championship Manager.

I think I take my whole understanding of potential from it, certainly.

Richard Carr @richardcarr.bsky.social · 9h

Only three sources on JSTOR reference the existence of Championship Manager. My childhood is a walking lacuna in our collective understanding of the 1990s.

Duncan Weldon @duncanweldon.bsky.social · 1d

Genuinely think the concept of the tech tree has done a lot of damage.

Tech-Based Teaching @edutecheditor.bsky.social · 1d

“Since 1991, the video game Civilization, now in its seventh installment, has become one of the most successful game franchises ever. That means millions of kids have grown up with Civ as one of their formative ways of thinking about history.” (via @jstor.bsky.social) #AcademicSky

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Richard Carr @richardcarr.bsky.social · 17h

Rory Sutherland getting fourteen hours of waffle out of this

Sardonicus @sardonicus.eu · 18h

"Why travel all the way to Italy when you can visit a place much closer by that is shaped like Italy?"

bigthink.com/strange-maps...

poster of great western railways visit cornwall it better than italy advertising campaign

Richard Carr @richardcarr.bsky.social · 17h

Apparently one accused the other of being woke whilst maintaining these are the conversations we need to be having

Richard Carr @richardcarr.bsky.social · 17h

The dispute is a classic ownership issue over a bird meal combined with general territory nonsense

Richard Carr @richardcarr.bsky.social · 18h

Like Attenborough I’m not getting involved, got to let nature take its course

Richard Carr @richardcarr.bsky.social · 18h

At least six hours of Sunday probably going to be spent seeing how this gets resolved

A black cat looks up at a ginger cat atop a shed

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Richard Carr @richardcarr.bsky.social · 18h

My wife is a Sarah. This reads like a kind of life coaching seminar the university has made me do on the perils of AI.

C. Buckthorn @cbuckthorn.bsky.social · 20h

This is amazing. I laughed out loud www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

As 32-year-old Rich points out, though, "it's not like using ChatGPT guarantees success".
When he met someone in a bar one Friday night and swapped social media handles, he asked AI what his next move should be.
ChatGPT discerned that sending an initial message on Monday midmorning would set the right pace. "Then it gave me some options for what the message could be," says Rich.
"Keep it light, warm, and low-stakes so it reads as genuine interest without urgency," the bot advised. "Something like: Hey Sarah, still laughing about [tiny shared moment/reference if you've got one] - good to meet you!" Rich went back and forth with ChatGPT until he felt they'd hit upon exactly the right message ("Hey Sarah, it was lovely to meet you") but sadly she never replied, he says. "It's been two weeks now."

Reposted by Richard Carr

Huw C. Davies @huwcdavies.bsky.social · 19h

When was the last time we heard anyone who represents universities let alone any politician defend the public university as a fundamentally important social institution that transforms lives and improves societies?

UK HE News @ukhenews.bsky.social · 19h

University managers used tuition fees to justify a model where the 'product' is simple information transmission, which ultimately can be delivered via an AI app.

That the market value for such 'degrees' will soon reach zero is not management's problem.

They get paid even as the sector implodes.

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Reposted by Richard Carr

Dmitry Grozoubinski @explaintrade.com · 19h

This is an exact encapsulation of why I moved to Bluesky.

No amount of handwringing in the Atlantic about how I owe some eternal Promethean suffering to the discourse is going to make me stay on a site I hate, that stopped doing anything for me professionally years ago.

Well – no. Bluesky may or may not be, as one centre-right friend who felt unwelcome put it, “self-righteous island”. But the idea that’s why we went is nonsense. That I’ve largely stopped posting on a site that’s done more to shape my career and social circle than the rest of the internet combined is less about avoiding rival opinions (I love arguing with people who are wrong!) than with the fact the site simply became unusable. It stopped generating the things (good jokes, interesting debate, clicks) I wanted; it became extremely good at generating the things (racists, pornbots, racist pornbots) I did not.

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Reposted by Richard Carr

Matthew Sweet @drmatthewsweet.bsky.social · 1d

Oh no. Sometimes the obituaries just seem to come in like waves. Generations pass, I suppose. The water gets closer.

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Richard Carr @richardcarr.bsky.social · 1d

Tweed jacket photo-op like Osborne’s use of high-vis to signify “I like building”

QM_UCU @qmucu.bsky.social · 1d

*FIFTEEN THOUSAND JOBS LOST*.
If this were in a sector in which the PM could go and do a photoshoot looking like One Of The People, we’d have had a government intervention by now.

LopaLeach @lopa.bsky.social · 2d

Cuts equivalent to 15,000 jobs planned at UK universities – UCU www.timeshighereducation.com/news/cuts-eq...

Reposted by Richard Carr

Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 1d

anyway, I am pleased with this column, I think it is good, I hope you read it rather than just shouting at me for what you think it might say

www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

By Jonn Elledge

Illustration by Roy Scott / Ikon Images
“Acomputer terminal,” Douglas Adams once wrote, “is an interface where the mind and body can connect with the universe and move bits of it about.” In the same way, while the platform known in happier times as Twitter is famously not the real world, that’s never meant it can’t affect it.

One of the less upsetting ways those effects can manifest is outlined in a new report from “reputation management consultancy” (euch) Montford Communications. Posting to Policy explores the way wonks, politicos and shitposters alike drive government action through the raw power of their takes. “A niche account posts something punchy. It lands,” the report explains, with more full stops than is acceptable anywhere but LinkedIn. “Traditional media pick it up. Politicians respond. And policy follows. This is the ‘posting to policy’ pipeline and it’s fast becoming the new normal.”

Not all the examples the consultancy gives of this pipeline in action are entirely convincing. The “Nick, 30 ans” meme may have generated discourse, but it has not, as far as I’ve noticed, led to attempts to actually rethink intergenerational fairness; and while Robert Jenrick’s fare-dodging video made some waves, the shadow justice secretary is not, appearances notwithstanding, a shitposter. The most persuasive example offered is the transformation of Motability from a worthy but obscure scheme allowing those in receipt of mobility allowance to lease cars, to a “something must be done”-level spending scandal through noise on X alone.

Montford’s argument isn’t wrong: it’s abundantly clear by now that things that happen on the internet rarely stay there, and while hacks and wonks hang out on the same platforms as those with actual power it’s unsurprising that ideas sometimes migrate from the former to the latter. That, though, does not mean these conclusions are either new or significant. I can think of things I put on the internet ten years ago that g…

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Richard Carr @richardcarr.bsky.social · 2d

Frontline admin also have it worse. What's going on here?

Richard Carr @richardcarr.bsky.social · 2d

I'm definitely doing more with less but also apparently somehow doing the same?

Again, I'd rather have the job of course, but the maths isn't really mathsing.

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Richard Carr @richardcarr.bsky.social · 2d

This is absolutely not the headline thing here ofc, but in a world where we have demonstrably fewer frontline employees and definitely more tasks for them to do (thanks: non-shrinking managers!), how are universities making their workload models for the staff that remain stand up?

University and College Union (UCU) @ucu.org.uk · 2d

‼️NEW: Universities have tried to axe over 15,000 staff this year.

Yet the vice-chancellors responsible are paying themselves more than ever before.

We’re balloting to save higher education.

Our GS @drjogrady.bsky.social broke the story on BBC Today this morning👇

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Reposted by Richard Carr

Alice Lilly @aliceolilly.bsky.social · 2d

Really interesting- and, I think, welcome- to see MPs sharing this kind of data about casework.

Casework is largely invisible (other than to the constituents it helps!) compared to what MPs do in the Commons chamber but is a huge part of MPs’ workload, and it’s really hard to get robust data on it

Dr Beccy Cooper MP @drbeccycoopermp.bsky.social · 2d

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Richard Carr @richardcarr.bsky.social · 2d

Page one of book: come out swinging against another historian's misdating. Stall set out.

Text from a book pointing out another historian's error in misdating the formation/nature of the Peace Pledge Union

Richard Carr @richardcarr.bsky.social · 2d

Yep. I mean there’s rightly discussion about “is it wise to do a PhD right now with the job market as it is” but not much about the mid/late career type suddenly turfed out

Richard Carr @richardcarr.bsky.social · 2d

Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 3d

Here’s a primer on ‘primer.’

It’s pronounced ‘PRIMM-er’ if you mean “a small book” or “a short informative piece of writing.”

It’s pronounced ‘PRY-mer’ if you mean “an initial coat of paint.”

Richard Carr @richardcarr.bsky.social · 2d

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Thousands more university jobs cut as financial crisis deepens

University workers will vote on national strike action this month over a 1.4% pay offer made in the summer.

www.bbc.co.uk

Richard Carr @richardcarr.bsky.social · 2d

Beyond my obsession with higher education trade press tat, the piece does get across the bind

Even if the 44-year-old retains his job, the chemistry course at the university is being phased out, with similar closures happening across the country.

Zak says this limits the opportunities for him and his colleagues.

"People could, even if they lost their job, get a job at another institution. That's not happening now," he says.

"They're probably looking not only at the end of the a job, but really the end of their career in academia."

Richard Carr @richardcarr.bsky.social · 2d

“Experiential and immerse engagement with the student living experience can help lecturers bridge the gap between teacher and learner”

- Jessica Surname, Vice Dean of Pedagogical Dynamism, for THE

Extract from BBC News article on redundancies in university sector:

Dr Zak Hughes, a chemistry lecturer at the University of Bradford, is at risk of redundancy.

"There are a lot of stressed and upset people who are struggling to deal with it, both within the school but also more widely within the institution," he says.

Zak, who has worked at the university since 2018, says he now faces the prospect of having to move back home to live with his mum if he loses his job.

"I won't be able to pay my rent, I will be in my forties and living back at home," he says.

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Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 3d

Generative AI, in both form and content, and whether looked on favourably or critically, seems to embody a collective hopelessness about the prospect of human learning and creativity, if not human knowledge altogether. It’s as if climate change had fans.

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